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Today's
Stories
December 6 / 7, 2003
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
December 5, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Jeremy Scahill
Bremer
of the Tigris
Jeremy Brecher
Amistad
Revisited at Guantanamo?
Norman Solomon
Dean
and the Corp Media Machine
Norman Madarasz
France
Starts Facing Up to Anti-Muslim Discrimination
Pablo Mukherjee
Afghanistan:
the Road Back
December 4, 2003
M. Junaid Alam
Image
and Reality: an Interview with Norman Finkelstein
Adam Engel
Republican
Chris Floyd
Naked Gun: Sex, Blood and the FBI
Adam Federman
The US Footprint in Central Asia
Gary Leupp
The
Fall of Shevardnadze
Guthrie / Albert
RIP Clark Kerr
December 3, 2003
Stan Goff
Feeling
More Secure Yet?: Bush, Security, Energy & Money
Joanne Mariner
Profit Margins and Mortality Rates
George Bisharat
Who Caused the Palestinian Diaspora?
Mickey Z.
Tear Down That Wal-Mart
John Stanton
Bush Post-2004: a Nightmare Scenario
Harry Browne
Shannon
Warport: "No More Business as Usual"
December 2, 2003
Matt Vidal
Denial
and Deception: Before and Beyond Iraqi Freedom
Benjamin Dangl
An Interview with Evo Morales on the Colonization of the Americas
Sam Bahour
Can It Ever Really End?
Norman Solomon
That
Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test
Josh Frank
Trade
War Fears
Andrew Cockburn
Tired,
Terrified, Trigger-Happy
December 1, 2003
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Unholy
Alliances: Zionism, US Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Baghdad Pitstop: Memories of LBJ in Vietnam
Harry Browne
Democracy Delayed in Northern Ireland
Wayne Madsen
Wagging the Media
Herman Benson
The New Unity Partnership for Labor: Bureaucratizing to Organize?
Gilad Atzmon
About
"World Peace"
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Intelligence: Monstrous Messes
November 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
November 28, 2003
William S. Lind
Worse Than Crimes
David Vest
Turkey
Potemkin
Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini
New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks
Wayne Madsen
Wag
the Turkey
Harold Gould
Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited
Gabriel Kolko
Vietnam
and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything?
South Asia Tribune
The Story
of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words
Website of the Day
Bush Draft
November 27, 2003
Mitchel Cohen
Why
I Hate Thanksgiving
Jack Wilson
An
Account of One Soldier's War
Stefan Wray
In the Shadows of the School of the Americas
Al Krebs
Food as Corporate WMD
Jim Scharplaz
Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer
Neve Gordon
Gays
Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
Bruce Jackson
Media
and War: Bringing It All Back Home
Stew Albert
Perle's
Confession: That's Entertainment
Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities
David Orr
Miami Heat
Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists
on the Beach
Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami
Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates
Kathy Kelly
Hogtied
and Abused at Ft. Benning
Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
November 14 / 23, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime:
Was It Really a Golden Age?
Saul Landau
Words
of War
Noam Chomsky
Invasion
as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl
John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills
Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith
Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees
Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins
M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory
Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete
Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil
Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?
William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics
Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First
Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly
Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review
of Bush in Babylon
Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq
Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions
Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?
David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead
Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film
Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best
Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!
November 13, 2003
Jack McCarthy
Veterans
for Peace Booted from Vet Day Parade
Adam Keller
Report
on the Ben Artzi Verdict
Richard Forno
"Threat Matrix:" Homeland Security Goes Prime-Time
Vijay Prashad
Confronting
the Evangelical Imperialists
November 12, 2003
Elaine Cassel
The
Supremes and Guantanamo: a Glimmer of Hope?
Col. Dan Smith
Unsolicited
Advice: a Reply to Rumsfeld's Memo
Jonathan Cook
Facility
1391: Israel's Guantanamo
Robert Fisk
Osama Phones Home
Michael Schwartz
The Wal-Mart Distraction and the California Grocery Workers Strike
John Chuckman
Forty
Years of Lies
Doug Giebel
Jessica Lynch and Saving American Decency
Uri Avnery
Wanted: a Sharon of the Left
Website of the Day
Musicians Against Sweatshops
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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December
6 / 7, 2003
How to Fix the World
Bank
A Teensy Tax
By MARK SCARAMELLA
(Warning to numerophobes: heavy lifting
ahead.)
The estimated total yearly value of worldwide
currency transactions -- and this is a BIG number even if you're
a corporate CEO -- is over $1.2 trillion a day. (No one knows
the exact number). Or almost $500 trillion per year. These are
guesses made by practitioners of the dismal science.
