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The Halliburton Loophole
2009-11-03, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/opinion/03tue3.html

Among the many dubious provisions in the 2005 energy bill was one dubbed the Halliburton loophole, which was inserted at the behest of — you guessed it — then-Vice President Dick Cheney, a former chief executive of Halliburton. It stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate a drilling process called hydraulic fracturing [commonly referred to as "fracking"]. Invented by Halliburton in the 1940s, it involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals, some of them toxic, into underground rock formations to blast them open and release natural gas. Hydraulic fracturing has been implicated in a growing number of water pollution cases across the country. It has become especially controversial in New York, where regulators are eager to clear the way for drilling in the New York City watershed, potentially imperiling the city’s water supply. Congress last week approved a bill that asks the E.P.A. to conduct a new study on the risks of hydraulic fracturing. An agency study in 2004 whitewashed the industry and was dismissed by experts as superficial and politically motivated. This time Congress is demanding “a transparent, peer-reviewed process.” Cumbersomely named the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, it would close the loophole and restore the E.P.A.’s rightful authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing. It would also require the oil and gas industry to disclose the chemicals they use.

Note: Energy-development corporations using the fracking process will not disclose the chemicals they inject into the subsurface because of the chemicals' high toxicity when they penetrate groundwater supplies. For many more examples from reliable sources of corporate and government secrecy, click here.

How Goldman secretly bet on the housing crash
2009-11-01, Kansas City Star/McClatchy Newspapers
http://www.kansascity.com/437/story/1542453.html

In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting. Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled one of the nation's premier investment banks to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage loan defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies. Only later did investors discover that what Goldman promoted as triple-A investments were closer to junk. Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy Newspapers investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws. "The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion," said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor who's proposed a massive overhaul of the nation's big banks. "This is fraud and should be prosecuted."

Note: For an eye-opening, powerful PBS video which reveals how the economic crisis was conscously allowed to happen, click here. It reveals that Fed chairman Alan Greenspan was against investigating any fraud. For many reports from reliable sources on corruption at the core of the Wall Street collapse and bailout, click here.

TARP on steroids
2009-10-30, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/30/EDTG1ACEDE.DTL

It was 9/29/08 - a moment when a rare blast of populist democracy briefly singed the economic terrorists who hold the Capitol hostage. It had been a dark and stormy month of financial collapse, culminating in an attempted power grab. Pushed by his fellow Wall Street Ponzi schemers, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson - a former Goldman Sachs CEO - was threatening Armageddon unless Congress ratified his ... decree for a no-strings-attached bank bailout. Today, the episode seems merely to have set minimum standards for chicanery. As evidenced by two little-noticed sections of the Obama administration's Wall Street "reform" bill, presidents and their bank benefactors are back to thinking they can pilfer whatever they want by burying their demands in the esoterica of lengthier bills. Finding this latest giveaway means digging all the way down to sections 1109 and 1604 of the White House's mammoth proposal. At a recent hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks (Los Angeles County), called the language "TARP on steroids," noting the provisions would deliberately let the executive branch enact even bigger, more unregulated bailouts than ever - and by unilateral fiat. TARP on Steroids includes no specific oversight or executive pay constraints. TARP on Steroids allows taxpayer cash to go only to the behemoths (which, not coincidentally, tend to make the biggest campaign contributions). TARP on Steroids would let [the Treasury Secretary] spend as much as he wants.

Note: For many revealing reports from reliable sources on the continuing Wall Street bailout, click here.

