George Glasser's Open Salon Blog

Artificial Intelligence + Robotics: Cannibalistic Capitalism

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 10:10:50 -0400

In writing this article, it was strange how I started out researching one subject and found myself off into another area connected with that subject, but with much broader negative implications to the global societal structure as a whole.

I began looking into investment banking fraud and High Frequency Trading where super fast computers do trades at up to a million times a second and skim billions of pennies a day off billions of near speed of light transactions a day without risking a penny.

Frankly, I was fairly astounded by the fact that upwards to 73% of the trading done on the stock markets is by artificial intelligence – algorithmic programs. Now, every investment bank in the world is investing into High Frequency Trading technology and hiring mathematicians and engineers instead of people with classic business/economics degrees.

It was like a science fiction story because there is little or no human involvement in High Frequency Trading other than the mathematicians who write the algorithmic programs based on predictable group behaviours.

I came across one article which stated that by 2015 almost 90% of the human faces in investment banking, stock markets, and the financial industry as a whole would be replaced by computer technology. The more conservative estimates were that 30 - 50% of the financial industry workers would be replaced by intelligent algorithmic machines.

Even the mathematicians are committing employment suicide because they are teaching computers to learn that will teach other more technologically advanced computers thus eliminating the need for their services.

The new breeds of computers outperform humans, and even if cyborg (Transhuman) technology such as microchip implants which allow humans to directly interface with the speed of light processes came into being, humans still will never outperform the computers at their given tasks.

At that point, it dawned on me that artificial intelligence was encroaching on the service sector work force and human faces were being displaced at an alarming rate – that is, from my humble perspective.

My first thought was an observation - cashiers at my grocery store were disappearing and serendipitously replaced by computerised checkouts.

Over the past year, I’ve seen the number of computerised checkout counters in my grocery store go from four to ten with one person overseeing the operation so that everything went smoothly.

The computerised checkouts also require less space; ten customers are serviced in the same space as three conventional human operated checkouts thus allowing more space to stock merchandise aside from eliminating employees.

The machines are also designed to rush the customer: if you don’t bag your item fast enough, you can bet the emotionless voice will tell you to bag your item within five seconds of scanning it. Of course, every canned, computerised statement is prefixed with the word “Please.” However, just the rapidity and repetition of the commands instils a sense of urgency in the customer.

I also observed that the store has cut back on human cashiers during rush hours thus driving more and more people to their computerised counterparts in order to avoid long waiting lines.

One computerised check out probably handles at least two customers to every one its human counterpart services, and the machine doesn’t take a few seconds to engage with the customer. Consequently, not only has the store displaced possibly twenty or more human cashiers, they’ve also increased efficiency and doubled the rate of customers serviced, but also increased shelf space to sell more products.

Presently, the algorithmic programmers are developing interactive avatars to make customers feel like they are actually communicating with a person. Supposedly, these systems are also capable of learning how to deal with customers better with each encounter.

All this means greater profitability for the corporation and its shareholders. It’s a classic capitalistic philosophy at its most logical and fundamental level. The formula being, increase profitability by increasing efficiency equates to eliminating most all human faces, human personality traits, and human frailties from workplaces in areas where artificial Intelligence can do the job more efficiently and cheaper.

We are not slowly being led into this new reality, but pushed into it with ever-greater rapidity.

Today, there is a recession and many people are out of work; however, as the economy recovers, many of the jobs people had will have been replaced by artificial intelligence or robotics. Essentially, there are no jobs for many of those displaced people who worked in all sectors of the workplace where a computer or robot can do the job more efficiently and cost effectively.

As time goes on, in not the too distant future, jobs that people take for granted like office workers, call centres, chain store clerks, and even the over self confident investment bankers will find Artificial Intelligence encroaching on their territory. It’s like the invasive ’Weed optimization algorithym' that finds a suitable place for growth and reproduction and rapidly displaces the previous inhabitants.

Subsequently, not only are more and more traditional service industry jobs lost to Artificial Intelligence, but also many of future high-end jobs that many young people are investing money and time studying for in universities will not be there when the graduate because of rapidly developing technology.

The ‘experts’ estimate that in the global workplace, somewhere between 50% - 75% of human faces will be displaced by robots and Artificial Intelligence within the next ten years.

Even in food production area, engineers are developing robots with sensors that detect the plants’ needs, tend them, and know to harvest the product at the right time.

