Another almost invisible but enormously significant headline.
Perhaps really the most important of the week.
Soon after Bush's election triumph, a deal with the Germans to conjure away 30 billion dollars of Iraqi debt.
And this is apparently reliably hinted as setting the tone for the conjuring away by others of the remaining 90 million.
Except that they have to leave 30b outstanding as an obligation on the Iraqi people.
Never forget while tens of thousands of children die each day unecessarily, in the name of financial prudence, that capital in the final analysis is a social relationship, and can be changed by human beings, whenever they with to address the task.
They can conjure up trillions by way of budget deficits for the rich (not of course for the poor) and they can magnanimously "forgive" trillions, when it suits the continued existence of the capitalist mode of production and the longer term accumulation of capital.
Unfortunately however pure voluntarism and pure utopianism are not enough to focus the minds of the power brokers of the world.
Chris Burford
CNN:-
Eichel said 30 percent would be written off immediately, a further 30 percent in a second stage "tied to a program of the International Monetary Fund" and another 20 percent "linked to the success of this program," he said.
"Within this framework, the necessary decisions can now be taken in the Paris Club," Eichel said. He did not say when the debt write-off would be formally approved and took no questions.
The Paris Club works to find sustainable solutions to the payment dilemmas experienced by debtor nations. <<<
----- Original Message ----- From: "Marvin Gandall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 3:01 PM
Subject: [PEN-L] Corporate governance (of Congress)
Another example of the in-house financial press being more revealing and critical of how the system works than the popular media which is aimed at a mass audience. In this case, Barron's Online editor Howard Gold reflects investor concerns about Congressional failure to act against the expensing of stock options, management control of company boards, and unwarranted and excessive (even by ruling class standards) tax write-offs for profitable corporations at a time of slow job growth and an exploding fiscal deficit. The role of Senators Clinton and Kennedy illustrates the bipartisan nature of legislative obeisance to the private sector.
MG ----------------------------------------- Corporate America Is Back in Business By Howard Gold Barron’s Online Nov 18
If you listened closely amid the cacophony of the election season, you might have heard the sound of the wheel turning.
In a series of moves that got little coverage in the news media, corporate America has begun to throw its weight around again and reverse or slow some of the reforms that grew out of the Enron, WorldCom and other big scandals that broke a couple of years ago.
Out of those scandals came the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which President Bush signed into law in 2002. That act strengthened the oversight of auditors, mandated more independent boards of directors, increased penalties for corporate fraud and required chief executive and chief financial officers to certify their companies' financial statements.
