Brussels under siege ?

An exageration ? I hope so, but we shall know by this afternoon. Truckers and farmers are going to demonstrate in Brussels against high fuel and energy prices. Farmers also demonstrate against the low price they get for their produce.

Oil - cheap energy - was one of the main building blocks of globalisation : transport of products from one end of the world to the other was inexpensive and did not weigh heavily on the price of the delivered product. It facilitated the development of another building block for globalisation : the dogm of growth and size - or the lust for greed.

Oil - expensive energy - may become one of the building blocks of a new economic order - the whole logistics of transportation and of production will have to be rescheduled and rethought in function of pricey transport. And that restructuration will be very painful for transporters, producers, and of course, consumers.

But it may be a very first step to a saner world. Or how totally parasitical players in the world markets - speculators - may be at the origin of something good.

Many orthodox economists will tell you that speculation is a good and necessary function that helps defining market equilibrium. B***s*** !!!.