Falling Apart?

This just in:  Vancouver has been ranked fourth on the world’s list of least affordable cities.  This is well ahead of cities like Manhattan, San Francisco, London, Paris, and Hong Kong.  As most rational people know, the city’s thundering real estate market has been bolstered by rampant speculation and constant construction of new condominiums.. but salaries, and the city’s economic development, have not kept pace.

The survey quoted in the article cites research indicating that the cost of housing in Vancouver is massively disproportionate to median salaries earned by its residents, specifically when compared to other cities around the world.  The median house price in Vancouver as of the time of the survey is 8.4 times the median income — 8.4 years’ average income to purchase a house, compared to the average median in Canada: 3.5.

What this tells you is that the fundamentals that support high real-estate prices are simply not there in Vancouver.  People just don’t earn enough income to sustain this market at such lofty prices whereas in cities like New York and San Francisco, where real estate prices are indeed higher, median incomes are substantially higher and thus can support high prices.

Vancouver is plagued by a number of problems that keep the salaries of its citizens low:

1. Affordable commerical real estate is hard to come by in the city — leading in some cases to a perverse reverse-commute where urbanites must schlep out to the suburbs to their workplaces — but more importantly this discourages companies from locating here.
2. Most large cities with expensive downtown cores operate as financial centres — the aforementioned London, Hong Kong, and New York spring to mind.  Vancouver does not, except for our storied love affair with ponzi schemes.  Without the sustaining flow of capital through our city there is highly limited opportunity for local investment.
3. We’re still a bunch of tree-cutting, pickaxe-wielding hicks.  And BC’s resource industries, the bread and butter of Vancouver for more than 150 years, are weak thanks to everything from the US softwood lumber tarriffs to Kyoto to a number of key mining company collapses.  Our province has failed to diversify its economic base substantially away from resource businesses.
4. The advanced industries like software and aerospace that keep California sizzlin’ have failed to grow in scale in this city.  Investment in this area is weak, with very little private investment and weak government support (nearly all of the Venture Capital in Vancouver is government-derived).  We did however blow >$500 million on a handful of useless fast ferries, though.  Two notable exceptions are alternative energy and biotech.  For now, at least, they are humming along.
5. The film industry, which we in BC have courted for decades, is a fickle bride.  Since productions are built for each project and torn down when completed with little long-term planning, unfavourable economic winds mean that producers can pull up stakes and shoot in South Carolina, Mexico, or wherever they can cost-optimize.  In any case, the profits are retained in New York and LA… like a Mumbai call centre, we’re just an outsourcer.
6. Drugs, and by “drugs” I mean the cultivation and distribution of marijuana, constitutes probably the largest industry in BC and it flies completely under the regulatory / taxation radar.  Conservative estimates peg this at between $5Bn and $7Bn per year.  These people have a hard time getting mortgages.  They also tend to be undesireable tenants, since they tend to get arrested/shot at/sent into hiding — that is if they don’t blow up their penthouse with a meth lab.
7. Our transportation infrastructure is pathetic, particularly when compared with major metropolitan areas (of which Vancouver is now one) such as Boston, Montreal, Toronto, New York, London, Tokyo, and others.  If we wish to become a center of commerce then we need to be able to move people around better.  Skytrain is a laughing stock and the West Coast Express, which goes to a handful of proximate suburbs from the downtown core twice a day each way, doesn’t even merit comparison with the British Urban Railway system.  Our highways (such as they are) subject people to multi-hour commutes to travel 20km.  We have failed, failed, FAILED to build infrastructure and it will continue to haunt the city for decades to come.

For those of us in the technology industry, certainly during this housing price spike, Vancouver seems an illogical place to locate our startups or ply our trades in information technology.  While the average condo price can be as high as 2x-2.5x the price of a comparable condo in Toronto or Montreal, our salary variance is just 103.5% the national average, versus 104.2% for Toronto and 103.9% for Montreal (this according to the 2009 Robert Half Salary Guide for Technology Professionals).  While we spend more to live here in Lotus Land, we sure don’t make up for it in income.

Comparing Income to Housing Prices

So how high is too high?  Right now we are finding out.

If you were blindsided by the Vancouver Real Estate crash then you were clearly in a profound state of self-delusion.  Evidently that list of deluded fools includes our civic leaders who played russian roulette with the city’s finances, underwriting the now disastrous Olympic Village project in which the taxpayers stand to lose as much as $750 Million.  Still, even amid the free-falling values, Realtors and Developers are outright lying to you… inviting you to join in their deathmatch with catch phrases like “don’t wait too long” and “strong fundamentals“.  Where have we heard that before?  Oh right, it was John McCain, about the US Economy in September – days before it collapsed.  Oops.

UPDATE: In a passionate article, former mayor Sam Sullivan says the Olympic Village is not a clusterf*ck.

Speculators and developers will beg to differ (they’re invested in fostering positive vibes) but remember:  they’re betting with your money, not their own.  Condos down the street from ours were forced into liquidation at 40% off, and there have been stories of other developers dumping their inventory at similar price cuts.  This is the beginning of a trend, not a sign of the bottom, so if you’re foolishly lining up to jump in at this point, you get what you deserve.

Not until a software engineer making $60K-$70K per year can buy a 1-Bedroom apartment in the city will the fundamentals be aligned and the market be stabilized.  This means mortgage + maintenance of less than $1500 per month using the 30% rule.  On a 25-year mortgage that probably means this 1BR apartment has to be less than $200K.  If the research that started this article can be believed, we should expect an adjustment of as much as 60% across the board to bring Vancouver back to the Canadian mean.

So in other words, wait ’til the bottom really drops out, Vancouverites..

And then we can start figuring out why no one in this city (not even the property developers, after 2007) makes any real money.

Case in point:  Recently, Microsoft announced they would build a research and development centre in Vancouver, and in turn use that operation to recruit and nurture smart people from around the world who were being prevented from entering the US due to immigration hassles.  Microsoft said it as plainly as they needed to:  they had effectively tapped out the supply of smart software people trickling out of U.S. universities, and thanks to increasing costs and constrains imposed by the U.S. INS,  it was just too difficult to fill that void with educated foreigners ; both  which circumstances put U.S. -based tech companies at a pretty significant disadvantage.

From the perspective of those seeking to put Vancouver on the map as far as software and product development is concerned, this served as a tremendous endorsement, and a opportunity which could be seized upon by the local tech community.

The conditions themselves, in turn, couldn’t really be better for any company big or small to operate a research and development centre in a Canadian city in general, when the strength of the dollar, the numerous government incentives such as SR&ED, and Canada’s liberal immigration policies regarding talented individuals such as Engineers.

These are conditions that Canada should capitalize on, specifically by relaxing further the immigration policies regarding software engineers and marketers, creating temporary work visas which can be turned around at the port-of-entry and can serve as a gateway to permanent residency (such as we have with NAFTA), and actively promoting the Canadian tech industry to workers abroad.

The benefits of these preconditions are obvious: diversity of talent equals an increasing wealth of ideas, knowledge, and research — which would ensure that tax credits like SR&ED pursue increasingly meritorious ideas and opportunities. It would also take advantage of a significant mis-step by our friends south of the border.