Novartis Expects Swine Flu Boost In Q4
2009-10-22, New York Times/Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/10/22/business/business-uk-novartis.html

Swiss drugmaker Novartis said sales would grow faster than expected this year, even without a shot in the arm of up to $700 million from its H1N1 swine flu pandemic vaccine. Third-quarter net profit at Novartis ... nudged up 1 percent to $2.1 billion. This year is turning out to be better than initially feared for Novartis and other major pharmaceutical companies, thanks to hefty price increases and windfall sales arising from the H1N1 outbreak. Both Pfizer, the world's biggest drugmaker, and Eli Lilly topped earnings forecasts this week. Roche reported a sharp jump in sales of its Tamiflu drug for flu last week and analysts expect GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza will also see strong sales in the third quarter. On the vaccine front, Glaxo, Sanofi-Aventis and AstraZeneca are all expected to highlight an expected jump in fourth-quarter sales due to swine flu. The H1N1 flu vaccine is expected to contribute about $400-700 million of sales in the fourth quarter.

Note: Donald Rumsfeld personally made millions as a direct result of the avian flu scare a few year ago. For more on this, click here. For more on pharmaceutical corporation profiteering from swine flu vaccines, click here.

Monsanto guilty in 'false ad' row
2009-10-15, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8308903.stm

France's highest court has ruled that US agrochemical giant Monsanto had not told the truth about the safety of its best-selling weed-killer, Roundup. The court confirmed an earlier judgment that Monsanto had falsely advertised its herbicide as "biodegradable" and claimed it "left the soil clean". The company was fined 15,000 euros (£13,800; $22,400). Roundup is the world's best-selling herbicide. Monsanto also sells crops genetically-engineered to be tolerant to Roundup. French environmental groups had brought the case in 2001 on the basis that glyphosate, Roundup's main ingredient, is classed as "dangerous for the environment" by the European Union. Earlier this month, Monsanto reported a fourth quarter loss of $233m (£147m), driven mostly by a drop in sales of its Roundup brand.

Note: For an article on the dangers of Monsanto's RoundUp, click here.

Drugmakers, Doctors Rake in Billions Battling H1N1 Flu
2009-10-14, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/big-business-swine-flu/story?id=8820642

Americans are still debating whether to roll up their sleeves for a swine flu shot, but companies have already figured it out: vaccines are good for business. Drug companies have sold $1.5 billion worth of swine flu shots, in addition to the $1 billion for seasonal flu they booked earlier this year. These inoculations are part of a much wider and rapidly growing $20 billion global vaccine market. "The vaccine market is booming," says Bruce Carlson, spokesperson at market research firm Kalorama, which publishes an annual survey of the vaccine industry. "It's an enormous growth area for pharmaceuticals at a time when other areas are not doing so well," he says. As always with pandemic flus, taxpayers are footing the $1.5 billion check for the 250 million swine flu vaccines that the government has ordered so far and will be distributing free to doctors, pharmacies and schools. In addition, Congress has set aside more than $10 billion this year to research flu viruses, monitor H1N1's progress and educate the public about prevention. Drugmakers pocket most of the revenues from flu sales. But some say it's not just drugmakers who stand to benefit. Doctors collect copayments for special office visits to inject shots, and there have been assertions that these doctors actually profit handsomely from these vaccinations. Pharmacies also charge co-payments or full price of about $25 to those without insurance.

Note: For a revealing article questioning the efficacy of vaccines, click here. And for a powerful CBS '60 Minutes' news clip clearly showing how the profit motive in vaccines endangers public health, click here.

Pakistan kept billions in US aid from military
2009-10-05, Boston Globe/Associated Press
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2009/10/05/pakistan_kept_billi...

The United States has long suspected that [many] of the billions of dollars it has sent Pakistan to battle militants has been diverted to the domestic economy and other causes, such as fighting India. Now the scope and longevity of the misuse is becoming clear: Between 2002 and 2008 ... only $500 million of the $6.6 billion in American aid actually made it to the Pakistani military, two army generals said. At the time of the siphoning, Pervez Musharraf, a Washington ally, served as chief of staff and president, making it easier to divert money intended for the military to bolster his image at home through economic subsidies. "The army itself got very little,'' said Mahmud Durrani, a retired general who was Pakistan's ambassador to the United States under Musharraf. "It went to things like subsidies, which is why everything looked hunky-dory." Generals and ministers say the diversion of the money hurt the military in several ways. Helicopters critical to the battle in rugged border regions were not available. At one point in 2007, more than 200 soldiers were trapped by insurgents in the tribal regions without a helicopter lift to rescue them. Equipment was broken, and training was lacking. The details on misuse of American aid come as Washington again promises Pakistan money. Legislation to triple general aid to Pakistan cleared Congress last week. "We don't have a mechanism for tracking the money after we have given it to them,'' said Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wright, a Pentagon spokesman.

