The Rational Radical's Weblog

Saturday, July 05, 2003

When Emotions Guide Investors:  This analyst believes that the same irrational morons who got schlonged when the internet bubble burst last time, are the ones driving up prices again now, and are likely to get schlonged again. Fool me once...

Jack Clark 10:05 PM [+]   
Post #105746792867901786

SPAMMER AGREES TO PAY $221,000 TO FRAUD VICTIMS:  How stupid do you have to be to believe that someone will pay you $2 for each envelope you stuff?!

Jack Clark 10:01 PM [+]   
Post #105746771622355808

Ernst & Young to Pay U.S. $15 Million in Tax Case:  Another good action from the Bushian IRS? Are these latest anti-tax-fraud efforts just publicity-related stunts involving a few sacrificial lambs, or will there truly be a systemic effort to clean up the entire situation where scores of billions of dollars are lost every year to tax evasion by the super-rich? Keep on eye on it, but don't be too optimistic.

Jack Clark 9:56 PM [+]   
Post #105746739692043189

I.R.S. Disallows a Tax Shelter for Stock Options:  A bit of tax justice for a change? Shocking.

Jack Clark 10:24 PM [+]   
Post #105738266986960447

Picking Workers' Pockets:

The Bush administration, which has the very bad habit of smiling at working people while siphoning money from their pockets, is trying to change the federal Fair Labor Standards Act in a way that could cause millions of workers to lose their right to overtime pay.

What's that line from Shakespeare about smile and smile and still be a villian (or a mass murderer)?

Jack Clark 10:22 PM [+]   
Post #105738253941135217

Pentagon Seeking New Access Pacts for Africa Bases:  As you might have suspected, this is behind the sudden interest of Bush in AIDS funding for Africa and "humanitarian" intervention in Liberia -- Empire protection.

Jack Clark 10:18 PM [+]   
Post #105738230866515953

Anger Rises for Families of Troops in Iraq:  That's right, let's get the civil disobedience class materials ready, they'll be calling us real soon to learn how to do it.

Jack Clark 10:12 PM [+]   
Post #105738196373833522

New Wal-Mart Policy Protects Gay Workers:  Nice to see Wal-Mart seeming to do the right thing. You think maybe this measure, as well as their TV public relations ad campaign with the happy-face workers, has anything to do with the fact that the company is facing a lawsuit accusing it of "favoring men over women in promotions and pay, as well as "more than 40 lawsuits accusing the company of pressuring or forcing employees to work unpaid hours"? I guess doing the right thing under pressure is better than not doing the right thing at all.

Jack Clark 2:44 PM [+]   
Post #105735508096450189

South Africa: Ten Years After the End of Apartheid, Blacks Still Own Nothing  While apartheid discriminated based on race, its underlying purpose was to allow the whites to steal the wealth of the country from the Blacks. That was done for decades. Now its time to reverse the process, and return the stolen goods to the rightful owners.

Jack Clark 10:38 PM [+]   
Post #105729713507960422

Credibility of Administration Iraq Policy Substantially Eroded, Polls Find

The poll also found that the public was worried about increasingly negative perceptions about the U.S. in the rest of the world. Fifty-four percent said they believe that, on average, people in other countries see U.S. foreign policy as negative, while 19 percent said they believed foreign attitudes remained positive. That was a major reversal of perceptions just two months ago, when the comparable figures were 34 percent (negative) and 43 percent (positive).

Hmm... the American public is starting to let some reality filter thru its thick collective skull?

Jack Clark 10:34 PM [+]   
Post #105729688000497518

Bush's Record on Jobs: Risking Unhappy Comparisons:  So what if millions of people lost their jobs under Bush. They got to see him put on a flyer's outfit and swagger out of an airplane, didn't they?

Jack Clark 10:31 PM [+]   
Post #105729666849632030

Republican Enviros Blast Bush for Withholding Information:  If you're a Republican and an environmentalist, good luck! That's like being a ethical vegan and belonging to the National Meat Eaters Association.

