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Friday, 16th January 1998
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Exposing the MAI "level playing field" facade.
The Financial Services Agreement (FSA) agreement, along with MAI, gives (US) foreign banks enormous powers over Australian Banks. So why aren't Australian Banks complaining? Because they are already largely owned by foreign banks. Look at the chart of our four major banks and their largest shareholders below:
| National Australia Bank | Shareholding | Westpac | Shareholding | ANZ | Shareholding | Commonwealth Bank | Shareholding |
| ANZ Nominees | 6.6% | Aust Mutual Provident Society | 11.65% | Chase Manhattan Nominees | 11.6% | ANZ Nominees Ltd | 7.41% |
| Westpac Nominees | 5.8% | Lend Lease Custodians P/L | 9.1% | Westpac Custodian Nominees Ltd | 8.2% | National Nominees Ltd | 4.84% |
| Chase Manhattan Nominees | 5.7% | Westpac Custodians P/L | 8.1% | ANZ Nominees Ltd | 5.1% | Westpac Custodian Nominees Ltd | 3.6% |
| National Nominees Ltd | 5.5% | Chase Manhattan Nominees | 8.1% | National Nominees Ltd | 4.4% | Citicorp Nominees Pty Ltd | 3.3% |
| Perpetual Trustee Aust. Group | 2.8% | National Nominees Ltd | 4.9% | MLC Life Ltd | 4.4% | Chase Manhattan Nominees Ltd | 2.6% |
| Permanent Trustees Group | 2.8% | ANZ Nominees Ltd | 4.9% | Australian Mutual Provident Society | 2.2% | State Authority Super | 2.0% |
Chase Manhattan run by Rockefeller interests.
Nominee companies are defined as companies established by a bank to hold legal title to stocks and shares on behalf of its owners. A major function is to enable the transfer of funds for overseas interests. A nominee company enables investment of capital by large and mainly foreign investors, and the payment of dividends to them.
Financial Review 17th June 1997 (article on Australian Banks): "There is no shortage of money or resources being lavished on promoting banks to their customers. Yet the "banks are bastards" image not only persists but is fuelled with each interest rate change... While they spend about Au$150 million annually on advertising, their own research reveals that consumers are not just cynical about the banks but can barely distinguish one from the other."
We already know that our Australian banks are run by Americans in key positions, yet no one questions why.
Here is the background to an article about the FSA in Canada (a schedule of international guidelines for banks)... at least there some sectors of that government (the National Democratic Party -NDP) are moving to challenge it.
"It appears that the Liberal government in Ottawa intends to pass legislation enabling the WTO Financial Services Agreement, signed in Geneva on December 12, 1997 and reported on in the Globe on Dec 15, before allowing the public access to the text of the agreement.
"Members of Parliament, including government members, are denied access to the text of the 1,000 page agreement. Apparently, government officials have said that they do not have the text.
"No one, not even government MPs, knows what the government has committed us to in this agreement.
"I heard that the government intends to pass the enabling legislation early in February. Just a few weeks from now.
"People are very concerned about what this agreement will do to Canada and to the world.
"The agreement was negotiated and signed in secret.
"Now, it appears that the government will not let us know what the agreement says until after the enabling legislation has been passed."
Exposing the "level playing field" - MAI
In a week that saw President Suharto bow to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to hammer his family and friends abuse of their power in creating wealth we no have the opportunity to look at what is happening at the other end of the scale.
As you will see below their is a different scenario for the friends of the IMF - the multinationals or transnationals. In this article below the facade of the "so called" level playing field being sought by these leeches on the Australian and other economies is clearly exposed.
Firms pay no tax - Herald Sun - 14th January 1998 - by Michael McKinnon
Almost 100 multinational companies each making more than Au$300 million a year in Australia paid no tax in 1996.
And almost 40 of them did not pay any in 1994 or 1995 tax office documents reveal.
By comparison, about ten million Australians are expected to contribute Au$62 billion to government coffers this financial year.
Multinational companies can avoid paying tax by:
@Transeferring profits to low or no-tax countries like the Cayman Islands.
