Michael Moore December 30th, 2011
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/75-years-ago-today-first-occupy
On this day, December 30th, in 1936 -- 75 years ago today -- hundreds of workers at the General Motors factories in Flint, Michigan, took over the facilities and occupied them for 44 days. My uncle was one of them.
The workers couldn't take the abuse from the corporation any longer. Their working conditions, the slave wages, no vacation, no health care, no overtime -- it was do as you're told or get tossed onto the curb.
So on the day before New Year's Eve, emboldened by the recent re-election of Franklin Roosevelt, they sat down on the job and refused to leave.
They began their Occupation in the dead of winter. GM cut off the heat and water to the buildings. The police tried to raid the factories several times, to no avail. Even the National Guard was called in.
But the workers held their ground, and after 44 days, the corporation gave in and recognized the UAW as the representative of the workers. It was a monumental historical moment as no other major company had ever been brought to its knees by their employees. Workers were given a raise to a dollar an hour -- and successful strikes and occupations spread like wildfire across the country. Finally, the working class would be able to do things like own their own homes, send their children to college, have time off and see a doctor without having to worry about paying. In Flint, Michigan, on this day in 1936, the middle class was born.
But 75 years later, the owners and elites have regained all power and control. I can think of no better way for us to honor the original Occupiers than by all of us participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement in whatever form that takes in each of our towns. We need direct action all winter long if we are to prevail. You can start your own Occupy group in your neighborhood or school or with just your friends. Speak out against economic injustice at every chance you get. Stop the bank from evicting the family down the block. Move your checking and credit card to a community bank or credit union. Place a sign in your yard -- and get your neighbors to do it also -- that says, "WE ARE THE 99%." (You can download signs here and here.)
Do something, anything, but don't remain silent. Not now. This is the moment. It won't come again.
75 years ago today, in Flint, Michigan, the people said they'd had enough and occupied the factories until they won. What is stopping us now? The rich have one plan: bleed everyone dry. Can anyone, in good conscience, be a bystander to this?
My uncle wasn't, and because of what he and others did, I got to grow up without having to worry about a roof over my head or medical bills or a decent life. And all that was provided by my dad who built spark plugs on a GM assembly line.
Let's each of us double our efforts to raise a ruckus, Occupy Everywhere, and get creative as we throw a major nonviolent wrench into this system of Greed. Let's make the politicians running for office in 2012 quake in their boots if they refuse to tax the rich, regulate Wall Street and do whatever we the people tell them to do.
Happy 75th!
Showing posts with label GM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GM. Show all posts
Friday, January 6, 2012
Sunday, October 16, 2011
GM Food Needs Mandatory Labels
Courtesy of Disinfo.com, from Business Week:
Genetically engineered corn, soy and plant oil should be disclosed on mandatory food labels, a coalition of more than 350 producers, trade groups and consumers said in a petition to U.S. regulators.
The U.S. should require added disclosure even when a product containing a gene-altered organism is similar to foods that aren’t bioengineered, the groups said today in the petition to the Food and Drug Administration. Stonyfield Farm, the organic-yogurt maker owned by Danone SA, and Dean Foods Co.’s Horizon Organic are among the coalition members.
Petitioners, led by the Washington-based Center for Food Safety, want to reverse a 1992 Food and Drug Administration policy that doesn’t require different labeling. Gene-altered seeds are used for almost 90 percent of U.S.-grown corn, 94 percent of soy and 90 percent of cottonseed, an oil-producing plant, the coalition said.
“Consumers ought to have the right to choose whether to be buying these foods,” said Gary Hirshberg, chief executive officer of Londonderry, New Hampshire-based Stonyfield Farm, in an interview...
Gene-Altered Foods Need Mandatory Labels, Coalition Tells FDA
Molly Peterson
October 04, 2011
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-04/gene-altered-foods-need-mandatory-labels-coalition-tells-fda.html
Genetically engineered corn, soy and plant oil should be disclosed on mandatory food labels, a coalition of more than 350 producers, trade groups and consumers said in a petition to U.S. regulators.
The U.S. should require added disclosure even when a product containing a gene-altered organism is similar to foods that aren’t bioengineered, the groups said today in the petition to the Food and Drug Administration. Stonyfield Farm, the organic-yogurt maker owned by Danone SA, and Dean Foods Co.’s Horizon Organic are among the coalition members.
Petitioners, led by the Washington-based Center for Food Safety, want to reverse a 1992 Food and Drug Administration policy that doesn’t require different labeling. Gene-altered seeds are used for almost 90 percent of U.S.-grown corn, 94 percent of soy and 90 percent of cottonseed, an oil-producing plant, the coalition said.
“Consumers ought to have the right to choose whether to be buying these foods,” said Gary Hirshberg, chief executive officer of Londonderry, New Hampshire-based Stonyfield Farm, in an interview...
Gene-Altered Foods Need Mandatory Labels, Coalition Tells FDA
Molly Peterson
October 04, 2011
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-04/gene-altered-foods-need-mandatory-labels-coalition-tells-fda.html
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Chevy Volt Review
From Salon.com:
An hour's drive north of Warren, in Flint, is an abandoned GM auto plant called Buick City. In the 1970s, Buick City employed 28,000 autoworkers. Today, it's America's biggest brownfield, anchoring a neighborhood that also features a boarded-up tavern, a defunct United Auto Workers hall and an out-of-business party store. The land around Buick City is so worthless that a patriotic couple bought several corner lots, for $200 apiece, and built a memorial to American soldiers killed on 9/11.
Buick City and so many other factories are industrial waste sites because General Motors hasn't had an original idea since it put a V-8 engine in the Oldsmobile. In the 1970s, when the Arab Oil Embargo began a small-car craze, Honda was already building the Civic. Toyota was building the Corolla. GM responded with -- the Chevette. Named one of the 50 Worst Cars of All Time by Time magazine, the Chevette turned an entire generation of Americans onto Japanese cars. It was the first car I ever owned. My mechanic diagnosed the hole under the pedals as "Chevette Floor Cancer." He pounded a sheet of tin over the opening, but my shoes still got wet whenever I drove through a puddle.
And then, in the 2000s, there was GM Chairman Robert Lutz's reaction to the Prius: "Hybrids are an interesting curiosity and we will do some, but do they make sense at $1.50 a gallon? No, they do not." They do make sense at $4 a gallon, but Toyota dominates the market now.
That's why I was so excited about the Volt. Like any Michigander who grew up seeing "Assholes Buy Jap Cars" spray-painted on overpasses, I've been conditioned to root for the home team. Now, for once in my life, stodgy old Papa Jimmy was going to be first at something. As Toyota was the hybrid company, Chevy would be the electric company.
"I want that brand right here on top of my forehead," Farah said, pointing at the space above his safety glasses.
Farah worked on GM's first, failed attempt: the EV1, subject of the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" Its problem: the battery weighed 1,200 pounds. To wring 40 miles out of a single charge, the EV1 was a two-seater, with no trunk.
"You had to build the car around the battery," he said.
The lithium-ion battery pack weighs a third of that. The Volt is an "extended-range" vehicle. Once the charge runs down, a gasoline engine takes over. But it doesn't power a drive train, as on a traditional vehicle. It powers the electrical system that runs the car.
The energy required to drive 40 miles on battery power is equivalent to "well under a gallon" of gasoline, Farah told me, because running an electrical system is 50 percent more efficient than running a drive train. Fueling the Volt costs 2 cents a mile. At $4 a gallon, a gasoline-powered car costs 13 cents a mile.
On electric power, the Volt emits no exhaust. Drawing electricity from a coal-powered grid may produce more greenhouse gases than a gasoline-powered car. But coal produces only half America's energy, and that percentage is declining as utilities switch to cleaner fuels. The Volt can draw power "from the wind, from the sun," Farah said. "You don't have to burn fossil fuels." As a plug-in hybrid, the Volt would be a compromise between the Prius, which has a 4-cylinder gasoline engine, and the all-electric Nissan Leaf.
The Volt is finally out this year. It was named 2011 Motor Trend Car of the Year. When I heard that the Volt rides were the No. 1 attraction at last month's Chicago Auto Show, I was more excited than the moment I first laid eyes on the Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point. I'd been waiting years to sit inside the salvation of the American auto industry.
When I got to the Auto Show, little pod-shaped cars were circling a go-kart-sized track, landscaped with real grass and real shrubs. The foliage would die indoors, but from lack of sunlight, not air pollution. When a Volt finally stopped, I climbed into the passenger seat. My first reaction?
"Wow, this is even more cramped than my old Dodge Neon." The engine was silent, but I couldn't tell whether that was because we were only going five miles an hour.
"How much is this going to cost?" I asked the driver.
"They start at $41,000," he said, "although there is a $7,500 tax credit for buying an electric car."
I looked at the back seat. Two American-sized people could squeeze in there. The driver tried to focus my attention on a computer screen displaying the remaining charge.
"Are they ever going to make a bigger version?" I asked.
"There's going to be a family-sized SUV, eventually."
Eventually. I stepped outside and watched the silent rodeo of cars. The Volt is a $20,000 car, for twice the money. Even if I could afford to replace my Ford Focus hatchback with a Volt, I wouldn't do it. It's too small for my cross-country skis and my camping equipment.
Then I got an e-mail from a retired Chevy dealer named Chuck Frank. He forwarded me an article from Automotive & Assembly Practice, which predicted that "plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and battery-only electric vehicles could account for 16 percent of overall new-car sales in New York, 9 percent in Paris and 5 percent in Shanghai by 2015."
"Are you buying a Volt?" I e-mailed back.
"I have one on order and a Leaf as well," he wrote. "I drove one recently and liked it."
Frank is the Volt's target customer: a well-to-do environmentalist. As a boy, Frank wanted to be a forest ranger. Instead, he inherited the world's largest Chevrolet dealership from his father. But Frank's love of the outdoors and his wife's struggles with asthma led him to join the Sierra Club, and he became the group's inside connection to the auto industry. As a Chevy dealer, he could talk to executives who wouldn't take an environmentalist's phone calls. For years, Frank lobbied GM to build an electric car. In 2005, frustrated that he couldn't offer his customers an alternative to the Prius, he approached Chairman Rick Wagoner at a cocktail reception.
"Why isn't GM doing anything about a hybrid?" Frank inquired.
"Hybrids don't make sense to the public," Wagoner told him. "Economically, they don't make sense."
Three months later, GM announced plans for the Volt.
Frank doesn't care that the Volt is cramped and overpriced. He has bigger Chevys in his garage, and he sold enough Corvettes to understand that when it comes to choosing a car, practicality is less important than looking badass. Otherwise, everyone would be driving an Aveo...
General Motors just announced it earned $4.7 billion last year, its first profit since 2004. It's not because of the Volt, obviously, but the Volt is another sign that GM has finally learned to do business like a 21st century auto company. It's too late to save Flint, but the Volt is coming off the assembly line in the Detroit suburb of Hamtramck.
Even though the Volt is a tiny, expensive toy, GM did the right thing by rushing it into showrooms before guys like me are ready to buy one. Eventually, lithium-ion batteries will be cheaper. Eventually, apartment buildings will install charging stations. Eventually, gas will cost $5 a gallon. When all that happens, a lot us will buy electric cars. I want to own a Volt someday. GM hopes that brand on its forehead is big enough to make you to want one of its electric cars, too.
Can an electric car save the American dream?
Edward McClellan
Saturday, Mar 12, 2011
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/03/12/chevy_volt_can_they_pull_it_off/index.html
An hour's drive north of Warren, in Flint, is an abandoned GM auto plant called Buick City. In the 1970s, Buick City employed 28,000 autoworkers. Today, it's America's biggest brownfield, anchoring a neighborhood that also features a boarded-up tavern, a defunct United Auto Workers hall and an out-of-business party store. The land around Buick City is so worthless that a patriotic couple bought several corner lots, for $200 apiece, and built a memorial to American soldiers killed on 9/11.
Buick City and so many other factories are industrial waste sites because General Motors hasn't had an original idea since it put a V-8 engine in the Oldsmobile. In the 1970s, when the Arab Oil Embargo began a small-car craze, Honda was already building the Civic. Toyota was building the Corolla. GM responded with -- the Chevette. Named one of the 50 Worst Cars of All Time by Time magazine, the Chevette turned an entire generation of Americans onto Japanese cars. It was the first car I ever owned. My mechanic diagnosed the hole under the pedals as "Chevette Floor Cancer." He pounded a sheet of tin over the opening, but my shoes still got wet whenever I drove through a puddle.
And then, in the 2000s, there was GM Chairman Robert Lutz's reaction to the Prius: "Hybrids are an interesting curiosity and we will do some, but do they make sense at $1.50 a gallon? No, they do not." They do make sense at $4 a gallon, but Toyota dominates the market now.
That's why I was so excited about the Volt. Like any Michigander who grew up seeing "Assholes Buy Jap Cars" spray-painted on overpasses, I've been conditioned to root for the home team. Now, for once in my life, stodgy old Papa Jimmy was going to be first at something. As Toyota was the hybrid company, Chevy would be the electric company.
"I want that brand right here on top of my forehead," Farah said, pointing at the space above his safety glasses.
Farah worked on GM's first, failed attempt: the EV1, subject of the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" Its problem: the battery weighed 1,200 pounds. To wring 40 miles out of a single charge, the EV1 was a two-seater, with no trunk.
"You had to build the car around the battery," he said.
The lithium-ion battery pack weighs a third of that. The Volt is an "extended-range" vehicle. Once the charge runs down, a gasoline engine takes over. But it doesn't power a drive train, as on a traditional vehicle. It powers the electrical system that runs the car.
The energy required to drive 40 miles on battery power is equivalent to "well under a gallon" of gasoline, Farah told me, because running an electrical system is 50 percent more efficient than running a drive train. Fueling the Volt costs 2 cents a mile. At $4 a gallon, a gasoline-powered car costs 13 cents a mile.
On electric power, the Volt emits no exhaust. Drawing electricity from a coal-powered grid may produce more greenhouse gases than a gasoline-powered car. But coal produces only half America's energy, and that percentage is declining as utilities switch to cleaner fuels. The Volt can draw power "from the wind, from the sun," Farah said. "You don't have to burn fossil fuels." As a plug-in hybrid, the Volt would be a compromise between the Prius, which has a 4-cylinder gasoline engine, and the all-electric Nissan Leaf.
The Volt is finally out this year. It was named 2011 Motor Trend Car of the Year. When I heard that the Volt rides were the No. 1 attraction at last month's Chicago Auto Show, I was more excited than the moment I first laid eyes on the Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point. I'd been waiting years to sit inside the salvation of the American auto industry.
When I got to the Auto Show, little pod-shaped cars were circling a go-kart-sized track, landscaped with real grass and real shrubs. The foliage would die indoors, but from lack of sunlight, not air pollution. When a Volt finally stopped, I climbed into the passenger seat. My first reaction?
"Wow, this is even more cramped than my old Dodge Neon." The engine was silent, but I couldn't tell whether that was because we were only going five miles an hour.
"How much is this going to cost?" I asked the driver.
"They start at $41,000," he said, "although there is a $7,500 tax credit for buying an electric car."
I looked at the back seat. Two American-sized people could squeeze in there. The driver tried to focus my attention on a computer screen displaying the remaining charge.
"Are they ever going to make a bigger version?" I asked.
"There's going to be a family-sized SUV, eventually."
Eventually. I stepped outside and watched the silent rodeo of cars. The Volt is a $20,000 car, for twice the money. Even if I could afford to replace my Ford Focus hatchback with a Volt, I wouldn't do it. It's too small for my cross-country skis and my camping equipment.
Then I got an e-mail from a retired Chevy dealer named Chuck Frank. He forwarded me an article from Automotive & Assembly Practice, which predicted that "plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and battery-only electric vehicles could account for 16 percent of overall new-car sales in New York, 9 percent in Paris and 5 percent in Shanghai by 2015."
