10 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2024
  2. Jul 2023
  3. Jan 2023
    1. you  see a lot of third world debts that uh if the   third world better countries have to pay uh their  foreign debts under as the world economy slows   down they're going to be subject to austerity to  the world banks and the imf's austerity programs   00:35:01 and they're going to be kept in poverty uh is it  really right that they should be kept in poverty   just to enrich the bondholders of the one percent  the one percent will say yes that's why we're   the one percent so that we can impoverish  other people that's our liberty our liberty   is the right to impoverish other people and reduce  them to dependency uh that will happen if you do   not write down the debts uh it's already happening  in the united states to the student debt uh crisis   00:35:30 where students uh have to pay so much money uh as  they fall behind on their student debts that they   can't afford to take out mortgages to buy homes  uh and you're having the home ownership rates   plunge in the united states that's the result of  leaving the debts in place uh the mortgage steps   uh uh are causing shrinkage so there is no way  to get out of this economic polarization without   00:35:54 a debt write down and that's something that  is too radical and uh uh when we talked about   when i was referring to what china's doing i'm  referring to what it's doing today and tomorrow   about uh the uh real estate company evergreen  uh uh china has a choice is it going to leave   evergreen's real estate debts in place and every  grand uh as a real estate company is two to three   00:36:21 percent of the entire chinese economy if it  pays the foreign creditors and the domestic   one percent of china it's going to impoverish the  uh the employees of evergrand it's going to make   housing prices more and more expensive in china  china has had a debt finance housing boom uh   if you leave the debts in place then uh you're  you're going to impoverish china and obviously   00:36:47 china is going to say i'm we're not going to put  the creditors first we're not going to do what   the west does and say the sanctity of debt service  debts are uh that you owe or sacred uh it's worth   sacrificing the economy it's worth plunging the  economy into poverty just to preserve the wealth   of the one percent i think china's uh is going to  make the opposite decision and say we're not going   00:37:12 to commit political suicide we're going to operate  for it's a socialist economy and when it comes to   debt and credit thank god we have our banking in  the public domain and since the public domain the   people's bank of china is the creditor they can  afford to write down the debt without having any   political backlash because it's cancelling that  so do itself uh which is a great advantage uh and   00:37:38 it's also uh as for the private bond holders uh  it's going to say well sorry bondholders you made   loans to a company that was way over leveraged  uh already uh the american bond rating companies   have reduced their bond rating to chunk so you  knew what you were buying if you continued to hold   bonds that uh fitch and other bond raiders moody's  all say or junk and you lose your money well   00:38:03 you took the risk you got a high rate of  interest now you're you're paying the price   that's how markets work uh and uh that really  uh is the argument and i think uh you have to   uh obviously what i'm suggesting is a radical  step just as you're suggesting of taxing wealth   would require the radical step of closing down  offshore banking centers of simply negating uh if   00:38:28 banks would simply erase all of the deposits  they have from the offshore banking centers from   the cayman islands from from panama from uh from  liberia to all the places that began by to be set   up by the mining companies the oil companies  and then were set up beginning in the 1960s   essentially by the cia to finance  the vietnam war by making america   like england the home for criminal capital  for flight capital all this uh all this flight   00:38:57 capital and the kleptocracy that you mentioned  in russia all this really should be wiped out   and if you leave this capital if you leave this  one percent in place the economy is going to be   sacrificed and shrinking is it worth shrinking  the economy just to leave the one percent in place   and if you challenge them that's pretty radical  that's really what i think marx would say today

      !- Micheal Hudson : debt writedown - At a certain point, Governments of 3rd world countries who are so debt trapped may simply decide to write down the debts and start over - They may reach a point where instead of servicing the debt of the 1%, they decide its not worth it and save their own economies, freeing themselves from World Bank and IMF debt conditions - It's just as radical a move as your suggestion to stop tax evasion by closing down all offshore banks

    2. i think the reason  your book was praised so much uh in the west is   you didn't come up with a threatening political  solution uh and uh when they said this was the   mark book is the marks for modern time that meant  don't read marx read this book and i suspect that   after you put all of this enormous good work  into the uh statistics that you did on wealth   00:15:30 and income i think the publisher probably said  well what are what are your solutions well you   just came up with uh the solution that you uh said  in the book and that's to tax income and wealth   uh this is not a threatening solution because  there's no way that you're going to tax wealth   as long as you have offshore banking centers to  conceal wealth as long as you have what the oil   00:15:54 industry put in place a hundred years ago the  flags of convenience pretending to make their   uh income abroad the fact is uh the one percent  don't really make much income they're ideal if   you're a billionaire you want to do what uh half  of american corporations do you don't make a penny   of taxable income uh that that's uh the whole  problem

      !- Michael Hudson : critique of Thomas Piketty's books - Hudson comments that Piketty's books were not politically threatening to the elites - Piketty's solution is to tax the elites but this is no threat to the elites because they have wealth concealed in offshore accounts - billionaires strategy: don't make one penny of TAXABLE income

  4. Feb 2021
  5. Jun 2020
  6. Jun 2018
    1. http://cookislandsnews.com/national/local/item/13335-brown-back-for-documentary/13335-brown-back-for-documentary

      Working for CBC?

