The rich get richer off of govt. subsidies
A new report from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) says millionaires have received $9.5 billion in government benefits since 2003.
Play CBS News Video
(CBS News) The U.S. may technically be deep in debt, but that hasn't stopped billions of your tax dollars from going to the wealthy.
CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports the first-ever compilation of how millionaires are using the social safety net comes from fiscal conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla). He's looked at tax breaks, government loans and other benefits showing that, in recent years, more than $9 billion has gone to those who are far from needy.
From tax write-offs for gambling losses, vacation homes and luxury yachts to subsidies for ranches and estates, billions of your tax dollars are supporting the lifestyles of the rich and famous. The new report from Coburn counts the ways.
Entitled "Subsidies of the Rich and Famous," it says millionaires have received $74 million in unemployment checks in recent years, $316 million in farm subsidies, $9 billion in retirement checks, and taken out $16 million in government-backed education loans for college.
Some big celebrities are among the beneficiaries: taxpayer-funded farm subsidies for NBA star Scottie Pippen and billionaire media titan Ted Turner.
Superstar Jon Bon Jovi paid only $100 in property taxes last year on his extensive N.J. real estate holdings because he "raises bees" on it and gets farm subsidies.
Pictures: Jon Bon Jovi
Bruce "the Boss" Springsteen gets farm subsidies for leasing property to an organic farmer and Quincy Jones, who produced the top-selling album of all time, Michael Jackson's "Thriller," got a $25,000 award from the taxpayer-funded National Endowment for the Arts for his contribution to music.
Pictures: Bruce Springsteen
Coburn says an award of "prestige" can be given to honor and recognize such megastars, but insists monetary payment is unnecessary -- and now unaffordable.
Taxpayer watchdog Leslie Paige works with Citizens Against Government Waste, a private, non-partisan, non-profit organization. She told CBS News, "Some of these programs are written so badly that, in fact, everybody's eligible for them, and the question has to be, and the taxpayers have to answer it -- are we OK with that? Are we OK with millionaires getting this money?"
Even millionaires who are out of work don't have to spend down their savings as fast as they might. They can collect unemployment on the shoulders of taxpayers. The IRS reports that 2,362 millionaires collected $20,799,000 in jobless benefits in 2009.
On "The Early Show," Attkisson added, "None of the celebrities mentioned answered requests for comment. And if there ever was a climate ripe for change, this could be the closest we've come. Facing a $15 trillion dollar debt, Congress is considering bills that would deny unemployment benefits to millionaires and cut farm subsidies for the wealthy. They're also talking about limiting Medicare and other entitlements for the rich."
Most Americans are fools, and Congress and the 1% just laughs at you sheep for being so dumb and complacent. Well, the truth is you deserve what you get because you let it happen and finance it as well !!!
Americans have allowed your government to sell you out for too long. It's time for you to take back Congress and restore legislation that protects yourselves, your environment, the creatures that share this planet with, and your posterity.
If you each do not do your part and take action now, the greed of big business and your lawmakers who suck up to them WILL at the very least destroy all quality of life.
This is no fiction as you have all the evidence you need to know the outcome of our present course. Environmental disasters, species on the brink of extinction and those already extinct, contaminated food and water, drugs that are as harmful as supposedly beneficial, out of control costs of living, famine, wars..... the list goes on and on.
None of these things will get better, only worse and history confirms this.
The People must act now. You must each do something if you are going to avoid the collapse of civilization as you know it and avoid creating a world of conflict, disease, and famine.
The most effective means of action are by the same means these calamities all occur; a complete disregard for the consequences of maximizing financial gain from private business ventures.
Here in the US, Congress supports such business ventures by making their schemes to maximize profits legal. Why ??? Because these business in turn donate vast sums of money to their political campaigns and graft. The irony is these vast amounts of funds come from the people, the majority, because they are just added into the cost of goods and services these companies peddle.
This is insane. To abolish this corruption you need to take away all political financial gain from Congress. The petitions below are a beginning to do just that.
Sign them if you agree, tell others and leave a legacy for your children and grandchildren.
Petition for full disclosure of Congressional Request for Taxpayer Funds
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/require-federal-agencies-reveal-special-funding-requests-members-congress-making-these-public-real/Sv4WRnHl
Petition to Abolish Special Interest Campaign Financing
http://http://www.getmoneyout.com/
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Let a Thousand 'Rogue' Grand Juries Bloom! by William Norman Grigg
Let a Thousand 'Rogue' Grand Juries Bloom! by William Norman Grigg
Amanda Culbertson has a conscience, which is another way of saying that she wasn't well-suited to government "work." Until recently she was employed by the Houston Police Department as a crime lab supervisor. In 2009, she became aware of serious problems with the reliability of the department's roadside blood alcohol testing vehicles, more commonly known as BAT vans.
Over the past decade, hundreds of police departments nation-wide have purchased the vehicles with the help of federal grants. The testing device deployed in them, the Intoxilyzer, is considered infallible by law enforcement agencies and most trial judges. However, the Kentucky-based company that manufactures the the Intoxilyzer has refused to disclose its source code. Without access to the source code, the device's findings are unverifiable. As one defendant points out, the machine could simply be a gimmicky random number generator, rather than a finely calibrated scientific instrument.
In 2008, it was discovered that a supervisor for the Houston Police Department had falsified BAT van inspection records for at least the previous eighteen months, thereby calling into question test results in at least 2,600 cases. When Culbertson was appointed to supervise the inspections, she learned that indifferently trained police officers allowed the units to overheat, which would skew test results. In addition, a glitch in the system caused the much-heralded Intoxilyzer to reset every time the air conditioner was turned on.
Over the course of several months, Culbertson tried to get officials in the police department and the Harris County DA's office to address her concerns. None of them was interested in disturbing what had become a very profitable scam.
In June, Culbertson and two of her colleagues quit their jobswith the HPD. "We could no longer choose between a paycheck and our integrity," Culbertson explained. Not surprisingly, she was called to testify by attorneys representing some of the hundreds of people facing DUI charges as a result of BAT van tests.
In professional terms, Culbertson landed on her feet: She was hired by a laboratory at Lone Star College that had a contract to conduct breathalyzer analysis for the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Shortly thereafter, the Harris County Commission – at the initiative of DA Pat Lykos – ended its contract with the Lone Star College lab. In effect, Lykos – in an act of vulgar retaliation – arranged for Culbertson to be fired.
Harris County's 185th criminal court grand jury, which had been investigating problems with the BAT vans, called Culbertson to testify, along with former Harris County Prosecutor Brent Mayr. Lykos dispatched two members of her flying monkey corps – assistant DAs Carl Hobbs and Steve Morris – to "monitor" the grand jury testimony.
Since Lykos and her office were suspected of covering up the use of tainted evidence and retaliating against a whistleblower, the DA and her underlings were barred from being present in any capacity other than as sworn witnesses. Accordingly, when Lykos's minions materialized during Culbertson's testimony, the Grand Jury Foreman ordered them to leave. When that directive was ignored, the Foreman instructed the Baliff to remove them or place them under arrest.
Lykos unsuccessfully sought a court order compelling the grand jury to grant access to her underlings. When that effort failed, the DA's office exploited a back-channel to obtain official transcripts of the grand jury testimony. That led to a summons from Judge Susan Brown to Hobbs and Morris, along with court reporters Javier Leal and Katherine Chagaris, who face the possibility of contempt citations and the prospect of six months in jail.
The Harris County grand jury's insurrection caused consternation in the DA's office, and astonishment in the local media. "All too often in the past, Harris County grand juries have functioned as rubber stamps providing prosecutors with indictments without impartial scrutiny of their substance," notes the Houston Chronicle. Of course, this is true of practically every grand jury since the enactment of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in 1946.
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure were created by committee to be an instrument of what the German National Socialists called Gleichschaltung – the "synchronization" of legal (as well as political and cultural) institutions with the dictates of the central government. Germany had been a federated constitutional republic prior to 1933, when Gleichschaltung got underway. Five years later, the FDR regime's Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure – invoking the supposed need for "simplicity" and "efficiency" – began the same process in the United States.
The Advisory Committee had no legislative authority or popular mandate; it was a pure creation of the prosecutorial class. Thus it's hardly surprising that one of its most urgent priorities was to transform the grand jury from a citizen's assembly into an instrument of the prosecution. This meant "rectifying" – in the Orwellian sense – the Fifth Amendment by effectively removing the troublesome word "presentment."
The Fifth Amendment specifies that "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury...." A "presentment" is essentially a proprio motu indictment delivered by a grand jury without approval of a government prosecutor.
Presentments were often filed by grand juries investigating official corruption – such as the grand jury in Minneapolis that forced the resignation of the mayor and police chief in 1902, or the one that dislodged Boss Tweed and his politically sheltered cronies thirty years earlier.
This was an entirely appropriate function of the grand jury. The "grand jury in its primal, plenary sense ... was a group of men who stood as a check on government, often in direct opposition to the desires of those in power," points out constitutional scholar Roger Roots. Rather than being an instrument of the political class, Roots continues, "American grand juries initiated prosecutions against corrupt agents of the government, often in response to complaints from individuals." It also served as "a people's watchdog against arbitrary and malevolent prosecutions."
For most of America's history, "the evil that the grand jury sought to address was the exercise of distant power locally," wrote Kevin K. Washburn in an article for the Fordham Law Review. "Indeed, the grand jury came to us as an institution that was respected for its profound ability to protect local communities – indeed, possibly rebellious ones – from central government authority. It was, in essence, a local check on Crown authority."
In 1734, grand juries twice refused to indict John Peter Zenger for "seditious libel." New York's Royal Governor William Cosby bypassed the grand jury by filing a "criminal information" against Zenger – only to see the trial jury nullify the sedition law and acquit the newspaper publisher. During the 1760s, Crown prosecutors in Massachusetts were constantly stymied by grand juries that refused to indict colonists accused of violating the Stamp Act and other impositions.
Both before and after American Independence, "the grand jury's primary method for exercising its power was not rigorous review of facts, but nullification of validly enacted laws," Washburn observes. They didn't dispute the prosecutor's presentation of the facts, but rather "the legislator's right to impose such laws, or at least the prosecutor's decision to enforce them in a given context."
Obviously, this kind of power simply couldn't be left in the hands of mere Mundanes. Accordingly, the term "presentment" was conspicuously absent from Rule 6 of the original Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which dealt with the role of the grand jury. Lester B Orfield, who served on the Advisory Committee, later explained that retaining the term "might encourage the use of the `run-away' grand jury as the grand jury could act from their own knowledge or observation and not only from charges made by the United States attorney."
"Today, the grand jury is the total captive of the prosecutor, who, if he is candid, will concede that he can indict anybody, at any time, for almost anything, before any grand jury," wrote federal District Judge William J. Campbell in a 1973 law journal article calling for formal abolition of the institution on the grounds of redundancy. This isn't to say that the grand jury is considered useless by the prosecutorial caste: It helps maintain the pretense that prosecutors are servants of the public will.
What is happening in Harris County is not an example of a grand jury going "rogue," but rather one behaving exactly as it should. It is interposing itself on behalf of the public by investigating a federally subsidized revenue-collection racket, and the abusive prosecutor who presides over it. Hopefully its example will prove to be contagious.
Amanda Culbertson has a conscience, which is another way of saying that she wasn't well-suited to government "work." Until recently she was employed by the Houston Police Department as a crime lab supervisor. In 2009, she became aware of serious problems with the reliability of the department's roadside blood alcohol testing vehicles, more commonly known as BAT vans.
Over the past decade, hundreds of police departments nation-wide have purchased the vehicles with the help of federal grants. The testing device deployed in them, the Intoxilyzer, is considered infallible by law enforcement agencies and most trial judges. However, the Kentucky-based company that manufactures the the Intoxilyzer has refused to disclose its source code. Without access to the source code, the device's findings are unverifiable. As one defendant points out, the machine could simply be a gimmicky random number generator, rather than a finely calibrated scientific instrument.
In 2008, it was discovered that a supervisor for the Houston Police Department had falsified BAT van inspection records for at least the previous eighteen months, thereby calling into question test results in at least 2,600 cases. When Culbertson was appointed to supervise the inspections, she learned that indifferently trained police officers allowed the units to overheat, which would skew test results. In addition, a glitch in the system caused the much-heralded Intoxilyzer to reset every time the air conditioner was turned on.
Over the course of several months, Culbertson tried to get officials in the police department and the Harris County DA's office to address her concerns. None of them was interested in disturbing what had become a very profitable scam.
In June, Culbertson and two of her colleagues quit their jobswith the HPD. "We could no longer choose between a paycheck and our integrity," Culbertson explained. Not surprisingly, she was called to testify by attorneys representing some of the hundreds of people facing DUI charges as a result of BAT van tests.
In professional terms, Culbertson landed on her feet: She was hired by a laboratory at Lone Star College that had a contract to conduct breathalyzer analysis for the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Shortly thereafter, the Harris County Commission – at the initiative of DA Pat Lykos – ended its contract with the Lone Star College lab. In effect, Lykos – in an act of vulgar retaliation – arranged for Culbertson to be fired.
Harris County's 185th criminal court grand jury, which had been investigating problems with the BAT vans, called Culbertson to testify, along with former Harris County Prosecutor Brent Mayr. Lykos dispatched two members of her flying monkey corps – assistant DAs Carl Hobbs and Steve Morris – to "monitor" the grand jury testimony.
Since Lykos and her office were suspected of covering up the use of tainted evidence and retaliating against a whistleblower, the DA and her underlings were barred from being present in any capacity other than as sworn witnesses. Accordingly, when Lykos's minions materialized during Culbertson's testimony, the Grand Jury Foreman ordered them to leave. When that directive was ignored, the Foreman instructed the Baliff to remove them or place them under arrest.
Lykos unsuccessfully sought a court order compelling the grand jury to grant access to her underlings. When that effort failed, the DA's office exploited a back-channel to obtain official transcripts of the grand jury testimony. That led to a summons from Judge Susan Brown to Hobbs and Morris, along with court reporters Javier Leal and Katherine Chagaris, who face the possibility of contempt citations and the prospect of six months in jail.
The Harris County grand jury's insurrection caused consternation in the DA's office, and astonishment in the local media. "All too often in the past, Harris County grand juries have functioned as rubber stamps providing prosecutors with indictments without impartial scrutiny of their substance," notes the Houston Chronicle. Of course, this is true of practically every grand jury since the enactment of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in 1946.
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure were created by committee to be an instrument of what the German National Socialists called Gleichschaltung – the "synchronization" of legal (as well as political and cultural) institutions with the dictates of the central government. Germany had been a federated constitutional republic prior to 1933, when Gleichschaltung got underway. Five years later, the FDR regime's Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure – invoking the supposed need for "simplicity" and "efficiency" – began the same process in the United States.
The Advisory Committee had no legislative authority or popular mandate; it was a pure creation of the prosecutorial class. Thus it's hardly surprising that one of its most urgent priorities was to transform the grand jury from a citizen's assembly into an instrument of the prosecution. This meant "rectifying" – in the Orwellian sense – the Fifth Amendment by effectively removing the troublesome word "presentment."
The Fifth Amendment specifies that "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury...." A "presentment" is essentially a proprio motu indictment delivered by a grand jury without approval of a government prosecutor.
