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Originally Posted by H. Montague Worthington
One of these days, a major American corporation will make the technological breakthrough that we've all been waiting for--- turning the blood, bones, and ground tissue of crippled third world orphans into a useful consumer product.
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I thought they did. Isn't it called "pink slime"?
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Here is my All-Star List of Corporate Entities (aka Individuals Just Like You And Me) with the inside track on turning needless suffering into enormous profit.
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I'm not sure of two of your selections, Brother. You may want to reconsider them in light of new information.
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Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) Dow Chemical is a prolific manufacturer of chemicals, plastics, catalysts, coatings, and crop technology. They also have a fine pedigree as the owner of a production facility that produced napalm, Agent Orange, and plutonium triggers for hydrogen bombs in the 1950s and 1960s. The parent company of the former Union Carbide Company is rumored to be working on a laundry fabric softener made from the charred skin of infants who die in maternity ward fires.
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On the down side, Brother, Dow is working to
destroy fried foods, and have bought in wholesale to the Green Dragon--the envirowhacko movement!
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Dow (DOW) is working on its consumer product business, according to Liveris, which includes a canola oil that is free of trans-fats. "This is a breakthrough product that could make Kentucky Fried Chicken good for you," Liveris said. And humanity rejoices. The other whiz-bang inventions Liveris mentioned lean a little more towards the more expected green-tech, modern-miracle-of-manufacturing type of products.
For example, in several states, Dow is rolling out photovoltaic solar panels that appear much more like typical shingles than previous versions. The company is also training workers to roof houses with these new solar shingles. This April, Dow rolled out the technology in northern California, and it's already available in Colorado and Texas. When those panels are applied to houses that are sealed correctly, Liveris says, power collected from the sun can fuel the home's energy needs, effectively creating a zero-emission home.
Liveris also discussed his company's work in lightweight vehicles. Dow is pairing up with Ford (F) to make materials that should shed about 750 pounds from the weight of a car, allowing more fuel to go towards powering the wheels instead of lugging the vehicle's weight.
Liveris' list of neat inventions helped close Fortune's Brainstorm Green conference on a positive note, no simple feat.
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Monsanto (NYSE: MON) You may not realize it, but nearly 50% of your body is already owned by Monsanto, thanks to their patents on the foods we eat. And their scientists and lawyers are working on gaining important new patents for most of the Earth's air and water.
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I'm not so sure about Monsanto, Brother. Their pioneering work in genetic engineering has led to rice with high levels of Vitamin A, which ends up preventing blindness in poor people. And they've found ways to substantially increase grain yields with the same or less water and fertilizer, keeping many in poor African nations from starving to death.
Their work is doing nothing but boosting the population of poor people. This is very disturbing to me.
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Vector Group Limited (NYSE: VGR) Vector Group Ltd is a holding company operating in tobacco and real estate. The Tobacco segment consists of the manufacture and sale of cigarettes. The Real Estate segment includes the Company’s investments in consolidated and non-consolidated real estate businesses. The company is rumored to be combining their interests in smoking products and real estate by establishing a nationwide chain of thousands of crack houses, using Starbuck's as a model.
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Now, I have heard good things about the tobacco companies. They're also expanding into those Third World nations, and shortening the lifespans of the poor there.