"Are you buying a Volt?" I e-mailed back.
"I have one on order and a Leaf as well," he wrote. "I drove one recently and liked it."
Frank is the Volt's target customer: a well-to-do environmentalist. As a boy, Frank wanted to be a forest ranger. Instead, he inherited the world's largest Chevrolet dealership from his father. But Frank's love of the outdoors and his wife's struggles with asthma led him to join the Sierra Club, and he became the group's inside connection to the auto industry. As a Chevy dealer, he could talk to executives who wouldn't take an environmentalist's phone calls. For years, Frank lobbied GM to build an electric car. In 2005, frustrated that he couldn't offer his customers an alternative to the Prius, he approached Chairman Rick Wagoner at a cocktail reception.
"Why isn't GM doing anything about a hybrid?" Frank inquired.
"Hybrids don't make sense to the public," Wagoner told him. "Economically, they don't make sense."
Three months later, GM announced plans for the Volt.
Frank doesn't care that the Volt is cramped and overpriced. He has bigger Chevys in his garage, and he sold enough Corvettes to understand that when it comes to choosing a car, practicality is less important than looking badass. Otherwise, everyone would be driving an Aveo...
General Motors just announced it earned $4.7 billion last year, its first profit since 2004. It's not because of the Volt, obviously, but the Volt is another sign that GM has finally learned to do business like a 21st century auto company. It's too late to save Flint, but the Volt is coming off the assembly line in the Detroit suburb of Hamtramck.
Even though the Volt is a tiny, expensive toy, GM did the right thing by rushing it into showrooms before guys like me are ready to buy one. Eventually, lithium-ion batteries will be cheaper. Eventually, apartment buildings will install charging stations. Eventually, gas will cost $5 a gallon. When all that happens, a lot us will buy electric cars. I want to own a Volt someday. GM hopes that brand on its forehead is big enough to make you to want one of its electric cars, too.
Can an electric car save the American dream?
Edward McClellan
Saturday, Mar 12, 2011
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/03/12/chevy_volt_can_they_pull_it_off/index.html
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
CFS to sue USDA for deregulating GM alfalfa
Ethan A. Huff
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
http://www.naturalnews.com/031357_GM_alfalfa_Center_for_Food_Safety.html
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) recent decision to fully deregulate Monsanto's genetically-modified (GM) alfalfa, despite its own findings that doing so will contaminate non-GM and organic agriculture, is a landmark decision that illustrates just how deeply embedded Monsanto has burrowed within the U.S. government. But the Center for Food Safety (CFS), a group that has won numerous cases against GM crops, is gearing up to file a lawsuit against the USDA for this decision, and hopefully reverse it like it has many other decisions. But CFS needs your help to make that happen.
The USDA first approved GM alfalfa back in 2005, but that decision was eventually reversed in 2007 after being challenged in a California court. The court ruled that until a proper Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was conducted, the crops could not be planted. Monsanto, of course, tried to challenge this decision, but CFS and others worked hard to prevent the ban from being lifted, and they succeeded for many years.
CFS also played a crucial role in reversing the decision to allow GM sugar beets to be planted. CFS sued both the USDA and Monsanto over the crop, which just like GM alfalfa was not approved with a proper EIS. CFS won the case and for the first time in history, a judge actually made a ruling ordering that a GM crop be uprooted and destroyed because it was illegally planted.
Time and time again, the USDA, Monsanto, and others have tried to sidestep the law and do what they please, but CFS and other like-minded groups have fought hard to hold them responsible for their illegal actions. And they have been victorious in many of these cases.
NaturalNews recently covered the story of Whole Foods and a few other companies that are petitioning their customers to challenge the USDA's deregulation decision. But the challenge they are pursuing involves a partial deregulation, or "coexistence" plan, that all available evidence says will be a failure.
Instead, CFS plans to sue the USDA outright for its irresponsible decision to deregulate, and ultimately the group intends to stop any and all plantings of GM alfalfa. This plan of action is one that we fully support.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
http://www.naturalnews.com/031357_GM_alfalfa_Center_for_Food_Safety.html
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) recent decision to fully deregulate Monsanto's genetically-modified (GM) alfalfa, despite its own findings that doing so will contaminate non-GM and organic agriculture, is a landmark decision that illustrates just how deeply embedded Monsanto has burrowed within the U.S. government. But the Center for Food Safety (CFS), a group that has won numerous cases against GM crops, is gearing up to file a lawsuit against the USDA for this decision, and hopefully reverse it like it has many other decisions. But CFS needs your help to make that happen.
The USDA first approved GM alfalfa back in 2005, but that decision was eventually reversed in 2007 after being challenged in a California court. The court ruled that until a proper Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was conducted, the crops could not be planted. Monsanto, of course, tried to challenge this decision, but CFS and others worked hard to prevent the ban from being lifted, and they succeeded for many years.
CFS also played a crucial role in reversing the decision to allow GM sugar beets to be planted. CFS sued both the USDA and Monsanto over the crop, which just like GM alfalfa was not approved with a proper EIS. CFS won the case and for the first time in history, a judge actually made a ruling ordering that a GM crop be uprooted and destroyed because it was illegally planted.
Time and time again, the USDA, Monsanto, and others have tried to sidestep the law and do what they please, but CFS and other like-minded groups have fought hard to hold them responsible for their illegal actions. And they have been victorious in many of these cases.
NaturalNews recently covered the story of Whole Foods and a few other companies that are petitioning their customers to challenge the USDA's deregulation decision. But the challenge they are pursuing involves a partial deregulation, or "coexistence" plan, that all available evidence says will be a failure.
Instead, CFS plans to sue the USDA outright for its irresponsible decision to deregulate, and ultimately the group intends to stop any and all plantings of GM alfalfa. This plan of action is one that we fully support.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Fight back against Obama's deregulation of GM alfalfa
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Ethan A. Huff
http://www.naturalnews.com/031196_GE_alfalfa_GMOs.html
On January 27, 2011, the Obama Administration caved to Monsanto and decided to fully deregulate its genetically-modified (GM) alfalfa, a horrendous move that threatens to destroy not only the entire organic industry, but also the integrity of the whole of agriculture. And according to reports, the Obama White House pressured U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) chief Tom Vilsack to approve it based on its own political agenda, rather than on evidence proving its safety, none of which actually exists.
When Monsanto first convinced the USDA back in 2007 to approve GM alfalfa without having to provide a shred of evidence that it was safe, lawsuits immediately emerged against the agency for its flagrant violation of the law. A federal district judge agreed, ruling that GM alfalfa could not legally be planted until the USDA completed a proper environmental impact statement.
After months of alleged review, the USDA issued its final EIS on December 20, 2010, showing that the GM alfalfa actually poses a significant threat to both organic and conventional agriculture, and that it has the potential to cause widespread contamination through cross-pollination. But in spite of all this, the agency said that continuing to regulate the "frankencrop" was not an option.
In reality, GM alfalfa is completely unnecessary, and it only benefits Monsanto. There is absolutely no evidence proving its safety, and all study into the matter shows that planting the crop is a recipe for worldwide disaster.
"Ninety-three percent of alfalfa hay is grown without any herbicide at all," said Michael Pollan, author and food systems advocate, concerning the absolute pointlessness of introducing GM alfalfa in the first place. He went on to say in a report that GM alfalfa "is a bad solution to a problem that doesn't exist."
But Vilsack decided to cave to pressures from both the White House and the biotechnology industry anyway, reversing his previous stated position that GM alfalfa poses "a significant concern for farmers who produce for non-GE (genetically-engineered) markets at home and abroad." Some sources say he was coerced by Obama insiders to concede to Monsanto's demands against his better judgment.
Ethan A. Huff
http://www.naturalnews.com/031196_GE_alfalfa_GMOs.html
On January 27, 2011, the Obama Administration caved to Monsanto and decided to fully deregulate its genetically-modified (GM) alfalfa, a horrendous move that threatens to destroy not only the entire organic industry, but also the integrity of the whole of agriculture. And according to reports, the Obama White House pressured U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) chief Tom Vilsack to approve it based on its own political agenda, rather than on evidence proving its safety, none of which actually exists.
When Monsanto first convinced the USDA back in 2007 to approve GM alfalfa without having to provide a shred of evidence that it was safe, lawsuits immediately emerged against the agency for its flagrant violation of the law. A federal district judge agreed, ruling that GM alfalfa could not legally be planted until the USDA completed a proper environmental impact statement.
After months of alleged review, the USDA issued its final EIS on December 20, 2010, showing that the GM alfalfa actually poses a significant threat to both organic and conventional agriculture, and that it has the potential to cause widespread contamination through cross-pollination. But in spite of all this, the agency said that continuing to regulate the "frankencrop" was not an option.
In reality, GM alfalfa is completely unnecessary, and it only benefits Monsanto. There is absolutely no evidence proving its safety, and all study into the matter shows that planting the crop is a recipe for worldwide disaster.
"Ninety-three percent of alfalfa hay is grown without any herbicide at all," said Michael Pollan, author and food systems advocate, concerning the absolute pointlessness of introducing GM alfalfa in the first place. He went on to say in a report that GM alfalfa "is a bad solution to a problem that doesn't exist."
But Vilsack decided to cave to pressures from both the White House and the biotechnology industry anyway, reversing his previous stated position that GM alfalfa poses "a significant concern for farmers who produce for non-GE (genetically-engineered) markets at home and abroad." Some sources say he was coerced by Obama insiders to concede to Monsanto's demands against his better judgment.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Saving Chevrolet Means Sending ‘Chevy’ to Dump
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/automobiles/10chevy.html
Saving Chevrolet Means Sending ‘Chevy’ to Dump
RICHARD S. CHANG
June 9, 2010
On Tuesday, G.M. sent a memo to Chevrolet employees at its Detroit headquarters, promoting the importance of “consistency” for the brand, which was the nation’s best-selling line of cars and trucks for more than half a century after World War II.
And one way to present a consistent brand message, the memo suggested, is to stop saying “Chevy,” though the word is one of the world’s best-known, longest-lived product nicknames.
“We’d ask that whether you’re talking to a dealer, reviewing dealer advertising, or speaking with friends and family, that you communicate our brand as Chevrolet moving forward,” said the memo, which was signed by Alan Batey, vice president for Chevrolet sales and service, and Jim Campbell, the G.M. division’s vice president for marketing.
“When you look at the most recognized brands throughout the world, such as Coke or Apple for instance, one of the things they all focus on is the consistency of their branding,” the memo said. “Why is this consistency so important? The more consistent a brand becomes, the more prominent and recognizable it is with the consumer.”
Although the memo cites Coke, it does not note that Coke is shorthand for Coca-Cola — or that Apple is not commonly used in reference to its products, which are known simply as iPads, iPhones and MacBooks.
One expert on branding said G.M.’s effort ran counter to a trend in which corporate names had become more casual. The consultant, Paul Worthington, head of strategy for Wolff Olins, a brand consulting company, noted that FedEx had replaced Federal Express, KFC had supplanted Kentucky Fried Chicken and “even RadioShack has evolved into the Shack.”
Regardless, if Chevrolet plans to put the Chevy genie back in the bottle, the task could prove harder than climbing out of bankruptcy.
As of Wednesday night, the word Chevy appeared dozens of times on Chevrolet’s Web site, chevrolet.com, including a banner on the home page that said, “Over 1,000 people a day switch to Chevy.” One of the dropdown menus was “Experience Chevy.” On Facebook, brand pages include Chevy Camaro, Chevy Silverado and Team Chevy.
If taken to its logical conclusion, Chevrolet would presumably need to ask Jeff Gordon, the four-time Nascar Sprint Cup champion who currently races a Chevrolet Impala, to change the Web site address — jeffgordonchevy.com — for his dealership in Wilmington, N.C.
And what about rolling back the popular culture references to Chevy? Elton John, Bob Seger, Mötley Crüe and the Beastie Boys have all sung about Chevy, and hip-hop artists rap about “Chevy Ridin’ High” or “Ridin’ in My Chevy.”
There are also a good many auto enthusiasts who have "Chevy" tattooed onto various body parts. Some probably have a Chevy II or two tucked in their garages.
“It’s a ’Vette, it’s a Caddy, it’s a Chevy,” said Dick Guldstrand, a long-time racer who has been inducted into the Corvette Hall of Fame. He noted that the brand was named for Louis Chevrolet, a race driver of the early 20th century.
“Once it became an American icon, America took it away from G.M.,” said Mr. Guldstrand, 83. “They made it a Chevy. You’re doing a disservice to all the people by telling them not to call it a Chevy.”
In 2006, Chevrolet updated a series of popular commercials with the tagline “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet," which noted how the brand was woven into the fabric of American culture.
The commercial juxtaposed imagery of past baseball greats with modern ones. And at the end, the narrator says, “Apparently, baseball’s changed a little over the years, but not America’s love of the game — or love for Chevy.”
So why make the change now? G.M. wasn't saying, but the memo came after several major marketing moves. The memo was provided to The Times by the disbelieving recipient of a copy.
In April, Chevrolet dismissed its long-time ad agency, Campbell-Ewald, which over several decades had created such memorable slogans as "See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet," "Like a rock" and "The heartbeat of America." The account went to Publicis USA, but only for a month. In May, Joel Ewanick was hired from Nissan to head United States marketing for G.M. Shortly after settling into his position, Mr. Ewanick switched the Chevrolet advertising account again, this time to Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.
Klaus-Peter Martin, a G.M. spokesman, confirmed the memo. "We're going to use Chevrolet instead of Chevy going forward in our communications," he said in a telephone interview, and linked the change to the move to Goodby.
Mr. Worthington, the branding expert, said Chevrolet seemed unclear what the brand stood for. "So what it would appear they are trying to do, by centralizing to a single formal name, is to try to get some focus as to what that brand stands for, and get that out into the marketplace, which makes a lot of sense."
Ultimately, he said, consumers "will call you whatever they want to call you."
But not Chevrolet staff members. A postscript to the memo says a sort of cuss jar - a plastic "Chevy" can - has been placed in the hallway. "Every time someone uses ‘Chevy' rather than Chevrolet," the note said, the employee is expected to put a quarter in the can.
The proceeds are to be spent on "a team building activity."
Presumably, that would not include nachos for the staff at Chevy's.
A version of this article appeared in print on June 10, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.
Saving Chevrolet Means Sending ‘Chevy’ to Dump
RICHARD S. CHANG
June 9, 2010
On Tuesday, G.M. sent a memo to Chevrolet employees at its Detroit headquarters, promoting the importance of “consistency” for the brand, which was the nation’s best-selling line of cars and trucks for more than half a century after World War II.
And one way to present a consistent brand message, the memo suggested, is to stop saying “Chevy,” though the word is one of the world’s best-known, longest-lived product nicknames.
“We’d ask that whether you’re talking to a dealer, reviewing dealer advertising, or speaking with friends and family, that you communicate our brand as Chevrolet moving forward,” said the memo, which was signed by Alan Batey, vice president for Chevrolet sales and service, and Jim Campbell, the G.M. division’s vice president for marketing.
“When you look at the most recognized brands throughout the world, such as Coke or Apple for instance, one of the things they all focus on is the consistency of their branding,” the memo said. “Why is this consistency so important? The more consistent a brand becomes, the more prominent and recognizable it is with the consumer.”
Although the memo cites Coke, it does not note that Coke is shorthand for Coca-Cola — or that Apple is not commonly used in reference to its products, which are known simply as iPads, iPhones and MacBooks.
One expert on branding said G.M.’s effort ran counter to a trend in which corporate names had become more casual. The consultant, Paul Worthington, head of strategy for Wolff Olins, a brand consulting company, noted that FedEx had replaced Federal Express, KFC had supplanted Kentucky Fried Chicken and “even RadioShack has evolved into the Shack.”
Regardless, if Chevrolet plans to put the Chevy genie back in the bottle, the task could prove harder than climbing out of bankruptcy.
