Wal-Mart Inducted in to the Corporate Hall of Shame

I wonder if Gloria (the church lady) is still collecting information to bring to her church board to review? This induction would be of interest.

ADM, like the other grain traders, has focused heavily on the accumulation of political power - which is has largely achieved through the personal connections of former chairman and CEO Dwayne Andreas. ADM is infamous for its ability to obtain corporate welfare - in the form of government subsidies and tax breaks.

In 1995, Dwayne Andreas is reported to have boasted, “There isn’t one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. People who are not in the Midwest do not understand that this is a socialist country.” This is a striking admission for one whose fortune comes from a trading company which relies on the removal of restrictions on trade.

According to a study by the right-wing think-tank the Cato Institute, at least 43% of ADM’s annual profits are from products heavily subsidised or protected by the American government” .

An excellent article in Mother Jones magazine in 1995 demonstrates that “No other U.S. company is so reliant on politicians and governments to butter its bread” . It notes 3 core areas where ADM is helped along by US government programs:

1) maize subsidies - these make a relatively small contribution to ADM’s finances, but with its heavy focus on processing ADM benefits (unlike Cargill) from the stability they provide in a volatile market;

2) the sugar program - by limiting US sugar production, the government keeps the price high, and so keeps customers like Coca-Cola favouring ADM’s maize sweeteners over cane sugar (which they used to use);

3) ethanol subsidy - this is by far the most significant, a tax credit to producers of ethanol used as car fuel, amounting to $3.5 bn over 5 years (about half of which goes to ADM) [5].

ADM pays well to ensure the continuation of such favourable treatment. For example, in the 1992 election Andreas and his associates contributed $1.4m to party organisations and $345,000 to individual candidates; in 1994 they gave $657,000 to parties and $224,000 to individuals. In 1994, at the same time as President Clinton pushed through legislation requiring 30% of petrol sold in America’s most polluted cities to contain ethanol products, he was given a $100,000 donation .

A further example was revealed by Mother Jones in 1998. AARC (Alternative Agricultural Research and Commercialization) Corp is a venture capital firm wholly owned by the US Department of Agriculture, which aims to boost the development of “environmentally friendly” non-food products from farm and forest materials. In 1995, AARC Corp.’s then chairman, Martin Andreas, was found to have steered $2.4 million in research money to ADM projects or business interest. Martin was a senior vice president of ADM and a nephew of Dwayne Andreas,.

In 1993, Dwayne Andreas and his wife, Inez, were among 10 individuals who agreed to pay civil fines for exceeding campaign contribution limits in the 1988 campaign .

Price fixing
A telling comment was made in the early 1990s by James Randall, who was ADM’s president at the time:

“We have a saying in our company: “Our competitors are our friends. Our customers are the enemy” .

In 1996, ADM pleaded guilty to price-fixing in the international markets for lysine (an amino acid used as an animal feed additive) and citric acid (a food additive), and paid a record US$100m fine, in one of the biggest scandals ever to rock the corporate world.

ADM was found to have conspired with its competitors - Ajinimoto and Kyowa Hakko Kogyo of Japan, and Sewon Corporation and Cheil Jedung of Korea - to fix prices to eliminate competition and allocate sales volumes between the companies. According to admissions from an Ajinimoto executive, executives from the five companies met in hotels around the world to discuss prices and production volumes; they knew this was illegal, and tried to cover up by claiming the meetings were, for example, on environmental issues and animal rights .
ADM’s $100m fine was part of a settlement with the US Justice Department, in which the company also agreed to co-operate with the further federal investigations. In return, ADM got :

• immunity from prosecution for chairman and CEO Dwayne Andreas, and his right-hand man James Randall (who made the comment above on customers being the enemy);
• no criminal charges against the company for price-fixing in high-fructose corn (maize) syrup (ADM’s most important product, in a market worth $3bn, compared to the $650m lysine market);
• no further investigation into allegations that ADM stole trade secrets

So far ADM has paid out over $120m in US civil cases to its customers and shareholders, and has been fined C$16m (US$11.3m) for price-fixing in the lysine and citric acid markets, in Canada’s largest ever competition case [14], and fined eur 47.3m for lysine by the European Commission .

