The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy (12 page)

“Opaqueness” is an understatement.

In November 2008, the worldwide financial information network Bloomberg filed suit against the Fed under the Freedom of Information Act after the central bank refused to disclose details concerning eleven Fed-created lending programs that paid out more than $2 trillion in U.S. taxpayer money. Not only did Fed officials decline to say who received this staggering amount of money, but they also would not detail what assets the Fed had accepted as collateral. Bloomberg LP, majority owned by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, sued on behalf of its Bloomberg News unit.

The Fed responded to Bloomberg by reiterating its non-government standing and claiming that, although it had found 231 pages of records on the transactions, it was allowed to withhold such information as trade secrets and commercial information. Fed officials further argued the United States is facing “an unprecedented crisis” in which “loss in confidence in and between financial institutions can occur with lightning speed and devastating effects.”

The Bloomberg FOIA suit had argued that knowing what collateral was received in exchange for public money is “central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression.” However, in an e-mail response to Bloomberg News, Jennifer J. Johnson, secretary for the Fed’s board of governors, wrote, “In its considered judgment and in view of current circumstances, it would be a dangerous step to release this otherwise confidential information.”

Various Internet wags have suggested the “don’t delay us with questions or the whole economy will collapse” tactic has been used all too frequently to stall or prevent public scrutiny of financial wrongdoing. “If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that’s what they don’t want us to know,” explained Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York’s global private investment house ICP Capital LLC.

In late August 2009, Manhattan chief U.S. district judge Loretta Preska rejected the Fed’s argument of confidentiality and ordered the central bank to disclose details of the emergency loans. New Jersey Republican representative Scott Garrett wrote that Preska’s decision was “strikingly good news…. This is what the American people have been asking for.” But, because Judge Preska’s decision is expected to be appealed by the Fed, there is now more reason for the central bank to be audited. Perhaps the reason more Americans are not upset by the financial improprieties today has something to do with what they ingest.

DEBILITATING FOOD AND WATER

I
T IS BOTH PARADOXICAL
and tremendously ironic that the American public has more unlimited access to healthy food than any population in human history (long after World War II, a banana was considered a costly delicacy in England), yet Americans are on average unhealthy, obese, and overmedicated.

Many nutritionists believe the problem lies not only with the quantity of food consumed but the quality as well.

BAD FOOD AND SMART CHOICES

B
Y
2010,
THE FOOD
industry tried to bolster its responsibility with a new front-of-pack nutrition labeling program called Smart Choices. According to the food industry, the program was designed so that “shoppers [could] make smarter food and beverage choices within product categories in every supermarket aisle.” The Smart Choices website said the program was “motivated by the need for a single, trusted and reliable front-of-pack nutrition labeling program that U.S. food manufacturers and retailers could voluntarily adopt to help guide consumers in making smarter food and beverage choices.”

According to the program’s website, “To qualify for the Smart Choices Program, a product must meet a comprehensive set of nutrition criteria based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and other sources of nutrition science and authoritative dietary guidance. The Smart Choices Program covers food and beverages in 19 distinct product categories, including cereals, meats, fruits, vegetables, dairy, and snacks, allowing shoppers to compare similar products,”

Critics, such as syndicated columnist and former Texas agricultural commissioner Jim Hightower, claim the program is nothing less than an industry scam, created and paid for by such outfits as Coca-Cola, ConAgra, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Kraft, and PepsiCo.

“Under this handy consumer program, hundreds of approved food products in your supermarket are getting a bold, green checkmark printed right on the front of the package, along with the reassuring phrase, ‘Smart Choices.’ No need to read those tedious lists of ingredients on the back, for the simple green check mark is henceforth your guarantee of nutritional yumminess. For example, you’ll find it on such items as Froot Loops and Fudgesicle bars,” groused Hightower. “But even by industry standards, this is goofy. I mean—come on, Froot Loops? A serving of this stuff is 41 percent sugar. That’s a heavier dose than if you fed cookies to your kids for breakfast. Wow, talk about setting a low bar for nutritional quality! Indeed, food manufacturers can slap a Smart Choice label on a product just by adding some vitamin C to it, even if the product also contains caffeine, saccharine, and chemical additives known to cause cancer and other diseases. That’s not smart, it’s stupid—and deceptive.”

Deceptive, or just shrewd business? And do others do better or worse for eating nonnutritious food? A recent issue of the journal
Cancer Causes & Control
reported that a 1996–2003 study of Ohio’s Amish community showed significantly lower incidences of cancer. The Amish, known for their horse-drawn wagons and simple diets, are far healthier than the rest of the American population.

An inadequate diet diminishes the ability of the body to fight disease and leads to lingering illness and even death. This plays well into the globalists’ scheme to reduce the human population, as shall be seen. And they control the corporate food industry along with the mass media.

