maybe-we-dont-know-as-much-as-we-think about GM foods

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57459357/gm-grass-linked-to-texas-cattle-deaths/

"Preliminary tests revealed the Tifton 85 grass, which has been here for years, had suddenly started producing cyanide gas, poisoning the cattle.
'Coming off the drought that we had the last two years ... we're concerned it was a combination of events that led us to this,' Dr. Gary Warner, an Elgin veterinarian and cattle specialist who conducted the 15 necropsies, told Kelly.
What is more worrisome: Other farmers have tested their Tifton 85 grass, and several in Bastrop County have found their fields are also toxic with cyanide. However, no other cattle have died."

So... maybe we should go a little slower on this genetic modification of our foods?  If one variety decides to start pumping out poison after a while, that's not a good sign.

Occupy Our Homes saves foreclosures

http://www.thenation.com/blog/168367/occupy-our-homes-saves-another-family-foreclosure

"The group also aided a Detroit husband and wife who spent months worrying they could be evicted from their home of twenty-two years. The couple received news they would be permitted to stay after an aggressive campaign that was led by members of Moratorium Now, Occupy Detroit and Homes Before Banks and included the family’s supporters blocking the contractor from placing the dumpster.

 

Additionally, Occupy Atlanta prevented the eviction of a family when two dozen protesters encamped on the family’s lawn, and Occupy Our Homes delayed another foreclosure in Rochester, as did Occupy Cleveland in November."

Why do banks so aggressively foreclose?  It turns them into homeowners, which is not how this is supposed to work. Then the banks are responsible for upkeep.  why not RENT the home to the previous homeowners if nothing else?  Or renegotiate a tad to at least save some mortgages.

Buy direct, cut out the middleman, save $

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/06/2012611102126662269.html

"Athens, Greece - When an economy shrinks, prices are meant to go down in response to falling demand. This has not happened in Greece - at least not yet. While the Greek economy shrank by an average of five per cent a year between 2009 and 2011, consumer prices rose by an average 3.7 per cent a year. The combination of falling revenues and rising prices has led to an explosive political mix."
"The potato movement is giving renewed impetus to two institutions that could have been expected to channel market economics in hard times but didn't. The first, farmers' cooperatives, were set up in the 1980s to give producers the clout to compete with wholesalers. 'Cooperatives have the ability to sweep wholesalers aside, but they don't sell any cheaper,' Kamenidis said. 'They mark up produce even more.'
Farmers' markets, set up throughout Greece to help producers compete with retailers, also reportedly fall prey to the same greed. "Producers have succumbed to the logic of the market. They are trying to gouge consumers in the same way as middlemen," Ilias Tsolakidis, who created the Pieria group in Katerini, told Al Jazeera."

So the idea is for farmers to sell directly to consumers. This idea is actually older than our current system, of course.  Or you just grow your own food, which is time consuming but even better.  If the farmers get greedy, find a work-around for that too.  Way to go Greece!

old quote on a modern problem

‎"So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent." [Henry George, 1876]

Is the US making the same mistake as the Soviet Union?

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/trading_jobs_for_military_base.html

"I rest my case. America systematically subordinates its economic interests to achieve geopolitical objectives. What it should do is give back the military bases and go for the exports, and for greatly increased domestic production."

http://www.rt.com/news/us-heads-ussr-way-prestowitz-080/

"The US is suffering declining economic competiveness: we have a big trade deficit, we are heavily in debt to China and to the rest of the world. Our major source of international power is not economic, it's military. We are actually a lot like the former Soviet Union: the USSR didn't collapse because it lacked military strength, it collapsed because it lacked economic strength. The same things are now happening to the US"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/06/gop-boost-pentagon-budget-domestic-slashed_n_891205.html

"As it considers steep cuts to domestic programs in an effort to slash the deficit, the House is set to consider a defense spending bill on Wednesday that increases the Pentagon's budget by $17 billion."

I was looking for a recent article where the Republicans in the House wanted to increase defense spending even more than the Pentagon wanted!  Consider what a huge percentage of our budget goes to the military already, more than all other militaries combined.  What are we doing?

Ronald Reagan lovers argue that Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union by making them overspend on their military. Is that what we are doing now?  Why are our overseas military alliances worth more than shoring up our own economy?  I see no rational reason for this whatsoever.

Making higher education unaffordable

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/05/201252221146903477.html

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/17/4496704/uc-students-seek-to-bar-tuition.html

Over 200 demonstrations against tuition hikes in Montreal.  Devastating cuts in state funding to schools in California.  This is not the way to help the economy or a country's citizens.  One of the biggest economic booms in the U.S. came after World War II when returning soldiers took advantage of free college education.  That uptick in education jolted our society into high gear and produced the notion that each generation in the U.S. should be better off than the previous.  Alas, it was only a short dream.

While congress is trying to give the Pentagon more money than they are asking for, it behooves us to consider why we are gutting our educational system at the same time.

Pimply-faced kids now run the world

http://www.canada.com/technology/Christopher+Doyon+brains+behind+Anonymous/6612381/story.html

"It’s the pimply-faced kid in the basement who controls the whole game, and Bradley Manning proved that.  The fact he had the 250,000 cables that were released effectively cut the power of the U.S. State Department in half. The Afghan war diaries and the Iran war diaries effectively cut the political clout of the U.S. Department of Defence in half. All because of one guy who had enough balls to slip a CD in an envelope and mail it to somebody."

He's got a point there.  Pimply-faced kids have always had keys to important things, though.  The difference now is that with the click of a button that kid can spread information around the world with the keys he has.