On my personal blog, I rarely restrain myself from criticism of the Bush government and US foreign policy. So my bias is well-known.. 🙂

As the US Economy is jerkily shifting from a decades-long manufacturing cycle, as the UK did through the 1980s, to a nation that generates the greater part of its wealth from intellectual labours, their leadership is ignoring the obvious: the country lacks enough talent to conceive and build this new intellectual, cultural economy.

It says something about Bush’s vision for America that while he posits an amnesty bill for the millions of illegal and largely unskilled immigrants coming from Mexico and Latin America, he imposes and reduces a cap on legal immigration visas for skilled workers, such as the H-1B.

They U.S. is turning away creative minds (including engineers) at the border, throwing millions of babies out with the bathwater, as they attempt to ebb the flow of “good” jobs being taken from America’s labour force and handed to foreigners. At the same time, those jobs are in turn being fully-outsourced to foreigners residing overseas, as companies attempt to cope with the fact that they can’t meet hiring goals for specialized positions.

In today’s market we compete equally for dollars and for workers on a global stage. When a company outsources its call centre, which uses largely unskilled labour, to India that should not be considered a problem for an advanced nation like the U.S. But when a U.S. company outsources R&D to India (or in this case, Canada) it should be considered a crisis. Microsoft’s move, from a U.S. perspective, is just exactly that. And it shows the grit which companies like Microsoft will go to route around the damage that is Bush’s immigration policy.

The Bush government, by limiting H-1 Visas and making it generally difficult to become a productive, creative resident of their country, has created a window which Canadians can and should exploit to bring talent to our nation: talent which will be trained and coached at the expense of U.S. companies, and will eventually spin out of these R&D centres and create their own new companies sparking new innovation.

This process can be exemplified by the number of Canada’s technology startups (meritorious or not) created by former Nortel executives throughout the last 10 years. That these have all represented a substantial increase in value for Canadian economic development, and the collective intelligence of our software community in general, would be tough to question.

With the quantity of resources available to technology entrepreneurs in cities such as Vancouver, the real challenge today is spending it effectively by hiring talented individuals.

So as our dollar approaches parity with the U.S. dollar making our salaries competitive, as our quality-of-life (particularly in Vancouver) far exceeds that of technology meccas like Seattle and Silicon Valley by all apparent measures, and as our government’s financial support for entrepreneurship continues to give a stage-to-orbit boost for many different ideas, the only pennies needing to drop really are a more sophisticated approach to valley-style Venture Capitalism and continuing expansion of immigration policies to support innovation.

With those two tweaks to our existing structure, a lot will change in the fortunes of Canada’s (specifically Vancouver’s) technology entrepreneurs.

In the meantime, bring more Microsoft’s to the suburbs of Vancouver. They will import some of Canada’s more brilliant Entrepreneurs and their co-workers at U.S. expense for our future benefit.

-Ian.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: bitbitch
> Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 4:50:45 PM US/Pacific
> To: FoRK
> Subject: Male birth control that actually works (and no, this isn’t a
> spam ad)
>
> Fanfucking -tastic. As for the argument that men don’t like having
> their junk touched, to this I say, ‘Too damn bad.’ If RISUG is for
> real, I think the number of men being forced to choose between a
> little shot in the nuts versus no sex will explode like Viagra. I
> just hope its true, and it happens.
>
>
>
>
>
> About Time.
>
> http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/schulman081303.asp
>
>
> * The Sperminator *
>
> */ A new injection for men could shake up the world of contraceptives
> /*
> *
>
> <just 4
> percent of couples in Niger have access to birth control. Although the
> situation in this West African country is extreme, more than 125
> million couples worldwide — most of them in developing countries —
> cannot get contraceptives. Some of the children that have resulted
> from these couplings were wanted and some were not, but one thing is
> certain: Lack of access to birth control increases the burden on
> already strained parents and on the global ecosystem.
>
>
>
> Sujoy Guha, professor of biomedical engineering at the Indian
> Institute of Technology in Delhi, believes he has the answer to this
> problem. Highly regarded in India for his work on everything from
> disability rights to drinking-water purification, Guha has spent the
> last 25 years perfecting his invention, Reversible Inhibition of Sperm
> Under Guidance, better known (thankfully) as RISUG. RISUG, he says,
> has all the advantages of the perfect contraceptive — and, some would
> say, a surprising bonus: It’s made for /men./
>
> RISUG works by an injection into the vas, the vessel that serves as
> the exit ramp for sperm. The injection coats the vas with a clear
> polymer gel that has a negative and positive electric charge. Sperm
> cells also have a charge, so the differential charge from the gel
> ruptures the cell membrane as it passes through the vas, stopping the
> sperm in their tracks before they can even start their journey to the
> egg. RISUG doesn’t affect the surrounding tissues because they have no
> charge.
>
> Compared to the other male contraceptive choices currently available
> — abstinence, withdrawal, condoms, and vasectomies — RISUG is a
> whole new ballgame. In fact, Guha and others believe, the
> contraceptive promises to be even better than the choices available to
> women. Guha enumerates six advantages of his invention:
>
> * First, neither sexual partner has to interrupt the throes of
> passion to use it — no more running to the bathroom and fumbling
> with various ointments and plastics.
>
> * Second, the process, once it is refined and approved, will be
> completely non-surgical. /Whew,/ say a lot of men.
>
> * Third, it’s long-lasting. According to Guha, a single injection
> can be effective for at least 10 years.
>
> *
>
>
> Fourth, after testing RISUG on more than 250 volunteers, neither
> Guha nor other researchers in the field have found side effects
> more worrisome than a slight scrotal swelling in some men
> immediately following the injection. This swelling goes away after
> a few weeks. Compare that to the Pill, which even today can cause
> health problems ranging from severe migraines to blood clots.*
>
> <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/
> schulman081303.asp#toronto>, who says men’s attitudes toward
> contraception are changing. “In Canada, 10 years ago, it used to be
> tubal ligations [the more-invasive female equivalent of a vasectomy]
> to vasectomies were performed at a ratio of 2 to 1. Now that number is
> reversed.” Weiss believes a lot of men would prefer a procedure that
> wasn’t permanent. And, he says, RISUG is the most promising male
> contraceptive out there.
>
>
>
>
> Still, there’s been a lot more media fervor over the possibility of a
> male version of the Pill — even though its potential side effects for
> men include everything from liver damage and prostate problems to what
> is referred to in the literature as gynecomastia. Translation: Men
> growing breasts.
>
> Weiss thinks RISUG is preferable. “The only people who should be
> excited about the male Pill are pharmaceutical companies,” he said. He
> believes so much money has been poured into researching the Pill
> because pharmaceutical companies want something consumers will have to
> buy again and again — as opposed to an inexpensive, one-time
> injection. In the U.S., a decade of the female Pill costs about
> $3,600. RISUG would be dramatically less expensive, while
> pharmaceutical companies would have to pay $25 million to $40 million
> to bring it to market.
>
> But from the consumers’ point of view, RISUG could be a godsend during
> the approximately 30 years the average person spends trying not to
> cause a pregnancy. It would mean fewer women getting cancer from the
> Pill or having their uteruses perforated by an errant IUD. It would
> mean fewer men having to choose between the risk of a burst condom or
> the permanence of a vasectomy.
>
> And in the developing world, RISUG would mean much more.
>
> *This Little Injection Went to Market …*
>
> “Realize that overseas there just aren’t decent options,” said Elaine
> Lissner, director of the Male Contraception Information Project. “By
> the time condoms arrive there, they’re cracked by the heat. Poverty
> and lack of medical follow-up are a problem. You can’t use a diaphragm
> if you don’t have clean running water. You can’t use an IUD if no
> medical treatment exists if something goes wrong. You can’t use the
> Pill if it’s too expensive.”
>
> In the developing world, RISUG’s price tag could be brought down to
> about $22, the price at which Guha and Indian Drugs & Pharmaceuticals
> Ltd. (the largest Indian drug company) are planning to market it in
> India. This makes RISUG potentially affordable by even the world’s
> poorest.
>
> Studies have shown that when couples in the developing world start
> having fewer children, both the health and literacy of the children
> improve, and mothers are more likely to survive long enough to raise
> their kids. Moreover, families with fewer children have less impact on
> the natural world, because they are not as desperate for firewood,
> water, and bush meat.
>
> This “less children/healthier environment” connection has become so
> clear that wildlife organizations have started to team up with
> family-planning groups in biodiversity-rich areas of the world. In the
> Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, Conservation International
> is working with Mexfam to slow the clearing of the forests as well as
> to offer people there the option of reproductive health care.
>
>
>
>
> Inevitability, talk of providing contraceptives to people in
> developing countries raises allegations of racism — but there’s a
> huge difference between forced eugenics and offering people the choice
> to control their own fertility. According to Save the Children, 72
> percent of Sweden’s population has access to contraceptives; why
> shouldn’t the same choices be available in Niger? With the world’s
> population growing by 77 million people per year, access to
> contraceptives is not something the industrialized world can continue
> to hog.
>
> So far, what’s holding up the potential marketing of RISUG outside of
> India is safety testing. Although the Indian medical community
> maintains that its safety testing is better than that of the U.S.,
> Jeff Spieler, chief of research at USAID’s Office of Population and
> Reproductive Health, said, “The pre-clinical toxicology testing in
> India [on RISUG] was weak.”
>
> Lissner agreed that some of the older studies should be redone, but
> given the near-perfect record of RISUG so far, she noted, “If I were a
> man, I’d feel safer having RISUG injected than eating non-organic
> fruit.”
>
> RISUG will probably soon be marketed in India, but the U.S. will play
> a critical role in determining its use elsewhere in the developing
> world. Grants from U.S. agencies, corporations, and nonprofits spur on
> a significant portion of the world’s research. But, said Waller of the
> University of Illinois, “If funds from the U.S. are paying for another
> country’s research, then the research has to be already approved by
> the FDA. Otherwise it looks like we’re using the rest of the world as
> experimental subjects.” Thus, lack of interest in RISUG by the U.S.
> helps delay its use around the world.
>
> Meanwhile the developing world waits.
>
> As Lissner said, “Every month we delay means thousands more women
> dying in childbirth, more families in poverty from too many children,
> and more women dying in attempted abortions.”
>
>
> *[Correction, 14 Aug 2003: This article originally stated that birth
> control pills can cause ovarian cancer. In fact, studies show that the
> Pill can protect women against ovarian cancer.]
>
> *[Correction, 18 Aug 2003: This article originally stated Ronald Weiss
> is based in Toronto. He is based in Ottawa.]
>
>

