Iceland could be the model for economic crisis

As I have said many times in the past, Iceland stands out among all countries as the model for dealing with an economic/debt/housing crisis. At the very core it appears that their government, after a few crucial changes at the top, moved on behalf of their citizens and not with their core banks.

 

They nationalized them, a necessary step to rid the system of the wolves that were ready to eat their own children if necessary to make money, and then forgive a ton of debt of the citizens, especially those that had mortgages on homes that were out of balance with prices.

 

The results are a growing economy, 10 times the growth of the EU, and in general a satisfied populace, they know that they have the power to change the system now and will not forget it soon. Something that should have come out of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

 

Why Greece doesn’t do something similar, something that would fit into their particular situation is beyond me. Seems as if their government is all about becoming better serfs to the system and dragging all their citizens along with them.

 

By Omar R. Valdimarsson – Feb 19, 2012 5:01 PM MT

Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger.

 

Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association.

 

“You could safely say that Iceland holds the world record in household debt relief,” said Lars Christensen, chief emerging markets economist at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “Iceland followed the textbook example of what is required in a crisis. Any economist would agree with that.”

 

The island’s steps to resurrect itself since 2008, when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, are proving effective. Iceland’s economy will this year outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates. It costs about the same to insure against an Icelandic default as it does to guard against a credit event in Belgium. Most polls now show Icelanders don’t want to join the European Union, where the debt crisis is in its third year.

 

The island’s households were helped by an agreement between the government and the banks, which are still partly controlled by the state, to forgive debt exceeding 110 percent of home values. On top of that, a Supreme Court ruling in June 2010 found loans indexed to foreign currencies were illegal, meaning households no longer need to cover krona losses.

Crisis Lessons

 

“The lesson to be learned from Iceland’s crisis is that if other countries think it’s necessary to write down debts, they should look at how successful the 110 percent agreement was here,” said Thorolfur Matthiasson, an economics professor at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, in an interview. “It’s the broadest agreement that’s been undertaken.”

 

Without the relief, homeowners would have buckled under the weight of their loans after the ratio of debt to incomes surged to 240 percent in 2008, Matthiasson said.

 

Iceland’s $13 billion economy, which shrank 6.7 percent in 2009, grew 2.9 percent last year and will expand 2.4 percent this year and next, the Paris-based OECD estimates. The euro area will grow 0.2 percent this year and the OECD area will expand 1.6 percent, according to November estimates.

 

Housing, measured as a subcomponent in the consumer price index, is now only about 3 percent below values in September 2008, just before the collapse. Fitch Ratings last week raised Iceland to investment grade, with a stable outlook, and said the island’s “unorthodox crisis policy response has succeeded.”

People Vs Markets

 

Iceland’s approach to dealing with the meltdown has put the needs of its population ahead of the markets at every turn.

 

Once it became clear back in October 2008 that the island’s banks were beyond saving, the government stepped in, ring-fenced the domestic accounts, and left international creditors in the lurch. The central bank imposed capital controls to halt the ensuing sell-off of the krona and new state-controlled banks were created from the remnants of the lenders that failed.

 

Activists say the banks should go even further in their debt relief. Andrea J. Olafsdottir, chairman of the Icelandic Homes Coalition, said she doubts the numbers provided by the banks are reliable.

 

“There are indications that some of the financial institutions in question haven’t lost a penny with the measures that they’ve undertaken,” she said.

Fresh Demands

 

According to Kristjan Kristjansson, a spokesman for Landsbankinn hf, the amount written off by the banks is probably larger than the 196.4 billion kronur ($1.6 billion) that the Financial Services Association estimates, since that figure only includes debt relief required by the courts or the government.

 

“There are still a lot of people facing difficulties; at the same time there are a lot of people doing fine,” Kristjansson said. “It’s nearly impossible to say when enough is enough; alongside every measure that is taken, there are fresh demands for further action.”

 

As a precursor to the global Occupy Wall Street movement and austerity protests across Europe, Icelanders took to the streets after the economic collapse in 2008. Protests escalated in early 2009, forcing police to use teargas to disperse crowds throwing rocks at parliament and the offices of then Prime Minister Geir Haarde. Parliament is still deciding whether to press ahead with an indictment that was brought against him in September 2009 for his role in the crisis.

 

A new coalition, led by Social Democrat Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, was voted into office in early 2009. The authorities are now investigating most of the main protagonists of the banking meltdown.

Legal Aftermath

 

Iceland’s special prosecutor has said it may indict as many as 90 people, while more than 200, including the former chief executives at the three biggest banks, face criminal charges.

 

Larus Welding, the former CEO of Glitnir Bank hf, once Iceland’s second biggest, was indicted in December for granting illegal loans and is now waiting to stand trial. The former CEO of Landsbanki Islands hf, Sigurjon Arnason, has endured stints of solitary confinement as his criminal investigation continues.

