Official Super-Secret Bilderberg 2013 Attendee List Revealed

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2013, BAE Systems, Bilderberg, Billionaires, CEOs, chairman, control, covert operations, currency, depopulation, Deutsche Bank, Elite, England, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, global, greed, Henry Kissinger, Hertfordshire England, HSBC, influence, mega-banks, New World Order, One World Government, population control, power, power-hungry, Quotes, Royal Dutch Shell, Telecom Italia, Top Secret, UBM plc, Voltaire, War, world-wide

The official list of participants for the Bilderberg 2013 Conference has been released with a slew of familiar names filling the guest list.

After lasts year’s massive protest outside the Westfield Marriott Hotel in Chantilly, Virginia, the group has geared up security and is making it extremely hard for independent journalists to cover the conference.

The complete list of attendees can be seen below: (keep in mind many attendees keep their name OFF the list because their presence at the meeting would be a violation of their countries laws.)

Hertfordshire, England 6-9 June 2013

Current list of Participants

Status 3 June 2013

FRA	Castries, Henri de	Chairman and CEO, AXA Group
DEU	Achleitner, Paul M.	Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG
DEU	Ackermann, Josef	Chairman of the Board, Zurich Insurance Group Ltd
GBR	Agius, Marcus	Former Chairman, Barclays plc
GBR	Alexander, Helen	Chairman, UBM plc
USA	Altman, Roger C.	Executive Chairman, Evercore Partners
FIN	Apunen, Matti	Director, Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA
USA	Athey, Susan	Professor of Economics, Stanford Graduate School of Business
TUR	Aydıntaşbaş, Aslı	Columnist, Milliyet Newspaper
TUR	Babacan, Ali	Deputy Prime Minister for Economic and Financial Affairs
GBR	Balls, Edward M.	Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
PRT	Balsemão, Francisco Pinto	Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA
FRA	Barré, Nicolas	Managing Editor, Les Echos
INT	Barroso, José M. Durão	President, European Commission
FRA	Baverez, Nicolas	Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
FRA	Bavinchove, Olivier de	Commander, Eurocorps
GBR	Bell, John	Regius Professor of Medicine, University of Oxford
ITA	Bernabè, Franco	Chairman and CEO, Telecom Italia S.p.A.
USA	Bezos, Jeff	Founder and CEO, Amazon.com
SWE	Bildt, Carl	Minister for Foreign Affairs
SWE	Borg, Anders	Minister for Finance
NLD	Boxmeer, Jean François van	Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO, Heineken N.V.
NOR	Brandtzæg, Svein Richard	President and CEO, Norsk Hydro ASA
AUT	Bronner, Oscar	Publisher, Der Standard Medienwelt
GBR	Carrington, Peter	Former Honorary Chairman, Bilderberg Meetings
ESP	Cebrián, Juan Luis	Executive Chairman, Grupo PRISA
CAN	Clark, W. Edmund	President and CEO, TD Bank Group
GBR	Clarke, Kenneth	Member of Parliament
DNK	Corydon, Bjarne	Minister of Finance
GBR	Cowper-Coles, Sherard	Business Development Director, International, BAE Systems plc
ITA	Cucchiani, Enrico Tommaso	CEO, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA
BEL	Davignon, Etienne	Minister of State; Former Chairman, Bilderberg Meetings
GBR	Davis, Ian	Senior Partner Emeritus, McKinsey & Company
NLD	Dijkgraaf, Robbert H.	Director and Leon Levy Professor, Institute for Advanced Study
TUR	Dinçer, Haluk	President, Retail and Insurance Group, Sabancı Holding A.S.
GBR	Dudley, Robert	Group Chief Executive, BP plc
USA	Eberstadt, Nicholas N.	Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy, American Enterprise Institute
NOR	Eide, Espen Barth	Minister of Foreign Affairs
SWE	Ekholm, Börje	President and CEO, Investor AB
DEU	Enders, Thomas	CEO, EADS
USA	Evans, J. Michael	Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs & Co.
DNK	Federspiel, Ulrik	Executive Vice President, Haldor Topsøe A/S
USA	Feldstein, Martin S.	Professor of Economics, Harvard University; President Emeritus, NBER
FRA	Fillon, François	Former Prime Minister
USA	Fishman, Mark C.	President, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research
GBR	Flint, Douglas J.	Group Chairman, HSBC Holdings plc
IRL	Gallagher, Paul	Senior Counsel
USA	Geithner, Timothy F.	Former Secretary of the Treasury
USA	Gfoeller, Michael	Political Consultant
USA	Graham, Donald E.	Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company
DEU	Grillo, Ulrich	CEO, Grillo-Werke AG
ITA	Gruber, Lilli	Journalist – Anchorwoman, La 7 TV
ESP	Guindos, Luis de	Minister of Economy and Competitiveness
GBR	Gulliver, Stuart	Group Chief Executive, HSBC Holdings plc
CHE	Gutzwiller, Felix	Member of the Swiss Council of States
NLD	Halberstadt, Victor	Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former Honorary Secretary General of Bilderberg Meetings
FIN	Heinonen, Olli	Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
GBR	Henry, Simon	CFO, Royal Dutch Shell plc
FRA	Hermelin, Paul	Chairman and CEO, Capgemini Group
ESP	Isla, Pablo	Chairman and CEO, Inditex Group
USA	Jacobs, Kenneth M.	Chairman and CEO, Lazard
USA	Johnson, James A.	Chairman, Johnson Capital Partners
CHE	Jordan, Thomas J.	Chairman of the Governing Board, Swiss National Bank
USA	Jordan, Jr., Vernon E.	Managing Director, Lazard Freres & Co. LLC
USA	Kaplan, Robert D.	Chief Geopolitical Analyst, Stratfor
USA	Karp, Alex	Founder and CEO, Palantir Technologies
GBR	Kerr, John	Independent Member, House of Lords
USA	Kissinger, Henry A.	Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
USA	Kleinfeld, Klaus	Chairman and CEO, Alcoa
NLD	Knot, Klaas H.W.	President, De Nederlandsche Bank
TUR	Koç, Mustafa V.	Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.
DEU	Koch, Roland	CEO, Bilfinger SE
USA	Kravis, Henry R.	Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
USA	Kravis, Marie-Josée	Senior Fellow and Vice Chair, Hudson Institute
CHE	Kudelski, André	Chairman and CEO, Kudelski Group
GRC	Kyriacopoulos, Ulysses	Chairman, S&B Industrial Minerals S.A.
INT	Lagarde, Christine	Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
DEU	Lauk, Kurt J.	Chairman of the Economic Council to the CDU, Berlin
USA	Lessig, Lawrence	Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard Law School; Director, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University
BEL	Leysen, Thomas	Chairman of the Board of Directors, KBC Group
DEU	Lindner, Christian	Party Leader, Free Democratic Party (FDP NRW)
SWE	Löfven, Stefan	Party Leader, Social Democratic Party (SAP)
DEU	Löscher, Peter	President and CEO, Siemens AG
GBR	Mandelson, Peter	Chairman, Global Counsel; Chairman, Lazard International
USA	Mathews, Jessica T.	President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
CAN	McKenna, Frank	Chair, Brookfield Asset Management
GBR	Micklethwait, John	Editor-in-Chief, The Economist
FRA	Montbrial, Thierry de	President, French Institute for International Relations
ITA	Monti, Mario	Former Prime Minister
USA	Mundie, Craig J.	Senior Advisor to the CEO, Microsoft Corporation
ITA	Nagel, Alberto	CEO, Mediobanca
NLD	Netherlands, H.R.H. Princess Beatrix of The
USA	Ng, Andrew Y.	Co-Founder, Coursera
FIN	Ollila, Jorma	Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell, plc
GBR	Omand, David	Visiting Professor, King’s College London
GBR	Osborne, George	Chancellor of the Exchequer
USA	Ottolenghi, Emanuele	Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
TUR	Özel, Soli	Senior Lecturer, Kadir Has University; Columnist, Habertürk Newspaper
GRC	Papahelas, Alexis	Executive Editor, Kathimerini Newspaper
TUR	Pavey, Şafak	Member of Parliament (CHP)
FRA	Pécresse, Valérie	Member of Parliament (UMP)
USA	Perle, Richard N.	Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
USA	Petraeus, David H.	General, U.S. Army (Retired)
PRT	Portas, Paulo	Minister of State and Foreign Affairs
CAN	Prichard, J. Robert S.	Chair, Torys LLP
INT	Reding, Viviane	Vice President and Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, European Commission
CAN	Reisman, Heather M.	CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc.
FRA	Rey, Hélène	Professor of Economics, London Business School
GBR	Robertson, Simon	Partner, Robertson Robey Associates LLP; Deputy Chairman, HSBC Holdings
ITA	Rocca, Gianfelice	Chairman,Techint Group
POL	Rostowski, Jacek	Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister
USA	Rubin, Robert E.	Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Secretary of the Treasury
NLD	Rutte, Mark	Prime Minister
AUT	Schieder, Andreas	State Secretary of Finance
USA	Schmidt, Eric E.	Executive Chairman, Google Inc.
AUT	Scholten, Rudolf	Member of the Board of Executive Directors, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG
PRT	Seguro, António José	Secretary General, Socialist Party
FRA	Senard, Jean-Dominique	CEO, Michelin Group
NOR	Skogen Lund, Kristin	Director General, Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise
USA	Slaughter, Anne-Marie	Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University
IRL	Sutherland, Peter D.	Chairman, Goldman Sachs International
GBR	Taylor, Martin	Former Chairman, Syngenta AG
INT	Thiam, Tidjane	Group CEO, Prudential plc
USA	Thiel, Peter A.	President, Thiel Capital
USA	Thompson, Craig B.	President and CEO, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
DNK	Topsøe, Jakob Haldor	Partner, AMBROX Capital A/S
FIN	Urpilainen, Jutta	Minister of Finance
CHE	Vasella, Daniel L.	Honorary Chairman, Novartis AG
GBR	Voser, Peter R.	CEO, Royal Dutch Shell plc
CAN	Wall, Brad	Premier of Saskatchewan
SWE	Wallenberg, Jacob	Chairman, Investor AB
USA	Warsh, Kevin	Distinguished Visiting Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University
CAN	Weston, Galen G.	Executive Chairman, Loblaw Companies Limited
GBR	Williams of Crosby, Shirley	Member, House of Lords
GBR	Wolf, Martin H.	Chief Economics Commentator, The Financial Times
USA	Wolfensohn, James D.	Chairman and CEO, Wolfensohn and Company
GBR	Wright, David	Vice Chairman, Barclays plc
INT	Zoellick, Robert B.	Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics

---

Contributed by Daniel Jackson of The Daily Sheeple.

Source:  http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/official-bilderberg-2013-attendee-list-revealed/

I don’t know about you, but knowing that one list of elite, influential people who privately control the world like it is their puppet is a pretty scary concept!  Note the number of CEOs and people in powerful positions, including heads of mega-banks, who are regular attendees of this super-secret and highly guarded group! – John Loeffler, Fountain City, Wisconsin, U.S.A.

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Illegal GMO Wheat in Kraft Mac and Cheese?

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Americans, boycott, CEOs, children, consumers, contamination, corruption, cover-ups, Deadly, England, exports, farming, food dye, fraud, Genetic engineering, Genetically Modified Wheat, GM food, GM wheat, GMO Ban, GMO labeling, GMOs, greed, Health, health hazards, Health Problems, Illegal, imports, Kraft, Kraft Foods, Kraft Mac & Cheese, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, macaroni & cheese, Monsanto, Oregon, photos, safety violations, synthetic, tainted crops, Tesco, Tony Vernon, Toxic, U.K., U.S, United Kingdom, United States, USDA, Video, warning label, wheat

Should you like to call or contact Kraft Foods via the internet and inquire about this, then listed in the picture above is the UPC code on the box of Kraft Mac & Cheese sent with the warning label along with their phone number and web link!

See video here:  http://youtu.be/4igqCeXcyFw

5/31/2013 Update: In the video above filmed on 5/31/2013, Flo, who is a Food Babe reader, visited Tesco Extra in Ponders End, Enfield, North London to demonstrate there are boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese that are imported into the United Kingdom from the United States that require these special warning labels to alert consumers of potentially harmful ingredients that Kraft is using in their products. This video further verifies that Kraft’s flagship product “Macaroni & Cheese” sold in the UK requires a warning label stating the product may cause an adverse effect in activity and attention in children and is made with GMO wheat. (Note: GMO wheat is illegal in the US.)

It was just announced that Kraft’s CEO Tony Vernon made 49% more this year than he did last year. This fact kicked me right in the face. These are millions of dollars that could be used to stop the production of artificial food dyes. These are millions of dollars that could be used to improve Kraft’s product line for the safety of Americans. These are millions of dollars that could send a statement to us that Kraft really does care about the safety of their consumers (like they’ve said in their canned written statement already).

While Kraft has reformulated their Mac & Cheese for other countries using safer ingredients and natural dyes – they continue to exploit and feed Americans dyes made with petroleum linked to a myriad of diseases and GMOs.

But wait – you must be thinking – what?! There are GMOs in Mac & Cheese? And it’s not just any old GMO.

Kraft Mac & Cheese is made with Genetically Modified Wheat.

Below is a picture of the warning label that is placed on a box of Macaroni and Cheese (the same one we buy here) imported into the UK from the United States. The UK and other European countries require a warning label if a product contains artificial food dyes and/or GMOs. This label has a warning for both!  Someone sent this in after a picture of it was posted on Kraft’s facebook page (Thank you Flo!!!). This box of Mac & Cheese is available and sold in a special imported “international food” section in a grocery store called Tesco. The box clearly states that it is from the US – specifically “Northfield, Illinois.”

On the label of Kraft Mac & Cheese there are 2 different warnings:

Warning #1: This Product May Cause Adverse Effects On Activity And Attention In Children (This warning label is required because The US version of Kraft Mac & Cheese has artificial food dyes yellow #5 and yellow #6 which are proven to be linked to hyperactivity in children.)

Warning #2: GMO Declaration: Made from genetically modified wheat. (May contain GMO) (This warning label is required because the US version of Kraft Mac & Cheese contains GMOs.)

Please note: It is uncertain at this time who places these warning labels on products once they are imported into the UK and this is something that is still being investigated. I know it is not the grocery store themselves and not Kraft, but likely the importer/distribution company. 

2 New Pictures Above added on May 31, 2013

If Kraft is using genetically modified (GMO) wheat in their Mac & Cheese, it is SERIOUSLY ALARMING for a number of reasons:

1. GMO Wheat is not approved by the USDA for U.S. Farming. So where the heck is Kraft getting this wheat to put in their Mac & Cheese?
2. It was recently discovered that GMO wheat had been illegally growing in Oregon. So this begs the question – is there illegal GMO wheat in Kraft Mac & Cheese?
3. The USDA is investigating the illegal crop in Oregon – Don’t you think they should investigate companies that are using GM wheat like Kraft too?
4. If Kraft is not using GMO wheat grown in the United States, they could be getting genetically engineered wheat from other countries that allow the production, and are importing it into the US. It is crazy to think that a company could be importing a crop that is not approved for use in the US and putting it in U.K. products without labeling!
5. There is only one other likely scenario for the GMO Declaration on Kraft’s Mac & Cheese. The farm land that wheat is grown on in the US is so contaminated from GMO crops like corn and soy, they have no choice but to declare wheat genetically modified on the warning label when exported to other countries. This fact is very concerning if true and has dire implications for the entire farmland here in America.
6. The labeler could have mistaken GMO corn for GMO wheat, but if that is the case, Kraft needs to confirm this either way and RIGHT AWAY!

If Kraft is using illegal GMO wheat in Mac & Cheese – are they using it in the rest of their products too? This alone is reason enough to BOYCOTT this company – As if we didn’t have enough reasons before!