Presentments were often filed by grand juries investigating official corruption – such as the grand jury in Minneapolis that forced the resignation of the mayor and police chief in 1902, or the one that dislodged Boss Tweed and his politically sheltered cronies thirty years earlier.
This was an entirely appropriate function of the grand jury. The "grand jury in its primal, plenary sense ... was a group of men who stood as a check on government, often in direct opposition to the desires of those in power," points out constitutional scholar Roger Roots. Rather than being an instrument of the political class, Roots continues, "American grand juries initiated prosecutions against corrupt agents of the government, often in response to complaints from individuals." It also served as "a people's watchdog against arbitrary and malevolent prosecutions."
For most of America's history, "the evil that the grand jury sought to address was the exercise of distant power locally," wrote Kevin K. Washburn in an article for the Fordham Law Review. "Indeed, the grand jury came to us as an institution that was respected for its profound ability to protect local communities – indeed, possibly rebellious ones – from central government authority. It was, in essence, a local check on Crown authority."
In 1734, grand juries twice refused to indict John Peter Zenger for "seditious libel." New York's Royal Governor William Cosby bypassed the grand jury by filing a "criminal information" against Zenger – only to see the trial jury nullify the sedition law and acquit the newspaper publisher. During the 1760s, Crown prosecutors in Massachusetts were constantly stymied by grand juries that refused to indict colonists accused of violating the Stamp Act and other impositions.
Both before and after American Independence, "the grand jury's primary method for exercising its power was not rigorous review of facts, but nullification of validly enacted laws," Washburn observes. They didn't dispute the prosecutor's presentation of the facts, but rather "the legislator's right to impose such laws, or at least the prosecutor's decision to enforce them in a given context."
Obviously, this kind of power simply couldn't be left in the hands of mere Mundanes. Accordingly, the term "presentment" was conspicuously absent from Rule 6 of the original Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which dealt with the role of the grand jury. Lester B Orfield, who served on the Advisory Committee, later explained that retaining the term "might encourage the use of the `run-away' grand jury as the grand jury could act from their own knowledge or observation and not only from charges made by the United States attorney."
"Today, the grand jury is the total captive of the prosecutor, who, if he is candid, will concede that he can indict anybody, at any time, for almost anything, before any grand jury," wrote federal District Judge William J. Campbell in a 1973 law journal article calling for formal abolition of the institution on the grounds of redundancy. This isn't to say that the grand jury is considered useless by the prosecutorial caste: It helps maintain the pretense that prosecutors are servants of the public will.
What is happening in Harris County is not an example of a grand jury going "rogue," but rather one behaving exactly as it should. It is interposing itself on behalf of the public by investigating a federally subsidized revenue-collection racket, and the abusive prosecutor who presides over it. Hopefully its example will prove to be contagious.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
" IT IS SPREADING THIS IS JUST THE START " SAYS G. K. TEMUJIN
It’s called thinking. Try it sometime rather then moving lock step to either end of the political spectrum. Americans are a bunch of stupid SHEEP { sorry sheep } easy to manipulate and subdue.
" Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. "
Approximately one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps. Poverty is rapidly spreading and large numbers of families have lost everything. People want answers, and it is understandable why so many are joining these protest movements.
Just a reminder friends Ranks of the “ Poorest Poor ” Reach New High, and Poverty Spreads to the Suburbs.
Today the AP reports on new census data showing that a record number of Americans 1 in 15 are now counted among the ranks of the “poorest poor,” or those who live on less than $5,570 annually for an individual or $11,157 for a family of four.
Let those numbers sink in for a moment. $5,570 to live on. For a year. In America. And 1 in 15 Americans is doing just that.
America must have higher taxes for the wealthy. They were higher in the 1960s and the economy rocked. Regarding how fair it is look at it like this.
A great part of government spending is defense , war and maintaining an overseas Empire.
What is unfair is someone making $60,000 paying a higher tax rate then someone making a million or even a billion.
The nonsense of “they invest in their business” is truly nonsense. We all know money invested back in a business is a write off and would remain as such. We’re talking taxable income here. The statement of “The rich create jobs in the US” is nonsense too. They created jobs when the US made the things they bought. Back to that old manufacturing again. The middle class buys things too and at one time they made what they bought. There is a self sustaining system that worked.
Remember when industrial labor unions were powerful and manufacturing was everywhere. It’s called “The Good Old Days”.
According to a recent poll, 83 percent of all Americans believe that the economy is in "very poor" shape. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, millions of Americans have lost their homes and tens of millions of Americans have been sickened by what they have seen happen on Wall Street over the last ten years. It is easy to understand why people are frustrated, marching in the streets and anger grows each day.
As the economy continues to get worse, the protests will grow and unfortunately so will the violence. You can preach the benefits of non-violence all day long to some people but they just will not get it. America has reached a turning point, and what you are seeing now is only just the beginning of the madness. In the years ahead you are going to see rioting that is going to be absolutely unprecedented and violent. Heaven help us all if it gets out of hand.
In Oakland, windows were smashed, graffiti was sprayed on buildings and senseless acts of vandalism were committed. There were also quite a few intense confrontations with police and dozens of protesters ended up getting arrested.
Sadly friends America has become a powder keg, and it is going to be very difficult for anyone to control what is going on.
But Oakland was not the only city where protesters were becoming more aggressive.
In Seattle, protesters surrounded a Sheraton hotel where JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was giving a speech. According to some media reports, some of the protesters were actually planning to make a "citizen's arrest".
Their plans were cancelled, however, when police dispersed them with a shower of pepper spray.
In New York City, a different kind of confrontation took place. Approximately 100 military vets showed up in uniform and marched over to the New York Stock Exchange. Once they arrived, they stopped directly in front of the building which was protected by a line of heavily armed NYPD officers. It was a tense moment, but fortunately there was no violence.
This kind of "stare down" cannot be a sign of good things to come. What would have happened if even a single person had lost their cool ???
While standing in formation in front of the New York Stock Exchange, the vets were heard chanting the following slogans....
"We are veterans! We are the 99 percent!"
"Corporate profits on the rise, soldiers have to bleed and die!"
Things are certainly getting very, very interesting.
The Occupy Wall Street protests started off very peacefully, but sadly there is no guarantee that the violence we are seeing now is not going to escalate even further.
One recent survey found that 69 percent of those involved with the Occupy Wall Street protests "would support violence to advance their agenda".
That is a frightening statistic.
Hopefully everyone will calm down and the protesters will realize that they will get much farther ahead by non-violent means.
But once again, anger and frustration are difficult to predict or control. The more angry and frustrated that the American people get, the more chaotic the streets of our cities are going to become.
While the vast majority of Americans agree that we have major problems, there is tremendous disagreement about what the solutions are. There are some good ideas floating around out there, but there are also some groups that are promoting some very, very stupid , bad and insane ideas.
when Republicans defend the abuses of the big banks and the big corporations they are wrong to do so.
When Democrats defend big government and advocate even more big government as the answer, they are also very wrong.
The truth is that neither side is correct.
The USA needs to dramatically reduce the size of government and needs to dramatically reduce the size and the power of the big corporations.
That would mean a lot more liberty and freedom for not just America but the world, and it would empower individuals and small businesses.
But most people don not understand this. Most people think that they have to either take the side of the big corporations or the side of big government. Most people do not think most people are stupid sheep. Most people do not care.
The cold, hard truth is that most of the time big government and the big corporations are working together, and it is not for your benefit.
Most people feel a sense of powerlessness these days. Most people feel like things never seem to change no matter who they vote for. Once again sad but true.
Truth hurts my friends .
People want things to change, but they don't feel as though they have a way of bringing that change about.
This is not just happening in the United States. As the global economy has faltered, anger and frustration have been growing all over the planet.
In fact, the International Labor Organization is warning that civil unrest could erupt all over the globe if the current economic crisis gets even worse.
But the warning signs are here.
Pressure just keeps building and building and building. The bubble is going to pop.
According to a recent Fox News poll, 76 percent of all Americans are "dissatisfied with how things are going in the country". At the beginning of this year, that number was only at 61 percent.
at some point another major financial crisis is going to erupt and the economy is going to get even worse.
So what will this country look like when that happens ???
The root cause of these problems is that a corrupt government has created rules, regulations, laws and unfunded entitlement programs that have created this situation. They have eroded the education system, taken over the money system, taken over the media, instilled a police state, institutionalized war and overwhelmed society with illegal aliens. That is what a third world country is . The feds are taking you there at the speed of light now.
The American People have some legitimate grievances. Things are quickly spiraling out of control and they are being left out of the conversation.
They knew many opposed the bailout by more than 90% but they did them anyway. They know they are opposed to the Patriot Act and the TSA but you do not see any of that going away.
You are in the first stage of the last superpower financial collapse. This stage began in September 2008.
You are still positioned in the middle of this first stage. The financial collapse may soon end when the US debt rating is cut again , government shutdown follows, US currency is devalued by the US Treasury and the global financial markets all crash in tandem [ LET'S HOPE IT DOES NOT GET THAT FAR ].
That’s when the real shit hits the fan: food riots, looting, arson, widescale economic displacement and unemployment, which leads to death, disease and starvation for those that had depended all this time on a check from the government or their employer to survive, and were caught unprepared !!!
To much vast Wealth of the power elite is treacherous, and the arrogant greedy are never at rest. They open their mouths as wide as the grave, and like death, they are never satisfied.In their greed they have gathered up many nations and swallowed many peoples are destroyed.
“ But soon their captives will taunt them.
They will mock them, saying,
‘What sorrow awaits you thieves!
Now you will get what you deserve!
You’ve become rich by extortion,
but how much longer can this go on?’"
Suddenly, your debtors will take action.
They will turn on you and take all you have,
while you stand trembling and helpless.Because you have plundered many nations;now all the survivors will plunder you.Power elite ou committed murder throughout the countryside and filled the cities , towns and villages with violence.
“What sorrow awaits you who build wealth with money gained dishonestly !
You believe your wealth will buy security,
putting your family’s nest beyond the reach of danger.
But by the murders you committed,
you have shamed your name and forfeited your lives. "
The very stones in the walls cry out against you power elite,
and the beams in the ceilings echo the complaint.
“What sorrow awaits you power elite who build cities with money gained through dishonesty , thievery murder and corruption !!
The Walton empire is not a good example of Capitalism in action and has not been for many years now; it is a good example of Capitalism corrupted by greed.
Henry Ford was a Capitalist; he believed in making money, but also in paying his employees well enough that they could afford to buy the cars they were making. He knew that happy employees are productive employees, and that it is hard to be happy if you can’t afford to make at least a modest living.
The Walton / Walmart / Sam's Club empire has become all about taking in as much wealth as possible and paying out as little as possible, which is a corruption of the Capitalist aim. Those low prices aren’t just generosity, they are the result of buying cheap products (often from China), using strongarm tactics to get suppliers to charge nearly suicidal rates for their products, and paying very low wages to staff who are frequently overworked.
When folks get desperate, they do desperate things.
The world is moving into unprecedented times.
Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.
" Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. "
Approximately one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps. Poverty is rapidly spreading and large numbers of families have lost everything. People want answers, and it is understandable why so many are joining these protest movements.
Just a reminder friends Ranks of the “ Poorest Poor ” Reach New High, and Poverty Spreads to the Suburbs.
Today the AP reports on new census data showing that a record number of Americans 1 in 15 are now counted among the ranks of the “poorest poor,” or those who live on less than $5,570 annually for an individual or $11,157 for a family of four.
Let those numbers sink in for a moment. $5,570 to live on. For a year. In America. And 1 in 15 Americans is doing just that.
America must have higher taxes for the wealthy. They were higher in the 1960s and the economy rocked. Regarding how fair it is look at it like this.
A great part of government spending is defense , war and maintaining an overseas Empire.
What is unfair is someone making $60,000 paying a higher tax rate then someone making a million or even a billion.
The nonsense of “they invest in their business” is truly nonsense. We all know money invested back in a business is a write off and would remain as such. We’re talking taxable income here. The statement of “The rich create jobs in the US” is nonsense too. They created jobs when the US made the things they bought. Back to that old manufacturing again. The middle class buys things too and at one time they made what they bought. There is a self sustaining system that worked.
Remember when industrial labor unions were powerful and manufacturing was everywhere. It’s called “The Good Old Days”.
According to a recent poll, 83 percent of all Americans believe that the economy is in "very poor" shape. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, millions of Americans have lost their homes and tens of millions of Americans have been sickened by what they have seen happen on Wall Street over the last ten years. It is easy to understand why people are frustrated, marching in the streets and anger grows each day.
As the economy continues to get worse, the protests will grow and unfortunately so will the violence. You can preach the benefits of non-violence all day long to some people but they just will not get it. America has reached a turning point, and what you are seeing now is only just the beginning of the madness. In the years ahead you are going to see rioting that is going to be absolutely unprecedented and violent. Heaven help us all if it gets out of hand.
In Oakland, windows were smashed, graffiti was sprayed on buildings and senseless acts of vandalism were committed. There were also quite a few intense confrontations with police and dozens of protesters ended up getting arrested.
Sadly friends America has become a powder keg, and it is going to be very difficult for anyone to control what is going on.
But Oakland was not the only city where protesters were becoming more aggressive.
In Seattle, protesters surrounded a Sheraton hotel where JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was giving a speech. According to some media reports, some of the protesters were actually planning to make a "citizen's arrest".
Their plans were cancelled, however, when police dispersed them with a shower of pepper spray.
In New York City, a different kind of confrontation took place. Approximately 100 military vets showed up in uniform and marched over to the New York Stock Exchange. Once they arrived, they stopped directly in front of the building which was protected by a line of heavily armed NYPD officers. It was a tense moment, but fortunately there was no violence.
This kind of "stare down" cannot be a sign of good things to come. What would have happened if even a single person had lost their cool ???
While standing in formation in front of the New York Stock Exchange, the vets were heard chanting the following slogans....
"We are veterans! We are the 99 percent!"
"Corporate profits on the rise, soldiers have to bleed and die!"
Things are certainly getting very, very interesting.
The Occupy Wall Street protests started off very peacefully, but sadly there is no guarantee that the violence we are seeing now is not going to escalate even further.
One recent survey found that 69 percent of those involved with the Occupy Wall Street protests "would support violence to advance their agenda".
That is a frightening statistic.
Hopefully everyone will calm down and the protesters will realize that they will get much farther ahead by non-violent means.
But once again, anger and frustration are difficult to predict or control. The more angry and frustrated that the American people get, the more chaotic the streets of our cities are going to become.
While the vast majority of Americans agree that we have major problems, there is tremendous disagreement about what the solutions are. There are some good ideas floating around out there, but there are also some groups that are promoting some very, very stupid , bad and insane ideas.
when Republicans defend the abuses of the big banks and the big corporations they are wrong to do so.
When Democrats defend big government and advocate even more big government as the answer, they are also very wrong.
The truth is that neither side is correct.
The USA needs to dramatically reduce the size of government and needs to dramatically reduce the size and the power of the big corporations.
That would mean a lot more liberty and freedom for not just America but the world, and it would empower individuals and small businesses.
But most people don not understand this. Most people think that they have to either take the side of the big corporations or the side of big government. Most people do not think most people are stupid sheep. Most people do not care.