As of Wednesday night, the word Chevy appeared dozens of times on Chevrolet’s Web site, chevrolet.com, including a banner on the home page that said, “Over 1,000 people a day switch to Chevy.” One of the dropdown menus was “Experience Chevy.” On Facebook, brand pages include Chevy Camaro, Chevy Silverado and Team Chevy.
If taken to its logical conclusion, Chevrolet would presumably need to ask Jeff Gordon, the four-time Nascar Sprint Cup champion who currently races a Chevrolet Impala, to change the Web site address — jeffgordonchevy.com — for his dealership in Wilmington, N.C.
And what about rolling back the popular culture references to Chevy? Elton John, Bob Seger, Mötley Crüe and the Beastie Boys have all sung about Chevy, and hip-hop artists rap about “Chevy Ridin’ High” or “Ridin’ in My Chevy.”
There are also a good many auto enthusiasts who have "Chevy" tattooed onto various body parts. Some probably have a Chevy II or two tucked in their garages.
“It’s a ’Vette, it’s a Caddy, it’s a Chevy,” said Dick Guldstrand, a long-time racer who has been inducted into the Corvette Hall of Fame. He noted that the brand was named for Louis Chevrolet, a race driver of the early 20th century.
“Once it became an American icon, America took it away from G.M.,” said Mr. Guldstrand, 83. “They made it a Chevy. You’re doing a disservice to all the people by telling them not to call it a Chevy.”
In 2006, Chevrolet updated a series of popular commercials with the tagline “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet," which noted how the brand was woven into the fabric of American culture.
The commercial juxtaposed imagery of past baseball greats with modern ones. And at the end, the narrator says, “Apparently, baseball’s changed a little over the years, but not America’s love of the game — or love for Chevy.”
So why make the change now? G.M. wasn't saying, but the memo came after several major marketing moves. The memo was provided to The Times by the disbelieving recipient of a copy.
In April, Chevrolet dismissed its long-time ad agency, Campbell-Ewald, which over several decades had created such memorable slogans as "See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet," "Like a rock" and "The heartbeat of America." The account went to Publicis USA, but only for a month. In May, Joel Ewanick was hired from Nissan to head United States marketing for G.M. Shortly after settling into his position, Mr. Ewanick switched the Chevrolet advertising account again, this time to Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.
Klaus-Peter Martin, a G.M. spokesman, confirmed the memo. "We're going to use Chevrolet instead of Chevy going forward in our communications," he said in a telephone interview, and linked the change to the move to Goodby.
Mr. Worthington, the branding expert, said Chevrolet seemed unclear what the brand stood for. "So what it would appear they are trying to do, by centralizing to a single formal name, is to try to get some focus as to what that brand stands for, and get that out into the marketplace, which makes a lot of sense."
Ultimately, he said, consumers "will call you whatever they want to call you."
But not Chevrolet staff members. A postscript to the memo says a sort of cuss jar - a plastic "Chevy" can - has been placed in the hallway. "Every time someone uses ‘Chevy' rather than Chevrolet," the note said, the employee is expected to put a quarter in the can.
The proceeds are to be spent on "a team building activity."
Presumably, that would not include nachos for the staff at Chevy's.
A version of this article appeared in print on June 10, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.
Friday, May 7, 2010
GM Pays Back TARP Loans With...TARP Loans!
http://reason.com/blog/2010/04/23/gm-pays-back-tarp-loans-withta
GM Pays Back TARP Loans With...TARP Loans!
Nick Gillespie | April 23, 2010
Have you driven a Ford lately? That might be a good idea, as it seems that GM's claims to have repaid its TARP loans in full and ahead of schedule are, well, bullshit. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner pointing out that GM has apparently paid back its TARP money with...more TARP money. Here's some of Grassley's query:
During his testimony [Inspector General for TARP Neil] Barofsky addressed GM’s recent debt repayment activity, and stated that the funds GM is using to repay its TARP debt are not coming from GM earnings. Instead, GM seems to be using TARP funds from an escrow account at Treasury to make the debt repayments. The most recent quarterly report from the Office of the Special Inspector General for TARP says "The source of funds for these quarterly [debt] payments will be other TARP funds currently held in an escrow account."...
Therefore, it is unclear how GM and the Administration could have accurately announced yesterday that GM repaid its TARP loans in any meaningful way. In reality, it looks like GM merely used one source of TARP funds to repay another. The taxpayers are still on the hook...
The bottom line seems to be that the TARP loans were "repaid" with other TARP funds in a Treasury escrow account. The TARP loans were not repaid from money GM is earning selling cars, as GM and the Administration have claimed in their speeches, press releases and television commercials. When these criticisms were put to GM’s Vice Chairman Stephen Girsky in a television interview yesterday, he admitted that the criticisms were valid:
Question: Are you just paying the government back with government money?
Mr. Girsky: Well listen, that is in effect true, but a year ago nobody thought we’d be able to pay this back.
Girsky, you magnificent bastard! If you managed to say that line without laughing, you deserve all the unsold Pontiacs in North America.
Whole thing here. Via Real Clear Politics via Reason stalwart Manny Klausner.
And, needless to say, Grassley isn't even raising the massively important issue of whether the freaking bailout via TARP funds was legal. Spoiler alert: It wasn't.
But don't worry, GM loses money hand over fist and is poised to lose even more money when the market rebounds and they start selling more units. That's what happened in 2007, a record-setting year for GM when it sold 9.4 million cars worldwide and lost $38 billion.
GM Pays Back TARP Loans With...TARP Loans!
Nick Gillespie | April 23, 2010
Have you driven a Ford lately? That might be a good idea, as it seems that GM's claims to have repaid its TARP loans in full and ahead of schedule are, well, bullshit. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner pointing out that GM has apparently paid back its TARP money with...more TARP money. Here's some of Grassley's query:
During his testimony [Inspector General for TARP Neil] Barofsky addressed GM’s recent debt repayment activity, and stated that the funds GM is using to repay its TARP debt are not coming from GM earnings. Instead, GM seems to be using TARP funds from an escrow account at Treasury to make the debt repayments. The most recent quarterly report from the Office of the Special Inspector General for TARP says "The source of funds for these quarterly [debt] payments will be other TARP funds currently held in an escrow account."...
Therefore, it is unclear how GM and the Administration could have accurately announced yesterday that GM repaid its TARP loans in any meaningful way. In reality, it looks like GM merely used one source of TARP funds to repay another. The taxpayers are still on the hook...
The bottom line seems to be that the TARP loans were "repaid" with other TARP funds in a Treasury escrow account. The TARP loans were not repaid from money GM is earning selling cars, as GM and the Administration have claimed in their speeches, press releases and television commercials. When these criticisms were put to GM’s Vice Chairman Stephen Girsky in a television interview yesterday, he admitted that the criticisms were valid:
Question: Are you just paying the government back with government money?
Mr. Girsky: Well listen, that is in effect true, but a year ago nobody thought we’d be able to pay this back.
Girsky, you magnificent bastard! If you managed to say that line without laughing, you deserve all the unsold Pontiacs in North America.
Whole thing here. Via Real Clear Politics via Reason stalwart Manny Klausner.
And, needless to say, Grassley isn't even raising the massively important issue of whether the freaking bailout via TARP funds was legal. Spoiler alert: It wasn't.
But don't worry, GM loses money hand over fist and is poised to lose even more money when the market rebounds and they start selling more units. That's what happened in 2007, a record-setting year for GM when it sold 9.4 million cars worldwide and lost $38 billion.
Monday, October 12, 2009
GM Expected to Seal Hummer Sale
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574462111444795076.html
OCTOBER 8, 2009
GM Expected to Seal Hummer Sale
By NORIHIKO SHIROUZU
BEIJING – General Motors Co. is expected to seal a deal as early as Friday to sell its Hummer unit to China's Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. for $150 million, according to people close to the talks—a high-profile acquisition China's central government could still balk at because of Hummer's reputation for gas-guzzling excess.
Tengzhong Chief Executive Yang Yi has flown to Detroit, where Hummer has headquarters, this week and is likely to be on hand to announce the deal with GM, according to these people.
They said the deal would allow Tengzhong, based in the western Chinese city of Chengdu in Sichuan province, to take over the Hummer brand and acquire the technology to produce its products: two hulking SUVs called H2 and H3.
The people said Tengzhong-owned Hummer would remain a U.S.-headquartered brand with manufacturing capability, although there is a possibility a Hummer factory will be built in China down the road to make the brand, currently focused on North America, a more global brand. The people said Tengzhong would retain Hummer's current management, led by CEO Jim Taylor, and take over core members of the brand's engineering team.
Write to Norihiko Shirouzu at norihiko.shirouzu@wsj.com
OCTOBER 8, 2009
GM Expected to Seal Hummer Sale
By NORIHIKO SHIROUZU
BEIJING – General Motors Co. is expected to seal a deal as early as Friday to sell its Hummer unit to China's Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. for $150 million, according to people close to the talks—a high-profile acquisition China's central government could still balk at because of Hummer's reputation for gas-guzzling excess.
Tengzhong Chief Executive Yang Yi has flown to Detroit, where Hummer has headquarters, this week and is likely to be on hand to announce the deal with GM, according to these people.
They said the deal would allow Tengzhong, based in the western Chinese city of Chengdu in Sichuan province, to take over the Hummer brand and acquire the technology to produce its products: two hulking SUVs called H2 and H3.
The people said Tengzhong-owned Hummer would remain a U.S.-headquartered brand with manufacturing capability, although there is a possibility a Hummer factory will be built in China down the road to make the brand, currently focused on North America, a more global brand. The people said Tengzhong would retain Hummer's current management, led by CEO Jim Taylor, and take over core members of the brand's engineering team.
Write to Norihiko Shirouzu at norihiko.shirouzu@wsj.com
Saturday, August 1, 2009
You're Appointing Who?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/youre-appointing-who-plea_b_243810.html
Jeffrey Smith
July 23, 2009
You're Appointing Who? Please Obama, Say It's Not So!
The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar. This is no joke.
Here's the back story.
When FDA scientists were asked to weigh in on what was to become the most radical and potentially dangerous change in our food supply -- the introduction of genetically modified (GM) foods -- secret documents now reveal that the experts were very concerned. Memo after memo described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens. They were adamant that the technology carried "serious health hazards," and required careful, long-term research, including human studies, before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be safely released into the food supply.
But the biotech industry had rigged the game so that neither science nor scientists would stand in their way. They had placed their own man in charge of FDA policy and he wasn't going to be swayed by feeble arguments related to food safety. No, he was going to do what corporations had done for decades to get past these types of pesky concerns. He was going to lie.
Dangerous Food Safety Lies
When the FDA was constructing their GMO policy in 1991-2, their scientists were clear that gene-sliced foods were significantly different and could lead to "different risks" than conventional foods. But official policy declared the opposite, claiming that the FDA knew nothing of significant differences, and declared GMOs substantially equivalent.
This fiction became the rationale for allowing GM foods on the market without any required safety studies whatsoever! The determination of whether GM foods were safe to eat was placed entirely in the hands of the companies that made them -- companies like Monsanto, which told us that the PCBs, DDT, and Agent Orange were safe.
GMOs were rushed onto our plates in 1996. Over the next nine years, multiple chronic illnesses in the US nearly doubled -- from 7% to 13%. Allergy-related emergency room visits doubled between 1997 and 2002 while food allergies, especially among children, skyrocketed. We also witnessed a dramatic rise in asthma, autism, obesity, diabetes, digestive disorders, and certain cancers.
In January of this year, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, one of the world's top biologists, told me that after reviewing 600 scientific journals, he concluded that the GM foods in the US are largely responsible for the increase in many serious diseases.
In May, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine concluded that animal studies have demonstrated a causal relationship between GM foods and infertility, accelerated aging, dysfunctional insulin regulation, changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system, and immune problems such as asthma, allergies, and inflammation
In July, a report by eight international experts determined that the flimsy and superficial evaluations of GMOs by both regulators and GM companies "systematically overlook the side effects" and significantly underestimate "the initial signs of diseases like cancer and diseases of the hormonal, immune, nervous and reproductive systems, among others."
The Fox Guarding the Chickens
If GMOs are indeed responsible for massive sickness and death, then the individual who oversaw the FDA policy that facilitated their introduction holds a uniquely infamous role in human history. That person is Michael Taylor. He had been Monsanto's attorney before becoming policy chief at the FDA. Soon after, he became Monsanto's vice president and chief lobbyist.
This month Michael Taylor became the senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. He is now America's food safety czar. What have we done?
The Milk Man Cometh
While Taylor was at the FDA in the early 90's, he also oversaw the policy regarding Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH/rbST) -- injected into cows to increase milk supply.
The milk from injected cows has more pus, more antibiotics, more bovine growth hormone, and most importantly, more insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). IGF-1 is a huge risk factor for common cancers and its high levels in this drugged milk is why so many medical organizations and hospitals have taken stands against rbGH. A former Monsanto scientist told me that when three of his Monsanto colleagues evaluated rbGH safety and discovered the elevated IGF-1 levels, even they refused to drink any more milk -- unless it was organic and therefore untreated.
Government scientists from Canada evaluated the FDA's approval of rbGH and concluded that it was a dangerous facade. The drug was banned in Canada, as well as Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. But it was approved in the US while Michael Taylor was in charge. His drugged milk might have caused a significant rise in US cancer rates. Additional published evidence also implicates rbGH in the high rate of fraternal twins in the US.
Taylor also determined that milk from injected cows did not require any special labeling. And as a gift to his future employer Monsanto, he wrote a white paper suggesting that if companies ever had the audacity to label their products as not using rbGH, they should also include a disclaimer stating that according to the FDA, there is no difference between milk from treated and untreated cows.
Taylor's disclaimer was also a lie. Monsanto's own studies and FDA scientists officially acknowledged differences in the drugged milk. No matter. Monsanto used Taylor's white paper as the basis to successfully sue dairies that labeled their products as rbGH-free.
Will Monsanto's Wolff Also Guard the Chickens?
As consumers learned that rbGH was dangerous, they refused to buy the milk. To keep their customers, a tidal wave of companies has publicly committed to not use the drug and to label their products as such. Monsanto tried unsuccessfully to convince the FDA and FTC to make it illegal for dairies to make rbGH-free claims, so they went to their special friend in Pennsylvania -- Dennis Wolff. As state secretary of agriculture, Wolff unilaterally declared that labeling products rbGH-free was illegal, and that all such labels must be removed from shelves statewide. This would, of course, eliminate the label from all national brands, as they couldn't afford to create separate packaging for just one state.
Fortunately, consumer demand forced Pennsylvania's Governor Ed Rendell to step in and stop Wolff's madness. But Rendell allowed Wolff to take a compromised position that now requires rbGH-free claims to also be accompanied by Taylor's FDA disclaimer on the package.
President Obama is considering Dennis Wolff for the top food safety post at the USDA. Yikes!
Rumor has it that the reason why Pennsylvania's governor is supporting Wolff's appointment is to get him out of the state -- after he "screwed up so badly" with the rbGH decision. Oh great, governor. Thanks.
Ohio Governor Gets Taylor-itus
Ohio not only followed Pennsylvania's lead by requiring Taylor's FDA disclaimer on packaging, they went a step further. They declared that dairies must place that disclaimer on the same panel where rbGH-free claims are made, and even dictated the font size. This would force national brands to re-design their labels and may ultimately dissuade them from making rbGH-free claims at all. The Organic Trade Association and the International Dairy Foods Association filed a lawsuit against Ohio. Although they lost the first court battle, upon appeal, the judge ordered a mediation session that takes place today. Thousands of Ohio citizens have flooded Governor Strickland's office with urgent requests to withdraw the states anti-consumer labeling requirements.
Perhaps the governor has an ulterior motive for pushing his new rules. If he goes ahead with his labeling plans, he might end up with a top appointment in the Obama administration.
