YUM! Brands: KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell & Food Stamps for Unsafe Foods (g1a2d0064c1)

November 19, 2011 by

YUM! BRANDS: KFC, PIZZA HUT, TACO BELL & FOOD STAMPS FOR UNSAFE FOODS
Global Revolution 1: American Revolution 2: Day 64: Communication 1
IronBoltBruce’s Kleptocracy Chronicles for 19 Nov 2011 (g1a2d0064c1)
How many examples of greed and corruption must you see before you act?

Thanks to the American Frozen Food Institute and other corporate lobbies pouring on the payola, our bought and paid for puppet politicians in Washington have determined that a slice of pizza is a healthy vegetable if served to our kids at school, but not if served to our poor by a restaurant. And up until this week YUM! Brands – the global conglomerate that owns well-known junk food chains like KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell – was working hard to correct that contradiction. Not by eliminating the obvious insanity of classifying pizza as a vegetable, of course, but by lobbying to approve the use of EBT cards (a.k.a. “food stamps”) to make purchases at their restaurants. According to BusinessWeek.com:

“Yum [had] lobbied government officials in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Kentucky to allow its restaurants to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is administered by the states. The nearly five-decade-old program distributed a record $64.4 billion in the 2010 fiscal year. ‘Everybody wants to get a piece of that action,’ says Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition and public health. ‘Right now it’s going to grocery stores; restaurants think that’s not fair.’ [But health] advocates howled when they learned that fast-food giant Yum! Brands (YUM) wants to let low-income Americans use food stamps at its Taco Bell and KFC restaurants. Now the U.S. Agriculture Dept., which funds the food stamp program, has also voiced its opposition and is encouraging states not to give Yum a green light. ‘For us to be indifferent to the quality of the food is just a serious mistake,’ says Kevin Concannon, the Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services. ‘We should promote access to healthy foods.'”

http://tinyurl.com/6ugph2w

I’m sure Mr. Concannon meant to end that sentence with “…except when it comes to school lunches for our children”.

http://tinyurl.com/d4rcal9

Anyway… Regardless of whether you pay with food stamps or Federal Reserve notes, the food you buy at KFC, Pizza Hut or Taco Bell may (remotely) taste “Southern”, Italian or Mexican, but a portion of its ingredients – the exact amount being kept as secret as the Colonel’s recipe – may actually be Chinese and consequently unsafe by American standards:

“China has become an agricultural powerhouse and leading food exporter. Though supermarket labels may not always
indicate it, a growing portion of the American diet is now made in China. In 2009, 70 percent of the apple juice, 43
percent of the processed mushrooms, 22 percent of the frozen spinach and 78 percent of the tilapia Americans ate
came from China. Unfortunately, it’s not just China’s food that’s reaching American shores – it’s also China’s food safety problems. The shortcomings in China’s food safety system were highlighted when ingredients tainted with the chemical melamine entered the global food supply… [Melamine] contaminated Chinese dairy products, sickening 300,000 children and infants in China, six of whom died… The melamine scandal played out across the globe, ending up in the food supplies of corporate producers including Mars, Unilever, Heinz, Cadbury and YUM! Brands, Inc. (which owns Pizza Hut, Subway and other fast food chains).”

http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/DecadeofDangerousImports.pdf

I find no consolation in the likelihood that whatever YUM! is doing to “us”, they are also doing to “them”:

“Urban consumers in China are increasingly embracing American-style diets. Eating out is the fastest-growing segment
of Chinese consumer food spending. Much of this spending ends up at KFC, owned by Yum! Brands. KFC opens a new restaurant in China every 18 hours and purchases one quarter of all chicken thighs produced in China – literally
billions of pieces of meat. In 2010, Yum! Brands earned 36 percent of its profits from its 3,200 KFC and 500 Pizza Hut
restaurants in China – more than it made from the 19,000 KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and other company restaurants in
the United States. China now faces a new ‘era of obesity,’ mirroring U.S. overconsumption of fatty foods.”

http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/DecadeofDangerousImports.pdf

Occupy Australia! Bushbama trades unearned Nobel Peace Prize for Salesman-of-the-Year Trophy from U.S. Defense Contractors (g1a2d0063c1)

November 18, 2011 by

OCCUPY AUSTRALIA! BUSHBAMA TRADES UNEARNED NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR SALESMAN-OF-THE-YEAR TROPHY FROM U.S. DEFENSE CONTRACTORS
Global Revolution 1: American Revolution 2: Day 63: Communication 1
IronBoltBruce’s Kleptocracy Chronicles for 18 Nov 2011 (g1a2d0063c1)
How many examples of greed and corruption must you see before you act?

This week, while across America thousands of Veterans and other concerned Citizens protest the corporate takeover of our Republic and hundreds of those Patriots are beaten and arrested, our Kleptocracy-controlled puppet president Bushbama traded his unearned Nobel Peace Prize for a well-deserved Salesman-of-the-Year trophy from the Military Industrial Complex by sealing deals with our Australian and Pacific “allies” to establish or expand American military bases there to assure the continuing payment of trillions of borrowed dollars to war profiteers like GE, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Halliburton, KBR, Bechtel and the rest to defend us all from China – our primary source of production – should they ever choose to attack America – their primary source of consumption.

http://tinyurl.com/88yu539

“The United States announced plans Wednesday to establish a permanent military presence in Australia, part of a high-profile foreign policy shift toward Asia that is intended as a counterbalance to China’s growing power. Starting next summer, the U.S. will send 250 Marines to bases here for six-month tours, eventually rotating 2,500 troops through the country. President Obama announced the partnership at a news conference with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, describing it as a key step in his administration’s evolving emphasis on the Asia Pacific region as the U.S. winds down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

http://tinyurl.com/d8v3fl5

“China is apparently a little upset about this, probably because of the explicit reference to ‘counteracting China’s growing power.’ But let’s be realistic, here. Australia is 4,641 miles [actually less between nearest borders] from China. It’s only 2,600 miles from Northern Alaska to China. The US already has presences in Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines. There’s no reason in the world to station 250 Marines in Australia, and it’s beyond a joke to say that they have anything to do with containing China. This needless drive to place little army men around the globe like it’s a Risk board, regardless of the expense, only serves a purpose for the little megalomaniacs in the Pentagon who think we have to stretch our military might everywhere. For the rest of us, it just flushes our tax dollars down the drain.”

http://tinyurl.com/85q2vdb

“The transcontinental apathy to America’s takeover of Australia had dulled me to dreariness. Sycophantic talkback and commentary saluting the smooth transition of our country into a US territory made me wonder why I bothered leaving all those notes. Luckily a repeat broadcast of US President Obama’s Parliament House speech has risen me from the somnambulance of my fellow Cobbers. (NB for folks under 25, that’s what Aussies used to call our Buddies)… Having half a clue about some of the plans that have been in process for years to get America and Australia’s relationship to the point it is today… arr, stuffit, as the Yanks would say, call a spade a spade and spell it out. We just got Occupied! Maybe Cheney and Co wrote the script that Bush and Howard spoke from, but now Obama and Gillard reciting the lines I start to wonder again where the words these puppet-monarchs spruik truly originate… It would seem that the schemes of the Project For A New American Century are alive and well.”

http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/3216

FedEx Plundering and the Piecemeal Privatization of the U.S. Postal Service (g1a2d0062c1)

November 16, 2011 by

FEDEX PLUNDERING AND THE PIECEMEAL PRIVATIZATION OF THE U.S. POSTAL SERVICE
Global Revolution 1: American Revolution 2: Day 62: Communication 1
IronBoltBruce’s Kleptocracy Chronicles for 17 Nov 2011 (g1a2d0062c1)
How many examples of greed and corruption must you see before you act?

