The Xstrata factor

Where is democracy in the Xstrata-Glencore tie-up?

In a world in which natural resources are completely cardinal to the continued development of humankind, is the construction of the world’s biggest ever (and soon to be dominant) mining-cum-brokering entity in our interest?

The sovereign wealth fund of one the richest and smallest states in the world has a vast interest in the new conglomerate. Even Tony Blair is in the mix somewhere. He was called in, (or did he call himself in?) when the Xstrata-Glencore tie-up looked like it was going belly up. One wonders where he put the interests of the voters who made him the power broker that he now appears to be.

How much do we know about “commodity brokering”? When we hear that ‘commodity speculation has had a major role in rising food and raw materials prices who is to blame?

How much regulatory control will we, the people, have over this new Xstrata-Glencore entity? Xstrata is British based. Glencore Swiss based. The British bask in a host of off-shore tax havens, from Guernsey to the Cayman Islands. We sport a feast of opaque “arrangements”. But when it comes to opacity can we hold a candle to the Swiss? Can they to us? Who really knows?

They say ignorance is bliss. But where is our democratic process in all this? In short, do we the people want a say in this mega merger in which the extraction of natural resources and the trading in them casts off into an apparently extra-terrestrial regulatory free universe?

Globalisation has brought us all many benefits and not a few curses. Which will the biggest mining-commodities merger in history bring us?

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