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/05/business/worldbusiness/ 05VOIC.html?pagewanted=all

CCRA, Ghana, July 3 — The Internet bubble has long since popped in the United States, Europe and Asia. But in parts of Africa the Internet is serving as a powerful force for change, primarily by allowing companies and individuals to make international telephone calls far less expensively than through conventional channels.

Calls in and out of sub-Saharan Africa have long been among the world’s most costly, strangling business opportunities and burdening ordinary people. Services have been tightly controlled by government-owned telephone companies, many of which are rife with corruption and incompetence. Governments also imposed high tariffs on international calls, seeing it as a lucrative source of revenue.

But now, thanks to what is called voice-over-Internet, phone alternatives are flourishing, sharply lowering costs and expanding opportunities for business and consumers in some of the poorest places on earth — even as they pose a competitive threat to government-sanctioned telephone companies.

Sending telephone calls over the Internet is gaining ground in Africa because it makes possible a range of new services, linking the sub-Saharan to the world’s major industrial centers in ways unimaginable only a few years ago. And better digital connections, mostly via satellite, are raising the hope that Ghana — the most peaceful country in a West African region besieged by civil wars and ethnic strife — may become the regional hub for an information-technology industry.

“As Ghana improves its connectivity to the outside world, it has the potential to become for Africa what Bangalore became for India,” said Paul Maritz, a former senior executive at Microsoft who recently visited Accra to survey the nascent high-tech scene here.

Last Thursday, at a United Nations conference in New York, the secretary general, Kofi Annan, delivered a message that developing countries also need to include wireless access, known as Wi-Fi, in building an Internet system.

“It is precisely in places where no infrastructure exists that Wi-Fi can be particularly effective,” Mr. Annan said, “helping countries to leapfrog generations of telecommunications technology and empower their people.”

As the movement advances, though, many government-owned telephone companies, which dominate wired service in most African countries, are fighting a rear-guard action.

Internet telephony “is presented as the salvation for business and society in Africa,” said Oystein Bjorge, chief executive of Ghana’s national telephone carrier. “It is not.”

Mr. Bjorge, a Norwegian telecommunications consultant hired recently to do battle against the Internet telephone services, said it wreaks havoc with the economics of phone companies. Here in Ghana, the national phone company is waging a sporadic campaign against its own citizens who use the Internet to make or receive telephone calls from America and Europe, periodically turning off the lines of those suspected of doing so.

Three years ago, the government even jailed the heads of some of Ghana’s leading Internet providers. Though later exonerated by a court, the dissidents fear another crackdown. “Internet telephony is changing the whole power structure,” said Francis Quartey, chief technology officer of Intercom Data Network and one of those jailed. “The dangerous thing is that the power elite is responding out of fear and ignorance.”

Despite this opposition, American companies are experimenting with new ventures in Ghana, seeing if enthusiasm for Internet telephony can transform local technology entrepreneurs into a force for genuine economic advancement.

For example, Rising Data Solutions, which is based in Gaithersburg, Md., introduced a call center here last month, where a dozen Ghanaians — trained in American-style English — are trying to sign up customers in the northeastern United States on behalf of a wireless phone company. At least three other call centers are expected to open in Accra later this year, all relying on Internet telephony instead of telephone carriers.

Internet telephony also aids companies like Newmont Mining , which is searching for gold in Ghana, the second-largest gold producer on the continent, after South Africa. To help manage its operation, Newmont plans to link its operations within Ghana to the wider world through the Internet.

Acquiring reliable phone service is essential, foreign investors say, which is why they bypass the government-owned telephone company. Ghana Telecom has an order backlog of more than 300,000 lines; bribery is the fastest — indeed, usually the only — way to obtain new service. Even those with service suffer from frequent failures and inaccurate bills. Roughly every other call results in a busy signal, an indicator of what Ghana Telecom calls “network congestion.”

