CKUA: Ten Years After The Privatization Putsch

CKUA the Alberta non profit public radio station is doing it's annual spring fund raiser.

CKUA is celebrating the tenth anniversary of the attempted privatization putsch that led to the closing of the station resulting in mass public protests and activism that got it back on the air. See my The End of Public ACCESS

That was the first ever fund raiser for the formally publicly funded station. And it has been going ever since.

It was begun eighty years ago in 1927 as a public broadcaster, founded as University of Alberta Radio. Today that tradition of public community broadcasting remains on campuses across Canada, including CJSR at the U of A.

Both stations now do annual fund raisers and for Canadians these are charitable tax write offs.

If you are an Albertan the government has increased the value of charitable donations as tax write offs in their last budget, " The charitable donations tax credit will almost double to 21 per cent.",as has the Federal Conservatives.

So dig deep and donate, and save yourself some taxes and support damn fine radio.

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Day of Mourning

Today is the International Day of Mourning for workers injured or killed on the job.


There are around a million
workplace injuries a year in Canada
— a compensable injury occurs
every seven seconds each
working day.

■ Deaths from workplace injury
average nearly a thousand a year. In
Canada, one worker is killed every
two hours of each working day.

■ Deaths from workplace diseases go
largely unrecorded and
uncompensated; they likely exceed
deaths from workplace injuries.

■ Despite this, many governments are
weakening health and safety rules
and their enforcement.

The Day of Mourning was declared by the Canadian Labour Congress in 1984. Steve Mahoney, chairman of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, said yesterday's occasion was especially sad with the death of a worker in Mississauga on Thursday and the TTC maintenance driver killed Monday. "Sadly it is a normal week. We lose two workers every week.

Every year on April 28th, the national Day of Mourning is observed to commemorate those killed or hurt by workplace injuries or disease. Last year, 101 people died in Ontario because of traumatic workplace injuries; and more died due to occupational disease.

The numbers are staggering. In Canada, some 855 employees die from work-related incidents each year, averaging more than 2 deaths every day. In fact, in 2005 the average increased to 3 fatalities a day. From 1993 to 2005, more than 11,123 people lost their lives due to workplace incidents. Another 900,000 per year are injured or become ill.

"In 1984,  there were 744 workplace fatalities recognized by compensation boards across
Canada," Moist said. "In 2005 there were 1,097 recognized fatalities. As
horrendous as these statistics are, the real picture is even worse because
compensation boards do not recognize a number of occupational illnesses."
   Since 1984 more than 19,000 Canadian workers have been killed on the job
and more than 20,000,000 have been injured. The Centre for the Study of Living
Standards reported that in 2005 the incidence of workplace fatalities in
Canada was 6.8 per 100,000 workers, up from 5.9 per 100,000 workers in 1993.
   "This workplace carnage has to stop and it can stop if governments put
their efforts into prevention programs and enforcing legislation," said Claude
Généreux, CUPE national secretary-treasurer.

In 2005 1,097* workplace deaths were recorded in Canada - up from 928
deaths the previous year. This 18% increase was driven mostly by the
rise in fatality rate from occupational disease, which accounted for
50.8% of all fatalities. Asbestos-related deaths make up more than half
of this number - as well as almost a third of all workplace fatalities.

SFL Lending Voice to Mourning Day Protest

100-thousand people a year die from exposure to Asbestos. That's according to the World Health Organization.

Canada exports over 200-thousand metric tonnes of Asbestos, mined in Quebec, to poor Asian countries that have few regulatory systems in place to deal with protecting those who work with the product.

The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour is supporting an American protest at the Canadian Embassy in Washington Saturday against the use of asbestos in third world countries.

Today is the International Day of Mourning for workers killed in their workplaces.

Day of mourning for workers hits home in Trail, BC

TRAIL, B.C. -- This year's day of mourning for workers killed or injured on the job will be particularly emotional given Monday's railway tragedy, say local organizers.

It is a really sad situation any time you have someone die on the job or any other place," said Al Graham, president of the West Kootenay Labour Council. "To have it happen only days before makes (the event) all the more sad and poignant."

The death of Lonnie Plasko in Monday's CP Rail accident in Trail will be noted at Saturday's ceremony, but the focus will remain on the safety of all workers, added Graham, a Teck Cominco plant worker and Trail city councillor.

"There are no accidents on the job site, only mistakes . . . Lonnie rode the train to the end to prevent others from being injured. Only time will tell what caused the problem. Our condolences go out to his family, and to all the families."

The international day has been marked for 25 years, "and the message is always the same: mourn for the dead and fight for the living," Graham said.

In B.C. last year, 160 workers died on the job or from occupational diseases, including four people who were asphyxiated in May at Teck's closed Sullivan Mine in Kimberley. There were 188 deaths in 2005 and a 10-year average of 150.

Two-and-a-half Workers a Week - The Price of Prosperity?

"Alberta has little to boast about in the area of workplace safety," says
AFL President Gil McGowan. "Workplace accidents are on the rise, despite - or
maybe because of - the boom."
 "Alberta workplaces kill 2 1/2 workers each week. Is that the price of
prosperity?" McGowan asks. "If so, it is too high for me."
    In 2006, 124 workers were killed due to work, and an additional 20
farmworker fatalities, who are not included in official figures. "There were
over 181,000 reported accidents last year in Alberta," observes McGowan. "An
increase of 7.4% in one year."
    "Why do so many workers die, year after year, with apparently little
progress? The answer I come up with is because none of us make occupational
health and safety the priority it needs to be."
    "The government is in denial, and employers are too interested in their
growing profit margins to take safety seriously," notes McGowan. "To hear
government spin doctors' talk, you would think we have the safest workplaces
in the world. However, their rhetoric is made up of misleading statistics and
hollow promises."
    McGowan argues accidents are on the rise because workplaces are too busy
and corners are being cut on safety. "Employers have the money right now to
ensure safety equipment and procedures are in place. By not doing it, they are
failing in their legal and moral responsibility."

