Panic-Mongering Moves to the Wall Street Journal

[Hannah Bell]

Did I call it, or what?

In 2 days, a laughably-researched article in the NY Sun (right-wing) moves from there to FOX News, Glen Beck, CNN, & onward. Today, the once-venerable, now Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal is telling us we should hoard food - as a frigging investment.

The writer is Brett Arends, formerly (or still?) from Thestreet.com. He
advises:

"Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund..."Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)...Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120881517227532621.html

Either there IS a food shortage in the US, in which case the government should step in & ration to prevent starvation & speculation - or there isn't. If there isn't, Brett & his buddies seem determined to create one.

BTW: Quaker Strategic Growth Fund, the fund whose manager Brett quotes in his piece, the fund Brett himself holds, the fund for which this piece constitutes free advertising & an implicit recommendation....

....is invested in....commodities - energy, fertilizer, metals, and...grain.

Among their top ten holdings: Archer Daniels Midland, grain monopolist to the world.

http://online.wsj.com/fund/page/fund_snapshot.html?mod=art_fund&symbol=quagx

[Art_from_Ark]

1. Sounds like a contrived "shortage" to me

Just like the California energy crisis of a few years back.

[uppityperson]

2. Sometimes it really sucks to be right.

[Hannah Bell]

3. Brett Arends’ Call for Food Hoarding

Brett Arends published an incomprehensibly crass article in today’s Wall Street Journal calling on Americans to hoard food. Not because he expects a shortage, but because “food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund.”

This is exactly the sort of unconscionable speculative greed that turns a bad but temporary situation into an all-out crisis and famine.

I’m not against making money; I’m against starving other people to make money. Arends has the privilege and the luxury to direct millions of investors from his perch at the Journal, and with such a position comes a great responsibility. His words move markets, and he does not appear to appreciate the magnitude of what he is doing. He is telling his readers from his comfortable environs that some faraway people in poor countries are starving, and they can make a few bucks by making it worse for them....He is brazenly and openly calling for food profiteering and price gouging.

http://www.economaton.com/economics/brett-arends-food-hoarding/

[Karenina]

7. I expected this kind of feces

once Murdoch took over...

[Hannah Bell]

12. am kick

[BeatleBoot]

4. In a presidential Election Year, it doesn't make sense

for pukes to be doing this.

Shooting themselves in the foot.

[madrchsod]

6. they are making money on the panic

and they are waiting out the next at least 4 years before they can find a replacement for "senior moment" john. the guy they pick for him as vp will be the guy they run in 2012. they figure that the economy is so fucked up that the democrats won`t be able to fix it..

[eShirl]

10. iirc, in boxing it's called "taking a dive"

[madrchsod]

5. i guess i`ll have to kill the bunny rabbits running around in my yard

the whole god dam thing is speculation because they took every penny out of the housing market and now they are going after the food and oil...if we had a real government this shit would have never started..

[formercia]

8. Short-circuit the system, grow your own.

Don't subsidize these criminals and gangsters.

[Celebration]

9. change at the WSJ

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x38020

[TahitiNut]

11. Playing the "pump and dump" ... kin to hoarding and commodity profiteering

Trying to find "ethics" or "morality" on Wall Street is a task even Diogenes would not take on.

[Hannah Bell]

13. kick

[spanone]

14. rupert just fired the editor of the wsj....it will now become a 'respected' tabloid