There Is No Free Market

The softwood lumber industry proves that the so called market economy, is not.
We live in a historic period of state capitalism. The political economy in Canada depending on the state to bail out resource industries and the towns they have created. Quebec vows to help forestry workers The decline being the result of the state capitalist protectionist policies of the U.S. and the recent quizzling softwood lumber deal of the Harper State.Behind the Eight Ball


See

State Capitalism Quebec Style

Softwood

Free Trade



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Harper, Emerson, softwood, US, NAFTA, free-trade, lumber, duties, taxes, Canada, B.C., Ontario, Quebec, mills,

Too Greedy

Call this the dot.com bubble 2 the wave of resignations occuring in the wake of the SEC investigation into dot.com businesses that back dated stock options for their executives. Options scandal claims CNET, McAfee chiefs It all began with this guy; Ex-Comverse boss arrested in Namibia

Jacob "Kobi" Alexander, is one of three former Comverse execs who are accused of securities fraud. He also alleged to have illegally siphoned of $57m out of the US to Israel, in a money laundering scheme. Investigators seized $45m left in US accounts. In 2005, Alexander ranked 75th in the Forbes list of CEO compensation at America's 500 biggest companies. His pay that year? A lousy $13,882,700, of which stock gains accounted for $9.6m. Still, this wasn't so bad, considering that the median pay in 2005 for CEOs at big firms in the US telecoms sector was an even lousier $1.7m. ®

Imagine if he had been illegally shipping the money to Palestine, why the outrage would be palable. While the US denounces China for stealing high tech it is silent on Israel. Ain't money laundering illegal. That makes Israel a Criminal State as well as a practioner of State Terrorism.


See:

Bring Out Your Dead

Criminal Capitalism

Primitive Accumulation of Capital



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Cablevision, dead, executive, compenstation, Corporate-Crime, white-collar-crime, scandal, stock-options, silcon-valley, high-tech, stocks, SEC, crime, capitalism, corporate-crime, corporate-scandal, NASDAQ, WallStreet, stock-exchange,
McAfee, CNET, Comverse, Jacob, "Kobi", Alexander, Israel, money-laundering, CEO, , dot.com

Common Sense

Here is an interesting case of common sense being more sensible than science. Of course science can be used for all kinds of justifications, including for the unjustifiable. Science is being used for the racial purity argument this time in relation to Moose.

Mysterious Moose Sighting: Albino Moose Turns Up in Norway
Residents in Norway have sighted what is believed to be an albino moose. With the hunting season just around the corner, local residents are campaigning for it to be spared. But scientists argue that the white moose is a genetic mistake and should be shot.


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
moose, albino, rare, Norway, science, hunting, white, white-moose

NAFTA To The Rescue

For those on the left who denounce NAFTA it is always interesting to see that they use the side agreements for progressive aims. Labour has used the labour side agreement, now the environmental lobby is using the environmental side agreement. Maybe NAFTA is useful, hmmm. Thats its contradiction. It can be used by both activists and capitalists to their own ends. In this case the New Government of Canada stands to be embarassed on the global stage, and rightly so.

Canada isn't living up to its own laws meant to protect endangered species from extinction, Canadian and American environmental groups charge.

Sierra Club of Canada and Friends of the Earth, have filed a formal complain against Canada with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation for North America, an inter-governmental body with senior representatives from Mexico, Canada and the United States set up under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The commission's web site says it is investigating the complaint against Canada.

See:

Endangered Species

NAFTA



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Rona, Ambrose, Harper, endangered-specieis, animals, environment, laws, politics, Canada, Sparrow, Owls,
NAFTA, Sierr, Club, FriendsoftheEarth

Buy American

Propping up the American dollar economy is its Gulf Allies....not any economic policy coming from the Fed or the White House......

Consider this protection money paid to the American Empire.

Gulf oil states ‘keep faith in dollar assets’

Gulf oil producers will continue buying dollar-based assets with their windfall revenues, but not all the money will flow into the US, according to Mohsin Khan, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia department.

Gulf oil producers including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates will record current account surpluses of $239bn (€190bn, £128bn) this year, rising to $259bn in 2007, a new IMF report says.

And we thought $13 billion was a record surplus!

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
US, economy, Gulf, States, UAE, Middle-East, oil, petrodollars, dollar, Sudia-Arabia, Kuwait

Fair Share

The OECD reports that corporations are paying more in taxes now than in the 1960's. Corporate share of tax bill driven up in line with profits

However what is not reported in this news story is the relationship between corporate and personal income taxes paid to the OECD member states.

That is in Canada in the 1960's corporations paid a bigger portion of the taxes collected by the Canadian State than the portion from personal income taxes.

At the end of this story the truth is revealed while corporations pay 10 percent now personal income taxes are still 25 percent of the states income. That is down from 30% thanks to tax cuts to the rich.


SEE:

Corporate Tax




Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
OECD, corporate-taxes, tax, taxes, personal, income-tax, government, revenues,

Behind the Eight Ball

Canada, US to Implement Softwood Lumber Accord on Oct. 12

To little, too late. Thanks to the bursting of the American housing bubble.


Slumping lumber prices could see sawmills close

Abitibi shutdowns chop 680 jobs Indefinite closings at 4 sawmills. Firms says demand for products has dived because of the US housing slowdown.
Domtar Announces Closure of 4 Sawmills MSN Money

Abitibi-Consolidated cutting 700 jobs in Quebec and closing four mills
Other forestry companies including Cascades (TSX:CAS), Weyerhaeuser (TSX:WEF) and privately held Kruger have announced similar closures in Quebec and in other parts of Canada this year as the industry restructures to meet rising energy costs and lower demand for lumber and other wood products.


See

American Exceptionalism

Softwood

Free Trade



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Harper, Emerson, softwood, US, NAFTA, free-trade, lumber, duties, taxes, Canada, B.C., Ontario, Quebec, mills,

Blaming The Victim

This is rich;Consumers to blame for botulism outbreak, juice maker says

No matter what the food faddists and vegans say there is nothing morally superior or politically correct about Organic Farming Corporations they are just like any other corporation.

Of course the facts state otherwise. But PR is all about spin not facts.

Alain Charette, a spokesman for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said it will be some time before officials can pinpoint what precisely caused the outbreak. He also noted that the toxin can spread when a product hasn't been stored at a proper temperature, but said it must have been present in the juice in the first place.



See:

Organic Botulism

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
carrot, carrotjuice, botulism, organiccarrots, organic, farming, agribusiness, spinach, spincah-recall, PETA, Vegans, food, food-fads, diet, Toronto, Canada, US, Bolthouse Farms, Earthbound Farm, President’s Choice Organics,

Canada's New Groundhog

Last summer Wiatron Willie the Canadian weather groundhog died. But there is a replacement. Our MIA Environment Minister Rona Ambrose. After all she is not concerned with greehouse gases but with smog and the weather.

October is the new groundhog month that time of the year when our MIA Environment Minister appears. Last week she showed up before the house committee on the Environment, this time she appeared on CBC.

Wow twice in a week. I wonder if she saw her shadow?

Doesn't matter what she says, she lies. All we want from her is her resignation.

Ambrose defends smog plan in face of criticism

Environment Minister Rona Ambrose defended the government's environmental plan Wednesday as critics warned against setting emissions targets according to industry growth.

You know how to whistle don't you,
put your lips together and blow.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new green plan is a "hot-air" approach that would continue to accelerate the devastating effects of global warming by giving major industry polluters an easy ride, leading Canadian environmentalists said Tuesday. Tory green plan full of hot air

Of course we know who likes this plan the only folks the Conservatives have consulted.....PM's air pollution plan gets early nod from business

See;

Ambrose

Environment


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Canada, Conservatives, Government, parliament, politics, Ambrose, Environment, Minister, resign, activism,
MP's, Ottawa, Kyoto, green, green=plan, Vancouver, B.C., smong, air-pollution, Mulroney, acid-rain, greenhousegas

Green Pragmatism

May softens Green view of seal hunt
Elizabeth May, who was elected party leader in August, said she supports a limited hunt."I'm probably the only leader of the Green Party of Canada that has friends who are sealers, [so] I'm going to take a very different view on this," said May, a native of Cape Breton.

Well its about time considering the decision on the Seal Hunt was made by the executive committee during last election without consulting the base. As a result it meant the Green Party candidates in Newfoundland quit rather than run a sure fire losing campaign.Green Opportunism

Besides as I have documented here the original Greenpeace Seal Hunt campaign was organized in cooperation with the sealers, aimed at a program of sustainable quotas and reductions.

Once the campaign was hijacked by Paul Watson and his Sea Sheperd society, Greenpeace abandoned working with the sealers and went on its all or nothing campaign opposing the hunt and caricaturing the sealers as neanderatals.

See:

Seal Hunt


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Newfoundland, Seal, sealing, seal-hunt, anti-sealing, boycott, Green, GreenParty, Canada, politics, Elizabeth, May,