Is Mr Squiggles Too Toxic For Junior?

The ad below, running all over American TV right now, is an attempt to convince American consumers that it's just groovy that much of what they buy is made in China because "when it says 'Made in China' it really means 'Made in China-- Made With The World.'" Feel better now?

Here's another short video clip-- about unsafe robotic kids' pets-- Zhu Zhu pets, made in China-- killing the world. Yesterday the Christian Science Monitor reported that the latest Made in China scandal isn't about poisoned pet food killing Fido, but about toy hamsters that could potentially harm children. Too much toxic metal in the wildly popular Christmas toys. (They "don't poop die or stink." Wal-Mart, of course, couldn't care less if they make thousands of children seriously ill.)

The company that manufactures Zhu Zhu pets, Cepia LLC, reacted strongly to the news, maintaining that there is nothing wrong with its motorized hamsters.

“We are disputing the findings of Good Guide and we are 100 percent confident that Mr. Squiggles, and all other Zhu Zhu Toys, are safe and compliant with all U.S. and European standards for consumer health and safety in toys,” said Russ Hornsby, CEO of Cepia LLC, the company that makes Zhu Zhu pets, in a press release.

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 limits antimony to no more than 60 parts per million. Good Guide says it found 93 ppm in Mr. Squiggles’ fur and 103 in its nose.

Tests in animals have attributed a series of ailments large-scale consumption of antimony, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease says. Yet the DHHS also says it does not “know what other health effects would occur to people who swallow antimony.”

Has Wal-Mart Really Changed Sides In The Health Care Reform Battle? Will They Crack The Whip On Blanche Lincoln?

In this morning's L.A. Times David Lazarus confides confusion that one of the country's most politically reactionary corporations, Wal-Mart, is taking a pro-health care reform stance. "It's not clear what the retailer's motives may be," he writes, "nor does it truly matter. Wal-Mart is to be commended for taking a stand-- something far too many businesses have been reluctant to do." Wal-Mart is also one of the country's most hated corporations. They sell cheap slave-labor products, primarily from China, putting American workers out of work, depressing the wage base here, devastating normal American retailers and acting as a de facto monopolistic price-fixer across the American economy. (They're also trying to force their own standards on popular culture, something well illustrated currently by their mud-wrestling match with Green Day.) And they force their poorly paid workers to get health care from strapped government entities. Every time they want to open a new store in an area where the inhabitants haven't had their brains rotted out from environmental catastrophe, Wal-Mart winds up in a legal battle with the residents who don't want them around.

Do you think Mr. Lazarus is confused about Wal-Mart's motivations because he doesn't know any of this? Or maybe he just doesn't care. "Whatever the company's motive, retail behemoth Wal-Mart Stores Inc. made healthcare reform significantly more likely last week by throwing its weight behind a requirement that all employers provide health coverage."

Did they? Wal-Mart can influence a great many senators, particularly Republicans. The Walton family and the Wal-Mart PAC contribute a great deal of money, almost all of it to corrupt right-wing legislators. So far this election cycle the PAC has donated to 8 senators-- Evan Bayh (D-IN), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Robert Bennett (R-UT), Richard Burr (R-NC), Jim DeMint (R-SC), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Arlen Specter (R-D- PA), and John Thune (R-SD)-- all of whom oppose health care reform. They also own two senators out-right, both nominal Democrats, albeit right-wing anti-family Democrats, Arkansas corporate shills Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln... yes that Blanche Lincoln, widely referred to Inside-the-Beltway as the Senator from Wal-Mart. She's never opposed them on anything... not ever. Neither has Pryor. When it actually looked like Obama and the Democratic majority could pass Employee Free Choice, Wal-Mart persuaded Lincoln to serve notice-- publicly-- that she would reverse her previous position (on the identical bill-- although one Wal-Mart didn't care about knowing Bush could always veto it if worse came to worst). She declared she was not only against Employee Free Choice this year but that she would join the Republican Party filibuster to prevent it coming to a vote.

Anticipating Wal-Mart's opposition to health care reform, she jumped out in front of the parade and declared she opposes the public option. If Wal-Mart really supports health care reform, all they have to do is tug her leash-- and Pryor's-- and that's two "no" votes that become "yes" votes in an instant.

This is Wal-Mart, right? The same company that's drawn fire from unions and municipalities for not providing sufficient coverage to its own 1.4 million U.S. workers?

The same company that just a few years ago was fighting aggressively against similar proposals at the state level?

"Wal-Mart has been working hard to improve its image on healthcare," said Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a Washington think tank. "They've moved from being a bad guy to a good guy."

That was the consensus among various healthcare experts I spoke with. While none could say for sure what Wal-Mart's motive may be, there was general agreement that whatever the company is up to, its contribution to the reform debate is a positive one.

"This blows a hole in business opposition to reform efforts," said Judy Feder, a Georgetown University public policy professor who also serves as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress... Many healthcare activists are reluctant to go on the record criticizing Wal-Mart for fear they'll discourage the company from continuing down the reform path. But privately, they say it's possible Wal-Mart is backing mandates as a way to head off more onerous legislation.

Specifically, the company may be trying to put the kibosh on a "free-rider provision" that would require employers to contribute to individual policies or government programs like Medicaid if workers have no other recourse for coverage.

About 52% of Wal-Mart employees are insured through the company, up from roughly 46% several years ago. The rest have to look elsewhere for coverage.

Often, coverage ends up being provided by taxpayers. As the nation's largest employer, Wal-Mart would perhaps have the most to lose from a free-rider provision.

The Asheville Citizen Times may not reach as many readers as the L.A. Times but they probably reach as many Wal-Mart shoppers. That paper claimed today that Wal-Mart's move into Obama's camp "represents a seismic shift" and a "game-changer" and they quote Wal-Mart's CEO, Mike Drew, at length:

“During the debate, we must keep our eyes trained on one clear imperative: reforming health care is necessary not just to improve the health of all Americans, but also to remove the burden that is crushing America’s businesses and hampering our competitiveness in the global economy. ... From a business perspective, health reform could not be more critical. … We are for an employer mandate which is fair and broad in its coverage, but any alternative to an employer mandate should not create barriers to hiring entry level-employees. …With smart, targeted policies, we can create a financially-viable health care system that enables workers to change jobs without losing their care, and allows businesses to become more nimble.”

The company says it's "open" about the public option and that it will have a statement to make "at some point." Until that point, unless Senator Lincoln makes up her own mind, the Campaign For Health Care Choice will continue informing Arkansas voters that Blanche Lincoln works for big corporate CEOs and not for them and their families. If you'd like to help us keep the pressure on Lincoln-- and other members of the American House of Lords-- please consider a donation at Blue America.

Rich People Can Still Act Like Human Beings-- They Just Have To Work Harder At It

I don't get out much anymore but the other day I was on my way somewhere and I realized that the big Virgin Records superstore was gone. I mean, the building was still there but it's empty. I was shocked. Tower Records, once the center of Hollywood's thriving record buying community, just down the street, had already closed. I figured Virgin would positively thrive by picking up the extra business. Apparently there wasn't any extra business. So no Tower and no Virgin. There's a huge independent store in the area, Amoeba which always seems to be pretty crowded and lively. Somehow it makes me feel more secure that music is being bought and sold in the area.

I used to be in the record business. I ran a small indie label and eventually I ran a large corporate record company that was part of TimeWarner. I saw a lot of things change in that time and a book review in the L.A. Times last week-- of Steve Knopper's Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age reminded me that I'm always running my mouth about those changes. The review quotes Knopper and I talking about CD sales and how the "need" for consumers to re-buy their entire music collections kept the record industry rolling in cash. I haven't seen the book itself yet but I'm certain we also talked about some of the other changes that conspired to help the industry spin itself into oblivion.

Two were the conscious decisions by-- at least in the case of Warner Bros-- the same people who fought against the migration from vinyl to CD (and before that had declared cassettes a non-starter), to fight against online distribution and also to embrace the big box stores completely. The former I addressed, rather ungraciously, in a post I did a couple years ago for HuffPo. But it's the latter I want to bring up today-- the way the record companies gradually gave up on their customers (record stores) and started down the road to self-destruction by embracing the WalMarts of the world.

For WalMart and similar outfits, music sales were always a loss-leader-- something cheap they could lure people into their stores with so they could get them to buy a washing machine or some poisonous crap made via slave labor in China. That's where the money always was-- and still is-- for WalMart. I knew at once that dealing with them was the death knell for the record business. They were so big we allowed them, basically, to set their own prices and conditions. Inevitably that led to the demise of independent and then chain record outlets. And the record companies have pretty much followed them down the toilet. If ever an industry just made every single wrong decision to annihilate itself, it has been the record business.

