Money Available. For Profits Only.

In a tale of chasing the Arctic Riches (New York Times, Sept 13) we are told that the Kremlin has spent billions and come up empty. Shell has already spent $7 billion and seven years ago a conglomerate of Shell and other companies paid $2.7 billion for leases in Alaska. Apart from the ridiculous idea of buying parts of the earth, it shows that there is a tremendous amount of wealth available when the odour of profit wafts through the air, but not a lot for human needs. John Ayers