While corporations are rapidly embracing Artificial Intelligence and robotics as a means to increase productivity, reliability, and efficiency thus increasing profitability, they are simultaneously displacing jobs for human faces at an alarming rate.

The above scenario is pretty much a foregone conclusion among the ‘visionary experts,’ and they say there will be the ultra-rich and the people servicing their needs and desires. However, for the general population, their utopian vision is quite different and will be quite bleak, especially if they are ambitious and want more out of life than being a personal shopper or nanny.

The’ visionaries’ see a population that is basically unemployed and warehoused much in the same way as welfare benefits serve to keep a subsection of the population out of the workforce by offering subsistence level incomes to keep them placated.

In the future, the ‘behavioural experts’ envision, turning people’s attention to “creative pursuits,” and if people are unhappy or dissatisfied with that, you can offer the poor souls “cheap prescriptions drugs” to maintain their emotionless and ambitionless state of mind.

They also suggest that parents should start instilling in their children that they should not expect too much out of life because there will be little or no chance for social or economic advancements above the social strata in which they were born.

The ‘visionaries’ also realise that there are subsets of the population that will never fit into the group consciousness, but they say those people have always been around as can be witnessed by people living in slums a ghettos. The malcontents, fringe elements, and misfits will always find a substandard location to survive, but are no real threat to their overall vision of the future.

Unfortunately for the ‘industry visionaries,’ the algorithmic programs have several fatal flaws, and the first being that corporations are sociopathic in nature; consequently, there is no thought of the human condition that comes into any boardroom decision. Their only concern is about profitability, growth, expansion, and satiating the shareholders apatite for dividends, thus like a voracious species of fish that consume everything in the pond and finally start consuming each other, corporations will consume the very people that support their livelihoods until there’s not enough consumers with enough money to support the industries.

The second fatal flaw is that governments are slow to act and most often, do the bidding of corporations, which the programmers never really factored into in their “Evolutionary algorithms.”

The third fatal flaw is that essentially, they are cannibalising the very market base that procures services and goods from them.

In order for their Orwellian vision to come to fruition within the next ten to twenty years as speculated, governments and corporations would have to be setting aside funds and segueing populations into the new reality. However, at this point, even at the industry’s optimistic estimates of workforce displacement by Artificial Intelligence and robotics of about 75% by 2020, the results could well be economically catastrophic in nature because capitalism is based on supply and demand. There will be an overabundance of supply, but not enough people with expendable income to create a profitable market base.

The rapid introduction of Artificial Intelligence and robotics as replacements for human faces robs people of income (purchasing power), thus all the products produced and services performed by machines become meaningless, profitless activities unless there is a mass market that can afford to buy them.

There will come, in the near future, a point of diminishing returns and eventually losses on investments into replacing people with machines as corporations’ insatiable quest for profits leads to more and more corporate cannibalisation of the very source of their profits – the workforce.

###

Macondo: Requiem for BP

Thu, 3 Jun 2010 05:06:28 -0400

(“One hundred years of refusing to acknowledge the world outside of their village had destroyed them; and races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on Earth.” Gabriel García Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude).

In many ways, BP’s rise and impending fall metaphorically mirror the rambling, fatalistic plot of Marquez’s classic novel, “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

BP named the ill-fated oil well “Macondo,” which was simply a code name chosen at random for the project that no one ever thought about much. However, retrospectively, it is as if the name was attained by consulting an oracle, and at that instant, the oil well and BP’s destinies were inextricably linked.

Macondo was not just any innocuous name randomly plucked out of a hat filled with different names. Macondo contained an ominous message - an intrinsic message of an apocalyptic nature that would come to pass if unheeded or unrecognised.

Macondo was the name of the cursed village in Marquez’s novel, which in the end, every last trace of the village and its inhabitants were swept away by a violent storm.

“It was as if God had decided to put to the test every capacity for surprise and was keeping the inhabitants of Macondo in a permanent alternation between excitement and disappointment, doubt and revelation, to such an extreme that no one knew for certain where the limits of reality lay.”*

From the onset, people working on the drilling platform said the Macondo well was troublesome, unpredictable, and one concerned worker even told his wife that it was a “cursed well.”

