But…but…it’s good for you in moderation of course.

If the specter of obesity and diabetes wasn’t enough to turn you off high- fructose corn syrup (HFCS), try this: New research suggests that the sweetener could be tainted with mercury, putting millions of children at risk for developmental problems.

In 2004, Renee Dufault, an environmental health researcher at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), stumbled upon an obscure Environmental Protection Agency report on chemical plants’ mercury emissions. Some chemical companies, she learned, make lye by pumping salt through large vats of mercury. Since lye is a key ingredient in making HFCS (it’s used to separate corn starch from the kernel), Dufault wondered if mercury might be getting into the ubiquitous sweetener that makes up 1 out of every 10 calories Americans eat.

Those silly corporatized agri-farmers!

The de facto downsizing of a workforce through layoffs, with the canned excuse of an economic downturn, and firing people for any reason is being done (Whole Foods appears to be doing this) right under our noses. This tactic also wields fear as a blunt instrument, clubbing an unsuspecting workforce over the head.

In some cases, under the guise of "recession" pressure, they may be waging a secret war against their own workers, using even the most innocuous transgressions of work-place rules as the trigger for firings—and so, of course, putting the fear of god into those who remain. In this way, company payrolls are not only being reduced by mass layoffs, but workers are being squeezed for ever greater productivity in return for lower wages, worse hours, and less benefits. The weapon of choice is the specter of unemployment, a kind of death by a thousand (or a million) cuts.

Companies stand to gain a lot these days from such small-scale but decisive actions. After all, they reap a double benefit. Not only do they pare down the size of their payroll, often without needing—as in Juanita’s case—to consent to unemployment compensation, but they also contribute to a climate of intensifying fear. Workers who remain on the job are now not only on edge about lay-offs or scaled-back hours, but also know that a late return from a bathroom or lunch break might mean being shown the door, becoming another member of the legions of unemployed—now at 12.5 million and rising fast.

Now its not just buyer beware its worker beware.

Since Ehrenreich in her post brought up this Prins piece in the latest issue of Mother Jones I thought I’d find it online. This timeline highlights some key occurrences throughout the decades on the way to the subprime mortgage meltdown.

Among some of the earlier occurrences that I found interesting and tragic were:

1978: Supreme Court’s Marquette decision gives banks the right to make loans in states other than where they are headquartered; lenders rush to places with the weakest consumer protections, e.g. Delaware and South Dakota.

1980: After interest rates rise 13 percentage points in 2 years, President Carter signs law further hollowing out Glass-Steagall. The measure-pushed through by Sen. Jake Garn (R-Utah), a former insurance executive-demolishes usury caps for mortgages and raises bar for prosecuting lenders.

April 2, 1987: Sen. John McCain meets with federal regulators to discuss investigation of Lincoln Savings and Loan. The thrift’s owner, Charles Keating, was the senator’s business partner and campaign contributor, and flew McCain around on his private jet.

Dec 9, 1988: Silverado S&L collapses, leaving $1.3 billion taxpayer liability; board members include Neil Bush, who engineered loans to friends in what federal Office of Thrift Supervision will call “multiple conflicts of interest.” Bush later tells Congress a few of his deals may have looked “a little fishy.”

Feb 6, 1989: President George H.W. Bush bails out S&L industry; among those helped is his son, Jeb, as government takes over most of a $5 million second mortgage on his Miami office building.

Then we hit 1998 where we see First Union (now Wachovia) acquiring The Money Store—a very large subprime lender—only to take a 2.8 billion write down in 2000. Conseco would file for bankruptcy in 2002 for doing something similar. Back in 1998 we saw Citicorp and Travelers merge with Sandy Weil launching a multi-million dollar campaign to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act. Eventually, I think the the Gramm-Leech-Billey Act which gutted Glass-Steagall was a major factor in getting us to where we are today. There’s a whole not more to this piece and it’s worth reading.

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