Food prices – the spark that ignites revolutions
By Alec Hogg
At Sanlam's i3 Summit earlier in the month keynote speaker Dr Pippa Malmgren painted a disturbing picture about the state of the world. She talks of growing "shrinkflation" – a business sleight of hand hiding the way prices are being stimulated by money creation in Western Nations. Instead of being charged more, there's simply less in the pack – be it chocolates, washing powder or even houses.
Malmgren frets about a resurgence in inflation, especially rising food prices because this, she argues, has been at the root of most social upheavals, the Arab Spring included. Malmgren herself is no loose cannon. She presented last year's Graduation Address at her alma mater, the London School of Economics. Not exactly a school given to promoting the outrageous.
In his latest column on Biznews.com this morning, Rhodes Tax Professor Matthew Lester picks up on the Malmgren theme. He's also fretting about food prices. And how a feared reversal in the sliding oil price could ignite social problems we haven't even thought about. He calls for urgent attention to the cancer of mistrust between the public and private sectors. Hopefully it won't take another crisis before that happens.
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