Job losses

What 3.6 Million Jobs Lost Over 13 Months Looks Like

February 6th, 2009 by Karina

This chart compares the job loss so far in this recession to job losses in the 1990-1991 recession and the 2001 recession – showing how dramatic and unprecedented the job loss over the last 13 months has been. Over the last 13 months, our economy has lost a total of 3.6 million jobs – and continuing job losses in the next few months are predicted.

By comparison, we lost a total of 1.6 million jobs in the 1990-1991 recession, before the economy began turning around and jobs began increasing; and we lost a total of 2.7 million jobs in the 2001 recession, before the economy began turning around and jobs began increasing.

As President Obama said on February 5, 2009:

We can’t embrace the losing formula that says only tax cuts will work for every problem we face; that ignores critical challenges like our addiction to foreign oil, or the soaring cost of health care, or falling schools and crumbling bridges and roads and levees. I don’t care whether you’re driving a hybrid or an SUV — if you’re headed for a cliff, you’ve got to change direction.

Americans save just when economy needs their money

It really is a catch 22. . . People who have lost their jobs can't spend, people who haven't lost their jobs are saving in case they loose their jobs. In the meantime, businesses are loosing money because people aren't spending, so more people are loosing jobs.

We really are stuck in a vicious cycle. Also, we were in a society where we maxed out our credit, and our mortgages to buy the things we wanted. Now that the banks are cinching up the credit, and our home values and retirement funds have dramatically decreased, where are we supposed to get money to spend?

So what can be done about it from our perspective as consumers?

Americans save just when economy needs their money

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
30 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Americans are hunkering down and saving more. For a recession-battered economy, it couldn't be happening at a worse time.
Economists call it the "paradox of thrift." What's good for individuals — spending less, saving more — is bad for the economy when everyone does it.
On Friday, the government reported Americans' savings rate, rose to 2.9 percent in the last three months of 2008. That's up sharply from 1.2 percent in the third quarter and less than 1 percent a year ago.
Like a teeter-totter, when the savings rate rises, spending falls. The latter accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity. When consumers refuse to spend, companies cut back, layoffs rise, people pinch pennies even more and the recession deepens.
The downward spiral has hammered the retail and manufacturing industries. For years, stores enjoyed boom times as shoppers splurged on TVs, fancy kitchen decor and clothes. Suddenly, frugality is in style.
Grace Case, 38, of Syracuse, N.Y., is a self-described recovering creditaholic. For 13 years, she charged it all — cars, clothes, repairs, vacations. She'd make only the minimum card payments to sustain her buying spree for her and her family, which includes her husband and two children.
But after being laid off 2 1/2 years ago from her job as an accountant, she landed another accounting job that cut her salary from $60,000 to $40,000. It was impossible to meet minimum payments on her card balances.
Now, the Cases are on a strict budget. They take "staycations," grow their own vegetables, buy only used cars and pre-pay cell phones. Case hasn't used a credit card in two years. And she's saving more.
"It's really a liberating feeling," she said. "If you want something, you have to have the money for it."
Many economists think the savings rate will keep rising, perhaps as high as 6 percent or more.
So where's the money going? To savings accounts? To debt reduction?
No one knows for sure. But Robert Frank, Cornell University economist, says it doesn't much matter.
"For economic purposes, paying off debt and saving are the same," he said. "Incurring debt is negative savings; paying down debt is savings."
He sees a long-term behavioral shift. He calls the spending of the past decade or more unsustainable.
"The only way people were able to (spend heavily) was by harvesting cash out of their home equity, which was just an illusion," Frank said.
The ripple effect has been brutal. The economy shrank at a 3.8 percent annual rate in the final three months of 2008, the worst showing in 26 years. The biggest reason was that consumer spending fell for a second straight quarter, something that hasn't happened since the 1990-91 recession.
Analysts believe the hard times will persist in 2009 as consumers, squeezed by layoffs and tighter credit, delay purchases of cars and other big-ticket items.
Some experts say consumers have been so shaken by how fast their wealth has shrunk, so burned by credit card debt, that they might not resume their robust spending for years, if ever.
"People are not saving; they are building financial bomb shelters," said Mark Stevens, who runs a management consulting firm, MSCO, in Rye Brook, N.Y.
Matthew Conrad, a financial manager at Complete Wealth Management in Orange County, Calif., says he knows of people who drive a BMW or Mercedes and eat macaroni and cheese for dinner several nights a week. That suggests some are making an awkward shift from free-spending habits and are reluctant to give them up.
Today's consumers might even start to rival their penny-pinching, Depression-era grandparents.
"The generation that lived through the Great Depression was very conservative in their spending and aggressive in savings," said Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics at Moody's Economy.com. "I think we're going to have a set of consumers who are moving in that direction because they don't have that much faith in their assets."
___

