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What corporations don’t want you to know – U.S. Economy – Salon.com

14 Mar

In terms of full-on misleading, as the New York Times reported in a 2011 story about the proliferation of “functional food” labels, federal regulators are now concerned “that some packaged foods that scream healthy on their labels are in fact no healthier than many ordinary brands.” ..

Information, as the old saying goes, is power. And when we consider all of this in totality, it’s clear corporate America recognizes the truth in the aphorism. Companies, in other words, understand that for all the fact-free vitriol constantly thrown at the basic concept of regulation, government regulations that increase information simply expand consumer power over the market. That may threaten companies that want to continue poisoning us, but as a political goal, consumer empowerment shouldn’t be so controversial.

via What corporations don’t want you to know – U.S. Economy – Salon.com.

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Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs – NYTimes.com

14 Mar

Goldman Sachs is broken, and now takes a predatory view of its clients. Is current management just blowing it up to inflate the trust funds they’ll leave to their grandchildren in an environmental disaster?

For more than a decade I recruited and mentored candidates through our grueling interview process. I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world. In 2006 I managed the summer intern program in sales and trading in New York for the 80 college students who made the cut, out of the thousands who applied.

I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.

When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.

via Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs – NYTimes.com.

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JPMorgan Passes Stress Test, Raises Dividend – NYTimes.com

13 Mar

Looks like the Obamicans are pulling out all stops for the election.

JPMorgan Chase became the first bank on Tuesday to say regulators have completed stress tests of its balance sheet, and it said it would raise its quarterly dividend by a nickel to 30 cents and buy back as much as $12 billion of stock this year.

The Atlantic ran a recent article about how these “stress tests” are a scam intended to make  bank for the 1%, not to protect the financial system for the 99%.

via JPMorgan Passes Stress Test, Raises Dividend – NYTimes.com.

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Is MF Global Getting a Free Pass? – NYTimes.com

13 Mar

A failure to prosecute anyone at MF Global would be, if anything, even worse. It would mean that executives at a broker-dealer can indeed steal customer money and get away with it — so long as it was “unintentional.” And it would only deepen the cynicism so many people feel about government. I’ve heard it suggested, for instance, that the Justice Department won’t prosecute Corzine because it would hurt President Obama. (Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey, had been a big fund-raiser for the president.) I don’t happen to subscribe to that theory, but I certainly understand why others might.

To be sure, it is early yet. Federal investigators are still digging into the facts surrounding MF Global’s failure, no doubt searching for that elusive smoking gun. But if, in the end, they decide they can’t make a case, I hope they understand what they are telling the rest of us. Giving the big guys a pass isn’t good for the financial markets. And it isn’t good for democracy either.

via Is MF Global Getting a Free Pass? – NYTimes.com.

The modern war canon – The Browser – Salon.com

13 Mar

After the  war in Vietnam we said, never again. Now we’re in Afghanistan, making the same fundamental mistake.

One of the reasons I have chosen Halberstam is because I think it applies today to what the Western powers are trying to do in Afghanistan. There are so many parallel structures – the massive application of firepower and not much understanding of the people. To the Afghans, we tend to be just another foreign invader, however well-intentioned. Which is why, like Vietnam, I think it’s an unwinnable war.

We need to get out of Afghanistan, now, and STOP trying to remake the world by war, one or two nations at a time.

via The modern war canon – The Browser – Salon.com.

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Reform the N.R.C. – NYTimes.com

12 Mar

Like many regulatory agencies, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is held captive by the industry it’s supposed to regulate.

…the Fukushima meltdowns, which were set off by an earthquake-triggered tsunami, raised questions about the vulnerability of America’s reactors to earthquakes. Indian Point, for example, is built above and near a series of faults. But the commission refused to do a full risk assessment and refused to consider earthquake damage as part of relicensing, announcing that “this is really not a serious concern.”

While such health and safety dangers from reactors are real, perhaps an even greater danger is the on-site storage of spent fuel, which is thousands of times more toxic than the uranium put into the reactor. While the reactor is surrounded by a concrete containment vessel, the commission allows spent fuel to be kept in a large, aboveground and unprotected pool of water.