Yesterday the new Bruce Springsteen CD, Working On A Dream, arrived in the mail. It's still in it's shrink-rap, unopened, unheard. But it's the Boss and he's playing the Super Bowl tomorrow. Yeah... so? I've liked the 60 year old rocker for a long time, although I was a fan of punk rock in the 70s when he started building his career nationally and didn't get too emotionally involved with Springsteen's quite likable music. Eventually I made up for lost time, especially after I realized how progressive he was politically. Lisa Derrick's must read post at Firedoglake may give more music fans than just me cause to pause. Springsteen has fallen into the worst trap a progressive musician can ever fall into retailwise: he's given an exclusive to WalMart The Destroyer. After being called out on it, he kinda/sorta now says it was a mistake and then kinda/sorta tries to push the blame onto his "team" (i.e., the greedy manager). It doesn't fly for Lisa and it doesn't fly for me. WalMart should send up red flags for anyone, like Springsteen, who cares about American working families, for unions, for America in general.

Is Springsteen so rich that he's completely lost touch with his roots? I don't want to think so. I don't think its inevitable that rich people turn into scumbags. Many do and it takes work to not. That's why Springsteen's lame excuses ring so hollow and so sad.

"We were in the middle of doing a lot of things, it kind of came down and, really, we didn't vet it the way we usually do. We just dropped the ball on it.. given its [Wal-Mart's] labor history, it was something that if we'd thought about it a little longer, we'd have done something different. It was a mistake. Our batting average is usually very good, but we missed that one. Fans will call you on that stuff, as it should be."

That's WalMart, the Evil Empire within, which spends its profits aggressively and viciously trying to destroy the American labor movement. Springsteen's manager makes much worse excuses and you can see why Springsteen has to work so hard to not fall into the trap many rich people fall into-- hanging out with scumbags and becoming just like them.

This week the Center For Progressive Politics released a survey of wealth among members of Congress. The easiest conclusion: there is no way on God's earth this gaggle of fat cats and multimillionaires can be representing average Americans. The freshmen are even richer than the non-freshmen and most of them are millionaires, some of them many times over. No wonder so many of them don't sympathize with the plight of the average working families whose lives have been so disrupted by their policies. But when I dug down a little, I saw that some of the representatives who were the richest have also been the strongest champions for working families, like Alan Grayson (D-FL) and Jared Polis (D-CO) and that even poor members, like Tom Rooney (R-FL) can wind up as complete corporate shills with no interest at all in helping average Americans. I know Grayson well enough to know that he's a conscious and conscientious guy who will work hard to never let filthy lucre divert him from his goal. I use to think I knew Springsteen the same way.

The Parasite Class Caused The Current Economic Dislocations And They Have Every Intention Of Pointing The Way Down The Road

Today the NY Times has provided a redundant service to its readers by voicing, in an Op-Ed, suggestions for handling the economic downturn by one of its greed-obsessed authors. I say "redundant" because that is pretty much all one hears about the economic downturn-- the masters of the universe telling us how badly we've screwed up-- by following their lead without examining their always selfish motivations-- and what to do about it. Stephen Roach will, of course survive when all those who follow his advise are underwater; he's the Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia. He hasn't been arrested, indicted, charged with any crimes-- and in all likelihood he'll be getting a Christmas bonus this year equal to the annual wage of 10 people who, unlike himself, do actual work for a living.

Before Roach was promoted, he was Morgan Stanley's chief economist for 16 years-- and one of America's most famous bears, perennially warning about consumerism, the mainstay of the lifestyle of his parasitic class. After 9/11 Bush asked for no sacrifices from Americans, only that they go shopping. In the midst of the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression-- brought on, incidentally, by the exact same underlying Republican policies of unfettered greed and selfishness-- the slower-witted among us are being told that shopping is patriotic... and the way to bring back the economy. Oddly, no one ever suggests trials and firing squads for the "businessmen" and their bipartisan political enablers who raped and pillaged that economy.

When Roach says "it's game over for the American consumer," he wasn't referring to Jdimypai Damour, the 34 year old WalMart employee who was trampled to death-- doesn't that only happen in China or did that get globalized too?-- at 5am from a crowd of... super-patriots. No WalMart executive have been lynched, indicted, charged, arrested... or anything.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

I've been to almost 100 countries. When people ask me which one I liked least I always say Hong Kong and I always paint a nightmarish fantasy like the one above as the reason why. But I grew up within walking distance of the Valley Stream (Long Island) mall where the possible WalMart publicity stunt occurred. A WalMart executive, who could easily have worked for Josef Goebbels in another time and another place, was quoted saying "The safety and security of our customers and associates is our top priority." Arbeit Macht Frei!