 

That compares with the U.S., where no top bank executives have faced criminal prosecution for their roles in the subprime mortgage meltdown. The Securities and Exchange Commission said last year it had sanctioned 39 senior officers for conduct related to the housing market meltdown.

 

The U.S. subprime crisis sent home prices plunging 33 percent from a 2006 peak. While households there don’t face the same degree of debt relief as that pushed through in Iceland, President Barack Obama this month proposed plans to expand loan modifications, including some principal reductions.

 

According to Christensen at Danske Bank, “the bottom line is that if households are insolvent, then the banks just have to go along with it, regardless of the interests of the banks.”

 

To contact the reporter on this story: Omar R. Valdimarsson in Reykjavik valdimarsson@bloomberg.net.

 

I applaud the citizens of Iceland. They have shown the world what can be done when the people come together. Of course, they have the advantage of a relatively homogenous population that can agree on a single basic goal, criminal activity should never be rewarded and the good of the people trumps the ‘good’ of the corporate banksters.

Super Pacs…what an abomination!

Thanks to the Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited amounts of money for political campaigns, the Super Pac and another from of corruption was born. I can’t tell you how embarrassed and ashamed I am of this particular development in our development as a nation.

 

The proof is as they say in the pudding. Have you seen these hit pieces on TV? While there maybe some kernel of truth in each one the way in which they are used is just embarrasing. Why can’t politicians and the people rely on factual information and not just sound bytes, especially those funded by a small group of people that have highly specific special interests!

 

Do you really think that these special interest groups that form a Super Pac aren’t expecting some sort of remuneration, perhaps not in cash but the currency of the realm…POWER and the ability to make more cash?

 

The next time you see a Super Pac sponsored commmercial ask yourself, what does this group of people expect to gain by the election of the individual that they support?

 

That these hit pieces have some influence is equally emabarrasing as they reflect upon the intelligence of those thuss influenced. If they weren’t working they would stop this travesty!

 

All parties are to blame, especially the Supreme Court of our country! When will we come to our senses?

 

 

 

 

Gulfstream Affected? Snow in Rome!

After having heard about several scientists that were gulfstream experts I then either lost track or they were not published or interviewed again after the BP well in the Gulf was capped. One of the experts in the gulf stream was an Italian scientist ironically.

 

After seeing the headlines, snow in Rome for 1st time since 1985, I began to wonder if the oil spill from the Macondo well has had an effect on the Gulf stream. Europe depends on the warm water from the stream to help keep things warm over there.

 

I will continue to look for the scientists willing and able to put out decent info in this regard and I will keep you informed.

 

Just sayin…keep thinking and looking for the information. You can be sure that BP and other Governmental agencies will try to suppress any information that supports the theory that the oil spilled has affected the Gulf Stream.

Why the fracking boom in South Texas is raping Texans’ clean water future

In this article by Char Miller from the site KCET.org you will learn more about how fracking is bringing jobs to South Texas in an unprecedented manner with such horrendous underlying, ignored future costs as to be inconceivable.

“You can’t believe the flood of money that’s pouring into San Antonio!”

That’s Steve talking, a close friend and an accountant with his finger on the financial pulse of the nation’s seventh largest city. At a time when many other communities are struggling to make ends meet, the Alamo City seems flush.

The source of this new pelf lies a couple of hours to its south, down I-35 and US 281, deep in the brush country of south Texas. To be more precise, its origins lie thousands of feet below the rolling coastal plain, in the gas-and-oil deposits locked in the Eagle Ford Shale formation; this seam runs beneath more than 20 counties that stretch from the Rio Grande Valley north and east into central Texas.

To tap those resources, major energy companies (and smaller ones, too), are offering upwards of seven-figures for an annual lease, eye-popping dollars for hardscrabble ranchers who in the past have had to take a second or third job just to hold on to their lands, let alone maintain their livestock operations. To that kind of payday, Steve observed, “not many are saying no.”

Ditto for those just seeking a steady paycheck: roughnecks have swelled the population of a town like Alice; or Cotulla, Dilley, Yorktown and Cuero. Once quiet Farm-to-Market roads are jammed with fast-moving drilling rigs, pipe-carrying flatbeds, tankers and shiny pickups. Motels and diners are overwhelmed with business, too, economic activity that has put a lot of money on a lot of tables.
Map courtesy Railroad Commission of Texas

Even in distant San Antonio, which has become the play’s service hub for finance, information technology, infrastructure and transportation. Steve laughed: “Just try renting a truck in town – you can’t do it.”

This being dusty south Texas, there is a lot of grit beneath that glitter. Used to booms and busts, everyone is waiting for this bubble to pop – and it will. When it does it will have predictable impact on now-inflated prices for food, clothing and lodging; the sidewalks and streets will empty out – lots of sorrow after a burst of short-term material gain. Here’s hoping that county governments and tax-dependent school districts, currently reveling in their good fortune, have put some of it into rainy-day funds.

