Archive for the ‘Capitalism & Corporations’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Global trade slumped 12% last year

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

– Cheer up, folks.   12%’s not much – it’s just a flesh wound, really.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Global trade flows contracted by a catastrophic 12% in 2009, the fastest pace since the second world war, Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organisation revealed today, as he urged its 153 member countries to breathe new life into the ailing Doha trade round.

This latest estimate is considerably worse than the WTO’s previous forecast of a 10% decline for last year, underlining the hefty costs of the financial crisis for the world economy.

Lamy said there were early signs that trade was now recovering, but it was not yet clear whether the upturn would last. “Certainly there is a pick-up. Whether this pick-up is short term … or whether this is sustainable … is difficult to say but we certainly are picking up.”

In the early phases of the credit crunch in 2008, there was hope that the worst of its effects would be confined to the US and other major economies, with emerging markets such as China and India escaping unscathed.

But after confidence collapsed in the wake of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in late 2008, policymakers throughout the world watched in horror as demand plunged in every market.

Bank of England governor Mervyn King subsequently described how one company after another in the UK reported that demand had “fallen off a cliff”.

“The main explanation for this freefall in trade has been the simultaneous reduction in aggregate demand across all major world economies,” Lamy told a conference in Brussels.

More… ➡

– hat tip to Cryptogon

Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Financial melt-down, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Ranking 37th — Measuring the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

– A quote from the article, below:

Despite the claim by many in the U.S. health policy community that international comparison is not useful because of the uniqueness of the United States, the rankings have figured prominently in many arenas. It is hard to ignore that in 2006, the United States was number 1 in terms of health care spending per capita but ranked 39th for infant mortality, 43rd for adult female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortality, and 36th for life expectancy. These facts have fueled a question now being discussed in academic circles, as well as by government and the public: Why do we spend so much to get so little?

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Evidence that other countries perform better than the United States in ensuring the health of their populations is a sure prod to the reformist impulse. The World Health Report 2000, Health Systems: Improving Performance, ranked the U.S. health care system 37th in the world1 — a result that has been discussed frequently during the current debate on U.S. health care reform.

The conceptual framework underlying the rankings2 proposed that health systems should be assessed by comparing the extent to which investments in public health and medical care were contributing to critical social objectives: improving health, reducing health disparities, protecting households from impoverishment due to medical expenses, and providing responsive services that respect the dignity of patients. Despite the limitations of the available data, those who compiled the report undertook the task of applying this framework to a quantitative assessment of the performance of 191 national health care systems. These comparisons prompted extensive media coverage and political debate in many countries. In some, such as Mexico, they catalyzed the enactment of far-reaching reforms aimed at achieving universal health coverage. The comparative analysis of performance also triggered intense academic debate, which led to proposals for better performance assessment.

Despite the claim by many in the U.S. health policy community that international comparison is not useful because of the uniqueness of the United States, the rankings have figured prominently in many arenas. It is hard to ignore that in 2006, the United States was number 1 in terms of health care spending per capita but ranked 39th for infant mortality, 43rd for adult female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortality, and 36th for life expectancy.3 These facts have fueled a question now being discussed in academic circles, as well as by government and the public: Why do we spend so much to get so little?

Comparisons also reveal that the United States is falling farther behind each year (see graph). In 1974, mortality among boys and men 15 to 60 years of age was nearly the same in Australia and the United States and was one third lower in Sweden. Every year since 1974, the rate of death decreased more in Australia than it did in the United States, and in 2006, Australia’s rate dipped lower than Sweden’s and was 40% lower than the U.S. rate. There are no published studies investigating the combination of policies and programs that might account for the marked progress in Australia. But the comparison makes clear that U.S. performance not only is poor at any given moment but also is improving much more slowly than that of other countries over time. These observations and the reflections they should trigger are made possible only by careful comparative quantification of various facets of health care systems.

More… ➡

Tags:,
Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Financial melt-down, Human Rights, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Waxman Launches Probe Into Blue Cross’ Massive California Rate Increases

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

– Good luck, Congressman Waxman.  These bastards know what they are doing.  They can grind the American public for whatever they want.  Who’s going to stop them?   The U.S. Government?   Yeah, right.   It’s the U.S. Supreme Court that just gave corporations the power to buy elections wholesale.  Does anyone really imagine that that the big corporate insurance companies are NOT going to optimize their profits when they know there’s nothing to stop them?

