Wild West Founder Found Guilty

Click on title for full story;

http://www.kansas.com/news/breaking/story/1175200.html

Gambling a Good Investment: Sands to Open Another Casino Abroad

In addition to its casino in Macau,"The New Las Vegas of the East,"

the Sands is building a new gambling establishment in Singapore: The Marina Bay Sands;



Las Vegas and all of Nevada may be hurting but the Casino Biz apparently is not. People turn to gambling in desperate times, espically those that can least afford it.

by Tony Sagami

I was raised on a vegetable farm in western Washington, so I've always felt more at home in the country than in big, crowded cities. That's why I choose to raise my children in Montana.

When it comes to crowds, it doesn't get more crowded than places like Jakarta, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, and Hong Kong, so I seldom turn down a chance to spend some time in an Asian version of Petticoat Junction.

I found that piece of rural heaven in the Thai countryside last weekend at the home of one of my best Thai friends.

It has been a long time since I woke up to the crowing of a sunrise-welcoming rooster instead of a buzzing alarm clock, and even longer since I've been somewhere where the cows, pigs and chickens outnumbered humans.

The water we drank came from rain water captured in a homemade cistern, and three generations of the same happy family shared a one-bedroom, one-bath, 600-square-foot house.

I loved every minute of it, and can't wait to go back. I even learned a very valuable investing lesson while I was there.


My recent stay in the Thai countryside taught me a valuable investing lesson — Asians love to gamble.

Early Sunday morning, a middle-aged Thai woman on a bicycle stopped at the home where I was staying and was greeted like a long, lost friend by my hosts. I assumed she was a neighbor and a good friend.

Well, she was probably both of those things, but she was also a numbers runner. She was there to pick up the lottery numbers from my host family. We're not talking about the multi-million lotto that you see in the United States, but just a small-time lottery for the locals.

How small-time? My host had recently won the local lotto and pocketed what she considered to be a huge windfall ... roughly 30 U.S. dollars.

Whether you're talking about a $30 lotto in the Thai countryside or a bunch of millionaires betting $100,000 on the turn of a card at the luxurious Venetian Macau, Asians love to gamble. Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Koreans ... they all love to gamble.

Macau, the Las Vegas of Asia

Let me give you an example. I was traveling around Asia with my 25-year-old son Ryan and we went to the Hong Kong Port to catch a high speed ferry to Macau. We were stopped in our tracks by the huge line! Even though they had high-speed ferries leaving every 15 minutes, we ended up waiting for two hours!

The 50-minute boat ride was spectacular ... dozens of sampans filled with Chinese fisherman in traditional coolie hats ... freighters with cargo containers stacked to the sky ... a dense urban jungle of huge condominium towers, many still under construction, hugging the Hong Kong shoreline.

Upon arriving in Macau, we were greeted by yet another ugly picture — more lines! Twisting snakes of people were waiting to clear customs. Heck, I've seen shorter queues at Disney World's most popular rides. Fortunately, they had a separate line for non-Chinese visitors, so Ryan and I were able to avoid much of the madness.

As I quickly found out, these gigantic crowds were the first sign of one of the best investment stories I've ever seen. More on that in a moment.

First, let's look at why all these people are heading to Macau ...

Because it juts into the South China Sea, Macau has a rich history as an Asian trading hub. The Portuguese first arrived there in 1554, and over time they established it as the dominant port of trade between China and Europe. For roughly the next 400 years, Macau was one of the wealthiest and most important cities in Asia.

That changed in 1841 when the British settled in Hong Kong, which had the advantage of deeper-water harbors. Soon, Hong Kong became the major commercial center, and Macau's prosperity slid.

Tourists are flocking to Macau, the Las Vegas of Asia, to gamble.

Then, on Dec. 20, 1999, Portugal transferred Macau to China. The Chinese now let the island operate as a special administrative region, giving it rules and quasi-independence. That's helping to restore Macau to its glorious past in a new millennium.

Macau has a unique mixture of Chinese and Portuguese cultures. To this day, it looks more European than Asian. And its popularity with tourists is exploding — an estimated 18 million visited Macau last year. The majority (55%) came from mainland China, but many more visited from Hong Kong (30%) and Taiwan (9%).

These tourists are flocking to Macau not because of its history or picturesque seaside location. They're coming to GAMBLE.

Macau has become the Las Vegas of China. It is the only city in the region with fully legalized gambling. And gambling is deeply engrained in Asian culture.

How to Play the Macau Card

Plus, Macau is within a five-hour flight of 3 billion people — nearly half the world's population. To put this into perspective, Las Vegas is the same distance from only 450 million people!

Inside Macau's Sands casino, it felt like all 3 billion of those people had picked the same day to visit. The casino ballroom was so crowded, it took me 10 minutes to travel 50 feet from the top of the escalator to the bathroom. The last time I was in a mob that thick was at a Paul McCartney and Wings concert in 1976!

You'd never find those types of crowds in Las Vegas, but I suspect I'll soon be able to find the same mega-crowds in Singapore. That's because the first of two casinos, the Resorts World Sentosa casino, is set to open this month.

This four-hotel, 10-restaurant casino complex will open a Universal Studios in a matter of months, and is expected to pull in more than $2.5 billion of revenues this year.

