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Tuesday, April 22, 2014

China, polluted, from the ground up- the unwatered truth

Even China's Dirt Is Dirty - Bloomberg View: "Even the most choking of Beijing smogs eventually gives way to blue skies. The very impermanence of air pollution encourages optimism that it can be solved one day. The poisoning of China’s land and water is another matter altogether. Unlike smog, which can be seen the moment it leaves a smokestack, chemicals leaking from pipes into China’s soil and rivers may not be discovered for years or decades. By then, the damage may be incalculable and permanent.

Last week’s release of data collected during a nearly nine-year national soil survey finally gave Chinese a chance to evaluate the devastating toll that 30 years of rapid industrial development has had on them, their food supply, and their country. The numbers are astonishing. More than 16 percent of China’s 3.7 million square miles of soil is contaminated. Even worse, nearly a fifth of the country’s arable land is polluted. While the report doesn’t specify how badly, hints exist. In December, a senior Chinese official conceded that 2 percent of China’s arable land – an area the size of Belgium – had become too polluted to grow crops at all."



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Value of education? Giving up a car for a day to show 'support" for Earth Day? What a gas?

Techies take the bus trip to office - The Hindu: "A significant number of techies took the bus to office on Tuesday, preferring to shun their private vehicles and office cabs for a day, to mark World Earth Day.

As part of efforts to decrease their carbon footprint, the ITsAP (IT and Its Association of AP) had given a call to its three lakh employees to observe “All Bus Day” on the occasion. Buoyed by the response, the association members said they would plan similar initiatives in the near future.

“The idea is to encourage employees to travel by public transport. We received positive feedback from IT firm managements that many employees commuted by public transport today. As a result of which there were lesser private vehicles in their respective office parking lots,” said ITsAP secretary P. Bipin Chandra."



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Monday, April 21, 2014

Scottish independence: Set Scots free

Scottish independence campaign is gaining ground, polls show | Politics | theguardian.com: "With five months to go before the referendum that could lead to Scotland leaving the UK, the gap between the yes and no camps has narrowed, suggesting a two-point swing could be enough to secure independence on 18 September.

An ICM poll for the Scotland on Sunday newspaper shows support for independence is at 39%, while opposition has fallen four points to 42%.

Excluding people who have not yet made up their minds, the results put yes on 48% and no on 52%.

It is the highest level of support for independence since last August, leading the Yes Scotland campaign group to claim it is confident of securing the necessary two-point swing."



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Sunday, April 20, 2014

CEO Pay- Disclosure far from sufficient

Top CEOs Make 331 Times the Average Worker. Does Anyone Care? - Businessweek: "Chief executives of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index made an average $11.7 million last year. The average production and nonsupervisory worker: $35,239. That means CEOs are paid 331 times the average worker, according to a report released this week by the AFL-CIO, a federation of trade unions.

The difference may be shocking, especially in the face of a shrinking American middle class. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recently said it wants companies to disclose the CEO-worker pay ratio. But does such information make any difference?"



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Love animals, live life

Cruelty-free is the new cool - The Hindu: "Animal-friendly shopaholics around the world had another reason to rejoice last year, when New York-based fashion label Vaute Couture created history by becoming the first all-vegan label to show at the New York Fashion Week. The company’s founder, Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart, was hailed by the international media as a game-changer and rebel, who showed the fashion world that clothes and accessories can be both functional and flattering, minus the use of fur, silk, leather or wool.

Says Hilgart, who gave up a full scholarship MBA at DePaul University to follow her dream of making the world a kinder place for animals — “There were many wonderful vegan accessory labels in the market, but none that tackled apparel made from animal fibers. I dedicated my life savings to creating the first all-vegan winter dress coat, made of high-tech materials that make it windproof, snow-proof, and insulating.” Today, her label has an extensive line of casual and evening wear, a menswear line and a celebrity clientele that includes Angela Kinsey and Alicia Silverstone."



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Friday, April 18, 2014

Spirit- makes Ryan Air look positively sunny

Spirit Airlines' Passenger Complaints: Part of Its Business Model - Businessweek: "If you fly on Spirit Airlines (SAVE) and find the experience unpleasant, odds are your gripe rests not with the specific flight but with the company’s business model. The low-fare, high-fees model requires Spirit to eliminate every possible cost from its operation. The seats won’t recline, there’s no free water—it’s all part of the bargain.