Inflating expenses and/or understating income to show no profit.
About 55% of multinationals, or firms with so-called “off-shore related party transactions” paid no tax in 1996.
The Tax Office (ATO) is auditing more than 50 such firms, representing many more individual companies with deals worth more than Au$1 billion.
Companies claiming multinational status are required to lodge a special form, a schedule 25A, with the Australian Taxation Office. More than 7,700 did in 1996.
Multinationals may use a method called “transfer pricing” to avoid paying tax.
This involves an Australian company transferring profits to a related company in a low or no tax country and either inflating expenses or cutting income to reduce tax liabilities in Australia.
Yesterday an ATO spokesman said the significant number of high turnover companies that paid little or no tax was an issue for the Australian community.
“But it should be noted that, at the other end of the spectrum, less than 20 multinational companies paid over Au$3 billion in 1995, some *21% of all company tax,” he said.
“The obvious question which arises is how can a business exist in a market over a lengthy period - sometimes decades - if it never makes a profit?”
The spokesman said the ATO could not reveal the identity of any of the multinationals not paying tax.
He said the tax office had a program of audits on transfer-pricing deals.
The spokesman said documentation used to support claims about transfer-pricing caused many problems.
Multinationals have to use a process called “arm’s length” pricing when calculating the tax bill, which means transactions between related companies have to be based on a strict commercial basis, as if the companies were independent.
The spokesman said 43 legislative changes had been introduced by the Howard Government to enable Australia to get its fair share of revenue.
The Canberra Column
Extract from this week's Canberra Column:
"Love them or loathe them, the Spice Girls are making the same sort of impact on young people that the Beatles made three decades back. Their movie "Spiceworld" seems to be the same sort of self-promoting fluff that "A Hard Day's Night" was back in the Sixties, even if the songs aren't quite as memorable. I don't know if my tweeny bopper daughter will scream herself hoarse at a Spice Girls concert, but judging by the way she ties up the phone line requesting their songs on the local radio station, this is probably a safe bet. "
Lyndon Larouche on George Soros, the IMF and the "disease"
"So, this is the reason why the IMF is considered a disease, because the IMF comes in and says, "A disease has attacked your economy. You must now pray, and pay off the disease! You must embrace the disease, and destroy your economy to please the disease. And we will measure your performance by this." The worst thing you can do, if you're a country and you're in trouble, if you accept IMF conditionalities, you're either on the floor with a knife at your throat, or you're clinically insane. And, that's what the situation of Korea is now. They will not recover from this, {until we introduce regulated currency values, introduce foreign exchange controls and capital movement controls, for the purpose of bankrupting what George Soros typifies}. And, until we do that, this world is, in the short-term, is doomed to the greatest financial collapse in about 600 years, in terms of 600 years of European civilization's experience. And, it's coming on fast. {We won't get to the year 2000 without the worst financial collapse in history, unless we stop this lunacy, unless we stop these crazy monetarists, like those lined up behind Newt Gingrich, from continuing to dictate our policies, until we go back to recognising that government is a good idea.}"
Making the
news" -
Wayne Goss finds the heat in the kitchen too great.
Labor's great hope for Oxley, Wayne Goss, has pulled the plug on going for Pauline Hanson's seat of Oxley saying that he had decided to "opt out of politics for family reasons".
There is another, well hidden, reason that is going to raise its head later this year in the Senate - the ongoing Goss Government shredding inquiry - which would have seen his political downfall.
The ALP are apparently "devastated" at Goss' decision as they needed a high profile candidate to become the face of the party in the upcoming federal elections. Of course Goss' departure leaves them with Cheryl Kernot! What a joke....
Another Labor hopeful, Anne Scott, wife of Les Scott, who Pauline Hanson trampled in the last Federal Election has out up her hand for pre-selection for the seat of Oxley. I knew something was afoot about ten days ago when, after months of absence from letter writing to Ipswich's Queensland Times (QT), Mrs Scott suddenly came out firing on all cylinders with letters to the editor trying to vilify Pauline Hanson.
