subject:"\[Biofuel\] Mystery"

[Biofuel] Mystery: How Wealth Creates Poverty in the World

2007-02-18 Thread Keith Addison

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0216-30.htm

Friday, February 16, 2007

Mystery: How Wealth Creates Poverty in the World

By Michael Parenti

There is a mystery we must explain: How is it that as corporate 
investments and foreign aid and international loans to poor countries 
have increased dramatically throughout the world over the last half 
century, so has poverty? The number of people living in poverty is 
growing at a faster rate than the world's population. What do we make 
of this?

Over the last half century, U.S. industries and banks (and other 
western corporations) have invested heavily in those poorer regions 
of Asia, Africa, and Latin America known as the Third World. The 
transnationals are attracted by the rich natural resources, the high 
return that comes from low-paid labor, and the nearly complete 
absence of taxes, environmental regulations, worker benefits, and 
occupational safety costs.

The U.S. government has subsidized this flight of capital by granting 
corporations tax concessions on their overseas investments, and even 
paying some of their relocation expenses---much to the outrage of 
labor unions here at home who see their jobs evaporating.

The transnationals push out local businesses in the Third World and 
preempt their markets. American agribusiness cartels, heavily 
subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, dump surplus products in other 
countries at below cost and undersell local farmers. As Christopher 
Cook describes it in his Diet for a Dead Planet, they expropriate the 
best land in these countries for cash-crop exports, usually 
monoculture crops requiring large amounts of pesticides, leaving less 
and less acreage for the hundreds of varieties of organically grown 
foods that feed the local populations.

By displacing local populations from their lands and robbing them of 
their self-sufficiency, corporations create overcrowded labor markets 
of desperate people who are forced into shanty towns to toil for 
poverty wages (when they can get work), often in violation of the 
countries' own minimum wage laws.

In Haiti, for instance, workers are paid 11 cents an hour by 
corporate giants such as Disney, Wal-Mart, and J.C. Penny. The United 
States is one of the few countries that has refused to sign an 
international convention for the abolition of child labor and forced 
labor. This position stems from the child labor practices of U.S. 
corporations throughout the Third World and within the United States 
itself, where children as young as 12 suffer high rates of injuries 
and fatalities, and are often paid less than the minimum wage.

The savings that big business reaps from cheap labor abroad are not 
passed on in lower prices to their customers elsewhere. Corporations 
do not outsource to far-off regions so that U.S. consumers can save 
money. They outsource in order to increase their margin of profit. In 
1990, shoes made by Indonesian children working twelve-hour days for 
13 cents an hour, cost only $2.60 but still sold for $100 or more in 
the United States.

U.S. foreign aid usually works hand in hand with transnational 
investment. It subsidizes construction of the infrastructure needed 
by corporations in the Third World: ports, highways, and refineries.

The aid given to Third World governments comes with strings attached. 
It often must be spent on U.S. products, and the recipient nation is 
required to give investment preferences to U.S. companies, shifting 
consumption away from home produced commodities and foods in favor of 
imported ones, creating more dependency, hunger, and debt.

A good chunk of the aid money never sees the light of day, going 
directly into the personal coffers of sticky-fingered officials in 
the recipient countries.

Aid (of a sort) also comes from other sources. In 1944, the United 
Nations created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund 
(IMF). Voting power in both organizations is determined by a 
country's financial contribution. As the largest donor, the United 
States has a dominant voice, followed by Germany, Japan, France, and 
Great Britain. The IMF operates in secrecy with a select group of 
bankers and finance ministry staffs drawn mostly from the rich 
nations.

The World Bank and IMF are supposed to assist nations in their 
development. What actually happens is another story. A poor country 
borrows from the World Bank to build up some aspect of its economy. 
Should it be unable to pay back the heavy interest because of 
declining export sales or some other reason, it must borrow again, 
this time from the IMF.

But the IMF imposes a structural adjustment program (SAP), 
requiring debtor countries to grant tax breaks to the transnational 
corporations, reduce wages, and make no attempt to protect local 
enterprises from foreign imports and foreign takeovers. The debtor 
nations are pressured to privatize their economies, selling at 
scandalously low prices their state-owned mines, railroads, and 
utilities

Re: [Biofuel] Mystery: How Wealth Creates Poverty in the World

2007-02-18 Thread leo bunyan

Can't have wealth without poverty
That is the capitalistic system
Our only defence is to not use these companies.


Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0216-30.htm

Friday, February 16, 2007

Mystery: How Wealth Creates Poverty in the World

By Michael Parenti

There is a mystery we must explain: How is it that as corporate 
investments and foreign aid and international loans to poor countries 
have increased dramatically throughout the world over the last half 
century, so has poverty? The number of people living in poverty is 
growing at a faster rate than the world's population. What do we make 
of this?

Over the last half century, U.S. industries and banks (and other 
western corporations) have invested heavily in those poorer regions 
of Asia, Africa, and Latin America known as the Third World. The 
transnationals are attracted by the rich natural resources, the high 
return that comes from low-paid labor, and the nearly complete 
absence of taxes, environmental regulations, worker benefits, and 
occupational safety costs.

The U.S. government has subsidized this flight of capital by granting 
corporations tax concessions on their overseas investments, and even 
paying some of their relocation expenses---much to the outrage of 
labor unions here at home who see their jobs evaporating.

The transnationals push out local businesses in the Third World and 
preempt their markets. American agribusiness cartels, heavily 
subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, dump surplus products in other 
countries at below cost and undersell local farmers. As Christopher 
Cook describes it in his Diet for a Dead Planet, they expropriate the 
best land in these countries for cash-crop exports, usually 
monoculture crops requiring large amounts of pesticides, leaving less 
and less acreage for the hundreds of varieties of organically grown 
foods that feed the local populations.

By displacing local populations from their lands and robbing them of 
their self-sufficiency, corporations create overcrowded labor markets 
of desperate people who are forced into shanty towns to toil for 
poverty wages (when they can get work), often in violation of the 
countries' own minimum wage laws.

In Haiti, for instance, workers are paid 11 cents an hour by 
corporate giants such as Disney, Wal-Mart, and J.C. Penny. The United 
States is one of the few countries that has refused to sign an 
international convention for the abolition of child labor and forced 
labor. This position stems from the child labor practices of U.S. 
corporations throughout the Third World and within the United States 
itself, where children as young as 12 suffer high rates of injuries 
and fatalities, and are often paid less than the minimum wage.

The savings that big business reaps from cheap labor abroad are not 
passed on in lower prices to their customers elsewhere. Corporations 
do not outsource to far-off regions so that U.S. consumers can save 
money. They outsource in order to increase their margin of profit. In 
1990, shoes made by Indonesian children working twelve-hour days for 
13 cents an hour, cost only $2.60 but still sold for $100 or more in 
the United States.

U.S. foreign aid usually works hand in hand with transnational 
investment. It subsidizes construction of the infrastructure needed 
by corporations in the Third World: ports, highways, and refineries.

The aid given to Third World governments comes with strings attached. 
It often must be spent on U.S. products, and the recipient nation is 
required to give investment preferences to U.S. companies, shifting 
consumption away from home produced commodities and foods in favor of 
imported ones, creating more dependency, hunger, and debt.

A good chunk of the aid money never sees the light of day, going 
directly into the personal coffers of sticky-fingered officials in 
the recipient countries.

Aid (of a sort) also comes from other sources. In 1944, the United 
Nations created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund 
(IMF). Voting power in both organizations is determined by a 
country's financial contribution. As the largest donor, the United 
States has a dominant voice, followed by Germany, Japan, France, and 
Great Britain. The IMF operates in secrecy with a select group of 
bankers and finance ministry staffs drawn mostly from the rich 
nations.

The World Bank and IMF are supposed to assist nations in their 
development. What actually happens is another story. A poor country 
borrows from the World Bank to build up some aspect of its economy. 
Should it be unable to pay back the heavy interest because of 
declining export sales or some other reason, it must borrow again, 
this time from the IMF.

But the IMF imposes a structural adjustment program (SAP), 
requiring debtor countries to grant tax breaks to the transnational 
corporations, reduce wages, and make no attempt to protect local 
enterprises from foreign imports and foreign

Re: [Biofuel] Mystery

2006-08-17 Thread Mike Weaver

Can't pay your debts, just like the rest of the US!

