Pop Stars and Politics

Earlier this week, Harrison Ford went to Washington not as an actor, but as a pilot, imagine my disappointment when the Millennium Falcon did not crash through the capitol dome and with Chewbacca grabbing Nancy Pelosi like a wookie rag doll. I decided to do a little digging and find some other celebs who've donned the activist cap for their cause.

Lady Gaga went to Washington to have a meeting at the White House about bullying. Imagine the awkwardness when she appeared wearing massive amounts of red makeup and the secret service thought she allowed herself to be beaten to prove a point. A point that naturally nobody got but immediately wanted to download on iTunes.

Bob Barker was denied access to the congressional hearing for talks about the Traveling Exotic Animal Protection Act after refusing to surrender his collection of rubber bands and sickles.

Adrian Grenier was in D.C. recently to promote Eco-Friendly living, most attendees left the discussion with a burning desire to buy styrofoam cups and leave their cars idling for no reason. The remaining audience members where still trying to figure out how this guy has a career playing a celebrity on TV.

Julia Roberts met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to discuss clean cook stoves. That's right, cook stoves. I'm sure there is some horribly sexist joke to be made here but danged if I could come up with it.

Jessica Alba's visit to the capitol to discuss child safety was frequently interrupted by questions from the audience concerning where her babies come from.

Angelina Jolie is well known for raising awareness for people displaced around the world by war, ethnic cleansing, and herself.

Matthew Perry was hesitant to give testimony when he realized that he was speaking for the need to fund U.S. drug courts.

Celebrities can assist in bringing a lot of attention to an issue, and lets face it, congressmen will use just about any excuse to rub shoulders with celebs. Just look at Stephen Colbert's visit about migrant labor. The fanfare in this case obviously overshadowed any good that could come from public awareness of this topic, and it was pretty obvious that Mr. Colbert wanted the press and that someone in congress just wanted an autograph.

So why not let these appearances be served up with some Cheese, let's get William Shatner to discuss the need for space exploration, the Baha Men can discuss the need for keeping stray dogs locked up, Betty White can lecture congress on the need to raise the retirement age for social security, we could even get Chris Brown to discuss domestic violence. After all, if not for celebrities, who would I be poking fun of right now?

Government would never steal your money...

Imagine you wake up one weekend morning. You get in your car, needing to get to the store to grab a few things, Cheerios, batteries for the remote, some new underwear, the usual. You stop at the gas station and stick your debit card into the pump. 'Declined' the display reads. Huh, that's odd, I know I got plenty of cash in the bank. You disregard it and swipe the credit card instead. Then as the grocery store the same thing happens. Now you are a little bit worried and embarrassed. You run to the ATM to try and get some more info, and your receipt statement says;

'Your account has been frozen by order of the U.S. Government'

But it doesn't stop there. Everyone's money is on lock down, because the government needs as much of it in the banks as possible for a one time 'tax' on everyone's savings. as much as 10%!

Don't think this nightmare could ever happen? It's happening right now to people in Cyprus.

President Anastassiades

Last weekend, Euro-zone finance ministers, in response to a large chunk of change lost from holdings in Greece prior ro their economic implosion, had the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Cypriot government agree on a bailout package for Cyprus, comprising 10 billion euro contribution from Europe and the IMF combine and an approximately 5.8 billion ($7.5 billion) euro contribution from depositors in the Cyprus banking system. The contribution from the banking system is to come through a 6.75% one-off tax on deposits below 100,000 euros ($130,000) and 9.9% taxation on deposits at or above 100,000 euros.

Anastassiades, who just assumed the presidency March 1, urged Cypriot lawmakers to approve the levy in a vote Monday. But he also said he was working to amend "in the next hours to limit the effect on small depositors " The country is still waiting to see what is meant by "small depositors."

people trying to save their money

The government has since shut down electronic transfers and some reports have said that the ATMs in Cyprus have had all their cash drained. President Anastassiades went on national television today to calm people who are emptying their accounts of cash. He even promised revenues from natural gas reserves to entice people to keep their money in Cypriot banks for the next two years. The government has closed banks through Tuesday to prevent mass withdrawals. It will not surprise me if people in Greece, Spain and other weak economic Euro Zone countries will start moving Euros to stronger countries such as Germany and the UK. If you see governments start to impose limits on capital movement I would expect those countries interest rates to rise.