Boy, wouldn't you like to have a piece of that business? Well you can! This new Singapore casino is owned by Genting Malaysia (4715.KL), which is traded on the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange.

There's more! Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) will open its Marina Bay Sands casino in May. Like the Las Vegas and Macau Venetian, the Singapore casino is a masterpiece of architecture and over-the-top opulence.

While my simple country friends from rural Thailand can't afford a trip to Singapore or Macau to gamble, there are millions of affluent Asians who can. And they'll be wagering a lot more than the few pennies on a small, country lottery.

They will show up in droves though and that, my friends, will translate into some very hefty earnings for Asian casinos.

Best wishes,

Tony
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Meetings held with banks in Dubai, London and US: Fresh financial advisers to re-assess value of national assets

By Ijaz Kakakhel

ISLAMABAD: To get maximum benefits from the sale of public sector entities, the government on Monday announced that it would re-assess the value of national assets on privatization list through fresh appointment of financial advisers.

In this regard, the government had held useful meetings in Dubai, London and the US with reputed investment banks for appointment of financial advisers, Minister for Privatization Senator Waqar Ahmed Khan told journalists on Monday.

At present, some 23 out of 80 public sector enterprises, were on the privatization list of the country and efforts were being made to include few more Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) on the list.

The value of these PSEs on the privatization list was assessed at over $100 billion. After appointment of financial advisers, the valuation process would be completed in 90 days and results would be shared with the investors as well as other stakeholders.

Quoting the example of Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) and Oil and gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL), the minister said according to the cash flows of both companies, the value stood at $2.5 billion, however, when market cap was kept in view, the value of these companies went up to $8 billion. “If, we take, 10 percent market cap while determining the value of such companies, these companies can fetch $25 billion,” he said.

The minister said this time the government had changed the procedure for the appointment of financial advisers. The government would bid for it as against the previous practice of direct appointment. The financial advisers would be paid for their consultancy charges after completion of the transaction, as against the past practice of payment in advance.

Strategic investors had strong interest in Pakistan’s privatization programme and there were huge surplus funds available with the investors to invest in Pakistan, the minister maintained.

He said Privatization Commission Board was being revamped and under the new transparency policy all four provinces would be given representation in the board and renowned jurists, journalists, bankers, academics and women would be included in the Board for transparent decision making.

To avoid any government influence on decision making at PC Board, he said he had surrendered his right of vote and decisions would be taken by the board independently.

He defended the present policy of privatization of 26 percent shares along with management control to the investors and said that at a time when global economic slowdown was having impact on all economies, it would be difficult to attract investors for 51 percent share.

He mentioned that policy of privatization of 26 percent shares along with management control would help realize more price of public assets as the private management would restructure and improve the efficiency of the public sector enterprises and it would increase the value of the government’s shareholding in such PSEs. The government, through value addition, would enhance efficiency and competitiveness of state-owned entities to maximize earning through privatization,

“We want to realize maximum potentials of the state-owned enterprises (SOE) by enhancing their cash value through value addition, besides enhancing their efficiency and competitiveness in the process of privatization for the benefit of the country,” he said.

Senator Waqar, while highlighting his recent meetings with international investors on the sidelines of Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FODP) in Dubai, said that major international financial institutions and investors had expressed their satisfaction on the prudent economic policies of the government and shown their keen interest to participate in the privatization programme of the government.

Pakistan, he said was a land of opportunities for investors adding Pakistan wanted to realize the maximum potentials of its resources and enhance production for the benefit of the people in the country.

Answering a question, he said the government and Etisalat wanted to resolve the outstanding dispute amicably and hoped that the issue would be resolved next month and $800 million to be released to Pakistan soon.

The minister said that besides strengthening and enhancing the SOEs, the president and prime minister wanted to empower employees of the institutions. He specially mentioned the launching of Benazir Employees Stock Option Scheme (BESOS) to achieve this objective.

Senator Waqar said the BESOS was the hallmark of the present government’s pro-workers policies, which would ensure improvement in efficiency, quality and production.

He said it would make workers responsible in further improving the overall performance of the entity and their representation on the Board of Directors would directly involve them in the decision making process for the progress of the entity. The scheme was historic and would usher a new era of workers’ revolution who were being given free of cost 12 per cent of the GoP shares in the SOEs and the entities already privatized. The scheme was not limited only to the non-privatized entities as it also includes all the privatized entities having GoP shares. The scheme was expected to benefit around 500,000 employees of 80 entities.


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\02\09\story_9-2-2010_pg5

Paradigm Shift: Challenging Corporate Authority

Dozens of New Strategies are Sprouting Up

Across the US and Canada -

Some of Them Dating Back to Previous Centuries -

That Challenge Illegitimate Corporate Authority and Privilege


by Paul Cienfuegos



For most of the 20th century, American citizens have become accustomed to challenging corporate harms and corporate abuses of authority one harm at a time - one clearcut Timber Harvest Plan at a time, one toxic spill at a time, one plant closure at a time. It wasn't always like this. From the American Revolution through to the end of the 19th century, in the words of Richard Grossman, "Earlier generations of Americans were quite clear that a corporation was an artificial, subordinate entity with no inherent rights of its own, and that incorporation was a privilege bestowed by the sovereign people. For example, in 1834 the Pennsylvania Legislature declared:

‘A corporation in law is just what the incorporation act makes it. It is the creature of the law and may be molded to any shape or for any purpose that the Legislature may deem most conducive to the common good.’"