   Alberta Workplace Fatalities

    -  In 2006, 124 workers were killed, plus 20 farmworkers
    -  In 2005, 144 workers were killed, plus 14 farmworkers
    -  This is the 10th straight year with more than 100 fatalities
    -  613 workers have been killed in the last five years
    -  Since 1905, 9,466 workers have been killed due to work (not including
       farmworkers)
    -  According to Statistics Canada, Alberta has the fourth highest
       fatality rate in Canada (deaths per 100,000 workers):
       -  Territories: 27.4
       -  Newfoundland: 11.7
       -  B.C.: 8.9
       -  Alberta: 8.0
       -  Ontario 6.5
       -  Quebec: 6.0
       -  PEI: 1.5 (lowest in Canada)

    Alberta Safety Statistics

    -  Number of reported workplace accidents, 2006: 181,159
       -  An increase of 7.4% from 2005
       -  Up 23.8% since 2000
    -  Number of person/days lost to injury, 2006: 1,477,000 (up 9.7% from
       2005)
    -  Percentage drop in WCB Premiums 2005 to 2006: 9.0%
  

Here are my posts on this;

Danger At Work

In Canada Work Kills

Work Sucks

Psycho Bosses Depressed Workers

Which Is True

Outlaw Working Alone

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workers, injuries, assault, crime, work, labour, labor, government, public sector workers, service workers, Canada, job, dangers on the job, assault, crime, unions, working alone

Another Privatization Failure

Here is another sad story of a Canadian city attempting to reinvent government; the neo-conservative experiment in the private delivery of public services.

As in how much is this going to cost us if it fails?!

Ultimately its failure will cost taxpayers more, which always gets swept under the rug when privatization is initially pushed as low cost alternative to the public sector delivery of services.

OC Transpo, which is owned and operated by the city, contracted-out Para Transpo to First Bus, a private company that specializes in outsourcing public transit.

Except, I now understand, where there's no profit in it. First Bus, along with the rest of the private sector, isn't interested in providing the service.

And we will be left wondering what Ottawa's public transit for the disabled could have looked like if, instead of providing profits for Laidlaw and First Bus, we'd directly invested that money in the service over the last ten years.

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Ottawa, contracting out, bus,disabled,First Bus, Laidlaw, privatization, transit

Just In Time War

When capital needs to speed up production of surplus value, profit, it makes workers work faster, longer, it takes its investment in each worker and forces them to produce more. This is known as the speed up.

The development of Toyotaization of manufacturing is known as 'Just In Time Production'. Production is set at an upper limit, no excess stock is manufactured any goods needed are then produced on as need basis.

This is the rational behind the Bush Surge in Iraq. The reservists and volunteers are the working class and the factory conditions are replicated within the military;

Army Extends Iraq Tours to 15 Months

Pentagon extends tours for US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan

15 Month Tours in Iraq? The War is Breaking Our Military

This is no different than the forced Over Time (OT) that workers in America have faced since the 1980's. Reductions in workers, layoffs, etc. led to increased OT for those that remained, increasing America's productivity. Productivity, the creation of surplus value; profit, was the mantra of the corporations adopting their management models to the need of capital.

And since these same neo-cons were in charge of the war in Iraq, they determined to use a corporatist model of political economy of war. While workers in the G6 produce material, those same workers in Iraq and Afghanistan destroy the excess production.

Since the U.S. armed forces,like Canada's, are the surplus working class, an all volunteer force, they act as a force on production; profit. Not only for the War Profiteers, but for those in the service of the State and those who having been formally associated with the State are now private contractors.

Since the U.S. has no extra armed forces it can put in the field it plays numbers games. This has been the whole reason d'etre of the neo-cons. Rumsfeld is gone but his policy lives one.

A volunteer army is working class, they joined not to fight in Iraq but because prior to 9/11 they were promised jobs, and training in job skills. And like their counter parts in industrial capitalist economies, the working class who fights Capitals wars are insufficient for their purposes. Thus the privatization of war in Iraq, the hiring of mercenaries to do your dirty work. Even with the privatization of security, cleaning, cooking and other services there are still not enough troops in the regular military to conduct this neo-con war, so their shifts at work are extended.

This is Class War according to the neo-con political economy; speed up and just in time production. The surge is the speed up, the lack of troops is the just in time model. Further added to this was the other cornerstone of neo-con political economy; privatization. There are as many private security forces in Iraq as their are U.S. military personnel. War conducted on a business model is Rumsfelds legacy which is legacy of failure. Red flag or white flag? Bush wants somebody else to run Iraq war


See:

A Surge in Terrorism

Sadr Surge

Surge In Iraq

Vietnamization of Iraq

Calling A Spade A Shovel

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Iraq, Bush, surge, Police
war, terror, terrorism, imperialism,

Privatizing Healthcare

The Law is an ass. In this case the flaws of Canada's Health Accord act are used to get around the principle and spirit of the law. In fact while saying they are not costing the public system a loss of doctors, they are in fact doing just that. But not from B.C.'s jurisdiction, but from the public health care systems in Alberta and Manitoba, where doctors are just as scarce. Which shows why a decentralized provincial system which allows competition for the same human resources is joke when if comes to equalization of services in a federalist state.

Private BC clinic to reopen

The False Creek Urgent Care Centre, which was criticized by some as a direct assault on Canada's public health-care system, agreed to stop admitting B.C. patients within days of its opening last December. Now, after obtaining legal advice and rounding up a roster of out-of-province doctors, the clinic is on stronger legal footing, Chris Freimond said.

And Health Minister George Abbott said this time it appears the private clinic is operating within the law.

The Canada Health Act and the province's Medicare Protection Act prohibit doctors or clinics from billing patients for medically necessary services that are covered by publicly funded medicare.

To get around this legal barrier, Dr. Godley has recruited a team of emergency physicians from outside the province, Mr. Freimond said.

Mr. Abbott said if the clinic hires doctors from outside the B.C. Medical Services Plan, then no laws are being broached.

Mr. Abbott said he was told the clinic has hired two doctors from Alberta and one from Manitoba.

By bringing doctors from out of province, Dr. Godley said the clinic will not be raiding the public system. He added that the clinic will relieve pressure on hospital emergency rooms and help reduce waiting times.

See:

Medicare

Healthcare


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Crisis in the Ukraine

Despite all the protest flags and mobilizations of party faithful the reality behind the political crisis in the Ukraine stripped of the rhetoric;
a privatization putsch.

Competing Oligarchs and their political parties vying for the transformation of the Ukraine from State Capitalism to Monopoly Capitalism.

The death of the Orange Revolution and the continuation of the capitalist revolution in the Ukraine.

Although the two leaders are separated by such ideological differences as whether Ukraine should join NATO or more closely align with Russia, much of the wrangling has been widely viewed as efforts by their financial backers and power-brokers seeking to protect business interests. Several business groups are known to be vying for influence over lucrative enterprises — for example, ventures connected to the country`s natural gas transport system.