The project was running over budget and behind schedule because of numerous problems and unforeseen setbacks. However, despite the many bad omens, BP choose to ignore the risks, pushed onwards, and took even more risks to cut costs until 20 April 2010 – the apocalyptic day of reckoning for BP - the fiery beginning of the end.

“It was the last that remained of a past whose annihilation had not taken place because it was still in a process of annihilation, consuming itself from within, ending at every moment but never ending its ending.”*

The strange, almost prophetic parallel to Marquez’s novel is that BP as an entity is 100 years old and is the last intact vestige of the once great British Empire. And like Macondo in the novel, BP incestuously isolated itself from reality in a nationalistic cocoon – British tradition – safely tucked in the folds of Benjamin Disraeli and the Marquess of Salisbury’s policy of “Splendid Isolation.”

BP was born 14 April 1909 during the British Empire heyday and was originally named Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Today, BP is the fourth largest corporation in the world. They produce over one-tenth of the global oil supply.

In 1923, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company secretly gave Winston Churchill £5,000 to lobby the British government to allow them to monopolize Persian oil resources.

Shortly after that, the British government and the Bank of England were the controlling shareholders with 75% of the action.

In 1935, it became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).

Essentially, the British government controlled the whole moneymaking show with aid of puppet regimes it installed by subterfuge or instigated coups d'état.

After WW 2, things began to go south for the British control of Iranian oil and the Empire was falling apart.

In 1951, the Iranian government nationalized the oil industry and gave the Brit imperialists the boot. Subsequently, the British government which owned the AIOC contested the nationalization at The Hague (International court), but the case was dismissed.

Desperate to regain control of the oil money, the almost bankrupt British (post WW2) government conspired with the American government and instigated a coup d'état known as “Operation Ajax” in 1953. They overthrew the Iranian government and installed in a pro-western regime. However, part of the deal was that AIOC had to divide spoils between the coconspirators thus loosing their Iranian oil monopoly.

In 1954, British government owned AIOC rebranded itself as British Petroleum, and in 1959, British Petroleum began to reestablishing the British Economic Empire by exploiting Alaska’s vast oil reserves and drilling in the North Sea.

To make a long story short, British Petroleum went through a number of changes including privatization by Maggie Thatcher and downsizing process in the 1980s, but they never lost the taste for expansion, and made aggressive acquisitions of other oil companies and expanded, but in reality, BP was in financial trouble.

In 2001, British Petroleum decided to do a major ‘greenwashing job and rebranded with an iconic green flower logo and became BP whose slogan was “Beyond Petroleum.” However, like any criminally inclined organization, BP set up divisions that were legitimately Green, but their list of criminal, safety, environmental, and international human rights violations on the oil side of business continued to pile up unabatedly.

In spite of cost cutting, greenwashing, sacking employees, and even with BP’s aggressive market approach, in the early twenty-first century, BP was still in financial trouble.

By 2007, BP was still in financial trouble and Tony Hayward came to the forefront – Hayward was essentially a hatchet man. Between 2007 and 2010, he cut BP’s operating costs by 40% and sacked thousands of employees. But under his reign, BP was now making record profits, and like the Phoenix, BP rose from the ashes and seemed invincible until the day of reckoning.

20 April 2010, not only did the Macondo curse come to pass, but also BP’s wretched history uncontrollably belched forth like the oil gushing from deep within Mother Earth’s punctured belly.

In the US, aside from the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe, BP is best known for the Texas City blast in 2005, but the actual list of violations and criminal charges go on and on – too numerous to mention.

BP was a company driven to succeed and become the world’s largest corporation at any cost; and the fines and criminal charges were just the cost of achieving that goal – the cost of building the new British Empire. Their insatiable drive was not only about the money; the underlying psychological mindset was that the UK would once again become the most influential country in the world by controlling the global oil supply.

BP is last powerful vestige of the old British Empire still operating today; however, like with the village of Macondo; all good things must come to an end.

BP will never regain any of its former glory or reputation, and only exist relentlessly haunted by the specter of the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe for which no amount of greenwashing will ever cover - it is BP’s black legacy.

From the very beginning, 100 years ago, BP’s fate was predetermined by its own incestuous, nationalistic nature, much the same as with the cursed village of Macondo in Marquez’s novel. Its annihilation began with its inception, and the Macondo well is the storm that will wipe BP from the earth.

Epitaph for BP:

“Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirages would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men…”*

(*Quotes from “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”)

The Gulf Oil Spill & The Art of Persuasion

Sun, 9 May 2010 08:05:42 -0400

High-powered public relations and crises management teams come to the rescue of BP.

