I am captivated by the events going on in Bolivia.
The street protests, the resignation of their president and subsequent refusals of the presidency by the next two candidates in line. The left wing leaders intent on nationalizing the country's gas production. The looming storm cloud of potential US intervention. And Chavez, cheering them on and proclaiming it all as more evidence that Latin America will no longer be a subservient colony of the North.
I read and read and read about it. I read and I cheer for Bolivia. But, and it strains me to the core of my being to admit it, it embarrasses me and chokes off my breath, there is a little part of me that cheers against them.
I feel like I need to come clean. As though this were some sort of forum for addicts unable to admit their addiction. A first step. To admit your disease.
I am a speculator.
I play the market to accumulate dollars. I accumulate dollars in a hope that with them I can escape from this meaningless existence of corporate schlock.
I am fully aware that the companies I invest in have adverse impacts on the environment. I am aware of their impact on third world workers. I am aware of their homogony that eats away at our culture. And yet, I want so much out of this cubicle dungeon, I want so much out of contributing to a world so fundamentally fucked up, where bad continually wins out and power and desire make mincemeat of morality and integrity, that I continue to speculate.
So I speculate in Bolivia.
In particular, I speculate in a company that has a large property claim in Bolivia. On that claim there's a large amount of silver and a large amount of zinc. The company, in my own opinion, is terribly undervalued, and silver fundamentals, in my opinion, are terribly ripe for a rise. So I buy futures in this company, and wait to see if my opinions are prescient.
This is all fine and good you see, until the Bolivian peasantry came along, these miners and teachers and indigenous folk, frustrated by more then a century of being pushed around, sick of the Washington Consensus and its free market idioms that took away their sovereignty to govern, that same concensus that Stiglitz and the like now admit so sheepishly that maybe, just maybe, was wrong.
So these good folks are fed up and they say NO. They look over at Venezuela and they see some hope for their own independence from the Western fist. They see a chance for better wages and some working conditions fit for humanity. They ignore the carnage that their past struggles have brought upon them, and in the face of the possibility of yet another, they stand up courageously to the ideal that they are human beings and they deserve more.
So I cheer them on.
But wait! Not so fast. Then I read that they want to nationalize the gas industry. Its their gas, after all. But that gets me to thinking. Well, if they want to nationalize the gas industry, well then maybe they'll want to nationalize some of their other resources. Its all under the ground you see. So maybe they'll say, 'Well what about the silver? What about the zinc? All of that is in the ground and it is really ours too. Why should we let some American company reap all the spoils for that?'
What would happen then?
Well I'll tell you what would happen. This little speculation of mine would go very sour.
And suddenly the cheering becomes a little more muted.
So there it is. I'm not going to say anything more about what I'm going to do. I don't know. The morality of investing in a world that promotes such inequalities is difficult to reconcile. Where do you draw the line? If you buy a government bond, you're supporting expenditures that are going to the military. If you put the money in the bank, they are lending it out to who knows who to support god knows what atrocity in the name of a return. Where's the line? No return at all? Go live in a cabin off the shores of the pacific where you can shut the door and pretend it all doesn't exist?
I don't know.
What I am going to say is this. I have learned a lesson here, and that is this -
Whenever the rich elite jump on their podiums and talk about how they are doing it for humanitarian reasons, well don't believe a word of it.
So don't give me that bullshit about how you're looking out for the best interests of the country when you send in the troops and restore your 'order'. Or when you attach those Washington Consensus conditions to your next third world loan. Or when you prop up your next puppet government with money you call 'aid'. It doesn't work with me, cuz I can see it all with speculator eyes. And its terribly clear that when those eyes are painted dollars, the only 'best interests' of your concern are the one's you're looking through.
So where does that leave me? I little more clear maybe. Still cheering for Bolivia. But also aware of this little part of me which is reluctant to cheer. The cynical piece that wants only for myself and doesn't give a care for others. So I've done what I can do; I pinpointed it, it is in my sights and quarantined. You have to keep your enemies close, and this one's not going to grow on me.
In the meantime, Bolivia fights for their independence from our Western free market death grip. I hope they win, speculators be damned.
- posted by Sigurd6/14/2005 07:42:00 PM