Yanukovich has signed up to a government programme that is broadly in favour of a market economy and a pro-western foreign policy. The government will try to complete talks on joining the WTO before the end of this year; it will allow private sales of agricultural land; and it will start to negotiate a free trade area with the EU. Those who have met Yanukovich recently report that he has made a big effort to spruce up his style and become a more "western" politician - perhaps his American PR advisers have helped.

Expensive Enemies
Even these expenses pale, however, in comparison with the real cost of the ongoing struggle for power. Viktor Yanukovych's return to power last year was not only his personal triumph and that of his Party of the Regions – it was also a victory for the many business interests associated with the prime minister, particularly the company System Capital Management (SCM), which belongs to Rinat Akhmetov, the richest man in Ukraine; the corporation Interpipe, headed by Leonid Kuchma's son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk; and the group UkrSib, which belongs to Alexander Yaroslavsky and Ernest Goliev.

Consequently, businessmen sympathetic to the prime minister's opponents, the Our Ukraine and Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko parties, have been cut out of the loop. Incidentally, the last few months have seen privatization actively moving forward in Ukraine under the supervision of the government Property Fund (FGI), whose leader Valentina Semenyuk is a member of the Socialist Party, which is a partner in Viktor Yanukovych's "national unity coalition." Coincidentally or not, the decisions that the FGI has been making lately have been unfavorable for businessmen associated with Yulia Tymoshenko. The noisiest scandal involved the recent privatization of the holding company Luganskteplovoz: although Privat Group, which is owned by long-term Tymoshenko associate Igor Kolomoisky, wanted to bid on shares in the company, the FGI ruled that only two Russian companies, Demikhovsky Mashinostroitelny Zavod (Moscow Oblast) and the managing company of Bryansk Mashinostroitelny Zavod (both companies are controlled by the group Transmashkholding), would be allowed to participate in the auction. When Luganskteplovoz eventually went to Bryansk Mashinostroitelny Zavod for $58.5 million, the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) charged that the deal was illegal and initiated a parliamentary investigation lead by BYuT deputy Andrey Kozhemyakin, the head of the Committee for Privatization Issues.

The fiercest battles over privatization still lie ahead, however. This year the FGI is preparing to auction off shares in Ukrtelekom, and Mr. Akhmetov's SCM has already expressed interest. The Ukrainian government has also given its consent to a broad privatization campaign in the electrical energy sector. Shares will be offered for sale in numerous government-owned regional energy companies, including Prikarpatenergo, Lvovenergo, Sumyenergo, Chernigovenergo, and Poltavaoblenergo, and experts are already predicting that SCM, Interpipe, and Privat will fight tooth and nail over the spoils.

Such a state of affairs does not sit well with the rest of the heavyweights in the Ukrainian market, who are now determined to see a change in the current political landscape. In large measure, the actions of Yulia Tymoshenko and Our Ukraine are driven by the expectations of businessmen claiming offense at the hands of the government. "Yanukovych is lobbying not only for the interests of Akhmetov but also for those of Russian business, which the Luganskteplovoz affair shows," believes Vadim Karasev, the head of the Kiev Global Strategy Institute. "If BYuT and Our Ukraine succeed in getting early elections called and form a coalition that ends up holding the reins of power, the oligarchs standing behind them, i.e., Privat, will also win. That is the cost of dissolving the Rada – Ukraine as a business asset."

OP-ED by Anders Aslund, International Herald Tribune (IHT)
Europe, Thursday, February 10, 2005

The economic programs of the two presidents are remarkably similar. Both
advocate a free but social market economy. Both countries have a flat
personal income tax of 13 percent. Ukraine needs to catch up with Russia
in market economic legislation, but with rising authoritarianism, the role
of the state is growing in Russian business.
.
The critical issue is the property rights of the oligarchs. Putin has given
up much of his initially good economic policies by ruthlessly going after
one oligarch, leaving the property rights of others in doubt. Yushchenko
must avoid repeating his mistake. Yet he campaigned for the re-privatization
of Kryvorizhstal, the last, biggest and most controversial privatization in
Ukraine. Having been bought by Ukraine's two wealthiest oligarchs (Rinat
Akhmetov and Viktor Pinchuk), it is a palatable political target. The
challenge to Yushchenko is to limit re-privatization to the politically
necessary and then sanctify property rights. For economic growth,
Ukraine needs more privatization rather than re-privatization.
.
Ukraine's "orange revolution" has made democracy look modern again.
Yushchenko's challenge now is to balance calls for social justice with the
need for secure property rights. -30-

Foreign Affairs - Ukraine's Orange Revolution - Adrian Karatnycky

Corruption accelerated after Kuchma's election as president in 1994. The former director of the Soviet Union's largest missile factory, Kuchma brought with him ambitious and greedy politicians from his home base, the eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk. The greediest of the crew was Pavlo Lazarenko, who, in June 2004, was convicted in U.S. District Court of fraud, conspiracy to launder money, money laundering, and transportation of stolen property. Lazarenko, currently free on $86 million bail, was accused of having stolen from the state and extorted from businesses hundreds of millions of dollars between 1995 and 1997, when he served for 12 months as first deputy prime minister and for 7 months as prime minister. When the scale of Lazarenko's corruption became known, some Ukrainian leaders were outraged. But Kuchma could not have been surprised. In 2000, his former bodyguard leaked hundreds of hours of transcripts of the president's private conversations. On the tapes, Kuchma is heard dispensing favors, paying massive kickbacks, and conspiring to suppress his opponents--making it clear that the president sat at the head of a vast criminal system.

Several factors facilitated Ukraine's massive corruption. High inflation meant that until the mid-1990s, many cross-border financial transactions were conducted using a barter system, which was easily falsified to understate the amount of goods traded; resources that were exported to Russia ostensibly for energy often brought huge kickbacks instead. Wide-ranging privatization also enabled government insiders and cronies to buy state enterprises at bargain-basement prices. Steel mills, today worth several billion dollars, were bought for a few million. Regional energy companies fell prey to the same forces. The tax inspectorate was another weakness in the system, as the government manipulated it to gain financial and political advantages: competitors could be harassed or forced out of business by inspections and fines, and oligarchs could easily evade paying taxes.

In general, the oligarchs were able to operate their businesses without fear of independent oversight. Under Ukraine's constitution, local government officials are not elected but appointed by the president, who allowed oligarchic groups to create local enclaves headed by their allies. In the Zakarpattya (Transcarpathia) region, local and central government officials enabled one oligarchic consortium to amass vast fortunes from the lumber industry by stripping the forests of their trees. Now, parts of this once richly forested mountain region have been dangerously depleted, compounding the problems caused by deforestation in the Soviet era.