Grossman continues, "People understood that they had a civic responsibility not to create artificial entities which could harm the body politic, interfere with the mechanisms of self-governance, and assault their sovereignty. They also understood that they did not elect their agents to positions in government to sell off the sovereignty of the people."

Here are a few examples of how different the rules were in the US until the late 1800's. In many states, corporations were prohibited from owning other corporations, prohibited from donating to political candidates or charitable organizations, and prohibited from owning any land beyond what was necessary for the carrying out of their chartered duties. Boards of directors and stockholders were held personally liable for all harms and debts. The ‘limited liability corporation’, as we know it today, did not exist.

Sadly, as we enter the 21st century, few Americans have any idea that such a history even existed in this country. Yet this is starting to change. Beginning in the early 1990's — thanks to the seminal work of Richard Grossman and his colleagues at the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) - Americans started to rethink how we go about challenging the harms that corporations get away with day in and day out in every city and town in America. We began to rediscover what an appropriate relationship looks like in a democracy between we the people and the fictitious subordinate creation we call the ‘corporation’. And we began to learn how to reframe our analysis of what the problem is.

Yes, of course, clearcut logging and sweatshop labor and genetically engineered "food" are a big problem. But the much bigger problem is that we’ve allowed fictitious corporate "persons" to usurp our authority as citizens to make these and other critical societal decisions which affect all of us and the natural world.

If we no longer pleaded with corporate leaders to cause a little less harm, what would we do? If we no longer celebrated as victories every brief delay in the corporate devastation of our world, what would we celebrate?

By the mid-1990’s, new groups were sprouting up across the US and Canada, and asking themselves these questions. Each was beginning to experiment with a different set of tools than anyone had used for a century. Groups like ‘Democracy Unlimited’ in California, ‘Reclaim Democracy!’ in Colorado, ‘180/ Movement for Democracy and Education’ in Wisconsin, ‘Friends of the Constitution’ in Nebraska, and ‘Citizens Council on Corporate Issues’ in British Columbia, are all examples of this fledgling new movement.

Clearly, to ask people of every ideology to rethink how they respond to corporate harm is a very big task, so a number of groups are beginning with public education strategies. For example, in my community, 600 local residents came together for nine hours of Town Hall meetings last year to discuss the question, "Can we have democracy when large corporations wield so much power and wealth under law?" (Videotapes are available.)

I am going to share with you dozens of stories of American and Canadian citizens educating and organizing themselves and others — no longer simply challenging individual corporate harms, but going after corporate privilege and illegitimate corporate authority. There is tremendous diversity in our goals and strategies — just what one would expect in a fledgling new social movement.

Yes, it's still a small number of groups, but the number is beginning to grow rapidly, and there's no question in my mind that this growth represents a profound shift beginning to take place in the consciousness of citizens.

Our world is in terrible crisis. We need to focus on what strategies have the best chance of success, rather than those which simply postpone the destruction. Consider these dozens of projects as a guide for you and your community. Contact the organizers. Learn from their mistakes. Replicate the projects that seem to work. There is no time to lose.


(I have organized the list into thirteen categories for easier perusal.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Bold Responses to Corporations Which Chronically Break the Law

• The ‘Wayne Township Ordinance’ (Mifflin County, PA) was enacted into law in 1998 by a 3-0 vote, and has since also passed in Thompson Township. It prohibits any corporation from doing business in the township (even those that are already located there) if it has a history of consistently violating any regulatory laws (environmental, labor, etc), and further prohibits any corporation from doing business there if any of its current directors sit on other corporate boards which consistently violate regulatory law.

Contact: Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), 717-530-0931 or www.celdf.org

• Residents of Shasta County, CA are circulating a ‘10 Strikes and You're Out’ ballot initiative in the town of Shasta Lake City near Redding in order to try to stop a large German corporation (Knauf) from building a fiberglas manufacturing plant there (and other toxic industry which may follow).

Contact: Protectors of Community Health, POB 1053, Shasta Lake City, CA 96019, or phone Heidi Silva at 530-472-1355

• The Clinton administration is proposing an Anti-Scofflaw regulation which would prevent the federal government from entering into contracts with companies that chronically violate regulatory law.

Contact: Robert Weissman at rob@essential.org

• A Boulder, CO organization - Reclaim Democracy! — introduced for discussion (in 1998) a statewide ‘Three Strikes and You're Dissolved’ ballot initiative.

Contact: 303-402-0105 or www.reclaimdemocracy.org



2. Challenging Public/ Corporate Partnerships

• The Berkeley and San Francisco School Districts are effectively challenging corporate advertising in school buildings and working to get tobacco corporation food out of school cafeterias.

