World: Hell Is Cheap: China, Apple, And The Economics Of Horror

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Hell Is Cheap: China, Apple, And The Economics Of Horror by Richard RJ Eskow

I hate what I've learned about Apple's outsourcing to China. I hate knowing that Steve Jobs, who I admired very much in some ways, ignored repeated reports that employees were being cheated and endangered. I hate knowing that his business practices are destroying the kind of good middle-class job his adoptive father had.

I hate watching this week's news stories about China, knowing most of them ignore the fact that American companies who outsource to China have employee fraud and death built into their business plans.

In the words of the old Bob Seger song: Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then. But I do.

Where the Blame Belongs

China and trade are back in the news, thanks to the trade visit of Chinese Vice President (and future President, by most reports) Xi Jinping. Last week on The Breakdown radio show I interviewed William K. Black, Jr., the former regulator who is now a Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.

Prof. Black, who describes himself as a "white collar criminologist," makes a compelling argument that the cruelty and cynicism of both Chinese authorities and American companies like Apple are far worse than most people can imagine. He identifies Apple's greatest misdeed - one that may be shared by most of its competitors - as "anti-employee control fraud" which it tolerated despite repeated reports.

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Before the interview, Bill Black and I shared stories of the working conditions we'd both seen in other countries. Sometimes it isn't pretty at all. So let's not kid ourselves any longer: Companies like Apple don't outsource to China because the workforce is better-educated or more highly motivated. They don't even outsource just because the labor is cheaper there. They outsource because employers who defraud their workers can make products more cheaply, and those who ignore their safety can produce them more quickly.

"I won't sell a product that gets scratched," Steve Jobs said in a famous anecdote. "I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks."As Prof. Black noted in our interview (audio here), "Imagine what would have happened if Steve Jobs cared as much about the health of his workers as he did about the quality of an iPhone screen."

As someone who has admired both Jobs and Apple - and who just bought a new MacBook Pro - the issue strikes close to home. Because the worst moral depravity doesn't belong to the Chinese authorities, although they're shockingly heartless toward their own workers - and, as Prof. Black notes in this audio clip, don't even hesitate to tolerate fraud that kills infants. Even companies like Apple who, as Prof. Black says, knowingly create the environment that makes fraud and employee danger unavoidable, aren't the guiltiest among us.

The greatest moral failing isn't theirs: It's ours. We buy products from manufacturers like Apple. We ignore the reports that we hear. We read newspapers and watch television without ever demanding that their reporters ask companies like Apple at every press conference: What are you doing to protect workers overseas?

Shame on them, all of them: the Chinese government, the reporters, executives at Apple. But most of all, shame on us.

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US: Taxpayers slapped with $32 billion bill to pay for TSA molestation of their children and seniors

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Taxpayers slapped with $32 billion bill to pay for TSA molestation of their children and seniors by Ethan A. Huff

(NaturalNews) The Obama Administration has proposed significantly hiking air travel fees to cover the costs associated with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) molestation of air travelers. Under the new plan, which would garner a whopping $32 billion in ten years, ticket fees that cover the costs of TSA security screenings would more than double for passengers, costing them at least $5 per one-way trip.

As the TSA continues installing naked body scanners at U.S. airports and hiring hordes of new agents to grope travelers at airports, bus stations, trains stations, and even sports stadiums, the agency's more than $8 billion annual budget is rapidly ballooning. And rather than continue to siphon the cash to pay for this unconstitutional nightmare of tyranny directly from taxpayers, Obama and Co. wants to make airlines, airports, and air travelers foot the bill.

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According to a recent Reuters report, the administration wants to charge airlines a $100 departure fee for every commercial, business, and other type of jet that takes off from an airport. The plan would also eliminate federal grant funding for medium and large-sized airports to complete construction projects, which means the airports would have to significantly raise fees for travelers and airlines in order to cover these costs.

This massive proposed shakedown of Americans who utilize air travel would not be necessary, of course, if the TSA and its pseudo-security monstrosity was simply eliminated altogether, as is one of the proposed plans being made by 2012 presidential candidate and Texas Representative Ron Paul. If airports and airlines were permitted to simply establish their own air travel screening protocols, in others words, none of these federal fees would even be necessary.

But being the war-mongering globalist that he truly is, Obama would rather have air travelers directly cover the costs of TSA goons digging around in granny's underwear, or taking off the diapers of young children. In essence, he would rather that every air traveler pay directly to be blasted with ionizing radiation in the backscatter x-ray machine, or to be molested by the prodding hands of a TSA screener.

What this will all accomplish, of course, is the utter destruction of the private airline industry, which is already having a difficult time staying afloat as frustrated travelers increasingly choose other forms of travel to avoid being illegally groped and screened. And just like General Motors, the endgame of this scenario is the takeover of the airlines industry by the federal government.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.reuters.com

http://travel.usatoday.com

http://news.bostonherald.com

Renovation: Genetically Engineered Trees – The Increasing Threat / Documentary Video

Genetically Engineered Trees – The Increasing Threat / Documentary Video

 The Growing Threat Genetically Engineered Trees - Award winning documentary film explores the growing global threat of genetically engineered trees to our environment and to human health. The film features David Suzuki, who explores the unknown and possibly disastrous consequences of improperly tested GE methods. Producer: tankerenemy. Creative Commons license: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

Research: Roundup Diluted by 450-Fold is Still Toxic to DNA

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Research: Roundup Diluted by 450-Fold is Still Toxic to DNA by Sayer Ji

New research released ahead of print and published in the journal Archives of Toxicology indicates that Roundup, the most common formulation of the herbicide glyphosate, is not only more toxic than its constituent ingredients, but is capable of damaging DNA within a human cell line when diluted down to 450-fold lower concentrations than presently used in GMO agricultural applications. In the researchers' own words, Roundup has "genotoxic effects after short exposure to concentrations that correspond to a 450-fold dilution of spraying used in agriculture."

The chemical - glyphosate - is the highest selling herbicide in the world and has been identified as having a wide range of potential adverse health effects -- largely minimized and/or under-reported -- which include over two dozen diseases. Glyphosate's primary properties of concern are its carcinogenicity, genotoxicity and endocrine disruptive actions. Roundup contains a surfactant known as polyoxyethyleneamine which functions to reduce the surface tension between Roundup and the cells exposed to it, making the cellular membranes more permeable to absorbing glyphosate and other chemicals within the formula. The surfactant in Roundup may therefore be responsible for increasing the toxicity of glyphosate by several orders of magnitude higher than it exhibits by itself.

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This new research sheds light on a fundamental problem associated with toxicological risk assessments of agrichemicals (and novel manmade chemicals in general), namely, these assessments do not take into account the reality of synergistic toxicologies, i.e. the amplification of harm associated with multiple chemical exposures occurring simultaneously. Moreover, toxicological risk assessments on novel chemicals are based on the concept of determining "an acceptable level of harm," instead of protecting those who would be exposed to a chemical by implementing the precautionary principle, i.e. if there is reason to believe that a chemical could cause harm (determined by animal and in vitro studies) then they should be regulated as if they do cause harm to humans. The precautionary principle would require that the manufacturers of these chemicals prove their product is safe to humans before being allowed to release it onto the market or into the environment, rather than putting the burden of proving it unsafe on the consumer and/or exposed populations, as is presently the case.

Glyphosate exposure is now ubiquitous due to the fact that 88,000 tons of it were used in US in 2007 alone, and likely billions of additional pounds globally. Accumulating evidence indicates it is resistant to biodegradation and now contaminates the air, rain and groundwater throughout the areas where it has been applied.

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US: The Wizard Behind the Curtain

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Feb. 10, 2012: The Wizard Behind the Curtain by Mark Stoppa

Through my experience litigating foreclosure cases, I’ve become convinced that the plaintiffs prosecuting foreclosure lawsuits often don’t even realize those lawsuits are pending.  Let’s say that again:

The Plaintiffs who have filed suit don’t even realize a lawsuit is pending.

How can that be?  Simple.  Third-party servicers retain a foreclosure mill, a.k.a. a plaintiff’s lawyer, and, without actually appearing as a party in their own names, direct the foreclosure mill to file suit on behalf of the plaintiff, i.e. the owner of the Note and Mortgage.  Does the servicer actually have authority to do so?  Honestly, who the heck knows.  This strange phenomenon is something I’ve started to call the “Wizard Behind the Curtain.”  The servicer isn’t named in the lawsuit, but it’s the one behind the scenes, calling all the shots, directing the foreclosure of thousands of homes throughout America.