Over time, several Ukrainian oligarchic clans became dominant in the young nation. Medvedchuk, who became presidential chief of staff in December 2002, represented the Kiev clan, which controlled regional energy and timber companies and invested in broadcast media. The Dnipropetrovsk clan, which invested in the energy pipeline industries, included Viktor Pinchuk, now Kuchma's son-in-law. A powerful group from the eastern coal-mining Donbass region included metallurgy baron Rinat Akhmetov, the postcommunist world's second-wealthiest man, with a net worth of $3.5 billion.

Each interest group established its own political party in parliament. The Kiev clan ran the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (United). The Donetsk oligarchs created the Party of Regions, the ranks of which included a local governor who later became prime minister: Yanukovich. The Dnipropetrovsk group created and backed the Labor Party. And the influence did not stop there. The oligarchs owned or controlled their own national broadcast media and local and national newspapers. Each was capable of massively funding political campaigns in the emerging pseudodemocratic system.

In the late 1990s, the oligarchic clans largely remained under the control of Ukraine's powerful president. But in 2000-2001, Kuchma's power began to weaken as the wealth of the robber barons grew significantly and Kuchma's personal corruption and criminality started coming to light. Eventually, Kuchma even faced a vigorous opposition campaign to impeach him for his role in an abduction that ended with the murder of the investigative journalist Heorhiy Gongadze. But the campaign stalled as the president and his backers blocked efforts to institute the legal procedure needed to formally make the charges.

CHANGES

It was this turbulent period that saw the metamorphosis of Yushchenko from colorless central banker into charismatic opposition leader. In December 1999, pressure from Western donor countries seeking deeper economic reforms resulted in his appointment as prime minister. As chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine in the 1990s, Yushchenko had tamed rampant inflation and introduced responsible fiscal controls. In taking the reins of the government, he was determined to impose fiscal discipline and rigorously collect tax revenues and privatization receipts. To achieve these goals, Yushchenko needed to crack down on Ukraine's crony capitalism. He formed an alliance with one of the system's own--Yulia Tymoshenko, a former energy mogul who had run afoul of the Kuchma regime. With Tymoshenko's help, Yushchenko managed in just a year to recoup more than $1 billion in revenues that had been siphoned off by energy oligarchs.

Ukrainian society was also experiencing profound changes of its own, including the rise of a significant middle class in Kiev and other urban centers. In 2002, thanks in part to the ongoing effects of policies enacted by Yushchenko when he was prime minister, GDP grew by 5.2 percent; the next year, it increased 9.4 percent; and in 2004 it grew by 12.5 percent. From 1999 to 2004, Ukraine's GDP nearly doubled. Although this growth mostly benefited a narrow circle of oligarchs, it also spawned many new millionaires and a new middle class. These new economic forces resented the latticework of corruption that constantly ensnared them--from politically motivated multiple tax audits to shakedowns by local officials connected to business clans.

For Richer and For Poorer

The FSU's troubled relations with its wealthy

To Ukrainians, the wealthy are like thieves who stole all the money they had in the bank, along with the titles to their homes, then drive up in luxury cars and threaten to beat up their families if they don't pay the rent.

Take Renat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man with $2.3bn, now under investigation in a murder case going back a decade. Rather than face questioning, he skipped town. Now the authorities have raided his company in search of evidence. Of course we all hope that if Akhmetov does go to court, it will be for legitimate reasons, the court proceedings will be fair, and the outcome will be just. Yushchenko said rule of law would be a priority, but the strange lack of closure on the case against Borys Kolyesnykov, Akhmetov's fellow Donetsk tycoon, makes it seem as though the Ukrainian justice system is still not up to doing its job.

What goes on in the court may or may not be just, but what the average voters see is the following: in the course of a decade or so, while ordinary Ukrainians lost all their savings, this man made $2.4bn. Did he create any companies? No, he bought them or cobbled them together from other companies. Did he rebuild the crumbling businesses of Eastern Europe? No, they're still crumbling. Did he create new processes, invent new machines, formulate effective new management strategies? No, no, and no. Akhmetov did not make his money on innovation. He and the people like him are not like capitalists as I know them from Silicon Valley, they are like the Marxist ideal of capitalists: people who make money without adding anything. Like robber barons without Rockefeller Center, or the Carnegie Endowment, or new railroads, for that matter. [update: Reader dlm has rightly reminded me how deeply connected the philanthropic work of, for example, Carnegie was connected to his belief in Christian charity. Of course this is also something that is not yet a strong positive influence in Eastern Europe after decades of state opposition to Christianity.]

The “evolving oligarch”

Business oligarchs like Fridman continue to power the Russian economy — and to hold the fate of minority shareholders in their hands. According to a December 2001 study by Brunswick UBS Warburg, a Moscow-based investment bank, eight financial-industrial groups control the 64 largest private companies in Russia. Among the prominent oligarchs cited in the study alongside Fridman and Khodorkovsky were Roman Abramovich (Russia's second-richest man, who is merging his oil operations with Khodorkovsky's), Oleg Deripaska (who owns the largest aluminum producer in the country) and Vladimir Potanin (who used part of his oil proceeds to corner Russia's nickel output). Critics contend that this concentration of wealth creates barriers to competition, makes it more difficult for new businesses to get started and offers portfolio investors very limited choices on the local equity markets. The big financial-industrial groups “aren't acting very differently from monopolies anywhere else,” says Christof Ruehl, chief economist at the World Bank's Moscow office.“

Defenders of the Russian capitalist model argue not only that it isn't broken but that it doesn't need fixing. Only China's economy is expanding faster, they note. Besides, say the optimists, oligarchs have moderated their hard-boiled approach to business. But skeptics remain. “With Russia's kind of growth, it's hard to convince people that business and banking reforms are urgent,” says Stephen Jennings, chief executive officer of Renaissance Capital, a leading Moscow-based investment bank.

Fridman is often cited as a paragon of the evolving oligarch. “He played some rough games earlier in his career,” says Marshall Goldman, a Harvard University economics professor whose recent book, The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry, offers a scathing vision of buccaneer capitalism. “But nowadays he looks like one of the more enlightened entrepreneurs.”
Nothing better illustrates Fridman's progress from notoriety to celebrity than his dealings with his new partner, U.K. oil giant BP. Even though BP once sued Fridman for seizing valuable petroleum fields for which the British company had paid close to a half-billion dollars, this past June BP signed a deal to pay $6.15 billion — the largest foreign investment in post-Communist Russia's history — for half of Fridman's TNK, which controls the same oil fields. Between these two bookends is a rough-and-tumble saga about “learning to do business in Russia — the hard way,” says Robert Dudley, the BP vice president who has been named chief executive officer of the joint venture, TNK-BP.

Speech before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on March 12, 1999:

Dimitri K. Simes
President, The Nixon Center
Author, After the Collapse: Russia Seeks Its Place as a Great Power

Russian robber barons were not builders. Russian robber barons were manipulators who knew how to build connections which would allow them to privatize on the cheap without paying almost anything, and then they would immediately open bank accounts in Switzerland. Thus, they were taking money from the country, and because of that they were very afraid to have any one as Russian president who was not one of them. From that standpoint, Yeltsin was a deal. He had presided over the privatization; he could be counted upon to protect their interests. These same people who were Yeltsin’s official advisors were in charge of major networks. You’d have the money going from Russian central bank, to private banks, and the private banks would immediately give the money to Yeltsin’s campaign. There was really no difference between the Russian state treasury and Yeltsin’s personal campaign chest. That’s how those elections were conducted.

The Decision to restructure to a Market Economy was made by Soviet Intellectuals

Soviet intellectuals studied both their economy and that of the West closely and made a conscious decision for change. Once the decision to change to a market economy was made, these same intellectuals had little to say about the actual restructuring:

When I [Fred Weir] came here seven years ago at the outset of perestroika, there was very little belief in socialism among the generation dubbed the golden children. These sons and daughters of the Communist party elite had received excellent educations, had the best that the society could give them, and only aspired to live like their Western counterparts. Many had high positions in the Communist Party, but were absolutely exuberant Westernizes, pro-capitalists, and from very early in the perestroika period, this was their agenda.... People who thought they were going to be the governing strata in a new society are [now] losing their jobs, being impoverished and becoming bitter. The intellectuals, for instance—whose themes during the Cold War were intellectual freedom, human rights, and so on—had a very idealized view of Western capitalism. They have been among the groups to suffer the most from the early stages of marketization as their huge network of institutes and universities are defunded.53

Those golden children of the communist elite are undoubtedly quite silent as they gaze at their once proud country lying prostrate at the feet of imperial capital. The population of Russia has been falling at the astounding rate of 800,000 a year, birth rates have plummeted to the lowest in the world, and only 1-in-4 children are born healthy. There are dramatic increases in the number of children born with physical and mental impairment, disease is rampant, and the average lifespan of Russian men has fallen from 65 years to 58, below that of Ghana.54

Sale of the Century by Chrystia Freeland is a highly recommended masterly study on the collapse of Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union.55 However, as a correspondent for the Financial Times when doing her research, the author focuses only on finance and politics and ignores other crucial factors. Ignored were: basic economics, Russia’s highly motivated labor ready to make the transition to capitalism as addressed above by Fred Weir, the National Endowment for Democracy’s funding and management of Yeltsin’s election, the American election specialists orchestrating of that election,r the Harvard Institute for International Development’s advising Russia’s “young reformers” throughout that collapse, and how the massive imports of consumer products both collapsed the economic multiplier and sucked the wealth out of Russia.

Without the economic multiplier as money from wages circulates, a country essentially has no economy. Yet, while intending to document the full history of the attempt to restructure the Russian economy, the author fails to notice that the “young reformers” paid no attention to primary production in Russia. These neophytes were so immersed in classical Western philosophy that they thought all there was to establishing capitalism was to create rich capitalists by giving title of valuable resource industries and banks to a few “oligarchs,” who, without a doubt, pulled off one of the greatest thefts of social wealth in history.

In the West, preventing the rise to political power of labor is a primary consideration. Thus the highly motivated “golden children” (the latest generation of leaders) who were ready to restructure Russia’s economy were never given the opportunity. Instead, the neophyte agents of capitalism (the “Young Reformers”) were intent on the obviously impossible job of telescoping the 70 years of the age of American robber barons into less than 10 years. The “golden children” running Russia’s economy wanted to restructure to capitalism and would have understood how to do so. But labor in charge of any part of an economy is anathema to theorists of Western philosophy. So the only people offered a serious opportunity to buy Russia’s productive industries for a fraction of its true value were the new “oligarchs” with no experience in running any part of the Russian economy. Without any background on running industries or much of anything else, these oligarchs were expected to become the leading capitalists of Russia.

No country has ever developed under the principles imposed upon post Soviet Russia. In fact, economic protections for the developed world are all in place and functioning and no wealthy nation would consider subjecting their economies to such harsh economic medicine as was imposed on Russia. To double, triple, and quadruple prices while shutting down industry right and left and destroying consumer savings would be taught as a recipe for disaster in any economics class.

The easiest way to understand the failure of the restructuring of the Russian economy is by outlining a sensible restructuring plan:

(1) The massive savings of Russian citizens should have been protected;

(2) Industry and media shares should have been distributed to all citizens;s

(3) modern consumer product industries should have been built, the bonds to be repaid from profits (the workers being owners would help insure those profits);

(4) until those industries were established and the economy competitive, import restrictions should have stayed in force;

(5) as fast as those modern industries came on stream, Russia’s obsolete huge factories would have reduced production and shut down in stages;

(6) an inescapable society monthly collection of landrent, as per Chapter 24, should have been placed into law, including royalties on natural resources such as oil, minerals, timber, and communications spectrums;

(7) citizens should have received title to their homes through paying landrent taxes in monthly payments (they had massive savings with which to do that);

(8) farmers, businesses and industry should also have been given title to their land with the legal responsibility of paying landrent to society;

(9) locally owned banks (better yet credit unions) should have been put in place to fund consumers, farmers, and producers;

(10) and, with those massive consumer savings and financing available, retailers would spring up automatically and this would be the ideal moment to establish an efficient distribution system as per Chapters 27 and 28.

There are many other factors to consider but the above would have been the foundation of a workable restructure plan. Subtle monopolization of technology is the biggest barrier. Virtually any successful restructure plan must provide access to technology, resources and markets and Russia’s massive resources could have been bartered for that technology as opposed to its current hemorrhaging to the West. Patent licensing could have been imposed by law. This is accepted as legal in international law, was being tested in court with AIDS drugs in South Africa, and the major drug companies capitulated rather than go to trial.

The reason these suggestions were not followed is obvious, labor would have ended up with enormous wealth and political power. If they had been given the chance, those egalitarian trained and idealistic “golden children” could have established democratic-cooperative-(superefficient)-capitalism as opposed to today’s dependency on the periphery of imperial-centers-of-capital. If that had happened, the secret that no power-structure in the imperial centers had yet given their citizens full rights would have been exposed.

