GM: Too Big and Beyond Our Control

As every parent knows there are no shortcuts when it comes to gaining experience. Until he's cut the child does not know what it means to bleed-- no matter how many times his mother warns "be careful or you'll fall." It seems that each age begets its own reckless spawn in a rush to repeat the same old tragedies. So at what point can it be said that a society should be expected to possess some maturity-- proof that the people have finally learned from those earlier mistakes? Somehow, even as humanity can see the path to its extinction, the wheels of short-term interest are still not braked by hard-earned wisdom.

Unless you are a child it should be clear that the fox cannot be trusted to guard the hen-house. Yet despite the demonstrable benefits conferred by our ability to regulate and therefore prevent harmful corporate actions... usually by the time the public intercedes, the damage has already been done. Worse now that, thanks to the "Reagan Revolution", large swathes of the judiciary are hostile to the very concept of public protection. And yet the stakes have never been higher.

Bypassing Anti-Trust Laws

Between the early '80's and the mid-'90's almost two American banks disappeared through mergers every single day. [see: THE BANK MERGER WAVE by Gary Dymski] In all some roughly 7,500 mergers represented a concentration of nearly $2 trillion in assets. Until then government regulation was enforced to insure stability in the financial sector. Granted the original impetus was to better integrate the banking networks and benefit consumers, but as happens when the foxes are left to their secret designs, the largest banks began eating their competitors. That consumption as easily predicted by a ten-year old child led to banks too big to function but too large to fail-- The result? Chronic constipation and a worldwide recession.

Commercial banking and other functions had been kept separate for what seemed very good reasons at the time. Capital allocation authority, which is the essence of a bank or near-bank's function, was seen to be very dangerous when it becomes too centralized and there are not enough alternative sources for companies to turn to for capital. Separation was also relevant because the failure of a megabank in multiple financial areas would have huge ripple effects throughout the economy.-- The Multinational Monitor

Laissez-faire: Poison the Weak and Starve the Poor

Banking was not the only industry that rushed to get in on this "Lax New Deal". Between 1995 and 1998, Monsanto, which until then had been a chemical giant most closely associated with the toxic scourge called Agent Orange, spent over $8 billion gobbling up large seed companies, sometimes for over 30 times market value. In 1998 Monsanto acquired Cargill's international seed operations in Central and Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Joining the merger binge were Norvatis and Dupont who now dominate the seed, pesticide, food and pharmaceutical industries. (All of which, you have noticed are petroleum based)

Despite its abysmal environmental record [A Washington Post article (Jan 1, 2002) stated "Monsanto Hid Decades Of Pollution PCBs Drenched Ala. Town, But No One Was Ever Told" a grim story of Monsanto's treacherous behavior in Anniston Alabama was revealed. "They also know that for nearly 40 years, while producing the now-banned industrial coolants known as PCBs at a local factory, Monsanto Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of pages of Monsanto documents -- many emblazoned with warnings such as "CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy" -- show that for decades, the corporate giant concealed what it did and what it knew." [3] ] Monsanto wants to be perceived as a friend of the earth. Met with skepticism by foreign governments the company finds it helps to grease the right palms. Unfortunately, it appears that in Indonesia, at least, it did not bribe enough of the right ones and ended up being fined $1.5 million for bribing a ministry official to forgo the routine environmental tests on its genetically engineered cotton.

One would think that if, as Monsanto and the giant chemical interests claim, their bio-techniques are both safe and beneficial-- "an innovative bulwark against poverty and hunger"-- that they would not need to resort to handing out bribes to avoid basic testing. But as we know from the gleeful development of Monsanto's notorious "terminator seed" and their aggressive pursuit of small farmers who have unwittingly been caught with their patented GM seeds it's all about maximizing profit. Unfortunately, thanks to U.S. backed institutions like the World Bank and the WTO, the public has been left with virtually no say in what it is expected to consume. Even the Europeans who are most wary about GM crops are finding it increasingly difficult to monitor their own markets.

The ETC Group, an international advocacy organization based in Canada, has been monitoring corporate power for the past 30 years. Their latest report reveals that:

• From thousands of seed companies and public breeding institutions three decades ago, 10 companies now control more than two-thirds of global proprietary seed sales
• From dozens of pesticide companies three decades ago, 10 now control almost 90% of agrochemical sales worldwide
• From almost 1,000 biotech start-ups 15 years ago, 10 companies now account for three-quarters of industry revenues
• The top 10 pharmaceutical companies control 55% of the global drug market

Will History Repeat-- This Time as Farce?

Poor farmers who depend on reusing their seeds are facing extinction thanks to Monsanto's unethical avarice. For those who believe that progress is the inevitable offspring of primed productivity let us recall the circumstances before the last Great Depression.

There was a huge imbalance of income distribution. This concentration of wealth at the top crippled domestic demand despite resulting in increased productivity. US productivity rose by 43% between 1919 and 1929. Share prices rose but wages stagnated.(The effect was enhanced by generous tax breaks for the upper class. Domestic demand first increased by the consumption of luxury goods while GDP growth consisted solely of investment in the investment goods industry which in the 20’s still grew annually by some 6.5%.) Investment in the capital goods sector was insufficient thus increased unemployment.

But what may have sped the crash the most were the swindles and bluffs done by the holding companies and investment trusts that orchestrated a firestorm of mergers and hostile takeovers. Finally the mega corporation was free to dominate the markets.

What a grade school child by now has surely learned-- is that what is good for GM is not always good for America-- much less the entire world.