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Today's
Stories
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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January
2, 2004
Rule and Ruin
Wall
Street and Montana
By JACKIE CORR
Working uptown a few days ago I stopped in the
early Sunday morning to look at some notes on my clipboard.
Without a thought I had pulled over in front of
the old Safeway store parking lot on the first block of West
Granite. It was quite dark and much too early on a dreary, icy
and sullen December morning.
The uptown Butte streets were mostly
deserted.
From here I had a clear view of the old Hennesy Building, presently
the headquarters of what was left of the bankrupt Touch America
Company. There were no cars, no humans on the entire south side
of the block. The building was as clear to me as the words I
am typing.
What happened here is what I thought then and am thinking now.
Bob Gannon's legacy? The folly of deregulation? It was all of
that but it was more. Far more then greed and incompetence.
For a big part of what Butte was is now gone and can never be
replaced. And for what purpose?
The Montana Power Company is extinct. Its replacement, down
another block, and also bankrupt and going under the name of
Northwest Energy is a foreign entity, a company making the news
mainly for payouts and bonuses to executives. As for the bankrupt
scandal ridden Touch America. Bob Gannon's legacy? The folly
of deregulation? Again, it is all of that. But the question remains.
What really happened here?
The best explanation I can come up with is the old one. Rule
and ruin. Wall Street and Montana. You can easily guess who
rules and who is ruined.
Recent news out of New York tells me what Wall Street calls the
M & A (mergers and acquisitions) activity for the year 2003
is coming back. And here we learn that Wall Street "dealmaker"s
ended 2003 with "a sigh of relief." These "dealmarkers"
are familiar names, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch,
J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup etc.
So New York tells us that after nearly a three-year deal drought,
the big bankers are back in the chips. The investment banks advised
on $1.27 trillion worth of announced deals worldwide in 2003,
slightly up from the $1.19 trillion of mergers announced in 2002.
But it's still a far cry from the $3.4 trillion announced just
three years ago, when M&A was on a tear. And, of course,
it was Goldman Sachs that advised Montana Power to become Touch
America when Wall Street was on such a "tear."
But what is really striking is compared with the real sums involved
in Wall Street's M & A racket, is that the Montana Power
-Touch America deal was such small change, a few nickels and
even fewer dimes in a world of trillions. Small change on Wall
Street but a major catastrophe for Butte and Montana.
It also must be noted that when the bubble burst more then $7
trillion in shareholder wealth had disappeared from the New York
Stock Exchange. Among those worthless stocks we find Montana
Power/Touch America and Northwestern Corporation.
And none of this made Dick Grasso, CEO of the New York Exchange
any poorer. Of course, there was a little noise made over a
pay package of $190 million that he designed for himself and
approved by a board filled by the same executives from the same
investment banks mentioned earlier, the same banks that the NYSE
"regulates."
Which happen to be the same investment banks that cleaned up
during and after the short-lived dot.com and telecom bubble on
Wall Street.
So poor Grasso resigned, his feelings hurt and with a blast at
the media upon leaving. "This institution should not be
preoccupied with talking about the compensation of its leader,"
announced the departing CEO in a written statement. He also
took with him $140 million in severance pay. Nice work if you
can get it.
So there is a lesson to be learned here. These banker-gangsters
get paid, and paid well, no matter how badly things turn out.
Rule and ruin you might call it.
Shall we call it an old story from what was once known as "The
Richest Hill On Earth?"
Happy New Year from Butte, America.
Jackie Corr
can be reached at: jcorr@bigskyhsd.com
Weekend
Edition Features for Dec. 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
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