The Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Center, Lower Manhattan

The Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Center, Lower Manhattan
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Terrorism flourishes brazenly at Ground Zero, in the new 7 World Trade Center building. Here can be found a secretive entity of fabulous wealth and power. Kingdom and corporations alike tremble at its shadow and make haste to pay it tribute. I refer to Moodys Investor Services, wholly owned subsidiary of Moody's Corporation, which reported $2 billion in revenues in 2006.

On January 10 Moody's, in concert with the other main bond rating firm, Standard and Poor's, gave the United States its top AAA credit rating. The terrorist blackmail threat came in the form of a demand by Moody's that the U.S. government "reform" Social Security and Medicare: "In the very long term, the rating could come under pressure if reform of Medicare and Social Security is not carried out as these two programs are the largest threats to the long-term financial health of the United States and to the government's Aaa rating."

Steven Hess, Moody's top analyst for the US economy spelled it out even more explicitly to the London Financial Times: "If no policy changes are made, in 10 years from now we would have to look very seriously at whether the US is still a triple-A creditThe US rating is the anchor of the world's financial system. If you have a downgrade, you have a problem."

US interrogators torture men in secret prisons seeking to catch those members of Al Quaeda still at large, starting with Osama bin Laden and Aiman al-Zwahiri. Yet here's Moody's man calmly threatening to destroy the US government's credit ranking unless it follows his agenda, and he strolls around Lower Manhattan unmolested, even if his threats could add up to the financial equvalent of a thermonuclear device planted under the Statue of Liberty.

Moody's runs a protection game.
http://www.counterpunch.org/

Nothing new but it just shows how the transnational corporations have only their bottom line to care about.

Corporate Terrorism makes OBL and his gang look like a grade school prank.