Argentina On Its Knees: Here’s Who Made it Happen
Vulture investor Paul Singer has forced the nation of Argentina into default. Here’s the real story, from Billionaires & Ballot Bandits by Greg Palast.
A call came in from New York to my bosses at BBC Television Centre, London. It was from one of the knuckle- draggers on the payroll of billionaire Paul Singer, Number One funder for the Republican Party in New York, million-dollar donor to the Mitt Romney super-PAC, and top money-giver to the GOP Senate campaign fund. But better known to us as Singer The Vulture.
“We have a file on Greg Palast.”
Well, of course they do.
And I have a file on them.
I had just returned from traveling up the Congo River for BBC and the Guardian. Singer’s enforcer indicated that Mr. Singer would prefer BBC not run a story about him— especially not with film of his suffering prey: children, cholera victims.
Like any vulture, Singer feasts when victims die. Literally. For example, Singer made a pile buying asbestos company Owens Corning out of bankruptcy. The company had concealed from its workers they would get asbestosis from handling their product.
You don’t want to die of asbestosis. Your lungs turn to mush and you drown inside yourself.
The asbestos company was forced to pay tens of thousands of its workers for their medical care and for their families after their deaths.
But then Singer used his political muscle to screw down the compensation promised to the workers. He offered them peanuts. And, dying, they took it. Like the Ice Man, Singer The Vulture used the cudgel of “tort reform” to beat the weakened workers into submission. With asbestos workers buried or bought-off cheap, Singer’s asbestos death factories were now worth a fortune . . . and Singer made his first “killing.”
http://online.wsj.com/articles/argentina-mulls-legal-options-in-debt-dispute-1406814851
Vulture Singer’s name doesn’t come up,but it sounds like his slimy paws might get every penny US courts feel he is entitled to.
Krubozomo Nyankoye-there are mammalian carrion eaters in the good ole US of A that provide basically the same service as vultures with less altruism. One of them just happens to be named after Alaska’s most reputable grifter-Sow Grizzly. Another would be the wolverine. These would definitely be better examples to explain what vulture capitalists do as both animals seem to take earthly delight in rolling in the stinking mess they have created. Domestic dogs do this as well,but they usually have someone to tell them what they are doing is wrong on so many levels. Not bears or wolverines. They don’t listen worth a darn.
Always good to hear from you,my friend.
I am feeling a little frisky tonight so I will chime in. We need to have a citizens organization with something like the FBI’s ten most wanted list except it would have to be called something like the 1,000 most egregiously predatory capitalists of the first decade and an half of the 21st century. It would obviously have to be modified continuously.
Although I appreciate the metaphorical and graphic implications of the term vulture I really have to make a small objection to the use of the term. Vultures fullfill a vital function in ecosystems. The limit the spread of
pathogens by eliminating carrion. There is no burial detail charged with putting the corpses underground.
And life is full of death.
Some unfortunate few are born dead. Thereafter we all expire at extended intervals. If anything we have a lack of vultures, people with keen insight who recognize where things are breaking down and circle in to be ready when the opportunity arises to risk contracting the illness to revive or recreate the expired system..
Parasites is a more suggestive word I would suggest though it does not exactly tumble off the tongue.
Something along the lines perhaps of Parasite Feast.
There is no corner of the world that is free from conflict and strife. Look up the aquarium controversy here
in Forteleza.
What is one’s word amidst the clamor of billions of shouting voices?
As nothing assuredly.
We are on our course. If we do not change it, we will also have to suffer the consequences.
How can we change course? I wish I knew. I don’t. But I am fairly sure that knowing we need to change
course is the first step in the right direction. I could be very wrong about that of course. People might not
adopt rational measures until the situation is so bad that they have little effect. On the other hand, people
may never adopt rational measures and well, there will be radical changes.
All I can say is that I am really glad I am not 20 years old.
All is not despair of course. I still have the present.. Ithink.
Thanks for reprinting this! Exposing these vultures for what they are is important.