From Banks to Bread – Deregulation is The Seed of Destruction
By Mike Callicrate
Our economy is reeling from the failures of government to properly regulate business and enforce anti-trust laws. The liars, cheaters and thieves who have already made a killing are poised to make off with even more by way of a federal “rescue plan.”
For many years we have been told that Wall Street is “The Economy,” only to get a harsh reminder that it’s really Main Street, our farms, ranches and our manufacturers that produce our wealth. How absurd is it that we are now expected to save the very Wall Street predators that have preyed on the real businesses and working people of Middle America.
A fundamental premise of our founding fathers was to avoid the concentration of political and market power as they had witnessed in the combination of the British Crown and the East India Company. Even Adam Smith, at the time, was advocating good ethics and warned against monopoly. Widely dispersed competitive markets with many buyers and sellers competing for and demanding goods and services was considered the best for serving the public good. The no-rules-bigger-is-better business mentality of the last 28 years, beginning with President Reagan and the deregulation of the savings and loans has left us bankrupt of both good ethics and dollars. “Too-big-to-fail” companies now hold tax payers and Congress hostage.
Today, as we are experiencing the meltdown of Wall Street, we are ignoring a similar state of dysfunction that’s been allowed to develop in our food system. Our government — courtesy of rogue Agriculture and Justice departments — has facilitated the alarming takeover of the food and agriculture industry by a handful of very large multinational companies.
It is unbelievable that, even as the Wall Street debacle unfolds, our Justice department would consider approving the Brazilian takeover of two more of our U.S. meatpackers, allowing this foreign entity — partially owned by the Brazilian government — which already owns the third largest U.S. meat packer, to become the biggest processor of beef in the U.S. and the world.
Apparently we haven’t learned anything from becoming dependent on foreign oil, as we are now unable to feed ourselves.
Following is a troubling film about Monsanto, offering more evidence of what happens when government fails to act on behalf of consumers and the general public. Monsanto now controls about 80% percent of the U.S. field crops.
Monsanto is only the tip of the iceberg. Every sector of our food system is too highly concentrated and in the position to threaten literal starvation if they fail.
Please view the following video for an eye-opening experience:
The de-reg Reagan administration cleared the way for monopoly power.
The World According to Monsanto – See film
Roughly 27 minutes into the film, in response to a Monsanto employee expressing the need for fast approval of their genetically modified technology, then Vice President George Bush says, “Call me, we are in the ‘de-reg’ business. Maybe we can help.”
Following that comment, listen as another former vice president, Dan Quail, refers to the president’s “regulatory relief initiative,” part of an effort to “resist the spread of unnecessary regulation.”
