Re: A Review of The New York TImes Article with Actual Data, not Heresay

This is actually complete nonsense because it is very clear that statistics are general and cover up the greater impoverishment that is actually happening in our country. You never saw beggars in the streets in our towns a generation ago. You never saw so many people struggling to make a few toea selling smokes and other small items on the street before. The visual evidence is overwhelming and no number of graphs will cover that up..


The fact is that the LNG project will do to PNG what large petroleum projects have done to Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, and most other oil producing countries. The large amount of money coming to landowners will simply be wasted, not invested. It's like putting a kid in a room full of lollies and toys. The large amount of money coming into the government from the LNG project will guaranteed be stolen, either more directly or hidden away in overseas trust accounts where no one can see the money being drained. The rich will get richer while the poor get poorer and your statistics will show an upward climb in economic worth because the small number of wealthy will be filthy rich.

Anyone who thinks that the most profitable company in the world by far (ExxonMobil) whose obscene profits in just 1 quarter have somtimes have been enough to run our entire country for years has got their head in the sand if they think PNG is going to benefit more from the PNG gas than ExxonMobil or the countries where this gas s going to fuel factories, major industry and tens of thousands of jobs.

Guess what? The LNG project, once it is on line, is estimated to only create a few hundred (not thousand) permanent jobs). The long-term change will be in the money going to the government and (to a much lesser extent) to customary landowners. The landowners will spend all their money on imported items and just send that money back overseas into the hands of foreigners. How can one call that process economic development?