A Corporate Death Penalty

Here at In Case You Missed It we like to fess up to our mistakes, errors, follies and bone-headed pleas whenever we can. A couple of years back we published one of our most popular posts titled Rent Seeking Parasites which accused the financial industry of parasitism, getting a free ride on the backs of its host, society - you and me. While this seemed a reasonable metaphor at the time operating as we were under the assumption that regulation and taxes would have to be reintroduced to curb their feeding excesses eventually, it has proven wrong. Parasites they are not - they are parasitoids, creatures that similarly live off the back of their hosts but eventually return the favour by killing them.

Don't you dare roll your eyes at the thought of another climate change, anti-oil screed, I promise to not even go there, even though it's the easiest path to prove our faith and reliance on crony capitalism and corporations is suicidal. No, instead we'll start in Greece, a country that's been forced to live under the indignity of not only being labeled one of the PIIGS but the worst of the bunch, a profligate, lazy, early-retiring, ouzo-swilling, tax cheater that built a shack out of straw. Despite the falsity of the stereotype or how they actually got in over their heads in debt, the Greeks have been pushed into debt-slavery, a no longer sovereign nation forced to accede to the austerity demands of the troika, the EU/ECB/IMF.

Strangely enough, these policies have not only led the Greek economy into a vicious debt trap circle - reduced spending leading to lower growth and the need for more borrowing to bridge the budget gaps provoking further calls for deeper cuts - but they've also effected people in the same depression-inducing way. Gross domestic product in the second quarter was down more than 7% from last year amid government spending cuts and tax increases that, combined, will add up to about 20% of GDP while unemployment is over 16%. Predictably, crime, homelessness, emigration and personal bankruptcies are on the rise. Tragically, as a result of these market forces, recorded suicides have roughly doubled since before the crisis to about six per 100,000 residents annually according to the Greek health ministry and a charitable organization called Klimaka.

The Greeks aren't alone in the suffering being induced in order to pay off the often fraudulent debt incurred in order to keep the financial ponzi scheme afloat while suffering under the humiliation of taking orders from the financial markets and their lackeys. Ireland's pot-o-gold bank guarantees led to overnight insolvency and a double austerity dose causing another mass emigration, Portugal's ignominious acceptance of the same troika treatment will produce the same cure as Ireland, Italy had their debt downgraded despite cutting, re-cutting and then cutting the budget some more to please the market wolves while Spain not only had a gun held to their head by the same hit men until they changed their constitution to 'limit' debt without a referendum a month before an election but also had to increase 'labour market flexibility', an Orwellian moniker which will somehow create more employment by making it easier to fire young workers. When markets attack French banks, rules are changed to protect them, but the assault on society causes lives to be lost when fruit stand owners use gasoline to light themselves on fire to draw attention to problems in Tunis or mix it with beer to literally drown their sorrows in Athens or when there's riots on the streets of London. The worst off seems to be Latvia, the anti-Iceland of Europe, a country that could become the first murder victim of neoliberal austerity measures.

Yet German bank inspired bailouts provided by the European Financial Stability Facility and the European Financial Stabilization Mechanism won't solve the problem, it will continue indefinitely without debt forgiveness. Ironically, these obligations being forced on the public will serve the same function as that of the war reparations forced upon Germany after the Treaty of Versailles when John Maynard Keynes warned the world that the "policy of reducing Germany to servitude for a generation, of degrading the lives of millions of human beings, and of depriving a whole nation of happiness should be abhorrent and detestable...even if it does not sow the decay of the whole civilized life of Europe". I think we can all still remember the seeds that were sown and how many lives were reaped thanks to that plan. 

