Running and Triathlon Coach

With the mindset of wellbeing, inside and outside. Health, nutrition and awareness are the pillars of this blog.

Friday, December 30, 2011

Top Six Food Politics Lessons Learned in 2011

Top Six Food Politics Lessons Learned in 2011

Posted: 12/27/11 03:51 PM ET

This hasn't been a banner year for improving America's food system, food environment or food policies. A look back demonstrates that not only have we failed to make any new progress in food and nutrition policy, but we actually appear to be moving backwards in some instances. Here's why:

1. Congress is in bed with Big Food and under five layers of blankets- One of the most remarkable things food reformers learned this year was just how much influence deep-pocketed Big Food corporations exert over the current Congress. The answer -- when it comes to proposed nutrition policy, if Big Food talks, Congress listens and does what industry wants -- America's kids be damned. Big Food successfully derailed or has worked overtime to weaken National School Lunch Program (NSLP) nutrition standards (pizza is a vegetable!), voluntary guidelines for foods that can be marketed to kids (see Marion Nestle's insightful post on this development), the 2012 Farm Bill (a scary version of which was drafted behind closed doors) and federal menu labeling requirements. And the food industry is already taking aim at the rules being written by the USDA as mandated by the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act -- rules that would improve the nutritional content of competitive foods (foods that are not sold as a part of the NSLP). 2012 should bring more of the same thanks to our anti-nutrition policy Congress.

2. The First Lady is a Strong Advocate for Food Policy, Except When We Get Close to an Election Year- Michele Obama's wonderful Let's Move! campaign to end childhood obesity has veered sharply away from supporting policies to improve the food environment for children (the First Lady was instrumental in getting the Healthy, Hunger Free Kid's Act passed in 2010) to brokering voluntary agreements with food corporations and focusing on physical activity. Now there's nothing wrong with voluntary agreements to improve nutrition -- unless they're in lieu of policy, which is the only truly sustainable way to improve our food system and food environment. The First Lady has been conspicuously and painfully silent as Big Food spent millions to successfully weaken the Healthy, Hunger Free Kid's Act, attacked the IWG voluntary guidelines for foods marketed to kids (Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest has done a wonderful job of leading the fight to get these voluntary guidelines passed) and the Farm Bill was negotiated in secret. The closer we get to election year, the more Mrs. Obama seems to shy away from supporting policies that may inflame Big Food. She recently announced a new focus on getting kids to move which Michele Simon brilliantly questioned in "Sorry Mrs. O, but Jumping Jacks Aren't Enough." Will the feisty, policy-supporting Mrs. Obama, please come back in 2012?

3. Big Food Will Go to Great (and Humorous) Lengths to Try to Reframe the Message on Food Reform- If the health problems in this country weren't so serious and costly, we could actually have a good laugh at some of Big Food's more memorable attempts to reframe themselves as champions of a healthy, sustainable food system. Big Ag formed a new alliance, the United States Farmer's and Rancher's Alliance (USFRA), which introduced a new marketing campaign to mend its tattered image. Funny thing is that while USFRA describes itself as representing the average farmer, it appears that the groups' funding this heartwarming campaign are mostly Big Ag concerns including Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, Dupont and dozens of Big Ag trade organizations, which are often at odds with the needs of the average farmer. In another wacky development, Andy Bellatti informed us of McDonald's new "farmwashing" campaign, where America's largest fast food corporation, in a fit of McChutzpah, tries to portray their menu as "farm to fork." How about telling the truth, McDonalds? It's Big Ag farm to factory to fork at the golden arches.

4. Big Food and Conservatives Have their Antenna Up for Any "Proof" that Food Policy Doesn't Work- Food industry and conservative critics have jumped on a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) report about participation decline in their school lunch program since healthier food replaced junk. These critics claim that the LAUSD experience proves that kids won't eat healthier food and in the case of one conservative blogger, Michele Malkin, that the LAUSD experience is indicative of government waste and the "nanny state"(see Bettina Elias Siegel's fine rebuttal). Similarly, critics gleefully report that the Seattle public school system may bring back unhealthy foods into their vending machines due to a drop in vending revenue, which hurts after-school programs. Reality-check time. Does anyone really think that Los Angeles' and Seattle's children who have been raised, since birth, on a steady diet of unhealthy junk and processed foods and are shockingly unfamiliar with vegetables, fruit, whole grains and other healthy fare would change their palates easily and rejoice at the healthy changes in schools? It took decades to teach America's kids to prefer unhealthy food. Yet we're ready to throw in the towel and serve kids the same garbage that has made them the first generation in history that may see a drop in their life expectancy thanks to the epidemic of obesity and related chronic diseases? Conservatives have had no problem being patient for 8 years as the U.S. fought a deadly and costly war in Iraq to root out terrorism. I guess our kid's health isn't as important.

5. Big Food is Cleverly Using Philanthropy to Silence Potential CriticsIf you've ever wondered why fine health organizations like the American Dietetic Association, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Save the Children, Susan G. Komen For the Cure or the American Academy of Family Physicians accept funding from Big Food behemoths such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Hershey's, McDonald's, or KFC, your hunch is probably right. Funding is always tight for non-profits and Big Food knows it. That's why they dangle huge sums of money in front of public health and health organizations that many seem unable to refuse -- even if the money is clearly tainted. And once a health organization accepts Big Food money, they rarely will criticize the food or beverage industry. There needs to be an aggressive campaign to convey how damaging it is to the food reform movement when health organizations accept Big Food philanthropy. And groups that take this tainted money should be publicly shamed. The "good" that they can do with that money is miniscule in comparison to the damage they do with their apparent public support of unhealthy food and drink.

6. Food Reformers Need to Get Tough and Use Different Tactics if We Want to Win - Earlier this year, I wrote about how food reformers' focus on science and evidence is easily trumped by Big Food's money and messaging. If ever a year demonstrated how food reformer's need to "up their game" it was 2011. The food industry's clever advocacy, marketing, lobbying and messaging tactics torpedoed or weakened several important food policies (see Lesson #1, above) that would have made a huge difference in the lives of both kids and adults. We can't win policy fights with industry if we don't use similar tactics. It's also critical that food reform funders start funding counter-marketing, advocacy and messaging campaigns. Yes, Big Food and Big Ag will always have more lobbying/advocacy money than public health advocates. But as the tobacco wars demonstrated, advocacy funding and a strong counter-marketing campaign (the Truth Campaign) can make a huge difference and change public perceptions of industry. Michele Simon's recent post 2012: The Year to Stop Playing Nice, should be a wake-up call to the world of public health.

SAY WHAT? U.S. finalizes $29.4 BILLION arms sale to Saudi Arabia

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/12/obama-team-makes-294b-arms-sale-to-saudis/1?loc=interstitialskip

2/3 of U.S. Foreign Aid is Really Military Aid

Two Thirds of U.S. Foreign Aid is Really Military Aid
Monday, December 26, 2011
When some Americans complain that foreign aid is wasting taxpayer money abroad that could be put to better use at home, they may not realize that today's version of foreign aid isn't what it used to be. Call it the Pentagon-zation of U.S. foreign assistance.
 
Until a few years ago, the State Department was the leading U.S. government agency when it came to doling out foreign aid. But beginning in the second term of George W. Bush's presidency, and continuing through the Obama administration, the Department of Defense has surpassed the State Department in supporting foreign initiatives, most of which have been military oriented.
 
For the past two years, the Pentagon has been given $10 billion more than the State Department for foreign aid projects. With $17 billion, Defense officials plan for the coming year to invest in foreign military and police training, counter-drug assistance, counterterrorism activities and infrastructure projects, among other programs,.
 
Among the expenditures included in the recently passed 2012 National Defense Authorization Act are $1.1 billion to the government of Pakistan for alleged counterinsurgency efforts and $415 million for two programs known euphemistically as the Combatant Commander Initiative Fund and the Commander Emergency Response Fund. Translated into everyday English, this means cash that can be handed out by U.S. commanders.
 
Gordon Adams of the Stimson Center told iWatch News that by shifting foreign aid to military programs "you end up strengthening those instruments which are least democratic fundamentally."
-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

HUMOR - Government in business (when the $ does NOT come from your pocket but from the suckers)

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fenceat the White House. One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Minnesota. All three go with a White House official to examine the fence. 

The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. "Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me." 

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me." 

The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700." The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?" 

The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence."
"Done!" replies the government official. 

And that, my friends, is the economics of government projects. 

WHY Precious-metals ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds) are risky? Bankers, Precious Metals, And MF Global

BANKERS, PRECIOUS METALS, AND MF GLOBAL 

Did bankers use the MF Global (MFGLQ.PK) bankruptcy to suppress gold and silver prices and create the panicked appearance of collapsing precious metals to give themselves additional precious time to delay the crash of the euro and the U.S. dollar? As crazy as this sounds, a closer investigation of some key data seems to imply this possibility. Though bankers claim that they created futures markets to provide a mechanism for commodity producers to hedge against volatile market prices, I have never bought the Kool-Aid the bankers were selling in this explanation for the rationale behind their creation of futures markets.