More devastating, because they’ll be more enduring, are the environmental losses that are already putting the region on edge. The Eagle Ford fossil-fuel strike, like so many around the world, is driven by the hydraulic-fracturing technologies. To capture oil and gas buried so far underground, and trapped in dense shale, energy companies are wielding this new tool to blast under high-pressure millions of gallons of water, tons of sand, and a toxic cocktail of chemicals, thereby fracturing the rock and releasing trapped reserves of oil and natural gas; these molecules are then captured and pumped to the surface.

This dynamic system is earning record profits for energy companies like ConocoPhillips and Chesapeake Energy, and service-giant Halliburton, and there is financial trickle down for the localities in which fracking occurs. In 2010, according to a recent report, Eagle Ford has generated an estimated $3 billion in revenue for producers and local governments.

But there is an immediate cost to that gain, as south Texans are beginning to realize: In a region that does not get a lot of precipitation, and whose rivers are more dry than wet, the extensive pumping of local aquifers to be injected into the thousands of hydro-fracking wells are or will soon dot the arid landscape is creating a problem for generations to come.

It is not simply that a single, high-volume injection well can use astonishing amounts of water; or that this sudden rate of pumping – multiplied by the thousands – will be almost impossible to replace given how little rain sweeps over this flat, sandy terrain. Added to these dilemmas is another: This extracted water is laced with chemicals, a toxicity that is difficult to wash out; in some cases disposed of as if it was hazardous waste. Once it’s gone, it is gone.

Painting of a Vaquero in action roping cattle during 1830s Spanish California | Public domain image
Painting of a Vaquero in action roping cattle during 1830s Spanish California | Public domain image

The Spanish would have been stunned by this casual destruction of this essential life-sustaining resource. When its first explorers pushed north out of Mexico to expand its imperial boundaries, they marveled at what one of them called a “fine country with broad plains – the finest in New Spain.” Yet as rich as these grasslands were, the Spanish were not fooled into thinking this was a well-watered environment.

Recognizing, in the words of Texas State University historian Frank de la Teja, that “land was plentiful, water was not,” they constructed a legal regime across northern Mexico and what would become southern Texas that compelled human habitation to adapt to this environmental constraint. Because this “countryside is deserted and sterile,” argued military engineer Agustin de la Camara Alta, because it had negligible surface water, “which is only available in the Rio Bravo [Grande] and Nueces River and a few small watering holes,” the territory was “worthless except for raising cattle.”

Aridity in turn shaped land-owning patterns: For grazing to be successful, Spanish, and later Mexican, officials understood, large acreage was essential. “Richard King and the cattle barons who followed recognized the suitability of many of the adaptations made by rancheros and vaqueros,” writes de la Teja, particularly the definitive power of limited water, making it “the central theme in regional development.”

Nothing has changed since then, argues Hugh Fitzsimmons. A fifth generation rancher in south Texas, and a good friend from when I lived in San Antonio, his family’s spread covers roughly 20-square miles insuring since the mid-nineteenth century that its livestock has had decent access to water. He’s rightly worried, though, that fracking will destroy the fragile balance that his ancestors were able to maintain on this rough ground.

Start with the rapid pumping out of the Carrizo Aquifer, and then couple that with a multi-year, crippling drought: Are south Texas’ ranching days numbered? That’s what’s worrying Hugh, and led him to push back politically. “I have tried to marshal support for limiting the amount of water that can be extracted from the Carrizo,” he wrote me recently, but with little success. “Money is being thrown around like there is no tomorrow, which there certainly will not be if this keeps up.”

Yet the local agency charged with regulating water resources so far has failed to uphold its mission: “our ground water conservation district is so backward that they are still focusing on rain enhancement through cloud seeding. Last month I hired a hydrologist to come down and do a presentation that I hoped would lead to a one-day public workshop/symposium. The board turned it down because they said they did not want to spend taxpayer money on something that no one would attend.”

Local governments across the country have exhibited the same puzzling resistance to protect the public’s health and welfare, from California and Colorado to Pennsylvania and West Virginia; our future water supplies may have a limited future, a hidden cost we are only beginning to appreciate.
At the Dirty Energy Week strategy conference in Durban, South Africa | Photo: Friends of the Earth International/Flickr/Creative Commons License

This pattern is being replicated overseas, too. Ranchers in South Africa, for example, have been confounded by their elected officials’ unwillingness to defend local water resources and thus the livelihoods of those who for a century or more have worked the nation’s arid central region known as Karoo (which means, appropriately enough, “thirsty land”). Shell and other global energy corporations anticipate drilling thousands of hydraulic-fracking wells in the coming years, which may well serve as a death knell to the small communities that dot this flatland. Should Shell’s exploratory wells come up empty, or prove unprofitable, there will be some relieved folks in the South African outback.