We have about $6 trillion in savings accounts in the US. You don't think a one time shot of 10% of that is tempting prize for a government that spends like a alcoholic in a liqueur store.

Or what about IRA's? There is about the same amount in the countries retirement savings as there is in national debt. 

Don't think the government would simply take your money on the promise to pay you back, well, first of all, I'd have you research what social security is, and then I'd invite you to learn about something that's already been proposed at the federal level, called Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRA's)

In 2008, presidential candidate Obama first proposed a prototype nationalized GRA plan. In his 2010 State of the Union address he called for an “effort to increase retirement savings by requiring all businesses to offer automatic IRA accounts,” claiming such a government guaranteed plan would let employees automatically enroll in direct-deposit retirement accounts and allow them to expand matching tax credits.

It would not be a far stretch to 'offer' the following plan to the masses; simply hand over all your retirement savings, subject yourself to a new tax, and the government will take care of you when you get old. Basically a massive expansion of Social Security with the promise to obtain large amounts of capital now to help service the debt. It may be too good a deal for our government to pass up. Like a person breaking their IRA to pay off the credit card trying to save money on interest.

The more interesting question is how much coverage a country basically stealing your money gets in the media. I'm sure what is happening to this European democracy, that fell on hard times, is of little interest, since something like that could never happen here.

Cause and Effect: NYC Bans

Ever wonder why people who believe in global warming would buy beach front property? Or why we hand out federal grant money to people to study ways to cut federal spending? Or why 24 hour stores have locks on the doors? Perhaps it's the same logic as to why a New York City mayor that would put a ban on car idling, and then also ban trans fats. Are you a little confused? Let me explain.

Back in 2008, the NYC Health Department fully implemented a ban on trans fat at all restaurants within the city limits (with the exception of foods served in the manufacturer's original packaging, such as crackers). The new rule has had a big impact on everyone (except Mayor Bloomberg, who got caught exploiting the loophole with trans fat Cheez-Its). New research shows the regulation had the desired effect, banishing a not-insignificant amount of trans fat from New Yorkers' hearts, but it's also had an impact worldwide.

New York City restaurants and Big food companies are squeezing trans fats out of products from Oreos to Cheetos and rushing to find palatable substitute oils. Even Crisco has been reformulated so it's trans-fat free. Fast-food chains such as Wendy's and McDonald's have scrambled to figure out ways to cook fries without trans fats. Not only in New York but getting ahead of the curb with it's restaurants nationally, in many cases, trans fats simply are being replaced with other oils, usually ones that are only slightly better for you. The primary solution that these chains and producers have found? Palm oil.

Its properties make it highly versatile in the food and chemical industries. It has a high melting point, making it smooth and easy to spread. Palm oil is contained in thousands of supermarket products. In fact, more than 90 percent of the palm oil produced is used to manufacture food products, cosmetics, detergents and candles. Bio-diesels are on the rise, but I digress.


Worldwide demand for palm oil has increased sharply over the last few years. With 54 million tons in 2011, doubling from 2000, it is the most widely produced vegetable oil worldwide. It has the highest yield of any oil crop and is the cheapest vegetable oil to produce and refine.

What is the problem here, a slightly healthier food that works basically the same way? Sounds like pretty decent trade off, doesn't it? What was I trying to say when I pointed out the car idling in my first paragraph?

The demand has gotten too high, the industry can't keep up. The solution? Make more room to produce more palms. Nearly 90 percent of global palm oil production was in Malaysia and Indonesia in 2010. Although much of this production took place on land long ago established for agriculture, some of it occurred in areas that were newly cleared specifically for oil palm cultivation. In fact more than half of plantations established since 1990 in those two countries has occurred at the expense of natural forest. This expansion has resulted in a decline of almost half the natural forest in Malaysia and Indonesia, roughly 60 million hectares have been destroyed between Malaysia and Indonesia, roughly the land area of the states of Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota.

Combined!

And the problem is growing, now countries like Columbia and Nigeria are cashing in on the latest craze, both rich with peat swamps, forests, and jungles, that are cleared out, increasing their rates of deforestation to account for this massive shift that is being spurred by New York and other major cities.

Less forests, less carbon getting filtered out of the air naturally, it may be that Mayor Bloomberg must have anticipated this minor little side effect of eliminating trans fats from our diet, that is why he passed the car idling ban, to reduce his carbon footprint. Oh wait, that's right...