Have you recently found a planet or asteroid? Be sure to register your claim at The Archimedes Institute Real Property Registry. The potential returns to mining the resources in space have sparked dollar signs in the eyes of modern day gold diggers, already painting their Private Property and No Trespassing signs. These entrepreneurs will have mining law applied in space to give possession to first occupiers, as well as rights to “tele-possession” using robotic or remote sensing equipment.

Don't worry if you can't leave a distant galaxy to your grandkids. Run down to the patent office and get a patent on your genes. The California Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that John Moore did not have ownership rights on cancer cells after they were removed from his body and therefore he had no claim on the billion dollar profits from pharmaceuticals developed from these cells. His doctors held the patent.

Private corporations in partnership with public health institutions have been collecting blood and tissue samples from around the world looking for commercially viable genes. In 1998 there were 500,000 applications pending for gene patents in the US.

Pharmaceutical corporations have gained international patent protection by lobbying for agreements on intellectual property rights through multilateral institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The primary goal of the WTO is to eliminate barriers to trade, barriers that include national laws to protect the environment or the health of the citizens. On the agenda is the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), intended to open services such as health care to private sector competition. You will then be able to purchase the best health [sic] care you can afford.

What? It's free now? Canada's health plan is being undermined by right-leaning provincial governments, and assailed by the media oligopoly's unrelenting propaganda for privatization. While public hospitals in Europe and Canada are being closed as governments cut budgets to satisfy financial lobbyists, savvy corporate interests are acquiring shares in clinics. Don't get left behind. Protect your health by stocking up on a hospital or two.

What else, you ask, laying your credit cards on the counter, what else is on sale?

The thrust of US campaign finance reform is on soft money contributions - contributions to political campaigns that do not fall under electoral rules limiting sources and amounts because they are given to political parties. From 1995 to 1999, health insurance, casino gambling and tobacco lobbyists gave $30 million in soft money to the Republicans and $11 million to the Democrats. The goods were delivered in 1998-1999 when legislation on a pro-consumer patients' rights bill and tobacco controls failed, and tax breaks on casino gambling were expanded. You can buy an elected government... oh, you already knew that.

In 1994, twelve conservative foundations in the US controlled more than $1 billion in assets which they used to influence public opinion. They have funded think tanks and university fellowships, published journals, and financed an assault on the media, including ghost-writing newspaper editorials.

The Fraser Institute has similar designs on using the Canadian media to spread its “ideas about market solutions to economic problems.” Dave Barrett quotes the following from an internal Institute document: “A central focus of our program during the next five years will be on the expansion of our penetration of the national media....Each of the new project areas undertaken will have a component focusing on the media and to other secondhand dealers in ideas.”