Bailed Out Banks are Robbing Americans Blind

The TARP package (more appropriately know as the Bailout) continues to prove it has been one of the biggest robberies of American taxpayer money.

Maybe congress should have had a clue to what was coming when the execs showed up in private jets begging for money. Why were the auto execs questioned about arriving in jets and the Wall street thiefs were not?

We were told the funds from TARP were intended to free up the lending funds in order to make credit more accessable to employers, business, and lenders. None of which has happened.

Instead, the investment banking industry has had the 2nd poorest year in terms of performance, yet the execs have had the 6th best year in bonuses at $18.4 billion. Other execs at Merrill Lynch spent $1.2 million redecorating; including $87,000 for an area rug, and $1,400 for a trashcan.

They are asking for more bailout money! Someone needs to put an end to this. This is the most blatant robbery ever.

AP Investigation: Banks sought foreign workers

By FRANK BASS and RITA BEAMISH, Associated Press Writers Frank Bass And Rita Beamish, Associated Press Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Banks collecting billions of dollars in federal bailout money sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers to the U.S. for high-paying jobs, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.

The dozen banks receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for positions that included senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists. The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice the median income for all American households.

The figures are significant because they show that the bailed-out banks, being kept afloat with U.S. taxpayer money, actively sought to hire foreign workers instead of American workers. As the economic collapse worsened last year — with huge numbers of bank employees laid off — the numbers of visas sought by the dozen banks in AP's analysis increased by nearly one-third, from 3,258 in fiscal 2007 to 4,163 in fiscal 2008.

The AP reviewed visa applications the banks filed with the Labor Department under the H-1B visa program, which allows temporary employment of foreign workers in specialized-skill and advanced-degree positions.

It is unclear how many foreign workers the banks actually hired; the government does not release those details. The actual number is likely a fraction of the 21,800 foreign workers the banks sought to hire because the government limits the number of visas it grants to 85,000 each year among all U.S. employers.

During the last three months of 2008, the largest banks that received taxpayer loans announced more than 100,000 layoffs. The number of foreign workers included among those laid off is unknown.

Foreigners are attractive hires because companies have found ways to pay them less than American workers.

White House, Senate take aim at Wall Street bonuses

By Susan Cornwell
Reuters
Friday, January 30, 2009; 3:47 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington moved to crack down on Wall Street bonuses on Friday as a Democratic senator proposed capping employee salaries at companies receiving government aid and the White House pledged action from President Barack Obama as well.

Sen. Claire McCaskill proposed a law that would prevent executives from making more money than the U.S. president -- $400,000 a year -- until their companies no longer rely on government aid such as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that bails out banks.

McCaskill, a close ally of Obama who represents Missouri, announced her legislation a day after the president said he was outraged by a report of some $18 billion in Wall Street bonuses being paid while taxpayer money was being used to shore up the crumbling financial system.

At the White House, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president's upcoming plan for financial stability also would address executive compensation and bonuses.

