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Message no. 1
From: Bruce gyro@********.co.za
Subject: Bad Days or Good Days?
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 15:51:52 +0200
From: Sommers <sommers@*****.edu>
Date: 09 September 1999 03:26
Subject: Re: Bad Days or Good Days?
>At 10:58 AM 9/9/99 +0200, you wrote:

<snipped Gorbi's post>
>>Well, in the last two years we have seen the economies of several
>>developing nations go through incredible turmoil. Mexico, Brazil,
>>Russia, most of Asia, South Africa etc... These things dont just
>>happen... As to how they happen , I could'nt tell you. However, the
I
>>would look to the people that benefit from the turmoil and all of
them
>>can be found in the First World, wearing fancy suits and sitting in
>>corner offices overlooking the park :)
>
>Most of those have nothing to do with any outside influence
whatsoever, and
>in fact have been helped out of their problems with outside help.

OK, the official version is well known to everyone who can read the
financial page
of the daily paper. I was just trying to be a little more "conspiracy
theorist"

Seiouslt though, I think lots of us accept the old idea that it takes
a lot of
poor people to make a few people rich.. could just be paranoia I
guess..

<snip reasons>

>A lot of the problems in Japan can be traced back to the real estate
>collapse. Once prices fell, banks that lost money on mortgages had to
call
>in loans that companies could not pay back. That's only going to be a
>bigger concern in 2060. Corporations are not known today for being
the best
>at long term thinking economically, and it'll probably be worse then.

I think the megas are going to take advantage of the third world on an
even bigger
scale than is currently being done. Thats the part of
extraterritoriality they like the most
I would think

- + - BRUCE <gyro@********.co.za> -

MiX it UP!
Message no. 2
From: Sommers sommers@*****.edu
Subject: Bad Days or Good Days?
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1999 11:22:14 -0400
At 03:51 PM 9/9/99 +0200, you wrote:
>OK, the official version is well known to everyone who can read the
>financial page
>of the daily paper. I was just trying to be a little more "conspiracy
>theorist"

That's the problem, though. Not enough people look at the financial pages
and get the real story. They prefer to think that there is some guy in a
$10,000 suit making all of the decisions that make things go bad. Not all
things are the result of a conspiracy.

At least, that's what we want you to think... ;)

>Seiouslt though, I think lots of us accept the old idea that it takes
>a lot of
>poor people to make a few people rich.. could just be paranoia I
>guess..

It used to take a lot of poor people to make some people rich when the poor
people were either digging things out of the ground, making things grow out
of the ground, or breaking their backs making things. Now it takes a lot of
moderately well off people to make rich people. Bill Gates didn't make
billions by exploiting poor people. He made it by selling a product to
people who are doing fairly well themselves, and along the way made a LOT
of people who worked for him rich too.

That is one part of the information age that I think Shadowrun gets wrong.
With that many people described as being poor, disenfranchised, not able to
afford a good dwelling or real food, how do all of these other people get
rich? What are they selling the poor people to get so rich?

><snip reasons>
>
> >A lot of the problems in Japan can be traced back to the real estate
> >collapse. Once prices fell, banks that lost money on mortgages had to
>call
> >in loans that companies could not pay back. That's only going to be a
> >bigger concern in 2060. Corporations are not known today for being
>the best
> >at long term thinking economically, and it'll probably be worse then.
>
>I think the megas are going to take advantage of the third world on an
>even bigger
>scale than is currently being done. Thats the part of
>extraterritoriality they like the most
>I would think

I think they will too. But that's also part of the problem. If you don't
have any checks and balances on the corps, they go crazy for the profit.
But what's good for short-term profit is not necessarily good for long term
profit.

Let's take Ares as an example. They control GM, so they're ET. They have no
safety regs to follow or fair labor practices. So they cut wages and cut
back on safety protocols. Who cares, they can't get into trouble. Because
of this, sick time goes up, and productivity goes down. Since, GM is such a
big employer in the Detroit area, when the employees spend less money on
Ares products and GM cars. Net result is profits are actually down for the
company in the next few years, after the cost savings wear off.


Sommers
Insert witty quote here.

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