Vital Concerns for the World: Qom to be Home to Cutting Edge Rail Industry

Friday, December 08, 2006

Qom to be Home to Cutting Edge Rail Industry

IranMania reports that one of “the most advanced” rail industry complexes in the Middle East is to be built in the region of Qom, Iran. How the world has changed. Qom, a historical center of Shiite learning and religious activity, was of no interest to the Shah who saw himself as a modernizer and the Shiite figures who dominated affairs in Qom as social and political drags on progress. Qom was therefore marginalized in the days of the Shah, its marginalization objectified by the neglected roadways leading to it; in time of travel it was far away. Now that Iran is being led by Islamic scholars, most of them trained in Qom, the city is a major hub in the infrastructure of the country. And will become even more central: The new rail complex will be reflect “highly developed management and engineering know-how on factory construction.”
RLC

No comments:

A major source of the American debt problem

Notable Concerns

"Not one has taken responsibility for the biggest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history." Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condolezza Rica, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith.
The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. AlJazeera 10/15/11
GE, America's largest corporation, paid no taxes last year even though it made 5.1 billion dollars profit in the country [and even more outside the country] [source: same as below]
In 2009 the richest 5% held 63.5% of American wealth; the bottom 80% controlled 12.8%. [source: same as below]
Between 2000 and 2007 the richest 10% in America benefited from all of the average growth in the period. In the post WW II period the top 10% benefited from only one third of the growth, the bottom 90% benefiting from the rest of the growth. [Economic Policy Institute, cited by Bob Herbert, NYT 3/26/11]
In 2010 a "premier" investment bank paid each of its 26,000 employees an average of $370,000. [Bill Gross Pimco Investment Outlook Feb, 2011.]
In 2005, one-quarter of the corporations in America making a trillion dolars in revenue paid no taxes.
The 833% Medical Insurance Ripoff: Medicare charges 3% for service; the health insurance companies in Missouri charge 25% for services
The richest 1 percent of Americans have more net worth than the bottom 90 percent.
The richest 1 percent of Americans receive more income than the bottom 50%. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/dec/10/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-viral-speech-says-top-1$ >