      No. I was not "working for" CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I was funded by CBC to fly back from New Zealand to Rarotonga as a public source for a CBC story. On offshore banking, and the background to offshore banking in the Cook Islands.

      My impression? They needed a local "talking head" to illustrate their story, safely. Having gained footage of what they were interested in, the CBC reporter leading the story has rejected my own story about offshore banking.

      Good enough to be a CBC headline source, but not good enough to be a CBC investigative source.

  7. Mar 2017
    1. Shell

      The decision to veto the proposed pipeline in accordance with Mr. Berger’s recommendation substantially slowed, but did not stop the search for oil in the Arctic. Over the next 40 years, oil companies such as Shell, Exxon, and Chevron would continue their search in a region expected to contain 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30% of its natural gas.1 But in 2015, Shell, the last remaining company in the American Arctic, announced it would halt its exploratory drilling. This would mark the end of their $7 billion venture into Alaska’s Chuckchi Sea. The well, the Burger J, stretched to a depth of 6,800 feet and showed indications of oil and gas, but amid relatively low oil prices, less than $50 a barrel, and the expense necessary to drill in this section of the ocean they have decided to cease operations. The company originally planned on drill two wells to greater than 8,000 feet, but in the wake of Shell grounding its Kulluck drilling rig, this number was halved by President Obama’s administration.2 This grounding was found to be, in part, the result of Shell’s ill-fated attempt to avoid paying millions of dollars in tax liability. Fortune’s Jon Birger noted in his visit to the rig after it was grounded that it was well prepared to prevent the incident that destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon, but, startlingly, was less equipped to deal with the unique weather conditions posed by drilling in the Arctic.3 The Berger report may not have halted Shell’s Artic exploration but a combination of regulatory restrictions and low oil prices seem to have done just that.

      1. Lavelle, Marianne. "Coast Guard blames Shell risk-taking in Kulluk rig accident." National Geographic. April 4, 2014. Accessed March 7, 2017. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/04/140404-coast-guard-blames-shell-in-kulluk-rig-accident/.
      2. Koch, Wendy. "3 reasons why Shell halted drilling in the Arctic." National Geographic. September 28, 2015. Accessed March 7, 2017. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/09/150928-3-reasons-shell-halted-drilling-in-the-arctic/.
      3. Birger, Jon. "What I learned aboard Shell's grounded Alaskan oil rig." Fortune. January 3, 2013. Accessed March 7, 2017. http://fortune.com/2013/01/03/what-i-learned-aboard-shells-grounded-alaskan-oil-rig/.
    2. Canada has chosen to pioneer offshore oil and gas exploration in the Arctic.

      In the 1970s, rapidly rising oil prices and scarcity, both real and perceived, as the result of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ near monopoly on the market drove many western countries to seek alternative sources of power in a bid for self-sufficiency.1 The drilling of oil in the Arctic would have proven a major source of oil to quell these concerns, but the proposal to install the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline was ultimately denied. In the period since publication, the price of oil has declined and the desire to drill in the Arctic has seemingly been calmed. The major oil companies have all withdrawn from the region, with Shell being the final one to do so after lackluster findings in Alaska’s Chuckchi Sea.2 In the time since, both the United States and Canada have placed moratoriums on oil and gas leasing in Arctic waters.3 Thus Canada has made an about face and is now placing the conservation of the Artic environment over the potential oil and gas to be found there. There is little surprise here, given the relatively low price of oil and a growing concern about its influence on the environment. Even if one is to disregard the possible long term benefits of oil consumption, the hazards from extraction and transportation are also considerable. Where they once hoped to lead the way to a more self-sufficient future through Arctic oil, they have now placed a hold the search. They felt it was simply too risky an expedition to undertake at the current time.3

      1. AHRARI, MOHAMMED E. "The Oil Embargo." In OPEC: The Failing Giant, 111-32. University Press of Kentucky, 1986. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt130j7ns.11.
      2. Koch, Wendy. "3 reasons why Shell halted drilling in the Arctic." National Geographic. September 28, 2015. Accessed March 7, 2017. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/09/150928-3-reasons-shell-halted-drilling-in-the-arctic/.
      3. "U.S., Canada ban offshore drilling in Arctic waters." CBC News. December 20, 2016. Accessed March 7, 2017. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/obama-ban-offshore-drilling-arctic-atlantic-1.3905384.