{"id":138870,"date":"2023-12-10T18:24:51","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T01:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=138870"},"modified":"2023-12-10T18:24:51","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T01:24:51","slug":"bankers-their-media-way-more-corrupt-than-their-politicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2023\/12\/10\/bankers-their-media-way-more-corrupt-than-their-politicians\/","title":{"rendered":"Bankers & their Media: Way More Corrupt than their\u00a0Politicians"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
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blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Before you study the economics, study the economists!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News 03-09 December 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Netherlands is sending US F-35 fighter jet parts to bomb Palestine. <\/strong>And while we are on the \u2018edge of an economic precipice\u2019 (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>, Sanderatne), the bands (media) on this supposedly stationary Titanic<\/em> wreck are announcing the latest imperial medleys & celebrity superstars & charitable loan-givers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The local media are bribed handsomely to strike up a lot of song&dance about the Dutch state returning some old captured cannon&swords (at least they were once made here!) to Sri Lanka. There are even Dutch flags flailing outside the besieged \u2018National Museum\u2019 on \u2018Sir Marcus Fernando Mawatha\u2019. Why not give Sri Lanka a 30% stake in ASML? (ee <\/em><\/strong>11 Nov 2023, Tradition of Knowledge behind Europe\u2019s Most Valuable Tech Co). Instead, according to Dutch accounting, we still owe them!!! Meanwhile, Elon Mutt, the CEO of Twitter, has banned the term \u2018decolonization\u2019 from his platform. We must thank him! Next: Post-Colonial!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     It turns out, it\u2019s precisely to prevent such decolonizing \u2018reparations\u2019 for their ongoing horrors that the US & their Euro killer-poodles set up the World Bank\u2019s ICSID <\/strong>(International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes). Italian mining companies then sued post-1994 South Africa at the ICSID, for enacting policies giving 30% of every company to their historically disadvantaged people (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong> about ICSID cases against Sri Lanka so far). So much for \u2018truth & reconciliation\u2019!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This ee<\/em><\/strong> Focus<\/em><\/strong> therefore also looks at the colonial origins of ICSID & other supranational (imperialist?) bodies like Chambers of Commerce <\/strong>that are the source of the real \u2018corruption\u2019 in this country, and the spooky Mont Pelerin<\/strong> Society (President Ranil a member!) which is behind USDollared thinktank Advocata <\/strong>(with Borah merchant sahib Murtaza Jafferjee at its head & Catholic Action \u2018poor boy\u2019 Dhananath Fernando as nominal CE-hO), and faux media outlets like EconomyNext,<\/em> etc, who are guiding Sri Lanka\u2019s economic policy today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 The JVP slogan for the next election is \u2018Pohosath Janathawak <\/em><\/strong>\u2013 <\/em>Pohosath Ratak<\/em><\/strong>\u2019 (\u2018A rich people \u2013 rich country\u2019, as translated by anglomaniacal Sunday <\/em>Times, see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>). This slogan recalls SBD de Silva\u2019s classic query, \u2018What do<\/em> the rich think rich<\/em> means in Sri Lanka?\u2019 And perhaps echoes Deng Xiaopeng\u2019s \u2018It is glorious to be rich.\u2019 The JVP leader goes on to add: \u2018We should have a corruption-free country with democracy in place. Today we do not have<\/strong> economic democracy.<\/strong>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 The whites of this world see \u2018democracy\u2019 not as \u2018the will of the people\u2019 or \u2018the results of the election\u2019, but as a specific type of NATO-aligned \u2018liberal\u2019 government. While signaling such \u2018populist\u2019 mantras as democracy & corruption<\/em>, it\u2019s good that AKD rescues his notion of democracy by asserting the economic<\/em><\/strong> facet \u2013 though what kind he does not exactly say, outside of calling for much-media-maligned import-substitution. Again, recalling the 1970s, SBD de Silva pointed out the then UF government\u2019s type of import-substitution was not part of a modern industrial political, economic & military <\/strong>strategy but a scrambling to resolve an acute balance-of-payments snafu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 The Romans and the English, Marx recalled after India\u2019s first war of Independence in 1857, pampered and fattened their allies, before slaughtering them. This is what the US and its killer poodles are setting out to do in Sri Lanka with the so-called middle class it promoted all these years, as it sets about refashioning a new multinational division of labor to rescue itself\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Of one they said that he had robbed funds<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from the city government; of another, that he<\/p>\n\n\n\n

had not succeeded in some undertaking<\/p>\n\n\n\n

because he was bribed; and of yet another,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

