Elaine Meinel Supkis
Here we go again: the NATO countries are complaining bitterly about Putin taking over Russia's energy exports and using them to make life better for Russians unlike the capitalist system here whereby a handful of elites become filthy rich while everyone else languishes. The OECD demands Russia go bankrupt like the USA.
Russia's controversial state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom has said that its export revenues soared 43% last year to a record $37.2bn (£19bn).The firm, which supplies a quarter of Europe's gas needs, benefited from higher gas wholesale prices in 2006.
Getting the energy giants in America to pay taxes even is like pulling teeth out of a hungry crocodile. They use their obscene profits to corrupt our govenment which then eases taxes and hands out goodies and OKs monopolies. Once upon a time, way back in Teddy Roosevelt's day, we had anti-monopoly laws. These laws were directed at the energy and steel producers like &hearts Andrew Carnegie as well as transportation systems such as the newfangled railroads.
During the Great Depression, the second Roosevelt strengthened anti-monopoly laws. During the Republican reign from Ronald Reagan onwards, we saw these laws laid low and torn apart in tandem with the destruction of the Constitution in general. Right now, Ma Bell is reassembling its monopoly and is sucking down all the fragments that were created when that ham-fisted entity was taken apart.
All over the capitalist world, monopolies are being formed. Most are fairly invisible because the entities carefully keep the old names of the companies they buy up and this is why shoppers in stores still think they have a choice when they are selecting products, for example. If one tracks the corporate entities, one sees quickly that stores carry the goods of only four or five corporations, if that.
More often, only two!
Naturally, right in the middle of this massive effort to form interlocking monopolies and cartels designed to raise prices and cut choices, these same elites are shrieking nonstop about Venezuela nationalizing important industries or Russia using their natural resources on behalf of the Russian people rather than to enrich this same elite group who are locking up trade and industry into the straight jacket of their consortiums.
Increasing state ownership is a "step back" for the Russian economy, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has warned.The global think tank said Moscow's growing nationalisation of key industries, such as energy and metals, risked a rise in corruption.
It also said that such moves could increase business inefficiency.
The OECD's latest report on Russia singled out state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom for particular criticism.
Just like the height of the British Empire, when they ruled the Seven Seas, Hail Britannia and all that rot, the actual people living in Britain itself were poor, so badly fed, they couldn't serve in the miltiary and they looked like dwarfs compared the better-fed Americans, only the poor Chinese peasants, bowed under the burden of a million taxations, were smaller. The average British worker lived in tiny flats in vast slums, in dirt and pollution, dressed in rags and ill with rickets and overworked under evil conditions.
This tendency of monopolizing capitalists to exploit workers has dire side effects and is also treasonous. The British Empire rapidly began to topple when attacked because the angry, poor, ragged, starving workers couldn't fight anyone that was physically stronger! Many financial reforms were launched during and after WWI because of alarm over the poor health of the working class!
Germany's right wing nationalist chancellor, Bismark, launched the first socialist state in Europe because he understood that a strong worker meant a strong nation and a strong army. England survived WWI and WWII by the skin of her teeth ONLY because she was able to tap the power of the USA with workers in much better condition, with endless food and raw materials and factories.
Russia, like the USA, has the same potential for growth and power. During the misguided communist dictatorships, Russia rotted away since the government was a monopoly all by itself.
Putin's push to have the energy system belong to the government makes sense despite the dangers of monopolies.
It said the fast-growing Russian economy - which grew at an average 6.7% per year from 1999-2005 - could slow sharply if Moscow does not reverse its nationalisation trend.The OECD added that Gazprom was "of particular concern" due to its "seemingly insatiable appetite for asset acquisitions, often at the expense of its core business".
April 3, 2006: 8:25 AM EDT NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Exxon Mobil hauled in nearly $1 billion a day in sales last year, making it the biggest company in the United States and knocking Wal-Mart from the No. 1 spot for the first time in four years, according to the latest FORTUNE 500.
The oil company's revenue and profit were the biggest ever for a U.S. company, while Corporate America overall racked up a staggering $9.1 trillion in sales and $610 billion in profits -- both records./blockquote>
Naturally, this was trumpetted as a wonderful thing and a sign that capitalist exploitation of workers and natural resources was superior to other systems. As workers groaned under the heel of Exxon/Mobile, as inflation of all essentials shot up and the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, the OECD was estatic with these developments.
This is why they are totally outraged that Venezuela is nationalizing energy systems while the OECD holds countries like Nigeria as role models for Russia! These people are cannibals! They seriously hate any diversion of resources or wealth flowing to people in general, they want concentrations of wealth. Their touching concern about Russian energy monopolies as being 'inefficient' flies in the face of their indifference concerning the whacky way America abuses energy building the most inefficient, energy wasting culture on earth bar none.
Of course, this myoptic view of the world is part of our hubris. It is why we are watching the USA go down in flames in the Middle East and why we are doomed to go down in flames economically, too. I must congratulate Putin for his refusal to listen to any of these elitists. Obviously, the path he is taking seems to be saner than the one we are taking.
And if Europe doesn't like the way the Russian people are improving their lives, they can always buy their energy from Iraq, a land invaded by imperialists, up in flames, or from the nightmare police state of Saudi Arabia which, like Russia, has nationalize the oil fields, oops. Or maybe they can buy from Nigeria. Which is going up in flames, too. Real steady sources for energy supplies.
Unlike Russia. Heh. (sound of me beating my head on the desk, laughing)
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Nationalized industries produce lousy service. They don't care about their customers because they don't have to (who else are you going to buy from?) Instead, you get a bureaucracy that's just as responsive as any bureaucracy anywhere (like the BMV.)
Posted by: JSmith | January 19, 2007 at 09:28 AM
UM, Monopolies provide lousy service. Like Ma Bell, for example.
I have a long memory. Energy systems, like communication systems, need competition BUT the mining of these things like oil or copper is best done under government control since private people simply want to take everything and run.
Namely, this is 'collective' wealth, not something that should be 'owned' by some capitalists.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | January 19, 2007 at 11:14 AM
It is true that government buearacracies (sp?)will waste a lot of the profits, but a great deal of it will be invested in the people of that country and not taken to another country and spent there, which is what happens with private enterprises.
Private enterprises are very efficient for the few who control them, but for everyone else, (often including their own shareholders) they bring nothing but misery and poverty.
Posted by: DeVaul | January 21, 2007 at 07:14 PM