To hear what America is saying about GMOs and to add your voice, go to our new non-GMO Facebook Group.
Jeffrey M. Smith is the author of Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating and Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods from Chelsea Green Publishing. Smith worked at a GMO detection laboratory, founded the Institute for Responsible Technology, and currently lives in Iowa—surrounded by genetically modified corn and soybeans. For more information, visit Chelsea Green.
Follow Jeffrey Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeffreyMSmith
Jeffrey Smith
July 23, 2009
You're Appointing Who? Please Obama, Say It's Not So!
The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar. This is no joke.
Here's the back story.
When FDA scientists were asked to weigh in on what was to become the most radical and potentially dangerous change in our food supply -- the introduction of genetically modified (GM) foods -- secret documents now reveal that the experts were very concerned. Memo after memo described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens. They were adamant that the technology carried "serious health hazards," and required careful, long-term research, including human studies, before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be safely released into the food supply.
But the biotech industry had rigged the game so that neither science nor scientists would stand in their way. They had placed their own man in charge of FDA policy and he wasn't going to be swayed by feeble arguments related to food safety. No, he was going to do what corporations had done for decades to get past these types of pesky concerns. He was going to lie.
Dangerous Food Safety Lies
When the FDA was constructing their GMO policy in 1991-2, their scientists were clear that gene-sliced foods were significantly different and could lead to "different risks" than conventional foods. But official policy declared the opposite, claiming that the FDA knew nothing of significant differences, and declared GMOs substantially equivalent.
This fiction became the rationale for allowing GM foods on the market without any required safety studies whatsoever! The determination of whether GM foods were safe to eat was placed entirely in the hands of the companies that made them -- companies like Monsanto, which told us that the PCBs, DDT, and Agent Orange were safe.
GMOs were rushed onto our plates in 1996. Over the next nine years, multiple chronic illnesses in the US nearly doubled -- from 7% to 13%. Allergy-related emergency room visits doubled between 1997 and 2002 while food allergies, especially among children, skyrocketed. We also witnessed a dramatic rise in asthma, autism, obesity, diabetes, digestive disorders, and certain cancers.
In January of this year, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, one of the world's top biologists, told me that after reviewing 600 scientific journals, he concluded that the GM foods in the US are largely responsible for the increase in many serious diseases.
In May, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine concluded that animal studies have demonstrated a causal relationship between GM foods and infertility, accelerated aging, dysfunctional insulin regulation, changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system, and immune problems such as asthma, allergies, and inflammation
In July, a report by eight international experts determined that the flimsy and superficial evaluations of GMOs by both regulators and GM companies "systematically overlook the side effects" and significantly underestimate "the initial signs of diseases like cancer and diseases of the hormonal, immune, nervous and reproductive systems, among others."
The Fox Guarding the Chickens
If GMOs are indeed responsible for massive sickness and death, then the individual who oversaw the FDA policy that facilitated their introduction holds a uniquely infamous role in human history. That person is Michael Taylor. He had been Monsanto's attorney before becoming policy chief at the FDA. Soon after, he became Monsanto's vice president and chief lobbyist.
This month Michael Taylor became the senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. He is now America's food safety czar. What have we done?
The Milk Man Cometh
While Taylor was at the FDA in the early 90's, he also oversaw the policy regarding Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH/rbST) -- injected into cows to increase milk supply.
The milk from injected cows has more pus, more antibiotics, more bovine growth hormone, and most importantly, more insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). IGF-1 is a huge risk factor for common cancers and its high levels in this drugged milk is why so many medical organizations and hospitals have taken stands against rbGH. A former Monsanto scientist told me that when three of his Monsanto colleagues evaluated rbGH safety and discovered the elevated IGF-1 levels, even they refused to drink any more milk -- unless it was organic and therefore untreated.
Government scientists from Canada evaluated the FDA's approval of rbGH and concluded that it was a dangerous facade. The drug was banned in Canada, as well as Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. But it was approved in the US while Michael Taylor was in charge. His drugged milk might have caused a significant rise in US cancer rates. Additional published evidence also implicates rbGH in the high rate of fraternal twins in the US.
Taylor also determined that milk from injected cows did not require any special labeling. And as a gift to his future employer Monsanto, he wrote a white paper suggesting that if companies ever had the audacity to label their products as not using rbGH, they should also include a disclaimer stating that according to the FDA, there is no difference between milk from treated and untreated cows.
Taylor's disclaimer was also a lie. Monsanto's own studies and FDA scientists officially acknowledged differences in the drugged milk. No matter. Monsanto used Taylor's white paper as the basis to successfully sue dairies that labeled their products as rbGH-free.
Will Monsanto's Wolff Also Guard the Chickens?
As consumers learned that rbGH was dangerous, they refused to buy the milk. To keep their customers, a tidal wave of companies has publicly committed to not use the drug and to label their products as such. Monsanto tried unsuccessfully to convince the FDA and FTC to make it illegal for dairies to make rbGH-free claims, so they went to their special friend in Pennsylvania -- Dennis Wolff. As state secretary of agriculture, Wolff unilaterally declared that labeling products rbGH-free was illegal, and that all such labels must be removed from shelves statewide. This would, of course, eliminate the label from all national brands, as they couldn't afford to create separate packaging for just one state.
Fortunately, consumer demand forced Pennsylvania's Governor Ed Rendell to step in and stop Wolff's madness. But Rendell allowed Wolff to take a compromised position that now requires rbGH-free claims to also be accompanied by Taylor's FDA disclaimer on the package.
President Obama is considering Dennis Wolff for the top food safety post at the USDA. Yikes!
Rumor has it that the reason why Pennsylvania's governor is supporting Wolff's appointment is to get him out of the state -- after he "screwed up so badly" with the rbGH decision. Oh great, governor. Thanks.
Ohio Governor Gets Taylor-itus
Ohio not only followed Pennsylvania's lead by requiring Taylor's FDA disclaimer on packaging, they went a step further. They declared that dairies must place that disclaimer on the same panel where rbGH-free claims are made, and even dictated the font size. This would force national brands to re-design their labels and may ultimately dissuade them from making rbGH-free claims at all. The Organic Trade Association and the International Dairy Foods Association filed a lawsuit against Ohio. Although they lost the first court battle, upon appeal, the judge ordered a mediation session that takes place today. Thousands of Ohio citizens have flooded Governor Strickland's office with urgent requests to withdraw the states anti-consumer labeling requirements.
Perhaps the governor has an ulterior motive for pushing his new rules. If he goes ahead with his labeling plans, he might end up with a top appointment in the Obama administration.
To hear what America is saying about GMOs and to add your voice, go to our new non-GMO Facebook Group.
Jeffrey M. Smith is the author of Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating and Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods from Chelsea Green Publishing. Smith worked at a GMO detection laboratory, founded the Institute for Responsible Technology, and currently lives in Iowa—surrounded by genetically modified corn and soybeans. For more information, visit Chelsea Green.
Follow Jeffrey Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeffreyMSmith
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Bolivia holds key to electric car future
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7707847.stm
Bolivia holds key to electric car future
By Damian Kahya
BBC News, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Bolivia's lithium reserves could bring wealth to the country
High in the Andes, in a remote corner of Bolivia, lies more than half the world's reserves of a mineral that could radically reduce our reliance on dwindling fossil fuels.
Lithium carries a great promise. It could help power the fuel efficient electric or petrol-electric hybrid vehicles of the future.
But, as is the case with fossil fuels, it is a limited resource.
Lithium carbonate is already in the batteries of laptop computers and mobile phones.
It is used because it allows more energy to be stored in a lighter, smaller space than most alternatives.
And as the auto industry rushes to produce new fuel efficient and electric cars, it too is turning to lithium batteries as its first choice to boost the power of their new models.
GM has one in its new hybrid Volt, Toyota is testing one in its next generation hybrid Prius. Mercedes is testing an electric version of its Smart, while BMW is doing the same with its Mini.
And Nissan-Renault, Mitsubishi and VW are all rushing to buy or produce enough of the batteries to power their future models.
The best of the pure electric cars can reach ranges of more than 150 kilometres per charge.
More is needed
But there is a problem.
Mitsubishi, which plans to release its own electric car soon, estimates that the demand for lithium will outstrip supply in less than 10 years unless new sources are found.
And they have ended up in Bolivia.
"The demand for lithium won't double but increase by five times," according to Eichi Maeyama Mitsubishi's general manager in La Paz.
"We will need more lithium sources - and 50% of the world's reserves of lithium exist in Bolivia, in the Salar de Uyuni," he adds, pointing out that without new production, the price of lithium will rise prohibitively.
Locals fear the benefits will not be passed on
But almost all the commercially exploitable reserves are found in the brine under salt flats.
The world's largest reserves lie in Bolivia at the Salar de Uyuni - in the remote southern Andean plane.
But Bolivia is not a country known to be friendly to foreign industry.
Its socialist president, Evo Morales, is keen to expand state control over its natural resources, a task carried out by Bolivia's minister for mining, Luis Alberto Echazu.
"We want to send a message to the industrialized countries and their companies," Mr Echazu says.
"We will not repeat the historical experience since the fifteenth century: raw materials exported for the industrialisation of the west that has left us poor."
Modest ambitions
Gold, silver, tin, oil and gas have all been found and exported from here whilst the country remains the poorest in the region.
For President Morales' supporters, that is reason enough not to allow in foreign mining companies to extract the lithium.
Across the flats, freelance miners work to break up the surface salt selling it to passing trucks for just a few dollars.
Indigenous and poor, they are core supporters of the president.
A grizzled old miner, giving his name only as Alfredo, says he does not believe that lithium will ever be extracted.
"We don't want to see foreign companies here," he says.
"It would be very bad, as the government says."
Alfredo's hopes for the future are modest.
"I just want to work until I die" he says, a smile across his face. It is not an uncommon sentiment here.
Sharing the benefits
In spite of the grinding poverty here, attempts in the 1980's and 1990's by foreign companies to extract the lithium met with resistance from the community.
They say the money would go elsewhere.
Francisco Quisbert is a local activist with President Morales' party who took part in the resistance.
Now he is working with the president to hammer out a new plan for a state-owned pilot plant on the flats.
"We don't want international involvement," he says.
"This plan has raised the hopes of the region.
"Before our grandparents lived on the salt. They arrived from the valleys in caravans of llamas, but the market forced them to leave.
"We want to return to live on the salar [and] improve our living conditions and to participate in the project."
To begin with the pilot plant will produce no more than 1.2 kilotonnes a year.
If an industrial plant is then built it may increase to around 30 kilotonnes by 2012, - thats just under a third of current production.
But most lithium now goes to small batteries for electronic goods.
Car batteries are far larger and Mitsubishi estimates the world will need 500 kilotonnes a year just to service a niche market. For electric cars to become the norm, it could need far more.
Mitsubishi predicts that there will be a supply shortage by 2015.
Pollution nevertheless
Analysts suspect that Bolivia's government can produce this much.
"Governments in South America have had a very successful history of mining," explains Charles Kernot, a mining analyst at Evolution Securities.
But the question is how fast.
"They probably don't have a lot of experience of doing this sort of thing themselves so they'll have to bring in expertise and technology," Mr Kernot adds.
"That whole process may take a lot longer than people are anticipating."
Consequently, he continues, "the car manufacturers will have to strike a balance between how quickly they manufacture with the supply of metal because they don't want to drive the price up to such an extent that the cars get priced out of the market".
Long-term, Bolivia's government is wary of the environmental damage mass extraction could cause.
The mining minister, Mr Eschazu, has a stark message for Western firms.
"The capitalist leaders have to change," he says.
"If all the world had consumers like North America, everyone with a car, it would grind to a halt.
"It is also going to generate pollution, not just from fossil fuels but also from lithium plants, which produce sulphur dioxide. This isn't a magic solution."
It is not a view likely to go down well in the offices of Toyota and General Motors.
Bolivia holds key to electric car future
By Damian Kahya
BBC News, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Bolivia's lithium reserves could bring wealth to the country
High in the Andes, in a remote corner of Bolivia, lies more than half the world's reserves of a mineral that could radically reduce our reliance on dwindling fossil fuels.
Lithium carries a great promise. It could help power the fuel efficient electric or petrol-electric hybrid vehicles of the future.
But, as is the case with fossil fuels, it is a limited resource.
Lithium carbonate is already in the batteries of laptop computers and mobile phones.
It is used because it allows more energy to be stored in a lighter, smaller space than most alternatives.
And as the auto industry rushes to produce new fuel efficient and electric cars, it too is turning to lithium batteries as its first choice to boost the power of their new models.
GM has one in its new hybrid Volt, Toyota is testing one in its next generation hybrid Prius. Mercedes is testing an electric version of its Smart, while BMW is doing the same with its Mini.
And Nissan-Renault, Mitsubishi and VW are all rushing to buy or produce enough of the batteries to power their future models.
The best of the pure electric cars can reach ranges of more than 150 kilometres per charge.
More is needed
But there is a problem.
Mitsubishi, which plans to release its own electric car soon, estimates that the demand for lithium will outstrip supply in less than 10 years unless new sources are found.
And they have ended up in Bolivia.
"The demand for lithium won't double but increase by five times," according to Eichi Maeyama Mitsubishi's general manager in La Paz.
"We will need more lithium sources - and 50% of the world's reserves of lithium exist in Bolivia, in the Salar de Uyuni," he adds, pointing out that without new production, the price of lithium will rise prohibitively.
Locals fear the benefits will not be passed on
But almost all the commercially exploitable reserves are found in the brine under salt flats.
The world's largest reserves lie in Bolivia at the Salar de Uyuni - in the remote southern Andean plane.
But Bolivia is not a country known to be friendly to foreign industry.
Its socialist president, Evo Morales, is keen to expand state control over its natural resources, a task carried out by Bolivia's minister for mining, Luis Alberto Echazu.
"We want to send a message to the industrialized countries and their companies," Mr Echazu says.
"We will not repeat the historical experience since the fifteenth century: raw materials exported for the industrialisation of the west that has left us poor."
Modest ambitions
Gold, silver, tin, oil and gas have all been found and exported from here whilst the country remains the poorest in the region.
For President Morales' supporters, that is reason enough not to allow in foreign mining companies to extract the lithium.
Across the flats, freelance miners work to break up the surface salt selling it to passing trucks for just a few dollars.
Indigenous and poor, they are core supporters of the president.
A grizzled old miner, giving his name only as Alfredo, says he does not believe that lithium will ever be extracted.
"We don't want to see foreign companies here," he says.
"It would be very bad, as the government says."
Alfredo's hopes for the future are modest.
"I just want to work until I die" he says, a smile across his face. It is not an uncommon sentiment here.
Sharing the benefits
In spite of the grinding poverty here, attempts in the 1980's and 1990's by foreign companies to extract the lithium met with resistance from the community.
They say the money would go elsewhere.
Francisco Quisbert is a local activist with President Morales' party who took part in the resistance.
Now he is working with the president to hammer out a new plan for a state-owned pilot plant on the flats.
"We don't want international involvement," he says.
"This plan has raised the hopes of the region.
"Before our grandparents lived on the salt. They arrived from the valleys in caravans of llamas, but the market forced them to leave.
"We want to return to live on the salar [and] improve our living conditions and to participate in the project."
To begin with the pilot plant will produce no more than 1.2 kilotonnes a year.
If an industrial plant is then built it may increase to around 30 kilotonnes by 2012, - thats just under a third of current production.
But most lithium now goes to small batteries for electronic goods.
Car batteries are far larger and Mitsubishi estimates the world will need 500 kilotonnes a year just to service a niche market. For electric cars to become the norm, it could need far more.
Mitsubishi predicts that there will be a supply shortage by 2015.
Pollution nevertheless
Analysts suspect that Bolivia's government can produce this much.
"Governments in South America have had a very successful history of mining," explains Charles Kernot, a mining analyst at Evolution Securities.