South Texas’ resources are already in full development, so its need for relief is more pressing. There are several small, hopeful signs. On February 1, a new law takes effect in Texas: Frackers will be required to identify the specific chemicals used in their injection processes, and they will also have to disclose the exact amount of water they pump. As reported in the New York Times, the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association indicates that fracking wells may use upwards of five million gallons over a three-to-five day span; and at that rate by 2020 the state’s rural counties will be water-stressed. A new website will monitor this new data – fracfocus.org – and if successful it might alter Texas’ deplorable reputation for holding energy companies accountable. For up until now, says Mark A. Engle, a USGS geologist, Texas has ranked “pretty much dead last of any state I’ve worked with for keeping track of that sort of data.”

Another potential bright spot is the use of Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) as a substitute for water as a fracking agent. “My understanding is that there is no danger of cross contamination with LPG and that the recoverability is enhanced also,” Fitzsimmons notes, and then pauses: “the downside is that it is like having an atom bomb in your backyard.”

OK, water is less volatile. How ironic then that the celerity with which energy companies are sucking up it up may detonate the Eagle Ford play prematurely. So worried are wellfield producers that they might run out of water before they have extracted every ounce of oil and gas from this formation that at least one of them has approached the San Antonio Water System to secure more than 6000 acre-feet of recycled water a year; and has agreed to pay all costs associated with transferring this flow to the production sites, netting the water purveyor a tidy annual profit of two million dollars.

If this arrangement comes to pass, it will be yet one more example of how San Antonio will make bank out of the South Texas boom.

Char Miller is the Director and W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona College, and editor of the just-published “Cities and Nature in the American West.” He comments every week on environmental issues.

The State of the nation from an outsider (through a friend of mine). Another interesting perspective.

This morning I received a commentary from a friend about our state of the Nation. It seems that our government is really out of touch.

Here is an excerpt from an article written recently by a financial analyst who recently visited Amersterdam, Holland and Zurich, Switzerland. I find some of his comments about what’s going on here and abroad chilling. Our Republican candidates for president stand up and tell people that they want to give the rest of the world the kind of freedom that we have. Really? Some countries might not want our brand of “freedom.”

“Listening to President Obama’s State of the Union address last week, I was impressed with two things. First, he is still an eloquent speaker who knows exactly what is on the public’s mind. Second, he seems to have become disconnected from their reality and is unable or unwilling to take action in the direction of his analysis of the problems. In fact, his actions are in almost complete opposition to his correct analysis of the problems, time and time again (i.e. his comments about “too much regulation,” yet he is the leader of this “Era of Regulations,” or, “every one should pay their fair share of taxes,” yet 47% of population pay no income tax. A “fair share” would be a flat tax, which would be very unpopular for his support base).

One statement in particular that highlights this awareness occurred when he stated that many people think the USA is in a state of decline, and “… those people don’t know what they are talking about.” Really? Does he not look at the rate of acceleration of the government’s debt? Is he not aware that the debt ceiling is about to be increased $1.2 trillion to $16.4 trillion within days, which – according to Rick Santelli on CNBC – represents a debt of $52,409 for every single person living in the USA? That’s an increase of over 60% just since the end of 2008! Does he not realize that the USA credit worthiness was downgraded for the first time in its history and it is on watch to be downgraded again soon if nothing changes? Does this support the idea that the country is NOT in decline? This is the “debt explosion”. . .). The fuse is lit and it is exploding on his watch.

But more to the point about the disconnect. It is not just between Obama and the American people, but between the government and the people who elected them to serve. Let me share two examples of this disconnection from my recent trip to Zurich and Amsterdam.

At my workshop on Financial Market Timing on Saturday, January 7, in Zurich, I had the privilege of sitting at lunch with three very fine people. One was a Swiss banker. He was there with one of his special clients – one my subscribers, who is a very successful businesswoman with residences in both Switzerland and Vero Beach, Florida. At a certain point, I asked this young banker if he comes often to the United States. “Not anymore. We can’t. Our banks will not let us travel to the USA.”

“Why not?” I asked, for this seemed like a very strange policy for a bank.

“Your country now detains all Swiss bankers who enter the USA. They are asked to give up the names of their American clients so they can be checked to see if they are avoiding payment of taxes in the USA. If we do that, we lose our clients and the bank fires us. If we don’t, your government detains us for several weeks, months, even years. Therefore none of us, as Swiss bankers, can travel to the USA at this time.” You see, it is a violation of Swiss banking laws of confidentiality to reveal their clients to anyone. At the same time, the USA now has a policy where banks from other nations cannot conduct business in the USA unless they reveal the identities of all of their USA clients. As a comparison, imagine that you are a doctor, lawyer. . . psychologist, and someone from law enforcement asks you to reveal confidential information about one of your clients, under threat of detainment or even incarceration. What do you do? What does your employer do if he/she knows you will be put into such a compromising situation?

