Feds on GMO Labeling: Don’t Tell, Don’t Ask

The policy is a direct carry-over from the Bush years. Want fries with that “change?”

By Barry Estabrook, The Atlantic
Posted on April 28, 2010, Printed on May 11, 2010

If you were hoping there might be some change in the U.S. government’s official position on genetically modified and genetically engineered (GM/GE) foods under the Obama administration, tough luck.

Last month there was the appointment of big-time GM/GE advocate (and former Monsanto lobbyist) Islam Siddiqui to Office of the United States Trade Representative as the country’s chief agricultural negotiator. Now comes a position paper from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that opposes labeling for genetically modified food. The U.S. claims that letting consumers know whether or not food contains GM/GE products is “false, misleading, or deceptive.”

You read that correctly. In Obama Newspeak, telling the public the truth is false, misleading, or deceptive, while concealing facts is not. Incidentally, the language is identical to that used by previous administrations. How’s that for change?

Accounting Fraud Continues to Plague U.S. Economy

By Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger              Care2

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) unveiled his latest financial reform proposal on Monday, and the stakes for the new legislation couldn’t be higher. After consumer groups raised a major ruckus, Dodd has dropped one of his most egregious concessions to the bank lobby—cutting enforcement authority from the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). That’s good news: Without a major regulatory overhaul, the U.S. economy’s destructive boom and bust cycle will start all over again.

We’ve been down this road before. The Enron fiasco should have served as a wake-up call for policymakers, but instead, the weak federal response to Enron’s major fraud helped pave the way for the current economic slump.

Banks Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide

“It’s like buying fire insurance on your neighbor’s house — you create an incentive to burn down the house,” said Philip Gisdakis, head of credit strategy at UniCredit in Munich.

New York Times
February 25, 2010

Banks Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide
Nelson D. Schwart and Eric Dash

Bets by some of the same banks that helped Greece shroud its mounting debts may actually now be pushing the nation closer to the brink of financial ruin.

Echoing the kind of trades that nearly toppled the American International Group, the increasingly popular insurance against the risk of a Greek default is making it harder for Athens to raise the money it needs to pay its bills, according to traders and money managers.

These contracts, known as credit-default swaps, effectively let banks and hedge funds wager on the financial equivalent of a four-alarm fire: a default by a company or, in the case of Greece, an entire country. If Greece reneges on its debts, traders who own these swaps stand to profit.

“It’s like buying fire insurance on your neighbor’s house — you create an incentive to burn down the house,” said Philip Gisdakis, head of credit strategy at UniCredit in Munich.

As Greece’s financial condition has worsened, undermining the euro, the role of Goldman Sachs and other major banks in masking the true extent of the country’s problems has drawn criticism from European leaders. But even before that issue became apparent, a little-known company backed by Goldman, JP Morgan Chase and about a dozen other banks had created an index that enabled market players to bet on whether Greece and other European nations would go bust.

Full Article

Israeli report claims $2bn stolen from Palestinians

Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent     The National

February 3. 2010

Nearly 50,000 Palestinians from the West Bank are working in Israel and continue to have deductions taken from their pay. Ahmad Gharabli / AFP

Jerusalem // Over the past four decades Israel has defrauded Palestinians working inside Israel of more than US$2 billion (Dh7.4bn) by deducting from their salaries contributions for welfare benefits to which they were never entitled, Israeli economists revealed this week.

Obama Promise to End the War: ‘You Can Take That to the Bank’

Would that be the banks he and Bush bailed out with taxpayer dollars?