GOOD LINKS - Jo'burg is HUGE
As you'd expect an Earth Summit to be.Good for them - the politicians, ngos, bureaucrats, ecologists--just all of them! Yeay they're for the good of us all and goodonem!
Elsewhere, and in this week before that Summit an International Ecological Conf. of a more dedicated kind got together. I'm here to point you to a couple of specialists whose vital work for the environment and sustainability deserves a much wider understanding.
You'll find them at:
'Science-in-the-City' - http://jsp.antville.org - title:
Temperatures - Now or mebbe Never..? AND
Robert Ayres Begs to Differ and Makes More Sense.

THERE'S A STOUSH IN THE HOUSE..
The Consumer Federation of America today stepped up its fight against
pending bankruptcy legislation (HR 333) that would force more people to repay their debts. The org. released a study showing that credit card companies, which have lobbied furiously for the bill, sent out 5 billion solicitations in 2001, up from 3.5 billion the year before. "Credit card issuers are shamelessly escalating their marketing and
available credit to strato-spheric levels while demanding that Congress give them relief by making it harder for consumers to declare bankruptcy," said Travis Plunkett, the federation's legislative director. Given the
state of the economy, he said, "Congress couldn't pick a worse time to make it more difficult for families to get back on track financially." -[CQ]

BRITISH BRANDS VOW A BETTER WORLD
British business has embraced the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR), with nine in ten companies (88 percent)
"actively and voluntarily seeking to contribute to a better society and a cleaner environment." We await their works!

National Taxpayer's Union and the Congressional Accountability Project, a group affiliated with consumer
advocate Ralph Nader, urged senators in a letter to oppose the pay raise of $4700 pa to members of Congress.

Heard about an accident or two at Federal Lab facilities..?
Like a couple of pros blown up last Sunday doing 'routine' work.In safe housing (for explosives) you understand, but the accident unexplained. Making others like supervisors nervous. One upshot and so no surprise at the news..
The US Energy Department is expected to move as much as
several tons of plutonium and weapons-grade uranium from a
federal research laboratory in New Mexico to Nevada because of
security concerns. In a dept memo, John C. Browne, director
of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, called the proposed
move "the best overall decision to meet the post-September 11th challenges for the long-term security of nuclear activities."
On the budget front Congress had incl. $138M for the Dept of Energy's nuclear security emergency response program within the supplemental $5.1B the President has this week said he will not be spending. Which leaves the liabilities on the ground up in the air, eh!
Re future nuke waste containment take a look at "Science-in-the-City"
http://jsp.antville.org - a four part rundown on new ideas

BIGBro Bites Bullets Too. AT & T's Latin America Corporation unit has taken a hammering in currency value shifts and lost spending powers(revenues) in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Chile.
ENDS-jonz-

LOS ANGELES (August 6, 2002 6:20 p.m. EDT) -
Restaurant operator Cheesecake Factory Inc. said it has recalled cheesecakes potentially contaminated with a lethal bacteria.
The company said it found listeria monocytogenes in one batch of white chocolate raspberry cheesecake sold to the Olive Garden Italian restaurant chain. The batch could have been served in as many as 19 Olive Garden restaurants in Texas, Missouri,
Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.
Listeria can cause symptoms such as fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea. The bacteria can be fatal in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. It can also cause miscarriages and stillbirths.
A serious case of listeriosis takes one to six weeks to develop, according to the FDA.
Further questions to the Factory's consumer line at (888) 290-9437.
ENDS -jonz-

CRASHES...
The straight answer is that a crash has 50/50 chance over the next 10 years. Many people say it's 100 percent, and with a much shorter time horizon. George Soros, who's made part of his living -speculating in currencies - says, "Instability is cumulative, so that eventual breakdown of freely floating exchanges is virtually assured."
Joel Kurtzman,
ex-editor at the Harvard Business Review, entitles his latest book: The Death of Money and forecasts an imminent collapse due to speculative frenzy.
To see how this could happen: all the OECD Central Banks' reserves together represent about $640
billion. So in a crisis situation, if all the Central Banks were to agree to work together (which they never do) and if they were to use all their reserves (which is another thing that never happens) they have the funds to control only half the volume of a normal day of trading. In a crisis day, that volume could easily double or triple, and the total Central Bank reserves would last two or three hours.
If that happens, we would suddenly be in a very different world. In 1929, the stock market crashed, but the gold standard held. The monetary system held. Here, we are dealing with something that's more fundamental. The only precedent is the Roman Empire collapse, which ended Roman currency. That was, of course, at a time when it took about a century and a half for the breakdown to spread through the empire; now it would take a few hours.
ENDS -jonz-

LOOKOUT4:
Corning has made an interesting offer to investors in recent times. Lead banker for the company has always been the good Goldman Sachs, but on this prospectus they slipped to third and all the others are affiliated to commercial banks. That the commercial banks have used their lending ability to improve their position in investment banking is well known. But one thing that is not appreciated is just how accounting can encourage banks to perhaps trade low interest rates for extra investment banking fees. That would give the banks income up front, in the form of investment banking fees, while it would provide lower reported expenses for the customer, because investment banking fees often do not show up on income statements.
Ends -jonz-