Tony Hayward, the cherub-cheeked chairman of PB (British Petroleum) has the unenviable task of being the talking head for BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill. He comes across as the concerned, empathetic executive trying to make things right, and of course, denying any responsibility for the spill – it was the incompetent contractors. However, Hayward magnanimously goes on says that British Petroleum will pay for cleaning-up the mess.

Hayward is simply the public face of BP – a robotic mouthpiece attached to a crises management team. He ceased to bare any resemblance to a human being the moment the crises began to unfold.

Watching and reading interviews with Hayward, the one thing an old investigative environmental journalist sees behind the empathetic words and boyish expressions is an invisible army of cynical lawyers, crises management, and public relations specialists frenetically crafting his canned responses to media questions.

The crises management team has already reviewed questions the news media asked about previous man-made disasters and fabricated logical sounding answers. They craft every word that Hayward and his BP associates spit out to the media to elicit as much public sympathy and understanding of “BP’s unfortunate plight” as possible.

Not only do they create the words and Hayward’s public image, but simultaneously there are batteries of people tracking every news story along with what’s said on bogs and social networking sites, and in turn, pump out positive spins to counter anything negative they encounter. The aim is to get people on their side, and if a blogger is popular enough, attempt to buy them off with favours.

The PR battle and manipulating public opinion regarding BP’s battered public image is every bit as intense as the battle to quell the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.

What we are talking about is “Crises Management” and that’s in the domain of public relations experts. Large corporations like BP retain a multinational public relations firm specialising not only creating their ‘green corporate image,’ but also disarm the media and manipulate information on Internet social networking sites such Twitter and Facebook in crises situations. They even attempt to manipulate Internet search engines to knock negative information or bogs off the first pages.

Large public relations firms are completely without scruples and completely mercenary. Their only loyalty is to the corporation paying for services.

Typically, proactive crisis management activities include forecasting potential crises and creating media strategies to deal with them – it’s like soothsaying and rehearsing responses to the media before the foreseeable crises happens.

The PR agency responsible for BP’s “Green – Nice Corporation” image in the early part of this century says on their site in the crises management section:

Crises can unfold with blistering speed. Responding to a crisis requires an organization's leadership to remain focused and effective.

Ogilvy PR is an expert in crisis management. From the CDC [US Centers for Disease Control] to corporate clients, we help organizations anticipate the types of situations they're likely to encounter and hone the skills they need to contain a crisis and implement an effective response.

Al Tortorella, Managing Director, Crisis Management at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide says:

What are some of the challenges clients face, and how does Ogilvy address them?

Every crisis situation is unique and must be managed accordingly. However, there are certain core principles underpinning successful crisis management, and we use them every day to contain the difficulties our clients face when they are under attack.

Our experience has led us to identify some key areas that companies under stress should be cognizant of. They are:

· an understanding of the media interest in the story,

· a precise definition of the real problem and determining strategy accordingly,

· a managing of the flow of information,

· an assumption that the situation will escalate and get worse,

· a managing of all the affected constituencies, and,

· a measuring of results in real time.

Much of what we do involves anticipating the types of crises that a company is likely to encounter so we can help develop useful frameworks.

Further, the skills needed to implement a crisis response can be amplified and honed through simulations that put management through the paces of a realistic crisis situation.

When it comes to crises management, the PR agency will try almost any tactic they can get away with to take the heat off their client. In the case of BP, it appears that one tactic called ‘viral marketing’ has come into play using rumours and conspiracy theories to deflect the spotlight from the corporation onto innocuous third parties.

While PR agency personnel may not have created the rumours, it is to their benefit to spread and perpetuate them on behalf of their client who is not directly responsible for the PR agencies actions.

One of the better sound bites is “Obama’s Katrina” which is something the Obama administration was forced to counter before it got out of control by publishing a timeline on the Internet.

The ‘Katrina’ sound bite suggests that if President Obama had responded sooner, the oil spill would not be as serious and the real fault falls on the US government’s slowness in responding, not BP.

The major objective of crises management is to take control of the information disseminated to the media and make the news media dependent on the company public relations department for any news.

Thus far, to some extent, it seems as if tried and true crises management strategies are beginning to work for BP.