Contact: ‘Center for Commercial-Free Public Education’ (‘UNPLUG’) at 800-867-5841 or unplug@igc.org or www.commercialfree.org



3. Local Communities, Locally Owned Businesses and Entire States Organizing to Defend Themselves Against Corporate Power

• In November ‘98, hundreds of campus organizers from across North America met at the Campus Democracy Convention and formed the ‘180/ Movement for Democracy and Education’, a chapter-based organization that stands in opposition to the corporatization of education as well as other forms of institutionalized hierarchy and oppression, and calls for a 180 degree turn towards democracy. Since then, ‘Democracy Teach-Ins’ have been organized on hundreds of college campuses, many of them with their own active chapters. They strive to unite students, campus workers, and the working public in asserting democratic authority over our schools. Ongoing projects include: challenging the authority of corporate-controlled boards of regents, mobilizing opposition to the WTO, forcing administrators to stop purchasing from sweatshops, and exposing corporate-controlled research programs.

Contact: 608-262-9036 or clearinghouse@tao.ca or http://corporations.org/democracy

• The Boulder Independent Business Alliance (BIBA) unites independent businesses to compete effectively against corporate chain stores. Recent work includes the ‘Community Vitality Act’ currently under consideration by the Boulder City Council. This legislation helps demolish the myth of the "business interest" by supporting alliances among small businesses that are victims of the chain stores. BIBA is also facilitating the creation of IBA's in other cities (two to date).

Contact: 303-402-1575 or info@boulder-iba.org or www.boulder-iba.org

• A new ballot initiative campaign in Oregon was launched in winter/spring 2000 - the ‘Oregon Human Rights Initiative’ - which attempts to statutorily codify the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (signed into law 51 years ago by virtually every nation in the world), making adherence to these principles a requirement to do civic or commercial business in Oregon. Non-compliance can result in charter revocation.

Contact: chief co-petitioner Paul Van DeVelder, 541-752-8450 or oneworld@peak.org or

www.oregonrights.com

• A number of years ago, the town of Jay, Maine passed an ordinance which gave the town the power to license, monitor and enforce the same environmental regulations that the state Dept of Environmental Protection, and the federal E.P.A. do. In the town is a pulp&paper mill owned by International Paper company.

Contact: Peter Kellman, 207-676-3356 or pkellman@cybertours.com

• The San Francisco County Board of Supervisors has passed a law requiring all corporations doing business in the county to offer full benefits for same-sex partners. It has already withstood a court challenge.

Contact: City of SF at 415-554-6141. Read the full text at www.cisf.ca.us/infoleg.html

• The Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR) in Minnesota launched the ‘New Rules Project’, which helps local communities to organize against the ravages of absentee corporate decision making by "identifying the rules that could close the gap between those who make the decisions and those who feel the impacts — new rules that could bring both authority and responsibility to the local level."

Contact: 612-379-3815 or www.newrules.org



4. Prohibiting (or Defining) Corporate Involvement in Particular Industries

• New farming laws in Nebraska (‘Initiative 300’ - 1982), South Dakota (‘Amendment E’ - 1998), and Pennsylvania (1999) ban non-family-owned corporations from engaging in farming or ranching, or owning farmland. Nebraska and South Dakota achieved their success through ballot initiatives which amended their state constitutions. ‘Friends of the Constitution’ is a Nebraska coalition of 18 farm, church, and environmental groups which joined together to defend and enforce ‘Initiative 300’. A similar measure was achieved by two Pennsylvania townships (Wells and Thompson) through ordinances passed by their respective township governments. There are also a number of PA townships discussing similar legislation which would ban corporate logging or forest land ownership.

Contacts: South Dakota - Dakota Rural Action, 605-697-5204 or drural@brookings.net or www.worc.org/member.html#dra

Nebraska - Nancy Thompson at FoC, 402-494-9117 or nanthomp@pionet.net or www.i300.org

Pennsylvania — Tom Linzey at Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), 717-530-0931 or www.celdf.org

• In Sonoma County, CA, the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center's 'Food Systems, Corporations and Democracy Program' has two local projects aimed at shifting local decision making from the realm of private, property-based, corporate, "market" decisions to the realm of public, democratic decisions focused on the "commonwealth":

1) ‘Sonoma County Green Genes’ is organizing to pass resolutions at city councils and school boards calling for a moratorium on the release of all genetically engineered crops and foods, and for full corporate liability for harms resulting from any releases of GMO’s. (The city of Sebastopol has already passed the resolution); and

2) The ‘Occidental Town Hall Coalition’ has organized a dozen town hall meetings around the county - each attended by 250 to 500 people - to discuss the problem of and strategize solutions to the expansion of corporate-owned industrial vineyards, and the resulting loss of diverse small and family farms and local agrarian culture. They are writing ordinances that redefine "farming" and county land use policies away from corporate interests, and toward the interest of the people and wild nature.

Contact: Dave Henson, 707-874-1557 ext 4 or dhenson@oaec.org



5. Suing Governments for Violating the Federal Constitution

• A British Columbia-based organization - Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee — is suing the Canadian government alleging that Canada's participation in the MAI/WTO process of global corporatization is unconstitutional.

Contact: Connie Fogal, 604-687-0588 or cfogal@netcom.ca or www.canadianliberty.bc.ca



6. From Corporate Ownership To Public Ownership

• Campaigns are heating up (or are already successful) at the municipal level to return utilities to public ownership and management from the corporate giants that currently control them. Two examples follow:

1) The city of Ashland, OR is installing a fiber optic network to provide citizens with low-cost cable TV and high-speed data access. This public utility is providing service below the cost charged by large corporations.

