Why buy local when you can buy the whole country?

Several months ago, we posted a link to a story from Financial Times discussing the move by Asian and Arabian Gulf states to buy or lease land in the Third World for farming. The catch? Nearly all the food produced is shipped back to the lessor with little or no benefit to the citizens of the countries where it was raised. Last week, The Economist published a similar story examining the phenomenon in several other countries, and says the governments of those countries are profiting from those agreements at the expense of their citizens. Governments have even been overthrown to support these schemes. Full story