Brits & Chips

Sat, 1 May 2010 11:05:04 -0400

first thing I discovered when I came to the UK was that Brits love potatoes. In fact, Brits are the tenth largest consumers of potatoes in the world – 240 pounds per person, per year.

I ate more potatoes in the first three weeks I was in the UK than I ate the previous three years in the States. At restaurants, sometimes, I would get three different types of potatoes with one meal.

There are different culinary approaches to cooking potatoes in different regions of the UK (Actually, it all pretty much the same, just different names for the dishes.).

However, the one thing all the Brits have in common is a love affair with chips. 25% (About 60 Lbs per person, per year) of all the potatoes used in the UK are consumed as - CHIPS.

Now, the more erudite, cosmopolitan people who live in the south of the UK will unequivocally say that they are not into chips, and chips are for the plebeians and countrified Northerners. However, that’s a bald-faced lie. In the ten years I’ve lived in the UK, I’ve never met a Brit who will turn their nose up at an order of chips.

In grocery stores, often, I’ve seen a complete isle of the frozen food section dedicated to chips – Thick chips, thin chips, curly chips, crinkled chips, fish and chip shop style chips, flavoured chips, celebrity chef cut, flavoured chips, and just plain old generic store brand chips.

It’s quite common when eating out with companions to watch them order a meal that comes with chips and ask for an extra portion of chips. In fact, I had them notice that I didn’t finish my generous portion of chips and say, “Mind if I finish those off for you?”

I’ve seen people mix chips with mashed potatoes. They say it’s something about the different textures, but I still don’t understand.

People wander around on the streets grazing on chips smothered in gravy, curry, mushy peas, etc., etc.

The portions of chips one gets at the average chip-oil (fish and chips shop) must weigh close to a pound, and it requires wrapping them in about four layers of paper to keep the oil and moisture saturated package from disintegrating before you get out the door.

But that’s not the end of it, the Brits are so nuts about chips some Chinese restaurants automatically serve chips instead of rice with meals, and Indian restaurants serve curry and chips.

As a rule of thumb, to operate any successful restaurant in the UK, you have to include chips on any A la carte menu and even as table d’hôte no matter how inappropriate something like chips with Mandarin cuisine may seem.

Chips are even often included as a topping for pizzas.

Then, there is lasagna and chips.

Of course, there are chips and eggs for breakfast.

You can get chip sandwiches - 'chip butty' which is a large buttered bun called a 'bap' with a generous portion of chips as a filling.

In Glasgow, you can get deep fried Mars candy bars and chips.

The most valuable cultural insight I’ve learned in Great Britain is that if you want to impress a Brit, just put a plateful of chips with some vinegar and salt in front of them. It don’t matter whether it be breakfast, lunch, tea, or just a snack, they’ll quickly devour every last chip.

As far as the ‘Great British Menu’ goes, you can’t go wrong with the critics as long as you include a generous portion of chips with every course.

The New China Syndrome: Radioactive Drywall

Wed, 7 Apr 2010 15:04:01 -0400

‘A reporter discovers what appears to be a cover-up of safety hazards at a nuclear power plant and finds herself involved in a sinister conspiracy to cover-up the imminent threat of a meltdown.’ The synopsis for The China Syndrome, a film produced in 1979 that won four Oscars.

However, today, the China Syndrome is a completely different ‘meltdown’ scenario; the exportation of toxic and potentially deadly products by unscrupulous Chinese manufacturers such as:

Deadly, defective tires;
Toxic Fish – substituting poisonous puffer fish for monk fish;
Toxic Thomas the Tank Engine toys;
Toxic antifreeze in baby’s milk;
Toxic children’s overalls;
Deadly electrocution hair driers;
Toxic/Neurotoxic lead in children’s toys and jewelry;
Toxic pet food;
Toxic, radioactive drywall; and
The deadly and toxic Chinese product list goes on-and-on.

It seems that the rule of thumb used in the Chinese manufacturing sector is to generate product as cheaply as possible regardless of the risk to the consumer, that is, until they get caught at it. Even if they get caught, it’s no big deal because the contract will be crafted so that the liability for any defects rests with the wholesale distributors and retailers selling the product to the public.

The reality of the situation is that it’s very easy to get around government safety regulations on imports. All a manufacturer or importer has to do is say their product complies with a countries health and safety standards, and maybe if pressured, hand over a dog-eared document from some nonexistent certifying laboratory with a Shanghai, China address.

