Sunday, October 23rd, 2011
ANDY COGHLAN and DEBORA MACKENZIE, - New Scientist (U.K.)
Stephan: This is the mathematical proof of who really runs the world. You have probably never heard of most of these companies, and know nothing of the few thousand people that run them.
Please click through and look at the graphic representation of the relationships.
Thanks to Damien Broderick, PhD.
As protests against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters’ worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.
The study’s assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.
The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world’s transnational corporations (TNCs).
‘Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it’s conspiracy theories or free-market,’ says James Glattfelder. ‘Our analysis is reality-based.’
Previous studies have found […]
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Sunday, October 23rd, 2011
Stephan: It should have been obvious from the beginning that the bugs the Mansanto GMO crops were designed to kill would mutate, and become resistant. How can anyone have thought otherwise? But profit for the few overshadowed all other considerations, and now we have... this.
Monsanto Co. (MON)’s insect-killing corn is toppling over in northwestern Illinois fields, a sign that rootworms outside of Iowa may have developed resistance to the genetically modified crop, according to one scientist.
Michael Gray, an agricultural entomologist at the University of Illinois in Urbana, said he’s studying whether western corn rootworms collected last month in Henry and Whiteside counties are resistant to an insect-killing protein derived from Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a natural insecticide engineered into Monsanto corn.
The insects were collected in two fields where corn had toppled after roots were eaten by rootworms, Gray said today. Planting Bt corn year after year increases the odds that the bugs will develop resistance to the insecticide, he said. While the symptoms parallel bug resistance that’s been confirmed in Iowa, analysis of the Illinois insects won’t be complete until next year, he said.
‘Whatever is the cause, it is generating a lot of concern.
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Saturday, October 22nd, 2011
RON SCHERER, Staff Writer - The Christian Science Monitor
Stephan: Contrast this with Sir Richard Branson's private space port and his 450 pre-paid, at $200,000 a pop for a two and a half hour ride, customers as well as Neiman Marcus' catalog, and its million dollar fountains. The disparity is part of what is driving the 99er Movement and that, I think, suggests this social trend has reached critical mass and is leading to greater and greater social instability.
NEW YORK — Think life is not as good as it used to be, at least in terms of your wallet? You’d be right about that. The standard of living for Americans has fallen longer and more steeply over the past three years than at any time since the US government began recording it five decades ago.
Bottom line: The average individual now has $1,315 less in disposable income than he or she did three years ago at the onset of the Great Recession – even though the recession ended, technically speaking, in mid-2009. That means less money to spend at the spa or the movies, less for vacations, new carpeting for the house, or dinner at a restaurant.
In short, it means a less vibrant economy, with more Americans spending primarily on necessities. The diminished standard of living, moreover, is squeezing the middle class, whose restlessness and discontent are evident in grass-roots movements such as the tea party and ‘Occupy Wall Street’ and who may take out their frustrations on incumbent politicians in next year’s election.
IN PICTURES: The 10 happiest jobs
What has led to the most dramatic drop in the US standard of living since at least 1960? One factor is […]
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Saturday, October 22nd, 2011
Stephan: I take this as very good news. Since corporations largely control our Congress, the Congress in spite of pledges by a significant percentage of its members, particularly in the House, to never to address climate change will now do so. A significant fraction of its masters will demand it.
As the next world Climate Change Summit approaches in Durban, South Africa in November, the largest group of investors and some of the world’s largest corporations are calling for significant action on climate change.
285 of the world’s largest investors, representing assets of $20 trillion reiterated ‘the calls we have made about the importance of domestic and international climate change policy in catalyzing the required levels of investment needed to transition to a low-carbon economy.
The investor group, which includes Swiss Re, HSBC, and CalPERS, wants governments to commit to short-, medium- and long-range targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, along with enforceable legal mechanisms and timelines for achieving those targets.
In their statement, they note that countries attracting the most investment in energy efficiency and renewables are those with strong, consistent, long-term policies and incentives required for investors.
That policy is essential ‘to shift private sector investment from high-carbon to low-carbon assets,’ they say.
Among their recommendations are:
Comprehensive energy and climate change policies that accelerate deployment of energy efficiency, renewable energy, green buildings, clean vehicles and fuels, and low-carbon transportation infrastructure.
Comprehensive policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industry, land-use changes, deforestation and […]
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Saturday, October 22nd, 2011
JONATHAN BENSON, Staff Writer - Natural News
Stephan: This is how crazed our politics has become, and a true measure of the contempt the Right has for civil rights. Imagine conceptualizing this, then putting in the effort to pass it. Try to get into the mindset that made this bill seem desirable and a good idea. Think about the power this bill assumes to itself, and how broadly it is worded.
It won't become law, but it is very revealing.
(NaturalNews) If an American talks about using marijuana or other drugs in countries where such activity is perfectly legal, or even just discusses the hypothetical idea of such an activity with a friend or family member, he or she will be committing a felony crime under a heinous new bill recently passed by the US House Judiciary Committee.
Sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011 essentially applies US policies in the ‘War on Drugs’ on the entire world, and makes it a crime for Americans to engage in, or even just talk about, activities that are legal abroad, but illegal back at home.
‘Under this bill, if a young couple plans a wedding in Amsterdam, and as part of the wedding they plan to buy the bridal party some marijuana, they would be subject to prosecution,’ said Bill Piper, director of the national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, a group advocating for reform of US drug laws.
‘The strange thing is that the purchase of and smoking the marijuana while you’re there wouldn’t be illegal. But this law would make planning the wedding from the US a federal crime.’
The wording of the bill is […]
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