"I think you will see the president and his economic team outline a plan to deal with what he found irresponsible yesterday," Gibbs told reporters. "Stay tuned, because something on that is coming soon." He declined to say more.

Obama on Thursday said recent Wall Street bonuses in the current situation were "shameful." His administration is working on options to help stabilize the U.S. banking industry after various experts have said the $700 billion already allocated to the bank rescue program in recent months will not be enough.

HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS MORE

The head of the Congressional Budget Office told Congress this week he thought U.S. banks would need hundreds of billions of dollars more.

Public outcry has grown over reports of corporate excess by companies getting bailout funds, including Citigroup Inc, which intended to purchase a private jet, and bonuses paid by Merrill Lynch & Co, now owned by Bank of America Corp.

Citigroup later canceled the plane order. Bank of America's Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis ousted former Merrill chief John Thain this month after Merrill awarded large bonuses just days before the merger closed, and following huge losses that led Bank of America to obtain $20 billion of government aid to absorb Merrill.

McCaskill, an early endorser of Obama's presidential candidacy, gave an angry speech on the Senate floor Friday in which she said an average of $2.6 million dollars had been paid in bonuses to executives from the first 116 banks that got money from the TARP rescue plan.

"I am mad," she said. "We have bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer. ... They don't get it!"

Her office said the $400,000 compensation cap she was proposing would include salary, bonuses and stock options.

"We should have done it in the first place," McCaskill said of the proposed salary cap, "but I don't think any of us thought these guys were this stupid."

Obama is also working with Congress to pass a stimulus plan of over $800 billion in tax relief and government spending to try to revive the moribund economy.

(Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Brian Moss)

Nobody needs an office decorated with greed

BY MITCH ALBOM
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

It was the wastebasket.

That did it for me.

No, you can't justify $87,000 for a rug and you can't justify $35,000 for a commode -- yes, a commode -- but you really, really can't explain $1,400 for a wastebasket.

Made out of parchment.

Who buys a wastebasket that can catch fire faster than the trash inside it?

These were just some of $1.22-million decorating expenses incurred by John Thain, the former chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch who was ousted after merging with Bank of America for hiding last-quarter losses of around $15 billion.

Fifteen billion in losses?

That's a lot of wastebaskets.

Yet that didn't stop Thain from whining about his dismissal, it didn't stop him from seeking a $10-million bonus for himself, and it didn't stop him from rushing out billions -- yes, again, billions -- in bonuses for his executives even as he was taking billions of our taxpayer money for a bailout.

Honestly. Where do you begin with this guy?

Trying to justify things

Let's begin here, with Thain's lame attempt to explain himself in an interview with CNBC.

When a reporter asked why he felt a need to redecorate the office after inheriting it from his predecessor in late 2007, Thain said this:

"Well, heh, um, his office was very different, uh, than, uh, the, the general decor of, uh, Merrill's offices. Uh, it really would have been, uh, very difficult, uh, for, uh, me to use it in the form that it was in."

The "uh's" say it all. Come on. How bad could an ex-CEO's office be? Were there dead animals in there? Dry rot? Mold?

"So in an environment where jobs are being cut and clearly salaries are being cut and the firm is reporting all of these losses," the CNBC reporter asked, "did it occur to you at some point ... 'I'd better to put this off?' "

"Remember," Thain shot back, "this was back in, it really started in, December of '07, so the financial industry hadn't melted down yet. I had every expectation that Merrill Lynch would be a large, successful company."

So, in his mind, that would have justified $1.22 million on decorating. Because profits would be up. Stock price would be high. And people like Thain could do whatever they wanted to do. He could order an $18,000 George IV desk because, after all, he was a king himself, wasn't he?

And therein lies the problem. Even as he is being pasted in the media, Thain (whose corporate nickname was once I-Robot) doesn't get why he can't still be a Master of the Universe, where CEOs rule the game because they're smarter, faster and, doggone it, richer than the rest of us.