How To Vote With Your Dollars And Hit Kraft’s Bottom Line:

Kraft is a food giant which used to be even larger before they split with Mondelez late last fall. Here is a list of major brands that Kraft produces now that you need to know to avoid. I’ve included some alternatives to check out instead…

• Study This List & Share It With Your Friends and Family
• Don’t Buy Any of These Products In The Future
• Search Your Pantry and Fridge For These Products
• Take Them Back To The Store and Get a Refund

Kraft Brands To Avoid	Brands to Choose Instead
A1	Annies BBQ Sauce or make your own
Back To Nature	Annie’s Branded Snacks and Mac & Cheese
Bakers	Organic Baking Chocolate by Sunspire
Boca	Sunshine Burgers or make your own
Bulls Eye	Annies BBQ Sauce or make your own
Café Collection (Coffee Mate)	Use real organic milk or almond milk, dried non fat organic milk powder works too
Capri Sun	Squeeze Your Own Fresh Juice or Choose Whole Food’s or Trader Joe’s (FYI – they recently found mold growing in Capri Sun packages)
Cheez Whiz	Just eat real cheese
Corn Nuts	Stick to real nuts
Country Time	Make homemade lemonade or choose Lakewood Juice
Crystal Light	Ban this altogether – this stuff is not good for your health, try infusing water with fruits instead
Dream Whip	Make real whip cream instead or go with Tru whip
General Food International	Recipe for homemade creamer from Deliciously Organic
Gevalia	Larry’s Beans or another organic coffee brand you like
Good Seasons	Simply Organic has dressing mixes that don’t have harmful ingredients
Gravy Master	Here is a recipe for homemade gravy
Grey Poupon	Annie’s Mustard
Handi Snacks	Mary’s Gone Crackers and Cheese
Jell-O	Mama Natural shows you how to make healthy jello
Jet Puffed Marshmallows	Vegan Marshmallows without artificial food dyes and corn syrup are available at Natural Food Stores
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese	Make your own or choose Annie’s Mac & Cheese
Kraft Cheese	Organic Valley or local
Kool-Aid	Just don’t do it.
Lunchables	Make your own! Check 100 Days of Real Food for Lunch Ideas
Maxwell House	Larry’s Beans or another organic coffee brand you like
Miracle Whip	Spectrum or Veganaise
Open Pit	Annies BBQ Sauce or make your own
Oscar Mayer	Applegate Farms
Philadelphia	Organic Valley, Trader Joes has organic cream cheese
Planters	Woodstock Farms
Sanka	Choose organic coffee always
Tang	Don’t do it! Consider adding some fresh OJ to your water instead
Tapatio	Choose an organic hot sauce
Tassimo Professional	Do not buy this coffee machine – choose breville or cusinart instead
Twist	Lakewood Juice
Velveeta	This stuff is gross, just don’t do it. Stick to real cheese – try Organic Valley
Yuban	Larry’s Beans or another organic coffee brand you like

Please take the time to share this crucial information with your family and friends. We must keep the social media pressure on Kraft – they need to know that we are not going away or letting them off the hook for this madness!

Source:  http://foodbabe.com/2013/05/30/illegal-gmo-wheat-in-kraft-mac-cheese/

READER ALERT: “Fix the Debt” Scams U.S. Taxpayers!

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austerity, Caesars Entertainment, CEOs, corporations, corruption, cuts, David Zaslav, deception, Discovery Communications, Fix the Debt, fraud, Gary Loveman, Goldman Sachs, greed, Institute for Policy Studies, lobbyists, loopholes, millionaires, money, scams, Social Security, tax havens, taxes, taxpayer-funded, taxpayers, theft, U.S. citizens, United States, UnitedHealth Group

 new report by IPS and Campaign for America’s Future shows that America’s top CEOs are pocketing massive taxpayer subsidies at the same time they’re pushing austerity cutbacks in government programs that benefit ordinary citizens.

REPORT KEY FINDINGS

Thanks to a “performance pay” tax loophole, large corporations in the United States today are routinely deducting enormous executive payouts from their income taxes. In effect, these companies are exploiting the U.S. tax code to send taxpayers the bill for the huge rewards they’re doling out to their top executives.

• During the three-year period 2009-2011, the 90 publicly held corporate members of the austerity-focused “Fix the Debt” lobby group shoveled out $6.3 billion in pay to their CEOs and next three highest-paid executives.[i]

• These 90 Fix the Debt member firms raked in at least $953 million – and as much as $1.6 billion – from the “performance pay” loophole between 2009-2011. The exact full value of corporate windfalls from this loophole will remain impossible to compute until we have more complete mandated disclosure for executive compensation.

• Top executives at these same Fix the Debt companies are aggressively advocating cuts to government programs that benefit the ordinary American taxpayers subsidizing their compensation. Many of these executives have also added to America’s debt and deficit by using tax havens and other accounting tricks to have their corporations avoid paying their fair tax share.[ii]

• Health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group enjoyed the biggest taxpayer subsidy for its CEO pay largesse. The nation’s largest HMO paid CEO Stephen Hemsley $199 million in total compensation between 2009 and 2011. Of this, at least $194 million went for fully deductible “performance pay.”[iii] That works out to a $68 million taxpayer subsidy to UnitedHealth Group – just for one individual CEO’s pay. A just-released proxy reveals that Hemsley pocketed another $28 million in “performance pay” in 2012, which computes into a tax break for UnitedHealth of nearly $10 million.

• Discovery Communications stood next in line for a government handout. Between 2009 and 2011, CEO David Zaslav pocketed $114 million, $105 million of this in exercised stock options and other fully deductible “performance pay.” That translates into a $37 million taxpayer subsidy for Discovery and its lavish executive pay policies. In 2012, Zaslav hauled in enough additional “performance pay” to generate a tax break worth $9 million.

Even big losers win with the “performance pay” loophole. Gambling titan Caesars Entertainment has hemorrhaged money in recent years, driving CEO Gary Loveman‘s stock options underwater. Loveman managed, even so, to take home $9.6 million in cash bonuses between 2009-2011, a windfall that’s generating taxpayer subsidies the firm can cash in to lower its taxes over years to come.

INTRODUCTION

Fix the Debt is a corporate-backed lobby group committed to slashing Social Security and other earned benefits and social insurance programs – all under the veil of “deficit reduction.” But, as this report documents, the very taxpayers who pay into and depend on these programs and benefits are subsidizing excessive compensation for the top executives of Fix the Debt member corporations and other large firms.

These pages calculate how much the corporations Fix the Debt CEOs manage have benefited from a federal tax code loophole that lets major firms deduct unlimited amounts off their income taxes for the expense of executive stock options and other so-called “performance-based” pay. These CEOs are raking in huge taxpayer-funded bonuses at the same exact time they’re insisting on deep cuts in the government programs that benefit ordinary Americans.

A loophole history

In 1993, amid widespread public revulsion at executive pay excess, Congress passed legislation that capped the tax deductibility of executive pay at $1 million. The ostensible message this legislation sent: No rational society can view annual executive compensation over $1 million as a reasonable business expense worthy of a tax deduction. Without putting a ceiling on executive pay, this reform aimed to prevent taxpayers from subsidizing amounts over $1 million per executive. But the law left a huge loophole. Corporations could exempt “performance-based” pay from the $1 million limit. This loophole quickly led to an explosion of “performance-based” compensation, particularly in the form of stock options.

Corporate boards of directors touted this new surge in stock options as a means to align the interests of executives and shareholders. In practice, options align only greed and the tax code. If a firm’s shares decline in value over time, shareholders lose wealth. But executives with stock options lose nothing. In fact, during stock slumps, executives often receive boatloads of new options with lower exercise prices. In 2007, for instance, Goldman Sachs gave executives options to purchase 3.5 million shares. In December 2008, after the crash had driven Goldman shares to record lows, the bank’s top executives received nearly 36 million stock options, ten times the previous year’s total. This new grant positioned Goldman executives for massive new windfalls even if the bank’s shares never regained their 2007 price level.

On the upside, stock options gains have no limit, a reality that encourages reckless, short-sighted executive behaviors designed to jack up share prices by whatever means necessary. What sort of reckless behaviors? Over the past two decades, the Institute for Policy Studies has documented the connections between massive CEO options payouts and corporate tax-dodging, excessively risky financial gambles, and accounting fraud.

Stock options also provide huge personal tax advantages for executives. If executives hold onto their shares for more than two years after the grant date and more than a year after the exercise date – the point at which the stock is transferred to the executive – they pay only the long-term capital gains tax rate on this income. This rate will rise from 15 to 20 percent as a result of the “fiscal cliff” deal, a rate still far lower than the new 2013 top marginal rate of 39.6 percent on ordinary income.

