Walmart, local stores hit with $12 mn price-fixing fine in Chile
Source: Agence France-Presse
Date created : 01/03/2019 - 03:09
Santiago (AFP)
A Chilean anti-trust court on Thursday fined two homegrown supermarket chains and the local branch of Walmart $12.4 million for colluding to fix the price of fresh chicken.
The Court for the Defense of Free Competition found that Walmart, Cencosud and SMU had worked together to set prices from 2008 to 2011.
The three chains, which control 92.5 percent of Chile's grocery sector, said Thursday in separate statements that that they would appeal the ruling to the country's Supreme Court.
The case is the latest in a long line of similar price-fixing schemes to plague Chile, including over toilet paper and cement.
Read more: https://www.france24.com/en/20190301-walmart-local-stores-hit-with-12-mn-price-fixing-fine-chile
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George H W Bush invested in Bechtel, which owns a subsidiary which managed to get control of Bolivia's water. This was during the dictatorship of Hugo Banzer, a real Nazi who hired a German WWII Nazi war criminal, Klaus Barbie to assist him in his dictatorship. The Aguas del Tunari, the Bechtel subsidiary, hiked the prices for the people so wildly people couldn't afford water at ALL, and, of course had no choice but to take their lives into their hands and protest.
From a Wikipedia:
Cochabamba Water War
Main article: Cochabamba Water War
In early 2000, protests against the raised price of water due to privatization had been growing, and martial law was declared. In April 2000, Víctor Hugo Daza, a seventeen year old student, was shot in the face by the Bolivian Army while protesting the increase of local water rates due to privatization. The man who killed him, Captain Robinson Iriarte, was trained as a counter-insurgent in the United States; he was acquitted of all responsibility for the murder in 2002. No civilian criminal-justice system would take the case on, so a military tribunal had final jurisdiction. Upon his acquittal, he was
promoted to major.[2]
Thousands of people captured the central plaza in Cochbamaba and surrounded the fountain where Daza's body lied. Protestors were made up of peasant irrigators, retired factory workers, union members, pieceworkers, sweatshop employees, street vendors, students from the University of Cochabamba, coca-leaf farmers and residential children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization_in_Bolivia
In 2000, after closed-door sessions, control over Cochabamba’s water supply was given to Aguas de Tunari, a coalition of foreign companies dominated by the USA’s Bechtel. Water supply was (and continues to be) a difficulty for the city; a large proportion of residents lack steady access, or only have dirty water unsafe for consumption. In 1999, as a prerequisite to further loans, the World Bank insisted on privatization of Cochabamba’s water, and the cash-strapped Bolivian government was quick to bend over.
The way in which Aguas de Tunari went about their business was astoundingly deaf to the realities of life in Bolivia. Soon after operations began, water bills were jacked by over 200%. Households which only made about $70 a month were suddenly being billed $20 for water: more than their monthly food budget. The company even claimed homemade wells and devices which collected rain water as their property, and charged for their use. Of course, people freaked out. Bolivia is famous for its strikes and roadblocks, but the intensity of the reaction in Cochabamba took everyone by surprise. Poor Bechtel! Corporations are used to trampling on a domesticated, complacent people.
For four days, students and even the middle class joined campesinos and cholitas in the streets, completely shutting down Cochabamba. The primary demand was simple: Aguas de Tunari must leave. The government declared a state of siege and sent in troops to quash the riots, and Cochabamba became a war zone. This was the era of Hugo Banzer, a former dictator who had been toppled in 1978, and returned to power as the leader of a legitimate, and starkly conservative, political party.
When an army captain was filmed shooting and killing a young protester, Víctor Hugo Daza, the riots reached fever pitch. The executives of Aguas de Tunari were airlifted out of Cochabamba, and when the dust settled, the protesters were surprised to learn they had won. Unequivocally. A well-organized grassroots movement, started by some of the world’s poorest and most humble people, had defeated both a deep-pocketed corporation and their own hostile government.
More:
http://bolivia.for91days.com/the-cochabamba-water-wars/
When the water people heard some people were trying to collect rain water in barrels they started work on legislation to be able to charge people for the rainwater they collected, too. Who on earth could sit still for that kind of greed?
Oh, yes, it should be noted that George H W Bush's friend, Taiwan's Rev. Sun Myung Moon moved a horde of his followers and bought a vast tract of land in Paraguay, right above the world's largest body of underground fresh water, the Guarani Aquifer:
The Guarani aquifer - a vast subterranean aquifer located in Southeastern South America - has recently become a contested site for resource management.
Lying beneath four countries and holding the possibility to sustain humanity’s basic need for potable water for generations to come, the delineation between national, regional and international jurisdiction, profit and sustainability, remain worryingly unclear and uncertain.
. . .
"The Guaraní Aquifer... is one of the world's largest aquifer systems... It is said that this vast underground reservoir could supply fresh drinking water to the world for 200 years."
"US President George W. Bush allegedly has recently purchased a 98,842 acre farm in Chaco, Paraguay atop the aquifer. The Reverend Moon has also purchased 1,482,600 acres in Chaco, Paraguay."
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_globalwater20.htm
Largest in the world.
I hadn't taken time to consider the article well enough, as the hoarding and price-fixing on Chile's huge common use products fit exactly into the scheme. So glad you mentioned this. Thanks.