The pools have been known to leak, and they are vulnerable to fire and terrorist attack. Fukushima presented an opportunity to address this lingering threat, and yet the commission once again failed to act.

How do we regulate the regulators?

There is a real need to reform the commission, whether one supports or opposes nuclear power. We need a fast-track, independent review of exemptions and the resulting weakened safety standards; we also need a similarly independent, rigorous inquiry into the commission and its ties to the nuclear industry.

Beyond reviews, Congress should create new, stricter requirements for action by the commission, including stronger rules against exemptions from safety and health regulations.

via Reform the N.R.C. – NYTimes.com.

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The Nuclear ‘Implementation Study’ – NYTimes.com

12 Mar

China, the only major power expanding its arsenal, likely has 240 to 300 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, but experts say no more than 50 are capable of hitting the United States. Pakistan has perhaps 90, all aimed at India; North Korea has fewer than a dozen, none with the ability to hit the United States. Iran has no weapons, so far.

Just how many does the United States need? Many experts believe the United States can easily go down to 1,000 warheads in total — deployed and stored — without jeopardizing security. We agree.

1000 down from 5000 is quite a reduction, but zero would be better.

via The Nuclear ‘Implementation Study’ – NYTimes.com.

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Go to Trial – Crash the Justice System – NYTimes.com

11 Mar

The USofA has more people in prison than any other nation. 90% of all criminal cases are plea-bargained.

The system of mass incarceration depends almost entirely on the cooperation of those it seeks to control. If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation. Not everyone would have to join for the revolt to have an impact; as the legal scholar Angela J. Davis noted, “if the number of people exercising their trial rights suddenly doubled or tripled in some jurisdictions, it would create chaos.”

Such chaos would force mass incarceration to the top of the agenda for politicians and policy makers, leaving them only two viable options: sharply scale back the number of criminal cases filed (for drug possession, for example) or amend the Constitution (or eviscerate it by judicial “emergency” fiat). Either action would create a crisis and the system would crash — it could no longer function as it had before. Mass protest would force a public conversation that, to date, we have been content to avoid.

via Go to Trial – Crash the Justice System – NYTimes.com.

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Americans Elect: Corrupt or Not?

8 Mar

Over at Crooked Timber there’s an interesting discussion shaping up about Americans Elect, a somewhat mysterious effort to use the internet to select a centrist candidate to run in the 2012 Presidential Election. The process is just complicated enough that I’m not going to try to explain it; you can start here on their website to find out for yourself.

The big mystery is that Americans Elect won’t reveal who’s funding them. Some people are OK with that, some are not. Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig is OK with that (FWIW, Lessig is on a Leadership list for AE). His reasoning, which is set forth in some detail at Crooked Timber, is that candidates won’t know any more about contributors than we do, so how could they be corrupted by them?

The problem, however, is that the board of Americans Elect retains the right to veto the ticket selected by the internet process. If they don’t like the result, they’ll over-rule that result though it’s not clear what happens then, though it seems at the point the process just folds. So, it seems rather important to know who’s footing the bills, for its likely that they’re the ones who’ll have to approve the ticket. Rumor has it that much of the money comes from hedge-fund honchos. Continue reading →

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Retired Gens to Obama: No War of Choice With Iran | Military.com

8 Mar

Several former high-ranking military, intelligence and State Department officials took out an ad in the Washington Post today urging President Obama to stand fast against political and lobbying pressure to attack Iran over claims it is trying to develop nuclear weapons….

“There is a national reflex on the conservative part [of the] political spectrum to reach for the military option first and others second,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, commander of the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team in Iraq from 2003 to 2004, when he developed and oversaw the training of the Iraqi military and security forces.

President Obama and others in the administration believe they can stop Iran from pursing a nuclear weapon through economic sanctions.

via Retired Gens to Obama: No War of Choice With Iran | Military.com.

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