While You Were Sleeping

The gist of what you may have missed

by Francis Cruz, September 24, 2007

A United Nations report released in late August revealed a second record year of opium cultivation in Afghanistan. The country had a 17 percent spike in cultivation this past year, and is now accounting for 93 percent of the world’s opium production (a one-percent increase in global market share over last year). One-hundred-and-ninety-three-thousand hectares of poppies were cultivated in Afghanistan, an area
larger than all the land used to grow coca in Latin America. Production continues to grow in spite of $600 million in American counternarcotics efforts and increased eradication by Afghan offi cials. “Afghanistan today is cultivating megacrops of opium,” said Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes Policy. “Leaving aside China in the 19th century, no other country has produced so much narcotics in the past 100 years.”

While opium cultivation is decreasing in the north, the south is seeing growth, especially in areas of Taliban influence where farmers are encouraged to grow the crop.
Source: The New York Times, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007 Executive Summary (United
Nations), and US Counternarcotics Strategy for Afghanistan (US Department of State)

More than 200 trips taken by executive-branch officials between April 2006 and March 2007 were paid for by companies and trade organizations with interests in their agencies. The companies paying for the travel are regulated by or do business with government departments and agencies. “Corporations and trade associations want to pay for these trips for a reason, and that is to have face time with the regulators and government officials,” said Bill Hogan, director of investigative projects for the
Center for Public Integrity.

Rivanda Networks, a defense contractor, paid $4,200 in travel expenses for two
homeland defense officials from the Defense Department to attend a conference it sponsored in Limerick, Ireland. The Consumer Electronics Association, hosted 24 officials from various agencies at Las Vegas’s five-star Wynn hotel for its trade show atrip that cost the lobbying group $34,000.
Source: USA Today and The Hill

State and local governments across the nation offer $50 billion in tax breaks and business incentives annually to entice companies to relocate and retain existing businesses. North Carolina landed a $600 million Google server operation in March by offering $212 million in governmental assistance over 30 years. “But the impact of incentives dissipates quickly, so in a few years, there’s no benefit to employment,” said University of Nebraska economist John Anderson. Google is employing over 400 construction workers to build the plant. Once the plant is built, those jobs will dry up.

In September 2006, the Syracuse Post-Standard published a series exposing the fl awed Empire Zone program that provides $600 million in breaks annually to 9,800 businesses in New York state. It revealed that New York reimbursed NRG Energy, Inc., $22 million in property taxes in turn for one-half of a new full-time employee. Now states like New York are moving toward limiting such tax breaks and holding companies accountable to promises made when economic incentives were granted, by suspending benefi ts and enacting legislation to reform state incentive programs.
Source: USA Today, Computer World, and Syracuse Post-Standard