Quote of the Day: Wall St. Bankers & Fraud

A huge portion of Wall Street’s earnings were built around the model of ‘I’m going to bet against my clients. I’m going to regard my clients not as clients — and you can hear it in their language, but as counterparties.

- Edmund Clark, Chief Executive Officer Toronto-Dominion Bank, "No Trading for Dimon Principle With CEO Clark: Corporate Canada"

The pains of wealth

Richard Branson is a billionaire UK entrepreneur and businessman, who is known for his numerous business ventures and his high energy style.

Last week he was in Vancouver, British Columbia touting Virgin Airlines service from the city, along with BC Premier Christy Clark.   Based on news reports, Branson apparently invited the "delightful" Premier (his words) to come Kite-surfing on his back with him.  However, it appears that he had initially failed to mention the dress code and placed the picture below as an example of the requirements on his blog!

What every businessman yearns to be!

Clark's liberal government has nearly zero chance of being re-elected next year and she personally has extraordinary low polling numbers amongst the electorate.  In response to Branson's bravado she gave the following response:

I think when you meet with the CEO of a billion dollar company who wants to do business with your province, you can get a little bit more respectful treatment than that.

Frankly she missed the boat (or kite-surf) on this one.  She should of ran with it and told the public that as a divorced woman she'd enjoy frolicking in the waves like that, but her duty is to country first and helping local businesses be more cocky like Branson in the global marketplace, unlike the wealth destroying socialists of the NDP or the anti-tax crackpots of the BC Conservative party.


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If there was a better advertisement for capitalism and the benefits of the free market system over the sclerotic and dismal prospects of socialism, I'd like to see it.   Mothers, make sure your sons grow up to be businessmen!

G-20 Police excoriated in report

About two years ago, the city of Toronto was host of a G-20 summit meeting of international leaders.  Police were tasked with protecting the glitterati of the global elite from protesters, malcontents, and violent anarchists bent on confrontation.  As far as most Canadians were concerned the entire event was a fiasco.  More than a billion dollars was spent on law enforcement, the entire city was shutdown at the beginning of the tourist season, hundreds of ordinary citizens, protesters, and journalists were harassed, brutally attacked by law enforcement, and subsequently jailed.

Numerous stories of police malfeasance and unconstitutional actions by the state against lawful citizens were reported in the media.

Over the past month a series of reports on police conduct during the G-20 meeting have been released.  The first report issued by the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP (CPC) found that it saw no indication that the RCMP acted "inappropriately" or as "agents provocateurs."  This report however, was only concerned with actions associated directly with the RCMP, Canada's national police force, and not with the nebulous complaints and behavior of the entire security apparatus on display that week.  The report did fault the RCMP in participating in the inappropriate "kettling" of protesters and ordinary citizens.  The process of "kettling" is a means in which police eliminate all egress routes for persons, as is portrayed in the picture above, and then extract detainees on a singular basis.  The sophistication of the mass arrests was also subject to ridicule in a specific instance where the RCMP arrested five persons, "two of whom turned out to be undercover Toronto police officers".

The second report that came out shortly after, by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), was scathing in its denunciation of police misconduct. The report found that the planning for the event was poorly conceptualized and concluded that:

many of the arrests of peaceful demonstrators were illegal — without proper warrants or reasonable grounds — and that the conditions and treatment of prisoners inside a makeshift detention centre were "improper and unnecessary"

The report expounds the fact the some officers deliberately ignored the Charter rights of citizens, used excessive force, and took “unreasonable, unnecessary and unlawful” actions against the same people they took an oath to protect and serve.

During the period of June 25 and June 27, police stop-and-search exercises in downtown Toronto increased exponentially.  The report determined that the police had overstepped their authority.  In an example of the latter, a metro Toronto transit worker was assaulted as he was on his way to work, arrested, and detained for 29 hours.  Mr. Elroy Yau is currently seeking "over $3 million, claiming his charter rights were violated during the G20 summit."

In another incident, which I discussed in my original blog on this topic, two Toronto police sergeants face disciplinary hearings after they were found to have illegally arrested journalists during the G-20 summit and engaged in a homophobic tirade.

In the case of [Ryan] Mitchell, the review found that the officers used excessive force in his arrest. But it couldn't substantiate Mitchell's allegation that during his arrest, an officer said: "I'm going to love shoving this baton up your ass."

The Toronto Star newspaper elaborates on the incident.

It also found [Sgt. Douglas] Rose and another officer, Sgt. Michael Ferry, unlawfully arrested [Lisa] Walter and her colleague, Ryan Mitchell, on the afternoon of the final day of the G20 summit. And that both officers used “unnecessary force” when arresting Mitchell, who said he was tackled to the ground and put into a headlock, his right arm twisted behind his back.

Video footage shot by bystanders contradicts the police officer's statements, where they claim that they arrested Mitchell for breach of the peace and that Mitchell was "struggling quite violently".

In the case of the second journalist, Lisa Walter, the review said there was insufficient evidence to substantiate that excessive force was used against her.  However, it did conclude that arresting officer Sgt. Rose was involved in "discreditable conduct" for using "profane, abusive or insulting language" regarding her sexuality.