The cold, hard truth is that most of the time big government and the big corporations are working together, and it is not for your benefit.
Most people feel a sense of powerlessness these days. Most people feel like things never seem to change no matter who they vote for. Once again sad but true.
Truth hurts my friends .
People want things to change, but they don't feel as though they have a way of bringing that change about.
This is not just happening in the United States. As the global economy has faltered, anger and frustration have been growing all over the planet.
In fact, the International Labor Organization is warning that civil unrest could erupt all over the globe if the current economic crisis gets even worse.
But the warning signs are here.
Pressure just keeps building and building and building. The bubble is going to pop.
According to a recent Fox News poll, 76 percent of all Americans are "dissatisfied with how things are going in the country". At the beginning of this year, that number was only at 61 percent.
at some point another major financial crisis is going to erupt and the economy is going to get even worse.
So what will this country look like when that happens ???
The root cause of these problems is that a corrupt government has created rules, regulations, laws and unfunded entitlement programs that have created this situation. They have eroded the education system, taken over the money system, taken over the media, instilled a police state, institutionalized war and overwhelmed society with illegal aliens. That is what a third world country is . The feds are taking you there at the speed of light now.
The American People have some legitimate grievances. Things are quickly spiraling out of control and they are being left out of the conversation.
They knew many opposed the bailout by more than 90% but they did them anyway. They know they are opposed to the Patriot Act and the TSA but you do not see any of that going away.
You are in the first stage of the last superpower financial collapse. This stage began in September 2008.
You are still positioned in the middle of this first stage. The financial collapse may soon end when the US debt rating is cut again , government shutdown follows, US currency is devalued by the US Treasury and the global financial markets all crash in tandem [ LET'S HOPE IT DOES NOT GET THAT FAR ].
That’s when the real shit hits the fan: food riots, looting, arson, widescale economic displacement and unemployment, which leads to death, disease and starvation for those that had depended all this time on a check from the government or their employer to survive, and were caught unprepared !!!
To much vast Wealth of the power elite is treacherous, and the arrogant greedy are never at rest. They open their mouths as wide as the grave, and like death, they are never satisfied.In their greed they have gathered up many nations and swallowed many peoples are destroyed.
“ But soon their captives will taunt them.
They will mock them, saying,
‘What sorrow awaits you thieves!
Now you will get what you deserve!
You’ve become rich by extortion,
but how much longer can this go on?’"
Suddenly, your debtors will take action.
They will turn on you and take all you have,
while you stand trembling and helpless.Because you have plundered many nations;now all the survivors will plunder you.Power elite ou committed murder throughout the countryside and filled the cities , towns and villages with violence.
“What sorrow awaits you who build wealth with money gained dishonestly !
You believe your wealth will buy security,
putting your family’s nest beyond the reach of danger.
But by the murders you committed,
you have shamed your name and forfeited your lives. "
The very stones in the walls cry out against you power elite,
and the beams in the ceilings echo the complaint.
“What sorrow awaits you power elite who build cities with money gained through dishonesty , thievery murder and corruption !!
The Walton empire is not a good example of Capitalism in action and has not been for many years now; it is a good example of Capitalism corrupted by greed.
Henry Ford was a Capitalist; he believed in making money, but also in paying his employees well enough that they could afford to buy the cars they were making. He knew that happy employees are productive employees, and that it is hard to be happy if you can’t afford to make at least a modest living.
The Walton / Walmart / Sam's Club empire has become all about taking in as much wealth as possible and paying out as little as possible, which is a corruption of the Capitalist aim. Those low prices aren’t just generosity, they are the result of buying cheap products (often from China), using strongarm tactics to get suppliers to charge nearly suicidal rates for their products, and paying very low wages to staff who are frequently overworked.
When folks get desperate, they do desperate things.
The world is moving into unprecedented times.
Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Western Democracy: A Farce and a Sham by Paul Craig Roberts
Western Democracy: A Farce and a Sham by Paul Craig Roberts
Every day that passes adds to the fraudulent image of what is called Western democracy.
Consider that the entire Western world is outraged that the Greek prime minister announced that he is going to permit the Greek people to decide their own fate instead of having it decided for them by a handful of banksters, politicians, and bureaucrats living it up at taxpayer expense at "talks" in the French resort of Cannes on the Mediterranean.
The Greek economy is facing its fourth year of decline and lacks the revenues to service its national debt held by private European banks. The banks don’t want to lose any money, so a handful of power brokers reached an agreement with representatives of the Greek government to write off some of the debt in exchange for EU capital subsidies to be financed by inflicting severe austerity on the Greek population. Wages, salaries, pensions and medical care are being cut while the rate of unemployment rises to depression levels. Government employees are laid off. Valuable public properties are to be sold to private parties for pennies on the dollar. In short, Greece is to be looted.
Large numbers of Greeks have been in the streets protesting the austerity policy and have reached the point of anger of throwing Molotov cocktails at the police. Greece is disintegrating politically. The Greek people sense that the EU "bailout" is not bailing out Greece. It is bailing out the French, Dutch, and German banks at the expense of the Greek people.
The Greek prime minister, watching his party’s support and power crumble, announced that he would let the people decide in a referendum. After all, allegedly that’s what democracies do. But it turns out that "we have freedom and democracy" is not supposed to be taken literally. It is merely a propagandistic slogan behind which people are ruled through back-room deals decided by powerful private interests.
The Greek prime minister’s announcement that he would put the back-room bailout deal to a referendum shocked the EU hierarchy, Washington, and investors. Who does this Greek guy think he is permitting the people, who bear the cost of the deal, to have a say in it? Who let this Greek guy out of his cage? This is not the way democracies are ruled.
The EU power brokers are outraged over the Greek prime minister’s departure from normal procedure. But the Greek PM is relying on the Greek people to approve the deal, and not without reason.
The Greek people have been brainwashed for decades as to the importance of "being part of Europe." That means being a member of the European Union. When the Greeks realize that voting down the bailout of the banksters means being thrown out of the European Union, which is what they will learn between now and the referendum, they will vote for the back room deal.
Polls already indicate this. A poll for a Greek newspaper indicates that whereas 46% oppose the bailout, 70% favor staying in the EU, which the Greeks see as a life or death issue.
If this poll is a reliable indicator, the Greek PM has made a brilliant political decision. The Greek people will vote in favor of what they have been protesting violently in the streets. As the Greek people will do themselves in, the politicians are off the hook. This is the bet that the Greek PM has placed.
Whatever the outcome, keep in mind that the entire Western political and investor world was shocked that a politician, instead of simply imposing a back room deal, said he would let the people decide. Letting the people decide is a no-no in Western democracies.
If you need more evidence of this mythical creature called "Western democracy," consider that Western governments are no longer accountable to law. Contrast, for example, the sexual harassment charges that are plaguing US presidential candidate Herman Cain’s campaign with the pass given to high government officials who clearly violated statutory law.
What follows is not a defense of Cain. I take no position on the charges. The real point is different. In America the only thing that can ruin a politician is his interest in sex. A politician, for example, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, B. Omama, cannot be ruined by violating United States and international law or by treating the US Constitution as a "mere scrap of paper." Bush and Cheney can take America to wars based entirely on lies and orchestrated deceptions. They can commit war crimes, murdering large numbers of civilians in the cause of "the war on terror," itself a hoax. They can violate US and international laws against torture simply "because the president said so." They can throw away habeas corpus, the constitutional requirement that a person cannot be imprisoned without evidence presented to a court. They can deny the right to an attorney. They can violate the law and spy on Americans without obtaining warrants. They can send due process to hell. In fact, they can do whatever they want just like Hitler’s Gestapo and Stalin’s secret police. But if they show undue interest in a woman or proposition a woman, they are dead meat.
Very few commentators have said a word about this. The House of Representatives did not impeach President Bill Clinton for his war crimes against Serbia. They impeached him for lying about a sexual affair with a White House intern. The US Senate, which had too many sexual affairs of its own to defend, didn’t bother to try to convict.
This is Amerika today. A president without any authority whatsoever, not in law and certainly not in the Constitution, can assassinate US citizens based on nothing except an assertion that they are a "threat." No evidence is required. No conviction. No presentation of evidence in any court. Just a murder. That is now permissible to the Amerikan president. But let him try to get a woman who is not his wife into bed, and he is a cooked goose.
In Amerika there is no such thing any longer as torture; there is only "enhanced interrogation." A mere word change has eliminated the crime. So torture is permissible.
In Amerika today, or in the UK and the EU, anyone who tells the truth is a "threat." Julian Assange of Wikileaks, who made public information leaked to him by US government sources horrified by the criminal actions of the United States government, is now, as a result of Amerikan pressure on UK courts, being turned over to Sweden, which, for favors from the "world’s only superpower," will turn him over to the US regardless of law to be prosecuted on trumped-up charges.
Western "civilization" is totally corrupted by American money. There is no integrity anywhere. For a decade Washington has been murdering women, children, village elders, and journalists in the name of the hoax "war on terror."
What terror does the world actually see? The world sees the terror that Israel, protected by Washington, inflicts on the Palestinians. The world sees the terror that the US inflicts on Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Latin America and now Africa, with Syria, Lebanon, and Iran waiting in the wings. The "war on terror" is nothing but an orchestrated invented excuse for Amerika-Israel to achieve hegemony while enriching their armaments industries.
In Greece, at least the PM committed to giving the people a say in their fate. In America the people have no voice whatsoever. The sheeple are content to be protected by "security," porno-scanners, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, and sexual groping. To carry on the hoax "war on terror," the US government has elevated itself above the law.
The American effort to achieve accountability to law, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, if not shut down by cold weather, ice, and snow, is likely to be shut down by police violence. One riot begun by provocateurs is all it takes to transform protesters into "domestic extremists," the number one concern of Homeland Security. The presstitute media will make the case against the rioters, and the sheeple will buy it.
The police have been militarized by Washington. Community police forces no
longer represent the local public that pays their salaries. Local police represent Washington’s war against America.
American citizens are all suspects. Anyone who goes through airport security knows this. The only law that the US government obeys is not even a law. It is a bureaucratic regulation that prevents, even in dire wartime, any profiling of suspects by
ethnicity or country of origin.
Consequently, all native born, flag-waving, American super-patriots are suspects when they board commercial airliners. Americans who have a life time of security clearances are subject to being porno-scanned or sexually groped. Airport Security cannot tell a "terrorist" from a CIA analyst, a Marine general or a US Senator.
Well-connected members of the ruling elite, such as Michael Chertoff, can become rich from selling the porno-scanners to taxpayers in order "to protect the public from terrorists."
The only terrorists Americans will ever experience are those funded by their own tax dollars within their "own" government. A people incapable of perceiving its real peril has no chance of surviving. America might be a military superpower, but it no longer exists as a free country with accountable government and a rule of law.
November 4, 2011
Every day that passes adds to the fraudulent image of what is called Western democracy.
Consider that the entire Western world is outraged that the Greek prime minister announced that he is going to permit the Greek people to decide their own fate instead of having it decided for them by a handful of banksters, politicians, and bureaucrats living it up at taxpayer expense at "talks" in the French resort of Cannes on the Mediterranean.
The Greek economy is facing its fourth year of decline and lacks the revenues to service its national debt held by private European banks. The banks don’t want to lose any money, so a handful of power brokers reached an agreement with representatives of the Greek government to write off some of the debt in exchange for EU capital subsidies to be financed by inflicting severe austerity on the Greek population. Wages, salaries, pensions and medical care are being cut while the rate of unemployment rises to depression levels. Government employees are laid off. Valuable public properties are to be sold to private parties for pennies on the dollar. In short, Greece is to be looted.
Large numbers of Greeks have been in the streets protesting the austerity policy and have reached the point of anger of throwing Molotov cocktails at the police. Greece is disintegrating politically. The Greek people sense that the EU "bailout" is not bailing out Greece. It is bailing out the French, Dutch, and German banks at the expense of the Greek people.
The Greek prime minister, watching his party’s support and power crumble, announced that he would let the people decide in a referendum. After all, allegedly that’s what democracies do. But it turns out that "we have freedom and democracy" is not supposed to be taken literally. It is merely a propagandistic slogan behind which people are ruled through back-room deals decided by powerful private interests.
The Greek prime minister’s announcement that he would put the back-room bailout deal to a referendum shocked the EU hierarchy, Washington, and investors. Who does this Greek guy think he is permitting the people, who bear the cost of the deal, to have a say in it? Who let this Greek guy out of his cage? This is not the way democracies are ruled.
The EU power brokers are outraged over the Greek prime minister’s departure from normal procedure. But the Greek PM is relying on the Greek people to approve the deal, and not without reason.
The Greek people have been brainwashed for decades as to the importance of "being part of Europe." That means being a member of the European Union. When the Greeks realize that voting down the bailout of the banksters means being thrown out of the European Union, which is what they will learn between now and the referendum, they will vote for the back room deal.
Polls already indicate this. A poll for a Greek newspaper indicates that whereas 46% oppose the bailout, 70% favor staying in the EU, which the Greeks see as a life or death issue.
If this poll is a reliable indicator, the Greek PM has made a brilliant political decision. The Greek people will vote in favor of what they have been protesting violently in the streets. As the Greek people will do themselves in, the politicians are off the hook. This is the bet that the Greek PM has placed.
Whatever the outcome, keep in mind that the entire Western political and investor world was shocked that a politician, instead of simply imposing a back room deal, said he would let the people decide. Letting the people decide is a no-no in Western democracies.
If you need more evidence of this mythical creature called "Western democracy," consider that Western governments are no longer accountable to law. Contrast, for example, the sexual harassment charges that are plaguing US presidential candidate Herman Cain’s campaign with the pass given to high government officials who clearly violated statutory law.
What follows is not a defense of Cain. I take no position on the charges. The real point is different. In America the only thing that can ruin a politician is his interest in sex. A politician, for example, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, B. Omama, cannot be ruined by violating United States and international law or by treating the US Constitution as a "mere scrap of paper." Bush and Cheney can take America to wars based entirely on lies and orchestrated deceptions. They can commit war crimes, murdering large numbers of civilians in the cause of "the war on terror," itself a hoax. They can violate US and international laws against torture simply "because the president said so." They can throw away habeas corpus, the constitutional requirement that a person cannot be imprisoned without evidence presented to a court. They can deny the right to an attorney. They can violate the law and spy on Americans without obtaining warrants. They can send due process to hell. In fact, they can do whatever they want just like Hitler’s Gestapo and Stalin’s secret police. But if they show undue interest in a woman or proposition a woman, they are dead meat.
Very few commentators have said a word about this. The House of Representatives did not impeach President Bill Clinton for his war crimes against Serbia. They impeached him for lying about a sexual affair with a White House intern. The US Senate, which had too many sexual affairs of its own to defend, didn’t bother to try to convict.
This is Amerika today. A president without any authority whatsoever, not in law and certainly not in the Constitution, can assassinate US citizens based on nothing except an assertion that they are a "threat." No evidence is required. No conviction. No presentation of evidence in any court. Just a murder. That is now permissible to the Amerikan president. But let him try to get a woman who is not his wife into bed, and he is a cooked goose.
