‘Government Sachs’ Strikes Gold… Again

[via The Nation by Robert Sheer]

Connect the dots: Goldman Sachs made $3.44 billion in profit this past quarter, while the US deficit topped $1 trillion for the first time in the nation’s history and appeared to be headed toward doubling that figure before the budget year is out. Since most of the increase in the federal deficit is due to bailing out the banks and salvaging the greater economy they helped destroy, why is the top investment bank doing so well?

So Far From God, So Close to Wall St.

[via The Nation]

This past winter both the outgoing director of the CIA and a separate Pentagon report declared political instability in Mexico to be on a par with Pakistan and Iran as top-ranking threats to US national security. It was an exaggeration; Mexico is not yet a “failed state.” On the other hand, it is certainly drifting in that direction.

A vicious war among narco-trafficking cartels last year killed at least 6,000 people, including public officials, police and journalists. The country leads the world in kidnappings (Pakistan is second). And with the global crisis, the chronically anemic economy is hemorrhaging jobs, businesses and hope.

Not surprisingly, voters turned against President Felipe Calderón’s right-wing National Action Party (PAN) in the July 5 midterm elections. But the left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD)–which many believe was robbed of the presidency in the 2006 election–has ripped itself apart with factional infighting. So frustrated Mexicans gave their Congress back to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), whose decades of corrupt authoritarian rule were supposed to have permanently ended in 2000. At least, thought many voters, the PRI knows how to keep order.

Mexicans are of course responsible for their own country. But geography has always forced them to play out their history in the shadow of their northern neighbor. “Poor Mexico,” goes the saying. “So far from God, so close to the United States.” Today, Mexico is a prime example of the socially destructive effects of the neoliberal economics promoted throughout the world by the US governing class.

The North American Free Trade Agreement–proposed by Ronald Reagan, negotiated by George Bush I and pushed through Congress by Bill Clinton in 1993–is both symbol and substance of neoliberalism. It was sold to the citizens of the United States, Mexico and Canada with the promise that free trade in goods and money would transform Mexico into a booming middle-class economy, dramatically reducing illegal immigration and creating a vast market for US and, to a lesser extent, Canadian exports.

Fifteen years later, Mexico is still unable to create enough jobs to employ its people. Out-migration has doubled, and on both sides of the US-Mexico border labor-market competition has kept wages down. At the top, income and wealth have ballooned. It is no accident that among NAFTA’s prominent godfathers were former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin (Democrat) and former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan (Republican), whose fingerprints are all over the current global financial disaster.

Our Cell Phones, Their War

[via Adbusters]

An astonishing six million people are estimated to have died as a result of the conflict in the Congo – the largest war-related death toll since the Second World War. What is perhaps more appalling to citizens geographically removed from this conflict, is the fact that our consumption of seemingly indispensable high-tech gadgets – cell phones, mp3 players, laptops and video game systems – may have substantially contributed to this holocaust.

The conflict in the Congo is often described as “tribal,” but sober assessments by the United Nations, research organizations and the American government reveal something far more complex. The multimillion dollar trade of the Congo’s natural resources by foreign armies, rebels and militias has played an integral role in fueling the conflict – both by motivating armed groups to wage war, and by providing them with the cash to do so.

Water Woes in Jakarta

[Why simple privatization doesn't necessarily mean better service, particularly when its public services at stake.]

Article from the Online Magazine “Inside Indonesia“

Access to clean water is difficult. With seasonal flooding, both the Ciliwung river and groundwater from the many hand-pumps become increasingly contaminated. -Henri Ismai

In Cipinang Muara, East Jakarta, there lies a cemetery complex known as ‘Kuburan Cina’. It is not, unfortunately, solely a resting place for the deceased. It is also home to over 80 families living in a slum inside the complex where water is a precious commodity. The people here earn their income from selling goods in a nearby flea market, making just Rp20,000 (US$2.60) a day. Buying clean water from private vendors is clearly not an option for them. Likewise, piped water is too expensive, and the city’s private water operators do not offer their services to what they consider illegitimate houses. In the past, the slum residents obtained water for cooking, drinking and sanitary purposes by collecting rainwater from the roofs of the buildings in their neighbourhood. Two years ago they collaborated to install four shallow wells. Given the quality of water they use however, water borne diseases such as diarrhoea and typhoid are not uncommon.

The story from Kuburan Cina is a stark reminder of the water service predicament in Jakarta and particularly its impact on the city’s urban poor. When a new system of Private Sector Participation, or PSP as it is sometimes known, opened up the city’s water supply sector to private companies in February 1998, it was hoped that Jakarta would finally be relieved of its clean water shortage woes. However, eight years later a UNDP report found that over 75 per cent of Jakartans – most of whom are of the poorer segment of the population – were still without improved access to clean water, relying instead on multiple sources, including rivers, lakes and private vendors.

Parsing Iran’s Election Results

[There are a lot of links in the article, so go to the original if interested in learning more about the specifics. Another article looking at the results comes from the Tehran Bureau, an independent (and yes, liberal) online news site ]

From the Columbia Journalism Review:

Writing in The Washington Post this morning, Glenn Kessler and Jon Cohen tackle the known unknowns of the Iranian election:

There were few independent polls taken before the election and no exit polls afterward, making it extremely difficult to assess the accuracy of the vote counts announced by the government.

A telephone poll co-sponsored by Terror Free Tomorrow and the New America Foundation, conducted May 11-20, showed Ahmadinejad with a 2 to 1 lead over Mousavi, but 52 percent of those surveyed either had no opinion or refused to answer, making many analysts wary of the results, especially because it was taken more than three weeks before the heated contest. When the poll was released, it predicted the vote would be “closer … than the numbers would indicate” and that no candidate would get the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff.”

2 Apps for Syncing non-iPods to iTunes

iTunes can play with others. Just needs some help.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sync-any-mp3-player-with-itunes-easily/

View Docs Online – when your computer can’t

Don’t have Microsoft Word but need to open a word document? Upload (you can also reference url’s for online documents you’re having trouble viewing) it to ViewDocsOnline and you’ll be able to see it.

Regarding the Microsoft Word comment I should be clear that other applications often have the ability to open Word documents (e.g. Open Office, Apple Pages, and many basic Text Editors), but it might not always work perfectly/some of the formatting might be off etc. ViewDocsOnline also works with a variety of other popular document formats.