The performance pay loophole, in short, serves as a critical subsidy for excessive compensation. The larger the executive payout, the less the corporation pays in taxes. And average taxpayers wind up footing the bill.

Source:  http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/320-80/17238-qfix-the-debtq-ceos-enjoy-taxpayer-subsidized-pay

 

WTF?! Nestle CEO: Water Is Not A Human Right, Should Be Privatized!

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basic, Bottled water, CEOs, corruption, Drinking Water, food, fraud, Genetically modified organism, GMOs, greed, Life, Monsanto, needs, Nestle, power abuse, power-hungry, United States, water

Is water a free and basic human right, or should all the water on the planet belong to major corporations and be treated as a product? Should the poor who cannot afford to pay these said corporations suffer from starvation due to their lack of financial wealth? According to the former CEO and now Chairman of the largest food product manufacturer in the world, corporations should own every drop of water on the planet — and you’re not getting any unless you pay up.

The company notorious for sending out hordes of ‘internet warriors’ to defend the company and its actions online in comments and message boards (perhaps we’ll find some below) even takes a firm stance behind Monsanto’s GMOs and their ‘proven safety’. In fact, the former Nestle CEO actually says that his idea of water privatization is very similar to Monsanto’s GMOs. In a video interview, Nestle Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe states that there has never been ‘one illness’ ever caused from the consumption of GMOs.

The way in which this sociopath clearly has zero regard for the human race outside of his own wealth and the development of Nestle, who has been caught funding attacks against GMO labeling, can be witnessed when watching and listening to his talk on the issue. This is a company that actually goes into struggling rural areas and extracts the groundwater for their bottled water products, completely destroying the water supply of the area without any compensation. In fact, they actually make rural areas in the United States foot the bill.

READ MORE HERE:   http://naturalsociety.com/nestle-ceo-water-not-human-right-should-be-privatized/?utm_source=Natural+Society&utm_campaign=b933ab0a51-Email+141%3A+4%2F23%2F2013&utm_medium=email

What a giant asshole!  Water is a life-sustaining necessity!

Let this jackass know how you feel about his stupidity and downright greediness here:  http://www.nestle.com/info/contactus/contactus

 

How Capitalism Is Dismembering America

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America, Americans, Big Pharma, capitalism, CEOs, corruption, Economic inequality, Economy, Elite, fraud, GDP, Goldman Sachs, greed, Gross domestic product, inequality, Lehman Brothers, Medicare, mega-banks, mega-corporation, middle class, oligarchs, Payroll tax, plutocracy, Poor, power-hungry, Social Security, tax evasion, taxes, U.S, United States, Urban Institute, Wealthiest

If there’s any way capitalism can work, it has to be regulated. Otherwise greed takes over.

Too many Americans are unaware of the extreme disparities that have been caused by the unregulated profit incentive of capitalism. Our winner-take-all system is flailing away at once-healthy parts of society, leaving them like withered limbs on a trembling body, even as the relative few who benefit promote the illusion of opportunity and prosperity for all. Concerned citizens armed with facts are not fooled. Instead, the more they learn the angrier they get. And as in revolutions of the past, discontent leads to change.

Hacking Off the Poor Half of Society

Some wealthy and uninformed individuals have referred to the lowest-income 47% of Americans as the “takers,” who enjoy government benefits at the expense of the high-earning one percent. But their claim is meaningless. The total amount paid out in ‘welfare’ (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) is less than the investment income of just three men in a single year.

The monthly TANF income for a family of four is less than what the average member of the Forbes Top 20 made in one second at the office.

The 47% don’t own stocks. They don’t own anything. The so-called ‘takers’ have ZERO wealth. The value of any assets owned by nearly half of the country is surpassed by their debt.

Slashing the Security of the Elderly

Recipients of ‘entitlements’ are accused by the uninformed of getting something for nothing. The opposite is true. According to the Urban Institute, the typical two-earner couple making average wages throughout their lifetimes will receive less in Social Security benefits than they paid in. Same for single males. Almost the same for single females.

Getting something for nothing? Yes, the rich are. Tax expenditures, which are deductions and exemptions that primarily benefit the highest-earning individuals, cost about 8% of the GDP, the same percentage that goes to Social Security and Medicare.

If just one of the tax breaks for the rich, the $113,700 cap on Payroll Tax, were eliminated, Social Security would be almost entirely funded for the next 75 years.

Slicing Up Justice

In the last few months American citizens, some of them children, have been arrested for:

·         Looking for Indian arrowheads on federal land.

·         Throwing peanuts on the school bus.

·         Lying about a home address to get the kids into a better school.

·         Sitting on a milk crate.

Meanwhile, not a single banker was arrested for these actions:

·         HSBC Bank laundered money for Mexican drug cartels.

·         Goldman Sachs designed and sold mortgage packages that were meant to fail.

·         Bank of America and Lehman Brothers hid billions of dollars of bonuses and loans from investors.

Severing the Head from the Global Body

If you could gather together the world’s 200 richest individuals, ask each one his or her net worth, get the actual numbers from Forbes, and then add it all up, the total would be more than the total wealth of half the population of the world, 3.5 billion people.

The U.S. is one of the greatest contributors to this shameful disparity. It’s no coincidence that we’re both the third least taxed developed country and the fourth highest in wealth inequality among all nations. It’s also no surprise, with so little revenue going to the general public, that our country is the fourth worst in the overall well-being of its children.

Castrating the Taxman

Corporations have doubled their profits and cut their taxes in half in ten years. The burden of taxes, which Oliver Wendell Holmes called the price of a “civilized society,” has been shifted to workers. For every dollar of employee payroll tax paid in the 1950s corporations paid three dollars. Now it’s 22 cents.

Globalization has allowed U.S. corporations to stop paying for national defense and infrastructure and all the benefits of the U.S. legal and educational systems.  All of the following companies had sizable U.S. revenues, but they claimed losses here while declaring billions of dollars of profits overseas.

·         Bank of America, with 82% of its revenue in the U.S., declared $7 billion in U.S. losses and $10 billion in foreign profits.

·         Citigroup, with 42% of its revenue in North America (almost all U.S.), declared a $5 billion U.S. loss and a $28 billion foreign profit.

·         Pfizer, with 40% of its revenues in the U.S., declared almost $7 billion in U.S. losses to go along with $31 billion in foreign profits.

·         Abbott Labs, with 42% of its sales in the U.S., declared a $256 million U.S. loss and $12 billion in foreign profits.

·         Dow Chemical, with 32% of its sales in the U.S., declared a $15 million U.S. loss against foreign profits of over $5 billion.

Conclusions

If there’s any way capitalism can work, it has to be regulated. Otherwise greed takes over. Blind greed. The sneering head at the top of the body watches limbs being chopped off, but it doesn’t seem to recognize that we’re all bleeding to death.

Source:  http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-capitalism-dismembering-america?paging=off

Top ten ways humanity is being murdered in the name of ‘evidence-based science’ (#1 GMOs)

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agriculture, Big Pharma, bribery, CEOs, chemotherapy, Congress, corporations, corruption, cosmetics, crop failure, crops, Death, disaster, disease, earth, ecoysytem, environment, evidence, Evidence-based medicine, False evidence, Federal Government, Fluoride, food, food additives, food chemicals, fraud, Genetic engineering, Genetically modified food, Genetically modified organism, Genetically Modified Organisms, Genocide, GMOs, heavy metals, hormone disruption, humanity, Humans, Industry, Life, lobbyists, medicine, Monsanto, murder, Natural News, NaturalNews, Pesticide, pesticides, pharmaceutical companies, Pharmaceutical drug, plastics, poisonous, population, radiation, Science, scientific evidence, Scientific method, Toxic, vaccines, world