– Corporations exist, after all, for one purpose – to maximize the returns for their shareholders.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce, launched an investigation Tuesday into massive rate increases Anthem Blue Cross intends to impose on as many as 800,000 California customers beginning March 1.

Waxman (D-California) and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Bart Stupak (D-Michigan) sent a letter Tuesday to Angela F. Braly, chief executive of Blue Cross parent company WellPoint, asking her to voluntarily testify before the subcommittee February 24 and provide “a detailed explanation of the reasons for the premium rate increase proposed by Blue Cross in California.”

Last week, The Los Angeles Times reported that Anthem Blue Cross, California’s largest for-profit insurance provider, planned to hike individual insurance premiums by as much as 39 percent. California state officials and the Obama administration have called on Anthem Blue Cross and WellPoint executives to justify the rate hikes, noting that the parent corporation saw its profits skyrocket last year.

More… ➡

Tags:
Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Human Rights, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

February 19 2010: A thousand miles behind

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

– And people wonder why I’ve moved to New Zealand and write a Blog.   Jeez.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Ilargi: When on any given morning you see consecutive headlines that read

  1. “US bank lending falls at the fastest rate in history”,
  2. “Lending to British businesses falls at record pace”,
  3. “UK mortgage lending falls to 10-year low “,
  4. ”Shock as British deficit equals that of Greece” and
  5. “Britain posts first deficit for January since records began”

is your first thought that the economic recovery is nicely on pace? If so, perhaps a Tiger Woods press-op is more your thing.

How about we add this one:

    “Fed raises interest rate on emergency loans to banks”

Think perhaps that would switch on the light?

See, what those headlines tell us is that the spigots on the private sector are not just closed, they’re still tightening ever more. While at the same time, government debt keeps rising. There can be only one conclusion. The only thing that lets our economies continue to exude a semblance of normality is the dwindling rests of our own remaining wealth, and we are not only not adding any, we are spending what is left, and fast. Our governments, eager to stay in power and remain wealthy, keep us thinking we’re doing just fine, borrow enormous amounts of money in world markets that is not used for any sort of recovery, but instead to pay for the debts of a small group of people who gained access to our full faith and credit by buying the representatives we elect.

And once the Federal Reserve starts raising interest rates, while simultaneously drawing down its purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, we will come to understand that we have been living in a soapbubble of our own making, built at the expense of many trillions of dollars and that this bubble is about to pop. That is true in the US as it is in the UK, and all the attention presently squandered on Greece and Ireland is but a trick to make us look the other way for a little bit longer, until everything of value has been stripped from around us and we can wake up one day to find all support and stimulus measures vanished into thin air, a bad moon rising, and a cold wind blowing through the cracks of our unheated MacMansions, with no gas stations able to supply us with the fuel to get out and get away.

More… ➡

Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Financial melt-down, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

What Are We Bid for American Justice?

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

by: Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

That famous definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing has come to define this present moment of American politics.

No wonder people have lost faith in politicians, in parties and in our leadership. The power of money drives cynicism deep into the heart of every level of government. Everything – and everyone – comes with a price tag attached: from a seat at the table in the White House to a seat in Congress to the fate of health care reform, our environment and efforts to restrain Wall Street’s greed and prevent another financial catastrophe.

Our government is not broken; it’s been bought out from under us, and on the right and the left and smack across the vast middle more and more Americans doubt representative democracy can survive the corruption of money.

Last month, the Supreme Court carried cynicism to new heights with its decision in the Citizens United case. Spun from a legal dispute over the airing on a pay-per-view channel of a right-wing documentary attacking Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential primaries, the decision could have been made very narrowly. Instead, the conservative majority of five judges issued a sweeping opinion that greatly expands corporate power over our politics.

Never mind that in at least two separate polls an overwhelming majority of Americans from both political parties say they want no part of the court’s decision; they want even more limits on the power of money in elections. But candidates and their campaign consultants are gearing up to exploit the court’s gift in the fall elections.

