Watched “The Take” this weekend. This documentary is directed by Avi Lewis and writer Naomi Klein, author of the international bestseller “No Logo” and the recent “Shock Doctrine,”  which coincides nicely with this documentary

http://www.thetake.org/

Here’s the review from the website:

With The Take, director, champion a radical economic manifesto for the 21st century. But what shines through in the film is the simple drama of workers' lives and their struggle: the demand for dignity and the searing injustice of dignity denied

In the wake of Argentina's dramatic economic collapse in 2001, Latin America's most prosperous middle class finds itself in a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass unemployment. The Forja auto plant lies dormant until its former employees take action. They're part of a daring new movement of workers who are occupying bankrupt businesses and creating jobs in the ruins of the failed system.

But Freddy, the president of the new worker's co-operative, and Lalo, the political powerhouse from the Movement of Recovered Companies, know that their success is far from secure. Like every workplace occupation, they have to run the gauntlet of courts, cops and politicians who can either give their project legal protection or violently evict them from the factory.

The story of the workers' struggle is set against the dramatic backdrop of a crucial presidential election in Argentina, in which the architect of the economic collapse, Carlos Menem, is the front-runner. His cronies, the former owners, are circling: if he wins, they'll take back the companies that the movement has worked so hard to revive.

Armed only with slingshots and an abiding faith in shop-floor democracy, the workers face off against the bosses, bankers and a whole system that sees their beloved factories as nothing more than scrap metal for sale.

What struck me was that these workers were not advocating socialism, communism, or even capitalism, but merely proposing a capital restructure of a defunct company where the ownership is leveled towards the workers i.e., a cooperative. What I found most illuminating was the attitude of the “owner“ of Zoron, Luis Zanon. Her interview with him is brilliant and revealing. His pompous smugness was revolting. His office reeked of wealth, entitlement and privilege. He knew he had political and police connections that would use force to evict workers out of “his” factory and had no reservations about instigating a conflict. I suspect he represents the general attitude of his owner class.

VOICEOVER: Are you going to get your factory back?

FORMER ZANON OWNER: I'm going to get it back.

VOICEOVER: How are you going to do it?

FORMER ZANON OWNER: The government will give it back to me.

Workers Without Bosses Face Eviction

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=13552

August 16, 2007

As part of self-management, workers have had to organize themselves to defend their factory. Self-defense against violent attacks has been the backbone of the radicalization and production at Zanon. The government's response has been violent, using different tactics to evict the factory workers. The government has tried to evict Zanon workers five times using police operatives. On April 8, 2003, during the most recent eviction attempt, over 5,000 community members from Neuquén came out to defend the factory. 

Many of the worker-run factories are discovering that even with legal standing their future job-stability may be threatened by market pressures and changes in the political landscape. Such is the case at the Zanon ceramics factory. A court is now considering shortening or even revoking the cooperative’s legal status because a creditor has been demanding that the factory be sold to pay back the debt that the original owner, Luis Zanon left behind.  

And with Argentina elections looming, who will the next president represent?

Will Cristina head off another crisis?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7035500.stm

21 October 2007

President Nestor Kirchner's government paid off Argentina's debt to the International Monetary Fund, construction is booming, exports are up, annual growth averages 8% and the rates of poverty and unemployment are looking much healthier.

Mr Kirchner's wife, Cristina, is well ahead in the opinion polls and looks set to take over from him after elections on 28 October. But, as is often the case in Argentina, all is not what it seems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristina_Kirchner

Which brings up the question: Grow to what? The economy is still growing, just growing at a slower rate [aka “sustainable growth”], and yet, this downward change of growth rate will have negative economic impacts. This is the outcome of an economy where growth is institutionalized into the capital structure of every corporation and business, into the economy itself, where every dollar issued has growth expectations. Everything must grow.

Further fall in US home building

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7049098.stm

17 October 2007

The number of new homes being built in the US fell by 10.2% in September - worse than had been expected. Earlier this week, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warned that the downturn in the housing market was likely to persist longer than had been expected. It would "continue to adversely impact our economy, our capital markets and many homeowners for some time yet", he added.

IMF warning over slowing growth

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7037005.stm

10 October 2007

The global economy may face a marked slowdown next year as a result of the turmoil in financial markets, the International Monetary Fund has warned.  A sharp slowdown in the US economy is expected to constrain growth next year.

In separate remarks, the IMF warned that Eastern Europe was particularly vulnerable to a reduction in capital flows as a result of the global credit squeeze.

Capital Structure Flaw of Public Corporations

SUMMARY

The issue is not whether "growth" is a flawed concept. Growth itself is a vague term that has a wide variety of meanings from individual to individual and is generally viewed as "a good thing"; however, the emphasis of compounding growth as a national economic policy measured by the Dow Jones Average or Gross National Product may not encompass all the desired attributes of growth.