Under the circumstances, Internet telephony — which has failed so far to make serious inroads into the American telephone market because of lower voice quality — seems positively fabulous to many weaned on Africa’s creaky systems.

“Internet gives me control over my destiny,” said Sambou Makalou, chief executive of Rising Data. “My business needs to be up 24-7; we can’t get a busy signal.”

Busy signals are common in Ghana because the public phone networks are overloaded. As recently as four years ago, a dial tone was among the scarcest resources in the country, which had fewer than 200,000 phone lines in a nation of 19 million.

Few people realized how much demand for phone service was waiting to explode until Ghana’s most successful wireless company, Spacefon, was introduced in 1996. Before it started, executives thought the potential customer base was probably 3,000 people, at most 12,000. Seven years later, Spacefon has more than 300,000 subscribers.

The country’s total phone lines are now approaching 750,000, roughly two-thirds of them wireless. But completing a call is still difficult, especially between rival networks (there are five), and neither Ghana Telecom, nor the country’s legal wireless operators offer a reliable connection to the Internet.

In response to these limitations, private businesses have built scores of data networks, relying on satellite- and radio-based Internet-access systems.

But telephone service became appealing because of the high network costs: Companies typically pay from $2,000 to $5,000 a month for a robust connection to the Internet, an enormous sum when economic output per person is only about $400 a year.

“I’m paying $2,000 a month for Internet access, so I want to use the technology to the fullest,” said Austin Addo, chief information officer of Ghana Link Network Services.

Mr. Addo’s company, which began operations here early this year, helps the government calculate duties on goods imported into the country, relying on frequent updates, via the Internet, of product values. The company’s partner is based in Madrid, so Mr. Addo uses a standard device to make international calls over his computer network. He is not billed for the calls, which would otherwise cost him roughly 75 cents a minute, including the cost of line.

His telephone calls are not really free, since he pays $2,000 a month for Internet access. But he is still saving lots of money because he can speak as long as he wants without worrying about the cost. “Five years ago to get this level of communication,” he said, “I’d have to fly to Spain — several times a week.”

Such productivity gains have been a cause for celebration almost everywhere in the world. But official anxiety over Internet telephony is widespread throughout Africa and particularly rife in Ghana. At a public meeting in May, held at the largest Internet cafe in Accra, a regulator defended the government’s latest campaign against those who use the Internet to bypass authorized telephone providers. “The players have been apprehended or will be apprehended soon,” said Bernard Forson, deputy director of the National Communications Authority of Ghana.

The government is not opposed to any particular technology, Mr. Forson explained, but merely wants “regulated entities to provide telephone service,” not unlicensed and untaxed wildcatters.

Other African countries face a similar quandary, aware of the appeal of Internet voice service but fearful of its damage to the state-owned telephone company.

Neighboring Togo, for instance, allowed Internet telephony until the end of last year, when the government cracked down on behalf of Togo Telecom. So many foreign calls in tiny Togo were being routed over the Internet that a small “com” center — ubiquitous in Africa, offering calls for a fee — took in $10,000 a month from just two phones.

But some African countries have embraced Internet telephony as a way to end decades of frustration. In Nigeria, for example, the government has not officially approved telephoning over the Internet but looks the other way, partly to ease congestion on its authorized networks.

Still, the legal confusion surrounding Internet telephony has prompted some to avoid it. Affiliated Computer Services , which is based in Dallas, set up shop in Accra two years ago, relying on a private satellite connection to the Internet that supports both a data and a telephone network. Today, it is one of Ghana’s largest private employers, with 1,200 people and plans to hire another 700.

While the company runs call centers in Jamaica, Mexico and India, it does not intend to do such telephone work in Ghana. “We can’t use satellite lines” because of the brief delay in hearing a response, said Tom Blodgett, the executive who started the Ghana operation. And for now, he adds, “there is no suitable wired alternative.” A legal one, anyway.

But for all their efforts to restrain the movement, African telecom companies are probably fighting a losing battle.

“Periodically the police confiscate equipment or the telco turns off phone lines,” said Russell Southwood, a London-based consultant and publisher of a weekly newsletter on Africa’s telecom scene, Balancing Act’s News Update. “But it’s about as hopeless as Canute trying to turn

> From: “DM”
> Date: Mon Mar 17, 2003 11:19:29 AM US/Pacific
> To: “Ian Andrew Bell”
> Subject: FW: MORE DIXIE CHICKS
>
> And a little more on the Dixie Babes…
>
>  
>
>  
>
> Subject:MORE DIXIE CHICKS
>
>  
>
> Subject: THIS IS SCARY – The Dixie Chicks – Who Are The Fans? (A
> Conspiracy!)
>
> Simon Renshaw, the Chicks’ manager, requests that this get forwarded to
> you, since he doesn’t have your direct E-mails.
>
> Dear All,
>
> The last couple of days have been very interesting, why does an artist
> exercising her rights of free speech create such a firestorm of media
> attention, and why are the “fans” responding the way they are? Sure,
> these are difficult times ? but the response from the fan’s seems far
> too extreme
> – that was until I received the following email from our contacts at
> Lipton, who had received it from a concerned citizen -  please read > on:
>
> Subject: Regarding Chicks – DO NOT BE INTIMIDATED
>
> Hello
>
> You should know that your company is being targetted by a radical
> right-wing online forum.  You are being “FReeped”, which is the code
> word for an organized email/telephone effort attempting to solicit a
> desired response. Please go to
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/864728/posts
> and http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/863398/posts
>
> for evidence of this.
>
> www.freerepublic.com claims over 30,000 members.
>
> The opinions on this forum are often racist, violent, and homophobic.
> I hope you will not feel pressured by them to change your policies.
> Keep in mind that they are very active and will give the appearance of
> a widespread reaction when in fact it’s limited to their isolated
> group. These are not people you want to cater to, as you will see if
> you spend a little time observing them. And don’t feel bad. Besides
> you, they are boycotting Canada, France, Germany, Russia, Mexico,
> Belgium, and 3/4 of hollywood.
>
> They are so petty that they research goods they believe are produced
> by these nations and list them for boycotting. The dumb thing is they
> get it wrong half the time.
>
> I will be very dissappointed with Lipton if it tries to appease these
> radicals. I would continue to buy Lipton regardless though 🙂
>
> When we went to the site it was clear what was going on, this
> organization had not targeted Lipton for their campaign, they had
> selected the Chicks for “FReeping.”
>
> As we reviewed the site we came across a whole area that was devoted
> to the Chicks, and more specifically the activities of the campaign
> against them, check it out:
>
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/keyword/dixiechicks
>
> As you move around this area and start to look at specific threads you
> will see that these people have actively manipulated radio polls, and
> how proud they are of their handiwork.
>
> Here’s some of their exchanges regarding their specific attempts to
> manipulate radio polls, notice the advice given on trying to ensure
> that their manipulations remain disguised:
>
> To: webfooter
>
> Cat Country in Harrisburg has a poll on whether they should stop
> playing the Chicks. They attribute the quote to Natalie.
>
> Current vote is 5 for and 5 against.
> I would recommend only locals vote, but you FReepers can do what you
> want.
> Shalom.
>
> To: webfooter; LindaSOG; Kathy in Alaska; radu; bentfeather;
> southerngrit;
> Bethbg79; All
>
> One of the country stations in my area is boycotting them: Here’s the
> link! Please freepmail them thanks! I have done so already!!
>
> WCMS
>
>
> 38 posted on 03/13/2003 1:52 PM PST by MoJo2001 (God Bless Our Troops
> and Allies!!)
> [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]
>
> To: All
>
> LOL!! Um, email them! Don’t freepmail them! My bad!
>
> 39 posted on 03/13/2003 1:52 PM PST by MoJo2001 (God Bless Our Troops
> and
> Allies!!)
> [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies ]
>
> To: MoJo2001
>
> FReep Natalie Maines’ hometown country station! Natelie Maines’ home
> radio station (KLLL.com) and email address of the DJ’s. Just in case
> anybody wants to drop them a friendly email about boycotting the
> Chicks. As a bonus, pappa and the family live here too, so you are
> sure to get noticed.
>
> And here are the emails:
> mailto:jonsteele [at] klll [dot] com (Jon Steele)
> mailto:Rgilbert [at] klll [dot] com (Rick Gilbert)
> mailto:sjames [at] klll [dot] com (Stacey James)
> mailto:tony [at] klll [dot] com (Tony Alexander)
> mailto:info [at] klll [dot] com (Jay Richards)
> mailto:kgreene [at] klll [dot] com (Kelly Greene)
> mailto:tommy [at] klll [dot] com (Tommy Duncan)
>
>
> The above is the tip of the iceberg,  you need to read it all, to
> believe it.
>
> It is interesting that as I review the comments being made across
> bulletin boards hosted by ourselves, country radio stations, and by
> CMT, the similarity of the style of the invective ? vitriol cloaked in
> patriotism, very much what you will find on this site.
>
> Let no one underestimate the power of this group, yesterday our web
> site was totally overrun and had to be closed down, our publicist’s
> servers and telephone system failed under the weight of the calls.
> This is an extremely active and well organized group
>
> As always the “squeaky wheel gets the grease” and these weasels know
> how to squeak.
>
> Consider a radio station that receives 1,000 calls and emails from
> listeners demanding that they boycott the Chicks music, they ignore
> the fact that 17,500 fans have bought tickets to a show in a couple of
> months and seem to think that these 1,000 calls/emails are somehow
> reflective of their audiences’ wishes. Yet, the box office at the
> local venue receives only 3 calls regarding the show and wanting to
> know if they can arrange to return the tickets! Now the authenticity
> of the 1,000 is in question!
>
> I am shocked by what I see, I trust you will be too.
>
> Best wishes,
> Sr
>
> Simon Renshaw
> The Firm
> 9465 Wilshire Blvd
> 5th Floor
> Beverly Hills, CA 90212
> Tel: 310-860-8205
> Fax: 310-860-8128
> Email: srenshaw [at] firmentertainment [dot] net
>
>
>
>
> RadioPro (TM)
>