In America we need to be granted a little bit of poetic license to expand the metaphor a bit, after all it is the land of the ever-expanding waistband. According the the General Accountability Office, the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and around the world over the past couple of years. This goes along with the $1.2 trillion in slightly less secret back door loans we later found out about last year or the (only) $700 billion TARP money a couple of years back that everyone talks about. Hurray, the corporatocracy was brought back to life thanks to the politicians they paid for! Funny thing is this transfer of wealth hasn't trickled down to the people yet, nor have the efficiency gains of the past 30 odd years of economic growth. No, the result of the neoliberal free market driven policies of major tax cuts for high-income Americans, union-busting, aided and abetted by federal policy, and financial deregulation such as the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which has fed inequality because very high incomes come disproportionately from that sector, has strangely enough only benefited those the policies were meant to help, the rich and the corporations. Median incomes adjusted for inflation have fallen over that time while the number of Americans below the poverty line has reached 46 million with 21.6% of American children now living in poverty (predicted to hit 25% soon; it's 3.7% in Denmark). The very corporations who the Fed helped out instead of people are often making record profits from this poverty and play a part in the bloodbath, as this poverty is a death sentence.

Instead of using this infusion of cash along with the access granted to US and non-US banks and corporations to near-zero financing at the Fed window to you know, create jobs, financial firms have used it to increase our suffering while lining their pockets. They've thanked the people who cover their losses by betting on their death and creating new casino-like commodity markets, hurting the poor most as increases in the price of rice and gasoline hit them harder. The flip side of the profit prospect created by wheat price volatility for a corporation is starvation for the world's dispossessed thanks to the increased price of bread. A food system where Americans waste enough food everyday to fill the Rose Bowl is great for those who can afford the luxury. For those that can't, well, you know. Worse, a McDonald's corporation that took part in the $1.3 trillion short term lending bonanza gets to serve $5 Big Mac meals thanks in large part to the billions in corn subsidies lavished by the government in support of the unholy alliance of agribusiness and science to produce high-fructose corn syrop (HFCS) and ethanol to put in everything from french fries to feed for filet-o-fish or filling the Ford Fiesta.



The subsidies have manufactured a price inequality that helps junk food undersell nutritious-but-unsubsidized foodstuffs like fruits and vegetables. The end result is that budget wary consumers are increasingly forced by economic circumstance to "choose" the lower-priced junk food that their taxes support. The aggregate effect of such market manipulation across the agriculture industry is "that a dollar [can] buy 1,200 calories of potato chips or 875 calories of soda but just 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit". This Super-Size-Me economy leads to early death through obesity, diabetes and heart disease. This lifestyle non-choice has played a big role in the decline of life expectancy for women over the past 20 years in 313 counties in the United States, a problem exacerbated by poverty, with the proof played out in the fact that those in the top 20% of American incomes live, on average, at least 6.5 years longer than those in the lowest income group. So you see, privatizing both profits and losses of corporations is paid for in not only gold but also lives by society. It's become more than a crime to be poor - poverty is a death sentence and corporations, who we're told over and over are job creators, are in fact, executioners.

In a culture where Orwellian political vocabulary turns the idea of universal single-payer health care into "death panels" while advocating actually killing grandma and rationalizes disenfranchisement of "non-productive citizens", it should come as no surprise that Obama's faux-populist promise to veto any budget proposal that doesn't contain tax increases can be turned into a class war, when, in fact, the war has been hot for decades and it's pretty clear which side is winning. The reality is this war doesn't differentiate between innocent and guilty when choosing its victims though it does discriminate based on race just like capital punishment. Just imagine the cognitive dissonance involved in being both pro-life and pro-death. Murderous spectacles are put on to appease the mob with circenses as if the panem killing them weren't enough. Maybe this explains the indifference to executing possibly innocent men like Troy Davis in Georgia or the Tea Party cheering for the straight shooting style of killing kids, the mentally ill and the innocent among the 234 people Rick Perry has executed in Texas:



It's a death sentence to be poor, especially if you're among the 49.9 million Americans who lack health insurance, a number that soared by 13.3 million since 2000. The main driver in both the national and personal bankruptcy story is a health care system whose costs are spiraling out of control thanks to corporate greed in both the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. State enforced patent protection of the latter isn't only killing AIDS babies in Soweto while thanks to the former, the only evidence that really matters in determining treatment based on evidence-based medicine is what's in your wallet. Tea Partiers like to cheer on this corporate killing too (listen for it at 0:55):