Two weeks later, after the mini-symposium on “Forecast 2012” in Amsterdam on Saturday, January 21, I had another experience that would surprise many USA citizens, and again demonstrates the disconnect that has subtly evolved between the government and the people it serves. After the very successful mini-Congress, the organizer – Irma Schogt of Schogt Market Timing – invited two other symposia participants and myself to dinner at a well-known French restaurant. We split a fine bottle of wine. We had dessert, and then left to take me back to my apartment. As we drove along the main thoroughfare, the traffic was diverted to the right of the road. We were in a queue. Irma, the driver, said this diversion was for drivers to be given a breath-alyzer test for alcohol. This is what they do at this hour on Saturday night in Amsterdam. It is an “agreement” between the people and the police. No one wants people driving who are drunk and may be a threat to the safety of others. After a few minutes, it was time for Irma to take the breath-alyzer. I was nervous, because I know what happens in the USA if you are pulled over and found to have a blood alcohol limit that is ”too high.” But Irma passed the test just fine.

“What would have happened if you had failed, Irma?” I asked.

“They would have pulled me over and asked me to step out of the car and go eat or walk, or do something, and then come back and take it again until I was under the limit for safety.”

I am thinking. “This isn’t real.” But it was and it is. In Amsterdam, the focus is on prevention of problems via cooperation between the people and its government to provide safety for its people. It is a quite different relationship here in the USA.

Why and how have we become so disconnected from our government, or vice-versa? Why is it that the rest of the world is living our dream, the dream of our founding fathers for a cooperation between the government and the people who elect it to serve? Are we losing touch with this aspect of our national character? Is it true that we are not in a state of decline from these founding principles, as President Obama stated? Can we ever get it back? Answer me that!”

Big ag players like Monsanto increase their pressure on government to deregulate

As the biotech industry continues to spread its insidious tentacles into our entire food production system, it becomes more and more apparent just how weak our government is becoming and just how unwilling, unable or downright paid off they are.
This article below by Mike Ludwig from Truthout goes into more detail on the subject.

For years, biotech agriculture opponents have accused regulators of working too closely with big biotech firms when deregulating genetically engineered (GE) crops. Now, their worst fears could be coming true: under a new two-year pilot program at the USDA, regulators are training the world’s biggest biotech firms, including Monsanto, BASF and Syngenta, to conduct environmental reviews of their own transgenic seed products as part of the government’s deregulation process.

This would eliminate a critical level of oversight for the production of GE crops. Regulators are also testing new cost-sharing agreements that allow biotech firms to help pay private contractors to prepare mandatory environmental statements on GE plants the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considering deregulating.

The USDA launched the pilot project in April and, in November, the USDA announced vague plans to “streamline” the deregulation petition process for GE organisms. A USDA spokesperson said the streamlining effort is not part of the pilot project, but both efforts appear to address a backlog of pending GE crop deregulation petitions that has angered big biotech firms seeking to rollout new products.

Documents obtained by Truthout under a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request reveal that biotech companies, lawmakers and industry groups have put mounting pressure on the USDA in recent years to speed up the petition process, limit environmental impact assessments and approve more GE crops. One group went as far as sending USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack a timeline of GE soybean development that reads like a deregulation wish list. [Click here to download and read some of the documents released to Truthout.]

The pilot program is named the NEPA Pilot Project, after the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which mandates that agencies prepare statements on the potential environmental impacts of proposed actions by the federal government, such as deregulating transgenic plants. On July 14, USDA officials held a training workshop to help representatives from biotech firms (see a full list here) to understand the NEPA process and prepare Environmental Reports on biotech products they have petitioned the USDA to deregulate.

Regulators can now independently review the Environmental Reports and can use them to prepare their own legally mandated reviews, instead of simply reviewing the company’s petitions for deregulation. The pilot project aims to speed up the deregulation process by allowing petitioning companies to do some of the legwork and help pay contractors to prepare regulatory documents and, for its part, the USDA has kept the pilot fairly transparent. A list of 22 biotech seeds that could be reviewed under the pilot program includes Monsanto drought-tolerant corn, a “non-browning” apple, freeze tolerant eucalyptus trees and several crops engineered to tolerate the controversial herbicides glyphosate and 2,4 D.

Activists say biotech firms like Monsanto are concerned only with profit and routinely supply regulators with one-sided information on the risks their GE seeds – and the pesticides sprayed on and produced by them – pose to consumers, animals and the agricultural environment. (The Natural Society recently declared Monsanto the worst company of 2011.) Bill Freese, a policy expert with the Center for Food Safety (CFS), told Truthout that the NEPA pilot gives already powerful biotech companies too much influence over the review process.