I see a myriad of problems with this.  In fact, just last month, I expressed my concerns when I saw a foreclosure mill’s written admission that it had no relationship whatsoever with the plaintiff it was purporting to represent.  Think about that for a second:

The lawyer had no relationship whatsoever with the plaintiff it purported to represent.

Instead, the firm’s alleged authority to file the foreclosure lawsuit came from, you guessed it, the “servicer.”

I recently came across a document filed in a court case that sheds more light on this troubling phenomenon, and this document will provide a useful example to illustrate the problem.

Take a look for yourself … what do you see?

Obviously this document, which Shapiro & Fishman calls a “Non-Title Document Review,” is a checklist used prior to filing a foreclosure complaint.  What really strikes me about this document (which Shapiro filed with the Complaint in this case and is a matter of public record) is that it has one box for the “Plaintiff” and the heading/style of the case, and an entirely separate box for the “Client.”  Here, for instance, the “Plaintiff” is U.S. Bank, National Association, but the “client” is “Bank of America, N.A.”

Call me crazy, but shouldn’t the “client” and the “plaintiff” be the same?  How can Shapiro & Fishman be filing a lawsuit on behalf of U.S. Bank when its “client” is Bank of America?

This may sound technical, and perhaps it is.  But think about how this “wizard behind the curtain”
 phenomenon will play out in a foreclosure case.  I see four huge problems.

First, the Florida Supreme Court requires via Fla.R.Civ.P. 1.110(b) that the Plaintiff verify its Complaint in all residential foreclosure cases.  Given the relationship between the foreclosure mills and the servicers, it seems clear the required verifications aren’t being done by the plaintiffs, but by the servicers.  Many learned judges in Florida before whom I appear have made it clear that verification by a servicer is insufficient – the complaints are supposed to be verified by the “plaintiff.”  Remember, the Rule doesn’t permit verification by a third party, but by “the plaintiff.”  In fact, Shapiro & Fishman moved for rehearing of the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling on this precise issue, and the Court rejected its motion.

This prompts a significant question – if verification is required by the plaintiff, and the attorneys representing the plaintiff have no relationship with the plaintiff, how on earth can they get the required verification?

Undoubtedly, this is why the mills ask for 90 days or 120 days to get the requisite verification (when complaints are dismissed with leave to amend), as they often don’t even represent the plaintiff prosecuting the foreclosure case!  Literally, the mills are in the position of calling up an entity who they don’t represent and saying “You don’t know me, but I’m representing you in this foreclosure case, and I need you to verify under penalty of perjury that the allegations we’ve raised are correct.”

A bit awkward, eh?  Yet that’s the position in which the mills have put themselves (in a large percentage of foreclosure cases in Florida).

Second, I struggle to see how the mills can prosecute lawsuits on behalf of plaintiffs without the plaintiffs’ knowledge or consent in a manner consistent with The Rules Regulating The Florida Bar.  I’ve spoken with the Bar on this, and given our conversation, I’m not prepared to say it’s impossible, but I will say this.  Personally, I couldn’t imagine appearing as counsel for a party in any lawsuit without that party’s knowledge or consent, much less doing so on a widespread, systematic basis.

Think about it this way.  An attorney is able to act on behalf of a client because the attorney’s actions bind the client.  Stipulations, representations, court filings, etc. … we as attorneys are, quite literally, agents for our clients.  If a client is going to be bound in this manner, the attorney’s authority to represent/bind the client must be clearly established.  This is why, for example, there are strict rules about how an attorney may appear as counsel, failing which the attorney’s actions don’t bind the client.  See Pasco County v. Quail Hollow Props., Inc., 693 So. 2d 92 (Fla. 2d DCA 1997).

If these foreclosure attorneys don’t have an attorney-client relationship with the plaintiff, it seems to me they cannot represent the plaintiff at all and should be disqualified from doing so.  After all, how can an attorney bind the plaintiff when the attorney has no relationship with the plaintiff?  Why should any court accept the representations or stipulations of a plaintiff’s attorney when that attorney has no relationship with the plaintiff?
There must be a better answer than “there are lots of foreclosure cases in Florida, and this is just how it’s done.”

Third, you want to know why the Florida Supreme Court’s mediation program failed?  How can anyone expect to get a binding agreement with U.S. Bank when the attorneys prosecuting this foreclosure case don’t even represent U.S. Bank?  Remember, Shapiro & Fishman’s client is Bank of America, so the contact person for Shapiro & Fishman on this file is undoubtedly an agent of Bank of America, not U.S. Bank.  Again, how can anyone expect to get a loan modification under these circumstances, i.e. the appropriate parties aren’t even at the bargaining table.

Fourth, when the plaintiff alleges in the complaint that it is the owner and holder of the Note and Mortgage, what exactly does that mean?  Taking plaintiff’s allegations literally, the plaintiff is the owner/holder.  But in all of these cases where the entity driving the suit is actually the servicer, it seems that the servicer is the “holder” of the Note, not the Plaintiff.  Remember, to be the holder, the “plaintiff” must be in “possession” of the Note.  See Fla. Stat. 671.201(21).  However, are these plaintiffs really in possession when they don’t even know a case has been filed?  I suppose it’s possible, but when the Note is subsequently put into the court file, how did it get there?  If it’s from the servicer, as I’d think it must since the servicer is the only one who knows about the case, then doesn’t that show the servicer was in possession, not the Plaintiff? And that the servicer was the “holder,” not the Plaintiff?  Actually, no – where the Note is specifically indorsed to the plaintiff, the servicer isn’t the holder, either.  In that situation, the servicer has possession, but the plaintiff has the indorsement, so neither one is the “holder.”

So what’s the solution to all of this madness?  It’s two-fold: (1) Require verifications by the plaintiff (not the servicer, the plaintiff) and dismiss all cases without it; and (2) Require the foreclosure mills to have attorney-client relationships with the plaintiff (not the servicer, the plaintiff prosecuting the case) and disqualify all attorneys who lack such a relationship.  That sounds harsh, but it’s ridiculous to inundate our courts with garbage pleadings that languish for years without a resolution when the parties prosecuting them don’t even know they’ve been filed.

Mark Stopa

www.stayinmyhome.com

9/11 Cognitive Dissonance: Why People Are Afraid of 9/11 Truth

9/11 Cognitive Dissonance: Why People Are Afraid of 9/11 Truth

 Leading Psychologists explain why so many Americans refuse to listen or believe in the overwhelming evidence that the official story of 911 cannot be true. Excerpt from Architects & Engineers for 911 Truth DVD Experts Speak Out

Revealed: How Syngenta Investigated the Press and Shaped the News About its Controversial Weed-Killer Atrazine

Feb. 7, 2012: Revealed: How Syngenta Investigated the Press and Shaped the News About its Controversial Weed-Killer Atrazine - Alternet.org

 A new investigation shows the global chemical company spent millions spinning news coverage and tracking journalists as concern grew over potential health risks of atrazine.

Documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy, recently unsealed as part of a major lawsuit against Syngenta, reveal how the global chemical company's PR team investigated the press and spent millions to spin news coverage and public perceptions in the face of growing concerns about potential health risks from the widely used weed-killer "atrazine."

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This story is part of a new series about this PR campaign to influence the media, potential jurors, potential plaintiffs, farmers, politicians, scientists, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the midst of reviews of the weed-killer's potential to act as an endocrine disruptor, over the past decade or so.

Dealing with Meddlesome Reporters

Two years ago, on March 2, 2010, Huffington Post Investigative Fund (HuffPo) reporter Danielle Ivory contacted Syngenta Corporation Director of Corporate Communications-North America Paul Minehart and asked, as reporters do, a few questions.

Little did she know her questions to Syngenta - which reported sales of over $11 billion that year, almost half of which, $5 billion, was profit - would provoke the creation of a secret dossier on her.

According to emails discovered by St. Louis attorney Stephen Tillery in a class action to get Syngenta to compensate local water utilities for the cost of filtering Syngenta's weed-killer out of drinking water supplies, the Syngenta team did not simply respond to her questions with the usual PR spin. (Syngenta sought to keep this information out of the public eye in that case, Holiday Shore Sanitary District v. Syngenta Crop Protection et al., but a trial court in Illinois rejected the company's claims and "unsealed" some emails and materials last year, making them part of the public record.)