Of all the threats to humanity today, none is more destructive than modern-day “evidence-based science.” And by the word “science,” I don’t mean the humble pursuit of knowledge using genuine scientific methods. What I mean is the dogmatic, corporate-driven brand of distorted science based on falsified evidence, bribery of gatekeepers and corruption of government regulators. That “science” is killing us all with hormone disruptors, hidden food chemicals, heavy metals, genetic engineering and neurological disruptors. The pushers of this corporate-driven “evidence-based science” claim to be aiding humanity, yet their actions prove they are only destroying the health of the population and the future viability of the life-sustaining ecosystem as well. For every poison that threatens humanity today, there is a group of scientists lurking behind it, profiting from its consumption while spreading lies about its safety. The aim of this Natural News article series is to exposed the lies of corrupt “science” and reveal the truth about what “evidence-based science” is really promoting in our foods, medicines, industries and home environments. In the name of “evidence-based science,” we are all being killed by GMOs, vaccine additives, processed food chemicals and other threats to life on Earth. I’m not an opponent of genuine, humble science and the search for answers in our universe, but what we’re seeing today is the mass poisoning of us all under the false label of “science.” In a special 10-part article series, I take a look at the top 10 “scientific” threats to our lives:

#1) GMOs http://www.naturalnews.com/039778_evidence-based_science_murdered_GMO.html

#2) Vaccines http://www.naturalnews.com/039777_vaccines_convulsions_death.html

#3) Fluoride http://www.naturalnews.com/039776_fluoride_hydrofluosilicic_acid_insecticide.html

#4) Pharmaceuticals http://www.naturalnews.com/039775_pharmaceuticals_side_effects_modern_medicine.html

#5) Food additives http://www.naturalnews.com/039774_food_additives_chemicals_artificial_sweeteners.html

#6) Pesticides http://www.naturalnews.com/039773_pesticides_Parkinsons_neurological_disorders.html

#7) Chemotherapy http://www.naturalnews.com/039772_chemotherapy_treatment_cancer_clinics.html

#8) Plastics http://www.naturalnews.com/039770_plastics_BPA_hormone_disruptors.html

#9) Cosmetics http://www.naturalnews.com/039769_cosmetics_skin_care_toxic_chemicals.html

#10) Radiation http://www.naturalnews.com/039768_nuclear_power_meltdown_radiation.html

Source and to read more:  http://www.naturalnews.com/039778_evidence-based_science_murdered_GMO.html

Hall of Hypocrisy Featuring Google, Microsoft and Monsanto!

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13th Amendment, agriculture, America, Americans, Attorneys, Baby Boomers, bailout, banks, Barack Obama, benefits, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Brazil, Canada, capitalism, Caterpillar, Cathy Koch, CEOs, chairman, China, citizens, coal, communications, consumers, corporations, crime, crops, decline, defense, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Depression, dirty politics, Doug Oberhelman, Drugs, economic, Economic inequality, Eduardo Saverin, Eli Lilly, Elite, environment, Ernest Moniz, exemptions, Facebook, FDA, Federal Government, federal law, federal taxes, food, Food Czar, Freedom, funding, GDP, General Electric, globalization, GMOs, Google, greed, grocery stores, Gross domestic product, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, hypocrite, Illinois, imprisonment, income, inequality, investments, Jeffery Immelt, Jobs, Jobs Council, kids, law firms, legislators, lobbyists, male, Mary Jo White, median income, Medicare, mega-banks, mega-corporation, Michael Taylor, Microsoft, middle class, Monsanto, National Defense Authorization Act, natural gas, oil, Pfizer, poison, poisoning, poisonous, politics, Poor, Poverty, power-hungry, President, Project on Government Oversight, Quantitative Easing, Quantitive Easing, REIT, research, SEC, Secretary of Energy, Security and Exchange Commission, Sequestration, slavery, Social Security, state taxes, stock market, Surveillance, survival, tax dodgers, Tax Dollars, tax evasion, tax havens, taxes, taxpayers, technology, The GEO Group, Toxic, U.S, U.S. Government, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, Unemployment, United States, Urban Institute, Vice President, Washington, Washington D.C., wealthy, white, world

Capitalist greed is splitting our country in two. But rather than look objectively at their failures, many of those responsible have been hypocritical, portraying themselves as advocates of freedom and prosperity while the greater part of America slides toward poverty.

Some of the candidates:

1. The “Get a Job” Critic

This usually well-connected person criticizes the jobless for being lazy. But in a recent poll that asked if “the government in Washington should see to it that everyone who wants to work could find a job,” 68 percent of the general public agreed, while only 19 percent of the wealthy were in agreement.

Apparently they feel the free market will find those jobs. But as they staunchly adhere to their notion, large corporations are holding trillions in cash, transferring millions of jobs overseas, and paying low-level wages to those who have managed to stay employed.

2. The Illusionist

It all started with a “world is flat” reverie by which every individual in the world is empowered to accomplish great things. Then on to “create your own job” hyperbole and on a global scale to the capitalist’s belief that “a billion people have been lifted from poverty through free-market competition.”

The message being spread by the people at the top is that everyone benefits and everyone has opportunities.

The reality is that only the top of the mountain is flat. Or more accurately, the plateau just below the top of the mountain is flat. Perhaps 10 percent (or somewhere between 5 and 20 percent) of the U.S. is doing reasonably well, especially with 93 percent of non-home wealth owned by the richest quintile of Americans. Everyone else has experienced a 35-year decline in income. But hypocrisy bares its contemptuous soul with its hurrahs for the ever-growing stock market.

Outside our borders, world inequality has decreased, but largely because of the rapid ascent of China, while INSIDE China inequality has grown at a pace rivaling the U.S. There may be a half-billion young Chinese laborers who are technically above poverty level, but GDPs don’t measure the quality of life or asset distribution of 70-hour-per-week factory workers.

3. The Self-Made Man

Wealthy individuals pride themselves on their successes from meager beginnings. Many of this self-congratulatory group grew up as educated white males in the richest nation ever in the most productive time in the history of the world. They rode the technology engine for 30 years benefiting from federal funding that provided almost half of basic research funds into the 1980s and half of research in the communications industry as late as 1990.

Now, of course, it’s much different. Globalization and automation have eliminated many of the old opportunities. Half of college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. And while it’s always been more of a struggle for the lowest-income people, it’s even worse now, with more than half of those individuals in the bottom income quintile remaining there 10 years later. Compared to other developed countries, the U.S. ranks near the bottom in economic mobility.

4. The Government Hater

This candidate opposes government intervention of any type, unless it’s for national defense, homeland security, surveillance, prison funding and the drug war, any subsidies to oil and coal and agricultural companies, bailouts and Quantitative Easing, tax expenditures that mainly benefit the rich and anything to do with women’s bodies.

5. The Revolving Doorman

Here’s another candidate who hates government interference, but will tolerate it if there’s a friend in the regulator’s chair. A friend like Mary Jo White, connected for 36 years to a law firm that would be monitored by her new position as head of the SEC.

A report by the Project on Government Oversight stated that “Former employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) routinely help corporations try to influence SEC rulemaking, counter the agency’s investigations of suspected wrongdoing… and win exemptions from federal law.”

General Electric has a particularly smooth-spinning revolving door in the back of its corporate offices. After eliminating 37,000 jobs over ten years, CEO Jeffery Immelt was appointed as chairman of President Obama’s Jobs Council. Secretary of Energy nominee Ernest Moniz has served on GE’s advisory board. And Cathy Koch, a lobbyist for the tax-avoiding company, was appointed chief advisor on tax and economic policy.

6. The Entitlement Basher

This person claims that Social Security recipients are ‘takers.’

Here are the facts. According to the Urban Institute the average two-earner couple making average wages throughout their lifetimes will receive less in Social Security benefits than they paid in; same for single males.

Meanwhile, tax expenditures (deductions and exemptions which primarily benefit the very rich) cost us about 8 percent of the GDP, which is almost exactly the same percentage that goes to Social Security and Medicare.

7. The New American – Love It and then Leave It at Tax Time

Unlimited candidates for the Hypocrisy Hall here, starting with companies like Google and Microsoft that hold onto their foreign cash to avoid taxes, but actually keep the cash in U.S. banks, taking advantage of publicly-funded national security to safeguard the assets they’re not paying taxes on.

Then there are pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer who denounce the idea of consumers purchasing cheap prescription drugs from Canada, but then shift patents and profits to offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

On the individual level, 1,700 Americans renounced their citizenships in 2011. The top Hypocrisy Hall candidate is Eduardo Saverin, who found safe refuge in the U.S. after his family was threatened in Brazil, benefited from American research and technology to take billions from his 4 percent share in Facebook and then skipped out on his tax bill.