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Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair was initially chastised in the editorial pages of Canadian newspapers for failing to accept the results of the OIPRD report.  The Globe and Mail stated that:

Police Chief Bill Blair has not apologized for his own failings and those of the officers under his command... Mr. Blair’s response, a grudging concession that things could have been handled better, is a surprising miscalculation. He needed to show he is in command. His attempt to soft-pedal the findings will not succeed in dampening criticism of police actions, or the calls for heads to roll. On the contrary, it will raise pressure on Mr. Blair and the Toronto Police Service, because it suggests they have learned little over the past two years.

In response to public outrage to the report's findings, Chief Blair took the "unusual step of appointing retired judges and former Crown attorneys to run the hearings, which are usually adjudicated by a fellow officer, to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest."

In the end, none of this had to happen if Prime Minster Harper hadn't prematurely decided to force upon Toronto this unnecessary, ill planned, and useless publicity stunt.  We the public are equally left bewildered towards Minster Tony Clement, who was found in an auditor general's report to be in clear breach of federal policies on accountability in the G-8/G-20 boondoggle.  Why is it that millions -and in this case over a billion dollars- can be found to be used for Ministerial photo-ops, but actual infrastructure spending on subways, new transit lines, highway repairs, and sewer upgrades, all of which the city needs, is disregarded and mocked by the Conservative "law and order" politicians we have today?

Why are Americans such Assholes? Part-III

Some Americans have a rather an unusual definition of liberty and freedom: you are free to do what you are told.

Say you decide to visit the sunshine state of Florida, like so many Canadians every year.  In fact, it is approximated that as many as 3.1-million Canadians visit the state every year.  According to news sources:

Canada is Florida’s single largest international tourism market, accounting for three per cent of visitors. Americans make up 88 per cent, while other international visitors contribute nine per cent. Tourists spend more than $60 billion in the state each year.

So you would think that the locals would be very keen on making as receptive a welcome to persons from outside the state as possible.  Of course, if you think this, you've never been anywhere in the American south.  Consider the following news bulletin posted about a rather unstable but not unusual character assaulting a set of Canadian tourists.

Floridian sicks police on "terrorist"

"What's that, some kind of foreign licence plate? Yeah, that guy's definitely a terrorist."

That's what Joseph Tarochione thought when he spotted a set of white-and-blue Ontario plates on a car in Florida, apparently.

On January 31, the 73-year-old Homosassa, Florida man dialed police, said he was with the Department of Defense and asked them to inspect a vehicle belonging to a Canadian tourist for bombs, reports News 13.

Tarochione had used his own vehicle to force the Ontario car off the road and into the parking lot of a strip club, where he held the, um, suspects until officers arrived.

Problem is, Tarochione is not actually with the Department of Defense. And the tourists were not terrorists. Just Canadians. No bombs.

That doesn't mean firepower wasn't involved. When police searched Tarochione's car, they found a .22 Magnum handgun, a .22 long rifle revolver, a 16-gauge shotgun and ammunition.

Good thing he didn't try to use any of them during his "arrest." No one was harmed during the incident.

Tarochione was later arrested and jailed for impersonating a law enforcement officer.

This is what a decade of bogus furore and incendiary political machinations aimed at those who happen not to pray to ole' glory and pontificate on a daily basis the virtues of the American hedgemon produces. Given that only one third of Americans even own a passport, it isn't surprising that the nation is filled with xenophobes.  What I find appalling about these assholes, is their use of violence against anyone they consider remotely different than themselves.

Again, it's just another example of how Americans view themselves and rest of the world.

Harper's stooges in full jester mode

Every election politicians claim that only they can protect us the people from the vicissitudes of corruption inherent in their opponents.  Invariably these same turkeys turn out to be the exact charlatans that they castigate while shaking down votes on the campaign trail.  Two items last week highlighted this fact.

The first item involves Peter MacKay, Harper's current Minister of Defense.  According to the Globe and Mail,

MacKay outranks almost all his cabinet colleagues when it comes to using federal government executive jets, racking up more than $2.9-million in flights on the Challenger planes in the past four years.

Senior politicians are requested to use commercial aircraft whenever possible.

Despite protestations by the Prime Minster's Office and Conservatives that the millions of dollars used by MacKay were in services of his official duties, the record tells a different story.  National Defence records show that 35 flights arranged for Mr. MacKay over a period of four years ran nearly 250 hours in total. None of these trips involved Afghanistan and only ten of the trips involved international travel.

Perhaps believing that he was a senior executive of a multinational corporation that actually generated private sector jobs and wealth and thereby deserving of such benefits, civil servant MacKay was found to have also used the exclusive jets to ferry him around from his vacation destinations.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay took a Challenger jet at a cost of about $40,000 to fly out of Newfoundland two summers ago after getting a $16,000 helicopter ride from a fishing lodge to the airport.

The entitlements these politicians think they deserve for doing such a lousy job is appalling.  However, the financial profligacy of Mr. MacKay is countered by John Baird in the arrogance and pettiness department.

Baird, who is now Minister of Foreign Affairs in Harper's new cabinet, was found to have requested, in violation of official policies on branding, that his business cards be in English only, embossed with gold trim, listing only his name without reference to the Lester B. Pearson building, which houses the department of foreign affairs, and no reference to Canada!

What this incident indicates is how shallow these characters in the Conservative party are.  Baird didn't want his name eclipsed on his business card by the lettering of the word Canada; the same country these assholes claim to be patriots and defenders of.  The removal of Pearson's name is yet another example of their contempt of Canada's rich liberal history and an indication of how little they actually care about the country they claim to represent.

A decade of hell and the fall of America

The above chart (h/t Economist's View, "How long will it take for the economy to recover?") issued by the CBO describes what should be the central discussion amongst Americans.

While the developed world was on summer vacation, the economies of Europe and America have begun to decline in an alarming fashion.  Europe is scrambling to stabilize its weak perpherial economies. The march of the PIIGS has expanded to the point where Spain and Italy are no longer just question marks.  European banks are seeing formidable potential losses arise from sovereign debt issues.  Credit is tightening up and these same European banks are looking to national governments and the EU for assistance. Indecision amongst Europe's prominent leaders and a growing populist revolt across the continent have contributed to growing unease in the markets. The breakup of the entire European economic union and the failure of the Euro currency is now seriously being considered.

In America, zero jobs were added to the economy last month. Growth for the second quarter (Q2-2011) was revised to 1% (annualized).  Financial institutions like Bank of America are in trouble and Warren Buffett has again been brought, as the non-governmental creditor of last resort, to prop up the ailing bank. The Republicans have inflicted serious damage to the American economy, in their traitorous advancement of no-taxes and no-growth governance.   Obama is floundering in his dismal attempt to appease his corporate backers, while carving out a middle path for his own election.

The above chart should make you terrified.  Although the rose-colored glasses of 3.5% annual growth is being portrayed, it is the green line with 2.5% growth that is most alarming.  The difference of 1% means that America effectively will lumber along for the next decade with little to no growth, unemployment will remain obscenely high, structural unemployment and a permanent underclass will arise, the deleveraging process will take longer, and governments will be unable to adequetely deal with further social or economic problems effectively.  This is the best case scenario we are working with at the moment, taking into account the data and Rogoff and Reinhart's post-crisis modelling.

Now consider that the world heads into a protracted recession, with China crashing shortly afterwards -taking those countries like Canada and Australia that have been dependent on commodity exports with it- and you've got a recipe for global armageddon.  The world stops growing and economies across the planet try to dig themselves out of this hole.  Here too the data suggests as in the case of the Asian and Latin American crises, that a ten year window will be required to get back any reasonable trendline.  The implication is an entire generation of workers see reduced income, mounting debt, and insufficient job opportunities.  How are these countries going to pay for the benefits sold to the baby-boomer generation, when the children of the boomers are unable to find long-term jobs and thus fund those liabilities?

We have come to the end of the line.  All the major economies of the world are now posed to fall and in that cataclysmic descent, we shall venture hopelessly through a decade of stagnation, decline, and possible collapse.

Sino-Forest just another example of Chinese fraud

According to news reports (NY Times and Toronto Star), the once highly traded Chinese forestry company Sino-Forest has come under the examination by the Ontario Securities Commission for "fraudulently inflating its revenue and exaggerating the extent of its timber holdings."

The story follows a general trend that has become all too normal. Corporations attempt to inflate their earnings and value through shady accounting and off-sheet intermediaries.  The purpose, just as in other notable cases, is to exploit ignorant investors into the next so-called big thing. 

In Canada, the obvious comparison is Bre-X, a Canadian mining company that claimed that it discovered copious reserves of gold within Indonesia, during the mid-90's.  Independent investigations into the company's claims found that their initial findings were falsified.  The collapse of Bre-X lead to billions of dollars in losses for institutional investors, including $45 million for the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement board, $70 million of the Quebec Public Sector Pension fund, and $100 million for the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan.  No criminal charges have ever been laid in this debacle.

The American corollary is of course Enron, the company that defined the roaring 90's and the incipient corporate crime wave that has made a complete mockery of Anglo-American capitalism.   It was discovered that the company had created numerous offshore entities that were used "for planning and avoidance of taxes, raising the profitability of a business."  The totality of the expansive fraud committed by management and energy-traders resulted at the time the largest Chapter-11 bankruptcy in the history of the USA, the collapse of the accounting firm Arthur Anderson, and the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

In the case of Sino-Forest, in June 2011 it was described by Muddy Waters Research, an investment research firm, that the company was a “multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme” that was “accompanied by substantial theft.”  In addition,

A reporter for The Globe and Mail of Toronto subsequently spent two weeks visiting various properties ostensibly owned or controlled by Sino-Forest and its subsidiaries. It proved to be a trek that frequently led him to nonexistent addresses and empty offices. Like Muddy Waters, the newspaper also found evidence that Sino-Forest had greatly inflated the size of its forestry assets.

The accountants of Sino-Forest, Ernst Young Canada, at this moment are conveniently being given distance from the fiasco, by being allowed to claim "geographical and cultural differences" in understanding the Chinese market.  Given that Sino-Forest's management and operations are all in China, it raises the question whether Canadian accountants and regulators have the competence and ability to protect investors from unscrupulous foreign operations.

