The government of Cote D'Ivoire nationalized the industry shortly before it was overthrown. So anyone buying cocoa was helping that government stay in power.Originally Posted by Hazir
What's the difference if it's a strategic commodity?
The government of Cote D'Ivoire nationalized the industry shortly before it was overthrown. So anyone buying cocoa was helping that government stay in power.
What's the difference if it's a strategic commodity?
Hope is the denial of reality
Hazir, you also have to look at your counterfactual - would people in these countries be better off if we applied sanctions on oil/etc. in these countries? It's unclear that sanctions against a rogue or oppressive regime changes their policy, or their power over their own people. Examples include ongoing sanctions against NK, Iran, the ones in the 90s against Iraq, the ones against Libya until earlier this decade, etc. In no case did sanctions result in regime change or less oppression. Rather, it just stunted their economy and kept everyone dirt poor (and in some cases, starving).
This isn't to say that sanctions aren't a useful tool, and that we can't 'bribe' autocrats by rewarding good behavior with more commerce. But in terms of whether the regime is likely to be destabilized by increasing isolation (political and economic and otherwise), I'm betting it won't be. I haven't read Ian Bremmer's book on his so-called "J curve", but I believe he also posits that increasing isolation actually makes regimes more stable.
You are going a bit too far into the details here; the suggestion is that because their oil
is needed we can t get around dealing with potentates. This dependency is even considered a security threath, which needs to be dealth with. The rhetoric certainly sounds as if we can reduce dependency. Yet we don t seem to do an awfull lot to rid ourselves of our addiction to oil. Which then causes the general question I posed.
Congratulations America
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclus...-over-15-yearsThe cost of bin Laden: $3 trillion over 15 years
Anyone want to comment on this article? (Stiglitz is mentioned and some people here would disagree with anything he says.) IMO it covers some good ground and asks some "existential questions" yet unanswered.
This was announced by the pilot on the plane to Spain. Needless to say it was emotionally powerful. I'm still not sure how to process it. When a deep corner of your mind hopes for something for so long it becomes part of your daily background noise, it's really jarring when that noise suddenly stops.
I'm not a liar, nor willfully ignorant or denying anything.I admitted my memory isn't great lately.
Y'all can continue arguing if this "counts" as the US giving money or aid to Libya or Qaddafi, or not....
Reading about the Fed and its release of foreign bank beneficiaries (after three years, a congressional hearing, and a law suit from Bloomberg) reminded me why I was left with the impression of something 'fishy':
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...in-crisis.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/68268516/
http://www.ameinfo.com/257886.html:
Arab Banking Corporation not affected by Libya asset freeze
Bahrain: Tuesday, March 01 - 2011 at 09:10
Bahrain-based Arab Banking Corp (ABC) has said that neither ABC nor any of its subsidiaries has been subjected to any asset freezes as a result of developments in Libya. ABC, 59.3% owned by the central bank of Libya, said that all members of the ABC Group are able to transact freely in the US and elsewhere.
http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/n...-dcada784c3f9:
Release: Why Did the Fed Bail Out the Bank of Libya?
March 31, 2011
How do Gadhafi’s Bankers Avoid U.S. Sanctions?
WASHINGTON, March 31 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today questioned why the Federal Reserve provided more than $26 billion in credit to an Arab intermediary for the Central Bank of Libya.
The total includes at least $3.2 billion in loans that the Fed was forced to make public today in addition to earlier revelations under a Sanders provision in the Wall Street reform law.
Sanders also asked why the Libyan-owned bank and two of its branches in New York, N.Y., were exempted from sanctions that the United States this month slapped on other Libyan businesses to pressure Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s government.
“It is incomprehensible to me that while creditworthy small businesses in Vermont and throughout the country could not receive affordable loans, the Federal Reserve was providing tens of billions of dollars in credit to a bank that is substantially owned by the Central Bank of Libya,” Sanders said.
In a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others, Sanders asked why the central bank made at least 46 emergency, low-interest loans to the Arab Banking Corp., in which the Central Bank of Libya owns a 59 percent stake.
In the same letter, Sanders asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner why the Treasury Department on March 4 let the Libya-controlled bank skirt the economic sanctions against Libya.
The senator also questioned why the Bahrain-based Arab Banking Corp. is even allowed to operate branches inside United States. “Why would the U.S. government allow a bank that is predominantly owned by the Central Bank of Libya – an institution on which the U.S. has imposed strict economic sanctions –to operate two banking branches within our own borders?” Sanders asked.
The Fed transactions were made public earlier this year as a result of a Sanders provision in the Wall Street reform law that forced the U.S. central bank to reveal which financial institutions it bailed out during the financial crisis from 2007 to 2010.
In another dubious twist, the Fed loans, at interest rates as low as 0.25 percent, relied on U.S. Treasury securities as collateral. In other words, at the same time that the Arab Banking Corp. was borrowing money at almost zero interest from one arm of the government, the Fed, it was lending money at a higher interest rate to another arm of the U.S. government, the Treasury Department.
Regarding Osama bin Laden, and the new "intelligence" and video coming out. The guy was an aging old man (but not suffering from renal failure as previously alleged), sometimes dying his beard, huddling and hiding in a concrete Pakistan compound for at least five years, with a couple of his wives and a few of his children, plus a courier or two.....watching videos of himself with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a black hat on his head.....two goats delivered every once in a while....with peptic ulcer treatments or homeopathic penile erectile enhancements in his medicine cabinet?
This is the real and final picture of the "World's Most Wanted" international terrorist, hiding in plain sight within a few meters of Pakistan's version of West Point elite? Surrounded by plenty of retired Pakistani military and intelligence personnel. Seriously?
Seriously?
You were on my mind when I heard the news; it was a pity you were away.
Congratulations America
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote