Vandana Shiva vs. Gwynne Dyer: Geoengineering and climate change

LET'S GET READY TO RUMBBBBBLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEE!!!

Dateline Democracy Now! 07-08-2010

Vandana Shiva and Gwynne Dyer discuss various solutions to global warming. I don't quite understand how Gwynne can come up with a solution which involves blocking the sun. I guess some people can look at the whole picture and some people can't.

[Video] Vandana Shiva and Gwynne Dyer on Geoengineering - Democracy Now! 07-08-2010

Greg Palast: Grand Theft Auto Pension

Greg Palast writes of Grand Theft Auto Pension:

"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 replaced 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.

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."

[Article] Greg Palast: Grand Theft Auto Pension

Dr. Vandana Shiva - Seeds and Organic Farming @ 2009 Organicology Conference, Portland, Oregon, 02-28-2009

The problem of the poor farmer and the obese consumer are one and the same. The seed that is culvated in modern non-organic means puts the farmer into debt vis a vis, the purchase of fertilizers, pesticides, and farm equipment, whilst forcing the consumer to eat less nutritious, pesticide ridden food, of which more needs to be consumed to feel satisfied and be nourished.

And let's talk about the CDOs of the food world: GM seeds and crops. GM crops are not the same as regular crops. Lab studies have shown GM crops cause problems in rats. So how can GM crops be the same as non-GM crops?

We need to stop focusing on one variable such as yield (lbs) of food and think about multiple factors which feed into sustainability of not only the land but of the small farmer, nutrition of the food, diversity in choices , and truth in labeling.

GM bankruptcy = AIG CDOs payouts

Denninger has a great article on how a GM bankruptcy is a good thing for AIG CDO holders, who once again will be stealing from the public.

RISE UP people. It won't end until you make it end by throwing the bums out.