World charity !

This meltdown will certainly reduce living standards in Australia, but that will be nothing compared to the disaster facing countries depending on charity to survive.

Food aid is the difference between life and death for millions of people scattered throughout countries in Africa and the Middle East. Many are plagued by civil war and for others it is a case of bad management by corrupt and inept government that has reduced them to begging at the international forums.

In Australia many people have adopted the welfare of a child in such countries. For regular donations of about forty dollars a month that child gets fed, sheltered and given the opportunity to have regular health checks and access to a school.

If the coming recession turns to a full depression those donations will no longer be possible for some people. Charity begins at home - and that money will be required to put food on the family table in hard times.

Governments will also cut their donations to food aid - and what they can afford to give will not go as far because the cost of food looks set to continue rising as more cropland is given over to ethanol production - and soil degradation reduces crop yields.

There are hard times ahead for the developed countries, but absolute disaster faces those who lack the ability to feed themselves.

For the first time in the recent history of the world we may be heading into a period of reduced global population !