Killing requires a large staff

Poverty is also the best recruiting tool ever invented by the ultimate killing machine, the armed forces, and thus provides the fodder to feed the military industrial complex. Again, corporations are there to innovate new ways of killing and can even fill the void with corporate mercenaries when volunteers run short. The stark contradiction between the money making mantra of murder and Christ's advice, "If you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, then come follow me" lends a dark layer of irony to our present wars justified by condemning Islam as a death-glorifying cult. Even though we know innocent people will die when we're bombing, droning or whatever we call trying to kill brown people we've labeled terrorists in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan or Libya, it's somehow different than when those terrorists kill innocent people when they blow themselves up on buses in London or trains in Madrid. We're Americans celebrating the illegal killing of the most-wanted criminal of our generation thanks to our culture of death or out of relief from a false belief they wouldn't be called to die as the perpetual war on terror would end with Osama bin Laden's death? USA! United States of Assassination! Woo hoo death to international rule of law!



What? Killing bin Laden didn't solve that war on terror problem? You mean, it's all related, people blowing themselves up at outdoor cafes, creating terrorists by raining death down on Tripoli, Kabul and Baghdad or being the only vote in the UN to support Israelis killing Palestinians, allowing illegal settlements on their land or even denying them statehood next month. Killing is killing, whether in the name of good, Zeus, protection, defense or Allah. Once you accept it as no more than collateral damage you think differently, become indifferent to death and probably think it's ok to torture while praying in a church that covers up for pedophiles. Another victory for Oceania over Eurasia or Eastasia won't alter the course in the perpetual war because there's money to be made for McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, BAE and IBM from death.

But if, as the Supreme Court and Mitt Romney say, corporations are people then shouldn't they get the death penalty for killing people? Even at a time when slavery was legal, America had the morality to realize corporate killing wasn't. The corporate death penalty could be applied in cases of "operating contrary to the public interest" or those that saw "a pattern of abuses" and result in their charters being revoked. Ah, those were the progressive days, the very time today's right-wingnuts would like to take us back to with its lack of child labor laws, clean water protection and such. Trials might go something like this if such a world still existed I suppose:



Yeah. We not only wage war and trample human rights for oil companies' drilling rights, we just make them pay a fine for destroying entire ecosystems and spraying chemicals with unknown long-term effects to clean up the surface for the cameras. We enable through our continued consumption and ignorance of corporate evasion of responsibility for less visible murder via contamination or explosions in places like Ecuador or Nigeria. Move on to do the same in the Arctic while other gas companies extracting using hydraulic fracturing which pollutes the very water table we rely on for life will make sure we don't figure out how their harming human life. Car companies? What better way to kill millions than by rigging the game to ensure we drive cars forever? Big tobacco serves as a role model for the Catholic Church on how to cover up scandals after killing millions more. Obfuscate, donate and litigate.

Wait. All this and no mention of Bhopal. Yeah, that's right, when 3,800 people are killed almost immediately when tonnes of toxic gas escape and today more than 100,000 people remain chronically ill from exposure, it's more of the same, obfuscate (corporate takeover of Union Carbide by Dow Chemical - it's not our fault!), donate (maybe a stadium for the Olympics!) and litigate. Rinse and repeat. How about Monsanto? Who could have foreseen that allowing a corporation to patent life would have, well, life-ending consequences, right? DeBeers, turning blood diamonds into love? The beverage industry from Coca-Cola to Red Bull and Budweiser, the fashion industry or even Hollywood for toxification, body image distortion and indoctrination? As long as there's an app for you iPhone to keep you connected who cares how many Apple kills to make them. What about the billions of people whose lives are threatened by the ecological disaster sure to come about as a result of the greed for profit written into the DNA of the corporate psychopaths we've created. Oh yeah, that's right, I made a no climate change promise. That would be controversial and might give someone the idea to protest, maybe even occupy Madrid's Plaza del Sol or decide to march to Brussels or, heaven forbid, occupy Wall Street in the heart of NYC if perhaps the corpocracy's killing of the middle class and slaughter of the poor weren't enough. Oh, some people have already done that, are heading there and doing that (see below for live stream when available), fighting our fight. If they need a suggestion for one demand mine is to bring back the corporate death penalty - capital punishment for corporations!

