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authoritarian policies emerge again. The European Parliament on June
18 approved the infamous "directive of return," and the Spanish
authorities have announced their willingness to arrange for the
eviction from Spain of one million foreign workers.

On top of this awful situation comes the third oil shock, as the price
of a barrel of crude rises to about US$140. That's an irrational
increase (in 1998, a barrel cost less than US$10), due not only to an
excessive demand but, above all, to the action of many speculators who
are betting on the continuing rise of a fuel on its way to extinction.
Investors flee the real-estate bubble and shift colossal sums of money
because they are now betting on the price of oil rising to US$200 a
barrel. Oil is now financialized, with the consequences we see: a
formidable rise in the prices at the pumps and explosions of anger on
the part of fishermen, truckers, farmers, taxi drivers and all the
professionals who are most affected. In many countries, by staging
demonstrations and confrontations, those professionals demand help,
subsidies or tax breaks from their governments.

As if this whole context weren't gloomy enough, the food crisis has
suddenly worsened, reminding us that the specter of hunger continues
to threaten almost 1 billion people. In about 40 countries, the high
cost of food has provoked uprisings and general revolts. The summit of
the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), held June
5 in Rome to consider alimentary security, could not reach an
agreement to relaunch worldwide food production. Here, too,
speculators fleeing from the financial disaster are partly
responsible, because they're betting on a high price of future
harvests. So even agriculture is being financialized.

This is the deplorable balance left by a quarter-century of
neoliberalism: three venomous intertwined crises. The time has come
for the citizens to say "Enough!"