Of course, Thain ran off for a ski vacation when news emerged that his company lost billions. So I guess "braver" isn't one of his adjectives.

Make an example of all of 'em

Now, Thain is hardly the only CEO dipped in a sense of privilege. True, he was paid a whopping $83 million in 2007 and stood to earn as much as $120 million last year, so you'd think he could have purchased his own $16,000 coffee table.

Instead, when things went sour, he still wanted his bonus. He blamed the economy for the losses. Of course, he never credited the economy when everything was shooting up. Then it was somehow just his brilliance.

Or maybe it was the commode.

Either way, he needs to be held up and lambasted. Sure, he points to other companies, he claims this is par for the course in Wall Street, he wonders, why pick on him?

Which reminds me of a scene in the movie "Stand By Me" where a young hero pulls a gun on a gang of thugs led by Keifer Sutherland. Sutherland says, "What are you gonna do, shoot all of us?"

And the kid says, "No ... only you."

For now, begin with Thain. Shame him, deride him, hold him up and then move on to the next guy who does this, because the spineless nature of these guys will quickly emerge: They all want to be rich; none of them wants to be humiliated.

We have endured such shameless behavior before (remember Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski and his $6,000 shower curtain?), but in this New Depression, it can't be tolerated and it can't be sloughed off. Enough is enough. If they won't stop this elitist immorality, the government should make them.

Remember, it's our money being given out. And $1 million could be 20 middle-class jobs, 20 Americans who wouldn't have to sell their homes or pull their kids from college -- just so the Thains of the world can toss their trash into parchment.

Obama Has just 4 Years to Save the Earth

'We have only four years left to act on climate change - America has to lead'

Jim Hansen is the 'grandfather of climate change' and one of the world's leading climatologists. In this rare interview in New York, he explains why President Obama's administration is the last chance to avoid flooded cities, species extinction and climate catastrophe

• Robin McKie, science editor
• The Observer, Sunday 18 January 2009
• Article history

Along one wall of Jim Hansen's wood-panelled office in upper Manhattan, the distinguished climatologist has pinned 10 A4-sized photographs of his three grandchildren: Sophie, Connor and Jake. They are the only personal items on display in an office otherwise dominated by stacks of manila folders, bundles of papers and cardboard boxes filled with reports on climate variations and atmospheric measurements.

The director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York is clearly a doting grandfather as well as an internationally revered climate scientist. Yet his pictures are more than mere expressions of familial love. They are reminders to the 67-year-old scientist of his duty to future generations, children whom he now believes are threatened by a global greenhouse catastrophe that is spiralling out of control because of soaring carbon dioxide emissions from industry and transport.

"I have been described as the grandfather of climate change. In fact, I am just a grandfather and I do not want my grandchildren to say that grandpa understood what was happening but didn't make it clear," Hansen said last week. Hence his warning to Barack Obama, who will be inaugurated as US president on Tuesday. His four-year administration offers the world a last chance to get things right, Hansen said. If it fails, global disaster - melted sea caps, flooded cities, species extinctions and spreading deserts - awaits mankind.

"We cannot now afford to put off change any longer. We have to get on a new path within this new administration. We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead."

After eight years of opposing moves to combat climate change, thanks to the policies of President George Bush, the US had given itself no time for manoeuvre, he said. Only drastic, immediate change can save the day and those changes proposed by Hansen - who appeared in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and is a winner of the World Wildlife Fund's top conservation award - are certainly far-reaching. In particular, the idea of continuing with "cap-and-trade" schemes, which allow countries to trade allowances and permits for emitting carbon dioxide, must now be scrapped, he insisted. Such schemes, encouraged by the Kyoto climate treaty, were simply "weak tea" and did not work. "The United States did not sign Kyoto, yet its emissions are not that different from the countries that did sign it."

Thus plans to include carbon trading schemes in talks about future climate agreements were a desperate error, he said. "It's just greenwash. I would rather the forthcoming Copenhagen climate talks fail than we agree to a bad deal," Hansen said.