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

Further reading:
Occupy Wall Street 
March to Brussels
Austerity and Anarchy: Budget Cuts and Social Unrest in Europe 1919-2009
US Poverty figures
IMF inequality report
US Uncut / UK Uncut
Further Viewing:
Sugar: The Bitter Truth
Food Inc. (It might take an extra click)
Clip from Inside Job
Interview with Josh Fox - maker of Gasland

P is for...

Protectionism. And Poland and Poznan, where I call home these days. While waiting for the tram the other day I noticed an ad for a popular magazine in these parts, Wprost, kind of a Polish version of Time if you will. My rudimentary Polish allowed me to decipher the gist of the cover story, which basically boiled down to "Buy Polish". A subtle sign, but, in case you missed it, protectionism is back and ready to reek havoc on the globalization dream of the neo-liberal economic movement. P is also for patriotism, a bullet proof cloak that protectionists love to drape around themselves, especially in times of crisis. It may sound strange for me to admit it, but one thing the neolibs have right in theory is that the free flow of goods and services around the globe can benefit the world. Without open markets each country wastes resources producing goods in which it has a comparative disadvantage, and consumes too little of imported goods. Of course we've never actually got to the point of true free trade, all trade is managed, but the pendulum is about to start swinging toward protectionism again.

When the Group of 20 countries met in mid-November, everyone agreed to "refrain from raising new barriers" to trade or investment over the following 12 months. Showing how much the agreement meant, India increased tariffs on steel, iron and soybeans a few days later. The APEC leaders made a similar pledge that same month. However, promises quickly lose their authority when the world seems to be collapsing and workers are being thrown out of work en masse. Recent economic downturns have had global trade as a major engine of growth to help pull the world's economies out of recession, Japan in the 80's, China after 9/11, however, this time is different. The similarities to 1931 keep popping up, this time it's trade barriers.

While it's a stretch to compare the current US stimulus package with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which raised tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods, there is a clause that raises alarm bells. The stimulus package contains a "Buy American" rider, the American Steel First Act, which would ensure that only US-made steel will be used in $64 billion of federally funded infrastructure projects. The as-yet-unpassed senate bill is even worse as it stipulates that all stimulus-funded projects use only American-made equipment and goods. Trade war anyone? Combine this with the anti-NAFTA rhetoric thrown around during the election campaign and we've got a recipe for disaster. There's already rumblings up north about the clause as Canadians feel they're being unfairly left out of the bidding extravaganza. Along with the rest of the world, they see the move as another example of the US trying to force the world to follow one set of rules while creating another rulebook for themselves. The tipping point will come and the resulting domino effect of retaliatory trade barriers will prove disastrous for world trade and the global economy.

Back in December the World Bank released a forecast that world trade would fall for the first time since 1982, 2.1%, compared to growth of almost 10% in 2006 and the estimated 6.2% for 2008. Smoot-Harley wreaked havoc on trade, with US imports from Europe declining from a 1929 high of $1,334 million to just $390 million in 1932, while U.S. exports to Europe fell from $2,341 million in 1929 to $784 million in 1932. Overall, world trade declined by some 66% between 1929 and 1934. Need an effect to match with the cause? US unemployment in 1930, before the passage of the bill was at 7.8% in 1930, jumped to 16.3% in 1931, 24.9% in 1932, and 25.1% in 1933. The latest US unemployment number, 7.2%. Add to that the importance of international trade to the economy today compared to then. In 1930 global trade as a percentage of GDP was in the single digits, it hit $16 trillion in 2007, equal to 31 percent of world GDP. Another factor was brought up in Davos on Satuday by British PM Gordon Brown. The Institute of International Finance predicted capital flows to emerging markets would slow to $165 billion in 2009 from a record $929 billion two years ago. “What you’re seeing is a form of financial protectionism where banks retreat to their home base,” Brown said. French finance minister Christine Lagarde said at a Jan. 31 press conference in Davos that bank bailouts and fiscal stimulus plans are “implicit protectionism.” Additionally, the binge of new borrowing by the US and other central governments will surely put a squeeze on on other borrowers, in terms of a shortage of available financing and higher long term interest rates.

