Counterparties: Bushmasters and baksheesh
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We found out in April, thanks to the NYT’s David Barstow, that Wal-Mart de Mexico was a corrupt organization and that the US parent company had seemingly no interest in what was going on there. But just how bad did things get? Barstow’s now back, showing that the corruption at Mexico’s largest employer was systemic and integral to its growth:
Wal-Mart de Mexico was an aggressive and creative corrupter, offering large payoffs to get what the law otherwise prohibited. It used bribes to subvert democratic governance — public votes, open debates, transparent procedures. It used bribes to circumvent regulatory safeguards that protect Mexican citizens from unsafe construction. It used bribes to outflank rivals.
Through confidential Wal-Mart documents, The Times identified 19 store sites across Mexico that were the target of Wal-Mart de Mexico’s bribes… Over and over, for example, the dates of bribe payments coincided with dates when critical permits were issued. Again and again, the strictly forbidden became miraculously attainable.
In the wake of the initial NYT report, Wal-Mart has spent $100 million investigating the bribes, including the  corruption scandal at Wal-Mart’s Indian joint venture; it is also the subject of a criminal investigation, part of a larger move by the Justice Department to crack down on violators of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Ira Stoll says that Wal-Mart isn’t the only villain in this story: he’s disappointed that local Mexican officials who accept bribes are largely given a pass by the NYT. Also unexplored, he says, is the idea that regulations all too often “serve to enrich the people who write the regulations”. The Atlantic Wire’s Adam Clark Estes points out that part of the problem is the size of the bribes a global behemoth like Wal-Mart can pay compared to local incomes. For example, one mayor with an annual salary of $47,000 was given $114,000 in cash over a single year.
Corruption isn’t the only controversy Wal-Mart is facing. On Monday, it pulled the Bushmaster AR-15, the gun that killed 26 people in Newtown, from its shelves. The NYT also hints that there are further shoes to drop in the story of Wal-Mart’s corruption: today’s story is presented as Part 2 of a series. Here’s looking forward to Part 3. — Ben Walsh
On to today’s links:
Wonks
Do not offer Nassim Taleb an orange Shasta – Chronicle for Higher Education
The media have discovered “chained CPI” and its sneaky social security cuts – CJR
3 alternatives that are more progressive than “chained CPI” – Dylan Matthews
Mission Creep
“The government has almost completely taken over the American home mortgage market” – Jesse Eisinger
Taxmageddon
A concise look at the fiscal cliff deal that’s emerging from Washington – Ezra Klein
Scoops
Amex’s CEO has reportedly been approached about becoming the next Treasury Secretary – Bloomberg
Ugh
How did public schoolteachers end up owning a stake in the largest seller of semiautomatic rifles? – Dan Primack
Cerberus is immediately selling its stake in the company that made the gun used in Newtown – Dealbook
Shark-Jumping
Facebook is going to bring autoplay TV commercials to your news feed – Ad Age
Your Instagram photos are Instagram’s to sell – CNET
Regulations
Qualified mortgage rules will either save banks from lawsuits or kill lending, depending on who you ask – Dealbook
Capers
Police make arrest in massive theft from Canada’s strategic maple syrup reserve – Globe and Mail
Crisis Retro
Ex-Moody’s analyst: “I expected the financial system to fall apart, it was inevitable” – Guardian
Charts
27 years of failed Wall Street earnings forecasts – Sam Ro
EU Mess
“There was hunger then. Now it’s more depression” – Greece’s families face a harsh winter – WSJ
Reexamining the odds of a Greek exit from the Euro – Vox EU
As If You Needed To Ask
Study confirms Manhattan apartment prices “driven in part by speculative factors” – NY Fed
Tax Arcana
Larry Summers explains where the really big tax loopholes are – Reuters Opinion
Comments RSSPost Your Comment
How about another proposed tax change?
Limit tax-deferred accounts to $2M per individual, combined. Forced (taxable) withdrawals of any excess. Alternatively, you could prohibit new contributions once accounts total $1M.
Not sure what the rationale is for the low IRA limits anyways. The wealthy have far more generous contribution limits, and even a middle class family will sometimes have more than $10k to save in a given year.
As usual, we liberals are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
We are wasting an opportunity, and handing the conservatives more base-energizing (and expanding) ammunition in one incompetent stumble, cheering all the while.
Most of us aren’t getting the terms of this discussion wrong, we’re getting the problem itself wrong.
Further restricting firearms ownership when the problem is actually the social darwinism at all levels of society that leaves people to become so broken and desperate that they give in to their sick urge to take lives, does nothing.
The only two things that could actually significantly reduce firearms deaths – ending the Drug War and implementing single payer healthcare with on demand mental health and addiction services – seem mostly neglected in these discussions.
Anyone that actually cares about reducing violence of all types, and gun violence in particular, should be focusing on the CAUSES, not the SYMPTOM.
We should be flogging how the ACA would improve these services, not fapping about restricting the rights of the law abiding. We should be pushing to expand it to further improve these services.
We should be having the discussion about ending the drug war that creates the black market that creates and feeds the cartels and their satellite gangs and distribution networks. The flawed laws that cage casual users with hardened criminals in prisons that are more run by gangs than wardens or guards. Ie, the cause of most violence, particularly firearms violence.
Momentum is on our side, it’s up to us how to use it, how we frame the issue.
But here we are, discussing the symptom instead of addressing the actual problem.
It’s as if two sides of a partisan donation machine – the NRA and the equally malevolent Brady anti-gun lobby – are cynically manipulating their respective demographics for profit. Have no doubts, each requires the other to stampede their respective constituencies in the desired direction.
Focusing on anything beyond closing the gunshow loophole and improving mental health reporting will do absolutely nothing to curb violence.
CT is rated to be the fifth “best” state for gun laws according to the Brady Campaign which means they are more restrictive than 45 other states on various laws relating to firearms.”
Clearly that worked well for them on Friday.
An assault weapons ban or attempts to restrict magazine size will *cause* violence in the form of right wing terrorism, as demonstrated throughout the 90s.
An all out ban will cause even liberals like myself to think twice about the reasons behind the open insurrection that would result. And that doesn’t take into account the thousands of lives it would cost.
Assuming you could actually get any of these passed, common sense or not.
A complete waste of political capital.