For comparison, the US annual federal
budget these days is up to about $2 trillion (in spite of the
recent "tax cuts"), of which about $800 billion or
so, or about 41%, is funded by personal income taxes. So all
federal personal income taxes in a year in the United States,
huge as they may be, are only about 0.16% of annual global currency
transactions.
Behind our backs worldwide currency transactions
have invisibly exploded in the last few decades. These transactions
are almost entirely unregulated and untaxed. Again, we're talking
here only about international currency (or monetary) transactions,
not the value of global trade in goods and services, which is
"only" about 10% of the currency transactions, or "only"
around $50 trillion a year.
The United States total foreign aid budget
is about $13 billion. Sounds generously big, right? (Only about
half of foreign aid is for humanitarian purposes. The rest goes
for "national security assistance." )
US annual humanitarian aid is only about
$7 billion a teeny-tiny fraction of the $500,000 billion (7 out
of 500,000) in currency trading, or 0.0015%. (Of course other
countries contribute to humanitarian aid at somewhat higher but
still comparably stingy levels.)
In other words the humanitarian aid that
is "generously" doled out by the United States every
year is less than one-and-a-half-thousandths of a percent of
worldwide currency transactions. (0.0015% of an annual income
of, say, $30,000, is 45 cents.)
Here's another way to think about it.
$500 trillion per year in currency transactions is about $1 billion
a minute. So the total US humanitarian aid budget for an entire
year is roughly the same amount of money as eight minutes worth
of global currency transactions each year.
Big banks do most of these unregulated
trades, not individual private currency speculators. And 60%
of the $500 trillion is traded in only three large first-world
countries: The United States, Britain and Japan.
In November the subject of foreign exchange
activity became a brief blip on the international news radar
screen when the Manhattan US attorney's office announced fraud
charges against 47 US currency traders in New York who were said
to have defrauded investors and banks of "tens of millions
of dollars." Manhattan US attorney James Comey called the
crime "a staggering array of criminal conduct."
One of those charged was Stephen Moore,
55, chief executive of Itrade, a foreign currency trading company,
who had previously served on the Foreign Exchange Committee for
the Federal Reserve Bank.
The charges stemmed from the undercover
work of one lone FBI agent who, according to Comey, "infiltrated"
a Manhattan boiler room currency trading operation for 18 months,
and video/audio taped the defendants doing their dirty work.
"It wasn't fancy," said Comey.
"It was fraud."
In all, prosecutors charged traders from
18 firms. The "victims" of the fraudsters, many of
whom were international bank employees, included some large (but
mostly unknown, at least in currency trading) international banks
such as UBS AG, J.P. Morgan, Israel Discount Bank, Societe Generale,
and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson.
Besides Itrade, the boiler rooms had
fancy sounding names like Tullet Liberty, Tradition North America,
Madison Deane and Associates, First Lexington Group, and ICAP
Plc.
Yes, ye olde Deane ploy. Works every
time.
Of course, no one would ever suspect
the large banks themselves of playing any games with their part
of the rest of the "largely unregulated" $500 trillion,
especially the US attorney's office.
In announcing the undercover investigation,
FBI officials described the foreign exchange markets as "one
of Wall Street's most closed and insular subcultures."
FBI Assistant Director Pasquale D'Amuro
said that the undercover agent was told that the illegal activity
had been going on for at least 20 years.
In theory a little bit of currency exchange
activity is regulated by the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission,
but in practice they do very little regulation because so much
of the activity is worldwide and unreported.
Greg Mocek, head of enforcement for the
CFTC, said, "The CFTC does not regulate the interbank Forex
[foreign exchange] market. A lot of this activity was occurring
in the interbank Forex market. However the fact that at a certain
point the money flowed in was transferred in illegal futures
contracts that's what brought us in the fold."
In other words there's no real regulation
of currency trading -- unless it leaks out to other categories
of financial activity -- and only then if an extremely dedicated
lone agent spends 18 months taping it and figuring out what it
all means.
The defendants are charged with making
around $650,000 in illegal profits from their fraudulent trades.
After all, all you'd have to do is tell an "investor"
that the exchange rates were only slightly different than what
they really were, and pocket the difference.
But the "tens of millions of dollars" involved -- say
around $30 million -- would still be only around two one-hundredths
of a percent of one day's currency transactions.
The whole idea of "currency exchange
markets" is a little nutty, you've got to admit. Imagine
the taped conversations of "traders" as they roam the
aisles at the local currency market: "I'll give you a thousand
shekels for those 800,000 pesos and I'll throw in two loans in
the future if you'll promise to fund my friend's internet startup."