But the question is how fast.
"They probably don't have a lot of experience of doing this sort of thing themselves so they'll have to bring in expertise and technology," Mr Kernot adds.
"That whole process may take a lot longer than people are anticipating."
Consequently, he continues, "the car manufacturers will have to strike a balance between how quickly they manufacture with the supply of metal because they don't want to drive the price up to such an extent that the cars get priced out of the market".
Long-term, Bolivia's government is wary of the environmental damage mass extraction could cause.
The mining minister, Mr Eschazu, has a stark message for Western firms.
"The capitalist leaders have to change," he says.
"If all the world had consumers like North America, everyone with a car, it would grind to a halt.
"It is also going to generate pollution, not just from fossil fuels but also from lithium plants, which produce sulphur dioxide. This isn't a magic solution."
It is not a view likely to go down well in the offices of Toyota and General Motors.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Jobless rate hits 9.4 percent in May
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gNiyJ905Ho0Ur96V2TQhsBX19lGwD98KH8K80
Jobless rate hits 9.4 percent in May; layoffs slow
By JEANNINE AVERSA
6-5-9
WASHINGTON (AP) — With companies in no mood to hire, the unemployment rate jumped to 9.4 percent in May, the highest in more than 25 years. But the pace of layoffs eased, with employers cutting 345,000 jobs, the fewest since September.
The much smaller-than-expected reduction in payroll jobs, reported by the Labor Department on Friday, adds to evidence that the recession is loosening its hold on the country. It marked the fourth straight month that the pace of layoffs slowed.
Still, the increase in the nation's unemployment rate from 8.9 percent in April underscores the difficulties that America's 14.5 million unemployed are having in finding new jobs. Economists had expected the rate to hit 9.2 percent last month.
If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate would have been 16.4 percent in May, the highest on records dating to 1994.
Even with layoffs slowing, companies will be reluctant to hire until they feel certain that economic conditions are improving and that any recovery will last.
Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost a net total of 6 million jobs.
As the recession — which is now the longest since World War II — bites into sales and profits, companies have turned to layoffs and other cost-cutting measures to survive the fallout. Those include holding down workers' hours and freezing or cutting pay.
The average work week in May fell to 33.1 hours, the lowest on records dating to 1964.
Job losses — while slower in May — were still widespread.
Construction companies cut 59,000 jobs, down from 108,000 in April. Factories cut 156,000, on top of 154,000 in the previous month. Retailers cut 17,500 positions, compared with 36,5000 in April. Financial activities cut 30,000, down from 45,000 in April. Even the government reduced employment — by 7,000 — after bulking up by 92,000 in March as it added workers for the 2010 Census.
Education, health care, leisure and hospitality were among the industries adding jobs in May.
Still, in another encouraging note, job losses in both March and April were less than previously thought. Employers cut 652,000 positions in March, versus 699,000 previously reported. They eliminated 504,000 jobs in April, less than the 539,000 initially estimated.
The deepest job cuts of the recession came in January when 741,000 jobs disappeared, the most since 1949.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke repeated his prediction this week that the recession will end this year, but again warned that any recovery will be gradual.
Many economists believe the jobless rate will hit 10 percent by the end of this year. Some think it could rise as high as 10.7 percent by the second quarter of next year before it starts to make a slow descent. The post-World War II high was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982.
The Fed says unemployment will remain elevated into 2011 given the expectation of tepid recovery. Economists say the job market may not get back to normal — meaning a 5 percent unemployment rate — until 2013. Economic recoveries after financial crises tend to be slower, economists say.
Evidence has been mounting that the recession is letting up, with fresh signs emerging earlier this week.
The number of people continuing to draw unemployment benefits dipped for the first time in 20 weeks, and first-time claims also fell. Manufacturing's slide is slowing. Builders are boosting spending on construction projects and a barometer of home sales firmed.
Although shoppers remain cautious according to sales results from major retailers, Bernanke and other economists are hopeful that consumers won't return to the deep hibernation seen at the end of last year.
That's when the recession hit with brutal force, causing the economy to contract at a 6.3 percent pace, the most in 25 years. Consumers cut their spending at the time by the most in nearly three decades. Economic activity shrank at a 5.7 percent pace in the first three months of this year, despite a rebound by consumers.
Many analysts believe the economy is shrinking at about a 2 percent pace in the current quarter, and that the economy could return to growth as soon as the third quarter. President Barack Obama's stimulus package should help bolster the economy.
Ripple-effects from General Motors Corp.'s filing for bankruptcy protection — the fourth largest in U.S. history — could muddy the outlook, some analysts said. GM said earlier this week it will close nine factories and idle three others indefinitely as part of its restructuring. The closings, which will take place through the end of 2010, will cost up to 20,000 workers their jobs.
Jobless rate hits 9.4 percent in May; layoffs slow
By JEANNINE AVERSA
6-5-9
WASHINGTON (AP) — With companies in no mood to hire, the unemployment rate jumped to 9.4 percent in May, the highest in more than 25 years. But the pace of layoffs eased, with employers cutting 345,000 jobs, the fewest since September.
The much smaller-than-expected reduction in payroll jobs, reported by the Labor Department on Friday, adds to evidence that the recession is loosening its hold on the country. It marked the fourth straight month that the pace of layoffs slowed.
Still, the increase in the nation's unemployment rate from 8.9 percent in April underscores the difficulties that America's 14.5 million unemployed are having in finding new jobs. Economists had expected the rate to hit 9.2 percent last month.
If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate would have been 16.4 percent in May, the highest on records dating to 1994.
Even with layoffs slowing, companies will be reluctant to hire until they feel certain that economic conditions are improving and that any recovery will last.
Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost a net total of 6 million jobs.
As the recession — which is now the longest since World War II — bites into sales and profits, companies have turned to layoffs and other cost-cutting measures to survive the fallout. Those include holding down workers' hours and freezing or cutting pay.
The average work week in May fell to 33.1 hours, the lowest on records dating to 1964.
Job losses — while slower in May — were still widespread.
Construction companies cut 59,000 jobs, down from 108,000 in April. Factories cut 156,000, on top of 154,000 in the previous month. Retailers cut 17,500 positions, compared with 36,5000 in April. Financial activities cut 30,000, down from 45,000 in April. Even the government reduced employment — by 7,000 — after bulking up by 92,000 in March as it added workers for the 2010 Census.
Education, health care, leisure and hospitality were among the industries adding jobs in May.
Still, in another encouraging note, job losses in both March and April were less than previously thought. Employers cut 652,000 positions in March, versus 699,000 previously reported. They eliminated 504,000 jobs in April, less than the 539,000 initially estimated.
The deepest job cuts of the recession came in January when 741,000 jobs disappeared, the most since 1949.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke repeated his prediction this week that the recession will end this year, but again warned that any recovery will be gradual.
Many economists believe the jobless rate will hit 10 percent by the end of this year. Some think it could rise as high as 10.7 percent by the second quarter of next year before it starts to make a slow descent. The post-World War II high was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982.
The Fed says unemployment will remain elevated into 2011 given the expectation of tepid recovery. Economists say the job market may not get back to normal — meaning a 5 percent unemployment rate — until 2013. Economic recoveries after financial crises tend to be slower, economists say.
Evidence has been mounting that the recession is letting up, with fresh signs emerging earlier this week.
The number of people continuing to draw unemployment benefits dipped for the first time in 20 weeks, and first-time claims also fell. Manufacturing's slide is slowing. Builders are boosting spending on construction projects and a barometer of home sales firmed.
Although shoppers remain cautious according to sales results from major retailers, Bernanke and other economists are hopeful that consumers won't return to the deep hibernation seen at the end of last year.
That's when the recession hit with brutal force, causing the economy to contract at a 6.3 percent pace, the most in 25 years. Consumers cut their spending at the time by the most in nearly three decades. Economic activity shrank at a 5.7 percent pace in the first three months of this year, despite a rebound by consumers.
Many analysts believe the economy is shrinking at about a 2 percent pace in the current quarter, and that the economy could return to growth as soon as the third quarter. President Barack Obama's stimulus package should help bolster the economy.
Ripple-effects from General Motors Corp.'s filing for bankruptcy protection — the fourth largest in U.S. history — could muddy the outlook, some analysts said. GM said earlier this week it will close nine factories and idle three others indefinitely as part of its restructuring. The closings, which will take place through the end of 2010, will cost up to 20,000 workers their jobs.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Goodbye, GM
by Michael Moore
June 1, 2009
I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.
As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?
It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.
So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.
But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?
Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:
1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.
We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.
The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.
President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.
2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.
3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.
4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.
5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.
6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).
7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.
8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.
9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.
Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.
100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front -- and the back -- seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it's over. It's a new day and a new century. The President -- and the UAW -- must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon.
Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.
So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
June 1, 2009
I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.
As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?
It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.
So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.
But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?
Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:
1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.
We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.
The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.
President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.
2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.
3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.
4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.
5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.
6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).
7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.
8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.
9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.
Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.
100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front -- and the back -- seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it's over. It's a new day and a new century. The President -- and the UAW -- must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon.
Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.
So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM
by Greg Palast
Monday, June 1, 2009
Screw the autoworkers.
They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.
Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders - led by Morgan and Citibank - expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.
The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.
I smell a rat.
Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.
When a company goes bankrupt, everyone takes a hit: fair or not, workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get fragments of what's left. That's the law. What workers don't lose are their pensions (including old-age health funds) already taken from their wages and held in their name.
But not this time. Stevie the Rat has a different plan for GM: grab the pension funds to pay off Morgan and Citi.
Here's the scheme: Rattner is demanding the bankruptcy court simply wipe away the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance. Cash in the insurance fund would be replace by GM stock. The percentage may be 17% of GM's stock - or 25%. Whatever, 17% or 25% is worth, well ... just try paying for your dialysis with 50 shares of bankrupt auto stock.
Yet Citibank and Morgan, says Rattner, should get their whole enchilada - $6 billion right now and in cash - from a company that can't pay for auto parts or worker eye exams.
Preventive Detention for Pensions
So what's wrong with seizing workers' pension fund money in a bankruptcy? The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it's illegal.
In 1974, after a series of scandalous take-downs of pension and retirement funds during the Nixon era, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. ERISA says you can't seize workers' pension funds (whether monthly payments or health insurance) any more than you can seize their private bank accounts. And that's because they are the same thing: workers give up wages in return for retirement benefits.
The law is darn explicit that grabbing pension money is a no-no. Company executives must hold these retirement funds as "fiduciaries." Here's the law, Professor Obama, as described on the government's own web site under the heading, "Health Plans and Benefits."
"The primary responsibility of fiduciaries is to run the plan solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits."
Every business in America that runs short of cash would love to dip into retirement kitties, but it's not their money any more than a banker can seize your account when the bank's a little short. A plan's assets are for the plan's members only, not for Mr. Dimon nor Mr. Rubin.
Yet, in effect, the Obama Administration is demanding that money for an elderly auto worker's spleen should be siphoned off to feed the TARP babies. Workers go without lung transplants so Dimon and Rubin can pimp out their ride. This is another "Guantanamo" moment for the Obama Administration - channeling Nixon to endorse the preventive detention of retiree health insurance.
Filching GM's pension assets doesn't become legal because the cash due the fund is replaced with GM stock. Congress saw through that switch-a-roo by requiring that companies, as fiduciaries, must
"...act prudently and must diversify the plan's investments in order to minimize the risk of large losses."
By "diversify" for safety, the law does not mean put 100% of worker funds into a single busted company's stock.
This is dangerous business: The Rattner plan opens the floodgate to every politically-connected or down-on-their-luck company seeking to drain health care retirement funds.
House of Rubin
Pensions are wiped away and two connected banks don't even get a haircut? How come Citi and Morgan aren't asked, like workers and other creditors, to take stock in GM?
As Butch said to Sundance, who ARE these guys? You remember Morgan and Citi. These are the corporate Welfare Queens who've already sucked up over a third of a trillion dollars in aid from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. Not coincidentally, Citi, the big winner, has paid over $100 million to Robert Rubin, the former US Treasury Secretary. Rubin was Obama's point-man in winning banks' endorsement and campaign donations (by far, his largest source of his corporate funding).
With GM's last dying dimes about to fall into one pocket, and the Obama Treasury in his other pocket, Morgan's Jamie Dimon is correct in saying that the last twelve months will prove to be the bank's "finest year ever."
Which leaves us to ask the question: is the forced bankruptcy of GM, the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, just a collection action for favored financiers?
And it's been a good year for Señor Rattner. While the Obama Administration made a big deal out of Rattner's youth spent working for the Steelworkers Union, they tried to sweep under the chassis that Rattner was one of the privileged, select group of investors in Cerberus Capital, the owners of Chrysler. "Owning" is a loose term. Cerberus "owned" Chrysler the way a cannibal "hosts" you for dinner. Cerberus paid nothing for Chrysler - indeed, they were paid billions by Germany's Daimler Corporation to haul it away. Cerberus kept the cash, then dumped Chrysler's bankrupt corpse on the US taxpayer.
("Cerberus," by the way, named itself after the Roman's mythical three-headed dog guarding the gates Hell. Subtle these guys are not.)
While Stevie the Rat sold his interest in the Dog from Hell when he became Car Czar, he never relinquished his post at the shop of vultures called Quadrangle Hedge Fund. Rattner's personal net worth stands at roughly half a billion dollars. This is Obama's working class hero.
If you ran a business and played fast and loose with your workers' funds, you could land in prison. Stevie the Rat's plan is nothing less than Grand Theft Auto Pension.
It doesn't make it any less of a crime if the President drives the getaway car.
*
Economist and journalist Greg Palast, a former trade union contract negotiator, is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse. He is a GM bondholder and card-carrying member of United Automobile Workers Local 1981.
Palast's latest reports for BBC Television and Democracy Now! are collected on the newly released DVD, "Palast Investigates: from 8-Mile to the Amazon - on the trail of the financial marauders."
by Greg Palast
Monday, June 1, 2009
Screw the autoworkers.
They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.
Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders - led by Morgan and Citibank - expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.
The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.
I smell a rat.
Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.
When a company goes bankrupt, everyone takes a hit: fair or not, workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get fragments of what's left. That's the law. What workers don't lose are their pensions (including old-age health funds) already taken from their wages and held in their name.
But not this time. Stevie the Rat has a different plan for GM: grab the pension funds to pay off Morgan and Citi.
Here's the scheme: Rattner is demanding the bankruptcy court simply wipe away the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance. Cash in the insurance fund would be replace by GM stock. The percentage may be 17% of GM's stock - or 25%. Whatever, 17% or 25% is worth, well ... just try paying for your dialysis with 50 shares of bankrupt auto stock.
Yet Citibank and Morgan, says Rattner, should get their whole enchilada - $6 billion right now and in cash - from a company that can't pay for auto parts or worker eye exams.
Preventive Detention for Pensions
So what's wrong with seizing workers' pension fund money in a bankruptcy? The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it's illegal.
In 1974, after a series of scandalous take-downs of pension and retirement funds during the Nixon era, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. ERISA says you can't seize workers' pension funds (whether monthly payments or health insurance) any more than you can seize their private bank accounts. And that's because they are the same thing: workers give up wages in return for retirement benefits.
The law is darn explicit that grabbing pension money is a no-no. Company executives must hold these retirement funds as "fiduciaries." Here's the law, Professor Obama, as described on the government's own web site under the heading, "Health Plans and Benefits."
"The primary responsibility of fiduciaries is to run the plan solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits."
Every business in America that runs short of cash would love to dip into retirement kitties, but it's not their money any more than a banker can seize your account when the bank's a little short. A plan's assets are for the plan's members only, not for Mr. Dimon nor Mr. Rubin.
Yet, in effect, the Obama Administration is demanding that money for an elderly auto worker's spleen should be siphoned off to feed the TARP babies. Workers go without lung transplants so Dimon and Rubin can pimp out their ride. This is another "Guantanamo" moment for the Obama Administration - channeling Nixon to endorse the preventive detention of retiree health insurance.
