Greed

Our era is marked by a surfeit of news. But paradoxically, we know less than our grand parents learned from their gazette. Amid the clutter of information, how are we to sort out the grain fron the chaff? Beyonce's wedding, the olympic torch, Obama's slip... We sort of missed the return of hunger in the World.
Institutional investors no longer want to park their money in a tattered US dollar.Investing in real estate turned out to be a bad deal, just as rotten as investing in dot coms. So the world traders are now betting on commodities. This explains partly why oil is going through the roof, as well as gold, steel, coal paper etc. Unfortunately, these financial blood hounds have also decided to speculate on foodstuff. The price of grain, rice, meat, and other staples is on a fast ascending spiral.
This has hit poor countries badly. When you are on 1 or 2 dollars a day, the doubling or tripling of the price of rice is the difference between life and death. People have started rioting all over the world.

Since Ronald Reagan, regulations and rules enforcement has been sacrificed on the altar of greed. We are now reaping its bitter crop.