THE RECORD
March 29, 2000

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

As I am writing this a revolution is going on in Costa Rica, where the government decided to privatize the country's electricity supplier. Something like 45 senators voted for the sellout, with 10 against. For the past few days the country's unionists have been on strike, students and much of the general public out on the streets, protesting the move, cursing the government.

Has anybody seen anything about this in our media? No way, because some of our politicians are preparing us for the same sellouts on the orders of Howe Street and the information on precedents may ruin their chances for directorships.

Although an estimated 80 percent of Costa Ricans are against the sale, unimportant issues, such as democracy, have never stopped the promoters of privatization and free trade. Always promoting for the purpose of "improving efficiency and saving costs." Which usually means mass firings, loss of responsible management and services, higher costs and profits squeezed out of the victim countries.

The estimated fee hike in Costa Rica, already known, will be around 400 percent. But the people should love this and praise the government for their efforts to increase the GDP with fee hikes, firings and the creation of poverty.

When the services of the BC Telephone Company were deregulated by the CRTC a couple of years ago the increased "efficiency" included an immediate 30 percent hike in our bill and up to 50 percent for others. Repair services that used to be done overnight now take weeks. Hookups for new tenants in houses already equipped with phone lines take months.

We were the last ones to receive fiber optics in this area and Telus has no plans for more. In some communities it is impossible to get private numbers, or use fax machines, or the Internet. Why? "Efficiency."... so that the company can remain "competitive in the marketplace." This means high profits to the shareholders and the devil take the public.

This is a classic example of "taxation without representation," but nobody seems to care. The corporations with their interlocking and overlapping boards of directors decide what their profit demands are and that's it. Then when the stock values grow because of these high earnings, which are not really earnings but imposed taxation, the profits must also grow with them.

On the first sign of a profit drop the stock values also crumble. Which means that more people will be fired, the quality of service and goods goes down and prices go up. We can see this in our clothing stores and supermarkets every week.

The modern monetary system is nothing else but a glorified and forcibly legalized pyramid scam. The purpose of globalization is to separate the makers from the buyers through the destruction of local industries, force specialization, create incompetence and helplessness, then cash in. The most gullible and helpless society is also the most profitable one, because it can be forced to pay through the nose.

For example, when something is made for $1 and then sold with a 10 percent markup through ten hands the last person must pay about $2.35. This means that every person in the chain must get more than $1 from somewhere to cover the increased costs with the last person having to make almost two and a half times of the original cost. These increased costs can be covered two ways: Either by accepting the fact of inflation, or forcing either ecological damage, or destitution on others. We have both of these in daily increasing doses. Yet, our politicians are just standing by mouthing platitudes about the coming prosperity.

A very simple example of the damage of globalization is when local industries are destroyed with the claim that the goods can be imported "cheaper." The Fraser Institute is great for saying this. According to them we should pave over all our farmland and import our foods "cheaper" from California and Mexico.

What our economic masterminds do not tell the public is that local costs and prices are dictated by local conditions, especially by the amount of investment into jobs and the only way such costs could be lowered is through the removal of investment, or the deflation of prices. Investment is like an aspirin, or a glass of wine. It can be beneficial, enjoyable or necessary at times, but when taken by the bottle it can cause serious illness, or death.

The old economic textbooks recommended that investment per job should not exceed over 1 wage year, because over that amount it becomes overcapitalization when the worker can not produce enough to service the costs. In that case the servicing of the capital must be recovered from the sale of resources, which is natural capital. In our forest and pulp industries the investment per worker is reaching 65 wage years, or more. Our forests are not butchered for economic, or human needs, but on the demands of artificial, manmade capital. We're taxed by these corporations and have nothing to say in the matter.

Copyright (c) 2000, West's International