When Enron needed cash, the company’s chief financial officer had just the answer: a web of companies that would keep the firm’s liabilities off its books – and make him rich. In the second extract from his new book, Robert Bryce describes the rise of ‘a master of creative financing’

Tuesday November 5, 2002 The Guardian

Pipe Dreams Buy Pipe Dreams at Amazon.co.uk

By mid-1999 Enron had a sticky finance problem. A year earlier, the company had invested $10m (£6.4m) in a fledgling internet service provider called Rhythms NetConnections. In early 1999, Rhythms had gone public and the internet bubble had sent its stock into the stratosphere. On the first day of trading, the company’s stock closed at $69. Suddenly, Enron’s share in the company was worth about $300m. But Enron couldn’t sell it. Under the terms of its original investment, Enron had agreed to hold the shares until the end of 1999.

After thinking about the matter for some time, Andy Fastow, Enron’s cocky young chief financial officer, came up with a convoluted plan to help Enron preserve the value of its Rhythms NetConnections investment. The plan would be executed by a new limited partnership called LJM Cayman, LP, which would be controlled by Fastow. The name had Fastow’s personal stamp on it, created from the initials of Fastow’s wife, Lea, and the couple’s two children.

LJM1 would function as a parking lot for Enron, a place where the company could stow and retrieve assets. Those assets would be hidden from Wall Street and small investors because LJM would not be owned by Enron. Therefore, all of LJM1’s functions and assets would be separate from Enron’s balance sheet. Unlike an earlier off-balance-sheet deal, Whitewing, LJM1 would be controlled by an Enron insider, Fastow. On June 18, 1999, Fastow met with chairman Ken Lay and CEO Jeff Skilling. He proposed to create LJM1 with an investment of $1m of his own money and $15m from two limited partners. Additional capital for the new entity would come from Enron, which would invest 3.4m shares of restricted stock in LJM1. Lay and Skilling apparently thought Fastow’s idea was a good one, even though on the surface it appeared that LJM1 failed to meet the test for off-the-balance-sheet deals. LJM1 was going to be used to move debts and risky investments (including Rhythms) off Enron’s balance sheet. But to do that, LJM1 had to satisfy three requirements:

· At least 3% of the equity had to come from outside (that is, non-Enron) investors.

· The entity could not be controlled by Enron.

· Enron was not liable for any loans or other liabilities.

LJM1 might have qualified under two of the three. But how was Enron going to be able to prove that LJM1 wasn’t controlled by Enron when the company’s CFO was managing all of the investments? It appears that neither Lay nor Skilling thought about it. Nor did Lay consider how much money Fastow might make on the assets he was buying from Enron. After a bit more discussion, Lay agreed to bring Fastow’s proposal to the Enron board of directors at the board meeting on June 28, 1999.

At that board meeting, after a short debate, the company’s board of directors agreed to waive Enron’s ethics policy, which prohibited the company’s officers from doing deals directly with the company, and approved the LJM1 deal. The approval opened the floodgates. And LJM1 became the cornerstone of Fastow’s financial house of cards.

No one at Enron – or anyone else, for that matter – ever accused Fastow of excessive humility. And throughout 2000 and early 2001, the company’s chief financial officer was at the apogee of his self-diagnosed genius. Fastow was fully convinced that his skein of partnerships and off-the-balance-sheet entities, with its mind-numbingly complicated spider’s web of interconnections and interdependent relationships, was the ultimate advance in financial engineering. “I can strip out any risk,” Fastow once bragged to a co-worker.

It is not just his colleagues who were convinced. At the end of 1999, CFO magazine had named him one of their CFOs of the year, giving him its “CFO excellence award for capital structure”, an award given to him for helping make Enron into “a master of creative financing”. The magazine praised Fastow’s work on the financing structure, which he created so that Enron could buy water company Azurix, as well as several power plants, while keeping the debts off its balance sheet. When the award was announced, Skilling praised Fastow to CFO magazine, saying that Enron needed “someone to rethink the entire financing structure at Enron from soup to nuts. Andy has the intelligence and the youthful exuberance to think in new ways. [He] deserves every accolade tossed his way.”

Fastow enjoyed the rewards of his special position too. On top of his salary and earnings from the sale of Enron stock ($33,675,000 between 1998 and 2001), his investments in LJM1 and LJM2 earned him no less than $45m. He was partial to fancy watches: he often wore a Franck Muller model known as a “Master Banker” (no snickering, please), a spiffy analogue watch that showed the time in three different time zones. It cost about $9,000. In late February 2000, he bought a house in the exclusive Houston suburb of River Oaks.