See:

Back in the USSR

Oligarchs

Tymoshenko 'Evita'of the Ukraine

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P3 Failure In Alberta

What raving leftist said this?

"Although it appears that ideology has ruled over common sense. Monopolies have to be rigorously regulated. When they aren’t – the Edmonton Regional Airports Authority and CLS being two obvious examples – they get out of hand. Having the private sector market alcohol has led to competitive pricing, extended business hours and a huge ramp up in selection. It hasn’t been all bad. Even though the trend recently has seen the mom-and-pops being squeezed out by the big chains."

Neil Waugh in the Edmonton Sun on the failure of the current privatization monopoly in liquor distribution in Alberta.

You see when the government privatized its liquor business it sold off its buildings at fire sale prices, and sold the rights to its lucrative government run distribution business, warehousing and trucks included, to a private company. But that company also maintained the State's monopoly. And as a P3 it is not subject to the usual checks and balances that even the promoters of P3's say need to be in place.

The Alberta Liquor Association called it the “disastrous warehouse mess.” The Alberta Hotel and Lodging Association said it’s had a “serious and negative impact” on its members.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association notes that the outfit running the province’s liquor distribution monopoly “enjoys” a deal where there is “no risk of losing market share due to poor service.”

But more to the point, the new Alberta Tories’ first dive into the P3 shark tank appears to have popped its top.

All this and a whole lot more was revealed in a damning report by Pricewaterhouse Coopers into what’s wrong with the province’s liquor distribution system released by the government yesterday. The very first line of the report warned that “a simple, expedient solution to Alberta’s current liquor supply chain challenges does not exist.”

But at least we may now get a liquor warehouse and distribution operator, that has a contract with Alberta taxpayers with performance measures and penalties. Because right now Connect Logistics Services has a sweet deal where “no incentives or disincentives exist for good/poor performance,” the report determined.

But the Pricewaterhouse report is a clear warning that public/private partnerships aren’t the dream team that the PCs would have us believe. Especially if no one is willing to keep a firm hand on the private partner.

But now the Stelmach government is determined to charge ahead. Ring roads are going to be run as P3s under long-term contracts. There’s talk of “bundles” of schools turned over to the private sector. The new Calgary hospital was originally shopped around as a P3. There were no takers. The liquor warehouse report may have just told us why.

See

Privatization


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Israel Hacker Heaven

Israel a Hotbed of Internet Attacks, Report Says

Because Israel is a hotbed of corporate malfeasance, spying and corruption.

24 December 2001

Fox News, beginning mid-December, reported a four-part series on alleged Israeli spying on the US telecommunication systems through firms which provide telephone billing and assist FBI wiretaps. Recently the series was withdrawn by Fox News without explanation. The series has been recovered from private archives for publication here.

It is also the source for software tied to the American corporate, military and intelligence establishment.

For the past five years, there have been growing fears that somehow, outsiders have been able to penetrate into the confidential computer files of government agencies, business entities such as banks and defense contractors and individuals.

Some of this appeared to be an attempt to obtain highly classified information that could be of use to others and in other instances, attempts to get into the personal, and corporate, bank accounts of individuals and corporations.

This is a brief study of some of the salient aspects of this problem of computer theft and espionage and we will start with the discovery of massive computer penetration in Israel. We will then consider further penetrations of American business and intelligence computer systems by agents of a foreign government as opposed to confidence men and then conclude with the use of the same methods to commit frauds on the gullible in the United States and elsewhere.

Some of the first public notice of this problem surfaced first in Israel in 2004 when Israeli law enforcement cyber crime experts discovered that what is known as a Trojan Horse (illicit spyware planted on an unsuspecting computer) had been inserted into about 60 major Israeli businesses. Isreali law enforcement subsequently indicted various members of three of Israel’s largest private investigative agencies on charges of criminal fraud. These spyware plants were in various commercial areas such as : Israeli military contracting, telephone systems, cable television, finance, automobile and cigarette importing, journalism and high technology. These intrusive spyware plants were nearly identical with ones developed by the American NSA and widely used inside the United States to glean political, economic and counter-intelligence information from a huge number of American businesses and agencies. Israeli investigators believed that there was illicit cooperation between the American agency and a counterpart in Israel.

These Trojan horses that penetrated the Israeli computers came packaged inside a compact disc or were sent as an e-mail message that appeared to be from an institution or a person that the victims thought they knew very well. Once the program was installed, it functioned every time the victim’s computer system was in use, logging keystrokes or collecting sensitive documents and passwords before transmitting the information elsewhere.

This clandestine theft of valuable commercial, military and political secrets is certainly not limited to Israel and many important agencies and individuals have become increasingly concerned about what is called “phishing” in which both con men and foreign (and domestic) intelligence agencies can locate, capture and use valuable personal, political and financial information. In September of 2005, the Anti-Phishing Working Group, an ad hoc group of corporate and law enforcement groups that track identity theft and other online crimes, said it had received more than 13,000 unique reports of phishing schemes in that month alone, up from nearly 7,000 in the month of October, 2004..

In late 2005, a new form of phishing, called “spear-phishing” emerged.

.So-called spear-phishing is a highly concentrated and far more effectove version of phishing. That's because those behind the schemes bait their hooks for specific victims instead of casting a broad, ill-defined net across cyberspace hoping to catch throngs of unknown victims.

Spear-phishing, say security specialists, is much harder to detect than phishing. Bogus e-mail messages and Web sites not only look like near perfect replicas of communiqués from e-commerce companies like eBay or its PayPal service, banks or even a victim's employer, but are also targeted at people known to have an established relationship with the sender being mimicked. American banks such as Chase and Bank of America are among those whose names are faked and also the online auction house of Ebay and the international money transfer firm of PayPal receive considerable attention from the international conmen and credit thieves. These thieves are not necessarily gangs operating for financial gain but also include theft of trade secrets, private corporate banking and highly sensitive military and political information.

Court remands top Israeli execs in industrial espionage affair
The Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court Monday remanded several people from some of Israel's leading commercial companies and private investigators suspected of commissioning and carrying out industrial espionage against their competitors, which was carried out by planting Trojan horse software in their competitors' computers.

Others said the combination of Israel's high-tech culture, fine-tuned in secretive military units, and a penchant for independent thinking made the scandal inevitable. Some of the world's top computer security companies, including Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., are Israeli.
The list of clients implicated in the affair reads like a Who's Who of Israeli blue chips: Amdocs Ltd., a business-software maker that trades on the New York Stock Exchange; the Cellcom phone carrier and three subsidiaries of the Bezeq phone monopoly, a long-distance carrier, cell phone provider and satellite TV firm.