A federal grand jury in the Northern District of California is still investigating ADM in relation to lysine, citric acid and high fructose corn syrup. The European Commission has ongoing legal proceedings against ADM over citric acid and sodium gluconate. Mexico is investigating over citric acid, and Brazil over lysine. ADM is also facing many antitrust suits in the USA and Canada, mostly class actions by its direct and indirect customers: 31 suits over high fructose corn syrup; 3 over lysine; 3 over citric acid; 4 over both high fructose corn syrup and citric acid; 6 over high fructose corn syrup, citric acid and lysine; and 12 over monosodium glutamate and other flavour enhancers.

ADM has suffered from the scandal mainly through the loss of investor confidence: shareholders ceased to trust the management, and didn’t know which of the company’s earnings were from legitimate and sustainable activities, and which illegal.~~~~~~~~~Corporate Watch

Note: ADM is Archer Daniels Midland-one of the top Hall of Shame inductees~~~~~~~~

How’s this for a scary thought? ADM controls the food supply. Wal-Mart controls it’s distribution. Throw in Haliburton and Dick Cheney and its worthy of a Tim Burton horrorfest.

Ken: Don’t forget to include the RFID meme.

Ken V: Are you familiar with modified seeds and crops ?Check out--"Seeds of Destruction:
The Geopolitics of GM Food “by
WILLIAM ENGDAHL~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Eugenics through food modification is the subject of this extremely important work. Genetically modified crops inhibit crop reproduction,BUT human reproduction as well. A “note” in the chord of “full spectral dominance”. (Amazon offers some used copies AND some interesting reviews from readers who purchased this work. ) This is WELL worth a look.

Published on Sunday, July 13, 2008
Is Your Picnic Filled With ‘Franken-Foods’?
by Shawn Dell Joyce
Some 200 million acres of the world’s farms grew biotech crops last year, with over 90 percent of those crops coming from genetically engineered seeds patented by U.S.-based Monsanto.

Scientists have taken genetic material from one organism (like a soil bacterium), along with an antibiotic resistant marker gene, and spliced both into a food crop (like corn) to create a genetically modified crop that resists specific diseases and pests.

There has been no long-term, independent testing on the effects of these “Franken-foods” on the ecosystem or human health.

In the early 1990’s when biotechs were being evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, several key FDA scientists warned that GE crops could cause negative health effects. These scientists were ignored and blanket approvals of GE crops were passed.

It would be difficult to avoid eating genetically modified organisms in our country because they are so pervasive in the food system and unlabeled in the grocery stores.

Part of the reason for this is biotech giants fought to keep GMO foods unlabeled.

Most recently, the growth hormones from GE organisms known as rBGH, which is given to cows to make them produce more milk, were banned in Europe and Canada after authorities learned about the health risks of drinking milk from cows treated with rBGH hormones.

American milk producers started labeling their milk “rBGH and rBST free.” Monsanto, which sells bovine growth hormones under the brand name Posilac, has successfully sued dairy producers to force them to stop labeling their milk.

In addition to most milk products, GMOs can be found in commercially farmed meats and processed foods on store shelves. In our country, 89 percent of all soy, 61 percent of all corn, and 75 percent of all canola are genetically altered.

Other foods, like commercially grown papaya, zucchini, tomatoes, several fish species, and food additives like enzymes, flavorings and processing agents, including the sweetener aspartame and rennet used to make hard cheeses, also contain GMOs, according to Greenpeace.

To complicate matters, GMOs move around in the ecosystem through pollen, wind and natural cross-fertilization. The Union of Concerned Scientists conducted two independent laboratory tests on non-GM seeds “representing a substantial proportion of the traditional seed supply” for corn, soy and oilseed.

The test found that at “the most conservative expression,” half the corn and soy were contaminated with GM genes, eight years after the modified varieties were first grown on a large scale in the U.S.

