Iraq to Open Most of Economy to Investors

[EastofEdon]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Economy.html?ex=1065168265&ei=1&en=fc2ef9a5746e5b36

Iraq to Open Most of Economy to Investors

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:16 p.m. ET

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Aiming to reverse decades of economic decay under Saddam Hussein, Iraq's leadership council announced sweeping free-market reforms Sunday that would permit foreign investment and impose income taxes -- but keep oil under government control.

Yet even the council's U.S. backers conceded that big multinationals were not likely to rush to Iraq, despite its promise, as long as instability reigns and violence erupts daily.
``Capital is a coward,´´ U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said. ``It doesn´t go places where it feels threatened. Companies will not send employees to places that aren´t secure.´´

Snow was addressing an international banking conference shortly after meeting with Iraq's new finance minister, Kamil Mubdir al-Gailani. He applauded al-Gailani's blueprint as ``policies that make sense ... that offer real promise.´´
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[Deja Q]

1. Uh-huh

US corporations are keen to send all sorts of well paying jobs overseas in order to save money and exploit foreigners in their own native lands.

Given the world opinion of the US right now, no outside country should be seen as secure then.

[PurityOfEssence]

2. Shouldn't that be "...Iraq to have most of its economy opened for it"?

How can "Iraq" be doing this? Even if it's with the blessing or even at the behest of the "Ruling Council", how can that in any be justified as an expression of the country by anything other than squatters' rights or some other nine tenths of the law? This is just thievery.

[EastofEdon]

3. exactly

which "Iraq" are they talking about?

[finecraft]

4. Is there a parallel here?

.......So things were going along pretty good, with Iraq having a thriving economy and leading the Arab world in health, education and culture. The government ran most essential services and business, and the middle class was thriving. Then their President lost his mind, waged a devastating war, economic growth stalled, and the national debt soared due to a huge increase in defense spending. (Hmmmm.....where have I heard this before?)

This is the sentence that kills me, "`Working with our partners in the (U.S.-led) Coalition Provisional Authority, we are providing Iraqi citizens the freedom and opportunity they were denied for so long,'' al-Gailani said. Yep, I bet all those Iraqi citizens were just dying to pay income taxes and work for foreign multi-national corporations whose goal is to see how much they can increase shareholder value of their stock by cutting labor costs.

I thought we were in the process of bringing democracy to Iraq. The Iraqi people didn't vote on the members of this "provisional authority" or members of the Iraqi council, so shouldn't this privatization of government waited until after they had elections so they could have determined if they really wanted to do this? ...Oh wait, I guess it doesn't work that way here either........Nevermind

[EastofEdon]

5. that's right

the Iraqi people didn't vote for these folks, they aren't "ready" yet for that.