Kirk McLoren wrote:

Id rather owe it to you than cheat you out of it.

*/Mike Weaver [EMAIL PROTECTED]/* wrote:

Whatever. Just send me my damned dollar, McLoren...

Kirk McLoren wrote:

I have given this to a lot of people. The biofuels folk are
atypical.
Ok guys give yourself a pat on the back.

*/D. Mindock /* wrote:

If you reformulate the conclusion as follows:
30 original cost - 3 the dollars the men got back - 2 the
bellboy's tip
you get $25. The $2 is subtracted not added.
Peace, D. Mindock

- Original Message -
*From:* Kirk McLoren
*To:* biofuel
*Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2006 3:44 AM
*Subject:* [Biofuel] Mystery

3 MEN GO INTO A MOTEL. THE MAN BEHIND THE DESK SAID THE ROOM
IS $30, SO
EACH MAN PAID $10 AND WENT TO THE ROOM.

A WHILE LATER THE MAN BEHIND THE DESK REALIZED THE ROOM WAS
ONLY $25,

SO HE SENT THE BELLBOY TO THE 3 GUYS' ROOM WITH $5. ON
THE WAY THE BELLBOY COULDN'T FIGURE OUT HOW
TO SPLIT $5 EVENLY

BETWEEN 3 MEN, SO HE GAVE EACH MAN A $1 AND KEPT THE OTHER $2
FOR HIMSELF.

THIS MEANT THAT THE 3 MEN EACH PAID $9 FOR THE ROOM, WHICH IS
A TOTAL
OF$27, ADD THE $2 THAT THE BELLBOY KEPT = $29.

WHERE IS THE OTHER DOLLAR?

Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great
rates starting at 1¢/min.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman7/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=39666/*http://messenger.yahoo.com

http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman7/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=39666/*http://messenger.yahoo.com

___
Biofuel mailing list
Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org

Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html

Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages):
http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/

http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman7/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=39666/*http://messenger.yahoo.com

___
Biofuel mailing list
Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org

Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html

Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages):
http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/

Re: [Biofuel] Mystery

2006-08-17 Thread Mike Weaver

Yeah, but does anyone remember Flip Wilson's routine?

Andrew Libby wrote:

I want my two dollars. Two d-dollars.

(bad, perhaps young movie reference. Anyone get it?)

Andy

Mike Weaver wrote:

Whatever. Just send me my damned dollar, McLoren...

Kirk McLoren wrote:

I have given this to a lot of people. The biofuels folk are atypical.
Ok guys give yourself a pat on the back.

*/D. Mindock [EMAIL PROTECTED]/* wrote:

If you reformulate the conclusion as follows:
30 original cost - 3 the dollars the men got back - 2 the
bellboy's tip
you get $25. The $2 is subtracted not added.
Peace, D. Mindock

- Original Message -
*From:* Kirk McLoren mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
*To:* biofuel mailto:Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
*Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2006 3:44 AM
*Subject:* [Biofuel] Mystery

3 MEN GO INTO A MOTEL. THE MAN BEHIND THE DESK SAID THE ROOM
IS $30, SO
EACH MAN PAID $10 AND WENT TO THE ROOM.

A WHILE LATER THE MAN BEHIND THE DESK REALIZED THE ROOM WAS
ONLY $25,

SO HE SENT THE BELLBOY TO THE 3 GUYS' ROOM WITH $5. ON
THE WAY THE BELLBOY COULDN'T FIGURE OUT HOW
TO SPLIT $5 EVENLY

BETWEEN 3 MEN, SO HE GAVE EACH MAN A $1 AND KEPT THE OTHER $2
FOR HIMSELF.

THIS MEANT THAT THE 3 MEN EACH PAID $9 FOR THE ROOM, WHICH IS
A TOTAL
OF$27, ADD THE $2 THAT THE BELLBOY KEPT = $29.

WHERE IS THE OTHER DOLLAR?

http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman7/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=39666/*http://messenger.yahoo.com

___
Biofuel mailing list
Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org

Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html

Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000
messages):
http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/

How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger’s low PC-to-Phone call
rates.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman8/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=39663/*http://voice.yahoo.com

http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman8/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=39663/*http://voice.yahoo.com