avmoor

Another piece of counterintuitive FUBAR?

Why sure! There's nothing worse for commerce in a Democracy than people knowing too much about what they might ingest and what manner of toxins have been added to fatten the profits.

From the page:

"Buyer Beware. At the end of September, the USDA quietly halted a program called the Agricultural Chemical Usage Program. The program's purpose was to measure pesticide use in fruit and vegetable crops. Data from the program was widely used by the EPA to set allowable pesticide levels and also by university researchers and other groups that help farmers minimize the amount of pesticides they apply to their crops.

The reason cited for the move was cost. I don't know about you, but $8 million a year seems a small price to pay for safer food."

Like it or not, Intelligence, either human or animal implies innate senses of equity, justice and co-operation.

So can someone explain why so many political wankers of the berserker all-against-all stripe can't cope with the idea?

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"Dogs are prone to bouts of envy and refuse to play if they are not treated fairly, scientists have found.

The animals stopped cooperating with researchers and began to show signs of distress if they were not offered the same tasty rewards given to other dogs, the study showed.

Affronted dogs refused to offer their paws when invited to and began scratching and yawning, indicating that their stress levels were rising, the scientists report.

The finding suggests that dogs may share the sense of fairness seen in other social animals that engage in cooperative behaviour, such as monkeys.
Some scientists believe a sense of justice could be crucial for social animals and may have played a role in the evolution of cooperation."

Senior management sang itself to sleep with happy-faced sophistry and now we discover why the Deregulation Panacea, The New World Order, Globalization, Free Trade, and so on, might be in the wrong hands to ever succeed together.

The extent conflicts of interest reigned now seem glaring and obvious but to the participants it was business as usual? More of this we don't need - but doubtless more is on the way.

From the page:

"Normally, a big bank would never allow the word of just one executive to carry so much weight. Instead, it would have its risk managers aggressively look over any shoulder and guard against trading or lending excesses.

But many Citigroup insiders say the bank's risk managers never investigated deeply enough. Because of longstanding ties that clouded their judgment, the very people charged with overseeing deal makers eager to increase short-term earnings -- and executives' multimillion-dollar bonuses -- failed to rein them in, these insiders say.

Today, Citigroup, once the nation's largest and mightiest financial institution, has been brought to its knees by more than $65 billion in losses, write-downs for troubled assets and charges to account for future losses. More than half of that amount stems from mortgage-related securities created by Mr. Maheras's team -- the same products Mr. Prince was briefed on during that 2007 meeting.

Citigroup's stock has plummeted to its lowest price in more than a decade, closing Friday at $3.77. At that price the company is worth just $20.5 billion, down from $244 billion two years ago. Waves of layoffs have accompanied that slide, with about 75,000 jobs already gone or set to disappear from a work force that numbered about 375,000 a year ago."

Bankrupt?

You mean heading for a mild recession, right?

Thank heavens only the Financial Times believes this might be the case.

Oh... Wait... They know stuff.

From the page:

"First take a deep breath, and recall President Franklin Roosevelt's wise advice that there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

Then let's admit something painful: The United States is bankrupt, in the sense that it's assets (housing stock, corporations and cash flow, plant and machinery) are now worth much less than its liabilities (in the form of mortgage-backed securities, other debt and loan instruments). In particular, large parts of the housing stock are now worth much less than the owners paid for them, and less than the outstanding value of the mortgages, or the collateralised bonds that have been issued against them."

This is a two page article dense with the geopolitics of rivalry over oil.

The underlying theme is bungling of international relations. Even former Republican Secretaries of State, Kissinger and Schulz are alarmed at how easily the entire Caucasus region and its vast resources now could be lost. Thus amplifying Russia's growing wealth and power.

Beijing too will be weighing its international options differently as the US juggernaut gyrates and staggers.

The neo-cons have succeeded in wiping out pension plans, killing investment, killing any hope of socialized medicine, killing retirement plans, the housing market and so on - but what has been done even more carelessly is to chase oil hegemony militarily - and fail

From the page:

"Evidently, Washington is barely keeping pace with the Russian diplomacy. To make matters worse, the financial crisis at home has eroded US credibility. An entire ideology of economic development that US diplomats propagated in the region stands discredited.

There is huge political symbolism when Iceland expresses "disappointment" with the Western world and turns to Moscow for a 4 billion euro (US$5.5 billion) loan to salvage its economy from imminent bankruptcy. Such images make a lasting impression on the Central Asian steppes. "

This is not good news. If the oil exporting countries decide to do the same what will be the desired currency, the Euro? And if India and China want more for their products too?

Good luck! We';ll be living in yurts, real soon.

From the page:

"Brazil and Argentina have launched a new payment system in their bilateral trade, doing away with the US dollar as a medium of exchange.

The two Latin American nations started the Payment System on Local Currency (SML) on Monday following a last month agreement inked by their presidents to use local currencies in a bid to end transaction in dollars.

On Thursday, Argentine Central Bank President Martin Redrado and his Brazilian counterpart Henrique de Campos Meirelles signed the enforcement of the agreement for the SML, under which exports and imports between the two countries will take place with the Brazilian real (BRL) and the Argentine peso (ARS).

The new monetary system mainly favors small and medium industries in both countries because it will save them bank charges when averting their local currencies to dollars."

Does anyone seriously still believe that electronic voting is anything but an invitation to electoral fraud? Ohio's Secretary of State claims the results of e-voting made her ill.

Why not consider the obvious medicine to purge the problem - stop farting about with testing to see how many ways the game can be rigged and ban e-voting right now.

End of problem. End of voter mistrust.

From the page:

"Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner will be under the national spotlight next month, overseeing what's expected to be the state's largest-ever turnout for a presidential election. It will also be her first as the state's chief election official.

The stakes will be just as high as they were for her Republican predecessor, J. Kenneth Blackwell, four years ago, when the narrowly decided state election was marred by charges of questionable results and complaints that some residents, largely in minority areas, were forced to wait hours to cast their votes."