Ted Turner's Argentina

In the name of conservation, rich folks from the First World have been buying up huge tracts of the Third World for the last couple of decades. There is a distinct irony here; the very same people who have benefited from a set of economic policies that have impoverished the Global South are now buying up the South at fairly low prices.

A little while ago, CNN linked to this blog. Well, screw CNN and Ted Turner. Old Ted is now the biggest landowner in Argentina and controls the world's greatest supply of underground water. The man made his big money on dead Iraqis (Gulf War I), has repeated punted the line that US imperialism is good for the world and that ordinary people should be made into soulless wage slaves serving only the glory of Ted, Bill and the whole damn rest of that elite, rent-seeking, tax dodging crowd. Now, he physically owns a good chunk of a country that was sent down the economic ladder because of the unjust debt policies of the IMF and World Bank. Oh, hurray. Forgive me for being less than impressed:

Their near neighbours, with only slightly less eco-ambition, are the founder of CNN, Ted Turner, the financier George Soros, the fashion tycoons Luciano and Carlo Benetton, and the actors Sharon Stone and Christopher Lambert. Together, they have created vast new private wetland, coastal and mountain parks, some of which they say they plan to give to the state. Indeed, last year Turner became the largest landowner in Argentina, now owning 2m acres of Patagonia, which, he says, will be farmed "ecologically". However, some of the land sits on top of one of the world's greatest underground stores of water and he has been accused in the Argentinian press of trying to seize control of water supplies and putting Argentine farmers out of business, both of which he denies.

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