Vital Concerns for the World: Steve LeVine's doubts about the future prosperity of Afghanistan

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Steve LeVine's doubts about the future prosperity of Afghanistan

Steve LeVine [The Oil and the Glory, January 25, 2011] has a valuable report on Afghanistan: to indicate how much has changed among the Taliban and to raise questions about the future potential of Afghanistan as a flourishing nexus of trade between Central Asia and India and the rest of the world. I still believe the potential exists but only in the distant future. His problem is with the policy proposals currently being made in order to encourage the development of the roads [and pipelines? cell phone masts?] that would link Inner Asia with South Asia. Whether he is right or wrong is less interesting to me than the discussion about the current issues, which seem to be always shifting, taking on new nuances. See The deadly risk of romance on the Silk Road

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