It’s the Cheesiest

This week an “expose” was written by the New York Times in which it was revealed that the government was taking both sides of the dairy industry debate; on the one hand asking people to cut their cheese/dairy consumption for better health while on the other hand subsidizing restaurants to add more cheese and dairy to their menu items. (The biggest example being Domino’s pizza in which 40% more cheese was added to each pizza, resulting in one slice far exceeding the RDA requirements of saturated fat.)

The reason I put “expose” in quotes is because it surprised me to find that people were surprised about this revelation. It seems to me that the government has showed a concrete and substantial history of toggling between health and illness, such that this seems to be par for the course.

In the case of the New Your Times article, the author describes how a surplus of whole milk and extracted milk fat required the government to step in and create subsidies for the industry so that those products don’t go to waste. This is the exact same scenario and what happened in the 1970’s with the corn industry, resulting in the creation and excess use of High Fructose Corn Syrup in American food products.

In both cases, multiple studies have been performed to show that both sugar and cheese are two of the top reasons Americans have increased obesity and heart disease compared to other countries, yet, we keep subsidizing them, perpetuating industries that are making us sick and fat.

There is a third industry at play, here, however. The medical industry. They are just as much to blame for our health problems as the food industry. Having worked for a biotech/pharmaceutical company for a very long time, I feel confident that I can say most of these businesses are not in the business of curing anything. They are only in the business of creating a quality of life. To put it bluntly, there is no revenue when something is cured. They need to create a lifetime of patients, so they have a lifetime of money.

So here we have Big Agriculture Industry (corn, dairy, meat) and the medical industry with the government dancing between the two partners… like a woman accepting two dates to prom and not wanting either partner to know of the other. Add to that the fact that we live in a capitalistic society where everyone wants more and more money for themselves and the shareholders. In our current climate the government has no choice but to tout good health on the one hand while putting money into the pockets of the dairy farmer and the doctor in the other.

And why do I feel so confident this is true and will stay in existence? It comes down to this simple logical argument: if the government cared so much about our health, instead of creating a universal health plan, they would have stopped the subsidies. In doing so, they also would have saved close to $200 Billion dollars. But they didn’t. Every industry at play in this game is getting our money. The only people not getting our money is us. What we are getting is a lifetime of disease and shorter life span.. and being miserable and fat in the process.

The government pays close to $100 Billion in Big Ag subsidies. The nationwide Health Care plan is expected to cost $60 Billion dollars. The Big Ag subsidies are making us sick so we need the healthcare. Get rid of the one (subsidies) and you don’t need the other (healthcare). The citizenry has a surplus of income on the magnitude of $160 Billion dollars nationwide, which we can then put back into the system by supporting small farmers, agriculture and healthful food. Since we are healthier we will also be spending our money on activities outside of the home, stimulating growth of the economy and consumer confidence.

I will leave it up to you to decide what the government, Big Ag, and the Medical Industry have at stake to keep us dependent on our current way of life. I have my opinions, but that is irrelevant to the overall conversation and ultimate solution. Regardless of your beliefs of why they are doing it, why don’t we let that go, and start doing something to change it.

Bringing Up the Rear

by Matt DeNoto

Fair warning, this is a bit of a rant.  Apologies.

One of the major arguments politicians have been making regarding the recently passed (by the House) American Clean Energy and Security Act is that the steps that it takes to try and cut America’s CO2 output are practically useless, because countries like China and India also produce a lot of CO2.

These politicians have been saying this quite a bit lately.  So much so that I feel the need to point out something that seems to me to be pretty obvious.

We can’t make laws for China and India.  They have their own governments.  If you would like to make laws for China and/or India, you probably have to move there first.

The argument also seems to imply that if we can’t make laws for China and India’s CO2 output, we just shouldn’t make any CO2 laws at all.  Which means we’ll just be sitting on the sidelines while the rest of the world innovates and reinvests and cleans up.  South Korea just dedicated 2% of its GDP over the next 5 years develop environmentally-friendly industries.  There’s a small town called Guessing, Austria that already produces more electricity than it consumes using natural biofuels.  The rest of the country also hopes to be energy self-sufficient by the end of 2010.

What will America look like then, if we still haven’t addressed our own environmental concerns?

We will look obsolete.  Antiquated.  Desperately clinging on to outdated, dirty methods, blindly insisting that we are keeping prices low for taxpayers, and profits high for companies.

And what happens when China and India’s lawmakers DO decide to pass regulations in those countries?  Will those who complained so loudly here be proud that America held out the longest?  That America dug in its heels and refused to do what reason and responsibility required?  That America, known and respected for so long for its progress and leadership, continued to wallow in its own crapulence even after it knew better?

It’s fascinating how much of the anti-environmental movement seems to be driven out of nothing but spite.  There’s a Volkswagen commercial being played now that mocks the sound hybrids make.  As if to suggest that what’s really important is having a car that makes the right engine noises.  Loud ones.  Ones that you can only get from combusting gasoline.

It’s a distraction, and in the coming years when people see the real benefits of living more while taking less, those spiteful whimperings will grow fainter and fainter.

Now let’s hope the Senate doesn’t give in.

To Your Health

by Matt DeNoto

I turned 30 over the weekend, and my parents flew out from Long Island to visit me. My mom brought me a very special gift: a cold. Over the last couple of days I’ve dealt with severe post-nasal drip, a very runny nose and a lack of appetite. But I don’t have health insurance, so I will not be heading out to see a doctor. Instead, I self-medicate with over the counter cold medicine that makes my brain feel ever so slightly detached from my body in a way that makes me glad I’m not operating any heavy machinery today.

So I thought this might be a good day to talk about health care. After all, the Green Revolution is all about treating the world better, and naturally that includes our own bodies. I got into a bit of a debate about health care with another family member last week. He held that socialized medicine doesn’t work, an opinion he formed on the basis of testimonies from friends who live abroad. My opinion was that any system must work better than ours. From my standpoint (as one of the many uninsured), government-run health care is better than depending on the emergency room for everything.

The debate ended with us agreeing that Congress couldn’t legislate its way out of a cardboard box and we went on with our meal. But a point came to me later that I wish we could have discussed further.

You see, he doesn’t want government-run health care because he thinks government cannot run anything intelligently on a large scale for a long term. I’m inclined to agree. However, I feel more strongly that health care as an industry should not be in private hands, because those hands will inevitably put profit above all else, including the well being of those insurance companies supposedly serve.

The idea has come into my mind several times over the last decade or so that things might run more smoothly if we built flexibility into the system. What I mean by that is it is not set in stone that the government can run certain things and private companies others. There are many places in the country right now where institutions that had been in government hands for a long time are being rented out to private companies, who are running those institutions better. Municipal services, prisons, even schools are being handed over. And for now, the private companies are doing it better because the government systems they replaced had grown too large, too bureaucratic and too expensive.

But eventually, those private companies will fall into their own trap. They will squeeze services too thin for the sake of profit margins. They will ignore the customer because they are a monopoly.

When that time comes, government will most likely need to take back over.

It’s a cycle that, when looked at objectively, seems fairly natural. One system takes on a task until it loses focus, at which time the task is handed over to a different system. If everyone were to take some perspective on it and accept that this situation is okay, that this is just how things are supposed to go, perhaps the idea of the hand-off wouldn’t be so dramatic.

Of course, nothing is that easy. Especially when it involves large organizations, profit, and the lives of private citizens. Washington is currently attempting to do what the Clinton Administration failed to do (and what other administrations in recent history didn’t even try to do): reform the health care industry. How does the country improve service while lowering costs without making the system completely unprofitable? Should there be a non-profit, government-funded intermediary between doctors and insurance companies to take over the authorization of services? After all, one of the big debates right now is that it is often more profitable for insurance companies to deny coverage, so what if we took that decision out of their hands? Insurance companies would obviously balk at the idea of giving that power to the doctors, so perhaps an independent body not driven by money should take over. On the other hand, would another level of bureaucracy really make the industry more efficient?

While you figure it all out, it’s time for another dose of DayQuil.

there’s a whole in my bucket, dear henry

I started writing this essay immediately after the defeat of the first Bailout Bill. I have since revised parts, but if there seems to be anything “old news”, understand that I may not have kept up with the hundreds of news items about this topic over the last few days. I still think this is a hugely important topic and essay. So, here it is… enjoy!

As I sit and watch the fallout of the defeat of the first Bailout Bill and the rise of the second, as described by the media, I can’t help but realize, once again, we the people are being cheated.

A few days ago, for the first time, in a long time, our elected officials voted to defeat the “bailout bill” because of the voice of the citizenry. For the week prior or so, their offices had been flooded with letters on a magnitude of 20 to one against the bailout bill. Whether the defeat was caused because of hurt feelings, or the “herd mentality” of freshman officials, by the sheer fact that it was defeated, the constitution seems to have been honored for the first time in eight years.

However as I watch the media cover this story, I can’t help but think that we, the citizens, now have to face a terrible, hurtful backlash. We are being told, outright, that we are unintelligent and naïve and didn’t understand what the bill was designed to do. We are being told that we are incapable of understanding the workings of Wall Street; therefore we should trust our leaders to make that decision for us.

I want to help you understand a simple fact. The defeat of this bill means that credit will be affected, i.e. it will not exist. But, please do not make any mistake about this, credit, despite what your “leaders” have told you, does NOT equal economy.

Credit is an extension of your purchasing power. And, hopefully the following will help to explain why your elected officials care so much about credit and why they are duping you into believing it is the same as economy.

Credit is essential to the survival of the upper class. They make things; cars, homes, clothing. Through marketing, they have made it desirable for you (the middle class) to own these things. Through supply and demand, the prices are inflated, therefore you can’t afford these items simply by working. Credit was created. You take a loan out to afford what you want to get. Since you have to pay this loan off with interest you have to keep working and working and working. The upper class has won because not only are they getting money from the inflated value of goods, but they are also getting money because of interest rates applied to the loan.

(A little side note: I do not believe that credit was created under malicious or conspiratory circumstances. Credit worked when you were going to the local mercantile to borrow seeds, which upon harvest, you would pay back. I think that it has evolved to be a plague on our society and a way to keep the lower classes separate and never equal to those “in charge”.)

So, going on…. because you are working, you pay taxes, often at an unfair rate as compared to that of the upper class. The upper class gets tax incentives and right-offs that you do not get, as well as the fact that there are more of “us” then “them”. Therefore, the influx of money going into our reserve is our money. Those taxes go towards the support of the lower class, our infrastructure, our programs, etc., etc. But once again, the upper class has effectively been relinquished of its responsibility to provide; they make what the middle class wants to buy, who works to afford those goods, which puts money into the system, which allows for the stipends given to the lower class. The middle class is, quite literally, the whole backbone keeping this country afloat.

Here is another thing that credit does… it falsely inflates the price of goods. The more “spending power” the middle class has, the more the price of things becomes artificially high. If everyone in this country could only pay for what they honestly could afford, which I do not think is a bad thing, then prices would reflect their true value. But, what good is that to the person who has made that item. They want an inflated value, so they can make more money. This is why they have an insatiable desire to keep credit in its place.

Credit and the all things associated with the economy have become a vicious circle. We buy things that we can’t afford, so we work and work and work, to pay those loans off that keep growing and growing because of interest rates, so we keep working and working and working. But without credit, we will still buy. We will still need food, we will still need clothing.