An investor wants to recover his equity before investment failure; hence, the search for the greater fool, the greater fool being the investor who buys the stock of a corporation just as perpetual growth slows or ceases. The public stock market is the most opportune market to find the last buyers, hence the greatest fools.

When a corporation's stock declines, an investor's losses can be offset with gains in other corporations using a diversified corporate portfolio. When an industry starts to decline, an investor's losses can be offset with gains in other industries using a diversified industry portfolio. The diversified portfolio is insurance that the investor will only be fooled part of the time.

CONCLUSION

Ever-increasing Growth, as measured by compounding interest concepts, is an inherent flaw embedded in the corporate and debt structure. Collapse is inevitable.

'Secret' Lockerbie report claim

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7023397.stm

2 October 2007

Lawyers acting for the Lockerbie bomber are expected to ask the High Court to examine claims that vital documents were kept from the trial defense team. Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is currently serving a minimum of 27 years for the 1988 atrocity in which 270 people died when Pan-Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie. He is awaiting an appeal on the grounds of a possible miscarriage of justice.

The documents, which relate to the timer which allegedly detonated the Lockerbie bomb, are believed to have come from the American CIA - which demanded that they were not disclosed.

Gideon's Spies by Gordon Thomas, 1999, Excerpts

Pan AM Flight 103

On a December evening in 1988, Pan American Airways Flight 103 from London to New York exploded in the air over Lockerbie in Scotland. Pan Am 103 had been destroyed as an act of revenge for the shooting down on July 3, 1988, by the USS Vincennes of an Iranian passenger plane in the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people. It had been a tragic error for which the United States had apologized.

On board the aircraft as it left London on that December night in 1988 were eight members of the US intelligence community returning from duty in the Middle East. Four of them were CIA field officers. Also on board were US Army major Charles McKee and his small team of experts in hostage rescue. They had been in the Middle East to explore the possibility of freeing the Western hostages still held in Beirut.

Though the Lockerbie disaster investigation was under the jurisdiction of a Scottish team, CIA agents were on the scene when McKee's still closed and miraculously intact suitcase was located. It was taken away from the scene for a short time by a man believed to be a CIA officer, though he would never be positively identified. Later the suitcase was returned to the Scottish investigation team, who logged its contents under "empty."

No one queried what had happened to McKee's belongings, let alone why he had been traveling with an empty suitcase. But at the time, no one suspected that the CIA officer might have removed from the suitcase data that explained why Pan Am 103 had been destroyed.

The airline's insurers hired a New York firm of private investigators called Interfor. The company had been founded in 1979 by an Israeli, Yuval Aviv, who had immigrated to the United States the previous year. Aviv claimed to be a former disk officer with Mossad. Aviv had satisfied the insurers he had the right connections to unearth the truth.

Aviv had concluded that the attack had been planned and executed by a rogue CIA group, based in Germany, who were providing protection to a drug operation which transported drugs for the Middle East to the US via Frankfurt. The CIA did nothing to break up the operation because the traffickers were also helping them send weapons to Iran as part of the arms-for-hostages negotiations. McKee had discovered the scam while pursuing his own contacts in the Middle East underworld in an attempt to find a way to rescue the Beirut hostages. 

The method of drug smuggling was quite simple. One person would check a piece of luggage on the flight, and an accomplice working in the baggage area would switch it with a piece of identical luggage containing the narcotics. 

Aviv's report claimed McKee had learned about the "CIA rogue team," which had worked under the code name of COREA, and that its members also had close ties to another of those mysterious figures who had found his niche on the fringes of the intelligence world - Monzer Al-Kassar. Al-Kassar had built a reputation as an arms dealer in Europe, including supplying Colonel Oliver North with weapons for him to pass on to the Nicaraguan Contras in 1985-86. Al-Kassar's brother-in-law was head of Syrian intelligence and his wife was a relative of the Syrian president. 

Al-Kassar had found in COREA a ready partner for the drug-smuggling operation. Aviv stated in his report that "McKee planned to bring back to the US proof of the rogue intelligence team's connection to Al-Kassar." 

On the fatal night, a Syrian terrorist, aware of how the drug operation worked, had switched a suitcase with one containing the bomb. His reason was to kill the US intelligence operatives whom Syria had discovered would join the flight.

In 1994, Joel Bannerman, the publisher of an Israeli intelligence report wrote: "Twenty-four hours before the flight, Mossad tipped off the German BKA that there could be a plan to plant a bomb on flight 103. The BKA passed on their tip to the COREA CIA team working out of Frankfurt who said they would take care of everything."

So far Mossad has kept to itself all it knows about the destruction of the flight. There are sources who claim that Mossad is holding on to its knowledge as a trump card should Washington increase its pressure for Mossad to cease its intelligence activities within the United States.