The Rich have plundered the Poor once again. On the surface, the current international food crisis may not seem to be aided by the US, the world's leader in international humanitarian aid, in the conventional ways you think it is. International pandemonium isn't the result of a republican or democratic administration either, it's a direct result of American greed. The attitude "We're the best, we deserve the most," is understandable, but it's not absolute.

We already have the most, by far. Next time you go to the grocery store contemplate the absurd amount of choices you are presented with. Then try to imagine being one of the hundreds of millions of people that will be fighting in a real "survival of the fittest" contest to feed themselves and their families in the coming months. In a historical perspective, a large majority of the American population  - myself included, I ate a delicious grilled chicken, avocado & tomato salad last night - lavish ourselves like the elite aristocracy of past Empires.

Isn't having a regular Wal-Mart and a regular Target enough? Do we really need a Super Wal-Mart and a Super Target? All good things come to an end, and greedy Empires have never gradually slid back to middle-of-the-pack status, they've crashed and burned.

While millions suffer, we profit.

COPY PASTE ALERT (Copy & Paste technique is often used to authenticate support for a point of view, or to present factual findings from a legit source, done and done) this is from the Sacramento Bee:

For California rice farmers, though, the high rice prices are a boon. Even though the short- and medium-grain varieties grown here are sold into different markets than Thai jasmine rice, which has seen the steepest increases, spot-market prices for bulk California rice are up 50 percent since February, to about $20 for 100 pounds.

"We're kind of riding the coattails," said Pat Daddow, who runs the California Rice Exchange in Yuba City.

The argument that suffering countries, mostly third-world, should be able to feed themselves falls flat on a sharp stake of guilt when revelations of a US- promise of global economic trade comes to light. These countries were told that in order to qualify for aid from the US they must open up their agricultural production to include foreign food imports. And hey, whattya know? The US government's food-subsidy-package allows farmers here to produce goods cheaper than over there. Century-old farming staples like rice, wheat, corn and sugar are now being imported by countries like Haiti, which produced all it's own rice 30 years ago. It's almost comical how good our government is at luring other countries into playing a game they have no chance of winning.

Uh oh, I don't think China is as susceptible to these dirty tricks, we'd better watch out for them...

Other arguments that blame the shortages on scarce crop production in Australia and growing demands for the hippy juice Biofuel are complete B.S. Crop shortages come and go, year after year, without producing such dire circumstances. The increases in biofuel production didn't cause the deaths of 6 Haitians and a UN peacekeeper in a food riot. It may take away farmland in Latin America but US companies have the option of offering corn at a discount to those countries to offset their losses.

Rising energy and transportation costs are an obvious detriment to global trade. In an interview with Homi Kharas, a Senior Fellow at the  Brookings Institute, earlier this week he explained that new, more lenient international trade tariff laws are in jeopardy of being passed because of the current market. He states an obvious shift in policy for importing countries, who are lowering their import tariffs to feed their own people, and in exporting countries, who are increasing their export taxes to secure food for their people and / or turn a larger profit when the UN is forced to buy the necessary food from them to alleviate the worldwide destruction.

When the whole picture is presented things are pretty simple. We have stuff and they don't. I never liked sharing my toys in kindergarten, but my teacher kept punishing me for hoarding all the G.I. Joe's. If only I was the teacher...