According to Forbes magazine, the SEC and PCAOB have been reviewing companies that operate in China but are traded in American markets and have found similar situations.

In the past six months alone, more than 25 New York-listed Chinese companies have disclosed accounting discrepancies or seen their auditors resign. In the process, questions have been raised about the strength of governance and financial oversight at many small-cap Chinese companies. In the past year, Nasdaq and NYSE Euronext have halted trading in the shares of more than 20 small and micro-cap Chinese companies. Five Chinese companies have been de-listed.

As bad as corporate governance is in North America, the Chinese are considerably worst in providing independent and qualified directors.  In the case of Sino-Forest, none of the directors had any experience in the forestry industry or competentence in risk management.

As for Canada, it is obvious that the Ontario Securities Commission is clearly incapable to adequately investigating all the corporate crime that potentially exists under its mandate.  Richard Powers, a business law professor at the University of Toronto, has stated that situations like Sino-Forest will force regulators to evaluate the, "practice of letting companies acquire dormant shell companies to list on the stock exchange."  Until governments get serious about giving teeth and muscle to financial regulators, fraud -whether it emanated domestically or via foreign nationals- will only continue to persist to the detriment of the market as a whole.

Stephen Harper and the Abuse of Power

I'm loathe to affiliate myself with Mr. Ignatieff, who has in my opinion been one of the most incompetent leaders of Canada's Liberal party in years. Given how bad things have been since Jean Chretien was pushed out of office, that is not an insignificant matter.

However, I cannot stand Mr. Harper and all the faux-patriots and ignoramuses of the Canadian Conservative Party. Their deceit, incompetence, indifference to the truth and their slavish want for power and authority over the lives of Canadians, is unbearable. Why the opposition parties haven't been taking the boots to the crotches of these so-called conservatives is beyond my understanding. Everyone knows Harper is a thug. So why then engage in a strategy where they play the role of the village idiot who gets his ass kicked every morning by the town bully.

If these right-wing wannabe crypto-fascists want to go medieval on us, the people, then I have no problem with the opposition parties dragging Harper's bloated and corpulent carcass across the television screen.

Krugman on the toxicity of American Politics

Paul Krugman talks about the toxic atmosphere created by the right-wing and their corporate supporters in the media, that has lead America to this current and deadly state of affairs.  In the article he exposes the primary source for the vitriol.

The point is that there’s room in a democracy for people who ridicule and denounce those who disagree with them; there isn’t any place for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary.

And it’s the saturation of our political discourse — and especially our airwaves — with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.

Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

He realizes that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh provide people who watch and listen to them exactly what they want; an endless stream of drama, in which they play the victim in their own pretentious and morally debased theater of the absurd.  However, that does not imply that just because the obscene can be monetized, that it should be given public disclosure.

But even if hate is what many want to hear, that doesn’t excuse those who pander to that desire. They should be shunned by all decent people.

This tragedy, isn't about limiting free speech.  This is about dangerously ignorant people, pursuing an ideology that demands the liquidation and elimination of all opponents and persons, who do not faithfully adhere their warped and deranged version of reality.  Krugman summarizes the critical conceit in this whole sordid affair.

It’s important to be clear here about the nature of our sickness. It’s not a general lack of “civility,” the favorite term of pundits who want to wish away fundamental policy disagreements. Politeness may be a virtue, but there’s a big difference between bad manners and calls, explicit or implicit, for violence; insults aren’t the same as incitement.

If there are those who do not believe the above, then they should ask what countries and explicitly, what Western democracies, allow their media and politicians to engage in such lawless behavior? The answer is that no Western European nations nor countries like Australia, Canada, or New Zealand, would tolerate the type of incitements to public violence as what routinely occurs in America.  On the other hand, third world countries with limited experience in democracy, failed nations engaging in sectarian conflict and ethnic cleansing, and countries like Venezuela and Iran, which are subsumed in managing their population through class and ideological warfare, are the ones in which America's political landscape most resembles.

Percentage of Canadians using the US health care system

The objective of this chart is not to cheer-lead on how great the Canadian health care system is; relative to European systems it's mediocre.  Rather, the chart is meant to illustrate that most Canadians aren't willing to spend vast sums of money on American health care that is comparable to what they are already receiving through a publicly taxed system.  Although a substantial number of Canadians do annually make their way into American hospitals for health care, for the majority it is for services that are not obtainable or easily performed within Canada and which is paid for by the patent's provincial government.

The Commonwealth Fund conducted a study earlier this year on 19 industrialized nations; including Australia, Canada, several European nations, and the USA.  The results were:

the U.S. [ranked] 19th in infant mortality, 15th in preventable mortality and 14th in the use of electronic medical records, all despite spending far and away the greatest percentage of GDP on health care. Relative to other comparable countries surveyed, the U.S. has the greatest incidence of medical and prescription errors, highest emergency room waiting times and ranks near the bottom in duplicate medical tests. The U.S. spends 7.3% of its health dollars on administration and insurance, compared to just 1.9% in France, 2.6% in Canada, and 3.3% in the UK.

Furthermore, the study concluded that Canada spends slightly more than half of what America does per capita for health care, yet reaches similar if not better overall results in terms of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and overall citizen health.