In Amerika there is no such thing any longer as torture; there is only "enhanced interrogation." A mere word change has eliminated the crime. So torture is permissible.
In Amerika today, or in the UK and the EU, anyone who tells the truth is a "threat." Julian Assange of Wikileaks, who made public information leaked to him by US government sources horrified by the criminal actions of the United States government, is now, as a result of Amerikan pressure on UK courts, being turned over to Sweden, which, for favors from the "world’s only superpower," will turn him over to the US regardless of law to be prosecuted on trumped-up charges.
Western "civilization" is totally corrupted by American money. There is no integrity anywhere. For a decade Washington has been murdering women, children, village elders, and journalists in the name of the hoax "war on terror."
What terror does the world actually see? The world sees the terror that Israel, protected by Washington, inflicts on the Palestinians. The world sees the terror that the US inflicts on Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Latin America and now Africa, with Syria, Lebanon, and Iran waiting in the wings. The "war on terror" is nothing but an orchestrated invented excuse for Amerika-Israel to achieve hegemony while enriching their armaments industries.
In Greece, at least the PM committed to giving the people a say in their fate. In America the people have no voice whatsoever. The sheeple are content to be protected by "security," porno-scanners, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, and sexual groping. To carry on the hoax "war on terror," the US government has elevated itself above the law.
The American effort to achieve accountability to law, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, if not shut down by cold weather, ice, and snow, is likely to be shut down by police violence. One riot begun by provocateurs is all it takes to transform protesters into "domestic extremists," the number one concern of Homeland Security. The presstitute media will make the case against the rioters, and the sheeple will buy it.
The police have been militarized by Washington. Community police forces no
longer represent the local public that pays their salaries. Local police represent Washington’s war against America.
American citizens are all suspects. Anyone who goes through airport security knows this. The only law that the US government obeys is not even a law. It is a bureaucratic regulation that prevents, even in dire wartime, any profiling of suspects by
ethnicity or country of origin.
Consequently, all native born, flag-waving, American super-patriots are suspects when they board commercial airliners. Americans who have a life time of security clearances are subject to being porno-scanned or sexually groped. Airport Security cannot tell a "terrorist" from a CIA analyst, a Marine general or a US Senator.
Well-connected members of the ruling elite, such as Michael Chertoff, can become rich from selling the porno-scanners to taxpayers in order "to protect the public from terrorists."
The only terrorists Americans will ever experience are those funded by their own tax dollars within their "own" government. A people incapable of perceiving its real peril has no chance of surviving. America might be a military superpower, but it no longer exists as a free country with accountable government and a rule of law.
November 4, 2011
Monday, October 31, 2011
Mitt Romney will do or say anything to become President
Beware of Mitt [ What do the polls say I should say ] Romney who will do or say anything to become President.
The definition of a politician is someone who is
more concerned about his next election than what is best for the country.
Mitt fits that definition !!!
George Will’s stinging take down of Mitt [ I will do or say anything to get elected ] Romney and conservatives who support him coupled with Chris Wallace’s observation that Mitt [ I stick my finger in the air how the political winds blowing ] Romney won’t come on the Sunday shows to be asked tough questions.
Very few conservatives dislike Mitt [ flip flop ] Romney. The problem, as George Will alludes to, is that few actually trust him. .
“After studying Presidential nominations for 30 years, I’ve never seen somebody who has so completely renounced his past record when he decided to run for President, said Northeaster University Professor William Mayer to the Chicago Tribune’s Jill Zuckman on May 22, 2007. That’s how page 168 in the McCain opposition book began. The heading on that page is “Flip-Flops”. The next ten pages contain every reason why conservatives are suspicious of Romney.
“Romney Was Pro-Choice, Then Not Pro-Choice, Then Pro-Choice Again, Then Pro-Life,” blares the first subheading in this section. There are ample newspaper quotes citing Mitt Romney’s conversions back and forth.
“Romney supports a federal health care plan option that includes abortion services, would vote for a law codifying the 1972 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion and backs federal funding for abortions as long as states can decide if they want the money, [a spokesman] said.” (Ed Hayward, “Anti-Abortion Group Endorses Romney Bid,” Boston Herald, 9/8/94)
“Romney supports a federal health care plan option that includes abortion services, would vote for a law codifying the 1972 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion and backs federal funding for abortions as long as states can decide if they want the money, [a spokesman] said.” (Ed Hayward, “Anti-Abortion Group Endorses Romney Bid,” Boston Herald, 9/8/94)
“[Massachusetts Citizens for Life] considers Romney to be an abortion-rights supporter, as do national antiabortion groups such as the Family Research Council. … [Romney aide Eric] Fehrnstrom said the governor’s position has not changed on either sex education or abortion.” (Scott S. Greenberger, “Roe V. Wade Omitted From Proclamation,” The Boston Globe, 3/25/05)
“I am firmly pro-life … I was always for life.” (Jim Davenport, “Romney Affirms Abortion Opposition During Stop In SC,” The Associated Press, 2/8/07)
But it was not just abortion.
In 2006, Mitt Romney said illegal immigrants should have a path to citizen. In a Lowell Sun article on March 30, 2006, Evan Lehmann quoted Mitt Romney saying “I don’t believe in rounding up 11 million people and forcing them at gunpoint from our country … With these 11 million people, let’s have them registered, know who they are. Those who’ve been arrested or convicted of crimes shouldn’t be here; those that are here paying taxes and not taking government benefits should begin a process towards application for citizenship, as they would from their home country.”
Romney went on to support John McCain’s immigration plan, denying it was amnesty. In March of 2007, Mitt Romney spoke “approvingly of efforts by McCain and Bush to solve the nation’s immigration crisis,” according to Scott Helman’s Boston Globe article. By May of that same year, Romney had begun attacking McCain’s plan as amnesty and told CNN’s “The Situation Room” that he opposed a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.
He refused to support George Bush’s tax cuts in 2004, but in 2007 claimed he had always supported them. In 2002, Romney refused to sign the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, but in 2007, Romney signed it.
In 2002, Mitt Romney wanted heaving federal regulations on campaign finances. Back in 1994, Romney even wanted a cap on congressional election spending and wanted to ban political action committees. By 2007, Romney was attacking McCain-Feingold, which did much of what he previously had wanted.
In the 1992 Presidential Primary in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney voted for Paul Tsongas. He contributed to numerous Democrats and, in 1994 while running as a Republican, praised Bill Clinton as doing “a lot of things that make sense.”
More troubling, in 1994 Mitt Romney campaigned against the Contract With America calling it “too partisan.” He also insisted he was an independent during Ronald Reagan’s years in office, balking at Ted Kennedy’s attempts to connect Romney to Ronald Reagan. By 2005, Mitt Romney claimed Ronald Reagan was his political hero.
On the second amendment, Mitt Romney supported the Brady Bill and Assault Weapons ban in 1994, but by 2007, Mitt Romney opposed gun control measures. At one point in 2007, Mitt Romney claimed he owned a gun and then admitted he did not.
The list goes on and on from gays in the military to gay marriage to stem cell research to global warming. Romney has shown himself to be not a principled conservative, but, as Jon Huntsman described him, a well lubricated weather vane.
Real Tea Partiers just don’t trust him. His record is the very reason why. On every significant issue of the past decade, Mitt Romney has managed to be on every side of each issue except one — he has consistently been in favor of big government dictated and big government managed healthcare.
Better to lose than win with weather vane status quo Mitt.
The definition of a politician is someone who is
more concerned about his next election than what is best for the country.
Mitt fits that definition !!!
George Will’s stinging take down of Mitt [ I will do or say anything to get elected ] Romney and conservatives who support him coupled with Chris Wallace’s observation that Mitt [ I stick my finger in the air how the political winds blowing ] Romney won’t come on the Sunday shows to be asked tough questions.
Very few conservatives dislike Mitt [ flip flop ] Romney. The problem, as George Will alludes to, is that few actually trust him. .
“After studying Presidential nominations for 30 years, I’ve never seen somebody who has so completely renounced his past record when he decided to run for President, said Northeaster University Professor William Mayer to the Chicago Tribune’s Jill Zuckman on May 22, 2007. That’s how page 168 in the McCain opposition book began. The heading on that page is “Flip-Flops”. The next ten pages contain every reason why conservatives are suspicious of Romney.
“Romney Was Pro-Choice, Then Not Pro-Choice, Then Pro-Choice Again, Then Pro-Life,” blares the first subheading in this section. There are ample newspaper quotes citing Mitt Romney’s conversions back and forth.
“Romney supports a federal health care plan option that includes abortion services, would vote for a law codifying the 1972 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion and backs federal funding for abortions as long as states can decide if they want the money, [a spokesman] said.” (Ed Hayward, “Anti-Abortion Group Endorses Romney Bid,” Boston Herald, 9/8/94)
“Romney supports a federal health care plan option that includes abortion services, would vote for a law codifying the 1972 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion and backs federal funding for abortions as long as states can decide if they want the money, [a spokesman] said.” (Ed Hayward, “Anti-Abortion Group Endorses Romney Bid,” Boston Herald, 9/8/94)
“[Massachusetts Citizens for Life] considers Romney to be an abortion-rights supporter, as do national antiabortion groups such as the Family Research Council. … [Romney aide Eric] Fehrnstrom said the governor’s position has not changed on either sex education or abortion.” (Scott S. Greenberger, “Roe V. Wade Omitted From Proclamation,” The Boston Globe, 3/25/05)
“I am firmly pro-life … I was always for life.” (Jim Davenport, “Romney Affirms Abortion Opposition During Stop In SC,” The Associated Press, 2/8/07)
But it was not just abortion.
In 2006, Mitt Romney said illegal immigrants should have a path to citizen. In a Lowell Sun article on March 30, 2006, Evan Lehmann quoted Mitt Romney saying “I don’t believe in rounding up 11 million people and forcing them at gunpoint from our country … With these 11 million people, let’s have them registered, know who they are. Those who’ve been arrested or convicted of crimes shouldn’t be here; those that are here paying taxes and not taking government benefits should begin a process towards application for citizenship, as they would from their home country.”
Romney went on to support John McCain’s immigration plan, denying it was amnesty. In March of 2007, Mitt Romney spoke “approvingly of efforts by McCain and Bush to solve the nation’s immigration crisis,” according to Scott Helman’s Boston Globe article. By May of that same year, Romney had begun attacking McCain’s plan as amnesty and told CNN’s “The Situation Room” that he opposed a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.
He refused to support George Bush’s tax cuts in 2004, but in 2007 claimed he had always supported them. In 2002, Romney refused to sign the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, but in 2007, Romney signed it.
In 2002, Mitt Romney wanted heaving federal regulations on campaign finances. Back in 1994, Romney even wanted a cap on congressional election spending and wanted to ban political action committees. By 2007, Romney was attacking McCain-Feingold, which did much of what he previously had wanted.
In the 1992 Presidential Primary in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney voted for Paul Tsongas. He contributed to numerous Democrats and, in 1994 while running as a Republican, praised Bill Clinton as doing “a lot of things that make sense.”
More troubling, in 1994 Mitt Romney campaigned against the Contract With America calling it “too partisan.” He also insisted he was an independent during Ronald Reagan’s years in office, balking at Ted Kennedy’s attempts to connect Romney to Ronald Reagan. By 2005, Mitt Romney claimed Ronald Reagan was his political hero.
On the second amendment, Mitt Romney supported the Brady Bill and Assault Weapons ban in 1994, but by 2007, Mitt Romney opposed gun control measures. At one point in 2007, Mitt Romney claimed he owned a gun and then admitted he did not.
The list goes on and on from gays in the military to gay marriage to stem cell research to global warming. Romney has shown himself to be not a principled conservative, but, as Jon Huntsman described him, a well lubricated weather vane.
Real Tea Partiers just don’t trust him. His record is the very reason why. On every significant issue of the past decade, Mitt Romney has managed to be on every side of each issue except one — he has consistently been in favor of big government dictated and big government managed healthcare.
Better to lose than win with weather vane status quo Mitt.
Happy Holloween WALL STREET By GK TEMUJIN AMERICA'S #1 REBEL
" Nothing in all the World is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity " – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963.
GK TEMUJIN SAYS :
" The issue is that I oppose Wall Street !!!
That's the greed & corruption of the money lending class elite and big business.
That's how it is perceived still by most Americans who think.
Ask yourself why is all this vitrol about the protestors instead of the Wall Street Banker crimminals.
I don't support every protestor, obviously, or everything that every protestor might also support or say.
But the idea of opposing the Wall Street Banksters.
Of course I support that.
And that is the underlying message here.
Not the dynamics of who or what is on the ground.
That is the message that we all should be behind rather than spewing vitrol at the people protesting against the corrupt banksters.
Again I don't care what ghost or gobblin scares those thieves on wall street . I just happy they are out there manning the barricades. Listen the more public outcry over wallstreet threatens the evil monopoly that those who control wallstreet have over all of us.
I would not care what wolfman , vampire , zombie or muumy were out there protesting Wallstreet, as long as it calls attention to the devious business practices and corrupt politics of Wallstreet
Don't let the media manipulate you friends !!!
The problem is not the occupy wall street protestors.
The problem is the power elite Matrix of which a critical component is Wall Street Banks and the evil world nexus of economic thievery that it represents.
" OWS's Beef: Wall Street Isn't Winning It's Cheating ... All weekend I was thinking about this "jealousy" question, and I just kept coming back to all the different ways the game is rigged. "Dude," I said. "These people aren't protesting money. They're not protesting banking. They're protesting corruption on Wall Street." ... When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil stuff Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last at least fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money. People aren't jealous and they don't want privileges. They just want a level playing field, and they want Wall Street to give up its cheat codes. " – Rolling Stone/Matt Taibbi
Occupy Wall Street is a revolutionary force sweeping the country, tearing down whatever is unjust and replacing it with fairness.
Deal with it Occupy Wall Street is a populist movement, not a radical one. The elite powers that be are trying their best to position it this way in opposition to the anti-government Tea Party.
This has significant ramifications not only for the movement but for the US economy and for the West in general.
Matt Taibbi's perspective as explained in this post (excerpted above) at RollingStone.com provides you with this insight regarding populism, one G. K. Temujin have mentioned numerous times over the years. Taibbi has created an upswell of indignation against Wall Street similar to that which occurred back in the 1930s. By focusing larger issues such as central banking and the forgetting about the mainstream media's [ fox news , cbs , abc , nbc , msnbc and cnn ] fixation with retribution and money envy.
OWS is a diverse movement and one that is becoming increasingly factionalized. Stand together we win seperated we lose !!!
If popular anger is properly controlled and channeled then the impact of the Internet itself and the emergent clarity of its truth-telling can be mitigated, or that is the hope of the elites encouraging such populism. Change can be absorbed and the system can continue on as it is.
The goal in GK Temujin's view is corrupt world governance, an evil 1984 Orwellian system run by a handful of greedy self proclaimed experts also known " as the wisem men " reporting to the great central banking families , their enablers and associates.
The Internet, however, has put world government at risk and likely changed the plans of the Anglosphere elites behind the move. They have begun to be far more aggressive in terms of domestic policing and military activity. What cannot be gained via the elite's endless fear-based promotions is apparently to be won by force.