FALSE CLAIMS AND RECALLS

S
OMETIMES EVEN A MANUFACTURER’S
standard marketing presentation leads to legal action. In early 2009, the Coca-Cola Company was notified of a class action lawsuit filed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) that claimed the company made deceptive and unsubstantiated claims on its VitaminWater line of beverages. “Coke markets VitaminWater as a healthful alternative to soda by labeling its several flavors with such health buzz words as ‘defense,’ ‘rescue,’ ‘energy,’ and ‘endurance,’” stated a CSPI news release, which pointed out that the company makes a wide range of dramatic claims, including that its drinks variously reduce the risk of chronic disease, reduce the risk of eye disease, promote healthy joints, and support optimal immune function. However, CSPI nutritionists claim the 33 grams of sugar in each bottle of VitaminWater do more to promote obesity, diabetes, and other health problems than the vitamins in the drinks do to perform the advertised benefits listed on the bottles.

CSPI also criticized MillerCoors, in the wake of a previous settlement with competitor Anheuser-Busch, over advertising for new beverages directed toward the youth market. CSPI described MillerCoors’s Sparks as “an alcoholic energy drink that contained stimulant additives that are not approved for use in alcoholic drinks, including caffeine, taurine, ginseng, and guarana.” Often called “alcospeed,” Sparks contains more alcohol than beer, according to CSPI, which added, “No studies support the safety of consuming those stimulants and alcohol together, but new research does indicate young consumers of these type of drinks are more likely to binge drink, become injured, ride with an intoxicated driver, or be taken advantage of sexually than drinkers of conventional alcoholic drinks.” Following a settlement with thirteen state attorneys general, MillerCoors agreed to remove stimulants from Sparks.

Many people still feel that the food they prepare from a supermarket or local grocery must be safe. After all, doesn’t the federal government assure it’s safe?

In 1993, more than five hundred people were sickened and four died in the Northwest from
E. coli
0157:H7, then termed “hamburger disease” because it was found in undercooked beef. This particular pathogen, however, was found in other foods, including salami, lettuce, apple cider, and even raw milk, and it, as well as similar infectious bacteria, can survive and even multiply at refrigerator temperatures. A public outcry resulted, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issuing its “Pathogen Reduction: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points” (HACCP) rules in 1996. Under these regulations, the food industry was given the responsibility of ensuring the safety of its products. The government only had to verify this was being done.

In 2008–2009, a wide variety of food items were recalled for potential
Salmonella
contamination. These recalls included everything from snacks, cakes, candies, seafood, and dips to vegetables, fruits, eggs, meats, infant formula, and mouth rinse. An extensive listing of recalled products is available at http://www.recalls.org/food.html.

Eating on the run may help explain the rise in both cases and concern over tainted or unsafe food. In the United States, two out of three people ate their main meal away from home at least once a week in 1998. According to a 1997 study entitled “Impact of Changing Consumer Lifestyles on the Emergence/Reemergence of Food-borne Pathogens,” a typical consumer more than eight years old ate food away from home at least four times per week. It also reported that half of each food dollar spent by Americans went to food prepared outside the home.

The nation’s growing dependence on prepared food means that by the time consumers eat the food, it has been transported numerous times, cooked and cooled, and touched by many different people. Each step in processing could increase the risk of pathogens.

Although food once was grown and distributed locally in America, today large corporations produce food in centralized facilities and ship nationally and internationally, which means that a processing mistake will be felt nationwide or all over the world instead of just locally. Improper holding temperatures, inadequate cooking, contaminated equipment, food from unsafe sources, and poor personal hygiene by packagers can all lead to foodborne illnesses. According to Answers.com, in 1998 Sara Lee recalled thirty-five million pounds of hot dogs and lunch meat due to the presence of
Listeria.
“This is food contamination on a scale unprecedented a generation ago,” stated the site. It’s enough to make even a glutton think twice about the food he or she eats.

GROWING HORMONES

R
ECENTLY, GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD
crops using growth hormones have come under increasing scrutiny for causing health irregularities. Monsanto first synthesized the hormone in large quantities in 1994 utilizing recombinant DNA technology. Cattle now are routinely given growth hormones to make them gain weight faster, thus reducing both the time and feed required prior to slaughtering. Regulation of these hormones is not possible because it is impossible to tell the difference between the added hormones and those made by the animal’s own body.

Since the introduction of artificial growth hormones several reports have shown that boys are growing pubic hair and girls are developing breasts at younger ages than in the past. According to the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, studies in the United States have shown an earlier onset of puberty in recent decades and there is evidence that the onset of puberty is changing, possibly related to environmental exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals that mimic estrogen in the body. It is hormone signals from the brain that trigger the onset of puberty.

Some experts argue that such premature puberty is merely the result of cosmetics and the desire for kids to emulate favorite celebrities. However, this does not explain why premature puberty has been noted in the United States and not in Europe, according to a May 2009 study cited in the
New York Times,
which added, “This discrepancy has led to speculation that the changes observed in the United States may really be due to differences in data collection methods among large-scale studies and changing ethnic demographics in that country.” But such rationalization fails to mention growth hormones. Has the use of growth hormones in beef and milk-producing cattle escaped the consideration of these researchers? If the hormones will increase growth in the cows, it surely must promote accelerated growth in humans.

In a recent report based on a fifteen-year study of young girls in Denmark, researchers determined that the average age of breast development has begun a full year earlier compared with girls studied in the early 1990s. This may mean that as the use of growth hormones spreads, so does the accelerating maturation of youngsters.