Jack Clark 10:29 PM [+]   
Post #105729654253112656

The Spoils of the War on Poverty:

Rich countries are falling over themselves to cough up new money for HIV/Aids relief, while institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF have undergone some collective soul-searching and the EU has even declared that its recent farm deal is good for poor countries.

But does this new-found interest in poverty really reflect a sea change in the way things are being done? Hardly - you only need to look at falling aid contributions, rising global inequality, and stalled trade negotiations mired in self-interest, to realize the great and the good are not trying too hard.

The wealthy govern in the interest of the wealthy, not the poor. How much more basic a truth can be stated?

Jack Clark 10:23 PM [+]   
Post #105729619512237910

Bush's 'Blind' Justice in Texas Executions:  Interesting details on Bush's fervor when Governor of Texas to approve executions of people without knowing all the relevant facts, and the role of possible Supreme Court nominee Alberto Gonzales in that immoral setup.

Jack Clark 10:18 PM [+]   
Post #10572959172960118

Afghanistan's Future, Lost in the Shuffle:  This op-ed writer bemoans the fact that the U.S. is allowing warlords to dictatorially run most of Afghanistan, thus preventing the country from getting on its feet. Well, to paraphrase something FDR supposedly once said about Nicaraguan dictator Somoza, they may be warlords, but they're our warlords. As long as the warlords do our bidding, the Bushians couldn't give a damn about the aspirations of the Afghan people for a normal life. In fact, I don't think the Bushians want Afghans to get on their own two feet, because then they might vote to kick us out. Same thing in Iraq. We don't want democracy there, just a compliant government, of whatever type its cheapest for us to keep in power.

Jack Clark 10:38 PM [+]   
Post #105721069768935150

Loved this quip from a Yahoo! News message board:, alluding to Coulter's attempted rehabilitation of Sen. Joseph McCarthy: "Can't wait for Ann's new book: 'Hitler was OK too' due this Christmas"

Jack Clark 3:08 PM [+]   
Post #105718370331295912

As you drink your coffee, try not to think of the kids starving to death because of the unjust manner in which the global economic trade in that crop operates.

by Sarah Cox -Alternatives (Quebec) www.alternatives.ca

It's being called "the worst coffee crisis of the last 100 years" by Latin American heads of state. With the catastrophic failure of unregulated global markets, the world faces yet another crisis of overproduction and ruined lives.

The immediate cause is a glut of coffee beans on the world market that has driven down prices. Export prices for coffee have dipped to their lowest point in over a century, with adjustment for inflation.

As a result, coffee farmers - the majority of whom are poor sharecroppers- now sell their beans for much less than it costs to produce them. Oxfam International estimates that the livelihoods of twenty-five million small coffee producers are in jeopardy. "Families dependent on money generated by coffee are pulling their children (particularly girls) out of schools, can no longer afford basic medicines, and are cutting back on food." Yet few people sipping lattes or espressos are even aware of the crisis. And how would we know ? Little has changed in the consumer world. Prices for Maxwell House, Nescaf�, Folgers and French roast have dropped only slightly, or not at all.

"The big transnationals are making a heap of money," says Blanca Rosa Molina, a Nicaraguan coffee farmer brought to Canada by Oxfam. "But we are getting less than ever before." Five years ago Molina's coffee co-operative sold its organic coffee beans for US$1.80 a pound. Now a pound of beans is worth only about fifty cents.

In northern Nicaragua's Matagalpa region, where Molina lives, more than forty larger coffee farms have gone bankrupt or lie idle. An estimated 6 000 homeless coffee workers and their families camp in makeshift homes along roads and in municipal parks, begging for food and help from passersby. Almost half the region's children, pregnant women, and elderly suffer from malnutrition.

Last August alone, twelve unemployed coffee workers and their family members died of hunger in the Matagalpa area, according to Reuters. By the end of September, according to Molina, the death toll had reached 120. "You see children dying of hunger along the side of the highways," Molina says.

