President Lula said it was completely unfair that the poorest people in the world were suffering most for the mistakes of wealthy, Western financiers. 

This was a crisis that was fostered and boosted by irrational behaviour of people that are white, blue-eyed, that before the crisis looked like they knew everything about economics,’ he declared. 

In a time of credit crisis, small to medium bank branches are failing, forcing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to go in and clean up the mess. Coming in stealthily to avoid public panic and sudden withdrawal of all a bank’s funds, which would result in a sinking of the bank and possibly others in the area, the FDIC makes a quick job of taking over the bank.

Thanks to Meltdown III stalwart Jon Amsden for finding and introducing this impressionistic but telling survey of what a dollar free-falling towards worthlessness ('Monopoly money', anyone?) means in terms of everyday survival in some parts of the world.

For those who may wish to take a break from the lofty abstractions of financial skullduggery and dollar decline, here's how it looks on the fishmarket floor and in other places where the dollar was once the basic currency of international trade but is now losing its former luster.

Apparently it's not considered newsworthy beyond the local press, but a whole block of the Morningside Estate in Hackney Wick/Homerton, i.e.

Further detailed coverage from Libcom (http://libcom.org) of the  class struggle that continues to rage in Bangladesh, focusing here on how the global 'food crisis' works concretely in this case. The effect of farming techniques imposed during Asia's 'Green Revolution' is addressed, although this needs to be put related to the world trade 'diplomacy' which since WW2 has made 'developing' countries dependent on food imports (see M.