The elites, of course, will not give up on their control. These tools frighten the sheep of middle class into giving up power and wealth to carefully crafted and manipulated globalist solutions. They are not working nearly as well in the 21st century as they did all thru out the 20th.
You can see first in the Tea Party movement and now in OWS that there is genuine anger out there and skepticism about the current Western promotion of so-called civil society. Europe is suffering from the same sort of conditions, with many of Europe's tribes like the Greeks beginning to rebel against the inefficient and exploitative euro as Temujin previously predicted.
For the world elites, the necessity is to control this growing anger by any means possible. In the US, this means recasting it within the mold of the right-left conflict. This is an old elitist trick and is carried out to ensure that radical sentiments are properly managed.
First, one manipulates a popular movement in a particular direction. Then one sets up a controlled opposition.
The anti-government Tea Party and anti-business Wall Street will be set upon each other by the mainstream media. Angry people will be invited to take sides.
What will occur is inevitably a compromise whereby government shall be made more efficient or seemingly so and business Wall Street shall be increasingly regulated to stop abuses. This is an old an very clever trick !!!
How is it a trick? Because it leaves the modern capitalist system IN EXACTLY THE SAME PLACE as it is now. A massive government (reformed) is supervising a massive (mercantilist) financial industry (also reformed). The net result of the next umpteen weeks, months, years, etc. will be exactly nothing.
Of course, as Temujin pointed out, this old evil trick may be less effective this time around.
People are genuinely angry and the Internet Reformation is rapidly spreading the reality of that frustration. What starts as controlled rebellion can easily spread into something far more unmanageable that gives rise to genuine French , Russian or even American revolution change.
True the goog ol' USA has a massive police force in America that outside of lower Manhattan prosecutes crime and imprisons citizens with record setting, factory level efficiency, eclipsing the incarceration rates of most of history's more notorious police states and communist countries.
But the greedy evil bankers on Wall Street don't live in that heavily policed corrupt country.
There are maybe 1000 SEC agents policing that sector of the economy, plus a handful of FBI agents. There are nearly that many police officers stationed around the polite crowd at Zucotti park. These inequities are what drive the OWS protests.
People don't want handouts. It's not a class uprising and they don't want civil war they want just the opposite. They want everyone to live in the same country, and live by the same rules. It's amazing that some people think that that's asking a lot.
Join the movement friends today. Get involved. Speak out where ever you can. Speak up join this chourus of unrest. Enough is Enough you are slaves , but free men. Continue to try to push for real reforms of the system in another way using your bull horn or write the local newspaper or call the local radio station get your voice heard today.
There will be, eventually, significant unrest in the US, as elsewhere in the world. But if Temujin is correct in his analysis, much of this unrest may escape the control of the elites evidently and obviously behind OWS. This is their attempt at creating controlled social upheaval. The real thing may be yet to come
Change is a coming. Change is in wind !!!
PREPARED SPREAD THE WORD !!!
HAPPY HOLLOWEEN .
TRICK OR TREAT !!!
GK TEMUJIN SAYS :
" The issue is that I oppose Wall Street !!!
That's the greed & corruption of the money lending class elite and big business.
That's how it is perceived still by most Americans who think.
Ask yourself why is all this vitrol about the protestors instead of the Wall Street Banker crimminals.
I don't support every protestor, obviously, or everything that every protestor might also support or say.
But the idea of opposing the Wall Street Banksters.
Of course I support that.
And that is the underlying message here.
Not the dynamics of who or what is on the ground.
That is the message that we all should be behind rather than spewing vitrol at the people protesting against the corrupt banksters.
Again I don't care what ghost or gobblin scares those thieves on wall street . I just happy they are out there manning the barricades. Listen the more public outcry over wallstreet threatens the evil monopoly that those who control wallstreet have over all of us.
I would not care what wolfman , vampire , zombie or muumy were out there protesting Wallstreet, as long as it calls attention to the devious business practices and corrupt politics of Wallstreet
Don't let the media manipulate you friends !!!
The problem is not the occupy wall street protestors.
The problem is the power elite Matrix of which a critical component is Wall Street Banks and the evil world nexus of economic thievery that it represents.
" OWS's Beef: Wall Street Isn't Winning It's Cheating ... All weekend I was thinking about this "jealousy" question, and I just kept coming back to all the different ways the game is rigged. "Dude," I said. "These people aren't protesting money. They're not protesting banking. They're protesting corruption on Wall Street." ... When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil stuff Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last at least fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money. People aren't jealous and they don't want privileges. They just want a level playing field, and they want Wall Street to give up its cheat codes. " – Rolling Stone/Matt Taibbi
Occupy Wall Street is a revolutionary force sweeping the country, tearing down whatever is unjust and replacing it with fairness.
Deal with it Occupy Wall Street is a populist movement, not a radical one. The elite powers that be are trying their best to position it this way in opposition to the anti-government Tea Party.
This has significant ramifications not only for the movement but for the US economy and for the West in general.
Matt Taibbi's perspective as explained in this post (excerpted above) at RollingStone.com provides you with this insight regarding populism, one G. K. Temujin have mentioned numerous times over the years. Taibbi has created an upswell of indignation against Wall Street similar to that which occurred back in the 1930s. By focusing larger issues such as central banking and the forgetting about the mainstream media's [ fox news , cbs , abc , nbc , msnbc and cnn ] fixation with retribution and money envy.
OWS is a diverse movement and one that is becoming increasingly factionalized. Stand together we win seperated we lose !!!
If popular anger is properly controlled and channeled then the impact of the Internet itself and the emergent clarity of its truth-telling can be mitigated, or that is the hope of the elites encouraging such populism. Change can be absorbed and the system can continue on as it is.
The goal in GK Temujin's view is corrupt world governance, an evil 1984 Orwellian system run by a handful of greedy self proclaimed experts also known " as the wisem men " reporting to the great central banking families , their enablers and associates.
The Internet, however, has put world government at risk and likely changed the plans of the Anglosphere elites behind the move. They have begun to be far more aggressive in terms of domestic policing and military activity. What cannot be gained via the elite's endless fear-based promotions is apparently to be won by force.
The elites, of course, will not give up on their control. These tools frighten the sheep of middle class into giving up power and wealth to carefully crafted and manipulated globalist solutions. They are not working nearly as well in the 21st century as they did all thru out the 20th.
You can see first in the Tea Party movement and now in OWS that there is genuine anger out there and skepticism about the current Western promotion of so-called civil society. Europe is suffering from the same sort of conditions, with many of Europe's tribes like the Greeks beginning to rebel against the inefficient and exploitative euro as Temujin previously predicted.
For the world elites, the necessity is to control this growing anger by any means possible. In the US, this means recasting it within the mold of the right-left conflict. This is an old elitist trick and is carried out to ensure that radical sentiments are properly managed.
First, one manipulates a popular movement in a particular direction. Then one sets up a controlled opposition.
The anti-government Tea Party and anti-business Wall Street will be set upon each other by the mainstream media. Angry people will be invited to take sides.
What will occur is inevitably a compromise whereby government shall be made more efficient or seemingly so and business Wall Street shall be increasingly regulated to stop abuses. This is an old an very clever trick !!!
How is it a trick? Because it leaves the modern capitalist system IN EXACTLY THE SAME PLACE as it is now. A massive government (reformed) is supervising a massive (mercantilist) financial industry (also reformed). The net result of the next umpteen weeks, months, years, etc. will be exactly nothing.
Of course, as Temujin pointed out, this old evil trick may be less effective this time around.
People are genuinely angry and the Internet Reformation is rapidly spreading the reality of that frustration. What starts as controlled rebellion can easily spread into something far more unmanageable that gives rise to genuine French , Russian or even American revolution change.
True the goog ol' USA has a massive police force in America that outside of lower Manhattan prosecutes crime and imprisons citizens with record setting, factory level efficiency, eclipsing the incarceration rates of most of history's more notorious police states and communist countries.
But the greedy evil bankers on Wall Street don't live in that heavily policed corrupt country.
There are maybe 1000 SEC agents policing that sector of the economy, plus a handful of FBI agents. There are nearly that many police officers stationed around the polite crowd at Zucotti park. These inequities are what drive the OWS protests.
People don't want handouts. It's not a class uprising and they don't want civil war they want just the opposite. They want everyone to live in the same country, and live by the same rules. It's amazing that some people think that that's asking a lot.
Join the movement friends today. Get involved. Speak out where ever you can. Speak up join this chourus of unrest. Enough is Enough you are slaves , but free men. Continue to try to push for real reforms of the system in another way using your bull horn or write the local newspaper or call the local radio station get your voice heard today.
There will be, eventually, significant unrest in the US, as elsewhere in the world. But if Temujin is correct in his analysis, much of this unrest may escape the control of the elites evidently and obviously behind OWS. This is their attempt at creating controlled social upheaval. The real thing may be yet to come
Change is a coming. Change is in wind !!!
PREPARED SPREAD THE WORD !!!
HAPPY HOLLOWEEN .
TRICK OR TREAT !!!
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
JAY SILVERHEELS SHOULD HAVE WON AN OSCAR BROKEN ARROW
JAY SILVERHEELS AT HIS BEST. HE SHOULD HAVE WON A BEST SUPPORTING OSCAR FOR THIS PERFORMANCE !!!
Monday, October 24, 2011
CITIGROUP ARE THIEVES & THE FEDs ARE TO !!!
"Failure to prosecute the participants in the plethora of financial frauds is PROOF that America is no longer a Republic."
Enemies of the state.
American Government is inept and it's Court system is corrupt !!!
No sense implementing regulations if they're going to just be ignored. Even regulations that contain an "or else" can be ignored. Regulations that are mere illusions - like Dodd-Frank are worse than nothing. Claiming to eliminate & foreswear bank bailouts while simultaneously creating a bailout insurance fund gives the lie to any pretense of a willingness to take prompt corrective action.
The inept and corrupt SEC alleges that Citigroup Global Markets structured and marketed a CDO called Class V Funding III and exercised significant influence over the selection of $500 million of the assets included in the CDO portfolio. Citigroup then took a proprietary short position against those mortgage-related assets from which it would profit if the assets declined in value. Citigroup did not disclose to investors its role in the asset selection process or that it took a short position against the assets it helped select.
Citigroup has agreed to settle the SEC’s charges by paying a total of $285 million, which will be returned to investors.
To recap, this is what happened:
Citigroup with malice of forthought put together a CDO (a debt obligation) in which it selected "assets" to put into the transaction specifically for their crappiness. That is, they chose assets that they expected would decline in value.
The company then shorted the instrument it created, a position that would lose money if the CDO performed as expected and marketed to investors. They could only make money if the investor lost their shirt.
They did not disclose either their selection of the assets in the CDO or that they took the short to the people who were buying it!
As expected and designed the CDO blew up. The "investors" took a 100% loss; what they bought was valueless as it was a levered instrument and the valuation loss of the underlying assets was sufficient to wipe out their investment.
Citigroup made a lot of money. The instrument performed exactly as Citigroup intended but they did not tell the people who were buying this thing that they expected they would lose every penny they put in up front. In fact they intentionally concealed their fraud role in selecting the assets and that they had taken a short position against them !!!
Now the corrupt and inept SEC steps in and they agree to "settle" this case with what amounts to a fine.
In fact the SEC press release claims that Citigroup knew damn well what they were " selling " was fraudulently misrepresented to the customers:
According to the SEC’s complaints, the Class V III transaction closed on Feb. 28, 2007. One experienced CDO trader characterized the Class V III portfolio in an e-mail as “dogsh!t” and “possibly the best short EVER!”
An experienced collateral manager commented that “the portfolio is horrible.” On Nov. 7, 2007, a credit rating agency downgraded every tranche of Class V III, and on Nov. 19, 2007, Class V III was declared to be in an Event of Default.
The approximately 15 investors in the Class V III transaction lost virtually their entire investments while Citigroup received fees of approximately $34 million for structuring and marketing the transaction and additionally realized net profits of at least $126 million from its short position.
Where are the handcuffs for the obvious false statements and criminal fraud ???
This "transaction" was a clear (and successful) attempt to simply rob and cheat people.
If you or I do something like this through some fraudulent edifice we go to prison. But when a big national bank does it, the feds simply order them to a pay a fine when they get caught.
This makes stealing a simple business proposition:
Since you will not get caught all of the time, there is no reason not to steal. Any time you do not get caught you get to keep all the loot. When you get caught you negotiate to return some of the loot.
It has always amazed me how a local drugged up Bank robber can get 10 years for robbing $3,000 what amounts to petty crimes incomparison. Then these inside bankers & multinational corporations can rip off millions of dollars and break people. You can steal a hell of alot more cash with computer mouse than a gun ask those CEOs on wall street.
Get off with a slap on the wrist. All things considered, more people should be marching on wall street. The power elite Oligarchy of big corrupt government & big thieving business that rule America has ruined America.
This is simply boiler room fraud, plain and simple. Consider that we have had a recent Treasury Secretary who profited from this very type of crude fraud, Hank Paulson. Create toxic securities, bribe willing rating agencies to give them the triple A, profit by selling this crap to dupes, and magnify your profits by shorting the crap out of it, or taking out multiple CDS on the garbage.
And when your poisoned bookie AIG cannot pay, your former criminal CEO, now US Treasury Secretary, ensures that your bookie makes good on your bets with tax payer dollars.
This is not a very sophisticated crime. It is quite amazing for its brazen obviousness, however.
It is the very anatomy of an illegal wealth transfer. This is exactly how it is done.
Failure to prosecute for real crimes against the American people once again. The participants in the plethora of financial frauds is PROOF that Amerika is no longer a Republic !!!
AND WE WONDER WHY INSTITUTION ENGAGE IN THIS SORT OF BLATANT RIPOFF?
The problem is that these settlements all boil down to nothing other than a "cost of doing business." In other words, they'll keep doing this because the cost is negligible. No surprise at all just one big funny game. With the Joke on the American People !!!
Citi was fined and allowed to consent to the charges without admitting or denying any allegations. In other words, Citi is allowed to say "we'll pay the money to make this suit go away, but we didn't do anything wrong", as has happened in other banking settlement agreements.
Will we ever get an admission / verdict of guilt, much less handcuffs ???
Not with co-conspiritors in government !!!
Ps: Oh yeah, there's this pesky statute of limitations problem too. Anyone note the dates? Just draw it out until you can't prosecute - on purpose. This is nothing more or less than an organized looting operation with the full participation of the government in stealing from the victims.
The problem is that these settlements all boil down to nothing other than a "cost of doing business." In other words, they'll keep doing this because the cost is negligible. No surprise at this late stage of the game.
Enemies of the state.
American Government is inept and it's Court system is corrupt !!!
No sense implementing regulations if they're going to just be ignored. Even regulations that contain an "or else" can be ignored. Regulations that are mere illusions - like Dodd-Frank are worse than nothing. Claiming to eliminate & foreswear bank bailouts while simultaneously creating a bailout insurance fund gives the lie to any pretense of a willingness to take prompt corrective action.
The inept and corrupt SEC alleges that Citigroup Global Markets structured and marketed a CDO called Class V Funding III and exercised significant influence over the selection of $500 million of the assets included in the CDO portfolio. Citigroup then took a proprietary short position against those mortgage-related assets from which it would profit if the assets declined in value. Citigroup did not disclose to investors its role in the asset selection process or that it took a short position against the assets it helped select.