At least one veteran fraud investigator in Israel said he wasn't shocked by revelations of widespread spear-phishing and the corporate espionage scandal last spring. "This case is not unconventional," said Boaz Guttman, a lawyer and former head of the cybercrimes unit for the Israeli national police. "Most of the crimes are not reported. The police here and in the United States only know about 5 percent of the cases. Hackers don't take a break, not one minute.

"Everybody is spying against everybody in Israel," added Mr. Guttman, who said he was representing one of the suspects in the Trojan horse investigation but was not authorized to reveal his client's identity. "You cannot be surprised by this because this is the way of life for companies today."

The Chalabi files recovered by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement provided enough information for the FBI to begin a criminal investigation of a Baghdad-Jerusalem-Washington syndicate that is profiteering from America's misguided invasion and occupation of Iraq. The investigation led to shadowy Israeli-owned firms registered in Delaware and Panama that were fraudulently obtaining contracts and sub-contracts to provide everything from cellular phones and VIP security to the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners using seconded members of Israel's feared Unit 1391 "special techniques" interrogation center. Not only were these firms operating in Iraq with the concurrence of the neo-cons in the Pentagon but some U.S. government officials were personally benefiting from the contracts.


The Economic Espionage law authorizes the FBI to act against foreign intelligence gathering agencies toiling on US soil with the aim of garnering proprietary economic information. During the Congressional hearings that preceded the law, the FBI estimated that no less that 23 governments, including the Israeli, French, Japanese, German, British, Swiss, Swedish, and Russian, were busy doing exactly that. Louis Freeh, the former director of the FBI, put it succinctly: "Economic Espionage is the greatest threat to our national security since the Cold War."



Joining scandal-hit NETeller and Torex Retail, Israeli mobile software group Adamind became the latest firm on the junior market to stand accused of nefarious behaviour. The revelation last Monday that it was being investigated by the Financial Services Authority on suspicion of insider dealing caused some critics again to question the efficacy of Aim's regulatory system, which is often blamed for letting inferior companies loose on investors.

Quick: What do Hamas terrorists have in common with Martha Stewart? No, we're not talking about their public-approval ratings. Rather, both may have drawn unwanted scrutiny in part because of the same piece of software.

The data-mining algorithms of ClearForest, based in New York City, are at work within both Israeli security agencies and NASDAQ. Israel uses them to drill for hidden connections among suspected terrorists: say, a pattern of phone calls shortly before each of several suicide bombings. NASDAQ uses the same software to detect block trades of stock quietly placed just before the release of company news — including sales by relatives of ImClone's founder, Sam Waksal, who this fall pleaded guilty to insider-trading charges, and his friend Martha Stewart, who remains under investigation (and has denied any wrongdoing).

Both NASDAQ and Israel's security services are sprawling organizations, bombarded daily with terabytes of information, any bit of which may prevent a catastrophe, whether measured in lives or in retirement savings lost to fraud. And these days, data-mining software, combined with technologies that connect disparate computer systems and databases, is making it possible for everyone from police departments to clothing merchants to global manufacturers to search through ever expanding data warehouses and draw valuable connections that would otherwise be lost to human eyes.

Israeli Citizenship has been linked to U.S. trading scandals and accusations of money laundering against Michael Zwebner. Mr. Zwebner is a good pal of PM Ehud Olmert and the disgraced rapist; Israeli President Moshe Katsav


Dear Jerusalem Post,
In searching for any mention of a Michael Zwebner and his company's business dealings (Universal Communications Systems Inc.) in Israel I came across a series of articles by a person of that name writing on commodities or metals for the 'Jerusalem Post' as late as 1997.They then seem to have come to a halt,for whatever reason,as a search of his name on your internet sight will show.

I was most surprised that mention of his most recent project,an 'AirWater machine', supposedly to provide water for the Israeli military, did not appear in your reputable newspaper.Also no mention was made of a demonstration that supposedly took place at the 'AQUA Israel 2004' exhibition.Nor was there any mention of his company's meeting with Israeli President Moshe Katzov, who was quite flattering of Mr.Zwebner's product, according to a BUSINESS WIRE PR put out by Mr.Zwebner's company, located in Florida and incorporated in Nevada,I believe.

Another of Mr.Zwebner's BUSINESSWIRE press releases further claims the U.S.army in Iraq has made 'an order to supply and ship a number of AirWater machines to the Gulf for immediate delivery to the US Army/Coalition Forces.'Another article from Australia interviewing Mr.Zwebner claimed the order was completed and the AirWater machines of the company are now operating in Iraq.

There are some posting messages on www.ragingbull.com's 'ucsy',or Universal Communication System Inc., message board that are less than flattering.Some people believe the sole purpose of the press releases has been what is termed a 'pump and dump' of a penny stock. Further another website that is a host of consumer complaints hints that President Moshe Katzov actually received remuneration for helping Mr.Zwebner tout or promote this stock whose shares were then dumped on U.S. or other investors as it was touted in fraudulent prs by the company.

http://www.fundstreet.org/...
December 13, 2005

Cerberus-Gabriel hedge fund buys stake in Leumi Bank
Israel is on its way to privatization. The banking sector is amongst the first ones to take a step in this direction. Bank Leumi was in the market recently and attracted bids from several players. Bidder names include strategic investors like Lev Leviev, IDB and Bill Davidson and also financial contenders like UBS, Deutsche Bank and Citibank. However the winner was an American Hedge fund, Cerberus-Gabriel.

Cerberus-Gabriel has purchased 9.9% of the shares of the bank. The purchase of this stake was for approximately $500 million. The fund also has the option of buying an additional 10.01% in the bank. This will bring the total shares quantum to 20% and is roughly valued at $1 billion. This option of additional purchase has to be utilized with in the next one and a half years.

Ehud Olmert, Finance Minister of Israel, is reportedly quite satisfied with the outcome. He feels that this is a positive development and will help the over all Israeli economy. He is amongst the top promoters of privatization move. In his statement he also mentioned that the purchase will ensure healthy competition between the banks and will definitely contribute a lot to the local market.

Another person quite happy with the development is Yaron Zelekha, the treasury's accountant-general, who led the tender. He sees it as fulfillment of the promise made to the people of Israel about privatization of the entire banking system in 2005.

Isreali Citizenship is good for avoiding prosecution in the U.S. as well.

The fugitive former chief executive of leading voice-mail-software maker Comverse Technology (CMVT) has been captured in Africa after a two-month international manhunt, U.S. officials announced Wednesday.