Other Enron big shots already lived in the same 77019 postcode. Ken Lay had been in River Oaks for years. Jeff Skilling also lived there. So it made sense that when Fastow started pulling the big money, he bought a house on Del Monte Drive in the heart of River Oaks.

“Andy wanted to keep up with the things that Skilling was doing. Skilling had a house in River Oaks. For Andy to be at that level, he needed the big house, too,” said one finance executive who worked closely with Fastow.

Fastow’s special-purpose entities became a fast and dirty way for Enron to manufacture additional revenues in a big hurry. In the last 11 days of 1999, Fastow’s companies did seven separate deals with Enron. In addition to a power plant in Poland, Fastow’s LJM2 entities bought a stake in some of Enron’s loans, bought part of Enron’s stake in a natural-gas gathering system in the Gulf of Mexico, bought a stake in a trust Enron had invested in called Yosemite, and bought part of Enron’s stake in a company that provided financing for natural-gas producers.

The advantage Fastow brought to Enron with the off-the-balance-sheet entities was the ability to do deals quickly. Enron was “looking for a quick way to sell assets to generate income,” said one long-time Enron finance person. “If you control both sides of the deal, you can do it very quickly at any price you want. That’s an advantage versus a situation where you’re trying to sell it to a third party, where it might take a year or more. It was a way for them to control the entire process.”

Fastow helped Enron control the process through a flock of entities with names such as Osprey, Osprey Trust, Timberwolf, Bobcat, Egret, Condor, Rawhide, Sundance, Ponderosa, Harrier, Porcupine and Mojave. He also created a quartet of misbegotten entities known as the Raptors.

The sham deals quickly became one of Enron’s main business units. In 1999 alone, Fastow’s deals inflated Enron’s profits by $248m – that’s more than one-fourth of the $893m in profits Enron reported that year. In between September 1999 and July 2001, Fastow’s LJM1 and LJM2 did about 20 different deals with Enron. And Fastow’s flimflam partnerships made a profit on every transaction they did with Enron. It looked as if Fastow could not lose. Using Enron’s stock instead of cash to prop up his financial house of cards seemed like a great idea. Enron’s stock had begun 2000 stuck at about $43. However, thanks to the hype surrounding Enron Broadband Services, it quickly began to climb into the ionosphere. By the middle of the year, it was trading in the $70s. On August 23, 2000, it hit its all-time high – $90 a share. Enron’s stock – it seemed – was better than cash.

Given that rising stock price, Fastow apparently convinced Enron to pledge a total of $1bn worth of its stock to the Raptors. The Enron stock would provide the “capital” that the Raptors needed to do transactions. In return, the Raptors would help Enron lock in tens of millions of dollars in gains on stock it held in newly public companies, like hardware maker Avici Systems and The New Power Company, an energy company that planned to sell electric power to individual homeowners.

While the accountants slept, Enron’s attorneys were starting to worry about the Raptor deals. On September 1, 2000, Stuart Zisman, an attorney who had been looking at the Raptors, sent an email to his superiors in Enron’s legal department that said: “We have discovered that a majority of the investments being introduced into the Raptor Structure are bad ones. This is disconcerting – it might lead one to believe that the financial books at Enron are being ‘cooked’ in order to eliminate a drag on earnings.”

Enron was cooking the books and Fastow was the chef de cuisine. So where was Andersen this whole time? It was, as usual, cashing Enron’s cheques. In exchange for its work on the Raptor deals, Andersen charged Enron a total of $1.3m.

———–

When George W Bush arrived in the White House, it was hardly surprising that he looked after Enron – the company had been looking after him for years. In the final extract of his book, Robert Bryce describes how the firm bought its way into Washington’s corridors of power

Wednesday November 6, 2002 The Guardian

Pipe Dreams Buy Pipe Dreams at Amazon.co.uk

Surely it’s just a coincidence. What else would explain why Enron Oil and Gas, a subsidiary of Enron Corp, would have been in business with George W Bush back in 1986? Bush the Younger was many things, including the eldest son of the vice president of the United States. A successful oilman he was not. Bush’s forays into the energy business had been nothing short of disastrous. In 1984, Bush had no choice but to merge his faltering firm, Bush Exploration Company, with another company, Spectrum 7. But by mid-1986, Bush had done his magic on the privately owned Spectrum 7. The company wasn’t producing much energy of any kind, and Bush was actively trying to sell again. Despite Spectrum 7’s lousy record, it somehow got into business with Enron Oil and Gas. And on October 16, 1986, Enron Oil and Gas announced that it had completed a well a few miles outside of Midland, Texas, that was producing 24,000 cubic feet of natural gas and 411 barrels of oil per day. Enron owned 52% of the well; 10% belonged to Spectrum 7.

Now, the oil and gas business is full of speculators, and wells are often drilled with multiple investors with varying backgrounds. But the early Bush-Enron connection points out just how small the energy business is. Lay’s ties to George W Bush go back to 1980, when Bush made his first bid for the White House. Bush, who had recently served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, needed campaign funds after his surprise win in the Iowa caucuses. So Lay, who had probably met Bush through mutual friends in the energy business in Houston, gave money to Bush’s campaign. Though Bush didn’t win, Ronald Reagan made him vice president. Bush went on to chair the panel that pushed Reagan’s task force on deregulation. One of Reagan’s biggest moves in deregulation involved the lifting of federal controls on natural gas markets, a move that Lay had long favoured.

When the elder Bush got to the White House, he didn’t forget Lay. Bush rewarded Lay during his presidency with one of the most coveted perks of being a presidential pal, a sleep-over at the White House.

When Bush the Younger decided to run for governor of Texas in fall 1993, one of his first stops on the campaign trail was Houston. During his visit, George W Bush asked Lay to be the finance chairman of his campaign in Harris County, which includes Houston. Lay didn’t take the job. He preferred to give George W Bush a $12,500 (£8,000 at today’s rates) cheque and work behind the scenes. In his stead, Bush’s campaign in the county was headed by Lay’s second in command at Enron, Rich Kinder. In all, Lay, Kinder, and other Enron executives donated $146,500 to George W Bush, almost seven times more than the amount they gave to the incumbent candidate, Democrat Ann Richards. The donations by the execs, combined with money from Enron’s political action committee, made the Houston company Bush’s biggest campaign contributor.

After George W Bush defeated Richards, Enron gave $50,000 to Bush’s inaugural committee. Lay began lobbying Bush almost immediately. In December 1994, before Bush moved into the Governor’s mansion in downtown Austin, Lay began sending him regular letters on energy policy, tax issues, lawsuit reform and other matters. That month, Lay asked Bush to appoint Pat Wood, who supported the deregulation of electric utilities, to the state’s public utility commission. Bush complied with Lay’s request. And later on, Bush would appoint Wood – again at Lay’s recommendation – to the federal energy regulatory commission.

And while Lay maintained close ties to the Bush family throughout George W Bush’s stint as governor of Texas, those connections would be even more valuable to him and to Enron if Bush the Younger could throw the Democrats out of the White House. In December 1999, while Bush was pounding the campaign trail, Lay again wrote to his friend, addressing it to “George and Laura” [Bush’s wife]. “Linda and I are so proud of both of you and look forward to seeing both of you in the White House.”