In Guatemala, the crisis has thrown 70,000 people out of work and boosted unemployment levels to forty percent. The coffee debacle has plunged the economies of some already-impoverished countries into steep decline. Across Africa, countries pummelled by debt, drought, and disease are teetering towards another disaster.

Developing countries received $10 billion for coffee exports just a few years ago. Now it is little more than half that, says N�stor Osorio, executive director of the International Coffee Organization (ICO). In Burundi, coffee accounts for almost 80 percent of total exports ; in Ethiopia, almost 50 percent. Without money from coffee, there are fewer funds for debt repayment, AIDS strategies or schools.

"It's a crisis with a social dimension that is politically explosive," Osorio explains. On a recent trip to Colombia, for instance, he saw aerial photographs of coffee farms planted with new coca crops.

Deregulation of coffee trade

Since 1962, the world coffee trade has been regulated by the International Coffee Agreement. The trade treaty set export quotas for producing nations and kept the price of coffee fairly stable. Then, a decade ago, the U.S., the world's largest consumer of coffee, pulled out. The U.S. said the agreement, by keeping prices high, ran contrary to its interests. Canada withdrew at the same time.

Coffee quotas and price controls ended. Smaller producers, like Vietnam, rushed to pick what it called the "dollar tree." In just a decade, Vietnam has become the world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil. In the wake of the coffee agreement's collapse, the World Bank and IMF have pressured African countries to liberalize their coffee industries and eliminate state agencies that bought beans for guaranteed prices. Farmers were assured of comfortable earnings, but globalization and liberalization have had the opposite effect. "The law of supply and demand has operated to the detriment of African producers and to the benefit of worldwide speculation," Togo Prime Minister Messan Agbeyone Kodjo told delegates to an ICO conference last May.

"At present, African coffee farmers are experiencing a sense of frustration and inner revolt," he explained. "They feel helpless� Coffee prices fixed by international groups and the multinationals are completely beyond their control."

One decade ago, developing countries received thirty cents for every $1 spent on a cup of coffee ; now Oxfam calculates they get less than ten cents a cup. The unknown farmer who grew the beans for our espresso gets only two cents out of the $1.71 we pay.

A lucrative business

Yet coffee remains a lucrative business for those at the industry's apex. Five multinationals purchase almost half of the world's coffee beans each year. Among them are Sara Lee Corporation (makers of Hills Bros. and Chock Full o' Nuts), Nestl� (makers of Nescaf�) and tobacco giant Altria, which owns Kraft Foods (Maxwell House and Nabob brands). Nestl� makes an estimated 25 percent profit margin on instant coffee, according to Oxfam ; Sara Lee's margin is around 17 percent.

The graph of corporate coffee profits shows a steady increase while the graph of coffee prices, according to Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, "has always resembled a clinical epilepsy chart." Globalization and deregulation have only exacerbated that discrepancy. As Galeano grimly concluded, "it is much more profitable to consume coffee than to produce it."

Jack Clark 10:23 PM [+]   
Post #105712338916382651

Poll Says Most Americans Believe Saddam-9/11 Link Has Been Proven  Blame the mass media's continual blaring of stories in that regard with only minimal, if any retractions when the stories prove false. Also blame the mass media's continual trumpeting of Bushian propaganda as if it deserved to be taken at face value, rather than as allegations not backed up by any presented facts.

Jack Clark 9:32 PM [+]   
Post #105712036315496585

Bush Delivers Unprecedented Snub to Mandela in Africa Visit  Damn, I was hoping Mandela could be the one who snubs Bush. On the other hand, maybe this way it better illustrates the depths of Bush's depravity.