Filching GM's pension assets doesn't become legal because the cash due the fund is replaced with GM stock. Congress saw through that switch-a-roo by requiring that companies, as fiduciaries, must
"...act prudently and must diversify the plan's investments in order to minimize the risk of large losses."
By "diversify" for safety, the law does not mean put 100% of worker funds into a single busted company's stock.
This is dangerous business: The Rattner plan opens the floodgate to every politically-connected or down-on-their-luck company seeking to drain health care retirement funds.
House of Rubin
Pensions are wiped away and two connected banks don't even get a haircut? How come Citi and Morgan aren't asked, like workers and other creditors, to take stock in GM?
As Butch said to Sundance, who ARE these guys? You remember Morgan and Citi. These are the corporate Welfare Queens who've already sucked up over a third of a trillion dollars in aid from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. Not coincidentally, Citi, the big winner, has paid over $100 million to Robert Rubin, the former US Treasury Secretary. Rubin was Obama's point-man in winning banks' endorsement and campaign donations (by far, his largest source of his corporate funding).
With GM's last dying dimes about to fall into one pocket, and the Obama Treasury in his other pocket, Morgan's Jamie Dimon is correct in saying that the last twelve months will prove to be the bank's "finest year ever."
Which leaves us to ask the question: is the forced bankruptcy of GM, the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, just a collection action for favored financiers?
And it's been a good year for Señor Rattner. While the Obama Administration made a big deal out of Rattner's youth spent working for the Steelworkers Union, they tried to sweep under the chassis that Rattner was one of the privileged, select group of investors in Cerberus Capital, the owners of Chrysler. "Owning" is a loose term. Cerberus "owned" Chrysler the way a cannibal "hosts" you for dinner. Cerberus paid nothing for Chrysler - indeed, they were paid billions by Germany's Daimler Corporation to haul it away. Cerberus kept the cash, then dumped Chrysler's bankrupt corpse on the US taxpayer.
("Cerberus," by the way, named itself after the Roman's mythical three-headed dog guarding the gates Hell. Subtle these guys are not.)
While Stevie the Rat sold his interest in the Dog from Hell when he became Car Czar, he never relinquished his post at the shop of vultures called Quadrangle Hedge Fund. Rattner's personal net worth stands at roughly half a billion dollars. This is Obama's working class hero.
If you ran a business and played fast and loose with your workers' funds, you could land in prison. Stevie the Rat's plan is nothing less than Grand Theft Auto Pension.
It doesn't make it any less of a crime if the President drives the getaway car.
*
Economist and journalist Greg Palast, a former trade union contract negotiator, is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse. He is a GM bondholder and card-carrying member of United Automobile Workers Local 1981.
Palast's latest reports for BBC Television and Democracy Now! are collected on the newly released DVD, "Palast Investigates: from 8-Mile to the Amazon - on the trail of the financial marauders."
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Obama Pushes Vision for High-Speed Rail
Robalini's Note: Why isn't Obama using this plan as a way to keep workers of GM, Chrysler & Ford still employed rather than the massive layoffs and pay cuts he's pushing for?http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/04/16/by_michael_d_shear_declaring.html
44 The Obama Presidency
Obama Pushes Vision for High-Speed Rail
By Michael D. Shear
Apr 16, 2009
Declaring that America should "make no little plans," President Obama declared his intention to build a nationwide system of high-speed rail lines in some of the country's most populated corridors.
Speaking at the Old Executive Office Building before a trip to Mexico and Trinidad this morning, Obama said there is no reason why the most modern transportation systems should be built in other countries.
"A major new high-speed rail line will generate many thousands of construction jobs over several years, as well as permanent jobs for rail employees and increased economic activity in the destinations these trains serve," Obama said in prepared remarks. "High-speed rail is long-overdue, and this plan lets American travelers know that they are not doomed to a future of long lines at the airports or jammed cars on the highways."
The declaration of support for rail did not include any new proposals or money. Rather, it was a restatement of the initiative he launched in the past several months.
The stimulus package that Obama pushed through Congress includes $8 billion that the president said will be doled out to the most deserving projects. He has requested another $5 billion in his budget.
Obama said that the money would be used for two things: to improve existing rail lines so that trains on them could go 100 mph or faster; and to identify and construct new rail lines in major corridors.
Among those, according to a fact sheet put out by the White House are the following:
-- California Corridor (Bay Area, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego)
-- Pacific Northwest Corridor (Eugene, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, Vancouver BC)
-- South Central Corridor (Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Little Rock)
-- Gulf Coast Corridor (Houston, New Orleans, Mobile, Birmingham, Atlanta)
-- Chicago Hub Network (Chicago, Milwaukee, Twin Cities, St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Louisville)
-- Florida Corridor (Orlando, Tampa, Miami)
-- Southeast Corridor (Washington, Richmond, Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta, Macon, Columbia, Savannah, Jacksonville)
-- Keystone Corridor (Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh)
-- Empire Corridor (New York City, Albany, Buffalo)
--Northern New England Corridor (Boston, Montreal, Portland, Springfield, New Haven, Albany)
The fact sheet also suggests that upgrades and improvements are needed in the Northeast Corridor, including "Washington, Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Newark, New York City, New Haven, Providence, Boston."
In his remarks this morning, Obama confronted critics who say the plans are too expensive, don't go far enough, or will shift resources away from the roads and airports.
He dismissed all those concerns. He said the money is needed now to put people to work and will serve as an investment for later years. He acknowledged that more money will be needed but said the billions committed now are a downpayment to get the program started. And he noted that there are billions more in the stimulus package for road and airport improvement.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
GM, Segway to Make Vehicle
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123906731177395605.htmlAPRIL 7, 2009
GM, Segway to Make Vehicle
By SHARON TERLEP
General Motors Corp. is teaming with Segway Inc., maker of the upright, self-balancing scooters, to build a new type of two-wheeled vehicle designed to move easily through congested urban streets.
The machine, which GM says it aims to develop by 2012, would run on batteries and use wireless technology to avoid traffic backups and navigate cities.
The struggling auto maker, surviving on a government lifeline, is looking to generate enthusiasm for its increasingly uncertain future ahead of the New York auto show this week.
GM has slashed product-development programs, advertising and spending on auto-show events. But it will take to the streets of Manhattan on Tuesday to show off a prototype of the vehicle, called PUMA, for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility.
The Segway Personal Transporter was launched with considerable hype eight years ago but practical issues prevented the scooter from becoming a mass-market product, including its relatively high cost and restrictions on its use in many jurisdictions.
GM is betting PUMA's more car-like traits -- an enclosed compartment and top speed of 35 miles per hour -- will lead to better results. GM didn't say how much the machines would cost, but research chief Larry Burns said owners would spend one-third to one-fourth of the cost of a traditional vehicle.
PUMA would have a range of about 35 miles. GM said it aims to use so-called vehicle-to-vehicle technology to avoid traffic problems and potentially have it navigate itself through city streets.
Write to Sharon Terlep at sharon.terlep@dowjones.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page B2
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Obama's Gordon Gekko Targets Union Workers
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009031431/obamas-gordon-gekko-targets-union-workers-0
Obama's Gordon Gekko Targets Union Workers
By David Sirota
March 31st, 2009
Remember Gordon Gekko from Wall Street? Specifically, remember how Gekko's entire scheme for the airline industry was based on crushing the blue-collar union that Bud Fox's dad (Martin Sheen) was part of? Welcome to a real life version of that story, starring corporate raider Steve Rattner, who President Obama appointed to head the White House team now overseeing the auto industry (and don't say you weren't warned).
As the Wall Street Journal reports, Rattner's strategy is to use the government's leverage to try to specifically crush auto workers and force them to accept even more contract concessions than they've already agreed to:
DETROIT -- President Barack Obama's recovery plan for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC appears to take aim at union retirees, a usually reliable Democratic constituency. After studying the plight of the companies, the president's auto task force concluded GM and Chrysler's survival is dependent on greater concessions from the United Auto Workers union.
The White House has total leverage over the situation because the UAW knows that if the industry doesn't get the loans it needs, it will be forced into bankruptcy court, where judges will shred labor contracts (somehow, AIG bonus contracts are sacrosanct, but union worker contracts can be shredded in a heartbeat). Indeed, many analysts believe this is the administration's ultimate goal.
IMHO, The most immoral part of this is the specific targeting of retirees.
As opposed to younger workers, retirees often can't get another job or go back to work because of obvious physical limitations. As one retiree said, "What 85-year-old can go out and get another job?"
I'm not saying that the auto industry's legacy costs are sustainable - not at all. But I am saying that when you put Gordon Gekko in control of government policy overseeing an industry, you are inevitably going to get a policy that assumes workers are the big problem. If you had a different kind of team, you may have a policy that says, for instance, we have to create a robust universal health care system before throwing retirees off their existing health care.
Last I checked, we have enough money to create that system just lying around ready to be handed out to Rattner's Wall Street friends. Hell, $8 trillion will get us a damn good universal health care system, won't it? Yes, it will - but it will also buy a lot of yachts for AIG execs, and when you have Gordon Gekko making public policy yachts come before health care.
Obama's Gordon Gekko Targets Union Workers
By David Sirota
March 31st, 2009
Remember Gordon Gekko from Wall Street? Specifically, remember how Gekko's entire scheme for the airline industry was based on crushing the blue-collar union that Bud Fox's dad (Martin Sheen) was part of? Welcome to a real life version of that story, starring corporate raider Steve Rattner, who President Obama appointed to head the White House team now overseeing the auto industry (and don't say you weren't warned).
As the Wall Street Journal reports, Rattner's strategy is to use the government's leverage to try to specifically crush auto workers and force them to accept even more contract concessions than they've already agreed to:
DETROIT -- President Barack Obama's recovery plan for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC appears to take aim at union retirees, a usually reliable Democratic constituency. After studying the plight of the companies, the president's auto task force concluded GM and Chrysler's survival is dependent on greater concessions from the United Auto Workers union.
The White House has total leverage over the situation because the UAW knows that if the industry doesn't get the loans it needs, it will be forced into bankruptcy court, where judges will shred labor contracts (somehow, AIG bonus contracts are sacrosanct, but union worker contracts can be shredded in a heartbeat). Indeed, many analysts believe this is the administration's ultimate goal.
IMHO, The most immoral part of this is the specific targeting of retirees.
As opposed to younger workers, retirees often can't get another job or go back to work because of obvious physical limitations. As one retiree said, "What 85-year-old can go out and get another job?"
I'm not saying that the auto industry's legacy costs are sustainable - not at all. But I am saying that when you put Gordon Gekko in control of government policy overseeing an industry, you are inevitably going to get a policy that assumes workers are the big problem. If you had a different kind of team, you may have a policy that says, for instance, we have to create a robust universal health care system before throwing retirees off their existing health care.
Last I checked, we have enough money to create that system just lying around ready to be handed out to Rattner's Wall Street friends. Hell, $8 trillion will get us a damn good universal health care system, won't it? Yes, it will - but it will also buy a lot of yachts for AIG execs, and when you have Gordon Gekko making public policy yachts come before health care.
Obama treated autos worse than Wall St
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Workers-say-Obama-treated-apf-14789941.html
Workers say Obama treated autos worse than Wall St
Autoworkers say Obama's 'tough love' more tough than love, they get worse treatment than banks
Jeff Karoub, AP Business Writer
Monday March 30, 2009
DETROIT (AP) -- Many assembly line autoworkers reacted with skepticism and anger Monday to the Obama administration's tough tactics, which stoked long-simmering feelings that the people who put the country on wheels get treated differently than the wizards of Wall Street.
"It's the age-old Wall Street vs. Main Street smackdown again," said Brian Fredline, president of UAW Local 602 at a plant near Lansing. "You have all kinds of funding available to banks that are apparently too big to fail, but they're also too big to be responsible."
"But when it comes to auto manufacturing and middle-class jobs and people that don't matter on Wall Street, there are certainly different standards that we have to meet -- higher standards -- than the financials. That is a double standard that exists and it's unfair," Fredline said.
Many workers -- not generally known for their affection toward executives -- even sympathized with Rick Wagoner, who was forced to step down as chief executive of General Motors Corp. He was by turns called a "sacrificial lamb," "scapegoat" and "fall guy."
"We knew someone was going to have to take the proverbial `bullet,' and it would have made it a lot easier to accept that had the CEOs of the banks also been required to give up their jobs," said Jim Graham, president of a union local in Lordstown, Ohio, where GM produces the Cobalt and Pontiac G5 fuel-efficient cars.
While CEO oustings haven't been widespread among the banking industry, the government did in September reserve the right to remove senior management at American International Group Inc. as part of its agreement to give the insurer $85 billion in emergency aid. AIG Chief Executive Robert Willumstad stepped down as part of that company's bailout package, and the government hand-picked his successor.
Also, banks don't have the union and legacy costs that the automakers do, which make their products more costly versus foreign rivals.
President Barack Obama said he was "absolutely committed" to the survival of a domestic auto industry that can compete internationally. He raised the possibility of controlled bankruptcy for one or both of the troubled automakers.
Obama said the administration will offer GM "adequate working capital" during the next 60 days to produce an acceptable reorganization plan. The government gave Chrysler LLC 30 days to overcome hurdles to a merger with Fiat SpA, the Italian automaker.
Many workers say the government hasn't dictated such terms to insurance giant AIG or the banks in which it's taken an ownership stake. Obama's actions come amid public outrage over bonuses paid to business leaders and AIG executives.
"To see the very people that drove this economy into the ground be rewarded through bonuses while receiving tax dollars is just galling," said Dan Maloney, a machine repairman at auto supplier Delphi Corp.'s plant in Rochester, N.Y., and a union local president. "In light of that, the administration is taking it out, I believe, on the automotive sector."
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm called Obama's moves "a bit of tough love," yet recognized a disconnect between the financial and auto industries.
"Yes, I do think that there has been a different look at those who manufacture than those who make money by flipping paper and I'm hopeful that the financial industry gets as tough a scrutiny as the auto industry has," she told reporters after an event Monday in Macomb Township, about 20 miles northeast of Detroit.
Despite Granholm's criticism and what many workers saw as the president's unduly harsh treatment, Obama's actions might not have a lasting effect on voters.
"It will be accepted, grudgingly perhaps, but accepted by anybody and everybody with a brain in their heads," said Bill Ballenger, editor of a Michigan political newsletter and a former Republican state lawmaker.
Still, Bill Rustem of Public Sector Consultants, a Lansing-based nonpartisan think tank, said Obama's actions carry some risk.
"I think this could have some impact four years from now if the state's economy doesn't begin to turn around," he said. Michigan's unemployment rate rose to 12 percent in February, marking the eighth straight monthly increase.
Workers watched Obama on large-screen TVs in the lobby bar of a hotel in Detroit's Renaissance Center, home to GM's headquarters. Several wearing GM badges declined to comment afterward, but one man whose fortunes are nearly as tied to GM as its employees expressed hope for the future of the company and industry.
"It's definitely a move in the right direction," said Tony Keros, who owns a restaurant and real estate development firm in the building. "Something has to happen."
In Ohio, Graham agreed that Washington just might get it right -- if only because the stakes are too high to fail.
"They understand that there are literally millions of people who depend on the auto industry -- whether directly or indirectly -- and a ripple effect of eliminating a General Motors, Chrysler or Ford would be devastating to an economy that's already been devastated over the past eight years," he said.
Associated Press writers Ben Leubsdorf in Clinton Township, Tim Martin in Delta Township, Ben Dobbin in Rochester, N.Y., and Thomas J. Sheeran in Cleveland contributed to this report.
