LickMyGreenBalls

Problem
Everyone and their mother claims to be "sustainable" or at least for it. As a starting point, here is a renowned food activist's editorial from the NYTimes.

Foodie author Michael Pollan defines what "unsustainable" is, and shows us two examples of what horrors this amoral business behavior spawns.

Case 1: Industrial pig breeding
Do you LOVE bacon? So do we! Pigs in concentrated feed lots created a biohazard nightmare breeding ground for a drug-resistant bacteria which is now killing more Americans than AIDS: MSRA.

"MRSA, the very scary antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS — 100,000 infections leading to 19,000 deaths in 2005"

Case 2: Honeybees!
Where is my honey? I see hundreds of honeybees feeding off the sage outside my house every day. Thank goodness for "wilderness" and Wild Law. It's about time to put in one of those honeybee boxes so i can collect on this! Sage honey, mmm.

From Pollan: "The second story is about honeybees, which have endured their own mysterious epidemic this past year. Colony Collapse Disorder was first identified in 2006, when a Pennsylvanian beekeeper noticed that his bees were disappearing — going out on foraging expeditions in the morning never to return. Within months, beekeepers in 24 states were reporting losses of between 20 percent and 80 percent of their bees, in some cases virtually overnight. Entomologists have yet to identify the culprit"

NAMING NAMES

So who benefits from Case 1 and Case 2 above -- who benefits from "unsustainable" business practices?

Industrial feedlot animal antibiotics makers: why are we not surprised?? It's the same old mafia bosses! Big Fat Pharma. The same people who drug out our surburban neighbors for stress, high cholesterol, and depression.

Agri Laboratories (Corporate) President and CEO is Steve Schram
Elanco Animal Health, "A Division of Eli Lilly* and Company" - President Jeff Simmons, from Eli Lilly
Novartis (interesting article over at corpwatch) CEO Daniel Vasella
Pfizer (search on pfizer at corpwatch) Letter to 2007 CEO Jeff Kindler by Peter Rost, M.D., former Vice President of Pfizer. (Yes, a fellow whistleblower!) Now check out Kindler's Political Donations to people like Hillary Clinton (yes, more taxpayer-funded corporate welfare please! and no more of that phoney organic farming crap!)

*The same Eli Lilly corporation which produced LSD for the CIA. Oh c'mon, remember "Iran/Contra" CIA drug-distrubution and funding scandal which John Kerry whitewashed for the Regan/Bush I White House? (See: "Crack the CIA" documentary at GNN.tv or youtube.)

CEO Pay for these Unsustainable business "leaders"

How about CEO pay for the leaders of these courageous corporations?

Pfizer CEO gets $16 million extra in compensation (Also covered by Forbes magazine and a feature on the "broken CEO pay system" over at CNN/Money magazine)

Novartis CEO Vasella gets $35 million annual "performance-based" salary -- performance based!! Vasella can kiss our green pie holes.

From the people who should know best
"About half of American industry has grossly unfair compensation systems where the top executives are paid too much," says Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's partner at Berkshire Hathaway.
--from cnn/money article above

And how are their stocks doing?

Eli Lilly Corporation

Novartis Corporation

Pfizer Corp.

Industrial Agriculture in every form: large farms, truckers, fertilizer companies, pesticide companies. I will track down names and name names later.

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A more general look at CEO pay, courtesy of CNN/Money magazine (above)

A look at CEO earnings

Lee Raymond

$405 Million

That's the 2005 comp, lump-sum pension, and current value of various stock grants with which Exxon's chief rides into retirement.

Bob Nardelli

$250 Million

The total value of the package Home Depot has paid him so far. He's collected about 30%. The rest varies with the stock price.

William McGuire

$1 Billion

UnitedHealth's CEO holds a ton of options. Alleged accounting flaws have hit the stock. But his potential reward (above) remains rich.

Hank McKinnell

$99 Million

Pfizer's CEO took heat for a hefty pension built up over many years (present value: $83 million). He earned $16 million in 2005.

Franklin Raines

$90 Million

Fannie Mae's boss made that from 1998 to 2003. But auditors now say the earnings his comp was based on were overstated by $11 billion.

Phil Purcell

$66 Million

Morgan Stanley's stock fell 25% in the past five years. Pushed out last year, he collected this amount in severance plus 2004 pay.

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For further research:

Infectious Diseases Society of America professional thinking and goals