WHEN President Barack Obama takes office on January 20 next year, he will find that the Bushwhackers (cronies of President George W Bush) have emptied the treasury. These Bushwhackers are following a well known theory described by former British prime minister Edward Heath as the "ugly face of capitalism".

Heath was talking about those capitalists embraced in the Thatcher doctrine, who pillaged the wealth of nations without regard to the welfare of the community and the poor. In the United States, these capitalists worship "the almighty dollar" (their own name for it)

How do the bosses of the Wall Street financial houses work, we may ask?

The president of Carolina First, in my home state, worked for less than 18 months when his bank asked the US government to bail him out with US$35 billion. He has now left the bank with US$18 million as a bonus. South Carolina governor is mad as hell about this "deal".

If the war in Iraq was about oil, how come gasoline prices (petrol) went from one dollar a gallon to five dollars within two years? The greedy capitalists, according to Senator Obama, knowing that the cat was not watching, went on a spree and raised prices to the roof. This is very confusing. You will say, "Ken, you mean petrol prices were not related to prices at the well in Saudi Arabia?" Yes, that is exactly what happened. That is called "price gauging".

More to the point, there are 640 American and International Companies in Iraq. Some of these companies are shady, associated with Blackwater Security run by Eric Prince, a former CIA agent, Brown Associates, an engineering company from Texas that has been receiving government contracts since President Lyndon B. Johnson was president and now Halliburton, where Dick Cheney was president.

Anticipating the end of the Bush gravy train, these companies have been given the go ahead in Iraq to cash their cheques, finish their work without inspection and where possible ship out of there before Obama comes to power on January 20. This adds up to US$10 billion per month between now and January..

In the US itself, the financial houses are busy pocketing tax payers' money before Obama takes power. In the original three page plan by Henry Paulson, US Treasury Secretary, he proposed that he be allowed US$700 billion to do as he pleases and that his actions were not to be subject to judicial review or senatorial supervision.

Paulson is a classic example of the fox guarding the chicken house. He was chief at Goldman Sachs, and made his millions by selling "securities" (whatever that means) in China.

He is now supervising the bailout of Goldman Sachs and 11 other financial houses. He then hires a law firm that used to represent eight of these companies to set up the legal framework of the bailout. Almost all of these companies sold securities in China. Even a child can see "conflict of interest".

In addition to the lawyers, he brought Neel Kashkari, from Goldman as "Chief Administra-tor" for the programme, which includes Goldman.

Lest our readers think we are making this stuff up, here is another scenario. John Winkelreid and Gary Cohn are the top two officers at Goldman Sachs today. Last year, in addition to their base salaries of US$600 000 per year, each earned US$65 million in bonuses at Christmas.

We would have no problem with all this if these predators had not asked government to bail them out subsequently.

The ugly face of capitalism shows itself clearly when a little guy like me loses US$5 000 while these guys take home other people's money.

Never mind, that is why Heath called this scenario the "ugly face of capitalism". They are absolutely shameless and they assume that we cannot read.

Now, here is the absolute wickedness of these guys. Paulson is digging his heels in about helping General Motors.

First the trade unions at the Big Three collected US$80 million for Obama's election campaign.

Secondly, the Big Three have been careless about making big cars when fuel costs were rising. To compound all their sins, General Motors added the Hummer and the Escalade, both consume one gallon per 10 miles.

Nevertheless, there are 350 000 auto dealers in the US, and 7 000 suppliers of various sizes. Almost one in 10 American workers is associated with some sort of car repair, financing or dealership of some kind.

Paulson says "to hell with the automakers".

The issue here is that we are talking about real people. That is what I learned at the workshop I attended. Capitalism is not about people. It is about money. If they go to bail out, they are bailing out money, not the people.

They don't care what happens to the three million workers associated with the auto industry even if they are stealing their money and handing over to the finance houses.

This explains the callousness with which the poor people in New Orleans were handled after the Katrina floods. Blackwater operatives arrived in New Orleans to protect property before FEMA (a federal relief agency) arrived two weeks later. By the way this Blackwater no-bid outfit arrived before its contract was signed by the US government.

The lessons are plenty. The same Blackwater outfit arrived in Iraq to guard the oil wells before the war started. The priceless libraries of Nebuchadnezzar were looted while these guys looked the other side.

This ugly face of capitalism is all about money, stupid! It has nothing to do with poor humans.

Ken Mufuka is a patron of the Zimbabwe Global Forum, an organisation of over one million exiles.