He also said, "Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families at this difficult time." Well, then... let's move on; nothing out of the ordinary to see here. In fact, WalMart was encouraging customers to just keep on truckin' into the stores as rescue workers fought to save the man's life. The police finally forced the savage Republicans to shut it down. Again no WalMart executives were lynched, indicted, charged, arrested... or, as I said, anything. The top brass had no comment, being too busy working on a propaganda campaign to persuade workers how undemocratic and anti-working family labor unions are. Wall Street and WalMart are two sides of a coin that has proven ruinous and deadly for average Americans. Roach-- the multimillionaire economist-- foresees "rising unemployment, weakening incomes, falling home values, a declining stock market, record household debt and a horrific credit crunch." I guess he watches CNN too. He thinks this is unfortunate for us-- he's fine, thank-- but, basically, "a painful but necessary adjustment. Since the mid-1990s, vigorous growth in American consumption has consistently outstripped subpar gains in household income. This led to a steady decline in personal saving. As a share of disposable income, the personal saving rate fell from 5.7 percent in early 1995 to nearly zero from 2005 to 2007."

Inflation-adjusted personal consumption expenditures are on track for rare back-to-back quarterly declines in the second half of 2008 at a 3.5 percent average annual rate. There are only four other instances since 1950 when real consumer demand has fallen for two quarters in a row. This is the first occasion when declines in both quarters will have exceeded 3 percent. The current consumption plunge is without precedent in the modern era.

...In the days of frothy asset markets, American consumers had no compunction about squandering their savings and spending beyond their incomes. Appreciation of assets — equity portfolios and, especially, homes — was widely thought to be more than sufficient to make up the difference. But with most asset bubbles bursting, America’s 77 million baby boomers are suddenly facing a savings-short retirement.

Worse, millions of homeowners used their residences as collateral to take out home equity loans. According to Federal Reserve calculations, net equity extractions from United States homes rose from about 3 percent of disposable personal income in 2000 to nearly 9 percent in 2006. This newfound source of purchasing power was a key prop to the American consumption binge.

...In an era of open-ended house price appreciation and extremely cheap credit, few doubted the wisdom of borrowing against one’s home. But in today’s climate of falling home prices, frozen credit markets, mounting layoffs and weakening incomes, that approach has backfired. It should hardly be surprising that consumption has faltered so sharply.

Where, oh, where did Americans get these wildly irresponsible ideas? I'm sure Morgan Stanley-- a company I once sued for ripping me off, by the way-- never encouraged anyone to refinance and take equity out of their home for a Christmas splurge or a fancy vacation or a better car... or to put into a hedge fund. And because of all this borrowing against assets, "household debt hit a record 133 percent of disposable personal income by the end of 2007-- an enormous leap from average debt loads of 90 percent just a decade earlier." Yale and Harvard economist George W. Bush-- don't laugh; he has the degrees to prove it-- pretty much based 8 years of American government financial and economic policy on driving that number higher and higher-- even if he didn't have a clue he was doing that, a distinct possibility probability.

And needless to say, the parasite class has remedies for us... of course. "The United States needs a very different set of policies to cope with its post-bubble economy. It would be a serious mistake to enact tax cuts aimed at increasing already excessive consumption. Americans need to save. They don’t need another flat-screen TV made in China." And if you think that means just tax the rich-- or even confiscate their ill-gotten gains... well, then you're probably new to this blog. Roach sprinkles some very sensible mainstream ideas into his wealth preservation agenda.

The Obama administration needs to encourage the sort of saving that will put consumers on sounder financial footing and free up resources that could be directed at long overdue investments in transportation infrastructure, alternative energy, education, worker training and the like. This strategy would not only create jobs but would also cut America’s dependence on foreign saving and imports. That would help reduce the current account deficit and the heavy foreign borrowing such an imbalance entails.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel to come up with effective saving policies. The money has to come out of Americans’ paychecks. This can be either incentive driven-- expanded 401(k) and I.R.A. programs-- or mandatory, like increased Social Security contributions. As long as the economy stays in recession, any tax increases associated with mandatory saving initiatives should be off the table. (When times improve, however, that may be worth reconsidering.)

