Multinational Monitor |
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SEP/OCT 2007 FEATURES: Ecuador's Oil Change: An Exporter's Historic Proposal Fueling Another Debt Crisis The Best Congress Oil Could Buy A Call for Global Economic and Energy Transitions Sin and Society II INTERVIEWS: Bolivia Asserts Oil Sovereignty Causes of Soaring Oil Prices Can Big Oil Adapt to Climate Change? DEPARTMENTS: Editorial The Front |
LAWRENCE SUMMERS MEMORIAL AWARDThe September/October Lawrence Summers Memorial Award* goes to the Performing Rights Society (PRS), which collects royalties for songwriters and performers in Scotland. PRS has filed suit against Kwik-Fit, an auto repair chain, claiming, according to a BBC news account, “Kwik-Fit mechanics routinely use personal radios while working at service centers across the UK and that music, protected by copyright, could be heard by colleagues and customers.” PRS says that because customers can hear the music, this radio playing — which Kwik-Fit says is against company policy — constitutes a “performance” and thus requires payment of a royalty. Source: BBC News, “Kwik-Fit Sued over Staff Radios,” October 5, 2007. *In a 1991 internal memorandum, then-World Bank economist Lawrence Summers argued for the transfer of waste and dirty industries from industrialized to developing countries. “Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs (lesser developed countries)?” wrote Summers, who went on to serve as Treasury Secretary during the Clinton administration and is the outgoing president of Harvard University. “I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that. ... I’ve always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted; their air quality is vastly inefficiently low [sic] compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City.” Summers later said the memo was meant to be ironic. |
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