Punishing Corporate Greed!

GOOD MORNING FLINT!
by Terry Bankert
12/31/08

CHINA SETS A WORLD EXAMPLE OF HOW TO TREAT DISGRACED PRIVATE SECTOR EXECUTIVES.

Tian Wenhua chairwoman of a Chinese diary company , and several other executives, went on trial on Wednesday over a tainted milk scandal that has killed at least six children and made thousands ill. She is the former general manager of the Sanlu Group, pleading guilty to charges of "producing and selling fake or substandard products,"

The four executives are Sanlu's former board chairwoman and general manager Tian Wenhua, former deputy general managers Wang Yuliang and Hang Zhiqi, and Wu Jusheng, a former executive in charge of the firm's milk division. Defendant Wang, in a wheelchair after losing the use of his legs in a suicide attempt, sobbed when speaking in court.

See video at: http://v.cctv.com/html/media/bizchina/2008/12/bizchina_300_20081231_15.shtml

The crime committed by these dairy producers is that they diluted milk supplies with water so that they could make more money. They added the industrial chemical melamine to the diluted milk in order to give the appearance of higher levels of protein. Melamine is described as being "Harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Chronic exposure may cause cancer or reproductive damage. Eye, skin and respiratory irritant.”

The European Union set a standard for acceptable human consumption of melamine at 0.5 milligrams per kg of body mass, Canada declared a limit of 0.35 mg and the US FDA’s limit was put at 0.63 mg, but was later reduced to 0.063 mg daily.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine

Sanlu products were found to have the highest content of melamine, at 2,563 milligrams per kilograms. Wenhua and three other executives face a possible sentence of life in prison. These creation failed to report cases of Chinese children developing kidney stones and other complications from drinking milk adulterated , by them, with melamine for months . Melamine, an industrial compound used in making plastic chairs, countertops, plates, flame retardants and even concrete, has been added to food to cheat nutrition tests due to its high nitrogen content. China is bringing to justice 17 people involved in producing, selling, buying and adding melamine in raw milk. Six children have died and more than 290,000 made ill from the contaminated milk.

The Government in China will restore credibility by passing stiff sentences.

Already executed was Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of the food and drug watchdog, the State Food and Drug Administration taking bribes.

Posted Here by
Terry Bankert
See
- http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4BU00T20081231?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=10341
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7805560.stm
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine
- http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/31/content_10584145.htm - http://v.cctv.com/html/media/bizchina/2008/12/bizchina_300_20081231_15.shtml

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$17.4 Billion of your dollars.....

GOOD MORNING FLINT!
12/30/08
By, Terry Bankert

The bailout of General Motors has raised a legitimate question: What good will it do if customers can’t get the financing to buy vehicles?

I support the bail out bascially because from Flint we have very little option. We should still question. Did you know GM's US sales dropped 41% in November.

The car maker explained the drying up of GMAC's own financing was the principal reason for the crash in sales. Personally I think you can tell a General Motors executive is lying by the movement of its lips. Its too bad there is not a crime for incompetence.

We learned last night our government is now shelling out cash to keep the industry afloat. A $5 billion stake in GMAC, the financing arm of General Motors to prop up the company was announced by Treasury. Our government will lend GM as much as $1 billion so that it can buy more equity in GMAC. GMAC finances about 80% the wholesale purchases of GM's cars by dealers world-wide.

The tax money will come from the Troubled Asset Relief Fund , TARP,the 700 Billion Dollar tar pit our government has set aside to rescue the American financial system pillaged by the greed and incompetence of Wall Street (code for Rich guys and Gals).Remember this is in addition to $17.4 billion in previous emergency loans. General Motors and an outfit called Cerberus Capital Management owned GMAC.

Watch Bush he is no above helping a lot of rich guys on the way out . Did you know John Snow, a top player at Cerberus, was the Bush administration's Treasury secretary before Henry Paulson. Monday evening surprised some (main stream media) but for most of us was not entirely unanticipated.

On Christmas Eve the Feds allowed GMAC to become a bank holding company, an action that permits it to receive TARP funds. The strings: GMAC had to convert 75% of its debt to equity by last Friday at midnight. However, earlier Monday the company refused to say if it had met the goal by the deadline.