Workers say Obama treated autos worse than Wall St
Autoworkers say Obama's 'tough love' more tough than love, they get worse treatment than banks
Jeff Karoub, AP Business Writer
Monday March 30, 2009
DETROIT (AP) -- Many assembly line autoworkers reacted with skepticism and anger Monday to the Obama administration's tough tactics, which stoked long-simmering feelings that the people who put the country on wheels get treated differently than the wizards of Wall Street.
"It's the age-old Wall Street vs. Main Street smackdown again," said Brian Fredline, president of UAW Local 602 at a plant near Lansing. "You have all kinds of funding available to banks that are apparently too big to fail, but they're also too big to be responsible."
"But when it comes to auto manufacturing and middle-class jobs and people that don't matter on Wall Street, there are certainly different standards that we have to meet -- higher standards -- than the financials. That is a double standard that exists and it's unfair," Fredline said.
Many workers -- not generally known for their affection toward executives -- even sympathized with Rick Wagoner, who was forced to step down as chief executive of General Motors Corp. He was by turns called a "sacrificial lamb," "scapegoat" and "fall guy."
"We knew someone was going to have to take the proverbial `bullet,' and it would have made it a lot easier to accept that had the CEOs of the banks also been required to give up their jobs," said Jim Graham, president of a union local in Lordstown, Ohio, where GM produces the Cobalt and Pontiac G5 fuel-efficient cars.
While CEO oustings haven't been widespread among the banking industry, the government did in September reserve the right to remove senior management at American International Group Inc. as part of its agreement to give the insurer $85 billion in emergency aid. AIG Chief Executive Robert Willumstad stepped down as part of that company's bailout package, and the government hand-picked his successor.
Also, banks don't have the union and legacy costs that the automakers do, which make their products more costly versus foreign rivals.
President Barack Obama said he was "absolutely committed" to the survival of a domestic auto industry that can compete internationally. He raised the possibility of controlled bankruptcy for one or both of the troubled automakers.
Obama said the administration will offer GM "adequate working capital" during the next 60 days to produce an acceptable reorganization plan. The government gave Chrysler LLC 30 days to overcome hurdles to a merger with Fiat SpA, the Italian automaker.
Many workers say the government hasn't dictated such terms to insurance giant AIG or the banks in which it's taken an ownership stake. Obama's actions come amid public outrage over bonuses paid to business leaders and AIG executives.
"To see the very people that drove this economy into the ground be rewarded through bonuses while receiving tax dollars is just galling," said Dan Maloney, a machine repairman at auto supplier Delphi Corp.'s plant in Rochester, N.Y., and a union local president. "In light of that, the administration is taking it out, I believe, on the automotive sector."
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm called Obama's moves "a bit of tough love," yet recognized a disconnect between the financial and auto industries.
"Yes, I do think that there has been a different look at those who manufacture than those who make money by flipping paper and I'm hopeful that the financial industry gets as tough a scrutiny as the auto industry has," she told reporters after an event Monday in Macomb Township, about 20 miles northeast of Detroit.
Despite Granholm's criticism and what many workers saw as the president's unduly harsh treatment, Obama's actions might not have a lasting effect on voters.
"It will be accepted, grudgingly perhaps, but accepted by anybody and everybody with a brain in their heads," said Bill Ballenger, editor of a Michigan political newsletter and a former Republican state lawmaker.
Still, Bill Rustem of Public Sector Consultants, a Lansing-based nonpartisan think tank, said Obama's actions carry some risk.
"I think this could have some impact four years from now if the state's economy doesn't begin to turn around," he said. Michigan's unemployment rate rose to 12 percent in February, marking the eighth straight monthly increase.
Workers watched Obama on large-screen TVs in the lobby bar of a hotel in Detroit's Renaissance Center, home to GM's headquarters. Several wearing GM badges declined to comment afterward, but one man whose fortunes are nearly as tied to GM as its employees expressed hope for the future of the company and industry.
"It's definitely a move in the right direction," said Tony Keros, who owns a restaurant and real estate development firm in the building. "Something has to happen."
In Ohio, Graham agreed that Washington just might get it right -- if only because the stakes are too high to fail.
"They understand that there are literally millions of people who depend on the auto industry -- whether directly or indirectly -- and a ripple effect of eliminating a General Motors, Chrysler or Ford would be devastating to an economy that's already been devastated over the past eight years," he said.
Associated Press writers Ben Leubsdorf in Clinton Township, Tim Martin in Delta Township, Ben Dobbin in Rochester, N.Y., and Thomas J. Sheeran in Cleveland contributed to this report.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Beast of the Month - January 2009
Beast of the Month - January 2009
Rick Wagoner
CEO, General Motors
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
For Americans living outside of Detroit worried about the USA falling into a major depression, be thankful at least you aren't a resident of the Motor City: it's already one there. It's bad enough for the city's rep that LA and New York hip-hop passed Motown as ground zero for African-American music. Michigan's great metropolis is now the poorest city in the nation. Unemployment has hit 21 percent and is still rising, while the average price of a home is down to $18,513. Indeed, the economic downturn is so bad, the notoriously violent city is no longer the nation's most dangerous, having been passed by New Orleans and Camden, New Jersey in 2008 thanks to the lack of worthwhile targets for crime. And to top it all off, the Lions went 0-16.
We bring this all up because naming the city's most powerful korporate executive, General Motors CEO and Chairman Rick Wagoner, The Konformist Beast of the Month seems almost like an excessive piling on overkill. After all, yes, Wagoner and his cohorts at Ford and Chrysler, Alan Mulally and Bob Nardelli, may have come off as clueless and arrogant after coming to Congress asking first for $25 billion and then $34 billion. (You gotta admire their balls, though: usually when you flub your first request for a loan, you ask for less the second time, not $9 billion more.) And yes, maybe it does seem appalling after the Wall Street bailout swindle to have another well-connected industry coming to DC begging for a handout while the working class hasn't received a dime in help from the financial crisis. And yes, for all their whining and moaning about needing help, none of the auto execs could give a convincing mea culpa and admit they have no one to blame for their crisis besides themselves.
(And yes, maybe it would have been at least symbolically wiser for the auto executives to have driven to Washington in good old fashion cars made by their companies rather than fly their in private company jets.)
But, on the other hand, the auto industry is a labor-intensive business that does actual manufacturing, unlike the parasitic, leeching deadweight at the core of Wall Street banks. That means if GM, Ford and Chrysler go down, estimates ranging from 3 to 5 million jobs will disappear with them, good quality jobs at that. And that's before any likely domino effect causes even more jobs to vanish. And while the vast majority of Americans are rightfully disgusted at the idea of another bailout after the Wall Street con, even $34 billion for up to 5 million jobs centered in the manufacturing sector is pretty damn cost-effective, and certainly not comparable to the $700 billion bankster black hole. Maybe Wagoner, Mulally and Nardelli are a bunch of incompetents creeps, but American auto workers shouldn't be left holding the bag for their screw-ups.
This is why The Konformist is awarding the prestigious BOTM prize to Wagoner after all. If workers shouldn't receive the punishment for the failures of Wagoner and his pals, neither should he receive a free pass for the plight of the people of Detroit.
And unfortunately, the auto worker ARE receiving the punishment for the auto executive failures, just as they have over the last 30 years. The framing of the debate was staged when right-wing propagandists repeatedly claimed the average worker gets paid $70-80 in wages and benefits. In fact, the average wage is $28: the grossly inflated figure is based on adding payments to retirees to current benefits and dividing the total by the current work force. But the damage has been done: the blame for the automobile industry crisis was laid at least partially on the feet of overpaid union auto workers, and the remedy was massive cuts in pay and benefits along with layoffs. These talking point barely challenged by the so-called Democratic Party. As Michael Moore rightfully put it with his usual share of deserved outrage: "After giving BILLIONS to Wall Street hucksters and criminal investment bankers -- billions with no strings attached and, as we have since learned, no oversight whatsoever -- the Senate decided it is more important to break a union, more important to throw middle class wage earners into the ranks of the working poor than to prevent the total collapse of industrial America."
Okay, so the auto workers are the predictable scapegoat here, but what is the real cause of the auto market crisis? In some ways, it's just a symptom of the bad economy. After all, Toyota announced in December that it would have an operating loss in 2008, the first time it has failed to make a profit since 1938. Meanwhile, Toyota, Honda and Nissan all had drops in sales last year, all averaging over an astounding 30 percent drop in US sales during December alone.
The problem with this explanation is that while the Japanese car companies are indeed slumping, they still are doing way better relative to Detroit. While the Japanese fell from 8 to 15 percent in US sales in 2008, Ford went down 20%, GM 23%, and Chrysler 30%. All told, the Big Three's US market share fell below 50 percent last year. As far as Toyota goes, it finally overtook GM as the world's largest automaker, and solidified its lead over Ford as number two in the US market. Honda nearly overtook Chrysler as number four in the US market as well, a ranking it should decidedly own in 2009. Meanwhile, GM saw its shares fall to their lowest level since 1950, and warned it could run out of cash the first half of 2009 without help. The Detroit auto companies have become so desperate, there have been talks of merging all three into one company, or possibly all three being taken over by Chinese auto firms (something which would have major national security implications.)
So if isn't evil unions or the economy, stupid, what is the real problem with the US auto companies? The Konformist diagnosis isn't an original one, and one we (and others) have been repeating for quite awhile: the Big Three are victims of their own lack of creative thinking. Since the nineties, the US auto companies have had their focus almost solely on the SUV fad as their meal ticket. It wasn't a bad idea: over half their profits have come from light trucks and SUVs, thanks to the vehicle's wider profit margins. "But now," as The Konformist warned five years ago when we gave the BOTM prize to the Hummer, "the US auto industry seems to be falling back in a lazy, self-satisfied pattern. By hiding behind the short-term lack in economy of scales in hybrid technology to justify the non-creation of economy of scales, the Big Three may have made one of the worst decisions in business history. Meantime, GM keeps pumping out those Hummers, which in the short term is indeed profitable. But somehow we suspect that the Hummer will soon resemble another Titanic, as a symbol of the great economic disaster that may soon fall the entire American auto industry if they don't rise to the challenge of the Prius and Insight."
You would think, at this point, we would get some sort of smug satisfaction out of being once again vindicated by history. But frankly, The Konformist doesn't really enjoy having to say "I told you so" repeatedly like we're Jose Canseco discussing steroids, especially in this case where the victims are hard-working American union members. Unfortunately, the numbers pretty much confirm our prediction: SUV sales peaked in 1999, back when the price of oil was $16 a barrel. With the cost of oil passing $140 last summer (and over $4 a gallon at the gas pump) after the 2000-2008 oil price spike, even the most vain of yuppies and soccer moms had enough of the gas-guzzling behemoths. Here are some of the most noted drops in 2008 US sales: at Ford, the SUVs Explorer and Expedition fell 43% and 39%; at Chrysler, the Jeep Grand Cherokee 39% and the Dodge Dakota pickup 48%; and, perhaps most telling, GM's Hummer brand sank at 51%. Even with the recent stunning drop in oil prices, US consumers are decidedly too gun-shy to drink the SUV Kool-Aid anymore.
"How will the economics of hybrids ever match that of the internal combustion engine? We can't afford to subsidize them." This was Wagoner in a 2002 quote from Business Week, a quote that symbolized the view of Detroit executives. The Japanese took another viewpoint, and the results are now in. Put it all together, and there's a reason why Japan is replacing Detroit as the center of the automobile universe. In retrospect, Motown's double down on SUVs is a "IBM letting Microsoft own MS-DOS" kind of business blunder, rivaling as this decade's worst biz decision the AOL-Time Warner merger, Vince McMahon's XFL and Wall Street's plunge into subprime mortgage loans.
Of course, even as Detroit abandon's the SUV craze faster than you could say "Disco sucks!" in 1979, they still have an extremely difficult road ahead. Simply put, US autos are deemed decidedly inferior in quality and reliability compared to those made in Japan by consumers. The difference is highlighted by the view of Japan making more hi-tech, fuel-efficient cars. This is what happens when Japan markets the Prius and other hybrids as the symbol of their creativity. Had GM not squashed the electric EV1 (covered meticulously in the 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?) they would have something besides the Hummer to showcase as their vision.
The punch line is Detroit is actually making some excellent cars. GM hit a home run with the 2008 Chevy Malibu (named the North American Car of the Year) and the Corvette is still dollar for dollar the best sports car on the planet. The ultra-economical Ford Focus gets 35 MPG. Even the most clueless of US auto companies, Chrysler, has in the PT Cruiser wheels with a cult following usually associated with Apple Computers and The Big Lebowski. (Not to let a good thing be used wisely, Chrysler has decided to kill the Cruiser off.) But these exceptions almost seem to prove the rule, and are deemed too little too late by most American car buyers.
What could change Detroit's image quickly? As usual, Konformist ally Michael Moore presented a pretty good plan last month: making any government bailout of Motown conditional on them producing hybrid and electric cars, as well as mass transit such as trains, buses, subways and light rail. The kind of moves that also would help cure America from its oil addiction while creating millions of blue-collar construction jobs. It's also the kind of move that would be a great change of pace for the Big Three, who long have battled increasing MPG standards and any new environmental laws. (Earlier this year, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz dismissed global warming as a “total crock of shit" while speaking to reporters.)
Naturally, the establishment ignored Moore's idea, and instead embraced a different modest proposal: massive layoffs and wage cuts for auto workers, of course. There should be no surprise in this prescription, as it has been the game plan since the 1970s. And no surprise Cerebus, the geniuses who took over Chrysler in 2007, would embrace such a plan, as they already slashed jobs by 24K their first year. (The private equity firm has long been a champion of the "strip and flip" profit strategy: handing out pink slips to "right-size" a korporation for a turnaround sale.) And there should be little surprise GM plans to dump 31,500 jobs (nearly a third of its workforce) and Ford has already eliminated 57,000 North American jobs over the last three years. (GM laid off over 3000 workers on December 23 alone. Merry Christmas.) And little surprise that already UAW contracts cut new worker wages to $14 an hour, or half of what they currently make. (As Business Week remarked, "for the first time since World War I we will have people building automobiles in America who won't be able to afford the vehicles they build.") And none should be surprised that opposition to bailing out Detroit in Congress came not from Democrats protesting the attack on American workers, but Republicans (such as the rabidly anti-union Bob Corker) who felt that workers weren't getting the shaft enough.
How will this all end up? Well, Detroit got its money, but with the expectation they screw the autoworkers yet again. Perversely, the huge number of job cuts, combined with the same fixed cost of retirement benefits to former workers, will only increase the "wage and benefits" costs per labor hour, thus giving right-wing propagandist even more bogus ammo to justify future cuts in jobs in wages. It seems the downward spiral will only continue, unless the working class finally responds in a mass rebellion. Of course, considering the economic crisis Team USA is currently in, anything is possible...
In any case, we salute Rick Wagoner as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Ricky!!!
Sources:
Special thanks to the World Socialist Web Site ( WSWS.org ) for help in this article as a research resource.
Boehlert, Eric. "The Media Myth: Detroit's $70-an-hour Autoworker." Media Matters 25 November 2008 <http://mediamatters.org/columns/200811250012>.
City Crime Rankings 2008-2009. CQ Press 2008 <http://os.cqpress.com/citycrime2008/citycrime2008.htm>.
"Depression Hits Detroit." Prison Planet 23 December 2008 <http://www.prisonplanet.com/depression-hits-detroit-average-home-price-18513-unemployment-rate-21.html>.
"GM Shares Fall to Lowest Level Since 1950." Yahoo Finance 9 October 2008 <http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/081009/business_us_gm_shares.html>.
"GM Warns It Could Run Out Of Cash By 1st Half '09." CNNMoney.com 7 November 2008 <http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200811071240DOWJONESDJONLINE000633_FORTUNE5.htm>.
Goodman, David N. "Motor City Named Nation's Most Dangerous." Yahoo News 19 November 2007 <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071119/ap_on_re_us/dangerous_cities>.