Given that today, futures and spot prices for gold and silver in the short-term are entirely set by banker manipulation of the supply and demand for paper derivatives that often have no backing of any physical metal, I believe that bankers created futures markets for the explicit intent of allowing themselves to manipulate the prices of commodities and to enrich themselves, and themselves only, through the process of alternately and artificially inflating and deflating prices as would not be allowed in any type of free market. In other words, bankers invented futures markets to allow themselves to siphon off and steal money from other parties that wanted to invest in commodities with a mechanism, risk-free to them, that required deception and zero honest work and zero integrity.

The futures markets in commodities is such a deceptive market that it is hard to know even where to begin to unravel its many mechanisms of deceit in all their glory. Futures contracts traded on the world's largest commodity markets such as the COMEX in New York and the LBM in London allow bankers to commit reverse alchemy, turning real physical gold and real physical silver into nothing but false paper contracts and air.

Secondly, through futures contracts traded in New York and London, bankers routinely defy the economic principles of supply and demand, and set short-term prices for gold and silver that have zero to do with the supply and demand dynamics of the physical gold and physical silver market. In the world of physics, such an illogical, comparable feat of deception would be the indefinite suspension of the law of gravity. Bankers invented paper-derivative gold and silver markets to allow themselves to defy and suspend every sound economic principle that exists.

This is important to understand because not only does understanding this concept make the bulk of what you learn in business school a lie and entirely useless, but also because bullion banks, such as Deutsche Bank (DB), Citigroup (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), et al, that serve as the puppet conduits for more powerful families that control Central Banks, routinely used to lease physical gold into the open market as their primary mechanism to suppress the price of gold and silver.

However, as their mechanism of fractional reserve banking began to threaten the viability and utility of the most widely used fiat currencies in the world, the USD and the Euro, bankers understood that they needed to utilize and/or create another mechanism to suppress gold and silver prices that could replace selling physical PMs into the open market as they no longer wished to give up a solid asset with no third party counter-risk for what they knew they were turning into essentially worthless pieces of paper.

Thus bankers increasingly turned to the paper futures markets to manipulate and control the price of gold and silver and also served up additional bogus derivative products to the public like the GLD and SLVETFs. Bankers knew that there was no way they could possibly control the price of gold and silver if the supply and demand determinants of physical gold and physical silver had anything to do with the price, so they conspired to fool the world into believing that the fake paper price they set was set by the supply and demand of the physical markets.

Collapsing of Gold/Silver Futures Markets Directly Related to MF Global Collapse?

And here's where MF Global enters the banking cartel gold and silver price suppression scheme. Today, short-term futures and spot prices of gold and silver have almost nothing to do with the physical supply and demand dynamics of gold and silver, as odd as that may sound. Bankers created the futures markets and paper derivatives in gold and silver to kill free markets and for the express purpose of suppressing gold and silver prices.

Today we have no idea what the free market price of gold and silver should be or could be, besides the fact that both would be multiples higher than their current price, because of the fake paper market in gold and silver that the bankers created.

As well, bankers ensured that they armed a legion of worker bees in commercial investment firms all over the world that would represent these paper derivatives backed by very little physical gold and silver to their clients as the equivalent of investing in 99.999% pure physical gold and silver. In doing so, the worker bees thereby lured people all over the world into what will turn out to be the fatal mistake of not buying millions of troy ounces of physical gold and silver and instead buying their offering of fool's gold and fool's silver.

When we receive a massive default of gold and silver futures contracts that stand for delivery on the COMEX or LBM, or if the SLV and GLD default, then, and only then, will the public start to see true price discovery of physical gold and physical silver in action. However, for clients of MF Global, unfortunately, they have already experienced the mistake of buying fool's gold and fool's silver from the bankers and have received air in exchange for gold and silver futures contracts they purchased that stood for delivery.

Bankers invented fake paper gold and silver contracts, because they knew that if they could not fulfill contractual obligations to deliver physical gold and physical silver because the contracts were a binding lie to begin with), that they could always renege on these contractual obligations and give the people the nothingness they truly owned in return. And thus, we have the story of MF Global.

Ratings agencies downgraded MF Global on Oct 25 and MF Global declared bankruptcy on Oct 31. If one scours the data that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) releases via its aggregated Commitment of Trader reports during this time period, one may not notice any data that immediately stands. However, investigation of the disaggregated reports reveals far more interesting patterns that almost undoubtedly can be traced back to the collapse of MF Global.

