With their soils and water sources depleted, the indigenous people in the area can no longer grow rice and bananas and have to go to the other side of the mountain for drinking water and to bathe. The cyanide used by the Benguet corporation to separate the gold from the rock poisons the local streams, kills cattle that drink from the streams, and reduces rice yields of people in the lowlands who use the water for irrigation. When the tailings and cyanide empty into the oceans they kill the coral reefs and destroy the fishing on which thousands of coastal people depend. The company reaps handsome profits. The local people bear the costs.
Economists applaud the company's contribution to national output and export earnings.
And the winners in the global economy are able to buy their gold trinkets at a more attractive price. The one thing at which free, unregulated markets are truly efficient is in transferring wealth from the many to the few. They are economic integration agreements intended to guarantee the rights of global corporations to move both goods and investments where ever they wish-free from public interference and accountability. GATT is best described as a bill of rights for global corporations. Many of the people who claim globalization is a consequence of inevitable historical forces are paid to promote that message by the same global corporations that have invested millions of dollars in advancing the globalization policy agenda.