The Other Fame Monster

I'm not a twelve year old girl, so I'm not really sure what Justin Bieber is about.  Although, I understand he's an androgynous teenage singer from Ontario, Canada.  Regardless, an interview in today's Guardian newspaper illustrates that perhaps the concept of young people manufactured to be a global media stars without the benefit of having a strong family framework, probably isn't very good for the developing child. To illustrate consider the following excerpt:

A few days after the Sunrise incident, Justin was in New Zealand, being interviewed by a presenter with a strong Kiwi accent. He asked Justin if Bieber was the German word for basketball.

"German?" Justin asked.

"German," said the interviewer. Justin looked blank-faced. "German," said the presenter. "You know? German."

"I don't know what that means," said Justin.

"Here," said the interviewer, showing him the word German written on his card.

"I don't know what that means," said Justin. "We don't say that in America."

It's one thing not to be able to understand multi-varable calculus at the age of 14 or not to have a grasp of global political forces driving the Basel III accord even if you're much older, but not to know what Germany is? 

I'm sorry, but the child is clearly a moron, just like his backwater and hick parents.  Where do these assholes come from?  Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan...etc, they're all white-trash morons whose money-grubbing parents catapulted them into a world in which these children barely understand and clearly in the case of the latter two stars, unable to cope with.  Teenage actors, singers, and entertainers rarely do well in life.  Education is one of the ways that allows these young people to make better decisions and hopefully salvage themselves in the upcoming years, when their lives start to disintegrate around them.  However, if you read the Guardian's article, it's pretty clear there's not much in this kid's head and what education he's getting is useless.

Glaxo Guilty of Selling Tainted and Defective Drugs

GlaxoSmithKline, a British pharmaceutical company, has been forced to pay $750 million (USD) "to settle criminal and civil complaints that the company for years knowingly sold contaminated baby ointment and an ineffective antidepressant."

The case was initiated by a former employee and whistle-blower who sought penalties against the company.  The NY Times elaborates on the nature of the crimes at their Puerto Rico facility:

This was GlaxoSmithKline’s premier manufacturing facility, producing $5.5 billion of product each year. But Ms. Eckard [the whistle-blower] soon discovered that quality control was a mess: the water system was contaminated; the air system allowed for cross-contamination between products; the warehouse was so overcrowded that rented vans were used for storage; the plant could not ensure the sterility of intravenous drugs for cancer; and pills of differing strengths were sometimes mixed in the same bottles.

Instead of heeding FDA warnings about QA/QC inadequacies of the facility and their own internal people's advice, GlaxoSmithKline either ignored and/or dismissed concerns.  Ms. Eckard, who was initially sent to lead "a team of 100 quality experts to fix problems," was stonewalled by management and then dismissed once she began to demand that products be recalled.  She will now earn for her part in the whistle-blower case, "$96 million from the federal government, and she will collect additional millions from states."

The circumstances surrounding this particular case are unlike previous situations. 

Nearly all previous cases against the industry involved illegal marketing. This is the first successful case ever to assert that a drug maker knowingly sold contaminated products.

Whereas in the past, big-pharma was tagged for deceptive marketing and off-label sales tactics, GSK engaged in the willful and knowing dissemination of tainted, ineffectual, and potentially dangerous drugs to the public. This failure of both GSK and the American government to regulate the company is another indictment of the laissez-faire deregulatory approach that highlighted the conservative dogma prevalent in the Bush years.  Furthermore, it decimates any specious arguments that importation of Canadian drugs are a threat to consumers.

Given that the profit sources for big-pharma are waning and that numerous lawsuits have been asserted against big-pharma for misleading patients and "defrauding federal and state governments" the entire health care bills pushed through by both the Bush and Obama administrations reeks of corruption.  These companies are clearly unable to actually provide quality drugs that benefit people. So instead of ramping up their R&D base to find new drugs, they fire scientists and engage in legislative trickery to extend the patent life of their already questionable drug performers and push onto the market products that are ineffective and potentially lethal.  These people are just evil.  Sick and dying people shouldn't have to worry about whether their doctor is in collusion with the drug company to push a useless product upon them.  Patients shouldn't have to worry if FDA "approved" medication is actually effective or instead going to make them more sick or even kill them.

Is this all America is about? Lying, cheating, and using the government to swindle dying people out of their life savings. While congress subsidizes big-pharma, agriculture corporations, the military-industrial state, and bails out the banking industry for the umpteenth time, what are you getting? Maybe you can find it in your bonus that comes in the form of less take home pay, less benefits, less social mobility, more hours working, or more of your taxes going to maintain the lifestyles of corporate lobbyists and the "masters of the universe"-crowd.

Wake up people!

Take the red pill people, and fucking wake up!

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This blog has previously dissected and listed other areas of fraud and corruption by big-pharma:

• Novartis fined $422 Million
• Big-Pharma, perennial fraud-mongers
• Pfizer on eminant domain and corporate welfare (NY Times)
• The corruption of university bio-medical research (NY Times)

Another Poisoned Prescription: Novartis Fined $422 Million for Fraud

Another year and another multi-million dollar fine and settlement from another Big Pharma corporation.  Novartis, which is headquartered in Switzerland, has agreed to pay $422.5 million, in order to settle criminal and civil investigations arising from the marketing of the antiseizure medicine Trileptal and five other drugs. 