Note: For lots more on government corruption from reliable sources, click here.

U.S. aid often misses targets in Afghanistan
2009-10-04, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/04/MN8L19NHRM.DTL

When built in 2004, the agricultural storage facility in Nangarhar province was supposed to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. The U.S. government paid for its construction along with several other so-called "market centers" that would enable farmers to store crops and boost exports to nearby Pakistan. But construction and design flaws left it unusable, one of many dozens of similar failures in the country, critics say. Opponents say the Nangarhar project is just one example of massive waste of taxpayer dollars in aid programs since the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban government in 2001. A Washington, D.C., company, Chemonics International, won the bid for [a] $145 million program - known as Rebuilding Agricultural Markets Program, or RAMP - that ran from 2003 to 2006. Chemonics then subcontracted the training and construction work to other Americans, who in turn subcontracted to numerous Afghan companies who did the work. At each level, the subcontractors deducted costs for salaries, office expenses and security. Only a small percentage of the original RAMP contract money actually reached farmers and other intended recipients. The exact percentage may never be known because neither Chemonics nor the U.S. government tracks such figures. Moreover, opponents note, many constructed market centers have deteriorated or are not being used for their original purpose. Afghanistan's foreign minister, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, sharply criticized how U.S. aid is spent in his country. He estimates that only "$10 or $20" of every $100 reaches its intended recipients.

Note: For lots more on corporate corruption from reliable sources, click here.

In Harsh Reports on S.E.C.’s Fraud Failures, a Watchdog Urges Sweeping Changes
2009-09-30, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/business/30sec.html

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s independent watchdog called for a sweeping overhaul of the agency’s investigation and enforcement practices on Tuesday, after a blistering report on the S.E.C.’s failure to detect Bernard L. Madoff’s extensive Ponzi scheme. Two reports, released by the S.E.C.’s inspector general, H. David Kotz, recommended dozens of changes in the way the agency evaluates tips, trains investigators and documents examinations of securities firms. The first report, which covers the S.E.C.’s inspections and examinations office, outlines 37 improvements that would revamp nearly every aspect of the division’s operations, including how investigators follow up on tips and creating step-by-step procedures in identifying potential violations of securities laws. Mr. Kotz also issued 21 recommendations to the S.E.C.’s division of enforcement, including the start of a formal process for handling complaints and improving working relationships within the division. One measure would mandate that tips and complaints be reviewed by at least two individuals experienced in the subject before taking further action. The proposed changes come after Mr. Kotz’s office completed an exhaustive investigation this month of the S.E.C.’s failure to detect the Madoff fraud despite many warnings and a flood of complaints from credible sources. At nearly every turn, the investigation found, the agency had failed to properly examine Mr. Madoff’s firm and had not adequately followed up on tips from as far back as 1992 that could have unearthed the estimated $65 billion scheme.

Note: For a treasure trove of key revelations on the realities behind the Wall Street crash and bailout, click here. Contact your political representatives urging them to support these recommendations.

Political writer Irving Kristol dead at 89
2009-09-18, MSNBC/Associated Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32920052/ns/politics-more_politics

Irving Kristol, the political writer and publisher known as the godfather of neo-conservatism,... died Friday. He was 89. A Trotskyist in the 1930s, Kristol would soon sour on socialism, break from liberalism after the rise of the New Left in the 1960s and in the 1970s commit the unthinkable — support the Republican Party, once as "foreign to me as attending a Catholic mass." He was a flagship in the network of think tanks, media outlets and corporations that helped make conservatism a reigning ideology for at least two decades. Former Vice President Dick Cheney was a longtime admirer and former President George W. Bush, whose administration was heavily populated by neo-conservatives, awarded Kristol a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002. Kristol himself would regard neo-conservatism as a job well done. But the Iraq War and the poor economy badly damaged the right's unity and credibility over the past few years. "If there is any one thing that neo-conservatives are unanimous about, it is their dislike of the counterculture," Kristol once said. With funding from Joseph Coors, Richard Mellon Scaife and others, the right created such think tanks as the Heritage Foundation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Kristol himself was a fellow at a key think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. Kristol also taught at New York University, worked for several years as a senior editor at the Basic Books publishing house and in the 1950s headed the anti-communist magazine Encounter, which turned out to have been funded — without Kristol's knowledge, he said — by the CIA.

Note: To learn how Kristol became a top manager in spreading fear to support the political elite, watch the powerful BBC documentary "The Power of Nightmares" at this link. This revealing film show how much of the fear spread by the media is consciously fabricated by people like Kristol and his colleagues.

Big Oil’s Stain in the Amazon
2009-09-09, New York Times
http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/movies/09crude.html

Because of concerns about climate change, a lot of current environmentalist advocacy — including movies like “An Inconvenient Truth” — concentrates on the dire results of burning fossil fuels. Joe Berlinger’s “Crude,” a thorough and impassioned new documentary, focuses its gaze on production rather than consumption. The film, which follows the fitful progress of a class-action lawsuit undertaken on behalf of the people of the Ecuadorean Amazon, is not about the unintended consequences of using petroleum. Instead, it examines the terrible, frequently unacknowledged costs of extracting oil from the ground. “Crude,” in other words, investigates the local manifestations — cancer, contaminated water, cultural degradation — of a global problem. Even as “Crude” dwells on a single, relatively small slice of territory (about the size of Rhode Island), its action shifts from muddy villages in Amazonia to law offices and shareholders’ meetings in the steel-and-glass cities of North America, drawing into its purview a motley cast of scientists, human rights crusaders, civil servants and international celebrities. Like almost every other recent documentary on a politically charged topic, “Crude” does not pretend to neutrality. Yet while Mr. Berlinger’s sympathies clearly lie with the oddly matched pair of lawyers — Steven Donziger, a big, outgoing American, and Pablo Fajardo, a wiry, diffident Ecuadorean — who are consumed by the now 16-year-old suit against Chevron, he is fair-minded enough to include rebuttals from the company’s executives and in-house environmental scientists. And since this is, in part, a courtroom drama, both sides have a chance to be heard.

"Capitalism is evil", says new Michael Moore film
2009-09-06, Calgary Herald/Reuters
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Capitalism+evil+says+Michael+Moore+film/196...

Capitalism is evil. That is the conclusion U.S. documentary maker Michael Moore comes to in his latest movie "Capitalism: A Love Story", which [premiered] at the Venice film festival on Sunday. Blending his trademark humour with tragic individual stories, archive footage and publicity stunts, the 55-year-old launches an all out attack on the capitalist system, arguing that it benefits the rich and condemns millions to poverty. "Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil," the two-hour movie concludes. "You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy." The bad guys in Moore's mind are big banks and hedge funds which "gambled" investors' money in complex derivatives that few, if any, really understood and which belonged in the casino. The filmmaker also sees an uncomfortably close relationship between banks, politicians and U.S. Treasury officials, meaning that regulation has been changed to favour the few on Wall Street rather than the many on Main Street. He says that by encouraging Americans to borrow against the value of their homes, businesses created the conditions that led to the crisis, and with it homelessness and unemployment. Moore even features priests who say capitalism is anti-Christian by failing to protect the poor.

Note: For a treasure trove of reports from reliable sources on the realities of the Wall Street bailout, click here.

A ‘Little Judge’ Who Rejects Foreclosures, Brooklyn Style
2009-08-31, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/nyregion/31judge.html

Every week, the nation’s mightiest banks come to his court seeking to take the homes of New Yorkers who cannot pay their mortgages. And nearly as often, the judge says, they file foreclosure papers speckled with errors. He plucks out one motion and leafs through: a Deutsche Bank representative signed an affidavit claiming to be the vice president of two different banks. His office was in Kansas City, Mo., but the signature was notarized in Texas. And the bank did not even own the mortgage when it began to foreclose on the homeowner. “I’m a little guy in Brooklyn who doesn’t belong to their country clubs, what can I tell you?” he says, adding a shrug for punctuation. “I won’t accept their comedy of errors.” The judge, Arthur M. Schack, 64, fashions himself a judicial Don Quixote, tilting at the phalanxes of bankers, foreclosure facilitators and lawyers who file motions by the bale. He has tossed out 46 of the 102 foreclosure motions that have come before him in the last two years. And his often scathing decisions, peppered with allusions to the Croesus-like wealth of bank presidents, have attracted the respectful attention of judges and lawyers from Florida to Ohio to California. At recent judicial conferences in Chicago and Arizona, several panelists praised his rulings as a possible national model. Justice Schack, like a handful of state and federal judges, has taken a magnifying glass to the mortgage industry. Justice Schack’s take is straightforward, and sends a tremor through some bank suites: If a bank cannot prove ownership, it cannot foreclose. “If you are going to take away someone’s house, everything should be legal and correct,” he said. “I’m a strange guy — I don’t want to put a family on the street unless it’s legitimate.”

Blackwater Tapped Foreigners on Secret CIA Program
2009-08-31, ABC News/Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=8450594

When the CIA revived a plan to kill or capture [alleged] terrorists in 2004, the agency turned to the well-connected security company then known as Blackwater USA. With Blackwater's lucrative government security work and contacts arrayed in hot spots around the world, company officials offered the services of foreigners supposedly skilled at tracking [people] in lawless regions and countries where the CIA had no working relationships with the government. But the CIA's use of the private contractor as part of its now-abandoned plan to dispatch death squads skirted concerns now re-emerging with recent disclosures about Blackwater's role. Blackwater's later hiring of several senior CIA officials who were involved in or aware of the secret program, including one of the men who ran the operation, showed the blurred lines of using a private contractor for such a highly classified and dangerous project. The 2004 decision by CIA officials to entrust the North Carolina-based company with such a sensitive overseas operation struck some former agency officials as highly unusual. "The question remains: Why do we need Blackwater?" said Charles Faddis, a former department chief at the CIA's Counterterrorism Center who retired in 2008 and was not involved in the secret program. "I remain mystified. This is quintessential CIA work. You wonder what it means that the CIA has to rely on Blackwater? Why are we still funding the CIA?" The former senior CIA official who had knowledge of the program explained that "you wouldn't want to have American fingerprints on it."

Note: For lots more on government corruption, click here.

Banks 'Too Big to Fail' Have Grown Even Bigger
2009-08-28, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/08/28/ST2009082800437...

When the credit crisis struck last year, federal regulators pumped tens of billions of dollars into the nation's leading financial institutions because the banks were so big that officials feared their failure would ruin the entire financial system. Today, the biggest of those banks are even bigger. The crisis may be turning out very well for many of the behemoths that dominate U.S. finance. A series of federally arranged mergers safely landed troubled banks on the decks of more stable firms. And it allowed the survivors to emerge from the turmoil with strengthened market positions, giving them even greater control over consumer lending and more potential to profit. J.P. Morgan Chase ... now holds more than $1 of every $10 on deposit in this country. So does Bank of America, scarred by its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and partly government-owned as a result of the crisis, as does Wells Fargo, the biggest West Coast bank. Those three banks, plus government-rescued and -owned Citigroup, now issue one of every two mortgages and about two of every three credit cards, federal data show. Concerns are twofold: that consumers will wind up with fewer choices for services and that big banks will assume they always have the government's backing if things go wrong. That presumed guarantee means large companies could return to the risky behavior that led to the crisis if they figure federal officials will clean up their mess. The worry for consumers is that the bailouts skewed the financial industry in favor of the big and powerful. Fresh data from the FDIC show that big banks have the ability to borrow more cheaply than their peers because creditors assume these large companies are not at risk of failing.

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on the realities of the Wall Street bailout, click here.

Oil, Ecuador and its people
2009-08-28, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-chevron28-2009aug28,0,6949161.story

Chevron Corp., California's largest company and one of the world's largest oil producers, will soon face a day of reckoning. After 16 years of litigation, a case the company inherited in a merger, Aguinda vs. Texaco Inc., is nearing an end. The legal battle that began in the United States in 1993 and resumed in Ecuador in 2003 has pitted the multinational against an unlikely adversary, a coalition of indigenous tribes and communities. A verdict is expected early next year. The plaintiffs are poised to prevail, and Chevron acknowledges that it is likely to lose. The case is historic by several measures. Never before have indigenous peoples brought a multinational oil corporation to trial in their own country. Moreover, a victory would mark a turning point in the relations between native populations around the world and the foreign corporations that do business in their homelands. And the potential damages are staggering: A court-appointed expert has determined that they could run to $27 billion, almost 10 times that initially awarded to plaintiffs after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Today, a swath of the Ecuadorean Amazon the size of Rhode Island remains contaminated beyond imagining. At one site after another, oil hangs in the air, slides on the water's surface and saturates the land. Pipelines and waste pits left behind years ago still drip and ooze. Advocates for the plaintiffs have called the former Texaco concession area the "Amazon Chernobyl." Were it in the United States, it would easily qualify as a Superfund site. Neither side in the case disputes the devastation, only who should pay for it.

Note: For the inspiring story of the courageous Ecuadorian lawyer behind this David vs. Goliath lawsuit, click here. A smear campaign by Chevron against the judge in this case has more recently swayed opinion in favor of Chevron again. Contact your political and media representatives at this link to express your opinion.

Rich NYC Mayor: Drug CEOs Don't Make Much Money
2009-08-28, ABC News/Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=8382748

Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical companies and their chief executives on Friday, declaring that they "don't make a lot of money" and shouldn't be scapegoats in the health care debate. The mayor — and wealthiest person in New York City with a fortune estimated at $16.5 billion — made the comments on his radio show Friday. "You know, last time I checked, pharmaceutical companies don't make a lot of money, their executives don't make a lot of money," Bloomberg said. Pharmaceutical CEOs are known to make millions, with generous salaries, stock options and other perks. Abbott Laboratories Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Miles White's compensation was $25.3 million in 2008. The North Chicago, Ill.-based company saw profit rising 35 percent to $4.88 billion. Merck & Co.'s chief executive, Richard T. Clark, received a $17.3 million compensation package for 2008. The company's profit more than doubled to $7.8 billion. The mayor ... often battles criticism that he is out of touch with regular people. Earlier this year he declared "we love the rich people" while arguing against raising taxes on the wealthy. It was clear that Bloomberg or one of his aides realized his gaffe while he was still on the air Friday. The mayor, who has sought to cast himself as a financial and business expert, came back from a break and said he had looked up the pay of some pharmaceutical executives. "Some of them are making a decent amount, more than a decent amount of money," he said.