Much of the world is focusing their attention on China as countries look for ways to boost national economies. With America and the world already pointing fingers at what is perceived to be currency manipulation to maintain an exporting edge, Chinese officials announced a series of measures to boost domestic production last month. State banks are being directed to lend more to exporters, government research funds are being set up and a measure to provide $12 billion worth of letters of credit to Hong Kong exporters. This comes at a time when American quotas on many Chinese garments have just expired on the heels of a WTO challenge in which the US accuses China of providing illegal subsidies. Meanwhile Indonesia has imposed a series of measures that will make it harder to import Chinese goods. Train producers are crying foul, claiming the Chinese market is closed to importers while at the same time Chinese manufacturers are using technology acquired from western companies on the condition it not be used in production meant for export for just that purpose.

There are many other signs sprouting up of the growing tide of protectionist policies. Ecuador announced it was lifting tariffs across the board, with the levy on imported meat jumping from 25% to 85.5%. India raised steel tariffs and Russia has boosted levies on imported cars. France has pledged $7.6 billion to shield home industry from "foreign predators". "British jobs for British workers", a slip of the tongue by British PM Gordon Brown a couple of years back is coming back to haunt him as strikes rage across Britain, with much of the fury aimed at foreigners. France was paralyzed on Thursday by a nationwide strike, Greece has seen mass riots along with a few other EU members. You may be asking yourself where is the WTO in all this? I thought we had agreements in place to stop just such a thing from happening. Nope. The rules have too many loopholes such as not requiring government stimulus plans to be open to all bidders.

The next meeting of the so-called Group of 20 comes in April. By then the world should have erected enough barriers of trade to make the Great Wall look like child's play. True free trade with an even playing field creates certain economic advantages. Unfortunately, what has been created over the past 60 years courtesy of GATT through the WTO, along with the World Bank and the IMF, is a playing field so tilted that it finally fell over. Sadly, instead of ending a system where an EU cow receives more in government subsidies than half of the world's population earns in daily wages, about $2, the focus will continue to be on throwing money at the banking system. Of course the WTO is trying to maintain calm, releasing a 14-page report last week claiming "there has been only limited evidence so far of increases in tariffs or non-tariff barriers, or increased resort to trade remedy actions"; the EU and China are pretending to play nice, while doing exactly what the WTO claims isn't happening, placing new duties and lodging anti-dumping complaints, the Doha dream suddenly seems beyond reach.

Some idea of the vicious circle of these protectionist measures can be illustrated by the increase in tariffs being imposed by the EU on Chinese fasteners. Duties will rise from 63% to 87% on 200 different kinds of screws and bolts. So not only could China consider retaliatory measures, but the cost of producing everything using those fasteners in Europe will go up, from cars to DIY projects. This increases the price to the ultimate consumer, leaving them poorer than they would have been without the duties, thus reducing their spending on other goods. While the Obama administration is seen by the world as a breath of fresh air, there is a waft of the musty, protectionist policies of the past. Anti-NAFTA talk, and Chinese currency manipulation were themes of his campaign while Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner is an outspoken critic of China's yuan policy. Aid to US auto-makers and now the stimulus package with it's "buy American" clause, a flag waving, trade war instigating, global economy killer. Could it be that the Democrats really don't know how economics works? Well, I suppose that would make them just like the rest of us.

As passed by the House, Section 1110 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 says, "None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this act may be used for a project for the construction, alteration, maintenance, or repair of a public building or public work unless all of the iron and steel used in the project is produced in the United States."

Lies - Part 3

Push play and read...


Farmers protest in Argentina, truckers block the roads of Spain, South Koreans flood the streets of Seoul, riots break out in more than 15 countries. What are they so angry about? While the reasons may vary from taxes to fuel costs to imported US beef or simply the cost of rice, they all have their roots in globalization. No, globalization itself isn't a bad thing. It makes perfect sense that lower trade barriers help make the flow of goods move smoother and thereby reduces costs for the benefit of people. What is a bad thing is the system that is in place today, ruled over by the financial powers through the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), formerly GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs). However, the past few months have seen some dramatic events in the world markets that may point to the end of the imperialist system that the rich need us all to believe in so badly.