“It’s the equivalent of letting BP do their own Environmental Assessment of a new rig,” Freese said.

Monsanto Goes to Court

Freese and the Center for Food Safety have been on the frontlines of the battle to reform the USDA’s regulatory approval process for GE crops. The group was a plaintiff in recent lawsuits challenging the deregulation – which basically means approval for planting without oversight – of Monsanto’s patented alfalfa and sugar beets that are genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide. Farmers can spray entire fields of Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” crops with Roundup to kill unwanted weeds while sparing the GE crops, but in recent years, some weeds have developed a tolerance to glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient. The cases kept the crops out of America’s fields for years and prompted biotech companies to put heavy pressure on top USDA officials to streamline and speed up the deregulation process, practically setting the stage for the NEPA pilot underway today.

Under NEPA, agencies like the USDA must prepare an Environmental Assessment (EA) to determine if the proposed action, such as deregulating a transgenic organism, would have an impact on the environment. If some type of significant impact is likely, the agency must then prepare a more in-depth Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to explore potential impacts and alternative actions. NEPA requires an EIS for actions “significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.” Preparing a full impact statement for a biotech plant implies the government does not think GE crops are safe and the biotech industry has routinely butted heads with environmentalists while attempting to convince regulators and consumers otherwise. In the Monsanto beets and alfalfa cases, the CFS and other plaintiffs argued that the USDA should have prepared an EIS, not just a simple EA, before deregulating both Monsanto crops.

In the alfalfa case, the CFS and its co-plaintiffs claimed the crop could have significant impacts by crossbreeding and contaminating conventional and organic alfalfa with transgenes. They also argued the crop would increase the use of herbicides and promote the spread of herbicide-tolerant weeds known as “super weeds.” A federal district court agreed and vacated the USDA’s original approval, halting plantings across the country. Monsanto challenged the decision and the alfalfa case landed in the Supreme Court in 2010. The high court overturned an injunction preventing farmers from planting the alfalfa, but also ordered the USDA to prepare an EIS and issue another deregulation decision. The sugar beet case ended in similar fashion and the USDA recently released a draft EIS on the crop, which is expected to be deregulated in early 2012.

Monsanto won the right to sell its GE alfalfa seed in February 2011, but the lengthy and expensive legal battle captured the attention of food lovers and agriculturalists across the country. Americans debated the potential dangers of GE crops and the merits of the regulatory system that is supposed to protect farmers and consumers. As documents unearthed by a Truthout FOIA request reveal, the biotech industry did not sit idly by as activists challenged the regulatory status quo.

Mounting Pressure

The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) is a powerful group that represents dozens of biotech companies such as Monsanto, BASF and Bayer, and has spent more than $67 million lobbying Congress since 2000. In April 2010, BIO sent a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack as the Monsanto alfalfa case made its way through the courts. BIO warned Vilsack that the American biotech agriculture industry could be crippled if the legal precedents required the USDA to prepare an EIS for every GE crop up for deregulation:

With 19 deregulation petitions pending with more on the way, requiring an EIS for each product would amount to a de facto moratorium on commercialization and would send an unprecedented message that USDA believes that these products do have an environmental impact, when in fact most do not. Any suggestion by USDA that biotechnology plants as a category are likely to cause significant adverse effects on the quality of the human environment (i.e., require an EIS) would make approvals by other trading partners virtually impossible …

BIO claimed that such a policy would be an “over-reaction to the current judicial decisions” and would threaten America’s economic dominance in the agricultural biotechnology market. Such a policy, BIO representatives stated, would send a message to European countries that American regulators believe GE crops impact the environment, making approvals of GE crops by the European Union “virtually impossible” and allowing “Brazil and China to surpass the United States as world leaders in biotechnology.” BIO also claimed that more rigorous assessments would “undercut” positions consistently take by the Obama and Bush administrations on the safety of biotech agriculture.

Vilsack received similar letters requesting the USDA continue relying on EAs instead of EISs to deregulate GE crops from the Americas Soybean Association and the American Seed Trade Association. Both groups worried that an increase in oversight – precipitated by the more in-depth impact evaluation – could back up approvals for years. The soybean association included in its letter a pipeline chart of 25 GE soybean varieties it “expected” to be approved for commercialization within a decade.

A policy requiring an EIS for every GE seed is exactly what critics of Monsanto and the rest of the industry have spent years fighting for. Unlike the industry, they believe the herbicides that blanket GE crops and the potential for transgenic contamination are potential threats to the agricultural environment and human health.

