Nipawin -Tuesday, November 20, 2001 - by: Mario deSantis
 
 

experience

"The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience"

--Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics

 

 

mega
merger

What is happening in the world's economy is devastating. The Bush administration is pushing a global agenda which will reinforce a world for the benefit of the few and privileged. The oil giants Conoco and Phillips will merge and this merger is justified by the now very well known global mantra "
the two companies' shares rose yesterday after they promised at least US$750-million a year in savings from cuts in exploration and production costs and the elimination of duplicate corporate jobs."

 

 

double
talk

Now, if we are a bit intelligent, we can understand that this mantra of cutting costs with mergers can be progressively preached till we have one single monopolistic company. But don't be deluded of your intelligence if that is not going to happen, these companies are smarter than we are since they are all reason and money, and tough luck for all the people who have no money but emotions. Therefore, these companies know when to stop their merging to one another and at that point they will form eventually the New World Order of Transnational Corporations. What is happening to our ever growing global mergers of corporations is very devastating but at least we can hear the double talk of these Machiavellian Big Brains.

 

 

Friedman

Now I am going to divulge a secret about the Free Market, the baby of Nobel Prize Winner Milton Friedman a close friend of retired Chilean Dictator Augusto Pinochet. We just wrote an article on how the proliferation of arms advanced by the only super power in the world, the United States, is increasing the potential of wars to be won by the eventual military coalitions led by the U.S. military. It is this potential of wars to be won by our coalitions that will keep our Free Market free from the people and in the visible hands of our transnational corporations and their political appointees. So I am going to provide the big secret of our Free Market underwritten by our richest countries.

 

 

national
security
exception

In one recent article, John Feffer writes that according to the logic of free trade all governmental subsidies should removed. However, John Feffer adds that
"every trade accord treats military subsidies as different from all other subsidies. This is known as the 'national security exception...' In some cases, this security exception channels money from the civilian to the military sector. The Canadian government subsidized civilian passenger jets produced by Bombardier Aerospace until other countries protested through the WTO. So Canada switched to subsidizing Bombardier's military production. Other countries view military production as the dangling rope that will pull them out of their current economic difficulties."

 

 

?

Now we would like to ask Nobel Prize Winner Economist Milton Friedman this question "How free is the Free Market?

 

 
References
  Phillips, Conoco to focus on Arctic. ConocoPhillips expects to save US$750-million in exploration and production costs. Claudia Cattaneo, Calgary Bureau Chief, Financial Post, with files from wire services Grant Black, Calgary Herald, November 20, 2001 http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f=/stories/20011120/794656.html
   
  Pinochet prosecution halted. Special report: Pinochet on trial. Staff and agencies, July 9, 2001 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/Pinochet_on_trial/Story/0,2763,519173,00.html
   
  Militarization in the Age of Globalization, by John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus, November 6, 2001 http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0111mic.html
   
  Bombardier under the microscope. Analysts on watch for signs of flagging sales growth in third-quarter results today. Sean Silcoff, Financial Post, November 20, 2001 http://www.nationalpost.com/financialpost/story.html?f=/stories/20011120/794783.html
   
  Canada and Brazil back at trade dispute table, Sean Silcoff, Financial Post, November 13, 2001 http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20011113/783287.html