Finally there are CEOs like Doug Oberhelman of Caterpillar, who threatened to leave Illinois unless the highly profitable company received a tax break that allowed the company to pay less than 1 percent of its total net income in state taxes, and then said, “Legislators in Illinois have created an environment that is unfriendly to business and investment.”

8. Realtor for the Slaves

The GEO Group, operator of private prisons, is trying to qualify as a “real estate intensive industry” (REIT). In a company profile GEO refers to itself as having “attractive real estate characteristics.”

What is the nature of GEO’s property? The 13th Amendment says “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” The private prisons have a room ready for the kids on the school-to-prison pipeline.

So Who Makes It to the Hall?

Only those who can aspire to duplicitous extremes, like Monsanto, whose website proclaims “Monsanto is committed to assuring the safety and quality of our products and promoting a culture of integrity through our business conduct,” after their communications director said “Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible.”

Now, that is worthy of recognition.

Source:  http://www.nationofchange.org/hall-hypocrisy-1364823391

 

50 Signs That The U.S. Health Care System Is A Gigantic Money Making Scam That Is About To Collapse

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The following are 50 signs that the U.S. health care system is a massive money making scam that is about to collapse…

#1 Medical bills have become so ridiculously large that virtually nobody can afford them.  Just check out the following short excerpt from a recent Time Magazine article.  One man in California that had been diagnosed with cancer ran up nearly a million dollars in hospital bills before he died…

By the time Steven D. died at his home in Northern California the following November, he had lived for an additional 11 months. And Alice had collected bills totaling $902,452. The family’s first bill — for $348,000 — which arrived when Steven got home from the Seton Medical Center in Daly City, Calif., was full of all the usual chargemaster profit grabs: $18 each for 88 diabetes-test strips that Amazon sells in boxes of 50 for $27.85; $24 each for 19 niacin pills that are sold in drugstores for about a nickel apiece. There were also four boxes of sterile gauze pads for $77 each. None of that was considered part of what was provided in return for Seton’s facility charge for the intensive-care unit for two days at $13,225 a day, 12 days in the critical unit at $7,315 a day and one day in a standard room (all of which totaled $120,116 over 15 days). There was also $20,886 for CT scans and $24,251 for lab work.

#2 This year the American people will spend approximately 2.8 trillion dollars on health care, and it is being projected that Americans will spend 4.5 trillion dollars on health care in 2019.

#3 The United States spends more on health care than Japan, Germany, France, China, the U.K., Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain and Australia combined.

#4 If the U.S. health care system was a country, it would be the 6th largest economy on the entire planet.

#5 Back in 1960, an average of $147 was spent per person on health care in the United States. By 2009, that number had skyrocketed to$8,086.

#6 Why does it cost so much to stay in a hospital today?  It just does not make sense.  Just check out these numbers…

In 1942, Christ Hospital, NJ charged $7 per day for a maternity room. Today it’s $1,360.

#7 Approximately 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are related to medical bills.

#8 One study discovered that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.

#9 The U.S. health care industry has spent more than 5 billion dollarson lobbying our politicians in Washington D.C. since 1998.

#10 According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the U.S. is  currently experiencing a shortage of at least 13,000 doctors.  Unfortunately, that shortage is expected to grow to 130,000 doctorsover the next 10 years.

#11 The state of Florida is already dealing with a very serious shortage of doctors…

Brace yourself for longer lines at the doctor’s office.

Whether you’re employed and insured, elderly and on Medicare, or poor and covered by Medicaid, the Florida Medical Association says there’s a growing shortage of doctors — especially specialists — available to provide you with medical care.

And if the Florida Legislature goes along with Gov. Rick Scott’s recommendation to offer Medicaid coverage to an additional 1 million Floridians — part of the Affordable Care Act that takes effect next January — the FMA says that shortage will only get worse.

#12 At this point, approximately 40 percent of all doctors in the United States are 55 years of age or older.

#13 In America today, many hospital executives make absolutely ridiculous amounts of money…

In December, when the New York Times ran a story about how a deficit deal might threaten hospital payments, Steven Safyer, chief executive of Montefiore Medical Center, a large nonprofit hospital system in the Bronx, complained, “There is no such thing as a cut to a provider that isn’t a cut to a beneficiary … This is not crying wolf.”

Actually, Safyer seems to be crying wolf to the tune of about $196.8 million, according to the hospital’s latest publicly available tax return. That was his hospital’s operating profit, according to its 2010 return. With $2.586 billion in revenue — of which 99.4% came from patient bills and 0.6% from fundraising events and other charitable contributions — Safyer’s business is more than six times as large as that of the Bronx’s most famous enterprise, the New York Yankees. Surely, without cutting services to beneficiaries, Safyer could cut what have to be some of the Bronx’s better non-Yankee salaries: his own, which was $4,065,000, or those of his chief financial officer ($3,243,000), his executive vice president ($2,220,000) or the head of his dental department ($1,798,000).

#14 Health insurance administration expenses account for 8 percent of all health care costs in the United States each year.  In Finland, health insurance administration expenses account for just 2 percent of all health care costs each year.

#15 If you can believe it, the U.S. ambulance industry makes more money each year than the movie industry does.

#16 All over America, people are reporting huge health insurance premium increases thanks to Obamacare.  The following example is from a recent article by Robert Wenzel…

A California small businessman tells me that he switched healthcare insurance carriers in 2012.  The monthly premium for him and his wife was about $400, but when he received his first bill in January of this year it was for $1,200.  He hasn’t been to a doctor in years, his wife has only gone for minor care.

Apparently there is some clause in the Affordable Healthcare Act that results in health insurance firms using a new method to calculate premiums. Those who have health insurance plans that have been in effect since at least 2010 are grandfathered under the old calculation method, but insurance carriers are using a new formula for new plans.

#17 Blue Shield of California has announced that it wants to raise health insurance premiums by up to 20 percent this year in an effort to keep up with rising health costs.

#18 Aetna’s CEO says that health insurance premiums for many Americans will double when the major provisions of Obamacare go into effect in 2014.

#19 Close to 10 percent of all U.S. employers plan to drop health coverage completely when the major provisions of Obamacare go into effect in 2014.

#20 According to a survey conducted by the Doctor Patient Medical Association, 83 percent of all doctors in the United States have considered leaving the profession because of Obamacare.

#21 Approximately 16,000 new IRS agents will be hired to help oversee the implementation of Obamacare, and the Obama administration has given the IRS 500 million extra dollars “outside the normal appropriations process” to help the IRS with their new duties.

#22 During 2013, Americans will spend more than 280 billion dollarson prescription drugs.

#23 Prescription drugs cost about 50% more in the United States than they do in other countries.

#24 In the United States today, prescription painkillers kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined.

#25 Nearly half of all Americans now use prescription drugs on a regular basis according to the CDC.  Not only that, the CDC also says that approximately one-third of all Americans use two or more pharmaceutical drugs on a regular basis, and more than ten percent of all Americans use five or more pharmaceutical drugs on a regular basis.

#26 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.

#27 In 2010, the average teen in the U.S. was taking 1.2 central nervous system drugs.  Those are the kinds of drugs which treat conditions such as ADHD and depression.

#28 Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants as children in Europe are.

#29 There were more than two dozen pharmaceutical companiesthat made over a billion dollars in profits during 2008.

#30 According to the CDC, approximately three quarters of a million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.

#31 According to a report by Health Care for America Now, America’s five biggest for-profit health insurance companies ended 2009 with a combined profit of $12.2 billion.

#32 The top executives at the five largest for-profit health insurance companies in the United States combined to bring in nearly $200 million in total compensation for 2009.

#33 The chairman of Aetna, the third largest health insurance company in the United States, brought in a staggering $68.7 million during 2010. Ron Williams exercised stock options that were worth approximately $50.3 million and he raked in an additional $18.4 million in wages and other forms of compensation.  The funny thing is that he left the company and didn’t even work the entire year.

