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Investor Relations: Dow 3600 & the



Subject: Investor Relations: Dow 3600 & the current TOTAL syndrome (enhanced version)

Dawn Star wrote:
> 
> The following article critical of the global stock investor euphoria in
> major capital markets is worth a quick look as markets go up and down,
> and as the US investor institutions account for half of TOTALFINA (now
> with Elf added, it remains to be seen the exact percentage as Elf brings
> in other investor blocks including the French government). One in two
> americans now own stock, and so when boycotts talk to them about
> investments, they should listen, because their dollars are at play here.
> 
> It is also interesting that throughout all the mails I have sent
> suggesting that in the US americans take serious a boycott action
> against institutional investors holding blocks of TOTAL stock, virtually
> nothing has been done about it.
> 
> Is the Free Burma movement in the US concerned about this major
> institutional investor stake in TOTAL? It is good that the movement has
> been so active on the selective purchasing issue (sorry to bring this up
> as Simon Billenness says he's on vacation, and I strongly support Simon
> and his efforts) but isnt it also about time that the movement take on
> the issue of INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR RELATIONS WITH TOTAL?
> 
> Or is this appeal for civil and consumer action just falling into an
> ocean of disinterested neglect?
> 
> Because, THAT - and not the FRench media, as suggested in the recent
> postings about some French MPs in the oil commission review, is what is
> going to influence TOTAL's management.
> 
> AND ONCE IT HAPPENS THAT IN THE UNITED STATES CIVIL PROTESTS START
> HITTING THOSE BACKERS OF TOTAL LIKE MERRILL LYNCH AND OTHERS WHO
> RECOMMEND IT TO INVESTORS, THEN YOU MAY SEE SOME ACTION. AND NOT BEFORE.
> YOU CAN BET ON IT. TAKE THE TIP.
> 
> WHY NOT ASK GEORGE SOROS DIRECTLY ABOUT THIS AT THE QUANTUM FUND? ITS A
> FAIR QUESTION AND THERE SHOULD BE A CLEAR ANSWER. PERHAPS HE HAS TOTAL
> STOCK TOO. ASK HIM? ASK HIM IF HE RECOMMENDS IT TO HIS INVESTORS?
> 
> I have asked Simon about this question, directed to his Trillion group,
> and to Simon personally, but there has never been a response. And that
> really is too bad, especially in view of what how the shareholder fold
> of TOTAL has grown, at the cost of democracy in Burma.

> Let me add here, in all fairness, that the issue is slightly different
> for the french, as the bulk now of investors is American, more or less
> before the Elf takeover. The French people are getting shafted for 
> reasons and by many factors: selling of of public property that >belongs and is run by the state and its functionaries from the various >economic and finance ministries, privileged classes, insiders, dancing
> to the tune of the state fiddlers,while the rest of the nation harks
> reducing the work week (in the national assembly that dominates the
> the agenda, not burma or the oil companies), lack of transparecy by > french corporations, stock options etc. the list is long and i wont 
> belabor it here. BUT THE FACT IS THE ISSUE MUST BE ADDRESSED SOONER
> OR LATER AND IT IS FAR TOO LATE ALREADY TO LET IT SLIDE ANY LONGER > INTO OBLIVION. IT WILL COME UP AGAIN AND AGAIN SO TAKE ISSUE WITH IT
> NOW OR BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE NEGLECT.

PERHAPS WE COULD START SOMETHING LIKE A GROUP IN THE US FOR "INVESTOR
RELATIONS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN BURMA". 

You know, Total applauded Amnesty International, in their statement to
the French Parliamentary commission, only because their contact there,
Lionel Montfront, was a patsy. He's gone now. I will be publishing his 
"investor relations" with Total and why they liked  him. Its not very
complimentary to AI, but it shows how TOTAL used and abused him and AI,
and why they say, some ngos had dialogue not very constructive with 
TOTAL, but not AI's corporate approach, which they applauded.

BECAUSE AI DID NOT GO FAR ENOUGH HERE IN FRANCE. AND THE AMERICANS MUST
GO FARTHER ON THIS INVESTOR RELATION ISSUE IF THEY WANT TOTAL HERE IN
FRANCE TO TAKE THE FREE BURMA MOVEMENT SERIOUSLY.

