Further to my post yesterday:  I heard an impassioned speech on C-Span radio from a man who clearly came from Haiti. 

He told the audience that, owing to the "Washington Consensus" (see below)  the supply of  basic food prices previously  controlled by the Haiti government, were privatized some years ago at the behest of the IMF and the American Government.  This privatization had the result that instead of selling food to poor Haitians the new landowners began to sell their produce overseas at three times the local price.  While world food prices were low this wasn’t so bad, but now they are sky-high and there is serious political instability in Haiti, caused by hunger.

Thus a small minority of well-connected, often corrupt, people hold the world to ransom, whether it  is Mr. Branson of Virgin (a fairly decent and benign example of the type) to third world politicians and their molls.

All we have are words.  They are our only tool, for otherwise we are powerless.  But at least we can go to bed with clear consciences, knowing that as Epicureans our stance has been publicly moral and personally ethical.  Now let me scream privately: to the devil with their repellent hypocrisy!

(The term "Washington consensus" is broadly associated with expanding the role of market forces and constraining the role of the state, sometimes also described (almost invariably pejoratively) as neo-liberalism or market fundamentalism .The Washington Consensus, especially in this second, broader formulation, has been the target of sharp criticism by some individuals and groups who argue that it is a way to open up less developed countries to investments from large multinational corporations and their wealthy owners in advanced First World economies, which the critics would view as a negative development.   Wikipedia)