Only a carbon tax, agreed by the west and then imposed on the rest of the world through political pressure and trade tariffs, would succeed in the now-desperate task of stopping the rise of emissions, he argued. This tax would be imposed on oil corporations and gas companies and would specifically raise the prices of fuels across the globe, making their use less attractive. In addition, the mining of coal - by far the worst emitter of carbon dioxide - would be phased out entirely along with coal-burning power plants which he called factories of death.

"Coal is responsible for as much atmospheric carbon dioxide as other fossil fuels combined and it still has far greater reserves. We must stop using it." Instead, programmes for building wind, solar and other renewable energy plants should be given major boosts, along with research programmes for new generations of nuclear reactors.

Hansen's strident calls for action stem from his special view of our changing world. He and his staff monitor temperatures relayed to the institute - an anonymous brownstone near Columbia University - from thousands of sites around the world, including satellites and bases in Antarctica. These have revealed that our planet has gone through a 0.6C rise in temperature since 1970, with the 10 hottest years having occurred between 1997 and 2008: unambiguous evidence, he believes, that Earth is beginning to overheat dangerously.

Last week, however, Hansen revealed his findings for 2008 which show, surprisingly, that last year was the coolest this century, although still hot by standards of the 20th century. The finding will doubtless be seized on by climate change deniers, for whom Hansen is a particular hate figure, and used as "evidence" that global warming is a hoax.

However, deniers should show caution, Hansen insisted: most of the planet was exceptionally warm last year. Only a strong La Niña - a vast cooling of the Pacific that occurs every few years - brought down the average temperature. La Niña would not persist, he said. "Before the end of Obama's first term, we will be seeing new record temperatures. I can promise the president that."

Hansen's uncompromising views are, in some ways, unusual. Apart from his senior Nasa post, he holds a professorship in environmental sciences at Columbia and dresses like a tweedy academic: green jumper with elbow pads, cords and check cotton shirt. Yet behind his unassuming, self-effacing manner, the former planetary scientist has shown surprising steel throughout his career. In 1988, he electrified a congressional hearing, on a particular hot, sticky day in June, when he announced he was "99% certain" that global warming was to blame for the weather and that the planet was now in peril from rising carbon dioxide emissions. His remarks, which made headlines across the US, pushed global warming on to news agendas for the first time.

Over the years, Hansen persisted with his warnings. Then, in 2005, he gave a talk at the American Geophysical Union in which he argued that the year was the warmest on record and that industrial carbon emissions were to blame. A furious White House phoned Nasa and Hansen was banned from appearing in newspapers or on television or radio. It was a bungled attempt at censorship. Newspapers revealed that Hansen was being silenced and his story, along with his warnings about the climate, got global coverage.

Since then Hansen has continued his mission "to make clear" the dangers of climate change, sending a letter last December from himself and his wife Anniek about the urgency of the planet's climatic peril to Barack and Michelle Obama. "We decided to send it to both of them because we thought there may be a better chance she will think about this or have time for it. The difficulty of this problem [of global warming] is that its main impacts will be felt by our children and by our grandchildren. A mother tends to be concerned about such things."

Nor have his messages of imminent doom been restricted to US politicians. The heads of the governments of Britain, Germany, Japan and Australia have all received recent warnings from Hansen about their countries' behaviour. In each case, these nations' continued support for the burning of coal to generate electricity has horrified the climatologist. In Britain, he has condemned the government's plans to build a new coal plant at Kingsnorth, in Kent, for example, and even appeared in court as a defence witness for protesters who occupied the proposed new plant's site in 2007.

"On a per capita basis, Britain is responsible for more of the carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere than any other nation on Earth because it has been burning it from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. America comes second and Germany third. The crucial point is that Britain could make a real difference if it said no to Kingsnorth. That decision would set an example to the rest of the world." These points were made clear in Hansen's letter to the prime minister, Gordon Brown, though he is still awaiting a reply.