As Jose Louis Jamarillo, the former Columbian Ambassador to GATT and President of the Group of 77, declared after the birth of the WTO, what we have created is "an institutional trinity which will dominate all economic relations across the world in the interests of the strongest". The World Bank lends money to poor nations to develop their resources, the IMF ensures they budget correctly to pay back the loans, and the WTO ensures they keep their markets open to imports. The rule of the market, cutting public expenditure for social services, deregulation, privatization are the mantras of neo-liberalism. Structural adjustment demanded by the IMF can best be summed up with the idea of earn more and spend less, thus ensuring that debtor nations will scramble to sell what resources they can, driving down the price, while paying workers the minimum, in wages and benefits. This combination of low wages, low commodity prices and debt is the perfect system to guarantee the world's resources flow to the rich nations.

Meanwhile, the wealthy world prescribes exactly the opposite medicine for their own economies. The European community agreed that West Germany had to put $1.5-trillion into the former East Germany to simultaneously build industry, social infrastructure, and buying power. When Greece, Portugal, and Spain, relatively poorer than the rest of Europe, wanted to join the Common Market, massive transfers of direct aid flowed into these "poorer" nations to accelerate development, raise wages, regularize safety and environmental standards and improve living conditions. All wealthy nations provide enormous subsidies to their industries and agriculture, they all placed, and some still place, high tariffs on manufactured imports and low or no tariffs on raw material imports. They all provided, and still provide, subsidies to exports. There are also land donations, tax breaks, and below cost services in bidding wars to gain or retain industry as well as wage subsidies, and outright cash incentives. Between 1995 and 2005, $165bn of American taxpayers' money was used to support US agricultural commodities. Soya, corn, rice, wheat and cotton accounted for 90% of that money. Sugar was also heavily subsidised. The real beneficiaries of this system of government support have not been US farmers, who have gone out of business in their thousands, but the mainly US-based trading giants. For subsidies have allowed them to export grains at less than the cost of production, making it impossible for other countries to compete, while bringing the money from added-value markets back home. In this they mirror the patterns of trade established between previous empires and their colonies. The European Union gives out about $41 billion a year in agricultural subsidies, about $8.2 billion to France alone.

If people don't have enough food to put in their mouths, what's the use of an economic boom in exports. Countries are scrambling to come to terms with the new economics of food. India scrapped all import duties on cooking oils and banned exports of non-basmati rice. Japan is importing genetically modified grains for the first time. China has tried to calm its people by announcing reserve grain holdings, once a state secret. Meanwhile, the truly poor, the billion living on less than a dollar a day are trying to survive by cutting out bread and switching to different grains such as sorghum, eliminating meals and drinking tea for lunch. What can you do when wheat prices have leapt 80% from 2005 to early 2008? Much of the root of this problem can be linked to "free trade" and agricultural subsidies. Annual subsidies paid to farmers in "rich" countries total about $280 billion while total annual development assistance to the "poor" nations totals about $60 billion. The aforementioned agricultural subsidies flow mainly to a few commodity crops, wheat, cotton, corn, soybeans and rice (about 90% of US subsidies). This not only makes it more difficult for farmers in the "poor" nations to compete, but also makes other fresh fruit and veggies relatively more expensive. A Japanese cow gets a $3000 subsidy, one in the EU $1000 while the average income in sub-Saharan Africa is $500. So, what happens to the farmers in poor nations? They stop farming as they can't compete with the cheaper imports. World food prices spike and now you have a crisis of unimaginable proportions.