Lay had been one of Bush’s first “pioneers”, each of whom pledged to raise $100,000 for Bush. He had also made Enron’s fleet of aircraft available to his campaign. The Bush campaign used Enron’s jets to fly to different events on eight different occasions – more than any other corporation. During the 2000 election cycle, Lay contributed more than $275,000 to the Republican National Committee. Enron’s total donations to the party exceeded $1.1million. When the outcome of the election was in doubt after the polls closed in November 2000, Lay and his wife, Linda, gave $10,000 to help finance the Bush campaign’s Florida operation during the recount after the election.

After Bush prevailed in the election (thanks to assistance by the US supreme court) Ken and Linda Lay gave another $100,000 to help finance Bush’s inaugural gala. In all, Enron and its top execs kicked in $300,000 for the inauguration festivities. Naturally enough, the day after the inauguration, Lay went to a private lunch party at the White House, where he got to schmooze with the new president one on one. A few weeks later, Lay had dinner with the president.

It wasn’t long before Enron’s bet on George W Bush was paying off in more important ways, too. Although the California energy crisis was raging throughout his first few months in office in 2001, the president refused – for nearly six months – to consider the possibility that the golden state’s power markets were being manipulated. In some parts of the state, electricity rates had gone from $30 per megawatt hour to an alarming $1,500 per megawatt hour. Rolling blackouts – and threats of blackouts – had the state in a near constant uproar. By the time Bush had spent about 180 days in the White House, the state of California had spent nearly $8 billion buying power on the open market just to keep the lights on.

Despite the crisis, Dianne Feinstein, a senator from California – the most populous state in the union – couldn’t get an appointment with Bush. The White House had plenty of time for Enron, though. On April 17 2001, Vice President Cheney had a private meeting with Enron chairman Ken Lay. During the meeting, Lay offered suggestions for Cheney’s energy task force and lobbied Cheney against price caps in California. Cheney quickly adopted Lay’s argument. The day after his meeting with Lay, Cheney mocked the idea of price caps. He told the Los Angeles Times that caps would only provide “short-term political relief for the politicians.” In late May, Bush visited California and, like Cheney, attacked the idea that price caps – something the California governor, Gray Davis, and Feinstein had been begging for – might help the state restore order to its electricity system.

Bush and Cheney were wrong. Enron and several other power companies had been manipulating the California energy market for months and collecting huge revenues for their efforts. Using strategies with colourful names like Death Star, Get Shorty, Fat Boy, and Ricochet, Enron had apparently figured out ways to play the state’s power system and drive up prices. Finally, on June 18 2001, after weeks of rising intrigue, the federal energy regulatory commission approved limited price caps for California. The move quickly settled the state’s power markets.

Enron’s connections in the White House went much further than George W Bush. The new president’s chief economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, was on Enron’s payroll before going to the White House, earning $100,000 in consulting fees from the Houston company. Marc Racicot, the former governor of Montana, lobbied for Enron before Bush named him to lead the Republican national committee. Robert Zoellick, Bush’s choice for US trade representative, served on an Enron advisory council. Thomas White, Bush’s secretary of the army, was the vice chairman of Enron Energy Services, a money-losing charade of a company. Nevertheless, when White left Enron, he owned more than $25 million in the company’s stock. Bush’s chief strategist and political guru, Karl Rove, owned more than $100,000 of Enron stock when Bush took office.

Bush’s White House provided Lay and Enron with unprecedented access. In addition to the meeting with Lay, Enron officials met with Cheney’s task force (the national energy policy development group) five times and talked to it by phone on at least six other occasions about the measure. Their effort shows. The national energy policy development group’s final report – Reliable, Affordable and Environmentally Sound Energy for America’s Future – released in mid-May 2001, contains a number of provisions very favourable to Enron. For instance, the report recommends the creation of a national electricity grid, a move that could allow Enron to trade electric power more readily in all regions of the country.

The report says permitting for gas pipelines should be expedited, a factor that would help Enron, already one of the largest pipeline companies in the world, build more capacity more quickly. The report talks about the California crisis, the need for energy efficiency, increased domestic natural gas production and, of course, India. Didn’t you know that the cost of butane in Bombay is critical to soccer moms in Seattle? Cheney’s group recommended that “the president direct the secretaries of state and energy to work with India’s ministry of petroleum and natural gas to help India maximise its domestic oil and gas production”.

Not only could Lay get Bush’s ear on appointments, he could get federal reports to mention countries like India, where Enron, with the Dabhol electricity and liquefied natural gas project (also mentioned in Cheney’s report), was a major investor.

To be fair, the energy report also discusses America’s growing reliance on energy from Mexico and Canada. But the state department, which participated in the writing of the energy report, didn’t add the India section; the White House did. Ken Lay’s money on George W Bush had been well spent.

———–

Yes! After half-a-decade of music from the production line, it’s time for the return of the singer / songwriter. This new pop pleases me, though it’s still very much ribbed for our pleasure by the music industry.

Anyway, a good artist can still shine through his or her marketing. Here are some of my recommendations:

John Mayer, Web Site: http://www.johnmayer.com/

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005JIZA

You can still find his pre-big-label-signing CDs in a few places, though he’s now signed on to Atlantic and the price of the CDs will go up. 🙂 Really good production and a great voice make him a stand out, and one song in particular, “Neon” has a groovy funk guitar lick, totally unique to the album. You seriously gotta have this album — it’s incredible.

Pete Yorn, Web Site: http://www.peteyorn.com/

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005AREX

Kelly gave me this one for my birthday and it’s on regular rotation in my Saab (yikes! that was a yuppie sentence). While the album tends to meander into the melancholy once in a while nearly all the songs are totally solid and rockin’. I like the first one, “Life On a Chain”, though it starts with a cheesy scratchy record player (how many Hollywood yard sales did these guys cruise to find a record player and a dirty ol’ record to sample?).

Outlandos D’Americas, Web Site: http://www.ark21.com/outlandosdamericas.htm

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000AETO

Oh YEAH! Sting and the Police have a huge following in Latin America. In Mexico my Dad once bought a Spanish version of “Dream of the Blue Turtles” recorded by Sting which just rocked. It’s a language made for music and these various tracks, which go from Ska to steamy Latin to out-and-out Rock, are great! In particular you have to hear Soraya’s cover “Todo Lo Que el Hace (Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic)”. Not exactly Singer/Songwriters but just Neato.

[So once in a while I feel like recommending music. Sue me.]

-Ian.

-Ian.

—— Forwarded Message From: “B.K. DeLong” Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 12:33:58 -0400 Subject: [fork-in-exile] Bush and Cheney are oilmen

(Sidenote: I’ve since discovered that since the price cap went from $750 to $500, it’s bee dropped to a hard cap of $250 and a soft cap of $150. However, a letter from some power generators I came across says that an order from our current Sec. Energy superceeds both current hard and soft caps and may allow for a return to much higher prices. Can you say “Bush-generated power crisis?” More info to come….)

At 07:19 AM 05/15/2001 -0400, Grlygrl201 [at] aol [dot] com wrote:>i just can’t get over that he suggested we use our tax “refund” to cover the
>increased cost of energy – and the accompanying increases in food, shelter,
>you name it – and no one is calling him on it.

