The Australian’s front page yesterday told us that ‘corporate leaders are stepping up’ to make sure the federal government isn’t overly influenced by ‘vested interests’. They want to protect our economy from ill-considered decisions.
BHP Billiton CEO Marius Kloppers’ call for a carbon tax may have set the cat among the pigeons. It is too obvious to be refuted, since a) something has to be done and b) incentives are the one thing economists agree on to shift economic practice. Those two assumptions are widely accepted, at least in my universe.
Big biz, including those who own the Australian, are apparently upset about the dangerous liaison between the Greens and the ALP. Action must be taken! Perhaps that is why green groups have warned their members not to feed interviewers from the OZ with schism calalysts. Driving wedges is a tried and true strategy to weaken such an alliance.
Amazingly, people are frequently suckered in by claims to protect them, even when the real intent is to consolidate control. An outstanding example is the support of the Koch brothers for the Tea Party movement in the US.
Not being a stock investor, I’d never heard of them, but apparently they are the third richest people in the US, after Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.
They support people who want smaller government (but ignore the military as a place to start cutting costs), while their agenda includes greater control by corporations over environmental and social planning.
Of all the reforms desirable to improve the way our country runs, greater influence for corporate views would not seem to be one of them. Kloppers welcome comments notwithstanding: these too should be subject to widespread democratic and accountable discussion.
From the Institute for Public Accuracy:
See from the New Yorker, Jane Mayer's recent piece "Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama." http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
The article is just another example of the Australian’s brilliant satirical style,what’s next, cigarette companies as health advisers?
Comment by Russell W — September 27, 2010 @ 6:14 am
Dear Ronda –
When was it? Back in the 1980s when my main news source temporarily reformatted itself. Suddenly the staid old ABC news was projecting the image that their content was truthful, accurate, incisive and immediately addressing the interest of the new age Australian – i.e. every full blooded Aussie had a share portfolio, and those anaemics (like me) who didn’t were held beneath contempt.
It was my first understanding that ‘the news’ was nothing more than just another show that had to be produced and stage managed just like any other.
While that format was soon replaced and one version or another of the same old worn out record again commenced the ‘ABC news’, it appears the age of greed had become firmly entrenched with regional and international news subsumed to utterly information-less blather about nabobs playing dangerous games with other people’s savings.
Now, about 30 years on, a few bubbles have burst, countless lives have been ruined and perhaps even enough nabob’s fingers burned to sour that old game.
So is it any wonder that some joker from “RamJac Corp.”(ask Kurt Vonnegut) or the like is opening a gambit in the new carbon game?
After all it’s quite some time since that little boy saw right through the Emperor’s new clothes and everyone knows the populace has a short memory for embarrassing events.
And why shouldn’t the populace be gulled into paying taxes for carbon?
After all they were mug enough to buy shares in something they already owned – Telstra.
And they’ll do the same as Queensland sells off her assets.
But please, Ronda, leave our military alone.
Who else could foster the ongoing opportunity to purchase products, almost exclusively from overseas, at at least three times their market price.
To mess with that would be to shiver the very foundation of our system.
Good grief there’d be so much spare cash in the treasury that they’d have to introduce finance sequestration legislation.
Comment by A NON FARMER — October 2, 2010 @ 6:30 am
“Oh what a web they weave……!” The Koch Brothers launder big bucks, through many ‘reputable’ foundations (often surreptitiously owned by the Koch Brothers) so the conservative movement can continue creating mischief on an outraged planet. What the Koch Brothers give with one hand for the good of humanity, they take away with the other.
The Koch Brothers are predominantly and directly responsible for delaying action on climate change and chemical and pollution reforms while they bludge off the environment and chew the arse out Momma Nature.
The Koch Brothers together with a few other “philanthropic” foundations have purchased America and beyond. Everything – everyone can be bought, they believe and pollutant industries, industry shills including right-wing think tanks and their media tarts are a pushover.
http://mediamattersaction.org/transparency/organization/David_H_Koch_Charitable_Foundation/grants
Comment by Dryblower — October 28, 2010 @ 3:28 am