Case 1: Jeffrey Sachs, EconomistJeffrey Sachs is no ordinary economics professor. He is Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and founder and co-director of the Millennium Promise Alliance, a non-profit organisation dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger. He was
twice named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, and authored two New York Times bestsellers, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, and Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet.
In an
opinion article in AlJazeera, Jeffrey Sachs says that globalisation calls for more government control on economies - not less. He even criticises the US policy of "cutting the role of government in the domestic economy" over the last 30 years.
He says that governmental deregulation has meant that "the rich have used their wealth to strengthen their grip on power"... And now there are "important signs around the world that people are fed up with governments that cater to the rich while ignoring everyone else".
But... before the buttercups, baby unicorns and rainbows, Mr Sachs was the man whose work gave rise to the economics term,
Shock Therapy.His first live lab rat was Bolivia in the 80s. He turned it into an iniquitous corporate-run profiteering racket that eventually brought the present president
Evo Morales to power. His final masterpiece of disasterous economic advice was the oligarchical cesspool in Russia of the 90s.
After this was accomplished,
Prof. Sachs later embraced U2 lead-singer, Bono, to transform butterfly-like into a gentler version dedicated to saving the children of Africa.
Prof. Sachs' economic Shock Therapy in the 80s and 90s usually involved the rapid
transfer of PUBLIC PROPERTY AND ASSETS to private ownership. And since it happens during hyperinflationary conditions, the price in foreign currency is extremely cheap.
In more recent days, so-called government intervention in the economy has been mainly to prop-up stock markets, bailout private financial institutions and rescue bankers from bad investments. But notice how, this time around, it involves the
conversion of PRIVATE DEBT into public debt to be borne by future taxpayers!
Makes me wonder: Is the kinder 'New Sachs' really any different from the marauding 'Old Sachs'?
Case 2: Andrew Liveris, Chairman and CEO of The Dow Chemical CompanyNo small fry, this. The Dow Chemical Company is one of the largest multinational corporations in the world, a leader in science and technology, and one of the world's biggest manufacturing companies. Liveris is apparently an ardent advocate for manufacturing, and serves as Co-Chair of President Obama's Advanced Manufacturing Partnership.
It is apt then that Mr Liveris wrote a book called
Make It in America: The Case for Re-Inventing the EconomyThe Wall Street Journal review fawns:
"In Make It in America, he (Liveris) calls for a national strategy to revive manufacturing. We need manufacturing jobs, he says, if we are to keep a growing population busy and start paying off our debts to the rest of the world."It goes on...
"Mr. Liveris doesn't shy away from proposing ideas that have defeated countless other reformers. For instance, he wants to overhaul our K-12 education system so that it will concentrate more on science, math and engineering. That promises to be a long struggle, he admits. ‘I pushed science at the dinner table with my kids,’ writes Mr. Liveris, who loved chemistry as a boy..."The book was published on 4 January 2011.
On 8 October 2011, Andrew Liveris announces to the world that a
20-billion dollar joint venture plan between Dow and Aramco will create 26 new plants and 14,000 new jobs - in Saudi Arabia!
Both men still retain straight faces, their jobs, as well as the adulation of many proles!
"#"$*%&!!!" - What else can one say?