Contact: Wes Brain at 541.482.6988 or brain@mind.net or www.ashlandfiber.net or www.ashland.or.us/committees/committees.asp.net

2) After four years of research and debate, a diverse coalition of people in Davis, CA has gathered enough signatures to place an initiative on the local ballot to create a Davis Municipal Utility District (DMUD). DMUD would be a community-owned energy co-op. The steering committee has formed a cooperative organization to pursue the effort, with a working title of ‘Sustainable Utility Network Cooperative (SUN Co-op). The initiative vote would not commit DMUD to purchase the system but does create a legal entity to study the system and then conduct negotiations with PG&E Corporation. DMUD could operate like the nearly 900 electric co-ops and hundreds of citizen-owned utilities in the US, and further demonstrate the viability of ecological and democratic business practices.

Contact: info@dmud.org or milbrodt@2xtreme.net or www.dmud.org



7. Revoking Corporate Charters

• The New York Attorney General’s office has shown surprising leadership recently in challenging corporate charters. The previous Republican AG (Dennis Vacco) successfully revoked the charters of two non-profit tax-exempt front groups for the tobacco corporations (Tobacco Institute and Council for Tobacco Research), and seized and distributed their assets to two public institutions. The current Democratic AG (Eliot Spitzer) proposed - in a pre-election speech - a "death penalty" for corporations that cause serious harm, though he has failed to take any action since his election.

Contact: Attorney General's office in Albany, www.oag.state.ny.us

• On 10 September ’98, the National Lawyers Guild (joined by 30 other groups and individuals) filed a 129-page legal petition to California’s previous Republican Attorney General Dan Lungren requesting that he revoke the charter of Union Oil Company of California (UNOCAL corporation) for its decades of lawbreaking and global harms. He responded with a terse non-explanation. On 19 April ’99, now joined by 150 additional endorsing organizations and individuals, the petition was resubmitted to the newly elected Democratic Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who also promptly responded with a brief non-response. (A book including the petition, information about how to file such a document, and details about the endorsing organizations can be purchased for $12 from the Alliance for Democracy, 681 Main St, Suite 16, Waltham, MA 02451.)

Contact: Robert Benson, 213-736-1094 or heed@igc.org or www.heed.net

• In June 1998, a retired Alabama judge acting as a private citizen filed for the charter revocation of five tobacco corporations that, he asserted, have broken state laws (some dating back to 1901) and therefore should be shut down (Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson, R.J. Reynolds, The Liggett Group, and Lorillard Corporations). The list of violated laws includes: contributing to the dependency of a minor, unlawful distribution of material harmful to a minor, endangering the welfare of a child, assault in the third degree, recklessly endangering another, deceptive business practice, and causing the delinquency of a child. The case was ultimately transferred from state to federal court and then back again, where it was dismissed with no opinion given to explain a reason. Both the governor and attorney general have close links to the tobacco industry. (Federal Citation of the case: 51 F.Supp.2d 1232)

Contact: William Wynn, 205-978-5546 or sabrinawyn@aol.com

• In March 2000, Ohio State Representative Barbara Pringle (with the help of American Friends Service Committee) wrote to the Ohio Attorney General asking that the AG initiate corporate charter revocation proceedings against the Cleveland Clinic (a non-profit corporation). The Clinic sought to purchase two Cleveland area hospitals to shut them down, thereby reducing the availability of healthcare to many Clevelanders, and continuing the trend towards consolidation. This exercise of citizen authority over corporations contributed to the Clinic's decision to instead sell the hospitals to another healthcare corporation rather than closing them.

Contact: Barbara Pringle at 614-466-5921 or www.house.state.oh.us/reps/bios/bio.cfm?DISTRICT=13



8. Rewriting State Corporate Codes

• In 1999, a small group of citizen activists wrote a model ‘Corporation Code’ for the state of New Jersey that reins in illegitimate corporate privileges. Their choice of states was not a coincidence, as New Jersey was known as the "traitor state" at the turn of the century for overturning more than a century of legal tradition regarding the defining of and citizen control over corporations by state legislatures. The draft document may be useful to anyone wishing to organize to amend their state’s corporate codes.

Contact: Ward Morehouse, 212-972-9877 or cipany@igc.org



9. Amending State Constitutions

• Montana’s Supreme Court - in a landmark ruling on 20 Oct 1999 - found the State (without showing a compelling state interest) cannot allow activities to continue that have the potential to poison the environment. The ruling came in an appeal by two environmental groups challenging an exemption allowing mining activities to degrade rivers. This was the first time that the court had tested a Montanan's constitutional "right to a clean and healthful environment" (Article II, Section 3 passed at their 1972 Constitutional Convention). The court stated, "Our constitution does not require that dead fish float on the surface of our state’s rivers and streams before its farsighted environmental protections can be invoked."

Contact: Tom France at National Wildlife Federation Resource Center in Missoula, 406-721-6705 or www.nwf.org

• Long-time Oregon citizen activist Lloyd Marbet announced in May 2000 his intention to organize a state ballot initiative campaign which, if successful in November 2002, would amend the OR Constitution to prohibit anyone other than a "natural person" (no corporate "persons") from donating to any candidate or ballot initiative campaign. He is also running for Oregon Secretary of State in the November 2000 election on a platform which includes defending "the sovereignty of natural persons."