As to the specific warnings he makes about climate change, these concentrate heavily on global warming's impact on the ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica. These are now melting at an alarming rate and threaten to increase sea levels by one or two metres over the century, enough to inundate cities and fertile land around the globe.

The issue was simple, said Hansen: would each annual increase of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere produce a simple proportional increase in temperature or would its heating start to accelerate?

He firmly believes the latter. As the Arctic's sea-ice cover decreases, less and less sunlight will be reflected back into space. And as tundras heat up, more and more of their carbon dioxide and methane content will be released into the atmosphere. Thus each added tonne of carbon will trigger greater rises in temperature as the years progress. The result will be massive ice cap melting and sea-level rises of several metres: enough to devastate most of the world's major cities.

"I recently lunched with Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, and proposed a joint programme to investigate this issue as a matter of urgency, in partnership with the US National Academy of Sciences, but nothing has come of the idea, it would seem," he said.

Hansen is used to such treatment, of course, just as the world of science has got used to the fact that he is as persistent as he is respected in his work and will continue to press his cause: a coal-power moratorium and an investigation of ice-cap melting.

The world was now in "imminent peril", he insisted, and nothing would quench his resolve in spreading the message. It is the debt he owes his grandchildren, after all.

The climate in figures

• The current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 385 parts per million. This compares with a figure of some 315ppm around 1960.

• Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that can persist for hundreds of years in the atmosphere, absorbing infrared radiation and heating the atmosphere.

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's last report states that 11 of the 12 years between 1995-2006 rank among the 12 warmest years on record since 1850.

• According to Jim Hansen, the nation responsible for putting the largest amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is Britain, on a per capita basis - because the Industrial Revolution started here. China is now the largest annual emitter of carbon dioxide .

• Most predictions suggest that global temperatures will rise by 2C to 4C over the century.

• The IPCC estimates that rising temperatures will melt ice and cause ocean water to heat up and increase in volume. This will produce a sea-level rise of between 18 and 59 centimetres. However, some predict a far faster rate of around one to two metres.

• Inundations of one or two metres would make the Nile Delta and Bangladesh uninhabitable, along with much of south-east England, Holland and the east coast of the United States.

High Fructose Corn Syrup Contaminated With Mercury

Much High Fructose Corn Syrup Contaminated With Mercury, New Study Finds

• Brand-Name Food Products Also Discovered to Contain Mercury
  Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), Jan 26, 2009
  Straight to the Source
  

Minneapolis - Mercury was found in nearly 50 percent of tested samples of commercial high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), according to a new article published today in the scientific journal, Environmental Health. A separate study by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) detected mercury in nearly one-third of 55 popular brandname food and beverage products where HFCS is the first or second highest labeled ingredient-including products by Quaker, Hershey's, Kraft and Smucker's.

HFCS use has skyrocketed in recent decades as the sweetener has replaced sugar in many processed foods. HFCS is found in sweetened beverages, breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS. Consumption by teenagers and other high consumers can be up to 80 percent above average levels.

"Mercury is toxic in all its forms," said IATP's David Wallinga, M.D., and a co-author in both studies. "Given how much high fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the FDA to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply."

In the Environmental Health article, Dufault et al. found detectable levels of mercury in nine of 20 samples of commercial HFCS. Dufault was working at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration when the tests were done in 2005. She and co-authors conclude that possible mercury contamination of food chemicals like HFCS was not common knowledge within the food industry that frequently uses the sweetener. While the FDA had evidence that commercial HFCS was contaminated with mercury four years ago, the agency did not inform consumers, help change industry practice or conduct additional testing.

For its report "Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup," IATP sent 55 brand-name foods and beverages containing HFCS as the first or second ingredient to a commercial laboratory to be tested for total mercury. Nearly one in three products tested contained detectable mercury. Mercury was most prevalent in HFCScontaining dairy products, followed by dressings and condiments. Attached is the summary list of the 55 products and their total mercury content.