Citigroup has agreed to settle the SEC’s charges by paying a total of $285 million, which will be returned to investors.
To recap, this is what happened:
Citigroup with malice of forthought put together a CDO (a debt obligation) in which it selected "assets" to put into the transaction specifically for their crappiness. That is, they chose assets that they expected would decline in value.
The company then shorted the instrument it created, a position that would lose money if the CDO performed as expected and marketed to investors. They could only make money if the investor lost their shirt.
They did not disclose either their selection of the assets in the CDO or that they took the short to the people who were buying it!
As expected and designed the CDO blew up. The "investors" took a 100% loss; what they bought was valueless as it was a levered instrument and the valuation loss of the underlying assets was sufficient to wipe out their investment.
Citigroup made a lot of money. The instrument performed exactly as Citigroup intended but they did not tell the people who were buying this thing that they expected they would lose every penny they put in up front. In fact they intentionally concealed their fraud role in selecting the assets and that they had taken a short position against them !!!
Now the corrupt and inept SEC steps in and they agree to "settle" this case with what amounts to a fine.
In fact the SEC press release claims that Citigroup knew damn well what they were " selling " was fraudulently misrepresented to the customers:
According to the SEC’s complaints, the Class V III transaction closed on Feb. 28, 2007. One experienced CDO trader characterized the Class V III portfolio in an e-mail as “dogsh!t” and “possibly the best short EVER!”
An experienced collateral manager commented that “the portfolio is horrible.” On Nov. 7, 2007, a credit rating agency downgraded every tranche of Class V III, and on Nov. 19, 2007, Class V III was declared to be in an Event of Default.
The approximately 15 investors in the Class V III transaction lost virtually their entire investments while Citigroup received fees of approximately $34 million for structuring and marketing the transaction and additionally realized net profits of at least $126 million from its short position.
Where are the handcuffs for the obvious false statements and criminal fraud ???
This "transaction" was a clear (and successful) attempt to simply rob and cheat people.
If you or I do something like this through some fraudulent edifice we go to prison. But when a big national bank does it, the feds simply order them to a pay a fine when they get caught.
This makes stealing a simple business proposition:
Since you will not get caught all of the time, there is no reason not to steal. Any time you do not get caught you get to keep all the loot. When you get caught you negotiate to return some of the loot.
It has always amazed me how a local drugged up Bank robber can get 10 years for robbing $3,000 what amounts to petty crimes incomparison. Then these inside bankers & multinational corporations can rip off millions of dollars and break people. You can steal a hell of alot more cash with computer mouse than a gun ask those CEOs on wall street.
Get off with a slap on the wrist. All things considered, more people should be marching on wall street. The power elite Oligarchy of big corrupt government & big thieving business that rule America has ruined America.
This is simply boiler room fraud, plain and simple. Consider that we have had a recent Treasury Secretary who profited from this very type of crude fraud, Hank Paulson. Create toxic securities, bribe willing rating agencies to give them the triple A, profit by selling this crap to dupes, and magnify your profits by shorting the crap out of it, or taking out multiple CDS on the garbage.
And when your poisoned bookie AIG cannot pay, your former criminal CEO, now US Treasury Secretary, ensures that your bookie makes good on your bets with tax payer dollars.
This is not a very sophisticated crime. It is quite amazing for its brazen obviousness, however.
It is the very anatomy of an illegal wealth transfer. This is exactly how it is done.
Failure to prosecute for real crimes against the American people once again. The participants in the plethora of financial frauds is PROOF that Amerika is no longer a Republic !!!
AND WE WONDER WHY INSTITUTION ENGAGE IN THIS SORT OF BLATANT RIPOFF?
The problem is that these settlements all boil down to nothing other than a "cost of doing business." In other words, they'll keep doing this because the cost is negligible. No surprise at all just one big funny game. With the Joke on the American People !!!
Citi was fined and allowed to consent to the charges without admitting or denying any allegations. In other words, Citi is allowed to say "we'll pay the money to make this suit go away, but we didn't do anything wrong", as has happened in other banking settlement agreements.
Will we ever get an admission / verdict of guilt, much less handcuffs ???
Not with co-conspiritors in government !!!
Ps: Oh yeah, there's this pesky statute of limitations problem too. Anyone note the dates? Just draw it out until you can't prosecute - on purpose. This is nothing more or less than an organized looting operation with the full participation of the government in stealing from the victims.
The problem is that these settlements all boil down to nothing other than a "cost of doing business." In other words, they'll keep doing this because the cost is negligible. No surprise at this late stage of the game.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Elvis Presley - Men with broken hearts
Since wealth has become concentrated in very few hands, that means that there are a whole lot of poor people out there.
At a time when technology should be making it possible to lift standards of living all over the globe, poverty just continues to spread. According to the same Credit Suisse study referenced above, the bottom two-thirds of the global population controls just 3.3% of all the wealth.
Not only that, more than 3 billion people currently live on less than 2 dollar a day.
While the ultra-wealthy live the high life, unimaginable tragedies play out all over the globe every single day. Every 3.6 seconds someone starves to death and three-quarters of them are children under the age of 5.
OCCUPY WASHINGTON D. C. NEXT THE RATS NEST
If you were asked to guess, what area of the United States would you say has the highest average income? New York City? Los Angeles? Silicon Valley?
Well, would you believe that it is actually the Washington D.C. area? Median household income in the region is $84,523, which is the highest in the nation. One of the biggest reasons for this are the huge salaries being pulled down by federal employees in the Washington D.C. area. According to the latest numbers, the average federal employee in the D.C. area brings in total compensation worth more than $126,000 a year. Of course members of Congress are even doing far better than that. Most of the members of Congress are millionaires, and somehow the vast majority of our politicians leave Washington D.C. far wealthier than when they arrived. So if you want to live the high life, you might want to move to the Washington D.C. area. Our "representatives" in Congress and the bureaucrats that work for the federal government are swimming in cash, and it is all at our expense.
Before you read the following facts, keep in mind that median household income in the United States has declined for three years in a row. While the bureaucrats in D.C. are living the high life, most of the rest of us are going through some really hard times.
Today, median household income in the United States is about $50,000 a year, and in most families both parents have to work or the bills will not get paid.
So it just does not seem right that the "average" federal worker in the Washington D.C. area is hauling down more than $126,000 a year in total compensation.
After all, are they not supposed to be "public servants"?
Instead, it feels like we are serving them. They get to drive around in their shiny new cars and they get to enjoy their shiny new McMansions in the D.C. suburbs while the rest of us pay for it.
Trust me, I have seen the beautiful suburbs in Maryland and in northern Virginia that seem to go on forever, and it is the U.S. taxpayers that are footing the bill. Spending by the federal government accounts for approximately one third of the GDP of the entire region.
According to the Washington Post, the Washington D.C. area has become a great place for those that enjoy "living the dream"....
Washingtonians now enjoy the highest median household income of any metropolitan area in the country, and five of the top 10 jurisdictions in America – Loudoun, Howard and Fairfax counties, and Falls Church and Fairfax City – are here, census data shows.
The signs of that wealth are on display all over, from the string of luxury boutiques such as Gucci and Tory Burch opening at Tysons Galleria to the $15 cocktails served over artisanal ice at the W Hotel in the District to the ever-larger houses rising off River Road in Potomac.
All of this wealth did not get created because the D.C. area is a great center for industry or finance.
Rather, all of these people are becoming very wealthy because of our big, fat bloated federal government.
The following are 10 mind blowing facts which show how members of Congress and federal employees are living the high life at our expense....
#1 When you total up all compensation (including health care and benefits), the average income for a federal worker in the Washington D.C. area last year was $126,369.
#2 In 2005, 7420 federal workers were making $150,000 or more per year. In 2010, a whopping 82,034 federal workers were making $150,000 or more per year. That is more than a tenfold increase in just five years.
#3 In 2005, the U.S. Department of Defense had just nine civilians earning $170,000 or more. When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. Department of Defense had 214 civilians earning $170,000 or more. In June 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense had 994 civilians earning $170,000 or more.
#4 Last year, federal employees "earned" approximately 447 billion dollars in total compensation.
#5 According to a study by the Heritage Foundation, federal workers earn 30 to 40 percent more money on average than their counterparts in the private sector.
#6 Today, one out of every 12 people living in Washington D.C. is a lawyer. In New York City, only one out of every 123 residents is a lawyer.
#7 More than 50 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires.
#8 The median wealth of a U.S. Senator in 2009 was 2.38 million dollars.
#9 Insider trading is perfectly legal for members of the U.S. Congress – and they refuse to pass a law that would change that.
#10 The percentage of millionaires in Congress is more than 50 times higher than the percentage of millionaires in the general population.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of America has been going through economic hell....
The standard of living in the United States has fallen farther over the past three years than at any other time that has ever been recorded in U.S. history.
According to the Federal Reserve, the combined net worth of American families has fallen by $5.5 trillion since 2007.
Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
According to Paul Osterman, a professor of economics at MIT, approximately 20 percent of all employed Americans are making $10.65 an hour or less.
While the average American family is deeply struggling to pay the mortgage and put food on the table, the bureaucrats in Washington D.C. are busy shopping for the latest cell phones and trying to figure out what brand of new car to buy next year.
Over the past couple of decades, the federal government has absolutely exploded in size, but this has not helped the poor. We now have more poor people in this country than ever before and over 2 million additional Americans slipped into poverty last year.
No, the reality is that the people that have reaped the rewards of a much larger federal government are the lawyers, the lobbyists and the bureaucrats.
This is the kind of thing that the American people should be protesting. Almost everybody in Congress is rich. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are living the high life. The lawyers, the lobbyists and the bureaucrats are having a field day.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of the country is deeply suffering.
It just doesn't seem right, does it?
Reprinted with permission from End of the American Dream.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/
October 22, 2011
Well, would you believe that it is actually the Washington D.C. area? Median household income in the region is $84,523, which is the highest in the nation. One of the biggest reasons for this are the huge salaries being pulled down by federal employees in the Washington D.C. area. According to the latest numbers, the average federal employee in the D.C. area brings in total compensation worth more than $126,000 a year. Of course members of Congress are even doing far better than that. Most of the members of Congress are millionaires, and somehow the vast majority of our politicians leave Washington D.C. far wealthier than when they arrived. So if you want to live the high life, you might want to move to the Washington D.C. area. Our "representatives" in Congress and the bureaucrats that work for the federal government are swimming in cash, and it is all at our expense.
Before you read the following facts, keep in mind that median household income in the United States has declined for three years in a row. While the bureaucrats in D.C. are living the high life, most of the rest of us are going through some really hard times.
Today, median household income in the United States is about $50,000 a year, and in most families both parents have to work or the bills will not get paid.
So it just does not seem right that the "average" federal worker in the Washington D.C. area is hauling down more than $126,000 a year in total compensation.
After all, are they not supposed to be "public servants"?
Instead, it feels like we are serving them. They get to drive around in their shiny new cars and they get to enjoy their shiny new McMansions in the D.C. suburbs while the rest of us pay for it.
Trust me, I have seen the beautiful suburbs in Maryland and in northern Virginia that seem to go on forever, and it is the U.S. taxpayers that are footing the bill. Spending by the federal government accounts for approximately one third of the GDP of the entire region.
According to the Washington Post, the Washington D.C. area has become a great place for those that enjoy "living the dream"....
Washingtonians now enjoy the highest median household income of any metropolitan area in the country, and five of the top 10 jurisdictions in America – Loudoun, Howard and Fairfax counties, and Falls Church and Fairfax City – are here, census data shows.
The signs of that wealth are on display all over, from the string of luxury boutiques such as Gucci and Tory Burch opening at Tysons Galleria to the $15 cocktails served over artisanal ice at the W Hotel in the District to the ever-larger houses rising off River Road in Potomac.
All of this wealth did not get created because the D.C. area is a great center for industry or finance.
Rather, all of these people are becoming very wealthy because of our big, fat bloated federal government.
The following are 10 mind blowing facts which show how members of Congress and federal employees are living the high life at our expense....
#1 When you total up all compensation (including health care and benefits), the average income for a federal worker in the Washington D.C. area last year was $126,369.
#2 In 2005, 7420 federal workers were making $150,000 or more per year. In 2010, a whopping 82,034 federal workers were making $150,000 or more per year. That is more than a tenfold increase in just five years.
#3 In 2005, the U.S. Department of Defense had just nine civilians earning $170,000 or more. When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. Department of Defense had 214 civilians earning $170,000 or more. In June 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense had 994 civilians earning $170,000 or more.
#4 Last year, federal employees "earned" approximately 447 billion dollars in total compensation.
#5 According to a study by the Heritage Foundation, federal workers earn 30 to 40 percent more money on average than their counterparts in the private sector.
#6 Today, one out of every 12 people living in Washington D.C. is a lawyer. In New York City, only one out of every 123 residents is a lawyer.
#7 More than 50 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires.
#8 The median wealth of a U.S. Senator in 2009 was 2.38 million dollars.
#9 Insider trading is perfectly legal for members of the U.S. Congress – and they refuse to pass a law that would change that.
#10 The percentage of millionaires in Congress is more than 50 times higher than the percentage of millionaires in the general population.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of America has been going through economic hell....
The standard of living in the United States has fallen farther over the past three years than at any other time that has ever been recorded in U.S. history.
According to the Federal Reserve, the combined net worth of American families has fallen by $5.5 trillion since 2007.
Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
According to Paul Osterman, a professor of economics at MIT, approximately 20 percent of all employed Americans are making $10.65 an hour or less.
While the average American family is deeply struggling to pay the mortgage and put food on the table, the bureaucrats in Washington D.C. are busy shopping for the latest cell phones and trying to figure out what brand of new car to buy next year.
Over the past couple of decades, the federal government has absolutely exploded in size, but this has not helped the poor. We now have more poor people in this country than ever before and over 2 million additional Americans slipped into poverty last year.
No, the reality is that the people that have reaped the rewards of a much larger federal government are the lawyers, the lobbyists and the bureaucrats.
This is the kind of thing that the American people should be protesting. Almost everybody in Congress is rich. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are living the high life. The lawyers, the lobbyists and the bureaucrats are having a field day.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of the country is deeply suffering.
It just doesn't seem right, does it?
Reprinted with permission from End of the American Dream.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/
October 22, 2011
Is America Disintegrating? by Patrick J. Buchanan
In Federalist 2, John Jay looks out at a nation of a common blood, faith, language, history, customs and culture.
"Providence," he writes, "has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people – a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion ... very similar in their manners and customs ..."
Are we still that "one united people" today? Or has America become what Klemens von Metternich called Italy: "a mere geographical expression"?
In "Suicide of a Superpower," out this week, I argue that the America we grew up in is disintegrating, breaking apart along the fault lines of politics, race, ethnicity, culture and faith; that the centrifugal forces in society have now become the dominant forces.
Our politics are as poisonous as they have been in our lifetimes.
Sarah Palin was maligned as morally complicit in the murder attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Terms like "terrorists" and "hostage-takers" are routinely used on Tea Party members who one congressman said want to see blacks "hanging on a tree."
Half a century after the civil rights revolution triumphed, the terms "racist" and "racism" are in daily use. We remain, said Eric Holder in calling us a "nation of cowards," as socially segregated as ever.