Agreed. I haven’t been following the thread but correct me if I’m wrong – the only reason energy prices are so high is because the unregulated producers of said energy have marked up the price almost 1900% during peak usage times [1] and the only reason there is an energy shortage is because the utilities cannot afford to purchase as much energy from said producers due to this unregulated price gouging…hence, there is no energy shortage and both Dubya and Cheney (the latter of whom declared $36M[2] on last year’s taxes, most of which came from his exercising of stock options from Halliburton Co a *surprise* energy company that boasts it helped stimulate the most prolific producing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico) have no plans to step in and intervene with the energy companies. Hey, Bush and Cheney are oil men and many of the key people involved in the raping of California with regards to power are the very people who made contributions and helped get them elected.

The point? Of course they’d recommend we use our tax cuts towards paying increased energy costs. Of course Cheney would make the absolute ridiculous claim that “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy” [3] while Bush is running around trying to use eminent domain[4] at the Federal level to put up as many power lines as he can. They’re primary supporters are making loads of money! What’s even funnier is that we have no shortage of energy [5] and even the Federal government’s own scientists have produced research[6] at odds with the Bush administration.

It’s just something Cheney and Bush are pushing, I’m guessing, because since two oilmen hold the top two positions in the country, they want to do everything they can to give the environmental movement the finger, pay back all their supporters, destroy the environment in as many ways as possible that they previously weren’t allowed to, and pave the way for good jobs at energy companies before they are kicked out of office and the Democrats are brought back in to clean things up.

[1] According to a June 2000 article from SJM, prices were spiking as high as $750 per megawatt hour until the ISO board lowered the cap to $500. “Normally, the price of a megawatt hour — which is enough to power 1,000 homes for an hour — ranges between $25 and $40. ”

[2] According to an April 14th AP article, “Vice President Dick Cheney took in $36 million, according to income-tax documents released Friday.” …”Most of Cheney’s income came when he exercised stock options and sold stock in Halliburton Co., the Dallas-based energy services firm he headed until late in the presidential campaign. The vice president received $4.3 million in deferred compensation and bonuses. He reported $806,332 in salary and $823,509 in capital gains.” ….”Cheney’s tax total put him in the rarified realm of the top 39.6 percent tax bracket, which Bush wants to eventually reduce to 33 percent.” ….”Using the small standard deduction of $7,350, the calculator estimates Cheney’s tax cut under the Bush plan at more than $2.3 million, a 16.1 percent cut. ”

[3] Source for quote and hideous pro-resource consumption rhetoric: http://channel.nytimes.com/2001/05/01/politics/01CHEN.html

[4] “We need more electricity wires carrying product across the country,” the president said Tuesday night at a speech to the Electronic Industries Alliance in Washington. One of the ways Bush intends to achieve that goal is by asking Congress to pass legislation that substantially expands the government’s eminent domain authority http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/Electricity_Bush010509.htm l

[5] Forbes says there is no energy crisis and that not even the whole state of California is effected – LA has it’s own municipal power service. Oil and Natural Gas reserves are at an all-time high. http://www.forbes.com/2001/05/02/0502nocrisis.html

[6] “Most of the savings came from installing geothermal heat pumps, an efficient home-heating and cooling system that circulates fluids through underground coils but otherwise uses conventional technologies.” … “The heat pumps, though still something of a novelty, are proven and save so much money that President Bush installed a system at his new ranch home in Crawford, Texas. Cheney’s official home, the Naval Observatory in Washington, also uses geothermal heat pumps to cut down on its energy bill.” http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/134292670_power06.html

— B.K. DeLong bkdelong [at] pobox [dot] com 617.877.3271

http://www.brain-stream.com Play. http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org Potter. http://www.attrition.org Security. http://www.zotgroup.com Work. http://www.artemisiabotanicals.com Herb.

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: fork-in-exile-unsubscribe [at] yahoogroups [dot] com

This brought to my mind three points:

– Given the statistically significant percentage of American Presidents that have been shot at while in office, isn’t this alone an argument for gun control? – Given that of the three countries (Canada, Mexico, and Japan) that have attacked American soil, two have done so successfully; could one not assume that the “right to bear arms” as a national defense policy has failed? – Given that the US Civil War resulted in 600,000 Americans dying (more American deaths than World War I and World War II combined) isn’t it readily evident that perhaps American society isn’t quite stable enough to handle the widespread propagation of firearms?

-Ian.

>Delivered-To: fork [at] kragen.dnaco [dot] net
>Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000 09:16:52 -0800 (PST)
>From: Tom Whore
>To: “Fork (E-mail)”
>Subject: Double zeros on a dime
>Status:
>
>http://dante.neonexus.com/~crowbot/misc/tecumseh.html
>
>n September of 1811, when America was still a young nation, a pair of
>Indian leaders underwent an attempt to unite the Shawnee Indian tribes and
>to rid themself of the curse of white men – alcohol. These two Indians
>were known as the Prophet, and his half brother Tecumseh. The American
>leaders of the time percieved this as a British attempt to stir up Indians
>on their borders (this was a prelude to the war of 1812), and in order to
>stop this potential Indian Union, Congress sent Governer William Henry
>Harrison, who would soon be a US president, to deal with the matter.
>Harrison gathered an army and marched against the Prophet’s town, and in
>the battle of Tippecanoe slaughtered the Shawnees, sacked the Prophet’s
>town, and discredited the Prophet, and in a later battle, killed him.
>Tecumseh joined with the British, and in the war of 1812 fought against
>the Americans, but nothing ever came of his Indian Union. When, in 1840,
>Harrison was elected as president of the US, the aging Tecumseh was
>enraged. He placed a curse on the nemesis who ran a campaign based on
>slaughtering Indians. The curse is said to be placed on every president
>that is elected in a year that ends in 0, and that the president will die
>an untimely and unusual death. Tecumseh then disappeared, leaving no
>trace. 1 month after he was in office, Willam Henry Harrison died of
>pneumonia, the first United States President ever to die in office. 20
>years later, in 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president, during his
>second term (April 14, 1865), Lincoln was shot by John Wilks Booth. 20
>years later, in 1880, James A. Garfield was elected president, on July 2,
>1881, he was shot at the railroad station. When recovery seemed imminent
>and he seemed recuperating, he suddenly hemmorhaged and died in office,
>September 19, 1881. 20 years later, in 1900, William McKinley was
>re-elected president, on September 1901 he was shot twice by a deranged
>anarchist. He died 8 days later. 20 years later, in 1920, Willam G.
>Harding was elected president, in 1923 he was sitting in the white house
>when he died of a sudden and unexpected heart attack. 20 years later, in
>1940, Franklin Delenor Roosevelt was re-elected president. During his
>third term in 1945, he died of Cerebral Hemmorrhaging. 20 years later, in
>1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president. in 1963 he was shot and
>killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. (Puts a new idea on the conspiracy theory) 20
>years later, in 1980, Ronald Reagan broke the tradition of deaths,
>narrowly surviving an assassination attempt. Will this end the tradition
>of deaths? Incidentally, the assassin, John Hinkley, went insane shortly
>after being incarserated at Danamora state penetentry.