Forty million people face cuts or cancellation of food aid in the coming weeks. The U.S. and other rich nations spent billions bailing out banks then reduced budget shortfalls by slashing funding to the UN's World Food Program (WFP) which is 2 billion dollars short to feed 100 million people for the coming year. Food aid is the lowest in 20 years despite rapidly increasing demand as droughts, floods, typhoons, tsunamis and earthquakes have wiped out crops across Africa, Asia and Oceania. The head of the UN food program Josette Sheeran said:
"There is a silent tsunami [of hunger] gathering. You cannot see or hear it, but it's in all these villages, killing people just as hard. This is the worst food crisis since the 1970s. We will lose a generation. Children will never recover,"
The U.S. cut $800 million from last year's aid level while Goldman Sachs stashed away $ 1.2 billion bail-out-funded executive bonuses.
The US, by far the world's biggest contributor to food aid, has so far pledged $800m less than in 2008; Saudi Arabia has paid only $10m in 2009 compared with $500m in 2008; and the EU has given $130m less. Britain's promise of $69m (£43.5m) this year is nearly $100m (£63m) less than 2008, and, if nothing more is given, will be its lowest contribution since 2001.
"Even under our best scenarios, we will end the year $2bn short," said Sheeran. "Many of our funders do not feel that they need to give on the level of last year. They think the world food crisis is over, but in 80% of countries food prices are actually higher than one year ago."
Wall Street speculators are reveling while the poor are left to starve.
In April, Goldman said it would set aside half of its £1.2bn first-quarter profit to reward staff, much of it in bonuses. It is believed to have paid 973 bankers $1m or more last year, while this year's payouts are on track to be the highest for most of the bank's 28,000 staff, including about 5,400 in London.
Natural disasters and the economic collapse have increased the number of people needing food aid by 150 million over the past year.
...But human needs are also greater because the financial crisis has led to widespread unemployment. In addition, the remittances from foreign nationals living in rich countries to their families at home are 20% lower than last year.
Last month the UN said that the number of hungry people in the world had increased by more than 150 million in a single year to more than one billion. Aid agencies last week warned of severe food shortages in southern India after heavy floods damaged hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of crops.
But it's shaping up to be the best year ever for Wall Street investment banks.
David Williams, an investment banking analyst at Fox Pitt Kelton, said: "This year is shaping up to be the best year ever for investment banks, or at least those that have emerged relatively unscathed from the credit crisis.
"These banks are intermediaries in the bond markets where governments and companies are raising billions of pounds of new money. There is also a lack of competition that means they can charge huge sums for doing business."
Last week, the firm predicted that President Barack Obama's government could issue $3.25tn of debt before September, almost four times last year's sum. Goldman, a prime broker of US government bonds, is expected to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from selling and dealing in the bonds.