Contact: Lloyd Marbet, 503-637-3549 or marbet@mail.com or www.marbet.org

• Anti-corporate farming laws have passed in South Dakota and Nebraska, created by citizens who won ballot initiatives to amend their state constitutions. (See section #4 for details and contact info.)



10. Challenging Corporate Personhood

• In a small community on California’s north coast, a ‘Resolution on Corporate Personhood in the City of Point Arena’ was passed by the City Council in a 4-1 vote on 25 April 2000. The resolution, among its many points, disavows the personhood status of corporations, encourages public discussion on the role of corporations in public life, and urges other cities to foster similar public discussion.

Contact: Jan Edwards at Redwood Coast Alliance for Democracy, 707-882-1818 or janedwards@mcn.org or www.iiipublishing.com/alliance.htm



11. Strengthening American Democratic Processes by First Educating Citizens About Our History, and Thus Beginning to Reclaim Our Culture and Our Language

• "Citizens Over Corporations," a unique 52-page pamphlet on the history of corporate power and democratic movements in Ohio, was published in 1999 by the ‘Ohio Committee on Corporations, Law and Democracy’, a project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. (Send $3.50 to obtain a copy - checks to AFSC, 513 W. Exchange St, Akron, OH 44302.) Pamphlets such as this need to be researched and written for every state in the Union as a necessary first step in designing campaigns to reclaim our authority over our corporate creations. Other as yet unpublished state histories include Maine and Massachusetts.

Contact: Greg Coleridge, 330-253-7151 or afscole@aol.com

• ‘Measure F: The Arcata Advisory Initiative on Democracy and Corporations’ won by 58% of the vote in November ’98 in Arcata, CA. It called for:

1) two Town Hall meetings (April and May '99) on the topic: "Can we have democracy when large corporations wield so much power and wealth under law?" - attended by about 600 residents - almost 5% of local voters; and

2) the creation of a standing committee of city council on 'Democracy and Corporations' (forming Spring 2000 after much hemming and hawing by the council) to begin to rein in the authority and privileges of large corporations doing business in Arcata.

Contact: Democracy Unlimited, 707-822-2242 or cienfuegos@igc.org or www.monitor.net/democracyunlimited

• As part of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom's ‘Challenge Corporate Power, Assert the People's Rights’ national campaign, six-session study groups are being formed around the country to "explore the history and roots of corporate power, examine global corporatization, decolonize our minds, and participate in democratic conversation." Copies of study materials are available.

Contact: Charmaine Sprengelmeyer, 215-563-5527 or wilpf@wilpf.org or www.wilpf.org

• At its third annual national convention in May ‘99, the Alliance for Democracy (AfD) - with more than 60 chapters in 21 states - adopted three national action campaigns. One of them is titled, "Transforming the nature of large corporations to subordinate them to democracy". The AfD has also recently launched dozens of local ‘Democracy Brigades’ to add a nonviolent direct action campaign component to its work.

Contact: 781-894-1179 or peoplesall@aol.com or www.afd-online.org

• In December ’99, a new US/Canada-wide Democracy Network was formed - partially inspired by the provocative analysis of Richard Grossman and his colleagues at the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy. It has established seven working groups that include 'Movement Building', 'Research', and 'Language' (a dictionary project entitled "Defining Democracy").

Contact: No official central contact, each group has a contact person, so feel free to ask me, Paul Cienfuegos, and I’ll connect you up - 707-825-0740 or cienfuegos@igc.org



12. Existing Organizations Reframing or Expanding Their Work in Order to More Effectively Challenge Corporate Authority

• The General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalists has founded a new organization in the US and Canada titled 'UU’s for a Just Economic Community' that has a mandate to pursue eleven economic justice campaigns, including: to work on the "Periodic review, renewal, or, if necessary, revocation of corporate charters, depending on assessment of performance consistent with the public interest".

Contact: Neil MacLean, 415-641-6299 or neil@warmcove.com

• In November ’98, at the Labor Party’s first Constitutional Convention, a resolution was passed unanimously — entitled ‘A Workplace Bill of Rights’ - which reframes the rights of workers to include worker (i.e. citizen) authority over their subordinate corporate institutions.

Contact: Ed Bruno, 617-531-0901 or laborpne@aol.com

• United for a Fair Economy, a national organization based in Boston, has added to their existing workshops and resources - on America's income and wealth gap and the global economy - with a new training model for "Ending Corporate Rule".

Contact: 617-423-2148 or info@ufenet.org or www.ufenet.org

• A new U.S. campaign was launched in June '99 by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF - one of the world's oldest peace organizations) titled ‘Challenge Corporate Power, Assert the People's Rights’. Phase I is study groups (see section #11 for details and contact info); Phase II is designing local campaigns.

• The Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee (AFSC, the Quakers) is challenging state for-profit and not-for-profit corporate codes, looking at charter revocation, and unmasking federal and state regulatory agencies.

Contact: Greg Coleridge, 330-253-7151 or afscole@aol.com

• In 1999, the National Lawyers Guild launched a new campaign to challenge corporate authority coordinated by its new ‘Committee on Corporations, the Constitution and Human Rights’.