Details of the arrest of Jacob "Kobi" Alexander in the Republic of Namibia were not immediately available. But in a statement, U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf credited local officials in the southwest African nation for assisting the FBI in the capture.

Mauskopf said she would seek Alexander's swift extradition to face charges in federal court in Brooklyn. A call to his defense attorney in New York was not immediately returned.

The manhunt began in late July shortly before authorities unsealed a criminal complaint accusing Alexander and two other former top executives of secretly manipulating stock options for personal profit.

Before he disappeared, Alexander, 54, an Israeli citizen and a permanent U.S. resident, allegedly transferred $57 million to Israel, fueling speculation he may have fled there.

Two other defendants, former finance chief David Kreinberg and former senior general counsel William Sorin, surrendered in August and were released on $1 million bond each.

The complaint unsealed in federal court accuses the three men of making stock options more lucrative by backdating their exercise price to a low point in the stock's value. Usually, a stock option's exercise price coincides with the market value at the time of a grant, to give the recipient an incentive to drive the price higher.

Today fighting corruption and scandal in Israel is the political fallout as a result of the failed Lebanese war last summer.

Zamir served on the Supreme Court from 1994 until 2001, during which he was on the panel that considered the Ganot case. Since his retirement (Supreme Court justices take mandatory retirement at the age of 70) he has spoken out with growing harshness against corruption in Israeli public life and in particular against political appointments in the civil service. In recent years he has been chairman of the Jerusalem Center for Ethics, and two months ago he submitted to the Knesset the report of a public committee he headed following an episode in which an MK cast a double vote in a Knesset motion. The committee recommended adding new rules of ethics and toughening the sanctions that the Knesset can impose on its members.

Zamir is convinced that if Israel does not take urgent steps, it is liable to deteriorate within a few years to the place now occupied by some countries in Africa and Latin America. "We have to shout and say, 'Listen, we are sick,'" he warns. "Corruption really is a kind of chronic disease, which can be terminal." He goes to his study and returns with surveys showing that the Israeli public believes that the government is corrupt. "If the public thinks, even mistakenly, that the entire government is corrupt, that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It leads naturally, and almost necessarily, to the loss of trust in the regime. And then what can replace it: the strong, clean leader. We know from the world's experience that the strong leader, even if he is at first clean, quickly becomes very dirty." Zamir quotes with unconcealed emotion what "the country's No. 1 security person," former chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon, told Ari Shavit in an interview in Haaretz, that corruption is more dangerous than the Iranian threat. "I agree with that. The security threat - missiles from Lebanon and Syria, or an Iranian nuclear threat - is viewed as concrete. We understand it, and we know the damage it will do. So people can become fearful and demand action, and these issues occupy a very high place on the public agenda. When it comes to corruption, though - in part because it operates in the dark and you don?t see it - people are not sufficiently aware of the danger. The result is that there is great indifference among the public, which was given expression, for example, in the last Knesset elections. Like cancer, you don't see corruption at its inception, you don't feel it spreading; you feel it at a certain stage, when it breaks out, and then in very many cases, it's already too late."

And it's revealing that the corruption is just business as usual thanks to the politics of privatization conducted by Olmert. Chickens, home, roost.



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Free Trade=Cheap Wages

The truth is in reading the fine print. Free Trade is not about trade, or sustainable markets, it is about off-shoring production and contracting out services.

India also offers Canadian companies another cheaper-wage locale besides China where they can shift production to save money and remain competitive.

This little fact will get lost in the hoopla that will be generated around a bilateral free trade agreement between Canada and India.



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Privatization The Real Walter Reed Scandal

The mantra of the neo-cons for the past two decades has been that privatization is better at delivering services than the public sector. This is another example of the real life failure of privatization.

The Army Times reports the committee wants to question Weightman about the impact of the Army's decision to award a five year, 120 million dollar contract to IAP World Services, which is run by Al Neffgen, former COO of Halliburton's KBR, and David Swindle (that's really his name), also formerly of KBR. The decision to bring in private contractors at Walter Reed led to a virtual mass exodus of experienced career staffers.

Waxman notes that IAP "is led by Al Neffgen, a former senior Halliburton official who testified before our Committee in July 2004 in defense of Halliburton's exorbitant charges for fuel delivery and troop support in Iraq."

Before the contract, over 300 federal employees provided facilities management services at Walter Reed, according to the memorandum, but that number dropped to less than 60 the day before IAP took over.

KWAME HOLMAN: And Kiley acknowledged some patient care problems were exacerbated when the Army contracted out much of Walter Reed's facilities management and non-medical care to private companies.

DEL. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D), District of Columbia: Would it have been the better side of wisdom not to privatize everything here, except the clinical and medical workforce, and therefore add to the stability or the instability that inevitably comes with WRAMC?

LT. GEN. KEVIN KILEY: It did increase the instability.

This is a result of Americas first contracted out privatized war,which was the core policy of the neo-cons plan for the invasion of Iraq. To prove that a combined force of private mercenaries and regular armed forces could reduce war costs. Like the Iraq mission and its reconstruction this too is a failure.

In a largely invisible cost of the war in Iraq, nearly 800 civilians working under contract to the Pentagon have been killed and more than 3,300 hurt doing jobs normally handled by the U.S. military, according to figures gathered by The Associated Press.

Exactly how many of these employees doing the Pentagon's work are Americans is uncertain. But the casualty figures make it clear that the Defense Department's count of more than 3,100 U.S. military dead does not tell the whole story. "It's another unseen expense of the war," said Thomas Houle, a retired Air Force reservist whose brother-in-law died while driving a truck in Iraq. "It's almost disrespectful that it doesn't get the kind of publicity or respect that a soldier would."

Employees of defense contractors such as Halliburton, Blackwater and Wackenhut cook meals, do laundry, repair infrastruture, translate documents, analyze intelligence, guard prisoners, protect military convoys, deliver water in the heavily fortified Green Zone and stand sentry at buildings — often highly dangerous duties almost identical to those performed by many U.S. troops.

The U.S. has outsourced so many war and reconstruction duties that there are almost as many contractors (120,000) as U.S. troops (135,000) in the war zone.

The AP doesn't say if the private companies also provide high level workers' compensation and disability coverage for their workers -- even with high pay that's not a given -- but I wouldn't be surprised to find that contractors who've suffered traumatic brain injuries and multiple amputations are getting better care than the wounded soldiers being treated at Walter Reed.

See:

Iraq Inspector General

Another Privatization Failure

Conservative Nanny State

Another Privatization Myth Busted

Halliburton

Privatization of War

Privatization


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