that because of his ambition, he had committed<\/p>\n\n\n\n

this or that impropriety. As a consequence of this<\/p>\n\n\n\n

hatred arose on every side, which led to deep disagreements,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from deep disagreements to sects, and from sects to ruin.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Machiavelli, 1517 (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As for corruption<\/em><\/strong>, such accusations alone, as if it were some personal or psychological genetic (family) defect \u2013 fail to show how it\u2019s due to the particular structure of the merchant & moneylender \u2018rentier\u2019 capitalism that fuels such \u2018corruption\u2019. While being an easy route to power, perhaps, such constant vague accusations will be used again the next government. & on & on it shalt go\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     It turns out these accusations are part of that old CIA Playbook, that was also behind the so-called Aragalaya \u2013 an attack on the ability of the state to function as an engine of modern industrial growth but only as a repressive tool of the merchants (see ee Politics<\/em><\/strong>, CIA Change Agent: Gene Sharp\u2019s Neoliberal Nonviolence).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 While the media sometimes admits that it was: \u2018the aggressive borrowing<\/strong> [by the US-backed Yahaplana government] in the international bond market<\/strong>\u2019 that \u2018resulted in the country borrowing $12billion during 2015-19, resulting in the country\u2019s foreign currency debt stock reaching almost 50% of the total debt stock of ISBs at around $15bn\u2019. And that, \u2018Of the $12bn so raised only around $2bn had been utilized to settle ISBs, most dollars were utilized to finance imports, especially cars<\/strong>\u2019, such revelations are not given any saturated (like an US-Israeli blitzkrieg) media coverage, unlike the USA\u2019s \u2018China Debt Trap\u2019 bull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This week also saw a feeble, isolated, lonely, forlorn news item claiming the \u2018Private sector as much to blame for corruption\u2019<\/strong>\u2026Really!<\/em> The World Bank\u2019s Transparency International (TISL) adds, <\/strong>\u2018The private sector are also the enablers <\/strong>of this corruption that we see. Such grand-scale corruption couldn\u2019t have happened without the lawyers, real estate agents\u2019 (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>). But only lawyers & real-estate agents? What about all them bankers<\/strong>, US & EU & other poodle envoys, & CEOs, accountants, & media publicists who got us to look somewhere else while they entrapped the country?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 Smokin\u2019 Harsha de Silva<\/strong> of Ceylon Tobacco Co<\/strong> & Assembly of God<\/strong> fame, says there is no proof that companies are parking their country\u2019s dollars abroad (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>, SJB belatedly defends 2017 Foreign Exchange Act, rejects claim of funds \u2018parked\u2019 overseas).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     ee<\/em><\/strong> therefore provides testimony of a \u2018marketing & communication\u2019 executive at Switzerland\u2019s \u2018UBS, the world\u2019s largest private bank\u2026 best bank in the world & the oldest wealth manager on earth\u2026 about 200-250 years old\u2019. It\u2019s about UBS helping their clientele \u2018disappear\u2019 money. And in this overarching moment of bats & balls & bunker busters, she also exposes the role that sports & celebrities play in helping banks seduce the \u2018emotions\u2019 of the enormously wealthy. (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>, <\/strong>She Exposed UBS, they ruined her life: Meet Stephanie Gibaud)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 ee<\/em><\/strong> keeps asserting that the corporate media has no right to accuse only politicians of corruption<\/em>. They are all<\/strong> \u2018sponsored\u2019<\/strong> by the same multinational corporations (MNCs) & their petty merchants & moneylenders. News items should clearly state not just which \u2018news agency\u2019 (Reuters, AP, BBC, etc) but the PR firms too (WPP, JWT, Phoenix, Mullen Lowe, Grants etc who\u2019ve taken to awarding \u2013 Effies, indeed! should be Effems<\/em>! \u2013 & congratulating themselves over & over, where do they find the time?), and name the main corporations and embassies, etc., funding the news item.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     A simple analysis of the news section would show that many news items repeated ad nauseam in all the media emanate from the same publicist sources: Unilever, P&G, Exxon, CIC, CTC, the US & other embassies, World Bank, IMF, ADB\u2026 And many are promises using the infinitive verb \u2018to<\/em>\u2019, which means it may happen in the next birth or one after that, perhaps\u2026 These news items are actually not for us but for these offices & institutions to report to their bosses in Washington & London & Brussels, on how well they are ripping off & fooling the natives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The corporate media will of course not saturate us with more vital issues such as irrigation<\/em>\u2026even as the present government is out there \u2018attracting\u2019 <\/strong>investment at the International Water Summit (see ee Agriculture<\/em><\/strong>)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 This ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> continues sharing the Communist Party of Sri Lanka\u2019s Alternate Program<\/strong>: this week examining irrigation<\/strong>, providing some startling data. Irrigation was the historical basis of the solidarity of the ancient village, and the main focus of the sabotage by the colonial powers of food security (outside of attacks on iron smitheries). In 2000, the water system in Cochabamba \u2013 Bolivia\u2019s 3rd<\/sup>-largest city \u2013 was privatized and handed over to US corporation Bechtel, who jacked up prices, making it impossible for most people to afford water. They even made collecting rainwater<\/em> illegal!<\/strong> \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018In essence, Sri Lanka\u2019s economic revival hinges on a fundamental shift in policy, one that prioritises State-led industrialisation to address market failures<\/strong>. This shift should maximise positive externalities, address indivisibilities and pursue dynamic comparative advantages. Since comparative advantage is inherently shaped by past technological advancements, which in turn influence contemporary scientific progress, specialisation based on current comparative advantages under free trade like labour-intensive garments and apparels, electronics assembly, plantation crops, etc. hinder the expansion of science, labour productivity and ultimately, economic prosperity. The policy framework must therefore foster job creation in sectors that align with scientific advancement\u2019 (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>, Taxing poor to reward rentiers \u2013 Pathirana<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contents:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bankers & their Media: Way More Corrupt than their Politicians<\/a><\/blockquote>