Contact: Eric Palmer at 212-627-2656 ext 12 or radicalawyer@igc.org or www.nlg.org/committees/corporations.htm



13. Relatively new organizations which have as their primary mission to challenge corporate authority and corporate privilege, and reclaim democracy from corporate "persons", rather than focussing on particular corporate harms or industries...

•Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD)

South Yarmouth, MA

Contact: Mary Zepernick

508-398-1145 or people@poclad.org or www.poclad.org

•Alliance for Democracy (AfD) — see also section #11

Waltham, MA

781-894-1179 or peoplesall@aol.com or www.afd-online.org

•180/ Movement for Democracy and Education (180/MDE) — see also section #3

Madison, WI

608-262-9036 or clearinghouse@tao.ca or http://corporations.org/democracy

•Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County (DUHC) — see also section #11

Arcata, CA

Contact: Paul Cienfuegos

707-822-2242 or cienfuegos@igc.org or www.monitor.net/democracyunlimited

•Reclaim Democracy! — see also section #1

Boulder, CO

303-402-0105 or info@reclaimdemocracy.org or www.reclaimdemocracy.org

•Citizens Council on Corporate Issues (CCCI)

Vancouver, BC, Canada

Contact: Gil Yaron

604-734-1815 or ccci@corporateissues.org or www.corporateissues.org

•Polaris Institute

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Contact: Tony Clarke

613-746-8374 or tclarke@web.net or www.polarisinstitute.org

•Defining Democracy Workgroup (of the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center)

Missoula, MT

Contact: Dean Ritz

406-543-3955 or democracy@jrpc.org or www.jrpc.org

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Copyright Paul Cienfuegos 2000

Paul Cienfuegos is the co-founding director of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County based in Arcata, CA, and the co-author of ‘Measure F: the Arcata Advisory Initiative on Democracy and Corporations’. For information about the work of his organization or the workshops he leads (‘First Steps in Dismantling Corporate Rule’), or to comment on this article, contact him at 707-825-0740 or cienfuegos@igc.org . Paul also runs a social change bookstore with over 200 titles on democracy and corporations (100fires.com). Paul wishes to sincerely thank Dean Ritz, Molly Morgan, and Patrick Reinsborough for the substantial research assistance they provided for this article.





http://www.envirolink.org/external.html?www=http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/bulletin.cfm?Issue_ID=1282

Itty Bitty Blurb about a Really Big Crime;

Mn. businessmen Tom Petters

http://www.startribune.com/83813957.html?elr=KArksUUUU

G7 to Convine at Artic Circle

Pack your parkas, finance ministers
G7 convening in a town fewer than 200 miles away from the Arctic Circle

By Liana B. Baker, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Finance ministers will trek to Iqaluit this weekend, meeting on the southern tip of Baffin Island where facemasks, snowmobiles and seal meat are hot and the temperatures less so.

In February, the average temperature in Canada's most northern capital dips to minus 18 degrees Fahrenheit. That's a lot chillier than the past February's Group of Seven meeting in Rome.

As the host of the February meeting, Canada had its pick of the location. Officials chose the venue to showcase its Canadian Arctic and to bring the G7 back to the group's roots, where ministers could talk less formally in fireside chats.

The queen of England has been to Iqaluit three times and other dignitaries have visited, but the ministers' arrival will mark the biggest international conference in, and spotlight on the town of fewer than 7,000 people. See story about G7 meeting in Iqaluit.


Iqaluit Fire Department

G7 finance ministers will gather this weekend in icy Iqaluit, Canada's gateway to the Eastern Arctic.

Challenges
Jim Bell, the editor of the Iqaluit's weekly newspaper, Nunatsiaq News, said he was surprised when his home of 30 years was chosen, because of the logistical problems it poses.

"It's not a kind of place that has the resources to completely support a gathering like this," Bell says. "Even in the best of times the telecommunications services can be dicey."

NorthwesTel, the major telecommunications company in the area, warned residents to expect dropped calls and spotty Internet connections.

Thanks to its one-runway airport, Iqaluit is considered the major gateway to the Eastern Arctic. The city is a three-hour plane ride away from Montreal and Ottawa, the nearest large cities.

"It's as far away as you can go in three hours from a cultural perspective," says David Scott, the director of the Northern Canada division of the Geological Survey of Canada. "It's exotic, and the landscape is unlike anything else in the south."

Ministers and their entourages could also be stranded if the weather doesn't cooperate, and Iqaluit's newspaper editor said it hasn't been great lately.

"The weather has been very unsettled," Bell says. "We had two really bad snowstorms last weekend. If the weather turns bad, the ministers can be stuck here for far longer than expected."

Lisa Gregoire, who worked as a reporter in Iqaluit in the 1990s, said she thinks Iqaluit was chosen to avoid protestors, who won't be able to afford round-trip airfare ranging from $1,500 to $2,300.

She also called the city exceedingly expensive and a curious choice for a summit during frugal times. Prices are high because food and building materials have to shipped or flown into the city. She remembered a club sandwich and fries costing $20.

"Is it economically feasible in this climate of financial restraint?" asks Gregoire, who added that she thought it ironic that finance ministers would meet in such an expensive location.


Click on title above for full story;

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/pack-your-parkas-finance-ministers-2010-02-04?dist=afterbell

Lifting the Curtain

By David Geracioti

Keith McCullough's book, Diary of a Hedge Fund Manager (Wiley; January 2010), is a short but interesting tale of a hayseed from Western Ontario who skated for the Pemberton Lumber Kings and then finds himself as a 20-year-old freshman at Yale. ("I got in because I could shoot a hockey puck," McCullough told me. "My first paper was deemed ‘ungradable.'")

With finance and economics courses under his belt (including a class taught by Robert Shiller, the respected founder of the Case/Shiller real estate indexes), McCullough lands on Wall Street. He eventually launches and then sells a successful hedge fund to Magnetar Capital. He accepts an offer from the Carlyle Group, the private equity group who were launching a hedge fund ("at the exact top of the market," says McCullough).

But McCullough was fired from Blue Wave, the Carlyle joint venture with two ex-Deutsche executives, because he went short too early in 2007. By November, just as his bets were paying off and the financial crisis began to widen, his bosses at Blue Wave let him go.

As a portfolio manager, McCullough kept a diary of his investment decisions in a "marbleized," school-kid notebook. Now 35, he says he "enjoyed the ride, made eight figures and notched positive returns in 21 of 24 quarters." But, as he notes in his introduction to his book, in the wild, wild world of hedge funds, "unless you run the place, the hedge fund business is about being right each and every quarter. Being right early is called being wrong."

In the days after his firing, and in an effort to shine some light on the secretive world of hedge funds, McCullough began to publish a blog, MCM Macro, "my token attempt to bring some semblance of transparency to the investing world."

He currently runs Research Edge, a nearly 40-person research house meant to bring hedge-fund investing into the open. For $225 per month, you can subscribe to his site, Hedgeye Risk Management (hedgeye.com), and receive real-time, fully transparent investment research (and calls upon which to act) - but without all the Wall Street herd-like "groupthink," as he is fond of saying. Here is one former hedge fund manager's road to transparency.

Excerpt:

The trades [recommended on McCullough's blog], I should point out, were done "on paper," but I conducted my PM [portfolio management] process as I always had, and kept at my blog every day to hold myself and the industry accountable for whatever came next. I wrote from a standpoint of full disclosure, total transparency, accountability, concepts desperately lacking in the fund industry, which may as well have operated out of windowless underground bunkers. No, there was one window in: the client letter.

Nothing quite sums up the arrogance and opaqueness of the hedge fund industry as the monthly or quarterly Dear Client letter, the only public peephole a fund will offer its investors and which at their best are as readable and informative as one of those holiday cards from the self-important family needing to catch you up on various members' trivial goings on. Most hedge funds don't want clients to know much, if anything, about the activities of the fund. Because client letters often find their way into the hands of the media, they are issued reluctantly and crafted lawyerly inside pressurized chambers of compressed air. I'm not sure it's even relevant to refer to hedge funds as having investor relations.

(During a January 2009 panel discussion sponsored by Institutional Investor magazine and attended by a few dozen hedge fund marketing executives, the state of client communication was a source of consternation, according to a panelist, Thomas Walek, a top PR Man for hedge funds. Describing that II event during the course of a subsequent presentation, Walek said: "Overall the audience was frustrated and confused about its inability to communicate with clients … to quote one observer ‘the environment is brutal, just brutal.'")

True enough that a lot of rich guys give money to the best hedge fund managers, and leave them alone, and don't want to know and only think to seek out any transparency when things go bad. By that time, there are lawyers involved, and it's too late. The best money managers hate to be trifled by pedestrian investors asking uninformed questions, especially when they call only when things go wrong, never when the fund is roaring along. But having no clients and only trading on paper, I figured, why not let people know exactly what I am doing?

In addition to establishing some transparency, I'd set the stage [with the daily blog] for at least a debate between the bears and the levered long crowd. I received plenty of feedback, some dismissive, some constructive. Once in a while I'd get a hateful email, usually from a hedge fund guy who was levered long. That just made me chirp all the louder because I knew I was going to be right. Here's another post from Sunday, January 6, 2008:

MCM Macro Weekend Strategy, 1/6/08 … ‘Real Hedge Funds Hedge'
If you really want to annoy the mentally inflexible, levered-long and/or concentrated hedge fund managers in this business, remind them how right you were in making a "macro" market call on the bearish side, and then ask them why they didn't see it coming …

The most recent edition of the Hedge Fund game has become very peculiar that way; it's really the only game i [sic] know where losing is met with relative performance justifications. On Monday, the internal dialogue at most U.S. hedge funds will go something like this: ‘but we're only down a couple percent … ‘hearing another guy is getting wrecked, though' … ‘have you heard anyone else's numbers?' … ‘how's Stevie doing - hearing he's upset' … ‘did you call the CFO yet? what's [sic] going on in this stock' … ‘this stock is just too cheap here' …

Now, imagine if real athletes (the only other professionals I can find with the same performance-based compensation packages) behaved this way. What if Pittsburgh Steeler's quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, went back to the dressing room after last night's 31-29 playoff loss to Jacksonville last night and whispered to the guy next to him ‘but the Redskins lost to the Seahawks by more' … or, worse, ‘those interceptions i [sic] threw don' t matter; i [sic] have my contract guarantee' …

Excerpted with permission from the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, from Diary of a Hedge Fund Manager, by Keith McCullough. Copyright © 2010 by Keith McCullough.



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