The NY Times summarizes the billion dollar payouts that Big Pharma has agreed to in regards to criminal investigations conducted over the past decade:

Novartis joins a growing list of pharmaceutical companies that have settled government investigations into health care fraud in the last few years, including Pfizer, which paid $2.3 billion; Eli Lilly, $1.4 billion; Allergan, $600 million; AstraZeneca, $520 million; Bristol-Myers Squibb, $515 million; and Forest Laboratories, $313 million. Pfizer, Lilly, Allergan and Forest pleaded guilty to crimes in the cases.

Earlier this year I outlined in a previous blog entry the business practices and criminal endeavours pursued by Big Pharma and the medical community on an annual basis against consumers.  The above settlement list validates the fact that when the world's largest corporations are found engaging in criminal activities, little more than nuisance fines are levied against these multi-national predators.  The profits elicited from pushing either unproven or detrimental pharmaceuticals, via morally compromised physicians, far outweighs any financial fine that the US government is prepared to impose.

Andy Wyss, president of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, said that Novaritis would “continue its commitment to high standards of ethical business conduct and regulatory compliance in the sale and marketing of our products.”  For industry watchers, the current press release is a familiar issuance from the fraud-mongers in the pharmaceutical industry.

Erik Gordon, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan school of business who follows the drug industry, said it was “easy to stifle a chuckle” when the company announced a guilty plea and, in the same news release, promised to continue ethical conduct.

Prosecutors said top management at Novartis had approved illegal marketing from July 2000 to June 2004. No individual, however, was named or charged.

Given the unscrupulous and illegal behavior of these companies, it is only further telling that both Republicans and Democrats fall over themselves to placate and support these corporate criminals.  Instead of allowing Americans to purchase drugs from Canadian manufacturers, the spineless Obama administration blocked Americans from cross-border shopping and individual state governments from engaging in bulk purchases to reduce costs.  If the US Department of Justice was sincerely interested in preventing these recalcitrant criminals, whether in Big Pharma or Wall St., from repeating their actions, hundreds of corporate managers and board members would be forced to defend their actions in court.  Once the cost-benefit equation is shifted, only then will these miserable crony-capitalists be effectively dealt with.

Bears, Beer, and Queers: Just Another Canadian Summer

According to the CBC, Police in British Columbia have broken up a marijuana grow-up operation approximately 350-km outside Vancouver.  BC-bud is hardly a new thing in the province.  What is unique, is that the grow-up was being "guarded" by a family of ten bears!

RCMP offices determined that the bears had been living on the property for some time and being used by the grow-up operators to prevent others from stealing the pot-plants.  CBC News reports:

"[Officers] soon noticed the bears were docile and tame," Mansveld told CBC News. "One of them jumped on our unmarked car for a while. But it soon became apparent they were habituated to the grow operation."

In Canada, unlike its American neighbour to the south, which is suffering from the fallout of the Great Recession, the failures of the Bush Administration's Middle East wars, and the toxic Culture-wars promoted by right-wing loons, the country is relatively well off.  So it's no surprise when the Canadian news is filled with bears, beer, and Justin Bieber sightings!  The latter I'm told is the most dangerous to social well being if you're in the company of tweenies.

Escape From Toronto

This past week the city of Toronto, Canada's largest city, was the inauspicious site of the most recent G-20 meeting.  The purpose of this global gathering is to create a forum between the largest economic players to facilitate cooperation and consultation on matters pertaining to the international financial system.  There is no negotiated or established basis for the existence of this group within the scope of the international frameworks established after the Second World War.  In fact, its value given its record on managing global risk and producing long-term solutions since the crash of 2008, which has lead to this present depression, is dismal.

Approximately 19,000 law enforcement officers and an overall budget of $1-Billion dollars was utilized to transform, what has been described as one of the most cosmopolitan and livable cities in the world, into an open prison for its inhabitants.  An exclusive economic territory, called the Red Zone, was carved out of downtown Toronto and handed over to the aristocracy of the respective G-20 countries.  Previous G-20 meetings held in Washington DC, London, and Pittsburgh required a tenth of the cost and police manpower.

Over the weekend, despite the awesome display of manpower, weaponry, and tactical support, the para-military force that was occupying the city let a small group of hooligans destroy shop-fronts across Yonge St., Queen St., and other downtown thoroughfares.  As many as five police cruisers were either destroyed and/or incinerated by these same "black-block" anarchist groups.

Street vandals and hooligan masses are a constant fact in every major North American city having sporting franchises. As Linda McQuaig of the Toronto Star points out, the city of Montreal regularly contains and manages these lawless entities without spending billions or even millions, when the Canadiens (hockey team) are engaged in playoff matches. To secure the downtown area, police used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up mobs, and arrested more than 900 persons.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said that police conduct during the meeting was "at times, disproportionate, arbitrary and excessive." The response to pockets of criminal activity was also "unprecedented, disproportionate and, at times, unconstitutional," the rights group said in a report. The abuses "exceeded the threshold of a few isolated incidents" and "they demand accountability," it said, joined by several rights groups including Amnesty International in calling for an inquiry into police conduct.