More… ➡

Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Human Rights, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Lobbying Firm Advising Corporate Clients How to Take Advantage of Campaign Finance Ruling

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

A month after the Citizens United ruling, corporations are considering how to take advantage of their newfound ability to advocate directly for federal candidates, as indicated in a memo drafted by K&L Gates, a top Washington lobbying firm.

The memo, originally revealed in Talking Points Memo, explains how corporations can avoid “public scrutiny” and potentially damaging disclosures by funneling the money through lobbying groups or “trade associations.” K&L Gates is a massive law firm with revenues of over $1 billion per year, and their many international clients could have an interest in how the ruling affects their ability to influence American elections.

More… ➡

Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Human Rights, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Shrimp’s Dirty Secrets: Why America’s Favorite Seafood Is a Health and Environmental Nightmare

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

– Not my first post on this subject.  See: ➡ also.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

The environmental impact of shrimp can be horrific. But most Americans don’t know where their shrimp comes from or what’s in it.

Americans love their shrimp. It’s the most popular seafood in the country, but unfortunately much of the shrimp we eat are a cocktail of chemicals, harvested at the expense of one of the world’s productive ecosystems. Worse, guidelines for finding some kind of “sustainable shrimp” are so far nonexistent.

In his book, Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood, Taras Grescoe paints a repulsive picture of how shrimp are farmed in one region of India. The shrimp pond preparation begins with urea, superphosphate, and diesel, then progresses to the use of piscicides (fish-killing chemicals like chlorine and rotenone), pesticides and antibiotics (including some that are banned in the U.S.), and ends by treating the shrimp with sodium tripolyphosphate (a suspected neurotoxicant), Borax, and occasionally caustic soda.

Upon arrival in the U.S., few if any, are inspected by the FDA, and when researchers have examined imported ready-to-eat shrimp, they found 162 separate species of bacteria with resistance to 10 different antibiotics. And yet, as of 2008, Americans are eating 4.1 pounds of shrimp apiece each year — significantly more than the 2.8 pounds per year we each ate of the second most popular seafood, canned tuna. But what are we actually eating without knowing it? And is it worth the price — both to our health and the environment?

More… ➡

– Research thanks to Michael M.

Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Human Rights, Mental Irrationality, Pollution, The Perfect Storm | 1 Comment »

Best Healthcare in the World, Baby

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

California may be a bellwether for the rest of nation, but apparently it doesn’t take long for the rest of the nation to catch up these days:

Consumers in at least four states who buy their own health insurance are getting hit with premium increases of 15 percent or more — and people in other states could see the same thing.

….The Anthem Blue Cross plan in Maine is asking for increases of about 23 percent this year for some individual policyholders. Last year, they raised rates up to 32 percent. And in Oregon, multiple insurers were granted rate hikes of 15 percent or more this year after increases of around 25 percent last year for customers who purchase individual health insurance, rather than getting it through their employer.

….”You’re going to see rate increases of 20, 25, 30 percent” for individual health policies in the near term, Sandy Praeger, chairwoman of the health insurance and managed care committee for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, predicted Friday.

More… ➡

Tags:,
Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Financial melt-down, Human Rights, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

The world according to ExxonMobil

Monday, February 15th, 2010

– The big insurance companies like Lloyd’s of London have a vested interest in getting their analyses right as they have big money riding on their predictive skills.

– One might argue that a company like Exxon might have a greater interest in ‘spinning’ their analyses.  But, they have to get it right with the version they’re using behind closed doors.   Here’s what they are publicly saying.   Makes for interesting reading.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

ExxonMobil – known as the world’s largest, most efficient, and most profitable oil company – has its own distinctive way of looking at the world. In its starkly realistic annual “Outlook for Energy”, it concludes that until 2030: CO2 emissions will continue to grow, fossil fuels will continue to dominate energy supply, and solar power, electric cars and carbon capture & storage will not become cost-competitive. But the company is not without idealism: it believes in the power of efficiency, dreams of turning algae into oil and favours a carbon tax over a cap-and-trade policy.

Todd Onderdonk, Senior Energy Adviser at ExxonMobil

Every year, energy giant ExxonMobil presents its own “Outlook for Energy”, its view of the world’s energy future until 2030. Although ExxonMobil’s outlook is based on essentially the same historical data as similar “outlook” reports from the International Energy Agency in Paris and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in Washington, it offers in many ways a different – and fascinating – perspective on the world. It may well be – although this is something no one can say for sure – a more realistic, anticipatory vision than the one offered by the “official” energy institutions.

