The Answerer

Oh boy, you have hit the jackpot for much of the world’s troubles. Thank you for bringing up this HUGE problem. This is one reason I like Year 7 kids so much, they are beginning to think – ‘What’s wrong with the world?’ – and it is my favourite subject after the Bible. There is so much injustice in this world – from pure greed by the ‘rich’ countries!

Below are several examples of greed – it is a curse – and I am so glad there will be a “Judgement Day’ later.

As example: the giant chocolate makers in the world – there are only half a dozen really big ones, dominate the prices paid to cocoa producers in West Africa: Ghana, Ivory Coast and so on.

Kids aged 6 years to grown ups have to miss out on school to cut down cocoa pods from the trees to make enough money to live, but not enough for school fees. They cut them open, dry the beans on a cloth on the ground, then sell them for whatever price the market offers. You cannot make chocolate

They live in simple huts with no running water, no proper toilets, no electricity and NO air conditioning in a hot tropical climate! They are all very poor. The beans go into the back door of the giant chocolate makers factories at, say 30 cents a kilo, and come out the front gate at $30.00 to $50.00 a kilo. ‘WE’ rich people in rich countries have the money to buy it too, but are happy to not care about the growers in Africa.

OIL: Seven giant oil companies control the production, price, shipping, refining and sale of most of the world’s oil. In Nigeria 90% of people are very poor. Nigeria has huge deposits of oil, but only the rich and very corrupt people get any.

The giant oil companies of course get the most. Those companies get so much money that oil, in some countries, has got the name “The Curse of Oil.” Why? Because money brings out the worst in people with power and the ‘little people’ get almost nothing. And when the oil runs out that country has nothing to show for it like hospitals, schools, roads and railways.

FOOD: Again giant companies are able to beat down the price they pay farmers for cattle, lambs, chickens, eggs, pork, tomatoes, wheat, beans ,sugar etc, etc. In my town Perth, and in much of Australia, two giant grocery companies keep farmers poor by refusing to pay the farmer a good price for milk, veggies and fruit and we get it cheaper  but farmers never get enough money for their work. And the farmer or growers have the risk of no crop at all if the weather turns bad.

FARMERS NEVER GET RICH! I know a lot and they do not drive Mercs, BMWs or even Rollers. Those cars are for folk who “play the market” for big profits in the cities and take no risks. This is all over much of the world.

The discussions about prices and who gets the money etc., goes on in company board rooms – behind the closed doors – of giant food trading companies and the price is manipulated to make huge profits for big companies.

Get the book ‘Fast Food Nation’ to see how it is all done, by men in nice suits, shirts and ties with families and so on. Thieves and robbers are many of them. That book in about the USA but it applies to much of the world. The book is cheap and easy to read. Ask your local library to get it. On one page there is listed what ‘imitation strawberry flavour’ is made of. Fifty ingredients make it up – 48 chemicals with cinnamon and vodka. There’s no real strawberries in it at all! And what do those chemicals do to your body? I know not!!

I am on my ‘soap box’ now. If you later – or mum or dad now – want to know the truth on these matters here are two books to read: A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, 2011, by F. William Engdahl. From this book I learnt just why the world’s ‘poor’ are poor. The world’s giant bankers ‘rip them off’ so they cannot buy essential medicines, mostly because of high interest rates on loans and manipulation of the worlds resources (oil & food).

The other, perhaps more frightening is Surviving the Cataclysm, Your Guide Through the Greatest Financial Crisis in Human History 3^rd Edition, 2011, by Webster Griffin Tarpley.

These are quite ‘heavy’ to read but in these two books are the facts behind most of the worlds troubles mentioned in your question, and they are many. May you become one of the people who learn the truth – you’ll never get it from the TV news. “Thank you again for the question.” May the whole world know about it soon. I included those two books because this writing is going on the WWW and I hope more people can know about such wrong things.