Vilsack wrote a steady-handed reply to each trade group, reassuring them that the NEPA policy would not change and the USDA would continue preparing an EA for new GE seeds and an EIS only when necessary. Vilsack also wrote that he was “pleased” to recently meet with biotech industry representatives and “discuss improving the efficiency of the biotechnology regulatory process.” Such improvements, he wrote, are “directly related” to the USDA’s “objective of ensuring the United State leads the world in sustainable crop production and biotech crop exports.” He took the opportunity to announce that the USDA would reorganize the Biotechnology Regulatory Services agency and create a new NEPA team “dedicated to creating high quality and defensible documents to better inform our regulatory decisions.” This new NEPA team would go on to develop the NEPA Pilot Project and begin streamlining the approval process.

To Freese, it appears that Vilsack used to the word “defensible” in reference to legal challenges like the ones his group made to Monsanto alfalfa and sugar beets. “Their whole focus is on ‘defensible’ Environmental Assessments,” Freese said after reading the letters. “From our perspective, that’s the wrong goal … it presumes the crop is going to be approved.”

Freese said the correspondence between Vilsack and the industry groups highlights the need for a culture change at the USDA. Regulators should be concerned about the safety of new GE products, not ensuring American exports compete with Brazil and China.

“It should be all about doing good assessments and making sure the crops that are approved are safe,” Freese said.

A USDA spokesperson declined to comment when asked if the agency would like to respond to criticisms of the NEPA Pilot Project and said updates on the project will be made available online.

Watchdogs like Freese know that regulators already work closely with the industry and the NEPA Pilot Project could simply make their work more efficient. Regulators already rely heavily on data provided by private contractors and by biotech companies to prepare EAs. During the Monsanto alfalfa case, internal emails between regulators and Monsanto officials surfaced and revealed the company worked closely with regulators to edit its original petition to deregulate the alfalfa. One regulator even accepted Monsanto’s help in conducting the USDA’s original EA of the GE alfalfa before it was initially approved in 2005.

Genetically engineered and modified crops continue to cause controversy across the globe, but in America they are a fact of life. The Obama and Bush administrations have actively promoted biotech agriculture both at home and abroad. Countries like China, Argentina and Brazil have also embraced biotech agriculture. Regulators in European countries – including crucial trade partners like France and Spain – have been much more cautious and, in some cases, even hostile toward the industry. GE crops are banned in Hungary and Peru, and earlier this year officials in Hungary destroyed 1,000 acres of corn containing Monsanto transgenes. The US, however, continues to allow big biotech companies to cultivate considerable power and influence and, as the letters uncovered by FOIA reveal, top regulators are ready to meet their demands.