This is the woman who last year refused to take up my challenge to "demonstrate that the ALP were behind a boycott to the Sydney 2000 Olympics, the trash that protested at One Nation meetings and (more recently) the MAI".
My letter in response to Mrs Scott's tirade appeared in the QT earlier this week.
I don't expect the ALP to have the guts to pick up the challenge but I will keep on niggling.
Goss' political achievements are noted in today's Courier Mail as follows:
Wayne Keith Goss becomes Queensland's 42nd premier in December 1989 ending 32 consecutive years of conservative rule.
Beazley acting on split over Wik
The cheap political point scoring by Queensland Premier hopeful Peter Beattie whose "wind government at any cost" approach is upsetting the ALP heavyweights met with farmers yesterday. Beattie offered support with Howard's ten point Wik plan after he had previously knocked it.
Yesterday Beazley was forced to deny that Beattie's statement that the party's "heart on the sleeve" approach to native title was an attack on Federal Labor's handling of the Wik issue.
"You've got to have in any political area, I believe a degree of emotion," Beazley said.
Howard got into the fray saying, "Having said what he has said, Peter Beattie has got to deliver on those words."
Anyone who knows Peter Beattie knows that his current statements on Wik are nothing more than a cheap shot at trying to get votes in the bush. If he gains power in Queensland he will fall into line - and once again serve the party powerbrokers like a puppy dog.
Let us remember that this is the same Beattie who just weeks ago said that Australian backyards would not be in danger over Wik... a week is a long time in politics.
Re: Your comments on Chinese Swimmers
Life's rewards don't always go to the strongest or fastest man, but often go to the one who thinks he can...............
The question of the use of drugs in sport is one that is a bit confusing and only reflects the use of general use of drugs in society. ( I personally find a beer or two a great help with my game at the pool table, does that make me a cheat?)
With so many variables such as diet and genetics in all reality one only ever "competes" against themselves and as such the only person truly cheated is oneself !
Maybe we should be questioning the true value to society of such international professional 'circus' competitions (where the drug taking is always just ahead of drug testing) that have become so important to our sense of national pride and which have become nothing more than the a soma of the masses.
Independant Candidate for the Federal Seat of Blair? mm!
Barry Sampson Searle
Subject: Drugs in Sport
Dear Sir,
You are absolutely correct when you say that the whole Chinese swimming team should be sent packing and be banned from the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
BUT THEY WON'T BE.
If they were white anglo-saxons then they would already be gone and banned for life.
In the New World Order, only the white are guilty.
Allan W. Doak
The Australian Illicit Drug Report has suggested that marijuana should be legalised in an effort to combat the use of hard drugs. The report argued that police spent too much time going after marijuana offenders when that time could be better spent chasing after the hard drug dealers.
"It is no where near as bad to smoke marijuana than it is to inject heroin... of course we've got to put the major concentration into a harder drug," Queensland Assistant Commissioner Graham Williams said. "But that's as long as we don't lose sight of the marijuana problem."
The report says that Heroin, Cocaine and LSD have become cheaper in the eastern states.
"In contrast to most other illicit drugs use, there appears to be comparatively low rate of associated crime and harm to both individuals and the community (when marijuana is used)," the report said.
Here are the average prices for illicit drugs sold in Australia in 1996. (No surprise crime in this country is on the rise):
Heroin:
Retain Australian price Au$240,000 per kg - (wholesale Au$160,000 per kg in Asia)
One gram sold for Au$30 in New South Wales, Au$50 in the Australian Capital Territory, Au$200 in South Australia and Victoria and Au$700 in western Australia.
Cocaine:
Au$200 per gram in New South Wales and Queensland.
Amphetamines:
Between Au$80 and Au$120 per gram.
LSD:
Between Au$10 to Au$30 per tablet.
Ecstasy:
Au$20 to Au$80 per tablet.
Marijuana:
Between Au$350 to Au$450 per ounce or Au$15 to Au$30 per gram.
Another beautiful day in paradise.
Have a good one.
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