In fact, most imported products receive no scrutiny from overseeing government agencies. The agencies simply take the manufactures word that their products comply with health and safety standards. Essentially, it is the responsibility of the wholesale distributors and vendors to assure that the products they sell comply with a country’s health and safety standards.

Presently, the Chinese have the dubious distinction as bring the most prolific exporters of dodgy, deadly, and toxic goods in the world.

Well, as an old investigative environmental journalist, I came across an attention grabber, and I caught the distinct aroma of a dead rotting rat emanating from behind Chinese made drywall. My interest was sparked mainly because there appears to be a whitewash of sorts going on with the product in question, and the product is made from no less than a USEPA listed ‘Naturally Occurring Radioactive Waste Product’ that I know quite a bit about.

The product is Chinese drywall (sheetrock/plasterboard) made from waste phosphogypsum.

Phosphogypsum is waste sludge from the production of wet process phosphate fertilizer. In wet process production, they combine concentrated sulfuric acid with phosphate rock slurry to produce phosphoric acid. After the reaction takes place, there is phosphoric acid and the phosphogypsum waste sludge containing sulfides along with other nasty, carcinogenic contaminants such as Uranium, Cadmium, Arsenic, and Radium - all of which are internationally recognized carcinogens.

According to the World Health Organisation, USEPA, and most other relatively responsible governmental health agencies, there is no safe level of exposure to any carcinogens.

The real bad boy in the phosphogypsum waste is Radium because it decays into Radon which is colorless, odorless, water soluble, radioactive gas linked to lung cancer.

Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States, and scientists estimate that approximately 20,000 lung cancer deaths per year are Radon-related.

All phosphate rock contains radioactive elements, and of course, their parent Uranium no matter where in the world it’s mined.

At one time, the phosphate fertilizer industry produced most all the yellow cake uranium used in the production of nuclear arms and for the nuclear power industry from the phosphogypsum waste. Subsequently, there is no doubt about the fact that the waste phosphogypsum is radioactive.

Curiously, the US Consumer Products Safety Commission stated that the toxic Chinese drywall only showed normal background levels of radiation which is very difficult to believe. But the results of testing for radiation levels in the drywall are totally contingent on the testing method, and for some strange reason, no documents were available describing the methodology.xxc

For instance, if they simply ran a detector over the top of the paper sandwiched drywall, it’s highly likely that they would see low radiation levels, especially the Beta radiation emitted by Radon which doesn’t have much penetration power. But if they powdered the drywall, it would be another story; and if they did a spectral analysis on the powdered sample, it would probably light up like Las Vegas on a moonless night.

Cutting through all the eye-glazing scientific jargon about Alpha and Beta emitters, all natural radioactive materials start out as Uranium and go through what scientists call a ‘decay rate process’ until the Uranium becomes stable (non radioactive) Lead. As it goes through the decay process from radioactive element to element, the type of radiation changes alternately from Alpha to Beta emitters.

Unless you ingest or inhale Beta emitters, they don’t pose much of a threat. But a Beta emitter like Radon continues on decaying, and the big problem with Radon before it becomes stable lead, it evolves to Polonium 210 which is the nastiest progeny of Uranium; Polonium 210 emits 5000 times more Alpha radiation (the type responsible for cancer creation) than Radium.

However, Radon poses a long-term risk, and the adverse health consequences of chronic exposure can take thirty or forty years to manifest themselves. Young children are most at risk.

Now, most all the homes with the toxic Chinese drywall were new-build, energy efficient dwellings – essentially, hermetically sealed toxic exposure chambers.

Studies show that indoor air pollution in energy efficient homes can be five to eight times greater than ambient outdoor air pollution. When it comes to pollutants like hydrogen sulfide and radon gases released from the toxic Chinese drywall, they simply accumulate and permeate the air and everything that will absorb the pollutants in the energy efficient dwelling thus exposing the occupants to high concentrations of airborne toxicants.

Basically, it’s the same method scientific researchers use to perform experiments with Sprague Dawley rats to determine the concentration of a toxic air pollutant the rats can tolerate before they develop malignant lung tumors or produce three headed offspring.

It’s highly possible that in the near future, the remediation of toxic Chinese drywall is going to be as costly as remediation of old homes painted with lead based paint and containing asbestos insulation. Also, in the near future, it’s highly possible that the toxic Chinese drywall will have to be disposed of in a landfill that accepts low-level radioactive waste.

Even today, many landfills will not accept any gypsum drywall.

As far as adverse health effects go, the serious problems will probably start popping up in the next five to ten years, and it will give researchers a chance to grab government grants to find out what went wrong and exterminate thousands more Sprague Dawley rats.

Interestingly, concerns over the potential long-term adverse health consequences of phosphogypsum waste prompted the Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to ban it from use in construction in 1989. However, while USEPA banned the use of domestic phosphogypsum waste, there are no regulations against importing the product into the United States as a construction material.

According to law firms handling Toxic Chinese Drywall tort litigation, upward to 80% of Chinese drywall firms make the product with radioactive phosphogypsum waste.

Initially the problem with the toxic Chinese drywall came to light because of the noxious smell due to the high sulfur content. When sulfur comes in contact with ambient moisture in the air, it forms sulfuric acid and/or toxic hydrogen sulfide among other sulfur compounds. The people in homes where the contractors used the toxic Chinese drywall soon experienced the odor of rotten eggs (indicating poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas), and as time went on, problems with electrical wiring and switches manifested themselves because of corrosive fumes. Some people reported electrical shocks and arcing when they flipped on appliance and light switches.

Today, there is a mass of class action lawsuits against the companies and contractors that supplied the toxic Chinese drywall, but the Chinese manufactures walked away with a bundle of cash and without any liability leaving distributors and contractors holding the bag.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission and Department of Housing and Urban Development said some Chinese drywall samples emitted hydrogen sulfide at rates 100 times that of non-Chinese samples. The drywall problem is so serious, both agencies recommended that homes with the toxic Chinese drywall should be “Gutted,” and to remove or replace:

All possible problem drywall;
All fire alarm safety devices, including smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms;
All electrical components and wiring, including outlets, switches and circuit breakers;
All gas service piping and fire suppression sprinkler systems.

Curiously, in the US Centers for Disease Control (USCDC) remediation guidelines, there is no mention of any radioactive contaminant danger to either the workers or residents. However, they do say in the mild-mannered remediation guidelines:

The Task Force is aware that some parties who are remediating homes with problem drywall take certain actions aimed at cleaning the structure during remediation such as the use of HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) vacuums and the ventilation of the home for a period between removal and replacement of drywall.

So, in reality, if you are living in a home lined with sandwiched Chinese radioactive toxic waste, you’re living in a toxic time bomb, and once again, the government is doing everything it can to minimize the potential, long-term health risks.

Well, if all that isn’t bad enough, the Chinese are fastly becoming the primary supplier of fluoride chemicals to fluoridate American drinking water – they supply over 50% of the chemicals used to fluoridate America’s drinking water. The decisions to purchase Chinese fluoridation chemicals are strictly economic, and the Chinese supply the cheapest available products.

Chinese suppliers have to ship the chemicals across the Pacific Ocean and across the United States and still manage to underbid US suppliers!

To an old investigative journalist, there is the overwhelming stench of a dead rat emanating from the water tap.

And yes, once again, the ‘New China Syndrome’ comes into play and my suspicions confirmed. March 10, 2010, WCVT in Massachusetts reported, “Mystery Substance Found in Chinese Fluoride Added to Massachusetts Water.”

Although many cities around the United States have reported similar problems with the cheap Chinese fluoride, USCDC dentists say that no one should worry about the quality because, ‘it’s certified and manufactured to exacting quality standards set forth by the American Water Works Association.’ But a perplexed Amesbury, Massachusetts public works director said the following about the cheap Chinese fluoride, “I don’t know what it is. It’s not soluble, and it doesn’t appear to be sodium fluoride. So we are not quite sure what it is.”

How naïve can a person get, after all, it’s a cheap Chinese import, and no doubt, it’s the dirtiest and probably deadliest product in the world used to fluoridate the American public drinking water – but it’s cheap and also a waste stream product from the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer.

As for the Chinese manufacturer, poisoning the 25% of the American population is not a problem, because it not his obligation to insure the quality of the product and accepts no liability on the contract; consequently, he walks away with a pocket full of cash and no responsibility because the liability rests on the shoulders of cities and water companies fluoridating the drinking water.

If you think anyone is watching out for your health and safety when it comes to Chinese imports, think again.