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Friday, March 30, 2007 |
Spiegel: "Despite efforts to eradicate Afghanistan's opium production, the problem keeps getting worse. And the Taliban insurgency is the primary beneficiary. Now, some European governments are weighing a legalization of the drug trade.
Governments in Berlin, Paris and Rome, along with NATO leadership are discussing a potentially explosive new idea: the legalization of Afghanistan's opium production. The plan envisages farmers being able to sell their poppies to officially licensed buyers for the same price they currently get from the drug barons. The product could then be sold to the pharmaceutical industry for pain medication and other products."
What a quaint story. If they would legalize opium production that would lower the prices. Nobody wants that. Not the producers, not the traffickers, not the governments which earn lots of illegal money to finance their secret wars and destabilize other countries. Mind my words, not much will come of it.
10:59:25 AM 
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NYTimes: "Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent of Americans - those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 - receiving their largest share of national income since 1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows.
The top 10 percent, roughly those earning more than $100,000, also reached a level of income share not seen since before the Depression.
While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.
The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent."
NewStatesman: "Britain remains a society with too many inequalities, too many barriers to opportunity for those at the bottom. 'Not enough redistribution!' say some. If only things were so simple. Redistribution there must be, but much more besides.
The government failed to meet its declared target of reducing child poverty by a quarter by the end of the financial year 2005. Although 700,000 children were lifted out of poverty, reducing the overall number to its lowest since the late 1980s, this figure was still 300,000 short of the target set.
Labour can no longer be against entrepreneurs, the driving forces of economic success. But becoming wealthy should carry with it social obligations, such as to give something back to society, to pay tax in full, and to encourage social and environmental responsibility within companies. For several decades after the Second World War, the ratio of top executives' earnings to average income was stable. In the 1980s, it began to accelerate away and has not stopped since.
Labour should consider introducing a wealth tax of the kind found in some other countries. Wealth is more unequally distributed than income, with a high concentration in the hands of a few.
Reducing tax evasion and getting rid of the loopholes that make widespread tax avoidance possible should be priorities - as far as possible on an international as well as a national level."
10:49:26 AM
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This picture says it all.
Now watch Nancy Pelosi showing George Bush his place.
NewsAsia: "The US Senate on Thursday approved a bill tying funding for the war in Iraq to a timetable for withdrawing US troops, setting the stage for a confrontation with President George W. Bush."
NYTimes: "King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told Arab leaders on Wednesday that the American occupation of Iraq is illegal, and he warned that unless Arab governments settle their differences, foreign powers like the United States would continue to dictate the region's politics."
10:36:18 AM
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