Police with Backbone and Teachers with Brains Fighting a Corporate Giant

The sale of the automaker Chrysler Group to an Italian car maker, Fiat, has been put on hold. Teachers and police officers in Indiana filed an emergency petition in the U.S. Supreme Court to block the sale.

The Indiana State Police Pension Fund and the Indiana Teacher Retirement Fund filed the petition this morning suing on the grounds that "the terms of the sale favor unsecured stockholders at the expense of secured stockholders and alleged that the use of Trouble Asset Relief Program Fund (TARP) to finance the bankruptcy is unconstitutional".

In an ideal case where the police chose not to be financially bullied and where teachers put their collective brains to work to stop an otherwise collapse of their retirement fund, we have a David versus Goliath smackdown with supremes serving as the referee.

The outcome? You guessed it! The police with all their muscle and the teachers with all that esoteric logic won't have a prayer. One need only a short perusal of the recent court's history to grasp an understanding that corporations reign huge in the eyes of the mighty robed jurists. One shouldn't be surprised if the court just stuck out its sinewy finger to those teachers and police officers and boldly said, "Stare Decisis!" (a sort of we-heard-this-before-and-we-don't-want-to-hear-it-again).

If that weren't enough, the talking heads in the media will probably eviscerate both groups because they had the temerity to stand up to Wall Street and the federal government over a highly questionable if not illegal sale.

The average Joe or Jane on the street or at the water cooler is probably just a little torqued about the suit as well because they didn't have anyone in their corner to champion for them when the financial crisis placed their retirement accounts in jeopardy.

Brains and backbone. I am proud of them.

Stop thinking Swine Flu and Think Death By Pie

I learned years ago that amazing things can happen when no one cares about who gets the credit. So here goes. I don't care who gets the credit on saving someone from a serious illness or possible death, but it's my hope that you will send this article (edited, bastardized, or modified...as long as the facts get out there) to anyone who can read.

Go straight to the freezer and pull out all your pot pies, kiss them goodbye and toss them out.
Why? Salmonella. In just one outbreak in 2007 the Banquet brand of pies sickened an estimated 15,000 people in 41 states.

If you can say greed and profit and globalization then you have a pretty good start in understanding the whole scenario. It seems that the giant food corps are in a constant search to find even cheaper ingredients to put into their foods. ConAgra the maker of Banquet pot pies ( over 100,000,000 each year) places 25 ingredients from all over the world and with subcontractors who don't report their sources.

Testing? Yes sure, but only after the 2007 scare. Funny thing is, however, that even if a pie is contaminated they can't determine which ingredient is the bad one. The mighty giants admit that they are so global that they can't determine who supplying the ingredients.

Truly Amazing the food giants also admit that they can no longer ensure the safety of their products. But that's not the half of it! This same industry has found a way to shift the blame onto the customers. Here's how they do it: Look at that pie (before you toss it) and notice the precise instructions or "kill steps" that you must take in order to keep from getting sick. The diagram is right there on the back of the package. A simple four step diagram telling us to make sure the pie is heated to an internal temperature of 165 degrees "in several spots"with a food thermometer of course. That's it... fail to follow the directions and expose yourself and others to illness. A sort of "By God, it's your fault for being so stupid with directions".
Before we let the biggee corps off the hook, perhaps we should look at the New York Times response to the instructions. They followed the directions in detail on many brands of pot pies only to discover that none achieved the magic level of 165 degrees. "Some spots in the pie heated to only 140 degrees even as parts of the crust were burnt" wrote reporter Michael Moss.

There you have the reasons for tossing those pies in order to avoid death. Now you can see why even the faulty instructions by the condescending conglomerates can lead to your illness. Now you can see why greed and "undetermined ingredients" can lead to an outbreak. And now you see how the blame game works in a corporatocracy because in the end it was your fault.

Source: Oklahoma Observer

Something's Rotten (Part II)

In part one of this story, I related that the health industry is surprisingly vowing to lower cost for we the people on our premiums. I smell something rotten and it's the source...the industry itself. Matt Wion, a fellow blogger, summed it up succinctly when he said it was a case of "Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts". He is absolutely correct and here's why:

Governments and businesses have put into play a policy known as "Marketplace of Ideas". In it's simple version, an industry for example, simply throws out an idea into the media. Usually they will sugar coat or play on God, Guns, Gays in order to gauge the public reaction to the concept. They twist wording, use confusing math, or sugar-coat a story to see if the public will run with it.

Political parties along with their think tanks will use wedge issues such as gay marriage, abortion, or estate taxes. They know that the individual issue affects a very small number of citizens, but with the help of demagogues they flame the controversy as high as it can get to create vivid excitement.

In the case of the 6 large insurance corps, they threw out large numbers, talked about generating "perhaps" 2 trillion $$$ over a decade. But from where? From the savings of 1.5 of their gross earnings. They fed the idea to the Prez and he's falling for it like a missile over Baghdad. The White House using spin doctors, threw it to the press and voila...there you have it: Big Business will save their greedy profits, they'll not fall prey to a national health plan, and they will look like Batman coming to save Gotham.
More befuddlement comes with fuzzy math. The industry says it can save the policyholders up to $2,500 a year in premiums to boot. Sounds good, doesn't it?

First, they vowed they would "try"...nothing concrete (off that hook);
Second, they didn't say anything about how they arrived at the math (off that hook, too);
Third, the little burr under the saddle, how can 1.5% of their profits equal $2 trillion over 10 years? It can't! Just look at the current GDP compared to the last 5 years and you will note a slow growth for the whole country, but they want you to believe they alone can achieve it;
Fourth, they mentioned nothing about inflation (if they can't reach their lofty goal they have a built in scapegoat); and,
Fifth, they conveniently omitted how they would generate the monies: lower payout to Drs./hospitals/increase in deductibles, etc.

The press needing news w/out investigating, buys the whole concept lock, stock and barrel.

See what a great tool the "marketplace of ideas" is?
Perhaps you will remember when Dubya wanted to dismantle S. Security. He threw the idea into the marketplace, but in that instance the press did their homework and riled back. This time there isn't a whimper.