Steve Paikin, veteran journalist, described being threatened with arrest and then escorted out of the public melee by security forces. He live-tweeted that he witnessed an independent journalist working on behalf of The Guardian UK, that was assaulted, punched in both the stomach and back, then hauled away by police. The CBC states, the journalist "was arrested for breach of the peace and taken to the detention centre in the city's east end at midnight where he stayed until his release 18 hours later with no charges." Threats of sexual violence were allegedly made against at least two female journalists who were also assaulted and jailed by police forces.

Why did any of this need to occur? Why were the police forces unable to respond to a handful of hooligans, but felt it necessary to use excessive and clearly illegal measures against Canadian citizens, journalists, and even innocent by-standers that posed no immediate threat to anyone? It is my belief that this entire fiasco was managed from the beginning in order to justify the the exorbitant costs of this useless public relations event. The extraordinary level of force was furthermore meant as a warning to all people everywhere, that the state will not accept any sort of opposition to its economic policies, which operate at the behest of the mighty financial and corporate institutions that are at the center of global power.

***

Additional links:

NYTimes "Police in Toronto Criticized for Treatment of Protesters, Many Peaceful"

Interview with Steve Paikin on what he observed

The Definition of Human Selfishness

Representatives of the human race have voted and decided to liquidate another species in the name of Mammon and short-term economic gain.

Delegates from 175 countries, representing the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, voted on a series of measures to eliminate international trade on the Bluefin Tuna and a variety of other animals that are posed for extinction.  According to the Washington Post,

The adult population of eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna has declined 74 percent over the past half-century, much of it in the past decade, and the population has dropped 82 percent in 40 years in the western Atlantic.

The proposal originally initiated by Monaco and agreed upon by the USA and several EU states, failed to achieve a majority position at the Doha, Qatar conference; with 20 nations in favor, 68 against and 30 cowards abstaining. 

Japan the greatest consumer of worldwide Tuna, imports nearly 80 percent of commercially traded Atlantic bluefin.  Similar to its extensive campaign to dissuade any international body from preventing it from harvesting whales, Japan has used its considerable economic clout to prevent limitations on any trade embargo or harvesting constraints in international waters.  Few deny that the motivations behind their stance are purely commercial.  As Susan Lieberman, director of international policy at the Pew Environment Group said, "This was a case of just plain ignoring the science for short-term economic gain."

Japan is not alone in its posturing; however.  Canada, a country that has made itself into an environmental pariah by its fealty to dirty oil-sands production and the persistent refusal by its conservative government to acknowledge and address climate change, has actively sided with the Japanese on the tuna issue.  Canada's Minster of Fisheries, Gail Shea, applauding the defeat of the trade ban and touting Canada's own policies, which have permitted over the decades the devastation of Atlantic fisheries and the current collapse of Pacific Sockeye Salmon.  So when Canadians say they have a plan to manage fishery stocks, you can be certain that that species will be decimated.

To highlight the absurdity of the entire trade system, consider how Bluefin Tuna is cultured in Spanish waters; as relayed by the BBC.  The fish are initially kept alive in off-shore pens, where they are fed vast amounts of expensively caught fish (around 10-kg of feed fish serve to make the tuna put on 1-kg of body weight).  They are then harvested by hand using divers, packaged at a purpose-built factory, and flown -on the same day- to Asian markets.  All this so some silly twit can eat sushi with his/her choice of dipping sauce.

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Additional background stories and commentary on this subject can be found here, here, and here.

Canada Suspends Democracy during Olympics!

In general, Canada is a pretty good place to live.  In terms of ease of doing business, global competitiveness, individual liberty, and overall quality of life, it consistently ranks amongst the top ten nations of the world.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister's Office announced that it was seeking proroguing parliament and expanding the traditional Christmas break season for Parliament until March 3rd; until after the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC.  The concept of prorogation, which involves the termination of a legislative period, thus ending all standing committees, closing question period in the House of Commons, and letting all legislation that hasn't received Royal Ascent to be dismissed, is neither novel nor is it illegal.  However, the current context to which it has been utilized by the Conservative Party, is an unprecedented attempt by a minority government to evade public accountability, marginalize the role of the opposition in Parliament, and enhance the party's hold on the instruments of power.

At the begining of 2009, in the face of a potential coalition government forming between the opposition Liberal Party and NDP and shortly after national elections had returned Mr. Harper's Conservatives to power, parliament was prorogued.  This incident was a clear attempt to sow public dissension and confusion over coalition prospects. The officially stated reason for this most recent prorogation, was to allow the Tories to seek a national consensus on Canada's economic policies for the new year.  This becomes the third time in three years that prorogation has been used by the Conservatives.

The Tories, despite having complained endlessly that Liberal Senators were stymieing and slowing down legislation in the upper chamber, have now allowed for dozens of bills, some they claimed critical to their agenda, to fall to the wayside.  The rational provided by the Prime Minister's Office, if taken seriously, essentially would mean that the current government cannot walk and chew gum at the same time; i.e. they are incompetent.