In a period just preceding the MF Global collapse, from late August to mid October, the open interest (OI) in longs in gold and silver futures within the Managed Money category collapsed by 33.75% in gold (202,430 to 136,103) and 44.74% in silver (29,849 to 16,494). During this exact same time period, shorts in the gold and silver futures in the Managed Money category increased by 19.3% and 83.82% respectively (see the chart below).

Within the Managed Money category, between Sept 13th and 27th, in just a two-week period, the drop in OI in the longs in gold and silver futures was even more pronounced, with a 25.41% plunge and 34.3% plunge in silver. I imagine if someone could trace the connection of this plunge in OI in the Managed Money category in the gold and silver futures markets, one would discover that a good deal of the plunge was somehow directly tied to the impending MF Global bankruptcy and its freezing and/or liquidation of gold and silver futures accounts in its possession.

After Phase I of the collapse in OI in the gold and silver futures markets, Phase II followed. When the story about MF Global's legalized client theft hit the presses, an enormous public distrust of the entire futures markets started to build. If clients lost millions of dollars in gold and silver futures accounts due to forced liquidation or freezing of contracts that they were holding for delivery, anyone that had considered using the futures markets to take delivery of real gold and real silver following the MF Global debacle obviously reconsidered their options.

Thus, due to the massive fraud of the futures markets that was revealed by the MF Global collapse, another huge drop in the OI of gold and silver longs in the Managed Money category occurred during Phase II (as labeled in the above chart) that respectively amounted to an additional respective 11.79% and 7.48% plunge. In essence, it appears that the MF Global collapse served up the exact same price suppression effect as a CME issued initial or maintenance margin hike in gold and silver futures, which forces a tidal wave of unwanted and involuntary liquidation of gold and silver longs that consequently violate technical support lines and trigger technical sells.

Of course, we also have to factor in the temporary OI-increasing effect of the risk-on CME event when they lowered initial margins to a 1:1 ratio with maintenance margins at the onset of November. Still, given the figures presented in the chart above, it seems that bankers used the MF Global collapse to force liquidation of gold and silver longs in the futures market quite rapidly and drastically. Why is this important? This is important because typically strong hands ride out any temporary banker manipulations of gold and silver prices downward.

In this case, strong hands, if they existed at MF Global, were not given this opportunity and were forced to liquidate or had their accounts frozen whether or not they desired such an outcome. Furthermore, if primarily strong hands were forced out of the futures market, this would leave the majority of volume in the gold and silver futures markets primarily in the hands of the criminal banking cartel.

We've seen repeatedly, this past year in the US S&P 500 index, when low trading volume primarily controlled by the banking cartel has translated into curious and inexplicable market bounces of 2% in a single day. In other words, low trading volume allows bankers excessive and easy manipulation over markets. If this was indeed the scenario bankers deliberately created with the MF Global collapse, then the MF Global collapse and simultaneous collapse of open interest in gold and silvers futures certainly would have paved the way for the banking cartel to easily manipulate gold and silver prices.

There was also further circumstantial evidence that bankers used the MF Global collapse to collapse gold and silver futures markets at the end of 2011. For example, in an article posted on the SilverDoctors blog by Jim Willie in which he gathered data regarding the amount of physical gold and silver ounces represented by the longs at MF Global that were standing for delivery in the futures markets before these contracts imploded, he stated: "JP Morgan increased the amount of registered silver and gold by precisely the amount that was suppose to be delivered [by MF Global]…JP Morgan effectively averted both a Comex default and a European Sovereign Debt implosion."

Silver Lining in the MF Global Debacle?

Can there be a silver lining in the MF Global debacle? I believe that in the long-term, this extremely unethical, negative event could transform into a positive game-changer in the way people buy large amounts of gold and silver. Obviously, the futures market is not a safe market for anyone seeking to take delivery of millions of dollars of physical gold and silver as many MF Global clients learned. The GLD and SLV ETFs, of course, are no safer than any gold or silver futures contract for the same reasons.

So in the future, and I mean the immediate future starting now, I believe that large buyers of physical gold and silver will now opt to bypass the bullion bank's middle men in the futures market and go directly to the gold and silver mining companies to buy large quantities of bullion. This should eventually help usher in the death of futures markets as a mechanism for buying physical gold and physical silver and be a step towards establishing a free market for gold and silver prices for the first time in our lives.

