------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">eGroups is now Yahoo! Groups Click here for more details </FONT><A HREF="http://us.click.yahoo.com/kWP7PD/pYNCAA/4ihDAA/zzNVlB/TM"><B>Click Here!</B></A> ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (M.A. Johnson) Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~for educational purposes only~~ [Title 17 U.S.C. section 107] Marc Rich: American Hero by Rob Moody Peace is a natural effect of trade. ~ de Montesquieu Much has been written about Bill Clinton's pardon of commodities trader Marc Rich, but very little has been written about what Rich actually did that put him on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List and made his name synonymous with white collar crime. After giving Clinton a pass on treason, mass murder, rape (he was asked only one question about it), kidnapping (Elian), bribery, theft, perjury, obstruction of justice and embarrassment of the nation as no one could have ever imagined, the liberals in the media have finally had it with him (conveniently, once he's out of office and no longer useful to them). In a recent column called "Forsaken for A Rich Fugitive," Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen told Bill, "You let me down." (Would Cohen be less disappointed if the fugitive had been poor?) So what is it about Rich that turned Cohen (formerly a Clinton apologist) into a "Clinton-hater"? As Cohen writes, "... most important, Rich fled the country. He was a fugitive, for crying out loud. A fugitive!" So the fact that Rich left the country because he didn't want to go to prison for refusing to subject himself to involuntary servitude to the federal government is the worst of Rich's crimes in Cohen's book. Liberals hate it when people vote with their feet. That's why people who tried to flee East Germany and other communist regimes were shot. A welfare state always wants to keep foreigners out (lest they get on welfare) and its subjects in (lest it lose tax revenue and control over their lives). New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd called Rich a "tax swindler" and "a man who made billions of dollars manipulating foreign markets. Marc Rich bought a pardon with the money he made betraying America." So, what are the crimes here? Did he steal money from the government, as the Clintons and their groupies did, or did he merely keep the money that he had earned? Is making money even billions of dollars a crime? How did Rich "manipulate" foreign markets? Dowd makes it sound as if he had promoted penny stocks or something like that. It appears that he did buy a pardon (however, it takes two to tango), but how did he betray America? Did he, say, sell nuclear secrets and missile technology to the Chinese government in return for campaign contributions? Dowd goes on to describe Rich's crimes against humanity: At the hearing, Rep. Christopher Shays [Nothing is worse than a Republican pantywaist like Shays. RM] scorched Quinn: "Mr. Rich traded with Libya when we had the embargo; he traded with Iran when we had the U.S. hostages being held captive; he traded during the 12 years with Iraq when we had our conflict; he traded grain with the Soviet Union when we had an embargo; he traded with South Africa with the apartheid government when we had that embargo ... ." You mean Rich actually traded with people? He helped commodities reach their highest, best use and did so peacefully, leaving both parties wealthier than before? Off with his head! "The bombers," as Colin Powell calls them, can't stand it when Americans trade with a country they're trying to get us to bomb. It drives them crazy! People have a financial incentive not to go to war with their trading partners or countries that produce goods that they buy. That's why when the bombing class wants to go to war with a country, one of the first things it does is impose a trade embargo (as FDR did with Japan) or sanctions. Edmund Contoski brilliantly divided people into makers and takers, but it occurred to me that people can also be divided into traders and bombers. The bombers would have you believe that traders are the same thing as traitors. I first suspected that there might be nothing to the charges against Rich when I learned that it was Rudy Guiliani (who once excoriated the owners of a gas station for charging "too much" for gasoline) who had brought charges against him. My suspicion was reinforced when I read in Dowd's column, "At the hearing, Democrats ... were echoing the complaints of [Rep. Dan] Burton and ... Bob Barr. Even some black Democratic lawmakers, Bill's biggest defenders, were appalled [at the pardon]." After searching the Web for a story that described Rich's so-called "crimes," I finally found one, an interview with Craig Copetas, author of the book Metal Men: How Marc Rich Defrauded the Country, Evaded the Law, and Became the World's Most Sought-After Corporate Criminal. In it, Copetas describes Rich's crimes: He did a number of things. Here are the three most interesting: first, he evaded a lot of taxes. Second, he traded with Iran during the hostage crisis, which is a treasonable offense. Third, he was doing something called "daisy-chaining" oil. With daisy chaining, he was violating a U.S. regulation that said that there were three types of oil in the United States. The price of each type of oil depended on when the well started producing it. What he did, simply put, was to rip-off the sticker on the barrel of cheapest oil, and put on a sticker that said that the oil was now the most expensive oil. The oil was the same, there was no difference in the quality. But because he was "daisy-chaining," so to speak, he was violating the U.S. rules for oil trading. So, he kept money that he had earned, took advantage of a black market opportunity that someone else would have taken advantage of if he hadn't (and perhaps showed the Iranians that Americans might not be "The Great Satan" after all), and ignored the ridiculous regulation that said there were three types of oil, based on when a well began production. If you're still not convinced that Rich is a hero, consider this comment by Copetas: "It would be accurate to say that the very computer that everyone involved in this chat has contains at least seven or eight metals that were supplied to the manufacturer through one of Marc Rich's companies." So Marc Rich provided the metals that make it possible for you to read this column and use your computer in countless other beneficial ways. What has Chris Shays or any of these other shrieking harpies ever done for their fellow man, except to loot and enslave them? Sure, Marc Rich bought a pardon; after all, they were for sale. But he never should have been charged with a crime. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
