The primitive accumulation of capital has always been a criminal enterprize.
And of course these criminal capitalists are always opposed to unions. Just like regular capitalists.
The irony is that Xstrata is in a bidding war over Falconbridge, which includes Inco and Teck Cominco, all four are vying to create monopoly in the resource industry that is heating up. Timidity keeps corporate Canada off world stage
Oh yes thats the other problem with capitalism its inherent need to create monopolies and oligopolies.
Dark talk dogs CEO of XstrataStill, when Xstrata starts making big deals abroad, people start mentioning words far removed from mining, or from anything having to do with Mick Davis: Saddam Hussein, CIA, international fugitives, presidential pardons.
This has nothing to do with Xstrata, a public company traded on the London Stock Exchange, and everything to do with the private company that created Xstrata in 1990 and that is still its largest shareholder. Glencore International AG, one of the most secretive and most profitable private companies in the world, is both the source of Mr. Davis's success and the albatross around his neck.
Glencore was created by Marc Rich, the billionaire commodities trader who became the world's most-wanted white-collar fugitive in the 1990s, when he was sought by U.S. authorities for tax evasion and tax fraud, and for breaking UN embargoes by trading with countries such as Iran and apartheid-era South Africa. In 2000, in the final weeks of his presidency, Bill Clinton granted Mr. Rich, a Democratic Party donor, a controversial pardon.
Both Xstrata and Glencore are headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, a tiny canton that claims to have the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe. It also has extremely lax disclosure rules, and can serve as a haven for white-collar fugitives — as it did throughout the 1990s, when Mr. Rich made it his refuge.
“Glencore was created as a shadow company to divert attention from Marc Rich & Co. in New York when the feds were going after Rich for fraud,” said Craig Copetas, the Bloomberg News reporter whose book Metal Men investigated the history of Mr. Rich and Glencore. “They were trying to hide all the bad stuff from Rich, but the judge didn't have anything to do with it.”
A few years earlier, in 1990, Mr. Rich had created Xstrata as a mineral exploitation subsidiary of his metal trading firm. They are separate now, although Glencore controls 38 per cent of Xstrata's shares either directly or through its wholly owned subsidiaries. The two firms share a chairman, Willy Strothotte, a long-time colleague of Mr. Rich's.
Mr. Davis and other Xstrata executives argue that the taint of Mr. Rich is unfair. According to U.S. media reports, Mr. Rich sold his major stake in Glencore for $500-million more than a decade ago, and while it is widely believed among metal traders that Mr. Rich still has his hands in the operation, there has never been any evidence of such control.
Glencore continues to be a controversial company: In 2004, the CIA charged that the company had received millions from the Iraqi oil-for-food program after paying millions in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime (Glencore denied these charges)
Who is Xstrata, anyway?
Is bid for Falconbridge a tad Rich?
Swiss offer puts PM to test
Xstrata's Falconbridge Bid Opposed by Canada Lawmakers, Unions
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