Kady O'Mally, at CBC News' Parliamentary Blog, explains that the December time date for prorogation, which prevents Parliament from reconvening in the face of national necessity, and not late January when MPs return from break, indicates that this action has more to do with stopping Afghan torture investigations and using Machiavellian ploys to gain a majority on Senate committees.

Opposition parties have already warned that prorogation would disrupt the inquiry of a parliamentary committee looking into accusations that the government ignored warnings about the torture of Afghan detainees. Strategically, prorogation also prevents question period criticisms from the opposition parties during the Olympics.

Andrew Coyne, writes on his Maclean's blog, that this is, "An abuse of process, an insult to Parliament, another step on Parliament’s long slide into irrelevance."  Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale called the government's move "beyond arrogant" and its justifications for it "a joke."

In another time and place this type of action would be the exclusive purview of tyrants and kings.  Given that Mr. Harper and his cohorts ran on a platform of delivering accountability, transparency, and efficient government to the people of Canada, this transgression is a telling indictment of their inherent hypocrisy and the corrupting force of power.  To prevent the elected representatives of the people from investigating the actions of the current Conservative government, is an affront to the central democratic principle, that the governing party works to enhance the lives of all its citizens and not merely its own status. This is a corruption of Canadian democracy and if people actually were concerned about such abstractions, they would demand the immediate resignation of the Prime Minster and elections be called to end this fraud of a government.

Overexposure of the Canadian PM!

In what might be the most unflattering photograph of a political leader from Canada yet. Sure PM Silvio Berlusconi of Italy puts his foot in his mouth more often and Dubya's malapropisms never failed to amuse, but what is the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, thinking in this picture? He looks like he's carrying twins and the way his mouth is shaped, you'd think he was into gay porn!

Someone in the Prime Minister's Office quickly place this man on a treadmill.

FLQ Terrorists of Quebec: Osama's Brethren

'Have you ever seen a bus full of the English blow up?'

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When examples of terrorist threats from Canada are considered, there are a number of obvious examples. The first being the millennium bomber, Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian recruited by Al-Qaeda to infiltrate and destroy Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on the eve of the 2000 new year. Through his ineptitude and the good work on the part of US custom agents, Ressam was caught. The second example is the case of the Toronto-18, a group of delinquent youth with lofty ambitions, who conspired to blow up federal buildings in Toronto and Ottawa and behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper. While these pack-mules for Islamic duncery have been given plenty of press, they fail to reach the levels of criminality and wishful mayhem that Canada's first home grown terrorists, the FLQ, achieved.

The FLQ (Front de Libération du Quebec) was a left-wing nationalist and socialist revolutionary group in Quebec, with at least two terrorist cells. It was responsible for more than 200 bombings, including the bombing of the Montreal Stock Exchange in 1969 and the deaths of at least five people. These attacks culminated in 1970 with what is known as the October Crisis, in which British Trade Commissioner James Cross was kidnapped and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte was murdered.

In today's Montreal Gazette is a reminder that while the faces and exact threats to civilized society may change, the intent and desire by small groups driven by ideological fervor and murderous contempt of their fellow citizens remains constant. The author provides a chilling recount of their anarchist mind frame, which is nearly verbatim to the bogus self-serving victimology and ethno-religious superiority espoused by the above Islamists. Consider the FLQ's language, "We do not terrorize our people; on the contrary, the Front de Libération du Quebec is a vast front of love and fraternity."

Then examine their "loving" declarations:

In a little while the English, the federalists, the exploiters, the toadies of the occupiers, the lackeys of imperialism - all those who betray the workers and the Quebec nation - will fear for their lives and they will be right. For the FLQ will kill ... Our present cells will look like amateurs when our elite groups go into action.

Have you ever seen a bus full of the English blow up?
Have you ever seen an English library burning?
Have you ever seen the president of a Yankee corporation under fire?
Have you ever seen a pellet micro-bomb?
Have you ever seen a miniature incendiary bomb?
Have you ever seen a can explode on the shelf of a supermarket in the British quarter?
Have you ever seen a Protestant church burning?
Have you ever seen Westmount without telephones or electricity and with its water supply poisoned?
Have you ever seen sharp-shooters ambushed on roofs, shooting down traitors?
Be sure you soon will!!!

Despite the continuous failures of these domestic terrorists to achieve their ends, whether it is in the context of killing school children in Beslan Russia, murdering pre-schoolers at the Oklahoma federal building bombing, the incinerating of civilians in London, Madrid, or Bali attacks; it is also quite apparent that there will always remain an entrenched and obscene element of our society who affiliate themselves with these murderous entities. Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Quebec separatist party, the Bloc Quebecois, recently defended plans to read aloud the 1970 FLQ manifesto (a lengthy left-wing screed against the ills of capitalism) during a cultural festival in Quebec City, telling reporters it is history and those who object are condoning "censorship." When the manifesto was read to a public gathering at the outdoor festival, cheers of "Bravo" and the FLQ's battle-cry for revolution and social mayhem, “Nous vaincrons” (we will overcome) could be heard from sympathizers.

It is no doubt then why Ressam found himself such a welcomed guest within the province of Quebec, prior to his deluded mission.