From the Files of “This Will Not End Well”
Corporations around the world are eager to exploit Afganistan’s newly discovered mineral wealth. JP Morgan has just sent a team of mining experts to Afghanistan to examine possible projects to develop. No word if Goldman Sachs is going to Kabul next.
[NYT]
One of the more curious things that came out of the demise of Lehman Bros was that they had a rather large amount of Yellowcake Uranium (I think it was more than what Iran or Iraq ever had) and other metals locked up in a storage facility in Manitoba so I’m not really surprised that JP Morgan is looking into “exploiting” Afghan mineral wealth.
If JP holds true to form then we’ll soon see tranches based on Afghan rock being sold around the world as prime investment grade bonds. Whether the rock contains actual ores is irrelevant.
@ManchuCandidate: They should get themselves licenses as bookies in the U.K. Why pretend any more?
What remains to be seen is if Morgan’s and its contemporaries hire mercenary armies to garrison the country and rape it outright rather than using the now overextended Americans as a proxy (and free) force.
@FlyingChainSaw: Really. Why not just re-form the Dutch East Indies Trading Company as, I don’t know, “Mineral Inc.” and pay the poor grunts making shit for a living a real wage and fight wars for profit. It would at least make all the widows and widowers and caregivers to the guys and gals coming home after surviving previously-deadly wounds live a bit more comfortably rather than turning to crime, drugs and living in a fridge carton.
@FlyingChainSaw: Why finance an army when the U.S. taxpayers are doing it for them?
In other douchebaggery-flavored news:
Rand Paul opens mouth again, brain falls out again
This time, he’s offering the ever-so-helpful suggestion that the long-term unemployed should “try harder” to get jobs. Sure, fucker, that works GREAT when there are 5-6 times as many applicants as job openings, never mind the skill mismatch.
The last bit of the article, where Paul whines about how he has “no choice” but to take $260k/yr in Medicare payments is equally idiotic.
I hope there is room in Angola State Prison for these fuckers: http://www.seaturtles.org/article.php?id=1660.
more douchbaggery:
did you see tony aboard his 2 million dollar (pound?) sailing vessel yesterday? why is this man alive well and sailing? no, really.
i would personally relish kicking him to death, after stuffing an oil soaked turtle into all orifices. who wants to hold him down?
the turtle i mean. i have enough rage for tony.
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