What? The people giving our tax money to these private business people said they would not do it unless GMAC raised new capital, which the company tried to do through a debt-equity swap that expired Friday. GMAC’S goal was to raise $30 billion by converting 75% of its issued debt into preferred-stock holdings.

The bondholders of GMAC are not cooperating. Last week, less than 60% of bondholders had signed on and the offering had been extended four times. The government's role in the industry is becoming open-ended, the Treasury Department said Monday it had set up a separate program within the Troubled Asset Relief Program with no limits.

Okay lets recap.
1.We give $717 Billion dollars to the auto industry which is failing.
2.The industry cannot retun to prospeity without financing so we are bailing out a desperately floundering finance company.
3.We allow the troubled finance company to become a bank. It cannot be any worse than any of the other monoliths that are failing.
4.This done on the condition that it had to convert its debt to equity and it will not tell us if has complied.
5.We still gave them the money.

These numbers are so big we are numbed and no longer question.

Just who is watching this evolve that we can trust to understand and tell us the truth? The Republican Treasury has scrambled to spend the first half of the TARP pot of gold.

It seems the only accountability congress imposed was that in order to receive the second $350 billion the administration will need to submit a report to Congress explaining how the funds will be used. Outgoing Republican Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that the remaining amount will need to be tapped, though it is not clear whether he will do it.

Do you wanna bet on that one?

Part of the deal with the auto makers is that they would be forced into bankruptcy by the end of March if they did not come up with viable restructuring plans.

We could be throwing good money after bad.

At this point we have no other choice.

But, just who can we rely on to be telling us the truth?

Posted here Terry Bankert
See- http://www.forbes.com/topstories/2008/12/30/gmac-washington-tarp-markets-equity-cx_bw_1230markets01.html - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7804228.stm
-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/30/general-motors-gmac
-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123059943935341299.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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2010 Census

GOOD MORNING FLINT ! 12/29/08 By Terry Bankert Did you know that the Federal Funding that comes into Flint is based on our census count? Did you know that the City Of Flint gets at least $1,500 in Federal dollars returned to Flint based upon our census count? Did you know that the city of Flint only counted 61% of its population in the year 2000? Millions of dollars are at stake. See http://www.census.gov/2010census/ Information on census jobs. http://www.census.gov/2010censusjobs/index.php Language barriers. Cultural diversity. Suspicion about the government. They're all part of the daunting challenge the Census Bureau faces in just 18 months to accurately tally the number of Americans. Counting each person in the USA every 10 years hasn't been easy since the first Census in 1790, when counters went door to door on horseback. But 220 years later, the hurdles could be unprecedented. The nation now has more than 300 million people. It's more diverse than ever. Natural disasters such as hurricanes Katrina and Ike have displaced tens of thousands. Home foreclosures have put countless families into temporary living arrangements. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2008-10-08-Census_N.htm To count them, the Census Bureau first has to find them. Complicating the task is a widespread climate of suspicion about personal data landing in the wrong hands and government's increased surveillance power. Much of the unease is engendered by the growing problem of identity theft and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. New anti-terrorism measures such as the Patriot Act expanded the authority of law enforcement agencies here and abroad. The Census vows confidentiality, but new state and local laws that aim to crack down on undocumented immigrants are making even some legal immigrants nervous. "It's the first post-9/11 Census," says Terri Ann Lowenthal, a legislative consultant for The Census Project, a coalition of groups eager for an accurate Census. "There's a double issue: concern about immigrants and concern about privacy of data." http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2008-10-08-Census_N.htm The Census Bureau has to get past the distrust and break through a vast number of languages and cultures. At the same time, the agency is scrambling to satisfy congressional overseers upset over mounting costs of the 2010 Census — now estimated at $14 billion — and its failure to use more technology such as online filing and handheld computers to help gather data. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2008-10-08-Census_N.htm WHAT CAN WE AS A COMMUNITY DO TO GET AS MANY FLINT PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE COUNTED? Posted Here By Terry Bankert 110801

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