eBay Owner "Instantly" Profits from Controversial India Election

From Reuters:

EXCLUSIVE - India likely to ease restrictions for foreign online retailers in July

Four people privy to discussions within the government told Reuters that officials believed a more robust online retail sector would spur manufacturing and consumption, helping revive an economy that has grown at below 5 percent for two years, the longest period of sub-par expansion since the late 1980s. (...) Deepa Thomas, spokeswoman for eBay (EBAY.O) in India, said it was excited about the opportunity and believed in the need for a carefully calibrated approach to opening up the sector.

Background:

Revealed: Visitor logs show full extent of Pierre and Pamela Omidyar’s cozy White House ties

After all, according to records made available under Obama’s 2009 transparency commitment, Omidyar has visited the Obama White House at least half a dozen times since 2009. During the same period, his wife, Pamela Omidyar, who heads Omidyar Network, has visited 1600 Pennsylvania Ave at least four times, while Omidyar Network’s managing partner, Matthew Bannick, has visited a further three. In all, senior Omidyar Network officials made at least 13 visits to the White House between 2009-2013. (In fact the logs indicate that, on several occasions, Omidyar visited the White House more than once in the same day. To avoid unfairly inflating the numbers, I’ve removed same-day duplicates from all the totals cited in this article.)

...and the article:

Just as we predicted, India’s new leader is about to make Pierre Omidyar a lot richer


Well, this is just another example of someone who profits out of geopolitics. One can only hope, since this is a contemporary example - literally happening as we speak - people will wake up to the fact that there are "movers and shakers" around the world. Unsurprisingly, they make a tight cozy circle - quick, name two Nobel Prize winners you personally know! Oh! Not even one? Well, ask Omidyar...

I think this story is more disturbing than your title suggests.

The following is from the last article linked;

Two weeks ago, we reported that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s top man in India had secretly helped elect controversial ultranationalist Narendra Modi, implicated by Human Rights Watch and others in the gruesome mass killings and cleansing of minority Muslims. As we also revealed, shortly after Omidyar’s man publicly joined the Modi campaign in February, Modi suddenly began warming up to the idea of letting global e-commerce companies into the world’s third largest economy. Omidyar’s eBay, which draws the majority of its revenues from overseas operations, has been champing at the bit to get into India.

Big corporations influencing and or controlling politics and politicians is not democracy.

It's frustrating to read and I'm grinding my teeth while I'm typing this.

Thanks for the info, good thread.

Kind Regards
Myselfaswell