But that doesn’t mean passengers won’t complain about it. Spirit draws roughly three times more complaints to federal transportation officials than any other airline. The rate was about 8 per 100,00 customers over the last five years, according to a report by a consumer group released last week. Spirit says the rate has declined to 5 per 100,000 in the past few months.

The much-maligned airline launched a promotion to “celebrate the 99.99 percent” who don’t lodge complaints with the feds, offering $24 discounts to all. “That’s right, over 99.99 percent of our customers did not file a complaint with the Department of Transportation in 2013,” Spirit declares in a press release. "



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E-waste: Wastes many a life

Toxic Business: India's Informal E-waste Recyclers at Risk: Dangerous Debris - Bloomberg: "As developed countries dump their e-waste in India, an informal industry of recyclers has emerged. In places such as Sangrampur, it's common to find women, young men and children picking away at piles of electronics, breaking them down into increasingly smaller pieces that are then separated and collected."



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Monday, April 14, 2014

If You Thought China's Air Was Bad, Try the Water - Bloomberg View

If You Thought China's Air Was Bad, Try the Water - Bloomberg View: "On Friday the government of Lanzhou, China, informed its 3.6 million residents that their drinking water would be carcinogenic for the next 24 hours. Benzene, a chemical used in plastics manufacture, was the immediate cause, but that wasn't even the most horrifying revelation to come from this crisis. Today, reports from state media revealed that the benzene had been released into the environment as a result of oil pipeline explosions -- in 1987 and 2002. The pipelines, owned by state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, were repaired at the time. Some 34 tons of contaminated soil, however, were left in place, the benzene allowed to migrate into an underground water duct that empties out via household faucets."



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Saturday, April 12, 2014

Why green milk bottle tops are not a green option | Environment | The Observer

Why green milk bottle tops are not a green option | Environment | The Observer: "High density polyethylene (HDPE) has replaced glass for milk bottles because it is much tougher and lighter than glass, which radically cuts the energy costs of transportation, while also being less prone to breakage. This is all good but there is more: because HDPE is a plastic it can be made into complex bottle shapes, yielding a hollow handle which is better for grip, and a thin pouring lip, which means less drip. The rectangular cross-section of HDPE milk bottles enables them to be stacked efficiently, allowing more milk to be put into a lorry or a fridge door, further increasing utility and their general pleasingness. In other words, the modern HDPE milk bottle is close to being a design classic. And it would be… but for the problem with the colour of its lid."



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Easter eggs: Sainsbury's to offer dedicated packaging recycling bins | Environment | theguardian.com

Easter eggs: Sainsbury's to offer dedicated packaging recycling bins | Environment | theguardian.com: "Sainsbury's is to become the first UK retailer to offer customers a dedicated recycling facility in store for all their Easter egg packaging, as part of its drive to cut the amount of household waste still going into landfill.

Customers will be able to recycle all elements of the discarded packaging – plastic, film, card, foil and ribbon – in the first such facility of its kind.

Free-standing compartmentalised bins are being trialled this Easter in 50 stores with a view to a national rollout next year. The rigid plastic typically used to protect Easter egg shells is often not accepted by local authorities for recycling."



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Tuesday, April 08, 2014

Freedom- not so easy for the Scots

Lord Robertson is trying to bully Scots into voting no in the referendum | Owen Jones | Comment is free | The Guardian: "But this is nothing compared with the establishment campaign. George Osborne's warning that an independent Scotland would be kicked out of the pound was swiftly backed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The polls showed that the Scottish people called his bluff – and an anonymous minister told the Guardian that "of course" the pound would be shared – but the net effect was to paint a picture of an out-of-touch Westminster elite closing ranks. A senior coalition source has even privately told one Scottish newspaper that a yes vote might not secure independence, which would be nothing short of a coup d'etat against the electorate.

Banks that have offered no public statement of regret for helping to plunge Britain into economic disaster are threatening to up sticks, including Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland. The Weir Group – a company fined for kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime – warns that independence would mean higher costs for business. Shell – a company complicit in Nigerian human rights violations – has joined the chorus, "



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Sunday, April 06, 2014

What is in 0.01%? 11.1% of national wealth!