An interesting case in point is the effect that the price bubbles in oil and food are having on the have and have-not nations of the Middle East. While Egypt has banned exports and raised taxes to pay for the 88% in food subsidies it has been forced to give it's people following rioting, Saudi Arabia simply lowers tariffs and the UAE buys farms abroad. The rich and the poor, within and among nations behave in different ways towards crisis. The end result of neo-liberalism, or globalization has been an ever intensifying concentration of wealth. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, a global game of winners and losers. Perhaps if the winners weren't faceless corporations or greedy money managers the looming food crisis wouldn't now be upon us. The ease with which capital flows has contributed to the recent price surge. As investors fleeing Wall Street's mortgage strife noticed the price spike early last summer as reports of weak wheat harvest in the US and Europe along with a prolonged drought in Australia, they poured money into grain futures. Of course their actions can't be seen in isolation, as many other factors such as government subsidized biofuel programs and national governments reactions from the barring of exports in producing nations, to increased purchasing by importing nations such as China also came into play. Food became the new gold for hedge fund investors last year and they're looking for the next disaster play. “every debt crisis in history since Solon of Athens has ended in inflation, bankruptcy or war” - George, Fate Worse Than Debt, p. 196

So, what happens when someone doesn't want to play by the rules set by the world's elite? That's easy, embargo, destabilization, attack or an engineered change of government. Most of the world's resources are found in the developing world, this is why we see the race for free trade agreements and feel the ever growing threats implied towards other nations who don't toe the line. If these less developed nations were to form alliances and barter for a better deal for their natural resources, they would be able to develop. Unfortunately, what we have is a true vicious circle: the world economy is dependent on growth in the U.S. economy but the U.S. domestic economy is [now] skewed more towards consumption than production and investment, and this consumption is in turn sustained by borrowing—at home and abroad.... The deal with surplus countries essentially has been as follows: you can run a big trade surplus with us provided that you put the money back into our capital markets. One of the major points free traders point to for the reason that poor nations are poor is corruption. While it's hard to argue against the fact that corruption is a huge drain on wealth, how can the World Bank and IMF criticise recipient governments for their lack of transparency, widespread corruption and undemocratic regimes, insisting on the reform of these aspects as a pre-condition to granting loans and debt relief? These same issues haunt the World Bank and IMF which are widely regarded as not transparent, undemocratic and unaccountable. Corruption within these organisations is rife, and millions of dollars unaccounted. Remember Paul Wolfowitz?

Finally, labour from two angles, one lie for the poor, another for the rich. If the "rich" nations of the world want free trade with free movement of capital and resources, the third component in the wealth creation equation should also be able to move freely; labour and people should be allowed to move across borders as easily as goods, services and money. In today's Guardian, Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, wrote an open letter to the leaders of the EU in which he pleas for them not to punish illegal immigrants too harshly. The US fights with it's own immigration policies, while millions around the world seek to escape poverty and war only to find the door closed. Meanwhile, in developed countries, labour faces it's own challenges. Corporations are able to combine labour and equipment from anywhere in the world, making it easier for them to use lower priced labour overseas. Businesses can use the threat of relocating as a lever to get what they want in the form of tax policy, regulations and subsidies, with the costs being borne by labour itself. South Korea will be losing jobs to cheap labor in Thailand and even China may someday lose factories to Bangladesh. Industries can be built quickly. But the markets of an efficiently functioning economic infrastructure (roads, schools, universities, businesses, homes, postal system, trucking companies, and airlines) can be built only slowly.

Over my last three posts I've tried to point out some of the most common lies that the public are fed daily. I understand that it is part of a politician's job to portray a state of calm in the face of growing turbulence. It may seem a little paradoxical to claim in a blog that part of the problem lies in the narrow range of views the public is fed daily. You might be reading this, we all may have access to different sources of information, but the fact is that the majority of people get their news from one of six sources: GE, Time Warner, Walt Disney, News Corp, CBS or Viacom. Forget the WTO or even the G8, the power of who gets traded with in in fact in the hands of only 4, the Quadrilateral Group of trade ministers. While there's no denying that the global economy has grown, the real questions are who benefits and what are the costs. The growth model that everything is built on seems inherently flawed, especially of late with the surge in oil prices. And what of the effects on the environment, a subject not even touched upon here.

If you like the film at the beginning, you can download it in it's entirety and legally, here.