Editor, The Times:
Last week I was in Victoria staying with some friends.
The man of the house, a former commercial fisherman like myself, had just purchased a 17-foot aluminum boat to commute to his cabin on De Courcey Island.
He remarked, “I was lucky to find this boat (in Chilliwack). Aluminum is so scarce.”
I gave the answer that I thought was right, “I guess it's the booming economies of China and India. They are sucking up the world's metal supply.” Shows how little I'd learned.
On the ferry back to Horseshoe Bay I picked up a February Rolling Stone.
There was the irrepressible Matt Taibbi with an article titled, “The Vampire Squid Strikes Again.”
“Banks are no longer just financing heavy industry. They are actually buying it up and inventing bigger, bolder and scarier scams than ever,” Taibbi wrote. The mega banks are grabbing up metal stocks and warehousing them: This not drives up the cost of metals, such as aluminum, but discourages producers, such as Alcon, from selling directly to manufactures.
There is no shortage of aluminum. “It was a merry-go-round of metal.” Shuttled from warehouse to warehouse it was designed to drive up the prices of metal. And who pays in the end (besides the manufactures)? You and I of course!
Now one has to ask: Can anyone (with exception of Kevin Oleary) defend our present capitalist system on this one?
I quote Matt Taibbi, “The irony was incredible. After f_ _king up so badly that the government had to give them federal bank charters and bottomless wells of free cash to save their necks. The feds gave Golman Sacks and Morgan Stanley (who else?) hall passes to become cross-species monopolistic powers with almost limitless reach into any sector of the economy.” Enough said!
Dennis Peacock
Clearwater, B.C.