Todd W. Onderdonk, Senior Energy Adviser in ExxonMobil’s Corporate Strategic Planning Department, and one of the main authors of the “Outlook for Energy”, explains the uniqueness of ExxonMobil’s report as follows: ‘The energy outlooks of some key government institutions typically reflect a set of certain policy assumptions, which help provide a wide bracket of possible outcomes rather than a forecast of what is likely to happen by 2030. For example, they often provide a baseline outlook that assumes no changes in energy policy. By comparison, in developing an outlook to guide our long-term investment decisions, we have to take a view on how policies, energy markets and technology are likely to evolve through 2030 to address economic, energy and environmental challenges worldwide.

More… ➡

– Research thanks to Mike D.

Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Peak Oil, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

We’re having the wrong conversations

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

– I’m not the only one who’s on about Corporations and their power over American politics.  This is from over on The Automatic Earth Blog.

– – – – – – – – – – * * * – – – – – – – – – – –

I’ve said it before and I know I’ll have to say it a million more times, and you still won’t get it, because you just don’t want it to be true. But it’s time.

We’re having the wrong conversations.

We speak the language of the world of finance, a language that doesn’t contain any words or expressions to describe the final stages of the world of finance itself. And I’m not saying that world is about to end, just that it lacks the terms to tell of its own demise. Modeled after other holy writings.

And it’s not all that farfetched either. If we, the taxpayer, hadn’t bought off their debts, none or close to none of the major financial institutions in America would still be alive. That includes Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and all the rest too busy with paying bonuses to answer our phone calls. Still, despicable as all that may seem to you, they’re not really the masterminds or main culprits, are they, the bankers?

They operate in an environment allowed and legislated for them by the very same people that you all voted for, from the President to your local Congressman. Anger directed at bankers is anger misdirected and misunderstood. How about you? Bankers can only act within the law. And who makes the laws?

Obama could have come in on January 21, 2009 with a proposal to kill any and all bankers’ influence in American politics. He did not do that. He did a 180 and chose to invite Wall Street to run American finance policy.

That’s a choice, it’s not some sort of accident, as some prefer to believe. Thinking anything else equals selling Obama short as some sort of douche. And then the president has left all these people in place one year later.So here we are. And that’s no accident either.

Tall tales keep on emerging on Obama’s confidantes, and even if every single one were a lie, he couldn’t keep all of them at a safe distance from the presidency, neither the stories nor the people. Geithner, Summers, Rubin, Romer, Goolsbee and Volcker, by now they’re all entangled in the same web, as is the nation. And there’s no way out using the same kind of thinking, nor the same people. Some may be helpful in defining new laws, new measures, new ways to limit Wall Street influence in Washington. But those limits will necessarily be limited. That’s how Washington works. Got a newborn? Lemme break its shinbones, just in case.

If the US ever wishes to get out of its present predicament, it needs to force its representatives to do two things. Which they will never do, because having that as a platform will be so sure of a losing bet that no bookie will take your spread. Here goes, and no, I can’t believe either I’m posting this for free:

First thing that has to happen on Capitol Hill if we want to prevent the US as a country, a society, and an idea for that matter, to live on and G-d help us prosper, is this:

  1. Get business out of politics
    Joe Blow you and me will never have any say, or regain it, as long as Goldman, Cargill and GE can buy theirs. That is really all that needs to be said. The Supreme Court decision to increase corporate influence just was the icing on the cake that makes one think, in the words of Bugs: “Each people gets what they desoive”. It’s a death blow to anyone not in the inner circle having even a faint and remote say in where we’re heading, though, and that’s not what the Constitution meant to convey. But then again , once you get away with re-interpreting both Darwin and the Bible, what does the Constitution have on you?

    Humbug! Politics! Let’s get to number 2, something strangely missing from all Obama, his elves and his reindeer have said so far.

  2. Come up with a plan B
    It’s not just us having the wrong conversations either, it’s all over the planet, where people who have nice jobs, especially the government ones, refuse to take a pay cut and insist they have a right to what’s theirs even if that means others will lose their jobs. Smart. Not.

More… ➡

Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Mental Irrationality, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »