Monsanto's Harvest of Fear: PoliticsInvestigation | Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear | by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele May 2008
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.
As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him—or face the consequences.
Rinehart was incredulous, listening to the words as puzzled customers and employees looked on. Like many others in rural America, Rinehart knew of Monsanto’s fierce reputation for enforcing its patents and suing anyone who allegedly violated them. But Rinehart wasn’t a farmer. He wasn’t a seed dealer. He hadn’t planted any seeds or sold any seeds. He owned a small—a really small—country store in a town of 350 people. He was angry that somebody could just barge into the store and embarrass him in front of everyone. “It made me and my business look bad,” he says. Rinehart says he told the intruder, “You got the wrong guy.”
When the stranger persisted, Rinehart showed him the door. On the way out the man kept making threats. Rinehart says he can’t remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: “Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.”
Scenes like this are playing out in many parts of rural America these days as Monsanto goes after farmers, farmers’ co-ops, seed dealers—anyone it suspects may have infringed its patents of genetically modified seeds. As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities. Farmers say that some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the “seed police” and use words such as “Gestapo” and “Mafia” to describe their tactics. ...
Sunday, April 27, 2008
A Developer, His Deals and His Ties to McCain
A Developer, His Deals and His Ties to McCain | By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and JIM RUTENBERG | Published: April 22, 2008
Donald R. Diamond, a wealthy Arizona real estate developer, was racing to snap up a stretch of virgin California coast freed by the closing of an Army base a decade ago when he turned to an old friend, Senator John McCain.
...
... When he appealed to a nearby city for the right to develop other property at the former base, Mr. Diamond submitted Mr. McCain’s endorsement as “a close personal friend.”
Writing to officials in the city, Seaside, Calif., the senator said, “You will find him as honorable and committed as I have.”
...
A longtime political patron, Mr. Diamond is one of the elite fund-raisers Mr. McCain’s current presidential campaign calls Innovators, having raised more than $250,000 so far. ...
Donald R. Diamond, a wealthy Arizona real estate developer, was racing to snap up a stretch of virgin California coast freed by the closing of an Army base a decade ago when he turned to an old friend, Senator John McCain.
...
... When he appealed to a nearby city for the right to develop other property at the former base, Mr. Diamond submitted Mr. McCain’s endorsement as “a close personal friend.”
Writing to officials in the city, Seaside, Calif., the senator said, “You will find him as honorable and committed as I have.”
...
A longtime political patron, Mr. Diamond is one of the elite fund-raisers Mr. McCain’s current presidential campaign calls Innovators, having raised more than $250,000 so far. ...
[Monsanto] Genetically Modified soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent ...
Exposed: the great GM crops myth - Green Living, Environment - The IndependentMajor new study shows that modified soya produces 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent | By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor |
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.
...
He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one. ...
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.
...
He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one. ...
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Airline executives and regulators often switch places
Apr 17, 10:15 PM EDT | Airline executives and regulators often switch places | By RITA BEAMISH and SHARON THEIMER | Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) -- What the airline industry wants from Washington it often gets, and no wonder. The people who regulate airlines on one day can become company executives the next - and the other way around.
Industry leaders who were once under the Federal Aviation Administration's authority now sit in top positions at the agency. Many former FAA officials and congressional aides have found lucrative jobs in the air travel industry or with its lobbying groups. One top official left the FAA two years ago to become the airline industry's top lobbyist.
Just Thursday, the law firm Jones Day announced that former FAA attorney Andrew Steinberg, until recently the Transportation Department's assistant secretary of aviation and international affairs, will join the firm's government regulation practice as a partner.
Throw in millions of dollars in campaign and lobbying money, and factor in the airlines' importance to lawmakers' home cities and states, and it adds up to a powerful industry that even some of the nation's most frequent fliers - members of Congress - can be reluctant to tackle. Broad deregulation and multibillion-dollar government bailouts are among the industry's major victories in recent decades. ...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- What the airline industry wants from Washington it often gets, and no wonder. The people who regulate airlines on one day can become company executives the next - and the other way around.
Industry leaders who were once under the Federal Aviation Administration's authority now sit in top positions at the agency. Many former FAA officials and congressional aides have found lucrative jobs in the air travel industry or with its lobbying groups. One top official left the FAA two years ago to become the airline industry's top lobbyist.
Just Thursday, the law firm Jones Day announced that former FAA attorney Andrew Steinberg, until recently the Transportation Department's assistant secretary of aviation and international affairs, will join the firm's government regulation practice as a partner.
Throw in millions of dollars in campaign and lobbying money, and factor in the airlines' importance to lawmakers' home cities and states, and it adds up to a powerful industry that even some of the nation's most frequent fliers - members of Congress - can be reluctant to tackle. Broad deregulation and multibillion-dollar government bailouts are among the industry's major victories in recent decades. ...
Thursday, April 10, 2008
study of roughly 117,000 trades in 10b5-1 plans by 3,426 executives at 1,241 companies: trades inside the plans beat the market by 6% over six months.
Whistleblower exposes insider trading program at JP Morgan | KEVIN WILSON, MARIA CHRISTINA PADRO, JULIAN ASSANGE & staff | Monday March 17, 2008
...
Documents obtained earlier this month by Wikileaks from JP Morgan Private Bank, which subtitles itself as "World class solutions for wealthy individuals and families", show the firm has a dedicated '10b5-1 Selling program,' along with a 'dedicated 10b5-1 team' to help its clients take advantage of the loophole.
...
Documents obtained earlier this month by Wikileaks from JP Morgan Private Bank, which subtitles itself as "World class solutions for wealthy individuals and families", show the firm has a dedicated '10b5-1 Selling program,' along with a 'dedicated 10b5-1 team' to help its clients take advantage of the loophole.
Here's how it works:
1. An insider client transfers all or a portion of their company stock into a JP Morgan Securities Inc. brokerage account.
2. The insider then develops, in conjunction with the 10b5-1 team, a 'phased, pre-planned sales program to be executed at either market or specified prices'.
3. Depending on the information available to the insider (but not the public), the insider can decide whether to execute the sale or not.
By gaming the system this way, JP Morgan teaches insiders how to use their knowledge to create a rigged market, one in which it is the "house" that always wins, and the small investor that always loses.
Alan D. Jagolinzer, an assistant professor at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, completed a study of roughly 117,000 trades in 10b5-1 plans by 3,426 executives at 1,241 companies. He found that trades inside the plans beat the market by 6% over six months. By contrast, executives at the same firms who traded without the benefit of plans beat the market by only 1.9%.http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_51/b4014045.htm
One can only guess at how many insiders profited under JP Morgan's "insider trading program," leaving small investors holding the bag. ...
Bear Stearns Cos. Chairman James Cayne dumped his entire stake in the embattled investment bank for $10.84 / share ... then it sells for $2 / share ..
Bear Stearns' Cayne Sells Once-$1 Billion Stake For $61 Million | JOE BEL BRUNO | March 28, 2008
NEW YORK — Bear Stearns Cos. Chairman James Cayne dumped his entire stake in the embattled investment bank for $61 million as it appears closer to a takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Cayne sold 5.66 million shares for exactly $10.84 a share on March 25, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. His stake was once valued at about $1 billion when the stock was trading at $171.50 per share.
The filing was disclosed Thursday.
...
[Bear Stearns was sold for $2 / share a few days later. ed.]
NEW YORK — Bear Stearns Cos. Chairman James Cayne dumped his entire stake in the embattled investment bank for $61 million as it appears closer to a takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Cayne sold 5.66 million shares for exactly $10.84 a share on March 25, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. His stake was once valued at about $1 billion when the stock was trading at $171.50 per share.
The filing was disclosed Thursday.
...
[Bear Stearns was sold for $2 / share a few days later. ed.]
Justice Department ... has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years ... then pays John Ashcroft
In Justice Shift, Corporate Deals Replace Trials | By ERIC LICHTBLAU | Published: April 9, 2008
WASHINGTON — In 2005, federal authorities concluded that a Monsanto consultant had visited the home of an Indonesian official and, with the approval of a senior company executive, handed over an envelope stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. The money was meant as a bribe to win looser environmental regulations for Monsanto’s cotton crops, according to a court document. Monsanto was also caught concealing the bribe with fake invoices.
A few years earlier, in the age of Enron, these kinds of charges would probably have resulted in a criminal indictment. Instead, Monsanto was allowed to pay $1 million and avoid criminal prosecution by entering into a monitoring agreement with the Justice Department.
In a major shift of policy, the Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years.
Instead, many companies, from boutique outfits to immense corporations like American Express, have avoided the cost and stigma of defending themselves against criminal charges with a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, which allows the government to collect fines and appoint an outside monitor to impose internal reforms without going through a trial. In many cases, the name of the monitor and the details of the agreement are kept secret.
Deferred prosecutions have become a favorite tool of the Bush administration. But some legal experts now wonder if the policy shift has led companies, in particular financial institutions now under investigation for their roles in the subprime mortgage debacle, to test the limits of corporate anti-fraud laws.
...
Legal experts say the tactic may have sent the wrong signal to corporations — the promise, in effect, of a get-out-of-jail-free card. The growing use of deferred prosecutions also suggests one road map the Justice Department might follow in the subprime mortgage investigations.
Deferred prosecution agreements, or D.P.A.’s, have become controversial because of a medical supply company’s agreement to pay up to $52 million to the consulting firm of John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, as an outside monitor to avoid criminal prosecution. That agreement has prompted Congressional inquiries and calls for stricter guidelines.
...
WASHINGTON — In 2005, federal authorities concluded that a Monsanto consultant had visited the home of an Indonesian official and, with the approval of a senior company executive, handed over an envelope stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. The money was meant as a bribe to win looser environmental regulations for Monsanto’s cotton crops, according to a court document. Monsanto was also caught concealing the bribe with fake invoices.
A few years earlier, in the age of Enron, these kinds of charges would probably have resulted in a criminal indictment. Instead, Monsanto was allowed to pay $1 million and avoid criminal prosecution by entering into a monitoring agreement with the Justice Department.
In a major shift of policy, the Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years.
Instead, many companies, from boutique outfits to immense corporations like American Express, have avoided the cost and stigma of defending themselves against criminal charges with a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, which allows the government to collect fines and appoint an outside monitor to impose internal reforms without going through a trial. In many cases, the name of the monitor and the details of the agreement are kept secret.
Deferred prosecutions have become a favorite tool of the Bush administration. But some legal experts now wonder if the policy shift has led companies, in particular financial institutions now under investigation for their roles in the subprime mortgage debacle, to test the limits of corporate anti-fraud laws.
...
Legal experts say the tactic may have sent the wrong signal to corporations — the promise, in effect, of a get-out-of-jail-free card. The growing use of deferred prosecutions also suggests one road map the Justice Department might follow in the subprime mortgage investigations.
Deferred prosecution agreements, or D.P.A.’s, have become controversial because of a medical supply company’s agreement to pay up to $52 million to the consulting firm of John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, as an outside monitor to avoid criminal prosecution. That agreement has prompted Congressional inquiries and calls for stricter guidelines.
...
Thursday, April 03, 2008
"we simply dismantled the old one[financial framework]-aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy "
March 29, 2008 by MotherJones | It’s The Deregulation, Stupid | by James Ridgeway
... Obama depicted the current economic crisis as a consequences of deregulation in the financial sector. “Our free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it,” he said. “Unfortunately, instead of establishing a 21st century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one-aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight.”
...
Deregulation has been the mantra on both sides of the aisle since the late 1960s. Long gone are Democrats like Michigan’s Phil Hart who, as chair of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, held hearings on the concentration of economic power in the United States, and proposed expanded government regulation of everything from the oil and auto industries to pharmaceuticals to professional sports. Hart believed that because wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of such a small number of corporations, the market economy had become no more than a facade. In this context, what would bring about lower prices and greater productivity and innovation was more government intervention and regulation, not less.
...
Even more damaging, in light of today’s economic crisis, was the sweeping deregulation of the banking and financial services industries that took place in the 1990s. What makes this enterprise particularly confounding is not only the fact that it took place under a Democratic president with support from a majority of Democrats in Congress, but that it followed so closely on the heels of the savings and loan crisis, which ought to have served as a cautionary tale on the dangers of deregulation in the banking sector. The Depository Institutions Act of 1982, another Reagan initiative, was supposed to “revitalize” the housing industry by freeing up the S&Ls to make more loans. Instead, the regulation rollback led to what economist John Kenneth Galbraith called “the largest and costliest venture in public misfeasance, malfeasance and larceny of all time” as they engaged in a fury of high-risk lending. The collapse that followed cost taxpayers an estimated $150 billion in government bailouts, and contributed to the recession of the early 1990s.
...
The Glass-Steagall Act was, in fact, a primary target of the Clinton-era deregulation effort. An early piece of New Deal-era legislation, the act was passed in response to speculation and manipulation of the markets by huge banking firms, which most liberal economists believed had brought on the crash of 1929. Glass-Steagall imposed firewalls between commercial banking and investment banking, and between the banking, brokerage, and insurance industries. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks lobbying and campaign contributions, “Eager to create financial supermarkets that peddle everything from checking accounts to auto insurance, the three industries for years have lobbied Congress to streamline regulatory hurdles that bar such operations.”
Despite Bill Clinton’s announcement that “the era of big government is over,” it took the better part of his administration for him to push these initiatives through Congress. In 1999, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, always a good friend to Wall Street, finally brokered a deal between the administration and Congress that allowed banking deregulation to move forward. Shortly after the compromise was reached, Rubin took a top position at Citigroup, which went on to embark upon mergers that would have been rendered illegal under Glass-Steagall. As the New York Times put it, Rubin would be leading “what has become the first true American financial conglomerate since the Depression”-a conglomerate that could exist only because of legislation he had just shepherded through Congress.
...
With his speech in New York, Obama is clearly trying to show himself to be a man who isn’t afraid to bite the hand that’s feeding him. He is also putting space, on this issue, between himself and Hillary Clinton, in part by reminding voters of the outcomes of Bill Clinton’s policies. He denounced both “Republican and Democratic administrations” for regulatory failures leading to the current crisis, and, as the New York Times reported, “handouts supporting the speech” noted that “the banking and insurance industries spent more than $300 million on a successful campaign to repeal the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.” ....
... Obama depicted the current economic crisis as a consequences of deregulation in the financial sector. “Our free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it,” he said. “Unfortunately, instead of establishing a 21st century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one-aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight.”
...
Deregulation has been the mantra on both sides of the aisle since the late 1960s. Long gone are Democrats like Michigan’s Phil Hart who, as chair of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, held hearings on the concentration of economic power in the United States, and proposed expanded government regulation of everything from the oil and auto industries to pharmaceuticals to professional sports. Hart believed that because wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of such a small number of corporations, the market economy had become no more than a facade. In this context, what would bring about lower prices and greater productivity and innovation was more government intervention and regulation, not less.
...
Even more damaging, in light of today’s economic crisis, was the sweeping deregulation of the banking and financial services industries that took place in the 1990s. What makes this enterprise particularly confounding is not only the fact that it took place under a Democratic president with support from a majority of Democrats in Congress, but that it followed so closely on the heels of the savings and loan crisis, which ought to have served as a cautionary tale on the dangers of deregulation in the banking sector. The Depository Institutions Act of 1982, another Reagan initiative, was supposed to “revitalize” the housing industry by freeing up the S&Ls to make more loans. Instead, the regulation rollback led to what economist John Kenneth Galbraith called “the largest and costliest venture in public misfeasance, malfeasance and larceny of all time” as they engaged in a fury of high-risk lending. The collapse that followed cost taxpayers an estimated $150 billion in government bailouts, and contributed to the recession of the early 1990s.
...
The Glass-Steagall Act was, in fact, a primary target of the Clinton-era deregulation effort. An early piece of New Deal-era legislation, the act was passed in response to speculation and manipulation of the markets by huge banking firms, which most liberal economists believed had brought on the crash of 1929. Glass-Steagall imposed firewalls between commercial banking and investment banking, and between the banking, brokerage, and insurance industries. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks lobbying and campaign contributions, “Eager to create financial supermarkets that peddle everything from checking accounts to auto insurance, the three industries for years have lobbied Congress to streamline regulatory hurdles that bar such operations.”
Despite Bill Clinton’s announcement that “the era of big government is over,” it took the better part of his administration for him to push these initiatives through Congress. In 1999, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, always a good friend to Wall Street, finally brokered a deal between the administration and Congress that allowed banking deregulation to move forward. Shortly after the compromise was reached, Rubin took a top position at Citigroup, which went on to embark upon mergers that would have been rendered illegal under Glass-Steagall. As the New York Times put it, Rubin would be leading “what has become the first true American financial conglomerate since the Depression”-a conglomerate that could exist only because of legislation he had just shepherded through Congress.
...
With his speech in New York, Obama is clearly trying to show himself to be a man who isn’t afraid to bite the hand that’s feeding him. He is also putting space, on this issue, between himself and Hillary Clinton, in part by reminding voters of the outcomes of Bill Clinton’s policies. He denounced both “Republican and Democratic administrations” for regulatory failures leading to the current crisis, and, as the New York Times reported, “handouts supporting the speech” noted that “the banking and insurance industries spent more than $300 million on a successful campaign to repeal the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.” ....
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