Speculators busier as crude oil cost spikes
2009-08-28, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/28/BU1B19EQFS.DTL

Speculators now account for half of all traders in the main U.S. oil market, and their growing presence coincided with this decade's historic rise in the price of crude, according to a new Rice University study. The study does not try to prove that speculators caused the price spike, as many politicians and consumer advocates believe. But the authors note that prices rose steadily along with the number of speculative investors, and fell with them as well. Seven years ago, speculators accounted for 20 percent of oil traders on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That number jumped to 55 percent by the time oil prices reached their all-time peak above $145 per barrel last summer. Now oil costs $72, and speculative investors account for half the traders. The government limits the number of oil contracts that each speculator can hold. But under the Commodity Futures Modernization Act [passed in 2000], trades on electronic exchanges or overseas markets don't count toward those limits. The study uses data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Speculators are defined as traders who use oil strictly as a financial investment, those who will never take delivery of a tanker-full of crude. "This confirms what we and others have said for some time," said Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at the Public Citizen watchdog group. "The good thing from the oil price run-up of 2008 is it has forced Congress to realize there's a problem in these markets, and the answer is re-regulation." The financial industry opposes tightening the regulations.

Note: To read the full study, click here.

World's Stocks Controlled by Select Few
2009-08-26, Inside Science News/American Institute of Physics
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090826-stock-market.html

A recent analysis of the 2007 financial markets of 48 countries has revealed that the world's finances are in the hands of just a few mutual funds, banks, and corporations. This is the first clear picture of the global concentration of financial power, and ... the worldwide financial system's vulnerability. A pair of physicists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich did a physics-based analysis of the world economy as it looked in early 2007. Stefano Battiston and James Glattfelder extracted the information from the tangled yarn that links 24,877 stocks and 106,141 shareholding entities in 48 countries, revealing what they called the "backbone" of each country's financial market. The most pared-down backbones exist in Anglo-Saxon countries, including the U.S., Australia, and the U.K.. The biggest fish was the Capital Group Companies, with major stakes in 36 of the 48 countries studied. The results raise questions of where and when a company could choose to exert this influence. Glattfelder added that the internationalism of these powerful companies makes it difficult to gauge their economic influence. "[With] company structures which are so big and spanning the globe, it's hard to see what they're up to and what they're doing,” he said. Large, sparse networks dominated by a few major companies could also be more vulnerable, he said. "In network speak, if those nodes fail, that has a big effect on the network." The results will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review E.

Note: For a treasure trove of revelations about the realities of the global financial structure, click here.

Doctors may refuse swine flu vaccine
2009-08-24, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/24/doctors-refuse-swine-flu-vaccine

Many GPs, as well as their patients, may be reluctant to be immunised against swine flu once a vaccine is developed, surveys suggest today. A survey of GPs published on Healthcare Republic, the website of GP magazine, found that up to 60% of GPs may decline vaccination. Although the numbers who responded were small – 216 GPs – they are in line with a much bigger survey of nurses published a week ago by Nursing Times, which found that a third of 1,500 nurses would refuse vaccination. A Canadian study published today in the journal Emerging Health Threats suggests the public, too, will have reservations that must be overcome if a vaccination campaign is to be successful in the autumn or winter. The study, which used focus groups to establish the likely response of different people to a vaccine, pointed to the need to win over people who believe that alternative therapies and a good diet are a better option than vaccines. But the biggest problem in persuading people and healthcare professionals to have the jab may be the relative shortage of evidence from trials about its safety and efficacy. Because of the urgent need for a vaccine, testing will be limited. Among the GPs who responded to the survey published by Healthcare Republic, 29% said they would not choose to have the vaccine and 29% said they were unsure whether or not they would. The biggest reason given by those who said they would not have it was concern that the safety trials would not be adequate: 71.3% said they were "concerned that the vaccine has not yet been through sufficient trials to guarantee safety". Half – 50.4% – said they "believe that swine flu is too mild to justify taking the vaccine".

Note: Yet the Massachusetts Senate has now passed a bill which would impose fines up to $1,000 and jail up to 30 days for those who refuse vaccines or quarantine orders in a health emergency. Other states are considering similar legislation. For lots more on the real dangers of the swine flu vaccine, click here.

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