This is a great post. The Devs deserve a lot of credit for busting ass the way they do, even on weekends. Working on your only two days off a week puts a real damper on spending quality time with the family and catching up on much needed rest before drudging back through another work week. My hats off to them.

As for the merchants needing food, I agree. The merchants are part of the population, right? Right. The population already consumes food, right? Right. So, do these merchants eat twice as much as everyone else? Maybe being merchants they think they're entitled to a little extra meat on their bones? Greedy ass merchants, someone should teach them a lesson!!! heh

If that were the case I would like to choose what I can sell - I have tons of iron and materials lying about wothout some daft twit selling my valuable sustanance.

and another point - if food became scarce i.e. -ve amount - wouldn't the people just buy the food off of the merchant before he sold it to whom so ever? why would they starve if the merchant is selling food?

Merchants increase the food supply through improved distribution.  The same would apply for any other physical resource.  At one time humanity was a species of hunter gatherers then became producers and now we are consumers.  He turns producers into big fat lazy modern consumers.  Oh the humanity.