“The USDA regards its own regulatory system as a rubber stamp,” Freese said after reading the letters. “At least at the upper levels, there’s always been this presumption that [GE crops] must be approved.”

~~~~~

How one entrepreneur is fighting back against government stupidity!

Have you ever felt that there are just way too many rules facing us as we try to run our businesses? This video talks about why stupid government regulations stifle business and how one guy is fighting back

How media manipulation destroys the fabric of our country and world

In this fast paced world where many are struggling to keep their heads above financial tsunamis, destructive natural phenomenae and social distress, time is becoming an ever more precious commodity and so many rely on newsflashes to form their opinions and even to vote. We have been trained to believe what those in authority are telling us, even if the implications are dire for us and the very fabric of our existence. In this featured video it becomes plain and apparent that those who control mainstream media in fact support those who stand to gain from whipping up we the people into believing their deadly charade.

What chemicals are contributing to making us fat?

No matter how much you try, does it seem harder and harder to keep weight off. Well part of the reason is that we are exposed to so many chemicals on a regular basis.

In her book ‘The 21st Century is Making you Fat’ former Ecologist Editor Pat Thomas details the full range of industrial and everyday chemicals known to encourage us to get fat

Organochlorines
Include the pesticides DDT, chlordane, aldrin, dieldrin and heptachlor and the now banned industrial lubricants PCBs, as well as dioxins and chlorophenols. High levels of organochlorines have been found to alter metabolism in the body and essentially stop us losing fat.

Organophosphates
Organophosphate pesticides, such as malathion, dursban, diazinon and carbonates, constitute 40 per cent of all pesticides used. These chemicals are mainly utilised inside buildings, as opposed to in agriculture. They are neurotoxic (harmful to nerve tissue) and hormone-disrupting.

Carbamates
Including aldicarb, bendiocarb, carbaryl, propoxur and thiophanate methyl, carbamates are used extensively in agriculture, forestry and gardening. They are suspected hormone-disrupters.

Organotins
These include tributyltin (TBT) and the mono- and dibutyltins (MBT, DBT). These chemicals have many applications, including as stabilizers in PVC, catalysts in chemical reactions. They are also found in glass coatings, agricultural pesticides, biocides in marine anti-foulant paints and wood treatments and preservatives. Organotins are damaging to the thyroid and immune system and potential hormone-disrupters.

Bisphenol-A (BPA)
An oestrogen mimic used to make clear, hard, reusable plastic products; it is also used in the manufacture of polymers, fungicides, antioxidants, dyes, polyester resins, flame-retardants and rubber chemicals, and some dental resins.

Phthalates
Hormone-disrupting chemicals, these are produced in large volumes and are commonly detected in ground water, rivers and drinking water, as well as in meat and dairy products. Around 95 per cent of phthalate production over the last few decades has been tied to the PVC industry. Phthalates can be found in many plastics and consumer products – everything from hair spray and nail varnish to plastic water bottles and T-shirts.

Polybrominated flame-retardants
These are added to many products, including computers, TVs and household textiles to reduce fire risk. They are also found in baby mattresses, foam mattresses, car seats and PVC products. Office workers who use computers, hospital cleaners and workers in electronics-dismantling plants are at particular risk from these chemicals. Polybrominated flame-retardants are oestrogen mimics and can also affect the thyroid.

Benzo[a]pyrene
A common food pollutant that belongs to a family of chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). It is derived from coal tar and enters the atmosphere as a result of incomplete combustion of fossil fuels. In animals it has been shown to cause weight gain in the absence of any detectable change in food intake. It is possible that other PAHs may have a similar effect.

Solvents
Neurotoxic chemicals that include xylene, dichlorobenzene, ethylphenol, styrene, toluene, acetone and trichloroethane are commonly found in human blood samples. They are necessary for a wide range of industrial processes and are found widely in adhesives, glues, cleaning fluids, felt-tip pens, perfumes, paints, varnishes, pesticides, petrol, household cleaners and waxes.

Cadmium
This is principally used as a protective plating for steel, in electrode material in nickel-cadmium batteries and as a component of various alloys. It is also present in phosphate fertilizers, fungicides and pesticides. Cadmium in the soil is taken up through the roots of plants and distributed to edible leaves, fruits and seeds, and is eventually passed on to humans and other animals, where it can build up in milk and fatty tissues. Cadmium is neurotoxic and a potential hormone-disrupter.

Lead
Professions that put their employees at risk of exposure to this neurotoxin include lead-smelting, -refining and -manufacturing industries, brass/bronze foundries, the rubber and plastics industries, steel-welding and -cutting operations, and battery manufacturing plants. Construction workers and people who work in municipal waste incinerators, in the pottery and ceramics industries, radiator-repair shops and other industries that use lead solder may also be among high-exposure groups.

They have done it before and they will do it again, We must take back our rights and stand up for them.

You may have heard my interview with Susan Lindauer. You most likely know about the Patriot act and Guantanamo bay. Perhaps fewer of you know about Americans that go missing when they denounce tyranny or invent technologies that threaten the corporate interests that pull most of the strings in Washington. The truth is they have been at the tyranny of manipulation and false detentions for a long time. Take a look at the article below to learn more of what happened to some protesting Americans some 65 plus years ago.

During World War II, many Japanese Americans were placed into internment camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. All along the Pacific Coast, 112,000 men, women and children of Japanese descent were forced from their homes and placed in “safe” places.

A few people designated for these camps protested and were placed in prison.

Gordon Hirabayashi was one of these.

In 1942, he was a senior at the University of Washington in Seattle. He refused a curfew set for Japanese Americans and did not board a relocation bus. His siblings and parents did, but he missed the last bus out of Seattle that would take him to one of the remote locations where the Japanese Americans were being placed for the duration of the War.

Gordon realized he did not agree with the curfew and subsequent internment. He wrote the now famous protest to the internment. “This order for the mass evacuation of all persons of Japanese descent denies them the right to live. I consider it my duty to maintain the democratic standards for which this nation lives. Therefore, I must refuse this order of evacuation.”

According to a newsletter from the University of Washington, Hirabayashi didn’t set out to be a rebel. He was prepared to go on the last bus, but then realized he had rights. He knew his parents were not eligible for naturalization, but he was born in America, and therefore as an American citizen, had rights. He said at the time “I didn’t think anything could happen to us. We were in for a rude awakening.”

According to the Associated Press, he fought a legal battle with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union. “When the case got to the federal courts I thought I might win it, since the primary goal of federal judges was to uphold the Constitution,” he said. “But the judge told the jury, ‘You heard the defense talking about defending the Constitution. That’s irrelevant. The issue is the executive order that the military issued.’ Under those circumstances, the jury came back very fast.”

He was jailed for two years, and finally exonerated in 1997 when a federal court finally issued a wrongly convicted ruling.

Hirabayashi eventually finished his education at the UW, earned his doctorate and taught sociology in Alberta and Edmonton, Canada until he retired. He died on January 2nd at the age of 93.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/internment-camp-civil-rights-rebel-gordon-hirabayashi-dies-at-93.html#ixzz1j6sWLxEd

Next Page »