The reports states that “heedlessly allowing the contamination of traditional plant varieties with genetically engineered sequences amounts to a huge wager on our ability to understand a complicated technology that manipulates life at the most elemental level.”

* * *

What can you do to avoid GMO’s?

• Know how your food is grown by buying directly from local farmers.

• Support organic agriculture, and food producers who label their ingredients, particularly dairy farmers.

• Eat pastured meat raised on organic feed. The only way to ensure this is to buy from someone you know.

• Support farmers who are sued by biotech giants. Monsanto has set aside an annual budget of $10 million and a staff of 75 devoted solely to investigating and prosecuting more than 150 farmers for a total of more than $15 million.

• Demand labeling on all GMO-containing products.

(Common Dreams)

HERE"S SOME GOOD NEWS!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

June 2008 update: Wonderful news! The 2008 Farm Bill requires mandatory COOL for produce, beef, pork, chicken, lamb, and goat. This will all go into effect September 2008.

Originally passed in the 2002 Farm Bill, for a long time only seafood country-of-origin labeling (COOL) was in effect. Before COOL, if you were concerned where your meat came from due to mad cow or you were interested in the origin of produce because of lax pesticide or food safety laws overseas, you relied on a currently “voluntary” and rarely observed labeling system. Although Congress initially mandated COOL to take effect in 2004, it was delayed for several years.

Following the initial passage of COOL in 2002, a group of businesses and organizations led by all the usual suspects set a course to derail its implementation. The top campaign contributors on this issue in the 2000-2004 election cycles include: Wal-mart, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Food Marketing Institute, Cargill, ConAgra, Tyson, American Meat Institute, National Pork Producers Council, Grocery Manufacturers of America, National Food Processors Association, and Smithfield Foods. These organizations and more gave over $2.5 million in contributions, overwhelmingly to Republicans.  In return for such generosity, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), who received over $103,000 from COOL opponents, introduced the Food Promotion Act in the House to change COOL into a voluntary program and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who received $38,250, introduced a similar act in the Senate.

Additionally, they began pulling what strings they could at the USDA, the agency charged with implementing COOL. In fact, individuals who worked as anti-COOL lobbyists took jobs at the USDA, where they could influence the government more directly. For example, Dale Moore, who first lobbied on COOL for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and later became Chief of Staff to both Secretary Ann Veneman and Secretary Mike Johanns at the USDA. Another fox, Charles Lambert, former chief economist of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, landed a position guarding the henhouse when Veneman tapped him to supervise the Agricultural Marketing Service, the very organization responsible for writing the rules of a mandatory COOL program. Needless to say, the foxes are fat, having feasted on hens for years now.

The anti-COOL lobby wanted us to believe that consumers do not demand COOL and that COOL is too expensive to implement. However, a poll conducted in 2005 showed that 85% of those surveyed want COOL, 74% support a mandatory COOL, and 55% have “little or not much trust” in the meat, seafood, produce, and grocery industries to adhere to a voluntary program.  And the Government Accountability Office reports that the “USDA used assumptions that are questionable and not well supported in developing its $1.9 billion estimate for the first year cost to industry.” In other words, the USDA exaggerated the cost of COOL in order to make it appear too expensive.

Why might COOL matter to consumers? Many Americans try to minimize their “food mileage” – the miles their food travels to reach their table. In an age of wars over scarce oil resources and impending global warming, if you can’t swap your car for a bike, it’s relieving to at least reduce your environmental footprint by buying locally produced foods. Others may choose to “buy American” out of patriotic sentiment, wishing to support American farmers. Now that seafood observes COOL, many shoppers routinely pay attention to their fishes’ origins as they wish to avoid eating seafood contaminated with mercury or other toxins. No doubt they would enjoy having the same ability to conscientiously choose meats, fruits, and vegetables from countries that aren’t known to have mad cow epidemics or lenient pesticide regulations~~~~~~~~~~~~O.C.