May 24, 2008 (LPAC)--With oil and food prices soaring, the U.S. Congress held a set of hearings in late May to investigate. That's the good news. The bad news is that the hearings were largely useless because they did not address the cause of the soaring prices, preferring instead to examine some of the effects. One of the hearings examined the question of financial speculation in the commodities markets, while the other two focussed on the reasons for high oil prices. These matters are certainly worth investigating, but they can only be competently addressed within the context of the collapse of the global financial system, which is driving the rush into commodities speculation, and driving up prices. Because that context was missing from the hearings, they accomplished little more than calling attention to problems of which people are already painfully aware.

The sharp rises in the prices of food, oil, and other commodities are due to the collapse of the global securities markets, and the enormous losses that collapse has imposed on the balance sheets of speculators of all stripes, from banks to hedge funds to money market funds, and pension funds. The speculators, desperate to find a place to make money to plug the holes in their own books, are increasingly turning to two areas of the "market'' where buying and selling is still occurring: food and oil.

The reason why the food and oil "markets'' are active, is because people still have to eat, and the functioning of the economy still requires transportation. We put the word markets in quotation marks because basic human necessities should not be treated as grist for financial speculation. Pricing the necessities of life out of the range of a growing portion of the population is unacceptable, and must be stopped. Killing the poor to save the rich is a crime against humanity.

If the Democrats in Congress really want to shake things up, they should haul the Queen of England and some of the grandees of the City of London before one of their committees, and grill them. As we have covered in past companies which collectively form the London-centered oil cartel. Oil in the ground is worthless without the capability to transport, refine, and market it; and the oil cartel dominates that capability. The cartels of the British Empire--among them oil, grain, and finance--are all part of a conspiracy to depopulate the world through their control over the supplies and prices of the necessities of life. If Congress is serious, it should stop the ankle biting, and go after the British Empire.