• the many mergers and acquisitions of corporations, the development of "no fault" legislation to redimension the remedy against the wrongs of corporations and governments,
• the liberty for financial capital to move instantaneously around the world, the collusion between politicians and corporations,
• the gospel of privatisation to save money while the rich get richer, the taking over of the media by few corporations,
• the misrepresentation to identify democracy with the election of politicians...

So this Free Market has evolved to become the BIG LIE of the new world order, and what is mind boggling is that this Free Market has been given a rational social and economic construct disassociated from people's real lives and their cultural and community values.

All problems are explained as corrections of the Free Market and yet never ending wars are being waged to sustain this Free Market.

I laugh when politicians and economic gurus tell us of the need of "thinking out of the box," while the Free Market boxes our thinking by building ever big boxes for the cheap production of goods and services and for the cheaper creation of new jobs. Thinking out of the box means to take risks, to be innovative and more intelligent and yet politicians are in collusion with ever bigger corporations to save fictional money while operating at no risk. The prices of goods and services of the biggest US corporations are now set in an oligopolistic market as "cost plus reasonable profits."

US Congressmen Henry Waxman and John D. Dingell were first to publicly disclose the conflict of interest between vice-president Dick Cheney and his former employer Halliburton. Then on October 15 of this year Waxman and Dingell stated that

"there is growing evidence that favoured contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel are getting sweetheart deals that are costing the taxpayer a bundle but delivering scant results.... the U.S. taxpayer loses $1.50 or more every time a gallon of gasoline is sold in Iraq."

Last Saturday, President Bush and the conventional media were surprised to notice, within their rationalised tunnel vision, that Halliburton had been overcharging a cost of  $61 million to truck fuel from Kuwait to Iraq. In the meantime, after the Bush administration disbanded the Iraqi Army and had their 400,000 former soldiers contribute to the guerrilla war in Iraq, the Washington Post has reported that:

"more than half the men in the first unit to be trained for the new Iraqi army have abandoned their jobs because of low pay, inadequate training, faulty equipment, ethnic tensions and other concerns... Privates earn $70 a month -- about half the amount paid to the people who fill sandbags around the Baghdad headquarters of the U.S.-led occupation authority."

The morale of the story is that we don't need a rationalised tunnel vision to cover up the malfeasances of Bush's Free Market.

References

Pertinent articles published in Ensign

Docena, Herbert Will the real collaborators please stand up? November 18, 2003 Asia Times, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EK18Ak02.html

Waxman, Henry A and John D. Dingell Letter to General Accounting Office [re: Halliburton and Vice-president Dick Cheney], April 8, 2003 http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs/pdf_inves/pdf_admin_gao_contract_halliburton_april_8_let.pdf

Waxman, Henry A. Statement of Rep. Henry A. Waxman: Contracting Abuses in Iraq October 15, 2003 http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs_108/pdf_inves/pdf_admin_halliburton_contract_oct_15_state.pdf

Zeleny, Jeff Bush vows to seek repayment: President tries to dampen furor from overcharges in Iraq December 13, 2003 Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0312130190dec13,1,3039645.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Cha, Ariana Eunjung Recruits Abandon Iraqi Army: Troubled Training Hurts Key Component of Bush Security Plan December 13, 2003 Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60899-2003Dec12.html