"Outside the workplace, the situation is even more bleak in that there is almost no significant interaction between us. On Saturdays and Sundays, America ... does not, in some ways, differ significantly from the country that existed some 50 years ago."
He is not altogether wrong in that. In California's prisons and among her proliferating ethnic gangs, a black-brown civil war has broken out.
Yet, by 2042, there will be 66 million black folks and 135 million Hispanics here, the latter concentrated in the states bordering Mexico.
What holds us together, then?
We are not now and will not then be "descended from common ancestors." We will consist of all the races, cultures, tribes and creeds of Earth – a multiracial, multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual stew of a nation that has never before existed, or survived. The parallels that come to mind are the Habsburg Empire that flew apart after World War I, and the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia that disintegrated after the Cold War.
No more will we all speak the same language. We will be bilingual and bi-national. Spanish radio and TV stations are already the fastest growing. In Los Angeles, half the people speak a language other than English in their own homes.
As for "professing the same religion," where 85 percent of Americans were Christians in 1990, that is down to 75 percent and plummeting. The old Christian churches – Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran and especially Episcopalian – are splitting, shrinking and dying.
Where three in four Catholics attended Sunday Mass in 1960, it is now one in four. One in three cradle Catholics has lost the faith. The numbers of priests and nuns are plummeting; religious orders are dying; Catholics schools are closing.
The moral consensus and moral code Christianity gave to us has collapsed. Since the great cultural-social revolution of the 1960s, there has occurred what Nietzsche called the "transvaluation of all values."
What was morally repellent – promiscuity, homosexuality, abortion – is now seen by perhaps half the nation as natural, normal, healthy and progressive.
Socially, too, America is breaking down.
Where out-of-wedlock births in the 1950s were rare, today, 41 percent of all American children are born out of wedlock. Among Hispanics, it is 51 percent; among blacks, 71 percent. And the correlation between the illegitimacy rate, the drug rate, the dropout rate, the crime rate and the incarceration rate is absolute.
This helps to explain the four decades of plunging test scores of American children and the quadrupling of the prison population.
And while all this is happening, the state is failing.
We cannot control our borders, win our wars or balance our budgets. In three consecutive national elections – 2006, 2008 and 2010 – the incumbents have been repudiated. Confidence in politics, politicians and the future of the country has never been so low in our lifetimes.
There was a time not so long ago when the nation was united on a common faith, morality, history, heroes, holidays, holy days, language and literature. Now we fight over them all.
Neocons says not to worry, the Constitution holds us together.
Does it? Do we all agree on what the First Amendment says about the freedom to pray in school and celebrate Christmas and Easter? How can we be the "one nation, under God" of the Pledge of Allegiance, or the people "endowed by their Creator" with inalienable rights, if we cannot even identify or discuss or mention that God and that Creator in the schools of America?
Do we agree on what the Ninth Amendment says about right to life? What about what the 14th Amendment says about affirmative action? What the Second Amendment says about the right to carry a concealed gun?
The new secession that is coming, Rick Perry notwithstanding, is not like the secession of 1861. It is a secession of the heart from one another.
Is America Disintegrating? by Patrick J. Buchanan
"Providence," he writes, "has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people – a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion ... very similar in their manners and customs ..."
Are we still that "one united people" today? Or has America become what Klemens von Metternich called Italy: "a mere geographical expression"?
In "Suicide of a Superpower," out this week, I argue that the America we grew up in is disintegrating, breaking apart along the fault lines of politics, race, ethnicity, culture and faith; that the centrifugal forces in society have now become the dominant forces.
Our politics are as poisonous as they have been in our lifetimes.
Sarah Palin was maligned as morally complicit in the murder attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Terms like "terrorists" and "hostage-takers" are routinely used on Tea Party members who one congressman said want to see blacks "hanging on a tree."
Half a century after the civil rights revolution triumphed, the terms "racist" and "racism" are in daily use. We remain, said Eric Holder in calling us a "nation of cowards," as socially segregated as ever.
"Outside the workplace, the situation is even more bleak in that there is almost no significant interaction between us. On Saturdays and Sundays, America ... does not, in some ways, differ significantly from the country that existed some 50 years ago."
He is not altogether wrong in that. In California's prisons and among her proliferating ethnic gangs, a black-brown civil war has broken out.
Yet, by 2042, there will be 66 million black folks and 135 million Hispanics here, the latter concentrated in the states bordering Mexico.
What holds us together, then?
We are not now and will not then be "descended from common ancestors." We will consist of all the races, cultures, tribes and creeds of Earth – a multiracial, multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual stew of a nation that has never before existed, or survived. The parallels that come to mind are the Habsburg Empire that flew apart after World War I, and the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia that disintegrated after the Cold War.
No more will we all speak the same language. We will be bilingual and bi-national. Spanish radio and TV stations are already the fastest growing. In Los Angeles, half the people speak a language other than English in their own homes.
As for "professing the same religion," where 85 percent of Americans were Christians in 1990, that is down to 75 percent and plummeting. The old Christian churches – Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran and especially Episcopalian – are splitting, shrinking and dying.
Where three in four Catholics attended Sunday Mass in 1960, it is now one in four. One in three cradle Catholics has lost the faith. The numbers of priests and nuns are plummeting; religious orders are dying; Catholics schools are closing.
The moral consensus and moral code Christianity gave to us has collapsed. Since the great cultural-social revolution of the 1960s, there has occurred what Nietzsche called the "transvaluation of all values."
What was morally repellent – promiscuity, homosexuality, abortion – is now seen by perhaps half the nation as natural, normal, healthy and progressive.
Socially, too, America is breaking down.
Where out-of-wedlock births in the 1950s were rare, today, 41 percent of all American children are born out of wedlock. Among Hispanics, it is 51 percent; among blacks, 71 percent. And the correlation between the illegitimacy rate, the drug rate, the dropout rate, the crime rate and the incarceration rate is absolute.
This helps to explain the four decades of plunging test scores of American children and the quadrupling of the prison population.
And while all this is happening, the state is failing.
We cannot control our borders, win our wars or balance our budgets. In three consecutive national elections – 2006, 2008 and 2010 – the incumbents have been repudiated. Confidence in politics, politicians and the future of the country has never been so low in our lifetimes.
There was a time not so long ago when the nation was united on a common faith, morality, history, heroes, holidays, holy days, language and literature. Now we fight over them all.
Neocons says not to worry, the Constitution holds us together.
Does it? Do we all agree on what the First Amendment says about the freedom to pray in school and celebrate Christmas and Easter? How can we be the "one nation, under God" of the Pledge of Allegiance, or the people "endowed by their Creator" with inalienable rights, if we cannot even identify or discuss or mention that God and that Creator in the schools of America?
Do we agree on what the Ninth Amendment says about right to life? What about what the 14th Amendment says about affirmative action? What the Second Amendment says about the right to carry a concealed gun?
The new secession that is coming, Rick Perry notwithstanding, is not like the secession of 1861. It is a secession of the heart from one another.
Is America Disintegrating? by Patrick J. Buchanan
DERIVATES MARKET WHAT A SCAM !!!
Most people have no idea that Wall Street has become a gigantic financial casino. The big Wall Street banks are making tens of billions of dollars a year in the derivatives market, and nobody in the financial community wants the party to end. The word "derivatives" sounds complicated and technical, but understanding them is really not that hard. A derivative is essentially a fancy way of saying that a bet has been made. Originally, these bets were designed to hedge risk, but today the derivatives market has mushroomed into a mountain of speculation unlike anything the world has ever seen before. Estimates of the notional value of the worldwide derivatives market go from $600 trillion all the way up to $1.5 quadrillion. Keep in mind that the GDP of the entire world is only somewhere in the neighborhood of $65 trillion. The danger to the global financial system posed by derivatives is so great that Warren Buffet once called them "financial weapons of mass destruction". For now, the financial powers that be are trying to keep the casino rolling, but it is inevitable that at some point this entire mess is going to come crashing down. When it does, we are going to be facing a derivatives crisis that really could destroy the entire global financial system.
Most people don't talk much about derivatives because they simply do not understand them.
Perhaps a couple of definitions would be helpful.
The following is how a recent Bloomberg article defined derivatives....
Derivatives are financial instruments used to hedge risks or for speculation. They’re derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies and commodities, or linked to specific events such as changes in the weather or interest rates.
The key word there is "speculation". Today the folks down on Wall Street are speculating on just about anything that you can imagine.
The following is how Investopedia defines derivatives....
A security whose price is dependent upon or derived from one or more underlying assets. The derivative itself is merely a contract between two or more parties. Its value is determined by fluctuations in the underlying asset. The most common underlying assets include stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, interest rates and market indexes. Most derivatives are characterized by high leverage.
A derivative has no underlying value of its own. A derivative is essentially a side bet. Usually these side bets are highly leveraged.
At this point, making side bets has totally gotten out of control in the financial world. Side bets are being made on just about anything you can possibly imagine, and the major Wall Street banks are making a ton of money from it. This system is almost entirely unregulated and it is totally dominated by the big international banks.
Over the past couple of decades, the derivatives market has multiplied in size. Everything is going to be fine as long as the system stays in balance. But once it gets out of balance we could witness a string of financial crashes that no government on earth will be able to fix.
The amount of money that we are talking about is absolutely staggering. Graham Summers of Phoenix Capital Research estimates that the notional value of the global derivatives market is $1.4 quadrillion, and in an article for Seeking Alpha he tried to put that number into perspective....
If you add up the value of every stock on the planet, the entire market capitalization would be about $36 trillion. If you do the same process for bonds, you’d get a market capitalization of roughly $72 trillion.
The notional value of the derivative market is roughly $1.4 QUADRILLION.
I realize that number sounds like something out of Looney tunes, so I’ll try to put it into perspective.
$1.4 Quadrillion is roughly:
40 TIMES THE WORLD’S STOCK MARKET.
10 TIMES the value of EVERY STOCK & EVERY BOND ON THE PLANET.
23 TIMES WORLD GDP.
It is hard to fathom how much money a quadrillion is.
If you started counting right now at one dollar per second, it would take 32 million years to count to one quadrillion dollars.
Yes, the boys and girls down on Wall Street have gotten completely and totally out of control.
In an excellent article that he did on derivatives, Webster Tarpley described the pivotal role that derivatives now play in the global financial system....
Far from being some arcane or marginal activity, financial derivatives have come to represent the principal business of the financier oligarchy in Wall Street, the City of London, Frankfurt, and other money centers. A concerted effort has been made by politicians and the news media to hide and camouflage the central role played by derivative speculation in the economic disasters of recent years. Journalists and public relations types have done everything possible to avoid even mentioning derivatives, coining phrases like “toxic assets,” “exotic instruments,” and – most notably – “troubled assets,” as in Troubled Assets Relief Program or TARP, aka the monstrous $800 billion bailout of Wall Street speculators which was enacted in October 2008 with the support of Bush, Henry Paulson, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the Obama Democrats.
Most people do not realize this, but derivatives were at the center of the financial crisis of 2008.
They will almost certainly be at the center of the next financial crisis as well.
For many, alarm bells went off the other day when it was revealed that Bank of America has moved a big chunk of derivatives from its failing Merrill Lynch investment banking unit to its depository arm.
So what does that mean?
An article posted on The Daily Bail the other day explained that it means that U.S. taxpayers could end up holding the bag....
This means that the investment bank's European derivatives exposure is now backstopped by U.S. taxpayers. Bank of America didn't get regulatory approval to do this, they just did it at the request of frightened counterparties. Now the Fed and the FDIC are fighting as to whether this was sound. The Fed wants to "give relief" to the bank holding company, which is under heavy pressure.
This is a direct transfer of risk to the taxpayer done by the bank without approval by regulators and without public input.
So did you hear about this on the news?
Probably not.
Today, the notional value of all the derivatives held by Bank of America comes to approximately $75 trillion.
JPMorgan Chase is holding derivatives with a notional value of about $79 trillion.
It is hard to even conceive of such figures.
Right now, the banks with the most exposure to derivatives are JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and HSBC Bank USA.
Morgan Stanley also has tremendous exposure to derivatives.
You may have noticed that these are some of the "too big to fail" banks.
The biggest U.S. banks continue to grow and they continue to get even more power.
Back in 2002, the top 10 U.S. banks controlled 55 percent of all U.S. banking assets. Today, the top 10 U.S. banks control 77 percent of all U.S. banking assets.
These banks have gotten so big and so powerful that if they collapsed our entire financial system would implode.
You would have thought that we would have learned our lesson back in 2008 and would have done something about this, but instead we have allowed the "too big to bail" banks to become bigger than ever.
And they pretty much do whatever they want.
A while back, the New York Times published an article entitled "A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives". That article exposed the steel-fisted control that the "too big to fail" banks exert over the trading of derivatives. Just consider the following excerpt from the article....
On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan.
The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable — and controversial — fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.
So what institutions are represented at these meetings?
Well, according to the New York Times, the following banks are involved: JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup.
Why do those same five names seem to keep popping up time after time?
Sadly, these five banks keep pouring money into the campaigns of politicians that supported the bailouts in 2008 and that they know will bail them out again when the next financial crisis strikes.
Those that defend the wild derivatives trading that is going on today claim that Wall Street has accounted for all of the risks and they assume that the issuing banks will always be able to cover all of the derivative contracts that they write.
But that is a faulty assumption. Just look at AIG back in 2008. When the housing market collapsed AIG was on the wrong end of a massive number of derivative contracts and it would have gone "bust" without gigantic bailouts from the federal government. If the bailouts of AIG had not happened, Goldman Sachs and a whole lot of other people would have been left standing there with a whole bunch of worthless paper.
It is inevitable that the same thing is going to happen again. Except next time it may be on a much grander scale.
When "the house" goes "bust", everybody loses. The governments of the world could step in and try to bail everyone out, but the reality is that when the derivatives market comes totally crashing down there won't be any government on earth with enough money to put it back together again.
A horrible derivatives crisis is coming.
It is only a matter of time.
Stay alert for any mention of the word "derivatives" or the term "derivatives crisis" in the news. When the derivatives crisis arrives, things will start falling apart very rapidly.
Reprinted with permission from the Economic Collapse Blog.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/
October 21, 2011
Most people don't talk much about derivatives because they simply do not understand them.
Perhaps a couple of definitions would be helpful.
The following is how a recent Bloomberg article defined derivatives....
Derivatives are financial instruments used to hedge risks or for speculation. They’re derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies and commodities, or linked to specific events such as changes in the weather or interest rates.
The key word there is "speculation". Today the folks down on Wall Street are speculating on just about anything that you can imagine.
The following is how Investopedia defines derivatives....
A security whose price is dependent upon or derived from one or more underlying assets. The derivative itself is merely a contract between two or more parties. Its value is determined by fluctuations in the underlying asset. The most common underlying assets include stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, interest rates and market indexes. Most derivatives are characterized by high leverage.
A derivative has no underlying value of its own. A derivative is essentially a side bet. Usually these side bets are highly leveraged.
At this point, making side bets has totally gotten out of control in the financial world. Side bets are being made on just about anything you can possibly imagine, and the major Wall Street banks are making a ton of money from it. This system is almost entirely unregulated and it is totally dominated by the big international banks.