So whether or not you favor boycott, and the appeal by Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi, or a more docile  but direct approach to handle the investor issue,
the issue is clearly before our movement now to do something about it.

dawn star
> 
> from Multiple recipients of list CORP-FOCUS <corp-focus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Robert Weissman <rob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Dow 3600
> > By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
> >
> > A couple of wise guys write a book titled Dow 36,000 and the market takes
> > a dive.
> >
> > Former Washington Post columnist James Glassman and his sidekick, Kevin
> > Hassett, want us to believe that the stock market is grossly undervalued.
> >
> > In Dow 36,000, the book that has received inflated reviews by a
> > stock-market crazed public, Glassman and Hassett make the argument stocks
> > will double, even quadruple, within a short period of time and that the
> > Dow Jones Industrial Average should -- and will soon -- reach 36,000.
> >
> > The book was published on September 20. On that day, the Dow closed at
> > 10,823.90. As of this writing, the Dow stands at 10,019.71 -- a 7 percent
> > drop, in less than a month. Way to go boys! You jinxed it!
> >
> > All kidding aside, we take the view that the market is wildly overvalued.
> > Glassman and Hassett think it should be 36,000. We think it should be more
> > like 3600.
> >
> > Here's why.
> >
> > Corporate financial reports purport to measure profits and loss. Hundreds
> > of billions of dollars in social costs -- sometimes called corporate crime
> > and violence -- are for the most part externalized -- they don't make it
> > onto the balance sheet.
> >
> > Thus pollution, corruption, fraud, worker death and disease, price-fixing,
> > shoddy consumer products and false advertising -- are costs that should be
> > borne by the corporate perpetrators, but instead are paid for by
> > consumers, workers and individual citizens.
> >
> > This happens because there is not an effective counterweight -- law
> > making, law enforcement or otherwise -- to the growing corporate power
> > that overwhelmingly dominates the political economy.
> >
> > In his book, The Tyranny of the Bottom Line: Why Corporations Make Good
> > People Do Bad Things (Barrett Kohler, 1996) American University Accounting
> > Professor Ralph Estes estimated these costs to be $2.6 trillion a year --
> > that's five times all corporate profits for the year 1992 -- the year of
> > the study.
> >
> > Let's assume that Estes is off in his estimate by a factor of five --
> > which he might be. The costs that corporations impose on the rest of us
> > would still wipe out all corporate profits!
> >
> > The science of estimating social costs is admittedly squishy. There is a
> > big unknown factor. But at least Estes tries to put a number on it. The
> > companies don't even report the costs, and there is a dead political
> > economy that allows corporations to impose these costs on living,
> > breathing human beings at will, virtually without popular resistance and
> > without a demand for a public accounting.
> >
> > Glassman is currently housed at the corporatist think tank, the American
> > Enterprise Institute. At a luncheon session there recently, and in a phone
> > interview, we asked him if one of the assumptions he makes in Dow 36,000
> > is that the country would remain controlled by the corporate interests.
> > Glassman said that while he didn't have a crystal ball, he assumed that
> > the "benign political environment" (read: ongoing control of our democracy
> > by big corporations) would not be dramatically changed.
> >
> > "There's only a remote possibility that we are going to retreat on
> > market-oriented policies," Glassman said.
> >
> > For example, he wouldn't want to see a crackdown on corporate violence.
> > Or, rather, he doesn't see corporate violence.
> >
> > A couple of years ago, Glassman wrote that the rich "don't commit the
> > violent crimes that require billions to be spent on law enforcement."
> >
> > We asked him whether he would include in his definition of violence cancer
> > caused by petrochemical companies that pollute a city's air and water.
> > "No, I would not consider that violence," he says.
> >
> > Jonathan Rowe is a Washington journalist working on a book tentatively
> > titled When Down Is Up: How Our Economic Barometers Mask Disaster,
> > Divorce, Disease and Misfortune as Prosperity and Economic Advance
> > (Doubleday, 2000).
> >
> > Rowe says that Glassman is "a case study in the congenital inability of
> > most reporters to look past the numbers and see what these Wall Street
> > trends actually signify in people's lives in concrete terms."
> >
> > "Glassman totally assumes that when the Dow goes up, life gets better,"
> > Rowe told us recently. In fact, Rowe explains, it often gets worse.
> >
> > Many of the growth industries in the economy -- prisons, casinos, nursing
> > homes -- reflect a troubled society.
> >
> > "The things that you and I would call misfortunes, as seen through the
> > lens of the Dow Jones Index, are economic gain," Rowe says.
> >
> > Glassman says that the percentage of Americans owning stock has increased
> > from 10 percent in 1965, to 20 percent in 1995, to close to 50 percent
> > today. He thinks this is a good thing, because the more people own stocks,
> > the more they will align their political views with the corporations they
> > own, the more politicians will be beholden to corporations, thus creating
> > an even more favorable political atmosphere for corporate stock ownership.
> > Glassman calls this a virtuous circle.
> >
> > Rowe says Glassman is talking about an economy that works like a
> > retrovirus. "It turns us into agents of the disease," he says.
> >
> > Dow 3600.
> >
> > Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
> > Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
> > Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The
> > Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common
> > Courage Press, 1999; http://www.corporatepredators.org)
> >
> > (c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell Mokhiber
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