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Invisible Hands & Markets: James Hardie: the Great Escape
For seven decades, all-Australian company James Hardie has marketed products containing asbestos which have become our biggest industrial killer. Mesothelioma has already killed 7000 Australians — within 14 years, asbestos will have caused an estimated 50,000 cancers. In 2001 James Hardie Industries made its great escape, 19,000 kilometres away, to the Netherlands. It's alleged the company used this move to escape the claims of thousands of future asbestos victims by not leaving enough money behind to fund them. The NSW Commission of Inquiry is due to hand down its findings on September 21.
• How James Hardie used lawyers, public relations consultants and lobbyists to create and sell the escape ... ; [Sunday with Jana Wendt ]
• · Beware of promises to 'create' new jobs Elected officials have no gift in picking economic 'winners' ; [channel new asia]
• · · Circulation of Figures and Newspapers ; [PROFESSOR Ann Macintosh - Spreading the word online New e-democracy system can give workers a say in their companies]
• · · · The Ghost Shirts: Vonnegut's Cautionary Tale has a New Meaning
• · · · · Passengers on notice Kollins Kakalins Submarines on Rails: Tickets, please, we're already up for almost 1/2 Billion [WWII, a war of heroism, tells us never to back down from a bully ... October 15 is looming as D-day for the ailing NSW rail network, with 16,000 frustrated workers threatening to walk off the job]
• · · · · · There’s an excellent reason why economics is called the dismal science: no one is really sure of anything. Two economists arguing can seem like boxers bashing each other; TRUE COST & BENEFIT ECONOMICS Numbers can only tell you so much. If you're an economist, chances are the numbers you're looking at don't reflect the environmental and health and art factors in the subjects they are analysing ....
[Slovakia: A Culture Minister Who Gets It Slovakia's culture minister RUDOLF Chmel (hop is in beer) proposes that the country triple its spending on the arts and sports by 22010. Ignorance of culture is colossal; society is commercial, consumer-oriented and kitschy, and it seems this trend cannot be stopped. Australian tourism is getting amazing value out of Ian Thorpe’s Olympic success and the way he has captured the attention of the huge Asian market ... Already on Sony billboards around Japan where he has cult-figure status, Thorpe extended it to a deal to promote Sony in China ...]