“FedEx Corp [formerly Federal Express] is the world’s top express delivery service, thanks in large part to its close relationship with members of Congress and the White House. For years, the company has been a major campaign contributor to both Democrats and Republicans and is famous for its unique lobbying tactics, including the fleet of private planes that it keeps on stand-by for lawmakers who need to jet off at a moment’s notice. In exchange, the company has gotten unparalleled access to debates over international trade, tax cuts and rules that govern the business practices of its one-time competitor, the United States Postal Service [USPS]. In 2001, FedEx cemented a groundbreaking deal with the USPS to deliver all of the post office’s overnight packages and express deliveries. In turn, FedEx was allowed to put its drop boxes in post offices around the country.”

http://tinyurl.com/6p8rq7t

Since 1989 FedEx has made over $20 million in campaign contributions to both Republicans (60%) and Democrats (40%), and since 1997 spent a staggering $80 million lobbying the Washington elite. In return they have been “awarded” over $11.8 billion in federal government defense, transportation and logistics contracts over the past decade, and they have seated at least 29 of their employees on key federal “advisory” committees at the Department of Transportation and elsewhere.

http://tinyurl.com/876lzy3

http://tinyurl.com/7mmdxn9

http://tinyurl.com/6nhhmjo

FedEx has also benefited greatly in recent years from a series of legislative and regulatory changes that might best be described as the systematic piecemeal privatization of the U.S. Postal Service, key among those changes being the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA) that required the Postal Service to prefund the health care benefits of future retirees – a burden no other government agency or private company bears – and contained other provisions that made it difficult if not impossible for the USPS to operate at optimum efficiency and effectively compete with companies like FedEx and the United Parcel Service (UPS). Those “other provisions” contributed far more to the $5.1 billion loss the USPS reported this week than did the impact of the Internet on first class mail volumes.

http://tinyurl.com/6qtyvzh

Also contributing greatly to USPS losses are the billions of dollars that – thanks to crony capitalism – they have been forced to pay to big-name federal contractors for transportation, technology and other outsourcing and support services that could be done in-house for much less money. FedEx ranks #1 on Top U.S. Postal Service Suppliers List, raking in over $1.3 billion in 2010 alone:

http://tinyurl.com/85v8l7g

Audits released by the USPS Office of the Inspector General published last year disclosed that millions of the dollars funneled to FedEx were unnecessary and wasteful, proving that their deal with FedEx was only a deal FOR FedEx. Here is a quote from of those audits:

“It was more effective and economical in some cases for the Capital Metro, Eastern, Great Lakes, and Northeast Areas to use ground transportation and domestic air carriers as well as to sort mail at Postal Service plants than to use FedEx to perform these functions. Because the areas used FedEx, the Postal Service incurred about $35.3 million in unnecessary costs. If these areas implement our recommended changes, we estimate the Postal Service could save $170.6 million over a 10-year period.”

http://tinyurl.com/7fwvhpy

On a combined basis, the OIG audits showed THE CONTRACT WITH FEDEX HAS SQUANDERED OVER $94 BILLION SO FAR, AND COULD WASTE ANOTHER $480 MILLION OR MORE if allowed to continue:

http://tinyurl.com/7jkajh4

The United States Postal Service cannot be expected to successfully compete with companies like FedEx when those companies are using political influence and payola to place undue financial burdens on the USPS, to force wasteful and unnecessary outsourcing, to mangle its business practices and to cripple its efficiency. To better understand what corporate greed and systematic kleptocracy have done to (take over) our mail service and how, these three references are must-reads:

The Strange Story of Postal Reform
http://tinyurl.com/6ufwdt3

How to Privatize the Post Office: Piece by Piece, Step by Step
http://tinyurl.com/7plyco6

Battle Over USPS Future Enters Critical Period
http://tinyurl.com/7o75v3j

IronBoltBruce

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."–Goethe

Tag Archives: fear

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: