Showing posts with label corporate plunderers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporate plunderers. Show all posts

Saturday 20 July 2019

What Price A Smart Phone?

         That devastated area known as the Democratic Republic of Congo has saw its people mired in blood, deprivation and forced migration to avoid possible death or serious injury for years. Its people suffer poverty and deprivation as a way of life, the reason, it is a very rich country with incredible wealth in natural resources. I wrote the following piece five years or so ago, sadly the people are still living in a swamp of violence, death, deprivation and corruption, all because of that rich bounty of natural resources.

 
     It says a lot about our present economic system when you look around the world and find that countries with the richest natural resources have some of the poorest people on our earth. The Middle East is a wash with oil, which transfers into unbelievable wealth, but you can't say its people are all very rich. This pattern is repeated across the planet, another example is the Democratic Republic of Congo. A vast country, the second largest in Africa, the 11th largest in the world. As well as having coal, oil and diamonds, it is also the richest source of cobalt in the world. That rather dull looking material produces unimaginable wealth for the corporate world, but little for the people of the that country. In fact it is the opposite, this immeasurable wealth is probably the main cause of the suffering of the people.
         Because of the economic system that prevails today, blood will be shed to get control of that wealth. Sadly that blood is shed for the end product of things like mobile phones and laptops, and these are products that the vast majority of the people who produce that raw material will never see.
        If it was just dreadful working conditions and poor pay, that would be bad enough, but we are talking about millions dying and millions more suffering unimaginable violence. Since its bitter struggle to be free from the Western colonialists, the country has been blighted by violence, and at the root of that, is the fact that it is very rich in raw materials like cobalt.
      The Second Congo War, sometimes referred to as the “African World War”, as it involved around twenty armed groups and nine other African countries started in 1998. No doubt all eager to get a slice of that wealth. Although “Peace Accords” were signed in 2003, fighting continued in the east of the country through 2007. In this region the prevalence of all manner of sexual violence and rape is often described as the worst in the world. Since 1998 this conflict has claimed the lives of more than 5.4 million people. Though this was a brutal conflict, more than 90% were not killed in combat, they died from such things as malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, and malnutrition, brought about by the usual companions of war, displaced populations ending up living in unsanitary, over crowed conditions, combined with lack of shelter, clean water, food and medical care. What is even more tragic, 47% of those deaths were children under five.
         The country also has great agricultural potential but this is being stifled by this conflict, which still continues. It is the struggle to control those vast mineral resources that drives this most brutal and savage conflict. Is your mobile phone worth it?
       Surely we have the imagination and the ability to devise a economic system whereby natural resources do not equate with misery, poverty, deprivation and bloodshed for the many, and unbelievable opulence for the few.
 

According to World Report:
         Throughout 2018, government officials and security forces carried out widespread repression and serious human rights violations against political opposition leaders and supporters, pro-democracy and human rights activists, journalists, and peaceful protesters. The December 30 elections were marred by widespread irregularities, voter suppression, and violence. More than a million Congolese were unable to vote when voting was postponed until March 2019 in three pro-opposition areas.
The same report also states: 
       That 4.5 million people are displaced from their homes due to clashes with armed groups and government forces. 13 million people need humanitarian assistance, and 140+ armed groups are active in Eastern Congo's North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.
        This is the pattern of corporate capitalism world wide, resources are for the profit of the few, while the many suffer as the plunders violently squabble over the riches of the country.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk      

Monday 25 April 2016

When The Cash Fountain Is Sucked Dry----!!




Philip Green doesn't fly Easy Jet.
        So BHS looks like it could go into administration, sign of the times, just another ailing business, or-----? 
Philip and friends messing around in boats.
        BHS has proved itself to be a cash fountain for the one time owners, the Green family, and a bunch of cash crazy shareholders. After buying the business in 2000, the shareholders extracted more than £422 million in two years, 2002-2004. the vast majority of the loot went to the Green family. The Philip Green family also managed to collect another £151.4 million from BHS in rent for 12 stores which happen to be owned by Carmen properties, which just happened to be a Green family business. The cash fountain didn't stop there, the Green family also earned almost £10 million from £19.5 million bond issued to BHS, and then there was the the £3 million from ground rent on BHS head offices. This looks like the BHS, in a rather short period, earned the Green family £164.4 million plus the major share of another £422 million, a nice little earner if you can get it. So there you have it, a company that is now likely to go into administration poured the princely sum of £586.4 million into the coffers of a little bunch of city gents. Let's not forget all the perks that go with “owning” a company, travel expenses, wining and dining, etc. Now that the this gravy train was being sucked dry, the livelihood of thousands of ordinary people, hangs on a cliff edge. Ah, that's capitalism, when the cash fountain is sucked dry, it's time to go.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk.
 

Thursday 6 February 2014

The Glasgow Looting Games 2014.


    The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow are now 40% over budget and at present the cost is £500 million. Of course you and I know that every big project ends up well over budget, as the rip-off merchants and the corporate greed machine milk the system, pushing the costs ever higher and higher. The corporate bodies walk away with the loot and we are left with the bill. Cheap land grabbing, gentrification at the expense of the local people, and fat-cats having a ball as they lap up the cream, that's what the games are all about.
        What he doesn’t say is that private investment in large-scale Games Events has for some time been predicated on making profit from land and property development. Now that the easy profits of the property boom are over – only hanging on through billions of state subsidy, ‘help-to-buy’ policies, and the continuing privatisation of social housing – private capital is showing it doesn’t give a fuck about the Commonwealth Games and sport. No wonder that no city is willing to host the Games in 2022: they know that they will only be subsidising the private property market, defending failed ‘legacy’ objectives, and having to deal with the growing public complaints and resistance over land-grabbing, gentrification and displacement.
Read the full article HERE: 


      The Glasgow Games Monitor will be speaking at the Unite Community Union Branch meting on Wednesday, 12 February, John Smith House, 145/165 West Regent Street, Glasgow G2 4RZ.
       Subjects to be discussed will be the necessity of political organisation related to the Games and Clyde Gateway projects, and building for a meeting on the East End, and citywide social housing crisis, planned for March.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk