Profits // Current TV

ILLEGALS v.s. "Git-er-done" Arizona

Arizona's immigration strategy: Make life tough - latimes.com Reporting from... more

remanns
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The Online Music Hustle

How much do artists really make from iTunes and Rhapsody?

mumblecore
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DOJ "Monsanto" antitrust probe just a sham

Only one out of 23 speakers at DOJ/USDA event earns a living growing crops or raising livestock

By Lynda Waddington 3/4/10 12:01 AM
Farmers and consumers, who are not anticipated to play a major role in the Justice Department’s upcoming agriculture antitrust roundtable in Ankeny, are still intent on having their voice heard.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will be one of the speakers at the DOJ/USDA antitrust workshop March 12 in Ankeny (Photo: usda.gov).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Justice have jointly scheduled a series of workshops for dialogue on the issues and concerns facing agriculture. The first of those meetings is scheduled for March 12 in Ankeny, and will reportedly focus on competition in the seed industry as well as serve as an introduction to the entire series of meetings.

As Bill Bishop of The Daily Yonder notes, despite the DOJ’s calls for input from farmers and ranchers, only one out of more than 20 scheduled speakers at the Ankeny event is a person who makes his living on the land. There is a brief period at the end of the discussions that has been set aside for comments from those remaining in the audience.

In response, a coalition of local, state and national community, consumer, farmer and labor organizations are holding their own townhall meeting on Thursday, March 11, at the Best Western Hotel in Ankeny.

“The corporate control of our food system by multinationals like Cargill, Monsanto and Wal-Mart is devastating to consumers, farmers, workers and the environment,” said Barb Kalbach, a fourth-generation family farmer from Dexter and member of one of the coalition groups, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement.

The groups coming together believe that decades of bad farm policy and unchecked corporate mergers have driven independent family farmers out of business and created powerful corporate factory farms and agribusiness giants that dominate the market. Current statistics such as 85 percent of all U.S. beef being slaughtered by four companies, half of all U.S. corn seed being controlled by two companies and 40 percent of the nation’s fluid milk supply being in the hands of one company appear to support the coalition’s concerns.

“After years of ignoring the corporate concentration and lack of competition in our food system, the DOJ and the USDA are finally admitting that there might be a problem,” said Dave Murphy of Clear Lake and affiliated with Food Democracy Now. “Unfortunately, family farmers, consumer advocates, and organized labor are underrepresented on the panels at the DOJ/USDA anti-trust workshop. This grassroots townhall meeting is essential to ensure that the voices of people most affected by this problem are heard loud and clear.”Only one out of 23 speakers at DOJ/USDA event earns a living growing crops or raising... more

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Are mandatory vaccines a form of violence against children?

This article refers to the parody cartoon found at... more

JanforGore
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93 comments

H1N1 Suckers!!! WHO Scientist: Swine Flu Pandemic Was “Completely Exaggerated”… What did you Inject???

A scientist with the World Health Organization has testified, during ongoing hearings... more

ctpatriot1970
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3 years ago
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United Kingdom Talk Video Thursday 14th January 2010

Thursday's edition of my three times a week talk show.Watch the show here on... more

ChrisReardon
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Marvel sues Spider-Man, Hulk artist heirs for rights

Marvel is suing the family of the late artist Jack Kirby in a bid to retain copyright... more

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3 years ago
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Airlines Try Not to Crash and Burn

Struggling Airlines Try to Keep People Flying, Despite Worries By MICHELINE MAYNARD... more

remanns
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3 years ago
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Wall St: More complicated means more profitable

Robert Johnson: Does the White House govern wall street or the other way around?

therealnewsnetwork
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3 years ago
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Royal Mail reports 4% rise in operating profit

Royal Mail has reported an operating profit of £184m for the six months to... more

CarolineS
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3 years ago
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TOP FLOPS! ( 10 Hollywood Budget Busters )

Top 10 movie flops of the decade Source: Reuters LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter)... more

remanns
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3 years ago
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4 comments

CRASH n BURN! -[Plane Crash Death%]

ONCE AGAIN--------- "Information IS Beautiful"... more

remanns
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3 years ago
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2 comments

Big Pharma's Crime Spree: Drug Makers Pushing Products For Unapproved Uses

Pfizer and Lilly lead a parade of U.S. companies that have paid $7 billion in... more

atomiclegion
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3 years ago
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Why Does the Insurance Industry Support "Reform?"

So if you're a loyal Democrat, you're probably all riled up about the health insurance reform going on in congress. You're probably anxious for Congress to get something, ANYTHING passed. Not so fast there buddy. Health insurance reform, even if it's done by Democrats could end up making things WORSE, not better.

"What? How could this possibly be?" you might ask. Well...

It's old news by now that insurance giant Wellpoint, owner of Maine's Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, is suing the State of Maine, to increase their profits. But you may not know the entire backstory: Anthem Blue Cross, in anticipation of the individual mandate for health insurance, has jacked up their rates 18% from what they were previously, jacking many people's rates through the roof.

What may surprise you if you're not paying close attention, is that the Health Insurance industry is actually in favor of health insurance "reform." How could this be? Did they suddenly grow a concience, and decide that letting people die to increase their profit margin was wrong? Are they crying out to Big Government to regulate them like Sinners calling out to Jesus? "Please, Government! Save us from our own wicked nature!"

Not a chance in Hell.

It's no surprise that Wellpoint has run television ads in favor of the health insurance "reform" being pushed by Democrats in Congress. If the individual mandate becomes a final part of the bill, whether you can afford to or not, we will all end up having to pay these new increased rates, or face federal fines of up to three thousand dollars, depending on which version of the individual mandate ends up in the final bill.

Maine's state government has the power to regulate insurance rates. In light of this 18% increase, the State of Maine stepped in, and reduced the increase from 18% to 11%. So people's rate are still going up, and health insurance is still becoming less affordable. But that wasn't enough for the private insurance giant.

Last year Wellpoint made $2 billion in profits. In Maine alone, they've paid out over one million dollars in CEO bonuses. Rather than cut CEO bonuses to reduce their overhead, they are increasing their rates. Let's call a spade a spade. Wellpoint is essentially suing to ensure not their profit margin, but their CEO bonus margin.

[full article at link]So if you're a loyal Democrat, you're probably all riled up about the health... more

asherp
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3 years ago
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Car clampers rake it in

Shoppers have branded wheel clampers at one of the country's biggest retail... more

CarolineS
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3 years ago
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Swine Flu Scare Pays Off BIG For Pharmaceutical Giants

For a handful of drug makers, including the Novartis AG vaccine division in Cambridge, the global effort to combat the swine flu is turning out to be good business, bringing them a $7 billion windfall.

The race to produce the H1N1 vaccine, at the urging of the World Health Organization and governments here and abroad, has strained supply chains and forced manufacturers to untangle production snags. That has led to supply shortages and delays in shipping the medicine to clinics and other health care providers.

But the urgency also has taught the companies valuable lessons about handling pandemics; helped them hone emergency response programs; and fueled new research, acquisitions, and investments in vaccines for viruses and infections ranging from hepatitis to meningitis.

That will benefit them long after the H1N1 alert is over. The global market for vaccines is projected to more than double from $16 billion in 2007, the most recent year for which data are available, to $35 billion in 2014, according to Cambridge consulting firm Scientia Advisors.
“With a pandemic like this, the upside for us is clearly significant,’’ said Andrin Oswald, chief executive of Cambridge-based Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, a unit of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant. “The quicker we can ramp up our volume, the better it will be for people in the United States and around the world.’’

Novartis and four other drug makers - Sanofi-aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, CSL Limited, and MedImmune - heeded the call to action by health officials when swine flu was identified last spring.

They quickly accelerated production of seasonal flu vaccine to free up capacity to make H1N1 vaccine, revamping their distribution systems and wrestling with low “yields’’ of inactivated virus strains in their egg-based swine flu vaccine production system. Shipments began last month and are expected to continue into next year.

Novartis expects to generate $900 million in the US and $1.2 billion worldwide from swine flu vaccine orders. That represents a small fraction of the $40 billion the company rings up annually in global biopharmaceutical sales, but it’s a big revenue boost for its vaccine division, which reported $1.7 billion in sales for 2008.For a handful of drug makers, including the Novartis AG vaccine division in Cambridge,... more

liviu
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3 years ago
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Yahoo’s Profit Triples Despite Sales Decline

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo said that its net income more than tripled in the third... more

tcmfan08
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3 years ago
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Texas governor accused of covering up innocent man’s execution

The head of a Texas anti-death penalty group has accused that state's governor of... more

Tyrannous
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3 years ago
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The edge of the precipice

Oceans are warming and become more acidic, while the world economy according to some... more

hyperion74
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3 years ago
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Chasing Chase (a big, bad bank) - Episode One

I'm trying to hold one of the biggest banks in the world accountable for its... more

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3 years ago
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