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Cleaning up the Most Toxic Pollution in the World
Hugh Pickens writes "Blacksmith Institute has published their list of the most polluted sites in the world compiled by comparing the toxicity of the contamination, the likelihood of it getting into humans and the number of people affected. For example, ninety-nine percent of the children living in and around the poly-metallic smelter at La Oroya in Peru, owned by the Missouri-based Doe Run Corporation, have blood lead levels that exceed acceptable limits. Scientific American says that despite the massive pollution, it would be relatively cheap and easy to clean up the most dangerous hazards. For $15,000, the radioactive contaminated soil from the Mayak plutonium facility on the shore of the Techa River in the Russian town of Muslyomova could be dug up, saving an estimated 350 lives. 'For about $200, the cost of a refrigerator, we are able to save someone's life,' says Richard Fuller, founder of Blacksmith."
No offense, but where is your data?
Multinationals use international trade regulations to their advantage. By aligning with lending groups like the IMF, multinationals use national debt recovery to force laws through that require full employment and cuts to social welfare systems so that taxes can be levied and surplus budgets can be made to repay international debt. The result: the poor are forced into indentured servitude because they can no longer get social services and those that had higher wages and supported the poor through their taxes end up with reduced pay because the employer is "forced" to employ more people with the same amount of money (which is the actual multinational goal). Since they have more work for the same investment in labor they have a higher output and greater profit margin as a result. This is widespread and systematic and replaces American jobs with foreign servitude, and the trend goes all the way to the top of management - labor goes overseas and the management eventually does too.
Sources:
The IMF rulings and restructuring agreements in Argentina (IMF 1999-2001)
"Crisis Leads to Salary Plunge" (Siam Future / The Nation)
Get a web developer
Multinationals use international trade regulations to their advantage.
They play the game according to the rules that the governments of the world set. If you dont like the rules then blame some of those governments for allowing themselves to be duped. In the case of those governments that are totalitarian the people are going to screwed in any case so what is the difference? There are some countries that we the United States won't do business with after all for that reason, although certain European nations are not so particular (especially when they think that nobody is watching).
By aligning with lending groups like the IMF, multinationals use national debt recovery to force laws through that require full employment and cuts to social welfare systems so that taxes can be levied and surplus budgets can be made to repay international debt.
He who pays the piper calls the tune. If those countries choose to borrow from the IMF and or its member nations and by extension us (they are essentially borrowing from European and American taxpayers) then is it unreasonable for us their creditors to insist upon the adoption or abandonment of certain policies which caused the borrows to be in a position where a loan was needed in the first place?
The result: the poor are forced into indentured servitude because they can no longer get social services and those that had higher wages and supported the poor through their taxes end up with reduced pay because the employer is "forced" to employ more people with the same amount of money (which is the actual multinational goal).
That doesn't make any sense. For example, suppose that the high wage earner "paid" for social services for three other people who were unemployed through taxes. How is it any different for him if he is paid less, but pays less tax, and thos three unemployed people now work along side him. The money is redistributed either way but the end result of the distribution in everyone's pocket would be roughly the same. As for the social services, the government probably could not afford to provide those services in the first place, that is why they went seeking the IMF loan to avoid an economic meltdown (you cannot consume what you do not have after all, no matter how much paper money you print).
Since they have more work for the same investment in labor they have a higher output and greater profit margin as a result. This is widespread and systematic and replaces American jobs with foreign servitude, and the trend goes all the way to the top of management - labor goes overseas and the management eventually does too.
Please re-read the chapter on trade in you economics textbook, trade is a good thing, it alows all of us to produce and consume more then we could have otherwise without the trade. Do you want everyone to share equally in their misery or do you want to distribute wealth? Protectionism gives you the former while trade delivers the later.
Why is it that Liberals are always so against the IMF and the World Bank? These organizations exist to help end poverty and provide emergency loans to governments so that economic chaos doesn't result in a general breakdown of civilized society with wars, violence, mass migrations, looting, etc. The world would be a much more "interesting" place (in the ancient Chinese curse sort of way, "may you live in interesting times") without the IMF, World Bank, and indeed the United States. Be careful what you wish for.