In making HFCS, caustic soda is used, among other things, to separate corn starch from the corn kernel. For decades, HFCS has been made using mercury-grade caustic soda produced in industrial chlorine (chlor-alkali) plants. The use of mercury cells to produce caustic soda can contaminate caustic soda, and ultimately HFCS, with mercury.

"The bad news is that nobody knows whether or not their soda or snack food contains HFCS made from ingredients like caustic soda contaminated with mercury," said Dr. Wallinga. "The good news is that mercury-free HFCS ingredients exist. Food companies just need a good push to only use those ingredients."

While most chlorine plants around the world have switched to newer, cleaner technologies, many still rely on the use of mercury cells. In 2005, 90 percent of chlorine production was mercury-free, but just 40 percent of European production was mercury-free. Four U.S. chlor-alkali plants still rely on mercury cell technology. In 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama introduced legislation to force the remaining chlor-alkali plants to phase out mercury cell technology by 2012.

The Environmental Health article by Dufault et al. can be found at: www.ehjournal.net.

"Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup," by David Wallinga, M.D., Janelle Sorensen, Pooja Mottl and Brian Yablon, M.D., can be found at: www.iatp.org.

Democrats Subpoena Rove, Testing Their Clout and Obama

By EVAN PEREZ

WASHINGTON -- House Democrats renewed their effort to force former White House aide Karl Rove to testify in a probe into Justice Department controversies, presenting a challenge to President Barack Obama, who will have to decide whether to defend his predecessor's legal arguments.

Michigan Rep. John Conyers, Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, on Monday issued a subpoena to Mr. Rove, seeking his appearance at a deposition Feb. 2. Mr. Conyers wants the former aide to President George W. Bush to answer questions on the Justice Department's firings of U.S. attorneys in 2006, among other matters.

For more than a year, the Bush administration blocked congressional demands for testimony from Mr. Rove and other Bush aides. The White House's assertion of executive privilege prompted the aides to refuse even to show up for a hearing. A judge last year, in a limited ruling, said the privilege didn't protect the aides from having to appear, even if they refused to answer questions.

"Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it," Mr. Conyers said. "After two years of stonewalling, it's time for him to talk."

President Obama previously criticized the Bush executive-privilege claims. But presidents have a history of guarding the principle of executive privilege, even when it is claimed by a predecessor of a different political stripe. President Bush angered Republicans early in his term by using privilege to block several congressional inquiries into decisions by the administration of President Bill Clinton.

Robert Luskin, Mr. Rove's attorney, said Mr. Rove recently received a renewed privilege assertion from President Bush, before the president left office. Mr. Luskin said he would consult with Mr. Obama's White House counsel to determine the Obama administration's stance.

There is some dispute in legal circles over whether a president's executive privilege claim continues to be in force after he leaves office if his successor doesn't enforce it.

"At the end of the day Rove will do what he is told," Mr. Luskin said.

Troubled financial institutions and the Detroit auto makers continue to spend heavily on lobbying Congress while accepting billions of dollars in U.S.

Firms Keep Lobbying as They Get TARP Cash
By ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON and BRODY MULLINS

WASHINGTON -- Troubled financial institutions and the Detroit auto makers continue to spend heavily on lobbying Congress while accepting billions of dollars in U.S. government money, reports to Congress suggest.

General Motors Corp. spent $3.3 million on lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2008, a period that coincides with the government committing $13.4 billion to the ailing auto maker under the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program. In all of 2008, GM spent $13.1 million on lobbying, down from $14.3 million in 2007. GM's reported lobbying expenses for 2008 were only slightly less than combined spending by Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC.

"Lobbying is the transparent and effective way that GM has its voice heard on critical policy issues...that companies should not be required to forfeit if they receive federal funding," said GM spokesman Greg A. Martin, who added that no funds lent from the Treasury would be used for lobbying.