Hamsher, Jane. "Chinese Want To Buy the Big 3 Automakers." Huffington Post 20 November 2008 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/chinese-want-to-buy-the-b_b_144920.html>.
Krebs, Michelle and Visnic, Bill. "2008 U.S. Auto Sales Are Worst Since 1992." Auto Observer 5 January 2009 <http://www.autoobserver.com/2009/01/2008-us-auto-sales-are-worst-since-1992.html>.
Krolicki, Kevin. "GM Exec Stands by Calling Global Warming a 'Total Crock of Shit.'" Common Dreams 23 February 2008 <http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/23/7251/>.
Moore, Michael. "Senate to Middle Class: Drop Dead." MichaelMoore.com 12 December 2008 <http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=243>.
Moore, Michael. "Saving the Big 3 for You and Me..." MichaelMoore.com 3 December 2008 <http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=242>.
Neiwert, David. "Republicans to Detroit: Drop Dead." Crooks and Liars 20 November 2008 <http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/republicans-detroit-drop-dead>.
Ohnsman, Alan and Ramsey, Mike. "Honda Passes Chrysler as Asia Brands Widen U.S. Share." Bloomberg 4 September 2008 <http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=agUdhAPT2KEY>.
Parks, James. "If Auto Industry Goes Bankrupt, Millions of U.S. Jobs Will Be Lost." AFL-CIO 4 December 2008 <http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/12/04/if-auto-industry-goes-bankrupt-millions-of-us-jobs-will-be-lost/>.
"Rainbow PUSH Mobilizes to Save 4 Million Jobs." Rainbow PUSH Coalition 16 December 2008 <http://www.rainbowpush.org/FMPro?-db=rpodata.fp5&-format=rainbowpush%2Fdata06%2Fdetailpress.htm&-lay=main&-sortfield=date&-sortorder=descend&category=press&year=2008&-max=20&-recid=34007&-find>.
"Reports: Chrysler, GM Discuss Merger, Acquisition." Associated Press 11 October 2008 <http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ha9rjtSaQvjt-5p8ej6DXKECN4AQD93O40F00>.
Riechmann, Deb. "Bush Orders Emergency Bailout of the Auto Industry." Yahoo News 20 December 2008 <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081220/ap_on_go_pr_wh/meltdown_autos>.
Roberts, Paul Craig. "The Crisis Has Hardly Begun." Online Journal 18 November 2008 <http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4021.shtml>.
Salmon, Felix. "Chrysler Follows the Strip-and-Flip Playbook." Portfolio.com 1 November 2007 <http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2007/11/01/chrysler-follows-the-strip-and-flip-playbook?addComment=true>.
Sorkin, Andrew Ross. "Chrysler and the Fallibility of Private Equity." New York Times 1 November 2007 <http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/chrysler-and-the-fallibility-of-private-equity/>.
Vlasic, Bill and Fackler, Martin. "Car Slump Jolts Toyota, Halting 70 Years of Gain." New York Times 23 December 2008.
Rick Wagoner
CEO, General Motors
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
For Americans living outside of Detroit worried about the USA falling into a major depression, be thankful at least you aren't a resident of the Motor City: it's already one there. It's bad enough for the city's rep that LA and New York hip-hop passed Motown as ground zero for African-American music. Michigan's great metropolis is now the poorest city in the nation. Unemployment has hit 21 percent and is still rising, while the average price of a home is down to $18,513. Indeed, the economic downturn is so bad, the notoriously violent city is no longer the nation's most dangerous, having been passed by New Orleans and Camden, New Jersey in 2008 thanks to the lack of worthwhile targets for crime. And to top it all off, the Lions went 0-16.
We bring this all up because naming the city's most powerful korporate executive, General Motors CEO and Chairman Rick Wagoner, The Konformist Beast of the Month seems almost like an excessive piling on overkill. After all, yes, Wagoner and his cohorts at Ford and Chrysler, Alan Mulally and Bob Nardelli, may have come off as clueless and arrogant after coming to Congress asking first for $25 billion and then $34 billion. (You gotta admire their balls, though: usually when you flub your first request for a loan, you ask for less the second time, not $9 billion more.) And yes, maybe it does seem appalling after the Wall Street bailout swindle to have another well-connected industry coming to DC begging for a handout while the working class hasn't received a dime in help from the financial crisis. And yes, for all their whining and moaning about needing help, none of the auto execs could give a convincing mea culpa and admit they have no one to blame for their crisis besides themselves.
(And yes, maybe it would have been at least symbolically wiser for the auto executives to have driven to Washington in good old fashion cars made by their companies rather than fly their in private company jets.)
But, on the other hand, the auto industry is a labor-intensive business that does actual manufacturing, unlike the parasitic, leeching deadweight at the core of Wall Street banks. That means if GM, Ford and Chrysler go down, estimates ranging from 3 to 5 million jobs will disappear with them, good quality jobs at that. And that's before any likely domino effect causes even more jobs to vanish. And while the vast majority of Americans are rightfully disgusted at the idea of another bailout after the Wall Street con, even $34 billion for up to 5 million jobs centered in the manufacturing sector is pretty damn cost-effective, and certainly not comparable to the $700 billion bankster black hole. Maybe Wagoner, Mulally and Nardelli are a bunch of incompetents creeps, but American auto workers shouldn't be left holding the bag for their screw-ups.
This is why The Konformist is awarding the prestigious BOTM prize to Wagoner after all. If workers shouldn't receive the punishment for the failures of Wagoner and his pals, neither should he receive a free pass for the plight of the people of Detroit.
And unfortunately, the auto worker ARE receiving the punishment for the auto executive failures, just as they have over the last 30 years. The framing of the debate was staged when right-wing propagandists repeatedly claimed the average worker gets paid $70-80 in wages and benefits. In fact, the average wage is $28: the grossly inflated figure is based on adding payments to retirees to current benefits and dividing the total by the current work force. But the damage has been done: the blame for the automobile industry crisis was laid at least partially on the feet of overpaid union auto workers, and the remedy was massive cuts in pay and benefits along with layoffs. These talking point barely challenged by the so-called Democratic Party. As Michael Moore rightfully put it with his usual share of deserved outrage: "After giving BILLIONS to Wall Street hucksters and criminal investment bankers -- billions with no strings attached and, as we have since learned, no oversight whatsoever -- the Senate decided it is more important to break a union, more important to throw middle class wage earners into the ranks of the working poor than to prevent the total collapse of industrial America."
Okay, so the auto workers are the predictable scapegoat here, but what is the real cause of the auto market crisis? In some ways, it's just a symptom of the bad economy. After all, Toyota announced in December that it would have an operating loss in 2008, the first time it has failed to make a profit since 1938. Meanwhile, Toyota, Honda and Nissan all had drops in sales last year, all averaging over an astounding 30 percent drop in US sales during December alone.
The problem with this explanation is that while the Japanese car companies are indeed slumping, they still are doing way better relative to Detroit. While the Japanese fell from 8 to 15 percent in US sales in 2008, Ford went down 20%, GM 23%, and Chrysler 30%. All told, the Big Three's US market share fell below 50 percent last year. As far as Toyota goes, it finally overtook GM as the world's largest automaker, and solidified its lead over Ford as number two in the US market. Honda nearly overtook Chrysler as number four in the US market as well, a ranking it should decidedly own in 2009. Meanwhile, GM saw its shares fall to their lowest level since 1950, and warned it could run out of cash the first half of 2009 without help. The Detroit auto companies have become so desperate, there have been talks of merging all three into one company, or possibly all three being taken over by Chinese auto firms (something which would have major national security implications.)
So if isn't evil unions or the economy, stupid, what is the real problem with the US auto companies? The Konformist diagnosis isn't an original one, and one we (and others) have been repeating for quite awhile: the Big Three are victims of their own lack of creative thinking. Since the nineties, the US auto companies have had their focus almost solely on the SUV fad as their meal ticket. It wasn't a bad idea: over half their profits have come from light trucks and SUVs, thanks to the vehicle's wider profit margins. "But now," as The Konformist warned five years ago when we gave the BOTM prize to the Hummer, "the US auto industry seems to be falling back in a lazy, self-satisfied pattern. By hiding behind the short-term lack in economy of scales in hybrid technology to justify the non-creation of economy of scales, the Big Three may have made one of the worst decisions in business history. Meantime, GM keeps pumping out those Hummers, which in the short term is indeed profitable. But somehow we suspect that the Hummer will soon resemble another Titanic, as a symbol of the great economic disaster that may soon fall the entire American auto industry if they don't rise to the challenge of the Prius and Insight."
You would think, at this point, we would get some sort of smug satisfaction out of being once again vindicated by history. But frankly, The Konformist doesn't really enjoy having to say "I told you so" repeatedly like we're Jose Canseco discussing steroids, especially in this case where the victims are hard-working American union members. Unfortunately, the numbers pretty much confirm our prediction: SUV sales peaked in 1999, back when the price of oil was $16 a barrel. With the cost of oil passing $140 last summer (and over $4 a gallon at the gas pump) after the 2000-2008 oil price spike, even the most vain of yuppies and soccer moms had enough of the gas-guzzling behemoths. Here are some of the most noted drops in 2008 US sales: at Ford, the SUVs Explorer and Expedition fell 43% and 39%; at Chrysler, the Jeep Grand Cherokee 39% and the Dodge Dakota pickup 48%; and, perhaps most telling, GM's Hummer brand sank at 51%. Even with the recent stunning drop in oil prices, US consumers are decidedly too gun-shy to drink the SUV Kool-Aid anymore.
"How will the economics of hybrids ever match that of the internal combustion engine? We can't afford to subsidize them." This was Wagoner in a 2002 quote from Business Week, a quote that symbolized the view of Detroit executives. The Japanese took another viewpoint, and the results are now in. Put it all together, and there's a reason why Japan is replacing Detroit as the center of the automobile universe. In retrospect, Motown's double down on SUVs is a "IBM letting Microsoft own MS-DOS" kind of business blunder, rivaling as this decade's worst biz decision the AOL-Time Warner merger, Vince McMahon's XFL and Wall Street's plunge into subprime mortgage loans.
Of course, even as Detroit abandon's the SUV craze faster than you could say "Disco sucks!" in 1979, they still have an extremely difficult road ahead. Simply put, US autos are deemed decidedly inferior in quality and reliability compared to those made in Japan by consumers. The difference is highlighted by the view of Japan making more hi-tech, fuel-efficient cars. This is what happens when Japan markets the Prius and other hybrids as the symbol of their creativity. Had GM not squashed the electric EV1 (covered meticulously in the 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?) they would have something besides the Hummer to showcase as their vision.
The punch line is Detroit is actually making some excellent cars. GM hit a home run with the 2008 Chevy Malibu (named the North American Car of the Year) and the Corvette is still dollar for dollar the best sports car on the planet. The ultra-economical Ford Focus gets 35 MPG. Even the most clueless of US auto companies, Chrysler, has in the PT Cruiser wheels with a cult following usually associated with Apple Computers and The Big Lebowski. (Not to let a good thing be used wisely, Chrysler has decided to kill the Cruiser off.) But these exceptions almost seem to prove the rule, and are deemed too little too late by most American car buyers.
What could change Detroit's image quickly? As usual, Konformist ally Michael Moore presented a pretty good plan last month: making any government bailout of Motown conditional on them producing hybrid and electric cars, as well as mass transit such as trains, buses, subways and light rail. The kind of moves that also would help cure America from its oil addiction while creating millions of blue-collar construction jobs. It's also the kind of move that would be a great change of pace for the Big Three, who long have battled increasing MPG standards and any new environmental laws. (Earlier this year, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz dismissed global warming as a “total crock of shit" while speaking to reporters.)
Naturally, the establishment ignored Moore's idea, and instead embraced a different modest proposal: massive layoffs and wage cuts for auto workers, of course. There should be no surprise in this prescription, as it has been the game plan since the 1970s. And no surprise Cerebus, the geniuses who took over Chrysler in 2007, would embrace such a plan, as they already slashed jobs by 24K their first year. (The private equity firm has long been a champion of the "strip and flip" profit strategy: handing out pink slips to "right-size" a korporation for a turnaround sale.) And there should be little surprise GM plans to dump 31,500 jobs (nearly a third of its workforce) and Ford has already eliminated 57,000 North American jobs over the last three years. (GM laid off over 3000 workers on December 23 alone. Merry Christmas.) And little surprise that already UAW contracts cut new worker wages to $14 an hour, or half of what they currently make. (As Business Week remarked, "for the first time since World War I we will have people building automobiles in America who won't be able to afford the vehicles they build.") And none should be surprised that opposition to bailing out Detroit in Congress came not from Democrats protesting the attack on American workers, but Republicans (such as the rabidly anti-union Bob Corker) who felt that workers weren't getting the shaft enough.
How will this all end up? Well, Detroit got its money, but with the expectation they screw the autoworkers yet again. Perversely, the huge number of job cuts, combined with the same fixed cost of retirement benefits to former workers, will only increase the "wage and benefits" costs per labor hour, thus giving right-wing propagandist even more bogus ammo to justify future cuts in jobs in wages. It seems the downward spiral will only continue, unless the working class finally responds in a mass rebellion. Of course, considering the economic crisis Team USA is currently in, anything is possible...
In any case, we salute Rick Wagoner as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Ricky!!!
Sources:
Special thanks to the World Socialist Web Site ( WSWS.org ) for help in this article as a research resource.
Boehlert, Eric. "The Media Myth: Detroit's $70-an-hour Autoworker." Media Matters 25 November 2008 <http://mediamatters.org/columns/200811250012>.
City Crime Rankings 2008-2009. CQ Press 2008 <http://os.cqpress.com/citycrime2008/citycrime2008.htm>.
"Depression Hits Detroit." Prison Planet 23 December 2008 <http://www.prisonplanet.com/depression-hits-detroit-average-home-price-18513-unemployment-rate-21.html>.
"GM Shares Fall to Lowest Level Since 1950." Yahoo Finance 9 October 2008 <http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/081009/business_us_gm_shares.html>.
"GM Warns It Could Run Out Of Cash By 1st Half '09." CNNMoney.com 7 November 2008 <http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200811071240DOWJONESDJONLINE000633_FORTUNE5.htm>.
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Hamsher, Jane. "Chinese Want To Buy the Big 3 Automakers." Huffington Post 20 November 2008 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/chinese-want-to-buy-the-b_b_144920.html>.
Krebs, Michelle and Visnic, Bill. "2008 U.S. Auto Sales Are Worst Since 1992." Auto Observer 5 January 2009 <http://www.autoobserver.com/2009/01/2008-us-auto-sales-are-worst-since-1992.html>.
Krolicki, Kevin. "GM Exec Stands by Calling Global Warming a 'Total Crock of Shit.'" Common Dreams 23 February 2008 <http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/23/7251/>.
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Neiwert, David. "Republicans to Detroit: Drop Dead." Crooks and Liars 20 November 2008 <http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/republicans-detroit-drop-dead>.
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Parks, James. "If Auto Industry Goes Bankrupt, Millions of U.S. Jobs Will Be Lost." AFL-CIO 4 December 2008 <http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/12/04/if-auto-industry-goes-bankrupt-millions-of-us-jobs-will-be-lost/>.
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Riechmann, Deb. "Bush Orders Emergency Bailout of the Auto Industry." Yahoo News 20 December 2008 <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081220/ap_on_go_pr_wh/meltdown_autos>.
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Salmon, Felix. "Chrysler Follows the Strip-and-Flip Playbook." Portfolio.com 1 November 2007 <http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2007/11/01/chrysler-follows-the-strip-and-flip-playbook?addComment=true>.
Sorkin, Andrew Ross. "Chrysler and the Fallibility of Private Equity." New York Times 1 November 2007 <http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/chrysler-and-the-fallibility-of-private-equity/>.
Vlasic, Bill and Fackler, Martin. "Car Slump Jolts Toyota, Halting 70 Years of Gain." New York Times 23 December 2008.
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