Vital Concerns for the World: "U.S. Scrambled To Find Observers For Pakistani Vote" Washington Post, February 16.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

"U.S. Scrambled To Find Observers For Pakistani Vote" Washington Post, February 16.

Thanks to a friend for passing to me Robin Wright’s article on the last minute efforts to find monitors for the election in Pakistan tomorrow [!]. How much can anyone learn about the way Pakistan election corruption works in the few days notice this commission had? Even if they do a good job, who will believe that they really knew what was going on? Bad news for Pakistan, no matter what the results are, because it’s current administration is so notoriously duplicitous.

1 comment:

Unknown said...: The algebra of rigging by Cyril Almeida

http://www.dawn.com/2008/02/17/nat20.htm; 10:33 PM

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 $370,000. [Bill Gross Pimco Investment Outlook Feb, 2011.]
In 2005, one-quarter of the corporations in America making a trillion dolars in revenue paid no taxes.
The 833% Medical Insurance Ripoff: Medicare charges 3% for service; the health insurance companies in Missouri charge 25% for services
The richest 1 percent of Americans have more net worth than the bottom 90 percent.
The richest 1 percent of Americans receive more income than the bottom 50%. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/dec/10/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-viral-speech-says-top-1$ >