Fiscal policy must also be aimed at providing income support for newly unemployed middle-class workers-- particularly expanded unemployment insurance and retraining programs. A critical distinction must be made between providing assistance for the innocent victims of recession and misplaced policies aimed at perpetuating an unsustainable consumption binge.

Crises are the ultimate in painful learning experiences. The United States cannot afford to squander this opportunity. Runaway consumption must now give way to a renewal of saving and investment. That’s the best hope for economic recovery and for America’s longer-term economic prosperity.

Especially for Morgan Stanley... and the entire parasite class. Speaking of which...

Under fire for his role in the near-collapse of Citigroup Inc., Robert Rubin said its problems were due to the buckling financial system, not its own mistakes, and that his role was peripheral to the bank's main operations even though he was one of its highest-paid officials.

"Nobody was prepared for this," Mr. Rubin said in an interview. He cited former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as another example of someone whose reputation has been unfairly damaged by the crisis.

Not counting stock options, Rubin earned $115 million from Citi since 1999. Why do you think they gave him all that money?

Carol Shea-Porter Under Attack By Republican Front Organization, Freedom's Watch

Carol Shea-Porter is one of the few members of Congress who doesn't take special interests money and wind up in the pockets of industries whose only goal-- only goal-- is to get more of our money into their hands. This isn't a Republican or a Democratic position. It's a clean government position and it's one of the reasons we admire Carol so much. Remember, for every corrupt, bribe taking Republican in Congress, there's a corrupt, bribe-taking Democrat. You can put Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer up against any Republican if you want to find corruption taken to ghastly extremes. If you're wondering why Democrats aren't going on a jihad against Republicans who have filled up on Big Oil bribes and then voted for policies that are making it harder and harder for regular American families to fill up their tanks... well, granted 75% of the $220,438,183 Big Oil has given federal candidates since 1990 has gone to Republicans but let's not forget that even if Democrats haven't gotten pay-offs like Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX- $2,126,025), Phil Gramm (R-TX- $1,679,314), John Cornyn (R-TX- $1,313,825), John McCain (R-AZ- $1,259,645), Joe Barton (R-TX-$1,246,411), James Inhofe (R-OK- $1,076,573), Don Young (R-AK-$954,013), Tom DeLay (R-TX-$698,840), Steve Pearce (R-NM- $596,324), Mitch McConnell (R-KY- $649,011), Democratic Big Oil shills Mary Landrieu (D-LA- $612,244), Dan Boren (D-OK- $363,210) and Nick Lampson (D-TX- $174,942) have been happy to slurp up the leftovers and vote with the Republicans to give big oil billions of dollars in tax cuts. Whose side are they on?

I think you know whose side they're on. And it isn't ours. Even virulently anti-union Wal-Mart is now giving as much money to congressional Democrats as it is to congressional Republicans making it "more difficult for the company’s critics to demonize the corporate giant."

In an age where taking money is synonymous with doing someone’s bidding, more and more Democrats, including party leadership, are cashing Wal-Mart’s PAC checks. Apparently Wal-Mart is not the devil it once was.

Through June, Wal-Mart’s PAC had contributed to 86 House Democrats this cycle, amounting to just more than one-third of the Caucus. That’s more than the 77 House Democrats Wal-Mart supported in 2006 and the 62 that received PAC money in 2004.

Since 2004, Wal-Mart has given $27,500 to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.), $22,500 to House Majority Whip James Clyburn (S.C.), $12,000 to Chief Deputy Whip Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), and $20,500 to House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (N.Y.).

But you're not going to find Carol Shea-Porter on the lists of congressmembers who take special interests money and then vote for them instead of for her constituents. Her predecessor, Jeb Bradley, always did-- and now those same big special interests are back shoveling money into his campaign, trying to help him reclaim his old-- their old-- seat. Carol's voting record is clear as a bell; she votes in the interests of her constituents. Period. She doesn't have millions of dollars in corporate money hanging over her head as an incentive-- or a threat-- to vote for special deals for corporations.

The down side of that is that she is being targeted by Republican front organizations like Freedom's Watch, which is running tens of thousands of dollars in radio ads against her every week or so, distorting her positions and filling the airwaves with lies. As you know, I'm not the biggest DCCC cheerleader in the world but I applaud their efforts to set the record straight today for Carol by running this ad on New Hampshire radio:


 
If you can afford to help out, please donate to Carol's all grassroots re-election campaign on her Blue America page. We sent her to Congress to work for regular folks-- and that's what she's been doing. Let's keep her there.