Corporations – Page 10 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/03/272011/03/27

Food Industry’s Erin Brockovich–Unhealthy Truth

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, 12 Water, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

From John and Margo

All we can say is do watch this!

Patriotism on a Plate
February 2011 TEDx Austin talk.

Robyn shares her personal story and how it inspired her current path as a “Real Food” evangelist. Grounded in a successful Wall Street career that was more interested in food as good business than good-for-you, this mother of four was shaken awake by the dangerous allergic reaction of one of her children to a “typical” breakfast. Her mission to unearth the cause revealed more about the food industry than she could stomach, and impelled her to share her findings with others. Informative and inspiring.

Robyn authored The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It. A former Wall Street food industry analyst, Robyn brings insight, compassion and detailed analysis to her research into the impact that the global food system is having on the health of our children. She founded allergykidsfoundation.org and was named by Forbes as one of “20 Inspiring Women to Follow on Twitter.” The New York Times has passionately
described her as “Food's Erin Brockovich.”

Follow Robyn O'Brien on Twitter

Phi Beta Iota: Across all twelve “policy” domains from agriculture to water, with food cutting across all domains ans especially Family, Health, and Society, we are seeing the emergence of public intelligence in the public interest. What we are not seeing (yet), is the integration of “true cost” information as a core element that must be available to the public; and the integration of all that we can know about each domain in isolation, into a larger “360 degree” strategic analytic model for getting a grip on how we live and how we spend.

2011/03/272011/03/27

Spot-Light on Coca Cola as Evil Incarnate

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 12 Water, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Waste (materials, food, etc)

The Coca-Cola Case

By Maria Popova

What Colombian laborers have to do with American foreign policy and the history of soda.

Labor rights are among the most pressing human rights issues in industrialized nations. But what makes the subject most devastating is how remote it feels to most of us yet how deeply infused our everyday lives are with its enablers, from the inhuman factory conditions in the Chinese factories that churn out our favorite shoes to the impossibly low wages of the Indian farmers who grow our afternoon tea. The Coca-Cola Case is an unsettling feature-length documentary by directors German Gutierrez and Carmen Garcia exploring the subject through the lens of America’s favorite soft drink, investigating the allegations that Coke orchestrated the kidnapping, torture and murder of union leaders trying to improve working conditions in Colombia, Guatemala and Turkey.

After months of investigation into Coca-Cola, all evidence shows that the Coca-Cola system is ripe with immorality, corruption and complicity in gross human rights violations, including murder and torture.”

Read full review with video inserts…

Phi Beta Iota: Home and host country issues with multinational corporations were deeply studied in the 1970's, and then the universities were commercialized, distracted, bought off, you name it, they did everything except think holistically. The fragmentation of knowledge is the equivalent of mass human insanity. Coca Cola is representative of the broader issues, but like Nestle and others that sell “liquid,” it is particularly evil with respect to draining public water aquifers without regard to the “true cost” of that untaxed and unregulated behavior.

2011/03/07

Pentagon Contractors Baby Gaga on Steroids

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Government, Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy, Technologies, Waste (materials, food, etc)

There is no doubt that, Pentagon Labyrinth is a first rate piece of work. However it did fail to mention an additional factor in defense procurement costs that is often overlooked and that is the need to subsidize U.S. defense industry giants such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop-Grumman and General Dynamics. This also explains the over elaborate use of sub-contracting since the boutique sub-contractors used by the defense giants often produce key components for weapon systems so also must be given a portion of the subsidies. Boeing is the only major defense contractor that even makes a pretense of also dealing in commercial aircraft. Lockheed, Northrop, and General Dynamics along with their networks of sub-contractors are virtually entirely dependent on government contracts or contracts from the government’s foreign clients for their continued existence.

Continue reading “Pentagon Contractors Baby Gaga on Steroids”

2011/03/062011/10/22

Four Time Bombs Centered on Wall Street

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform, Waste (materials, food, etc)

Paul B. Farrell

March 1, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EST

Four time bombs that will blow up Wall Street

Commentary: Too late to jail bank CEOs; only revolution will succeed

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

Phi Beta Iota: Highlights include extimate that US is 44 trillion in debt; that nothing and Administration does will stop Wall Street–this is now so bad the author believes a revolution (as in swarming homes and offices and demanding the return of ill-gotten wealth) will do. We do not agree. Yes, it is bad. No, recovering the stolen money will not do. The silver lining in all this is the obvious decrepitude of governments and corporations; the now obvious toxic nature of information asymmetries and data pathologies; and the less obvious but emergent need for a) restoring the integrity of the US Electoral process through Electoral Reform 2.2 ; and b) creating the Autonomous Internet so as to achieve Panarchy and create a prosperous world at peace in which transparency eliminates corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse, starting in the USA.

READ ORIGINAL POST WITH FOUR TIME BOMBS DEFINED

Safety Copy of Entire Story Below the Line

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2011/03/042011/03/04

US-Korea Trade “Deal” is Dumb & Dirty

02 China, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Government, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Waste (materials, food, etc)

“What will N. Korea do with the money it gets from the U.S.- Korean Trade Deal?” Watch the video | Stop U.S.-Korea NAFTA

Conservative Congressman Walter Jones (R-NC) explains why Korean trade agreement threatens national security | Stop U.S.-Korea NAFTA

Conservative Pundit and Constitutional Scholar Bruce Fein on the Loss of U.S. Sovereignty under KORUS | Stop U.S.-Korea NAFTA

The North Korean Kaesong Sweatshop Zone

2011/03/032011/03/03

Autonomous Internet Video & Audio: Eben Moglen on Freedom & Technology

Audio, Autonomous Internet, Corporations, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Technologies, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

Eben Moglen, law professor at Columbia university (NYC) and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center.

Video: FreedomBox v Facebook

Audio: Before and After IP: Ownership of Ideas in the 21st Century (mp3)

See Also:

Autonomous [Free, Distributed] Internet

Reference: The Future of the Internet

Freedom Box Mail List

Freedom Box Archives

2011/02/252011/02/25

US Economy, US Federal Budget–To Cut or Not to Cut?

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, Budgets & Funding, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, IO Sense-Making, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends...

ECONOMIC SCENE

Why Budget Cuts Don’t Bring Prosperity

By DAVID LEONHARDT

New York Times, February 22, 2011

Remember the German economic boom of 2010?

Germany’s economic growth surged in the middle of last year, causing commentators both there and here to proclaim that American stimulus had failed and German austerity had worked. Germany’s announced budget cuts, the commentators said, had given private companies enough confidence in the government to begin spending their own money again.

Well, it turns out the German boom didn’t last long. With its modest stimulus winding down, Germany’s growth slowed sharply late last year, and its economic output still has not recovered to its prerecession peak. Output in the United States — where the stimulus program has been bigger and longer lasting — has recovered. This country would now need to suffer through a double-dip recession for its gross domestic product to be in the same condition as Germany’s. Read more….

Does The U.S. Really Have A Fiscal Crisis?

By Simon Johnson, The Baseline Scenario, 24 February 2011

The United States faces some serious medium-term fiscal issues, but by any standard measure it does not face an immediate fiscal crisis. Overindebted countries typically have a hard time financing themselves when the world becomes riskier – yet turmoil in the Middle East is pushing down the interest rates on US government debt. We are still seen as a safe haven.

Yet leading commentators and politicians today repeat the line “we’re broke” and argue there is no alternative other than immediate spending cuts at the national and state level.

Which view is correct? And what does this tell us about where our political system is heading? Read more….

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