TradeWind Travels: Life on the 17° Parallel: The Real Looters

01 September 2005

The Real Looters

This from Rafaela:

I've been thinking about how everybody is getting so upset about the local looting going on in downtown New Orleans, but nobody seems to contemplate the grand scale looting that goes on Wall Street in the aftermath of this natural disaster.

Oil prices, the hottest ticket on the market, are soaring, but that's not looting, it is free market dynamics and business as usual. Judging by the neglect of the white-collar crime, not all looting is equal, or is it a case of mistaken identity? Well, who cares? Wall Street is making sure that the aftermath of the "most serious natural disaster in recent American history" can be calmly reflected upon in the coming winter months with an old American truth, "the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer."

Orson Welles as Harry Lime in The Third Man (1949) summed it up neatly:

Martins (The good reporter): Have you ever seen any of your victims?

Harry Lime: You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays.

2 Comments:

Anonymous said...: I saw video on CNN of police forcibly removing people that had only been looting food and water... That made me so mad... I don't consider that to be looting when you are taking something to survive. Taking a big screen TV just because you knew you could get away with it is different. I also think there's something fishy with the oil situation... I feel it. Bush/Cheney and their friends at the big oil companies are up to no good (like thats something different).; 12:36 am
Anonymous said...: Talk about the big loot! Day 5 has come and gone and oil prices have not been frozen. Too many profits to be lost by George and his buddies?

-gina; 9:34 pm

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Paradise Island

This blog's purpose is part travel journal, part photo blog and part travel guide to St. Kitts and the Lesser Antilles. Please let me know if there's something about the island that you'd like to learn more about, and I will write about it here!

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GETTING HERE

The only major US airline that flies to St. Kitts is American Airlines. If you can't get one of those flights, just book a ticket to Puerto Rico, Antigua, or St. Maarten. There are two island airlines that I know of: Caribbean Sun Airlines and Liat. Both fly from all of those islands to St. Kitts. If you're coming from Europe, your best bet is to catch the daily Paris-St. Maarten flight on Air France, and then hop over to the island on a CSA or Liat flight. If you'd rather float by boat, check out the Link Ferries, which specialize in island hopping.

ISLAND LINKS

I'm compiling a list of links for travellers to the island:

Doctor Y/Doc Tory This is a link to a site put together by some friends who have lived on the island for several years. They have terrific pictures!
Discover St. Kitts Nevis Beaches This is a link I found earlier in the year that gave me some information on what to do/where to go on the island. It's not the greatest, but the web presence here isn't terrific, either, so it does what it can. I also subscribed to their newsletter, but I didn't learn anything not already on the site. The site has some nice pictures, though.

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