Monthly Archives: August 2013

Drone-Hunter’s Motto: “The Fly in Town — they Get Shot Down”

"On two occasions in a single week, surveillance drones operated from Florida’s Tyndall Air Force Base were destroyed in incidents that put the public at risk. This is one of many reasons why cities across the country should emulate the example set by Deer Trail, Colorado. The municipal government of that village of 540 people is considering a proposal under which it would issue a $100 reward to 'any shooter who presents a valid hunting license and … identifiable parts' of a federally operated drone. As Deer Trail resident Philip Steel explains: 'We do not want drones in town. They fly in town, they get shot down.'" Continue reading →

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French president promises to keep ban on Monsanto GMO corn despite court ruling

"French President Francois Hollande said Friday that a ban on growing GM corn sold by US giant Monsanto would remain in place, despite a court ruling reversing the suspension. 'The moratorium will be extended,' he said on a visit to the southwestern department of Dordogne. France’s Council of State court ruled Thursday that the French moratorium imposed on growing MON810 corn since March 2012 failed to uphold European Union law. MON810 includes an inserted gene that makes the corn plant exude a natural toxin that is poisonous to insect pests. This offers a potential financial gain for farmers, as they do not have to use chemical pesticides." Continue reading →

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FDA: ‘Gluten-free’ foods now must legally have less than .002 percent gluten

"The FDA began examining potential regulations more than six years ago when Congress passed the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act, requiring the FDA to develop guidelines for gluten-free labels. The agency proposed gluten-free regulations in 2007 but did not finalize them. The delay came from scientific assessments, interaction with the celiac community and a safety assessment to validate 20 parts per million as a safe cut-off level, Taylor said." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFDA: ‘Gluten-free’ foods now must legally have less than .002 percent gluten

Florida won’t investigate police shooting of Chechen man during questioning

"State investigators in Florida have rejected a request for an independent investigation of the fatal shooting of a Chechen man while he was being questioned about his ties to one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. Florida’s department of law enforcement declined the request by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida to look into the death of Ibragim Todashev. Todashev was killed in May while being questioned by FBI agents and others. Officials originally said Todashev lunged at an FBI agent with a knife. They later said it was no longer clear what happened." Continue reading →

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Bill Gates: Flip-Flopping IP Hypocrite

"A couple decades ago, Bill Gates seemed to have some appreciation of the damage wrought by patent law. Yet over the years Microsoft relied on the other major form of intellectual property—copyright—to dominate aspects of the software industry, and then to use the monopoly profits to accumulate thousands of patents. These two forms of IP are then used together to squelch competition. Now that Gates has used state-granted IP monopolies to acquire billions of dollars that he can then use to be a bigshot philanthropist, he is all for patents (as my friend Rob Wicks says, Gates is 'America’s wealthiest welfare queen')." Continue reading →

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Who’s Hiring in the U.S. and What They Pay

"The segment of the economy that has added the most jobs since the recession ended in June 2009 is classified as 'professional and business services.' About 2.12 million jobs have been created for architects, engineers, scientists, managers, computer geeks, and yes, journalists. This is normally high-paying work with an average hourly wage of $28.41 an hour, which translates into $1,136 a week. Unfortunately, almost half of the new professional jobs since mid-2009 were created at temporary-hiring agencies. The work doesn’t always lead to a full-time job and these positions pay far less: $15.74 an hour." Continue reading →

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The Fed Doesn’t Control as Much as You Think It Does

"In actuality, the Fed has little control or influence over the things that really matter in the real economy. Innovation is often a meaningless buzzword (think 'financial innovation'), but it is also the key driver of wealth creation in the real economy. The Federal Reserve could be shut down and all its asset bubbles could pop, and innovations in energy, agriculture, transportation, education, media, medicine, etc. would continue to impact the availability and abundance of what really matters in the real world: energy, knowledge, water, food, and opportunity, to name a few off the top of a long list." Continue reading →

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As Keystone stalls, TransCanada OKs bigger East Coast pipeline

"TransCanada Corp gave the green light to building a $12 billion oil pipeline to ship Canada’s Western oil sands crude to refiners on its east coast and beyond, scaling up the project as its U.S.-bound Keystone XL line remains stalled in Washington. The company said it would move forward with building a 1.1 million barrel per day Energy East Pipeline after “strong market support.” That would be larger than the 850,000 bpd capacity it had mentioned in April, when it first began seeking customer commitments for the project. TransCanada is also likely to face stiff resistance from some groups over the construction of the line." Continue reading →

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Why Oil Could Move Higher–Much Higher

"A more intriguing dynamic has been presented by Financial Times reporter Izabella Kaminska over the past year: Financiers are buying oil as collateral for various speculations. Kaminska sees this financial hoarding of oil (i.e., reduction of supply) as inducing 'scarcity amidst plenty.' In broad terms, I would characterize this as one aspect of the financialization of commodities. The financialization of commodities is driven by several macro factors: 1. The scarcity of non-phantom, easily tradable collateral in a financial system that is increasingly dependent on phantom collateral. 2. A scarcity of sound investment opportunities." Continue reading →

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Instead Of Bonds, Buy This…

"Naturally, after this year’s 9% pullback in bonds, we’re going to see some air flow out of the bond bubble. That is, folks that were looking for safety in bonds were burned and are now looking for safety in other places – cash, equities, you name it. Remember back in 2008 we saw the same thing — the safety trade had everyone running to bonds. CEOs for Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs have both recently gone on record saying interest rates should, or need to, eventually rise. The market needs to 'normalize' they say. That said, plan on seeing a lot more money heading in to cash, equities or other investment classes." Continue reading →

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