Or, "Hey, you got any of them yen left? I have a few extra
dinar and lotsa lira I'm having trouble unloading." Or,
"I know you say you're outta rials, but I think I can get
my hands on some new euros. How many euros do you want for all
the rials your hiding out back? ... No, no. They're not going
up -- fuggedaboutit."
In light of these humongous figures and
these recent charges giving us a passing glimpse into the dark
currency subculture (the charges even mentioned "cash kickbacks"
and envelopes full of cash changing hands in New York City diners),
it seems appropriate to again raise what some countries and some
prominent economists have actually proposed -- an "international
currency transaction tax."
The concept was first proposed in 1972
by Nobel prize-winning economist James Tobin who originally suggested
a tax rate of 0.5%. Subsequent economics research has determined
that a smaller tax, as low as 0.02% to 0.1%, would still be an
effective deterrent to speculative, short-term trading, and would
be the basis for at least a little bit of regulation since transactions
would have to be reported and logged in a computer somewhere.
(Tobin's proposal was originally intended only as a deterrent
to short-term currency speculation, not as a tax or a way to
fund humanitarian aid projects.)
But the idea is getting a little more
attention these days from people who are not economists-- and
even from some major countries -- who think a tiny transaction
tax would also be a decent, fair, and relatively painless way
to reduce the kind of crushing poverty, starvation and grotesque
income inequalities that produce not only envy and animosity
toward the industrialized world but, in a few crazy extremists,
a visceral hatred of the West.
If sized a teensy bit higher than .1%
and applied just to US based transactions, such a tax could eliminate
the US personal income tax and America's big loophole industry
-- i.e., lobbying and corruption -- that goes with it. But that's
probably too much to ask.
Mr. Tobin is no humanitarian or critic
of the international banking system or the World Bank. He recently
told an interviewer for the World Bank's newsletter, "I
don't have the slightest thing in common with these anti-globalization
revolutionaries. I'm an economist and, like most economists,
a backer of free trade. I also support the IMF (International
Monetary Fund), the WTO (World Trade Organization), and all the
things this movement is attacking. In fact, I believe the IMF
should be strengthened and enlarged. Of course, it has made many
mistakes, but, as is the case with the World Bank, it has too
few means at its disposal to help above all poor and underdeveloped
economies. The World Bank and the IMF are not part of some conspiracy
called globalization."
Mr. Tobin may be at least partially right.
And, by extension, the anti-globalization protesters may have
it at least partially wrong. To make a better world, the protesters
might want to stop preaching to themselves about the horrors
of globalization, the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund, and on and on and on.
Instead, using the magic of mathematics
and teeny-tiny percentages of very large numbers, they could
join with countries like Canada and India and other member nations
of the United Nations General Assembly, several leading international
economists, Ralph Nader, Fidel Castro, and even some of the world's
biggest financiers, and work to enact an international currency
transaction tax (on only the world's three richest countries,
or with a minimum transaction threshold, if you prefer). The
proceeds of the tax could be aimed directly at the poor, not
the middlemen.
The currency traders would hardly notice.
According to the United Nations, there
are 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty in the world
(surviving on less than $1 a day), and that number grows annually.
So if you wanted to get really ambitious, only one-thousandth
of global currency transactions would more than eliminate extreme
poverty worldwide.
Given a choice between eliminating the
World Bank (highly unlikely) or eliminating extreme poverty USING
the World Bank (a real possibility), wouldn't most people choose
the latter, by imposing a simple, tiny, already-on-the-table
tax on international currency transactions, administered by the
World Bank or the IMF? (Remember that poverty eradication is
already one of the World Bank's stated goals.)
Of course any currency exchange tax revenue
given to poverty-stricken people should be democratically controlled
by those people. And the World Bank or IMF must see to it that
it gets where it's supposed to get.
Ambitious? Sure, but these are more manageable
objectives than eliminating the World Bank and the IMF, much
less currency transactions.
Even if you could eliminate the top two
or three big international banks, there will still be banks and
they will still be in the profitable international banking business.
The well-meaning but obviously math-challenged anti-globalization
protesters -- not to mention the world's many poor people --
might discover that the world's banking system (which is long
overdue for regulation as well as taxation anyway) could become
their best source of revenue.
Mark Scaramella
is the managing editor of the Anderson
Valley Advertiser. He can be reached at: themaj@pacific.net
Weekend
Edition Features for Nov. 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
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