Top Tenth of 1 Percenters Reaps All the Riches - Businessweek: "The message for strivers is that if you want to be very, very rich, start out very rich. The threshold for being in the top 0.1 percent of tax filers in 2012 was wealth of about $20 million. To be in the top 0.01 percent—that’s the 1 Percent club’s 1 Percent club—required net worth of $100 million. Of course, even $100 million is a pittance to Bill Gates, whose net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is nearly 800 times that.

STORY: The World’s 85 Richest Are Now Worth as Much as 3.5 Billion Poorest
Saez and Zucman’s figures are so new that there is no academic paper to accompany them. According to a presentation posted online, the conventional wisdom among economists has been that inequality in wealth has grown less than inequality in income. Attempts have been made to explain the supposed discrepancy: Maybe the working rich hadn’t had time to accumulate wealth, the theory goes, or maybe their income was going to high taxes or charity or low-yielding investments, “preventing them from accumulating large fortunes.”"



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Friday, April 04, 2014

GM Know-Nothing Chiefs Buck Post-Tylenol Crisis Standard - Bloomberg

GM Know-Nothing Chiefs Buck Post-Tylenol Crisis Standard - Bloomberg: "When the late Robert Pritzker ran Marmon Group LLC, his family’s conglomerate, he gave the managers of its major units his phone number.

“He said, ‘If anything happens to imperil life, you call me, and you tell them to find me wherever I am,’” said Jim Schrager, a professor of entrepreneurship and strategy at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, who worked at Marmon in the 1980s and dialed the number himself once, in the middle of the night."



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Other People's Money Never jingled so sweetly... Extraordinary Gross Compensation

Millions by millions, CEO pay goes up: "When it comes to executive pay, 2013 could be one for the record books, with 15 CEOs and other key members of publicly held companies gaining membership into the $100 million-plus compensation club, likely the most since before the 2008 financial crisis."



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Thursday, April 03, 2014

Mary Barra Knows Nothing About Anything - Bloomberg View

Mary Barra Knows Nothing About Anything - Bloomberg View: "Although representatives from both houses showed deep frustration at Barra's "name, rank and serial number" approach to their questions, the hearings clearly yielded important evidence ... most notably that of Barra's reticence itself. Her experience within GM, her credentials as a "car gal," were heavily emphasized by GM's public-relations experts in the months leading up to the recall announcement. Now, just when her deep knowledge of GM might have been a huge asset, she acted as if she wore blinders for the last 30 years. Considering Barra is just the latest in a long line of GM CEOs who have noisily touted their "turnarounds" of the automaker, this was not a reassuring development."

But Barra's lack of answers was not entirely surprising. Within the broader cultural issues surrounding GM's approach to consumer safety and accountability lie two very specific quality control problems that fundamentally undercut her ability to reassure customers. First, GM took delivery of a part that was not up to its specifications, and second, changes to that part were not accompanied by changes to the part number. Between these two fundamental breaches of basic quality management, it's not clear how GM can reliably assure anyone of anything. The fact that Barra couldn't answer congressional questions is every bit as terrifying to consumers as if she had pleaded the Fifth Amendment.



Barra's defense has been twofold: That the ignition switch situation is "extraordinary"; and that it was the product of the Old GM's "cost-culture." The ignition problem may indeed prove to be "extraordinary," but Barra can hardly know that with any certainty, given that she doesn't seem to know how basic quality control was circumvented in the ignition switch case. For all she (or anyone else) knows, there could be many more of these problems lurking in the vastness of GM. Insisting she knows for a certainty that the ignition defect was "extraordinary" does not help her credibility...


Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Fruitful veggies

How many portions of fruit and vegetables are we eating? | News | theguardian.com: "The study found that people who ate seven or more portions of fruit or vegetables a day had a 33% reduced risk of death from any cause, a 25% reduced risk of death from cancer and a 31% reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease, compared with people who ate less than one portion per day (a portion is defined as 80 grams). Researchers adjusted their analysis for sex, age, cigarette smoking, social class, Body Mass Index, education, physical activity and alcohol intake

They also found that vegetables may lower risk more than fruit and that eating frozen or canned fruit was associated with an increased risk of death.

The five a day mantra, as the NHS explain in their Behind the Headline analysis, has always referred to the the minimum recommended level they advise. Or as they put it:

When it comes to fruit and vegetables, as long as you watch your calorie and sugar intake it is very much the case of “the more the merrier”"



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