Comments on: An Angolan parallel in Iraq? http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1732 BTC News: News, politics, opinion and satire Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:52:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: zinya http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1732/comment-page-1#comment-1105624 zinya Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:31:59 +0000 http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1732#comment-1105624 Well, just off the top of my head, the revision under Bush that allowed greater offshore tax-havening for US based companies, the one which allows US companies to re-headquarter themselves abroad (in name only) to avoid US taxes (and other laws), the fact that the US has never signed on to an International court that multinationals would be governed by. [I recall studying at Science Politiques in Paris in 1981 and a course even way back then made me realize just how vital an international tribunal to enforce <i>some</i> kind of law over multinationals. If in fact, such companies can be shown to be actually feeding war for the sake of their profit, that <i>should</i>, imo, be under the purview of an international tribunal.] I'm still one who believes the UN was meant to have teeth for such things as monitoring civil wars at least in such matters as international commerce which may be exploiting it. Consumer boycotts depend on usually-lacking public awareness, and so rarely translate into something as 'public' a statement as the anti-apartheid sanctioning once was -- concurrent with the little-exposed Angolan crisis. I'm neither an economist nor legal scholar, as you know, so I'm sure I cannot do justice to your question. But I'll think about it some more -- maybe especially after a second coffee :-) -- and let you know if something bubbles up. How about you? Do you see policies that would impact this phenom? Have you looked at the Angolan or the Chad reports -- i mean the original Angolan one by Guidolin and La Ferrera? I wonder if they draw implications for US policies. Well, just off the top of my head, the revision under Bush that allowed greater offshore tax-havening for US based companies, the one which allows US companies to re-headquarter themselves abroad (in name only) to avoid US taxes (and other laws), the fact that the US has never signed on to an International court that multinationals would be governed by. [I recall studying at Science Politiques in Paris in 1981 and a course even way back then made me realize just how vital an international tribunal to enforce some kind of law over multinationals. If in fact, such companies can be shown to be actually feeding war for the sake of their profit, that should, imo, be under the purview of an international tribunal.]

I’m still one who believes the UN was meant to have teeth for such things as monitoring civil wars at least in such matters as international commerce which may be exploiting it. Consumer boycotts depend on usually-lacking public awareness, and so rarely translate into something as ‘public’ a statement as the anti-apartheid sanctioning once was — concurrent with the little-exposed Angolan crisis.

I’m neither an economist nor legal scholar, as you know, so I’m sure I cannot do justice to your question. But I’ll think about it some more — maybe especially after a second coffee :-) — and let you know if something bubbles up.

How about you? Do you see policies that would impact this phenom? Have you looked at the Angolan or the Chad reports — i mean the original Angolan one by Guidolin and La Ferrera? I wonder if they draw implications for US policies.

]]> By: JackD http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1732/comment-page-1#comment-1105610 JackD Sun, 19 Aug 2007 16:43:24 +0000 http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1732#comment-1105610 Can you think of any US policies that might prevent or blunt this phenomenon? Can you think of any US policies that might prevent or blunt this phenomenon?

]]>