#34 It turns out that the financial assistance that Barack Obama promised would be provided for those with “pre-existing conditions” under Obamacare is already being shut down because of a lack of funding…

Tens of thousands of Americans who cannot get health insurance because of preexisting medical problems will be blocked from a program designed to help them because funding is running low.

Obama administration officials said Friday that the state-based “high-risk pools” set up under the 2010 health-care law will be closed to new applicants as soon as Saturday and no later than March 2, depending on the state.

#35 In America today, you are 64 times more likely to be killed by a doctor than you are by a gun.

#36 People living in the United States are three times more likely to have diabetes than people living in the United Kingdom.

#37 Today, people living in Puerto Rico have a greater life expectancy than people living in the United States do.

#38 According to OECD statistics, Americans are twice as obese as Canadians are.

#39 Greece has twice as many hospital beds per person as the United States does.

#40 The state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.

#41 According to a doctor interviewed by Fox News, “a gunshot wound to the head, chest or abdomen” will cost $13,000 at his hospital the moment the victim comes in the door, and then there will be significant additional charges depending on how bad the wound is.

#42 It has been estimated that hospitals overcharge Americans by about 10 billion dollars every single year.

#43 One trained medical billing advocate says that over 90 percent of the medical bills that she has audited contain “gross overcharges“.

#44 It is not uncommon for insurance companies to get hospitals to knock their bills down by up to 95 percent, but if you are uninsured or you don’t know how the system works then you are out of luck.

#45 According to a study conducted by Deloitte Consulting, a whopping875,000 Americans were “medical tourists” in 2010.

#46 Today, there are more than 56 million Americans on Medicaid, and it is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#47 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

#48 Today, there are more than 50 million Americans on Medicare, and that number is projected to grow to 73.2 million in 2025.

#49 When Medicare was first established by Congress, it was estimated that it would cost the federal government $12 billion a year by the time 1990 rolled around.  Instead, it cost the federal government $110 billionin 1990, and it will cost the federal government close to $600 billion this year.

#50 Even if you do have health insurance, that is no guarantee that medical bills will not bankrupt you.  Just check out what a recent Time Magazine article says happened to one unfortunate couple from Ohio that actually did have health insurance…

When Sean Recchi, a 42-year-old from Lancaster, Ohio, was told last March that he had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, his wife Stephanie knew she had to get him to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Stephanie’s father had been treated there 10 years earlier, and she and her family credited the doctors and nurses at MD Anderson with extending his life by at least eight years.

Because Stephanie and her husband had recently started their own small technology business, they were unable to buy comprehensive health insurance. For $469 a month, or about 20% of their income, they had been able to get only a policy that covered just $2,000 per day of any hospital costs. “We don’t take that kind of discount insurance,” said the woman at MD Anderson when Stephanie called to make an appointment for Sean.

Stephanie was then told by a billing clerk that the estimated cost of Sean’s visit — just to be examined for six days so a treatment plan could be devised — would be $48,900, due in advance.

By the way, that hospital down in Houston made a profit of 531 million dollars in one recent year.

So what can be done about all of this?

Well, the truth is that the status quo is a complete and total disaster, and every “solution” being promoted by politicians from both major political parties would only make things worse.

In the end, the U.S. health care system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, but we all know that is not going to happen.

Instead, our politicians and the health care industry will just find additional ways to extract money from all of us, and the level of care that we all get will continue to decline.

If you don’t believe this, just check out what Paul Krugman of the New York Times had to say recently…

We’re going to need more revenue…Surely it will require some sort of middle class taxes as well.. We won’t be able to pay for the kind of government the society will want without some increase in taxes… on the middle class, maybe a value added tax…And we’re also going to have to make decisions about health care, doc pay for health care that has no demonstrated medical benefits . So the snarky version…which I shouldn’t even say because it will get me in trouble is death panels and sales taxes is how we do this.

Others are urging us to become more like Europe.

But do we really want what they have in the UK?…

Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’.

Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults.

But the Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies.

One doctor has admitted starving and dehydrating ten babies to death in the neonatal unit of one hospital alone.

Writing in a leading medical journal, the physician revealed the process can take an average of ten days during which a  baby becomes ‘smaller and shrunken’.

In the end, my philosophy is just to avoid the U.S. health care system as much as possible.  Most doctors are just trained to do two things – prescribe drugs and cut you open.  In an emergency situation where you are about to die, those may be your best options, but otherwise I would just as soon avoid the gigantic money making scam that the U.S. health care industry has become.

But just don’t take my word for it.  The following is some very sound advice from Dr. Robert S. Dotson…

Avoid contact with the existing health care system as far as possible. Yes, emergencies arise that require the help of physicians, but by and large one can learn to care for one’s own minor issues. Though it is flawed, the internet has been an information leveler for the masses and permits each person to be his or her own physician to a large degree. Take advantage of it! Educate yourself about your own body and learn to fuel and maintain it as you would an expensive auto or a pet poodle. One does not need a medical degree to:

1. avoid excessive use of tobacco or alcohol or, for that matter, caffeine;
2. avoid poisons like fluoride, aspartame, high fructose corn syrup, and addictive drugs (legal or illicit);
3. avoid unnecessary and potentially lethal imaging studies (TSA’s radiation pornbooths, excessive mammography, repetitive CT scans – exposure to all significantly increases cancer risk);
4. avoid excessive cell phone use and exposure to other forms of EMR pollution where possible (the NSA is recording everything you say and text anyway);
5. avoid daily fast food use and abuse (remember: pink slime and silicone) ;
6. avoid untested GM foods (do you really want to become “Roundup Ready?”):
7. avoid most vaccinations and pharmaceutical agents promoted by the establishment;
8. avoid risky behaviors (and, we do not need a bunch of Nanny State bureaucrats to define and police these);
9. exercise moderately;
10. get plenty of sleep;
11. drink plenty of good quality water (buy a decent water filter to remove fluoride, chloride, and heavy metals);
12. wear protective gear at work and play where appropriate (helmets, eye-shields, knee and elbow pads, etc.):
13. seek out locally-grown, whole, organic foods and support your local food producers;
14. take appropriate nutritional supplements (multi-vitamins, Vitamin C, Vitamin D3);
15. switch off the TV and the mainstream media it represents;
16. educate yourself while you can;

And, lastly…

17. QUESTION AUTHORITY!

Doing these simple, common-sense things will add healthy years to a person’s life and help one avoid most medical encounters during his or her allotted time on earth.

So what do you think?

Do you believe that the U.S. health care system is a gigantic money making scam that is about to collapse?

Source:  http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/50-signs-that-the-u-s-health-care-system-is-a-gigantic-money-making-scam-that-is-about-to-collapse

What is So Hard About Figuring Out How Bad “Fracking” Is?!! – An Enlightened Conversation

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1%, Animals, Cancerous, Carcinogenic, CEOs, chemicals, Death, Destroyed, Disasters, Elite, environment, Finite Energy Source, Fra, fracking, Glacier Sands LLC, Groundwater, harmful, Humans, hydraulic fracturing, Lakes, Minnesota, natural gas, poisoning, Ponds, Rich, Rivers, Sand Fracking, Streams, Texas, Twin Cities, Twin Cities Daily Planet, Wasteful Spending, Water Well Pollution, Wisconsin

This Was Sent To Twin Cities Daily Planet:  Local News For Global Citizens:  http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/

I thought you might find this entertainingly interesting at least!  😉  This is a email from me to my county’s board on

their decision to table “fracking” in my area that you covered (see links at end of message) due to me contacting various local/regional news sources to get this story covered for the sake of humans, animals and the environment!  If the environment goes, which it will if they start “Sand Fracking” and/or Hydraulic Fracturing or Hydraulic “Fracking,” there will be nothing left to report!  Human existence is at stake here due to the extremely damaging effects of both types of “Fracking!”  The U.S. Government report attached is legitimate and virus-free.  You can Google it!  Enjoy the read! 🙂

Sincerely,

Johnnie Loeffler Schmeckpeper

—– Forwarded Message —–
From: Johnnie Schmeckpeper <jelo1317@yahoo.com>
To: Del Twidt <del.twidt@buffalocounty.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 11:31 PM
Subject: Re: Upcoming August Agenda re: Your Decision on Glacier Sands LLC w/Overwhelming Negative Evidence

