Links for the Week – October 7, 2006

DJII v TSX

A grim composite, this week, I’m afraid, of nine articles with a single theme: rich, powerful corporations and idealogues pursuing actions in their personal interest that are disastrous for the rest of us.

The Dark Side of Corporatism and Globalization:

NYT sludge poisoning photoEnvironmental Disasters You Won’t Hear About in the MSM: Two new environmental disasters revealed this week, neither reported much in the mainstream media — imagine if either of these had happened in the US! Both were caused by criminally negligent human activity by energy industry corporations and both involved sludge. The first has caused 8 deaths and tens of thousands of skin, nerve damage and other illnesses (like the blisters to the baby at left) in the Ivory Coast, when 250 tons of toxic waste from an ocean tanker hold, the result of undisclosed energy and mining activity, was dumped in suburban Abidjan after being turned away at a Dutch port.

NYT mudThe second occurred in Indonesia, where reckless seismic testing for natural gas has destabilized underground faults and produced dozens of mud-spewing geysers that have completely submerged eight villages (one pictured at right), emitting 170,000 cubic metres of possibly toxic mud per day and forcing 13,000 people so far from their homes. The billionaire owner sold the drilling company that caused the problem for $2 to an offshore company and then forced it into bankruptcy, ensuring that he will face neither criminal prosecution nor financial consequences for his negligence.

The mainstream media are also mostly still not talking about the environmental disaster offshore in Lebanon, the result of negligence during the Israel-Hezbollah war, when Israel deliberately blew up a power plant, spilling 110,000 barrels of oil into the Mediterranean, ruining beaches and the fishing industry, threatening water supplies and the public health, and devastating the local ecology.

Wal-Mart Capping Workers Wages & Shifting to 40% Part-Time Workers: It’s doing this to placate shareholders unhappy with the company’s financial performance. The strategy is to force out higher-paid longer-serving employees so younger, cheaper part-timers can be hired.

Experienced Investors Take Huge Short Position on the Dow: Blogger Cryptogon has been tracking the holdings of professional versus amateur (day-trader) investors in investments in the funds that buy proportionately the entire Dow Jones Industrial Index 30. The pros are betting heavily on a plunge over the next two weeks (short positions) while the amateurs are still buying long positions hoping for more record highs. The index is at 11,850 now (red line on chart above). My bet’s on the pros. I’ll report back on Oct. 20 on whether I was right or wrong. There are a number of forces at work here: Big US Oil is doing all the arm-twisting it can on behalf of Bush to get oil prices down until the elections are over, without sacrificing too much in profits, and that suppression of oil prices has naive investors thinking that it will last long enough to push up corporate earnings. With the markets having nowhere to go but down or sideways, brokers and traders who want to make money on stocks need to orchestrate huge whipsaws in prices and then outguess the hapless day-traders and amateur investors by buying from them at the bottom and selling to them at the top. And with the housing market in the first stages of collapse, savvy investors are bailing out of real estate and looking to find somewhere else to park their money, and energy stocks that have tumbled with the orchestrated oil price drop look like a good short-term bet. Caveat: I’m not an expert or professional on the markets, and I’m not making any investment recommendations. Thanks to Dale Asberry for the link.

The US Runs Out of Options in the Mideast: A great analysis of the no-win political situation throughout the Mideast by Jim Kunstler. The conclusion would send shudders to any neocon: “The bottom line is that the only meaningful project for the US now is to turn its attention and remaining resources to the job of preparing for civilized life without oil. This is the topic that is absent from our political discourse on all sides and at all levels. The anti-war community is itself either lost in raptures of Bush-hatred or preoccupied with fantasies for running the interstate highways on used french-fry oil. We have to talk about things beyond just running our cars by other means. We are a profoundly unserious nation, for all our pretensions.” Thanks to Avi Solomon for the link.

Ancient Rome’s “War on Terror” Sounds Very Familiar: Peter Ireland at Karavans reviews the NYT op-ed drawing a terrifying parallel between ancient Rome’s futile “war on terror” and the Bush imperialist presidency’s. Rome’s final great war portended an abrupt and brutal end to a once prosperous and powerful imperial society.

The Only Way to Avert a Second Great Depression: Nobel-winning economist Joe Stiglitz makes it simple, and stark: “There is one way out of this seeming impasse: expenditure cuts combined with an increase in taxes on upper-income Americans and a reduction in taxes on lower-income Americans.” Stiglitz knows that it will never happen as long as corporatists control both US political parties, and predicts that, failing this, US deficits will plunge the country and the world into economic crisis.

US Recruiting Standards Lowered to Admit Criminals and Mentally Ill: An amazing analysis by Nick Turse explains how, to keep Bush’s Iraq (and future Iran) war machine stoked, recruiters are being urged and rewarded for taking anyone they can get. Thanks to Hugo Urrestarazu for the link.

Thought for the week: Something lighter after the news above: George Carlin’s 10 rules for Staying Young:

  1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay “them”.
  2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
  3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. And the devil’s name is Alzheimer.
  4. Enjoy the simple things.
  5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
  6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life is ourself. Be alive while you are alive.
  7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it’s family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
  8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
  9. Don’t take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but not to where the guilt is.
  10. Tell show the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

And always remember, life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. Thanks to GaryHeynesbergen for the link.

This entry was posted in How the World Really Works. Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to Links for the Week – October 7, 2006

  1. Leon says:

    “Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.”So then we should stop coming here?I don’t mean to be insulting, but every time I come to this site, I only feel worse.And yet, I keep coming back. Go figure.

  2. I already avoid WalMart like the plague. I can’t afford to, I’d save a lot shopping there regularly, and I’m on a limited income. But everyone who pays them money pays into this attitude toward workers. Stockholders need to get a grip on their greed and start thinking more about people than money. Workers aren’t machines to be disposed of when they don’t meet monetary expectations. Workers are people — the people who really make the rich buggers rich. I’m so sick of the greed. It’s ruining our world.

  3. You failed to mention another environmental tragedy that was ignored by the international community, the Guimaras oil spill in the Philippines where almost 300 kilometers of coastline were damaged and 26,000 people were displaced from their homes.

  4. Ethan K. says:

    If we are going to mention the Guimaras oil spill, there are about 10 more that we would have to mention too. Hurricane Katrina for one…In fact, the government and international community pretty much ignored everything about Katrina.

Comments are closed.