Ivory told Minehart she had been informed by a source that a new federal class action would soon be filed against Syngenta Crop Protection Incorporated ("Syngenta CP"), a subsidiary/division of Syngenta AG ("SAG"), a global holding company located in Switzerland.

Over a dozen municipal and county operators of water districts in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Ohio, and Iowa were planning to sue Syngenta CP - whose U.S. headquarters is in Greensboro, North Carolina - and SAG for the costs associated with removing atrazine from their community's drinking water.

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Jan. 25, 2012: Dow and Monsanto Team Up on the Mother of All Herbicide Marketing Plans

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Worldwide earthquakes in 2011 plotted and animated (with sound intensity)

Worldwide earthquakes in 2011 plotted and animated (with sound intensity) - Activist Post

Policy: Sierra Club took millions from natural gas fracking supporter

US Department of Energy

Sierra Club took millions from natural gas fracking supporter by James Bruggers

Well, well. So the Sierra Club's campaign to end coal was substantially supported by a natural gas company CEO involved in the controversial practice called fracking. The club's Beyond Coal campaign is very active in Kentucky.

Bryan Walsh of TIME has the report, here, in what's as an exclusive. The report says the organization has since stopped taking the money:

TIME has learned that between 2007 and 2010 the Sierra Club accepted over $25 million in donations from the gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy - one of the biggest gas drilling companies in the U.S. and a firm heavily involved in fracking - to help fund the Club's Beyond Coal campaign. Though the group ended its relationship with Chesapeake in 2010 - and the Club says it turned its back on an additional $30 million in promised donations - the news raises concerns about influence industry may have had on the Sierra Club's independence and its support of natural gas in the past. It's also sure to anger ordinary members who've been uneasy about the Club's relationship with corporations. "The chapter groups and volunteers depend on the Club to have their back as they fight pollution from any industry, and we need to be unrestrained in our advocacy," Michael Brune, the Sierra Club's executive director since 2010, told me. "The first rule of advocacy of is that you shouldn't take money from industries and companies you're trying to change."

Natural gas has been seen by many as a bridge from dirty coal to renewable sources and perhaps less of a threat to the climate. While its clear that natural gas power plants emit fewer pollutants, and less carbon dioxide, a more thorough analysis has led to questions as to whether burning more gas instead of coal will help the climate.

Maybe this news about Sierra Club funding choices helps explain the departure of Carl Pope atop the Sierra Club

US: Bank Bailout 2: Obama Lets Mortgage Abusers Off the Hook

Feb. 9, 2012: Bank Bailout 2: Obama Lets Mortgage Abusers Off the Hook - CommonDreams.org

"Obama’s people have performed this function for America’s looters over and over again. They did it for Wall Street, the banks, the rich tax evaders, the insurance companies, the oil companies, the gas companies, the coal companies, the CIA, the DoD, and numerous torturers and their legal/policy enablers and associated war criminals in the previous administration."

The Obama Administration has followed a predictable pattern: Leave No One Accountable

The Obama administration announced this morning that the five largest U.S. banks have agreed to a $26 billion 'settlement' to end lawsuits over abusive practices that forced millions of families from their homes and helped bring about the nation’s financial meltdown.

 After months of talks with state and federal officials, the banks have reportedly agreed to help some homeowners reduce their mortgage debt or refinance their homes at lower rates. Over 4 million familes lost their homes to foreclosure yet just 750,000 people who lost their homes to foreclosure will receive a one-time check for just $1,800 to $2,000, which for many will barely cover the cost of moving. The deal will only help a fraction of the struggling homeowners affected by the bank’s practices.


New York and California have reportedly signed off on the deal after initially holding it up in protest of lenient treatment of the banks.

The deal gives banks immunity from civil lawsuits for "robosigning," a practice whereby homeowners were rapidly evicted without proper vetting.

In his January 24th State of the Union address, President Obama promised a fresh investigation into mortgage abuses that led to the financial meltdown. Now, before that investigation has even begun, Obama is granting these 5 "too big to fail" banks immunity from "robo-signing" abuses.

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