The reason the officials and Wall Street and others want you to panic is because, right now, the cost of goods will reflect their accurate value. This means, chances are, you will be able to afford them without taking out a loan. Without that loan, the banks and institutions won’t make money. Therefore the upper class won’t make as much money. This means, they will have to participate in the financial wherewithal of this country. They will not be able to sit under their golden umbrellas, oblivious to what is going on. This will disrupt their way of life and they want to hold on to that for as long as they can.

For the last eight years, our administration has been banking on our lack of attention to what is going on. They have been getting away, literally, with murder, based on the fact that we have been too busy to understand or care about anything other than ourselves. I do hold us, the citizenry, responsible for a portion of what is happening. And, I do not want this most recent condemnation to alter our new participation.

Ever since the bill was defeated, all I have heard on the news is that we don’t know what is going on; that we are ignorant. Do not fall for this trap. It is simply a way for us to stop paying attention again, so the elected officials can get away with more and keep their livelihood in place. This is the time when we are starting to pay attention again. This is a time when we are looking at our elected officials and reminding them that they are our employees after years of them being allowed to get away with whatever they wanted to. Of course they are going to fight us on this. Wouldn’t you? But don’t let that fool you into apathy, again. Let this be the light that let’s you see what is truly going on.

Probably today, the second bill will be passed in the Senate. In order to appease the Republicans, more tax right-offs have been written in for the big businesses. And, to appease the Democrats, more incentives for going green have been written in. I guess time will tell whether this bill is effective. In the meantime, the money we worked so hard for to fill the reserve is gone. There is no other “bailout” after this. In my opinion, the only thing that will save us, on a personal level, is to hold back on our desire to buy things. Or, if you are going to buy something, please consider only buying what you can afford.

wind beneath my… seeds?

A landmark law was passed in California today that protects your food.

To give a little background… there is this company called Monsanto. The genetically engineer seeds. If you buy their seeds, you sign a contract saying that you will not harvest the seeds, of the incoming crops, for future use. Obviously, because of patent laws, the seeds, the genes, the plants are protected and deemed Monsanto property.

The company has taken that one step further. As anyone who has taken Bio 101 knows, seeds travel. They are blown by the wind, or taken by birds, or what-have-you. It is a great evolutionary feature of a seed. Well, Monsanto doesn’t think so, and they have made it a practice to sue farmer’s who have not bought the seeds, but because of seed travel they have made it onto their property. Following me so far?

Farmer’s have gotten the short end of the stick in this situation and have lost everything because Monsanto is a big company that has a lot of money and resources to sue, and sue, and sue these small farmers.

Well, in California… NOT ANYMORE!!! HAH! AB-541 passed in this state which prevents Monsanto from suing farmer’s for an event that happens naturally like speed dispersal. You can read all about it HERE.

But trust me… this is a very, VERY good thing!!

would you allow an employee to do this?

Please remember these people work for US!!

Subject: House of Representatives is limiting constituent email due to volume

Please be advised that the House of Representatives is currently imposing limits on inbound communications from constituents because volumes are so high that Congressional websites and web forms are becoming non-responsive. A limit on the number of emails that can be sent via the “Write Your Rep” web form system (the software that a majority of Representatives use to power their web forms) is being imposed during peak email traffic hours. Clients may want to adapt their campaign timing or switch contact methods (to phone) to avoid delivery disruptions due to these limits. The throttling is dynamic, so unfortunately there is no simple guidance we can offer that will ensure delivery. The throttling is likely to remain in place until the end of the current legislative session.

UNACCEPTABLE!!!

bye, bye, bye?

As soon as the dust settles with the financial crisis, you are going to be encouraged to buy, buy, BUY! This is the governments solution to everything. Have you ever wondered why?

It is for one simple reason… the only thing we have is our consumerism. What do I mean? We don’t have an industry. Why do you think there are daily reports on consumer confidence? Our entire economy is based on what we buy and sell.

Well, I would like to encourage you to live simply. And, by this I do not mean “Real Simple”-ly.

HERE is an editorial from Daily Green about the topic. And HERE is the direct link to the author.