On 4/26/07, Bill Lear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 18:23:24 (-0700) Jim Devine writes:
> Charles Brown writes:
>> >Does the Wall Street Journal have an economic ideology ?
>
>On 4/26/07, Bill Lear wrote:
>> Pillage is good.
>
>it's good for the WSJ only if it's done by capitalists or in the name
>of "free markets."
Pretty much by definition the only ones doing pillaging.
There IS some minor competition, but not at the global scale... yet.
Leigh
JOURNAL: Somali Guerrilla Entrepreneurs
from Global Guerrillas by John Robb
"Taxes are annoying"
Omar Hussein Ahmed, a Somali trader, as an explanation for why
fellow traders had bought missiles to shoot at government soldiers. To
the New York Times.
For some, it's impossible to imagine why anyone would want an anarchic
hollow state
<http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2007/04/hollow_states.html>
instead of an orderly, structured society. It offends their sense of
how things work. However, reality is somewhat messier. A great
illustrative example of this is Jeffrey Gettleman's (writing for the
New York Times) article, "In Somalia, Those Who Feed Off Anarchy Fuel
It" <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/world/africa/25somalia.htmll>
(see the brief, "Guerrilla Entrepreneurs" for more on this topic
<http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/10/guerrilla_entre.html>).
He writes:
Beyond clan rivalry and Islamic fervor, an entirely different
motive is helping fuel the chaos in Somalia: profit. A whole class of
opportunists — from squatter landlords to teenage gunmen for hire to
vendors of out-of-date baby formula — have been feeding off the
anarchy in Somalia for so long that they refuse to let go. They do not
pay taxes, their businesses are totally unregulated, and they have
skills that are not necessarily geared toward a peaceful society. In
the past few weeks, some Western security officials say, these
profiteers have been teaming up with clan fighters and radical
Islamists to bring down Somalia's transitional government...
More at globalguerrillas, including: Chinese Oil men and Guerrillas in Ethiopia
<http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2007/04/journal_somali_.html>
