As a three-time Volvo owner (okay, I was boring… I’ve also owned a Porsche), I was… sort of… pleased to read the following update ib the oil-for-food scandal:
MOSCOW – A scathing report on corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq drew widespread denials, terse dismissals and protestations of innocence Friday. But there were also pledges to investigate from some of the 2,200 companies cited and countries with citizens named.
Russian officials angrily alleged that documents accusing companies and officials in that country were fake, and the head of the nation’s electricity monopoly called for the report’s writers to be punished. But in a rare partial admission, Sweden’s Volvo AB acknowledged making payments through an agent to Iraqi authorities but said it did not consider that bribery.
Don’t tell the soccer moms.
Russian officials angrily alleged that documents accusing companies and officials in that country were fake, and the head of the nation’s electricity monopoly called for the report’s writers to be punished.
As with most “transitional” economies, Russia would grind to a halt if bribery were eliminated. OFF kickbacks probably aren’t even illegal under Russian law. In any case, using offshore accounts to mask profits, recycling cash flows through all manner of opaque intermediaries, and of course washing much of the oil money through willing laundromats like Dubai are all standard operating procedure for most Russian companies. Including the government-controlled ones like Gazprom.
Speaking of Gazprom, interesting that Schroeder’s determined to ensure Putin has a completely free hand as the quid pro quo for Russia’s supplying Germany with nearly all its gas supplies, which is to say (given that nukes are outlawed and coal’s conribution is minor) the lion’s share of Germany’s energy needs. To hell with the Baltic states’ and Poland’s concerns over Russian blackmail http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=26&story_id=24848&name=Baltic+states+oppose+Russian%2DGerman+pipeline
But in a rare partial admission, Sweden’s Volvo AB acknowledged making payments through an agent to Iraqi authorities but said it did not consider that bribery.
By not calling it a “bribery”, it resolved the Swedish’s conscience to do business with a mass muderer’s regime? Are they that !!@@#$$#! (naive would be too generous, IMO)? Is that the same old same old Euro mentra? By not recognizing a spade as a spade?
re: my comment above
Always right at October 29, 2005
absovlved, not “resolved”.
my bad.
Did you buy any of your Volvos with the “No Nukes” or “Save the Whales” accessory packages?
I don’t think today’s typical Volvo owner would be bothered by this at all.
I doubt this has much to do with Volvo’s car division, which was sold to Ford in 1999. The Swedish company makes trucks and aerospace products.
Nice Lobaschevky reference, by the way.
Ann..good point. Somebody at Ford probably needs to emphasize that point right about now.
Or not..maybe given their targeted market, it would actually hurt their sales if it were well-understood that they are actually part of an American company.
Always right …. aw heck, son, remember: this is the Sweden who had a very profitable “neutrality” during WWII selling iron ore to Britain and ball bearings to Germany… at the same time a thousand American airmen were dying trying to knock out Germany’s ball-bearing industry… nothing changes.
This childishly reinforces my hatred for Volvos and the incomprehensible Volvo Fetish in my part of the country. I even had one myself, a 240D, and it was the worst car I ever owned. It was a dressed-up 1953 Dodge, but not nearly as good.
Seriously, the car itself was an built around an illusion, made to appear to be something it wasn’t (like GM products), and now the corporation that produced it is revealed in the same way.