Jack Clark 9:22 PM [+]   
Post #105711974740672739

Cowardly Ann Coulter  It's totally appropriate that in her new book Treason Ann Coulter tries to rehabilitate the image of the nearly universally-reviled Sen. Joeseph McCarthy. That's because Ann Coulter is herself becoming a present-day Joe McCarthy. In Treason Coulter charges that liberals are guilty of the Constitutionally-defined, capital crime of treason. Last week, Alan Colmes asked Coulter which liberals alive today are guilty of treason. She refused to name anyone. Last night on Hardball (click here for transcript) Chris Matthews asked Coulter if Harry Truman committed treason. Coulter tried to avoid the direct question by starting to list Truman's supposed misdeeds. Matthews pressed her and finally Coulter admitted, no, Truman did not commit treason. Matthews asked her about JFK. No, Coulter admitted, JFK didn't commit treason. Then Matthews asked her who of present day Democratic Party leaders has commmitted treason. Again, Coulter showed she doesn't have the courage of her own convictions. She would not name a single person alive today who she claims has committed treason. Well gee, Ann, who are the people whom you titled a book after? Name some names, will you? Or are you really scared that if you do so, you'll be slapped with a slander lawsuit in which you'll have the burden of proving that the person committed treason? That's the real reason she won't name names, because she knows she could never prove the treason charge in court. Coulter claimed on Hardball that it was the Democratic Party itself that is treasonous. The Democratic Party does not have a mouth, or hands to write with. It cannot commit treason. Obviously if the Democratic Party has, in Coulter's mind, committed treason, it must be based on the words or actions of living human beings. Who are they, Ann? Tell us. Or admit that you don't really mean "Treason," you mean "Doesn't Agree with Ann Coulter."

Jack Clark 5:06 PM [+]   
Post #105710436687369389

South Africa's Mandela Criticizes United States Ahead of Bush Visit  As Mandela hinted, he should refuse even to meet with Bush. That would send the strongest message.

Jack Clark 10:26 PM [+]   
Post #105703718387692540

Activist Lawyers Celebrate Dropping of Protest Cases  As someone who used to organize civil disobedience actions against aid to the contras in Nicaragua, I'm real happy these protesters forced San Francisco to drop the charges. There are better things to spend time on than preparing for court.

Jack Clark 10:24 PM [+]   
Post #105703708410489337

Bush's Duck and Cover Strategy  Bush didn't even have the courage of his convictions when the affirmative action and sodomy law decisions came down.

Jack Clark 10:19 PM [+]   
Post #105703679336257293

Rebel With a Cause  Nice column by Jack Newfield about the things we can celebrate on July 4.

Jack Clark 10:16 PM [+]   
Post #105703659635281401

Amnesty International: U.S. Iraqi Detentions Violate Law  Hey, if these Iraqis don't like the way we're treating them, why don't they go back to their own country! Oh, wait... they are in their own country.

Jack Clark 10:10 PM [+]   
Post #105703624818117177

Coulter Explodes Hollywood's Blacklist Myth  I must admit I'm not a student of McCarthy-era history, but if it's Ann Coulter telling us that McCarthy was really a good guy, then it's safe to assume that he was even worse than we've been led to believe.

Jack Clark 10:07 PM [+]   
Post #105703603921717569

Poll: Support for War Waning

New Poll: Nearly 40% Believe Bush Deliberately Misled Public On Iraq

Could the tide be turning?

Jack Clark 10:04 PM [+]   
Post #105703587136748104

Politech: Radio host Michael Savage loses bid to censor SavageStupidity.com  As I predicted, the suit was quickly thrown out. Savage could himself be sued for bringing a frivlous lawsuit, but I imagine no one has the time or resources for that. There are more important people to go after.

Jack Clark 8:39 PM [+]   
Post #105703075980525124

New Polls: Bush's Re-Elect Numbers Fall Below 50%

Bush Re-elect Number at 42%

These two stories from left- and right-wing sites indicate that maybe the American people are beginning to wake up?

Jack Clark 11:50 PM [+]   
Post #105695581424439296

State Department Disputes CIA View of Trailers as Labs  Could it possibly be that the CIA cooked the evidence (again)? They don't learn, do they?

Jack Clark 11:46 PM [+]   
Post #105695556323428334

Kerry Protested Vietnam With 'Hanoi' Jane and 'Radical' Ramsey  The main reason I would like Kerry, he's now apparently trying to hide.

Jack Clark 11:43 PM [+]   
Post #105695541442920076