TARP Participants

Review a full list of the banks participating in the TARP.

Bank of America Corp., whose heavy losses prompted it to appeal to the government for a second bailout this month, spent $4.1 million on lobbying last year, nearly $1 million more than in 2007. The bank spent $820,000 on lobbying in the last quarter, about one-fifth less than in the third quarter. Bank of America is in line to receive a total of $45 billion from the government, including $20 billion committed by the Treasury this month.

Merrill Lynch & Co., which was acquired by Bank of America Jan. 1 at the government's urging, spent $1.2 million on lobbying in each of the last two quarters, and $4.7 million for the year, $280,000 more than it spent in 2007. Merrill's losses last year were another reason why Bank of America appealed for a second injection of taxpayer money.

"Our last year numbers reflect to some degree costs resulting from our merger with Countrywide," said Shirley Norton, a spokeswoman with Bank of America. "We are now reducing our lobbying expenses...consistent with bank-wide efforts to reduce expenses."

When the U.S. placed government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into federal conservatorship in August, the two entities, once among the financial services industry's biggest lobbying spenders, were required to stop lobbying. In October, American International Group Inc., which is nearly 80% held by the government, said it would voluntarily stop federal lobbying after criticism from Congress. But Congress has placed no similar restraints on other recipients of taxpayer money, though some lawmakers favor that.

"Clear restrictions must be imposed on firms receiving assistance," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.). "These include tougher reporting requirements, lobbying prohibitions, and a ban on lavish and unnecessary expenditures," she said.

Lobbying spending by GMAC LLC, GM's auto- and mortgage-lending arm, more than tripled to $4.6 million in 2008 from 2007. GMAC has received $6 billion in government money to help stave off a financial crisis. GMAC has suffered heavy losses in its mortgage unit, Residential Capital LLC, or Rescap. GMAC spent $1.5 million on lobbying in the fourth quarter, about $400,000 less than in the previous quarter. GMAC is 51% owned by private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, which also controls Chrysler.

Toni Simonetti, GMAC's vice president for global communications, said the firm spent more on lobbying last year because it was lobbying on more issues than before. "I think it's obvious that the increased spending on Washington-related activities was related to the environment and the restructuring that we are going through," she said.

Chrysler spent $1.2 million on lobbying last quarter, and $1.9 million on lobbying in the third quarter. The White House committed $4 billion in loans to Chrysler in December.

"There has been significant demand from legislators and government officials for education and information on Chrysler," said Mary Beth Halprin, a company spokeswoman.

Ford spent $1.9 million on lobbying in each of the last two quarters. It spent $7.7 million on lobbying for all of 2008, about $600,000 more than in 2007. Ford's Washington spokesman Mike Moran said that although the company didn't take government money and says it doesn't need it now, it joined the other two domestic auto makers in pressing for a government rescue. "Should one of the other companies falter, that would have an impact on the entire auto industry," he said.

Congressional filings show that lobbying by American International Group, which the government took control of in September, continued in the fourth quarter, despite the government's holding 78.8% of the company. Congressional filings show that AIG spent $1.08 million in the fourth quarter. AIG's 2008 lobbying spending was $9.5 million, $1 million less than in 2007.

AIG spokeswoman Christina Pretto said the company's fourth-quarter figures include spending on state-level lobbying and trade-association activity. AIG stopped federal lobbying after criticism by Congress in October, which was the reason for the 2008 decline in spending, she said. The company continues to lobby on insurance issues and legislation at the state level, but activities must be approved by the company's general counsel and chief regulatory and compliance officer, she said.

In October, after the Wall Street Journal reported that AIG was lobbying states for more favorable interpretations of a law that would place new controls on mortgage originators, Sen. Feinstein and Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida introduced legislation that would ban recipients of taxpayer money from lobbying. The two lawmakers are seeking sponsors for a House version of the bill.

—Louise Radnofsky contributed to this article.