My Plumber and Politics
I was up in Barrie this morning having a leaky pipe replaced and my plumber (who is fabulous!) and we got to talking about politics – specifically the HST and the effect it will have on Ontario’s economy (he didn’t think it would be good). I let slip that I was the nominated GPC candidate in Newmarket-Aurora and that got him all excited, apparently he always votes Green.
Not only does he vote Green, he has a pretty good working knowledge of the local Barrie chapter, and the Canadian political landscape in general, and some very firm opinions about certain politicians, and, sadly, politicians as a group.
But it was when he welcomed me to the military-industrial complex while we were discussing the BP oil spill, that I knew I had met someone out of the ordinary. He mentioned Halliburton’s role in the crisis, their purchase of the company that manufactures the dispersant, and the divestiture of stock by a BP exec just before the explosion.
I confess, I find these coincidences to be rather intriguing:
“7. Curiously, CEO of BP, Tony Hayward dumped 1/3 of his BP stock holdings($2.1 million dollars) weeks before the oil rig explosion
8. Coincidentally, Goldman Sachs dumped 44% – 4,680,822 shares – of its stock in BP Oil weeks before the spill – no other oil company, just BP. This also represented an unusual transaction, being two times the size of any normal stock trade for an institution its size.
9. Weeks before the oil spill, Haliburton acquired Boots & Coots, a Houston-based oil well intervention/oil safety/oil spill cleanup company, an investment criticized by many as an “unwise” investment at the time”
I know it isn’t worthwhile to keep breaking pipes just so we can continue our conversation but I think it might very well be worthwhile to meet at the pub for a pint.
July 14th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
It sounds like your plumber is a listener of the No Agenda podcast: http://www.noagendashow.com/
July 16th, 2010 at 10:14 pm
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