Johnnie Loeffler Schmeckpeper

Fountain City, WI 54629

jelo1317@yahoo.com

https://twitter.com/jelo1317

I was curious as to why your board tabled the Glacier Sands Fracking Proposal when it appeared that you embarrassed yourself and the Buffalo County Board of Adjustments enough.  Truth speaks volumes, however when I only have three tiny minutes to make my point, I make it very clear!  It seemed obvious to me that this is not just a scam regarding Ike and Ryan Thomas, a father-son team from Granbury, Texas listed in the 1st weblink, but also a environmental disaster of catastrophic proportions just waiting to happen!  Not to mention the overwhelming facts, statistics from residents who do not want fracking in their area (Town of Milton at 94%?!), and ignoring a call for a simple county vote on fracking or no fracking!  What are you thinking or not thinking?  You are making yourself, the board & us residents look bad by allowing seven farms who were monetarily manipulated into starting up Glacier Sands LLC by Ike and Ryan Thomas in an attempt to scheme as much money out of brain-washed local farmers who think it’s a good idea to ruin their land and environment for everyone else for a so-called payout by Ike and Ryan Thomas, known schemers, all over the need for their greed and power hungriness with no regard for any form of safety except for their employees and their pocket-books!  Do something about this before you manage to piss even more people off, and I was the one who invited all of the media attending!  I have enough damaging evidence in this first article for you to read to make you re-think tabling this again or voting in favor of Glacier Sands LLC; otherwise, I will stir up a major media storm & campaign starting with a referendum to remove the current Buffalo County Board of Adjustments over your negligence to protect the citizens of Buffalo County, including myself!  I’m sure you will LOVE the negative media attention you will receive, and maybe even a class-action lawsuit against Ike and Ryan Thomas, Glacier Sands LLC (all seven farms) and the Buffalo County Board of Adjustments for Gross Negligence as a warm-up!

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2012/07/09/frac-sand-or-farmland-wisconsin-farmers-face-showdown-rescheduled-august-9

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2012/08/14/seven-sands-frac-sand-mine-permit-postponed#comments

P.S. These articles are being spread all over the internet right now.  Have a good day! 🙂

Oops!  I forgot one:

http://www.winonadailynews.com/news/local/article_003df3fa-68c9-11e1-a6e1-0019bb2963f4.html

---

From: Del Twidt <del.twidt@buffalocounty.com>
To: Johnnie Schmeckpeper <jelo1317@yahoo.com>
Cc: Jacob Sedivy <jacob.sedivy@buffalocounty.com>
Sent: Friday, August 3, 2012 8:40 AM
Subject: RE: Upcoming August Agenda re: Glacier Sands LLC

Mr. Schmeckpeper,

Thank you for the document.  The Board of Adjustment meeting will be held Thursday, August 9, 2012 beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the Alma Public School, in the gymnasium, which is about 2 miles north of Alma directly on Highway 35.

Thanks again for your input.

Del

From: Johnnie Schmeckpeper [mailto:jelo1317@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2012 4:49 PM
To: Del Twidt
Subject: Re: Upcoming August Agenda re: Glacier Sands LLC

Hi!

I do not know where your meeting is at.  Please inform.  I have attached a U.S. Govt. document (long), so you and the board can review it before the meeting.  I will make sure to sign in to speak before the meeting, plus I need to know not only where it’s at but when/what time.  I’m new to the area! It’s beautiful here, by the way!

Thank you,

Johnnie Loeffler Schmeckpeper

---

From: Del Twidt <del.twidt@buffalocounty.com>
To: Johnnie Schmeckpeper <jelo1317@yahoo.com>
Cc: Jacob Sedivy <jacob.sedivy@buffalocounty.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 2, 2012 3:32 PM
Subject: RE: Upcoming August Agenda re: Glacier Sands LLC

Mr. Schmeckpeper,

Please sign in at the meeting next Thursday to speak to the Board of Adjustment during the public comment section of the meeting.  In the meantime, if you have any documents you would like the Board members to receive before the meeting, please forward them to me or the Zoning Dept. and we will forward them to the Board members.  Thanks.

Del

From: Johnnie Schmeckpeper [mailto:jelo1317@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 12:08 PM
To: Del Twidt
Subject: Upcoming August Agenda re: Glacier Sands LLC

08-01-2012

Dear, Del D. Twidt
Acting County Administrator:

Hi, I am John.  I am new to Buffalo Co. as of May 1, 2012.  I was born and raised in La Crosse, WI.  I am a big advocate for protecting

the environment in our area and in general.  I made one person on your board aware of what Glacier Sands LLC’s intentions are for

Buffalo Co., and it is a grim situation, before the Buffalo Co. Board of Adjustments unanimously decided to vote down GS LLC’s proposal

a week and a half ago.  Do you have a meeting coming up Aug. 9th where Glacier Sands reps. will be present?  I have

some environmental and groundwater destruction material that was sent to the U.S. House of Representatives last year regarding

hydraulic fracturing or fracking.  I can effectively end this shoddy businessman’s bid to ruin the environment here with five minutes

of direct testimony regarding the serious dangers posed by fracking, to include earthquakes, via handout materials that I would like

to present to GS LLC’s attorney(s).  I am also the one who knows about the very brief history of this company (formed in August of 2011),

the fact that a Minnesota businessman operated or still operates using a P.O. Box address in Wisconsin, and his ties to big fracking

businessmen (think CEOs) in Texas where they literally have one fracking site on top of another down there.

I think the citizens of our area deserve to hear the truth, and I would like to have five minutes of the Buffalo Co. Board’s time to present

my case (no, I’m not an attorney) as to why Glacier Sands LLC is a potentially massive for-profit, anti-citizen and anti-environmental company

that does NOT work for the best interests of all Buffalo Co. residents!

Sincerely,

Johnnie Loeffler Schmeckpeper

Fountain City, WI 54629

jelo1317@yahoo.com

 

1 Attached file|

1. Hydraulic Fracturing Report 4.18.11 (1) U.S. House of Reps. Comm. on Energy and Commerce Minority Staff April 2011
   

Download

Let’s Sh*t or Get Off of the Pot!!

Tags

America, Bill Gates, CEOs, chemtrails, corporations, corruption, cover-ups, Democrats, destruction, emails, environment, farmers, food, GMOs, Hell, liars, mass starvation, Melinda Gates, poisoning, politicians, Poor, protests, referendums, Republicans, secrecy, sterilization, the 1%, the 99%, the elite, U.S., U.S. Government, water, wealthy

I’ve been busy tweeting my *ss off, emailing my legislators, heads of our federal govt. and depts. like the FDA, EPA, etc., and I find myself getting more frustrated by the lack of people to stand up, and say enough with the poisoning and corruption!  “Give us our d*mn country back!”  The only way to achieve this goal at this point in time is to revolt.  A major uprising is waaaaaaay overdue!  I’m an educated individual, and I know that there are many more out there who can tell that we are getting screwed big time by our own govt., larger than large corporations and CEOs with the intent on global monopolization and “crowd control (killing off 90% of us).”  We can write letters, spread the information from coast to coast, but if we do not physically take to the streets in mass, non-violent protests then nothing will be done.

The downfall of our so-called “free” society is imminent, and we must take a page out of the Europeans book, and start protesting in huge numbers!  We need to also force every state to have referendums on all legislators from the governor on down to get rid of our highly paid, do-nothing politicians!  Do you get to take a nice, long break from work while our country is disintegrating before our very own eyes?  The House and Senate do!  Even worse, they do it during the worst drought since the Great Depression!  Where is the help for farmers?  What do we do when food becomes a luxury in the near future?  Food prices are slated to rise 4.5% starting this fall and lasting at least through 2013.  I guess it will take mass starvation and poisoned food, water, & environment on a scale never seen in human history to wake everybody up!

The effects of GMOs are already affecting all of us.  We just can’t physically feel it yet.  Forget about having kids in the future, because the GMOs and people like Bill & Melinda Gates will make us all sterile within 3-4 generations tops!  What more do I need to say to convince U.S. citizens that we are at the gates of Hell, and if you think things are getting bad now…just wait!

John

jelo1317@yahoo.com

https://twitter.com/jelo1317