Mark Cutifani, CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, recently echoed the same:

Major [asset management fund] buyers are finding it is hard to get physical gold. People are coming directly to us [for large gold purchases,] people who want tonnes of physical gold, people with serious financial muscle, because they are finding it is very difficult to secure the volume of gold they want. That is something we have noticed over the last 18 months, and it has been increasing in the last six months. People are finding it's hard to get physical gold.

People that want to own physical gold and physical silver never should have been buying the GLD, SLV, or gold and silver futures. Now, in light of the MF Global debacle, scores of people will stay away from these fraudulent vehicles for good.

Mother's hug and LOVE brings baby back to life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j042LD53Xg

Those who keep their primary savings or investments in the form of US $ will pay dearly for their mistake.China and Japan (the 2nd and 3rd largest economies in the world) agreed to trade directly without using US $

China, Japan Agree to Reduce Reliance on U.S. Dollar
Written by Alex Newman   
Thursday, 29 December 2011 09:10

The government of Japan and the communist dictatorship ruling mainland China announced a landmark agreement this week to facilitate trade between the two powers without using the U.S. dollar, relying instead on the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan.

According to the terms of the deal, the two governments agreed to encourage trade directly in yen and yuan without having to use American dollars as an intermediary — the current practice. Companies in Japan and China will soon be able to convert the currencies directly. And the Japanese government also agreed to hold Chinese yuan in its foreign-reserves portfolio.

It remains unclear exactly how and when the agreement will be implemented. But according to news reports, both governments have already set up a working group to iron out the details. Officials said the move was aimed at reducing risk and transaction costs.

The new currency deal comes as the communist Chinese dictatorship has been taking increasingly bold steps to expand the international role of the yuan. The regime's officials have also become ever-more vocal in attacking the dollar's global reserve status, calling instead for a more international system managed by a world entity such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  

Of course, China and Japan are the second and third largest economies on Earth. And their governments are the two largest foreign holders of U.S. government debt. So the deal has huge implications — at least in the long term.

"The run on the dollar that could sink its value and bring surprise hyperinflation to the U.S. has just become a lot more likely," observed Alfidi Capital CEO Anthony Alfidi, who said the bilateral move would eventually mean higher U.S. interest rates.

"The change does signal to other nations that America's main trading partners will favor the illiquidity risk of less-traded currencies over the valuation risk of holding dollars tied to unsustainable spending," Alfidi added, pointing out that demand for dollars would take a hit. "The U.S. financial elite should take a breather from its construction of swap lines for the eurozone to pay attention to this news."

Other commentators implied that the deal should be seen as a signal aimed at American authorities. "The larger message this pact sends is economic and it is directed at America: 'We have no faith in your leadership,'" wrote Michael Moran in Slate, saying the two Asian giants had taken another "baby step" toward dethroning the U.S. dollar. He also suggested that, despite official denials, Japan was starting to increase its diversification out of American assets and currency.

Still, many analysts downplayed the significance of the deal, claiming it was just one tiny step on what will be a long road to ending the dominance of the U.S. dollar. As the reigning world reserve currency for decades, they say, it will take many years for the dollar to finally lose its valuable status.

"While there's a wider story there of whether it changes the role of the dollar as a reserve currency, that's much more questionable," Deutsche Bank currency strategist Alan Ruskin wasquoted as saying by CNBC. "It would be a very, very small step in that direction."

But examined together with other recent announcements and current trends, the process is likely well underway, say experts. And with countless prominent world leaders and global institutions calling for an end to the dollar's privileged position, the end might come sooner than most mainstream analysts expect.

In August, the communist Chinese dictatorship blasted U.S. policymakers. The regime called for global supervision of the dollar and eventually the creation of a global currency. In April, leaders of the so-called "BRICS" — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — also demanded a new international monetary system.   

Meanwhile, European Union officials took the opportunity offered by this week's Japan-China currency deal to tout the imploding euro. "These are developments that show it's good that we have a unified Europe. United, Europe is the strongest economic area in the world," claimed German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble after the announcement. "We have good chances to pursue our interests and then the opportunity to implement them in the world."

The value of the Chinese yuan is still highly controlled by authorities. Among other problems, it is not readily convertible, diminishing any potential role it may be able to assume in the global economy — at least for now. However, if the regime in Beijing were to loosen its grip over foreign exchanges, that could change quickly.

The effect of such a move would immediately reverberate across Asian markets and the world. And the U.S. dollar, along with the entire American economy, would almost certainly be the primary victims.