Business

Source: Crisis

They make it out of nothing by giving out loans, but they make us pay these loans back with interest.

The financial crisis has been in the headlines for a little more than a year now since it kicked off with the subprime mortgage loan imbroglio in the United States, and a lot has been written with varying degrees of accuracy and precision to explain how specific aspects of this crisis have come about. However, not so much has been published, and certainly never in the mass media, about how the current financial system’s need for exponential growth is the underlying cause of the speculative bubble and hence of the very crisis itself, in addition to being directly linked to the energy and food crises. Thus I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to discuss not the credit crisis but instead the background to it, which shows how the current financial system is an enormous fraud on ordinary working people while at the same time being a danger for the sustainability of life on our planet. This will bring us to an understanding of the role played by the banks as the main culprits for the whole situation.

The futuristic systems, like those used by Tom Cruise in the science fiction film Minority Report [see clips at the end of this article], are being developed by scientists for Barclaycard.

The company has announced it is investing a seven-figure sum in "contactless payment" technology.

This allows customers to use everyday items they carry around with them - such as mobile phones, key fobs or even their eyes or fingerprints - to make payments.

It means shoppers will no longer have to rely on cards.

Barclaycard, which is part of Barclays, has already introduced a new-style cash machine in the United Arab Emirates enabling people to use their fingerprints to withdraw money and shoppers in the UK may soon be able to use the same technology.

Antony Jenkins, chief executive of Barclaycard, said: "It's possible we'll see an end to plastic in the next five to 10 years with new technologies to take its place emerging now. It could turn out to be one of the shortest lived payment methods in history, going from being ubiquitous to a museum piece in the same way as the video cassette."

Barclaycard also aims to have one million customers upgraded to its contactless payment system OnePulse by the end of the year. OnePulse enables people to buy items for less than £10 by touching their card against a sensor, without even having to take it out of their wallet. It can also be used as an Oyster card on London transport.

Barclaycard said people may soon be able to hover their mobile over the price label of an item in a shop, confirm their purchase and take it away without having to go to a checkout or get a receipt.

Mr Jenkins said: "If I had said to you 10 years ago that you couldn't pay with a cheque at the supermarket, you wouldn't have believed me. That is now the reality, and we see plastic cards going the same way eventually."

Source: Environmental Working Group

A new study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reveals that 97% of Americans are contaminated with a widely-used sunscreen ingredient called oxybenzone that has been linked to allergies, hormone disruption, and cell damage.

A companion study published just one day earlier revealed that this chemical is linked to low birth weight in baby girls whose mothers are exposed during pregnancy. Oxybenzone is also a penetration enhancer, a chemical that helps other chemicals penetrate the skin.

Although oxybenzone is most common in sunscreen, companies also use the chemical in at least 567 other personal care products.

Environmental Working Group identified nearly 600 sunscreens sold in the U.S. that contain oxybenzone, including products by Hawaiian Tropic, Coppertone, and Banana Boat (see the full list of 588 sunscreens here) as well as 172 facial moisturizers, 111 lip balms, and 81 different types of lipstick.

The Food and Drug Administration has failed miserably in its duty to protect the public from toxic chemicals like oxybenzone in personal care products. At the request of industry lobbyists, including Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who represented the Cosmetic Toiletry and Fragrance Association, the agency has delayed final sunscreen safety standards for nearly 30 years. FDA issued a new draft of the standards last October under pressure from EWG, but continues to delay finalizing them at the behest of the regulated industry.

EWG research shows that 84% of 910 name-brand sunscreen products offer inadequate protection from the sun, or contain ingredients, like oxybenzone, with significant safety concerns.

Source: Field Guide To The U.S Economy

1. You’ve Been Psychologically Conditioned To Want a Diamond. The diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.
2. Diamonds are Priced Well Above Their Value. The De Beers cartel has systematically held diamond prices at levels far greater than their abundance would generate under anything even remotely resembling perfect competition. All diamonds not already under its control are bought by the cartel, and then the De Beers cartel carefully managed world diamond supply in order to keep prices steadily high.
3. Diamonds Have No Resale or Investment Value. Any diamond that you buy or receive will indeed be yours forever: De Beers’ advertising deliberately brain-washed women not to sell; the steady price is a tool to prevent speculation in diamonds; and no dealer will buy a diamond from you. You can only sell it at a diamond purchasing center or a pawn shop where you will receive a tiny fraction of its original “value.”
4. Diamond Miners are Disproportionately Exposed to HIV/AIDS. Many diamond mining camps enforce all-male, no-family rules. Men contract HIV/AIDS from camp sex-workers, while women married to miners have no access to employment, no income outside of their husbands and no bargaining power for negotiating safe sex, and thus are at extremely high risk of contracting HIV.
5. Open-Pit Diamond Mines Pose Environmental Threats. Diamond mines are open pits where salts, heavy minerals, organisms, oil, and chemicals from mining equipment freely leach into ground-water, endangering people in nearby mining camps and villages, as well as downstream plants and animals.

CBS has purchased Last.fm, a social-networking site devoted to music. What it plans to do with the site, however, isn't clear yet. With the $280 million deal, announced Wednesday, CBS has acquired a popular social-media technology: the music "scrobbling" engine developed by Last.fm that analyzes what its members listen to. Based on scrobbling results, Last.fm offers recommendations for members' playlists, creates personalized radio stations, and connects members with people who share similar tastes.

The deal continues the seemingly never-ending streak of tech acquisitions that traditional media companies have been pursuing as a way to boost their digital offerings. For example, News Corp., which purchased MySpace.com in 2005, said Wednesday that its Fox Interactive Media division has agreed to acquire image-sharing site Photobucket and slide show creator Flektor.

"It's an aggressive move. Last.fm is a really good service," Jupiter Research analyst David Card said of the CBS purchase. "Everybody has a slightly different experience, but they do a great job of integrating community with music discovery."

by Michel Chossudovsky

Since the US led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the Golden Crescent opium trade has soared. According to the US media, this lucrative contraband is protected by Osama, the Taliban, not to mention, of course, the regional warlords, in defiance of the "international community".

The heroin business is said to be "filling the coffers of the Taliban". In the words of the US State Department:

"Opium is a source of literally billions of dollars to extremist and criminal groups... Cutting down the opium supply is central to establishing a secure and stable democracy, as well as winning the global war on terrorism," (Statement of Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles. Congressional Hearing, 1 April 2004)

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), opium production in Afghanistan in 2003 is estimated at 3,600 tons, with an estimated area under cultivation of the order of 80,000 hectares. (UNODC). An even larger bumper harvest is predicted for 2004. The State Department suggests that up to 120 000 hectares were under cultivation in 2004. (Congressional Hearing, op cit):

"We could be on a path for a significant surge. Some observers indicate perhaps as much as 50 percent to 100 percent growth in the 2004 crop over the already troubling figures from last year."(Ibid)