Over the past couple of decades, the derivatives market has multiplied in size. Everything is going to be fine as long as the system stays in balance. But once it gets out of balance we could witness a string of financial crashes that no government on earth will be able to fix.
The amount of money that we are talking about is absolutely staggering. Graham Summers of Phoenix Capital Research estimates that the notional value of the global derivatives market is $1.4 quadrillion, and in an article for Seeking Alpha he tried to put that number into perspective....
If you add up the value of every stock on the planet, the entire market capitalization would be about $36 trillion. If you do the same process for bonds, you’d get a market capitalization of roughly $72 trillion.
The notional value of the derivative market is roughly $1.4 QUADRILLION.
I realize that number sounds like something out of Looney tunes, so I’ll try to put it into perspective.
$1.4 Quadrillion is roughly:
40 TIMES THE WORLD’S STOCK MARKET.
10 TIMES the value of EVERY STOCK & EVERY BOND ON THE PLANET.
23 TIMES WORLD GDP.
It is hard to fathom how much money a quadrillion is.
If you started counting right now at one dollar per second, it would take 32 million years to count to one quadrillion dollars.
Yes, the boys and girls down on Wall Street have gotten completely and totally out of control.
In an excellent article that he did on derivatives, Webster Tarpley described the pivotal role that derivatives now play in the global financial system....
Far from being some arcane or marginal activity, financial derivatives have come to represent the principal business of the financier oligarchy in Wall Street, the City of London, Frankfurt, and other money centers. A concerted effort has been made by politicians and the news media to hide and camouflage the central role played by derivative speculation in the economic disasters of recent years. Journalists and public relations types have done everything possible to avoid even mentioning derivatives, coining phrases like “toxic assets,” “exotic instruments,” and – most notably – “troubled assets,” as in Troubled Assets Relief Program or TARP, aka the monstrous $800 billion bailout of Wall Street speculators which was enacted in October 2008 with the support of Bush, Henry Paulson, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the Obama Democrats.
Most people do not realize this, but derivatives were at the center of the financial crisis of 2008.
They will almost certainly be at the center of the next financial crisis as well.
For many, alarm bells went off the other day when it was revealed that Bank of America has moved a big chunk of derivatives from its failing Merrill Lynch investment banking unit to its depository arm.
So what does that mean?
An article posted on The Daily Bail the other day explained that it means that U.S. taxpayers could end up holding the bag....
This means that the investment bank's European derivatives exposure is now backstopped by U.S. taxpayers. Bank of America didn't get regulatory approval to do this, they just did it at the request of frightened counterparties. Now the Fed and the FDIC are fighting as to whether this was sound. The Fed wants to "give relief" to the bank holding company, which is under heavy pressure.
This is a direct transfer of risk to the taxpayer done by the bank without approval by regulators and without public input.
So did you hear about this on the news?
Probably not.
Today, the notional value of all the derivatives held by Bank of America comes to approximately $75 trillion.
JPMorgan Chase is holding derivatives with a notional value of about $79 trillion.
It is hard to even conceive of such figures.
Right now, the banks with the most exposure to derivatives are JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and HSBC Bank USA.
Morgan Stanley also has tremendous exposure to derivatives.
You may have noticed that these are some of the "too big to fail" banks.
The biggest U.S. banks continue to grow and they continue to get even more power.
Back in 2002, the top 10 U.S. banks controlled 55 percent of all U.S. banking assets. Today, the top 10 U.S. banks control 77 percent of all U.S. banking assets.
These banks have gotten so big and so powerful that if they collapsed our entire financial system would implode.
You would have thought that we would have learned our lesson back in 2008 and would have done something about this, but instead we have allowed the "too big to bail" banks to become bigger than ever.
And they pretty much do whatever they want.
A while back, the New York Times published an article entitled "A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives". That article exposed the steel-fisted control that the "too big to fail" banks exert over the trading of derivatives. Just consider the following excerpt from the article....
On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan.
The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable — and controversial — fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.
So what institutions are represented at these meetings?
Well, according to the New York Times, the following banks are involved: JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup.
Why do those same five names seem to keep popping up time after time?
Sadly, these five banks keep pouring money into the campaigns of politicians that supported the bailouts in 2008 and that they know will bail them out again when the next financial crisis strikes.
Those that defend the wild derivatives trading that is going on today claim that Wall Street has accounted for all of the risks and they assume that the issuing banks will always be able to cover all of the derivative contracts that they write.
But that is a faulty assumption. Just look at AIG back in 2008. When the housing market collapsed AIG was on the wrong end of a massive number of derivative contracts and it would have gone "bust" without gigantic bailouts from the federal government. If the bailouts of AIG had not happened, Goldman Sachs and a whole lot of other people would have been left standing there with a whole bunch of worthless paper.
It is inevitable that the same thing is going to happen again. Except next time it may be on a much grander scale.
When "the house" goes "bust", everybody loses. The governments of the world could step in and try to bail everyone out, but the reality is that when the derivatives market comes totally crashing down there won't be any government on earth with enough money to put it back together again.
A horrible derivatives crisis is coming.
It is only a matter of time.
Stay alert for any mention of the word "derivatives" or the term "derivatives crisis" in the news. When the derivatives crisis arrives, things will start falling apart very rapidly.
Reprinted with permission from the Economic Collapse Blog.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/
October 21, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
What if God sent us the Perfect Politician ???
WORDS TO THE WISE
" What if God sent us the Perfect Politician and gave us a choice
To turn from our ways, and gave us a voice?
What would he look like, this hero-to-be?
Would he be hansome with perfect hair, perfect teeth?
Would he be tall, broad and strong?
Always be right and never be wrong?
Would he put down his foes, shame them outright,
Bring up their past, in their failure delight?
Would he know all the right answers to America's ills,
Would he solve all our problems with the stroke of his quill?
Or would he be humble, unassuming and meek,
When accused and cajoled, turn the other cheek?
Would it be policy or people he serves,
Stand up for Truth, Principle his nerve?
Would he be consistent, year after year,
Or change his opinion to suit the right ear?
Would he cater to the rich, the nobles and elite,
Or to the peasant, the man on the street?
God's perfect man would bring Justice to all,
The rich, the poor, the great and the small.
Unyeilding in principle, true to the end,
offering peace, his hand as a friend.
"Do no harm" his motto would be,
but, "Defend my home? I guarantee".
But what if we missed him in his humble attire,
Overlooked him for a more eloquent sire?
That wouldn't be right! Miss him, surely not!
Heroes are always easy to spot.
~Rick George
" What if God sent us the Perfect Politician and gave us a choice
To turn from our ways, and gave us a voice?
What would he look like, this hero-to-be?
Would he be hansome with perfect hair, perfect teeth?
Would he be tall, broad and strong?
Always be right and never be wrong?
Would he put down his foes, shame them outright,
Bring up their past, in their failure delight?
Would he know all the right answers to America's ills,
Would he solve all our problems with the stroke of his quill?
Or would he be humble, unassuming and meek,
When accused and cajoled, turn the other cheek?
Would it be policy or people he serves,
Stand up for Truth, Principle his nerve?
Would he be consistent, year after year,
Or change his opinion to suit the right ear?
Would he cater to the rich, the nobles and elite,
Or to the peasant, the man on the street?
God's perfect man would bring Justice to all,
The rich, the poor, the great and the small.
Unyeilding in principle, true to the end,
offering peace, his hand as a friend.
"Do no harm" his motto would be,
but, "Defend my home? I guarantee".
But what if we missed him in his humble attire,
Overlooked him for a more eloquent sire?
That wouldn't be right! Miss him, surely not!
Heroes are always easy to spot.
~Rick George
Thursday, October 20, 2011
RON PAUL'S RESTORE AMERICA PLAN
GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul will unveil his economic plan Monday afternoon, calling for a lower corporate tax rate, cutting spending by $1 trillion during his first year in office and eliminating five cabinet-level agencies, including the Education Department, according to excerpts released to Washington Wire.
Mr. Paul’s “Restore America” plan calls for a drastically reduced federal government to help spur American business — a familiar theme for the Texas Republican and many of the GOP White House hopefuls. But unlike some of his Republican rivals who have released economic plans, the libertarian congressman mostly avoids the weeds of tax and trade policy, according to excerpts.
But Mr. Paul does get specific when he calls for a 10% reduction in the federal work force, while pledging to limit his presidential salary to $39,336, which his campaign says is “approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker.” The current pay rate for commander in chief is $400,000 a year.
The Paul plan would also lower the corporate tax rate to 15% from 35%, though it is silent on personal income tax rates, which Mr. Paul would like to abolish. The congressman would end taxes on personal savings and extend “all Bush tax cuts.”
He would also allow U.S. firms to repatriate capital without additional taxes. Some lawmakers have recently proposed such legislation as a way to spur job growth. Its critics argue that a tax holiday for companies with money abroad has not historically led to domestic investment.
But the plan, at its heart, is libertarian. While promising to cut $1 trillion in spending during his first year, Mr. Paul would eliminate the Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, Interior and Housing and Urban Development. When former Massachusetts Gov. MItt Romney unveiled his economic plan last month, he said he would submit legislation to reduce nonsecurity, discretionary spending by $20 billion.
Mr. Paul would also push for the repeal of the new health-care law, last year’s Wall Street regulations law and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the 2002 corporate governance law passed in response to a number of corporate scandals, including Enron.
Other proposal are more vague, and the campaign has not yet released estimates of economic growth under the plan.
Mr. Paul, who wrote the book “End the Fed,” calls for an audit of the Federal Reserve and “competing currency legislation to strengthen the dollar and stabilize inflation.” The excerpts did not provide more details on how such legislation would work.
When it comes to Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs, Mr. Paul wants a system that “honors our promise to our seniors and veterans, while allowing young workers to opt out.” He also wants to run Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor, and “other welfare programs” through block grants to states.
Ron Paul wants to unshackle America from the burden of government, regulations, and taxes. He is really the only candidate that proposes actually shrinking the size of the Federal government. All the other candidates have limited proposals to slightly reduce Federal government spending. Obviously, Mitt [ FLIP FLOP I WILL SAY / DO ANYTHING TO GET ELECTED ] Romney’s proposal to slash a token $20 billion in nondiscretionary Federal spending is only symbolic and would do nothing to get the country out of it's mess.
Herman { your an idiot } Cain’s much talked about 9-9-9 better translated from the German as NO - NO - NO proposal is another stab at complete stupidty and is a NO NO NO Go.
USA currently spends $ 3.5 Billion a day more than it collects in tax revenue. Quickly building up a mountain of debt that threatens the whole financial system with collapse. If these fools aka politicians & citzens do nothing they will become completly bankrupt. This happening even as you read this sentence.
Mr. Paul’s “Restore America” plan calls for a drastically reduced federal government to help spur American business — a familiar theme for the Texas Republican and many of the GOP White House hopefuls. But unlike some of his Republican rivals who have released economic plans, the libertarian congressman mostly avoids the weeds of tax and trade policy, according to excerpts.
But Mr. Paul does get specific when he calls for a 10% reduction in the federal work force, while pledging to limit his presidential salary to $39,336, which his campaign says is “approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker.” The current pay rate for commander in chief is $400,000 a year.
The Paul plan would also lower the corporate tax rate to 15% from 35%, though it is silent on personal income tax rates, which Mr. Paul would like to abolish. The congressman would end taxes on personal savings and extend “all Bush tax cuts.”
He would also allow U.S. firms to repatriate capital without additional taxes. Some lawmakers have recently proposed such legislation as a way to spur job growth. Its critics argue that a tax holiday for companies with money abroad has not historically led to domestic investment.
But the plan, at its heart, is libertarian. While promising to cut $1 trillion in spending during his first year, Mr. Paul would eliminate the Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, Interior and Housing and Urban Development. When former Massachusetts Gov. MItt Romney unveiled his economic plan last month, he said he would submit legislation to reduce nonsecurity, discretionary spending by $20 billion.
Mr. Paul would also push for the repeal of the new health-care law, last year’s Wall Street regulations law and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the 2002 corporate governance law passed in response to a number of corporate scandals, including Enron.
Other proposal are more vague, and the campaign has not yet released estimates of economic growth under the plan.
Mr. Paul, who wrote the book “End the Fed,” calls for an audit of the Federal Reserve and “competing currency legislation to strengthen the dollar and stabilize inflation.” The excerpts did not provide more details on how such legislation would work.
When it comes to Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs, Mr. Paul wants a system that “honors our promise to our seniors and veterans, while allowing young workers to opt out.” He also wants to run Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor, and “other welfare programs” through block grants to states.
Ron Paul wants to unshackle America from the burden of government, regulations, and taxes. He is really the only candidate that proposes actually shrinking the size of the Federal government. All the other candidates have limited proposals to slightly reduce Federal government spending. Obviously, Mitt [ FLIP FLOP I WILL SAY / DO ANYTHING TO GET ELECTED ] Romney’s proposal to slash a token $20 billion in nondiscretionary Federal spending is only symbolic and would do nothing to get the country out of it's mess.
Herman { your an idiot } Cain’s much talked about 9-9-9 better translated from the German as NO - NO - NO proposal is another stab at complete stupidty and is a NO NO NO Go.
USA currently spends $ 3.5 Billion a day more than it collects in tax revenue. Quickly building up a mountain of debt that threatens the whole financial system with collapse. If these fools aka politicians & citzens do nothing they will become completly bankrupt. This happening even as you read this sentence.
SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION THE UPRISINGS SPREAD ACROSS THE USA
There ought to be an OCCUPY ALL OF AMERICA movement instead of just an Occupy Wall Street movement.Take back this country from the power elite who ran it into the ground !! But at least Occupy Wall Street it’s something.
A START !!!
Where is the TEA PARTY ???
They should be down there marching arm in arm with Occupy Wall Street!!!!
As usual the cowardly and villainous right wing are clueless about the need to confront the evils of big business monoply's cronie Capitalism. So it’s up the stupid lazy Left to do all the heavy lifting.Again.
TIME FOR THE SHEEP & SLAVES TO RISE UP !!!
The power elite on Wall Street have economically devastated the US and are enslaving the world with trillions of dollars in debt. The damage that Big Government & Big Business has caused can not even be conceived of, so whether those protesters realize it or not they are really attacking not Big Capitalism but Big Government itself. How many will continue to stay and fight after they realize that ???
A START !!!
Where is the TEA PARTY ???
They should be down there marching arm in arm with Occupy Wall Street!!!!
As usual the cowardly and villainous right wing are clueless about the need to confront the evils of big business monoply's cronie Capitalism. So it’s up the stupid lazy Left to do all the heavy lifting.Again.
TIME FOR THE SHEEP & SLAVES TO RISE UP !!!
The power elite on Wall Street have economically devastated the US and are enslaving the world with trillions of dollars in debt. The damage that Big Government & Big Business has caused can not even be conceived of, so whether those protesters realize it or not they are really attacking not Big Capitalism but Big Government itself. How many will continue to stay and fight after they realize that ???
I AM NOT MOVING - Short Film - Occupy Wall Street
YOU MUST SEE THIS ABOVE VIDEO & SPREAD IT AROUND TO ALL YOU KNOW !!!!!
Great video. We will see how repressive our government can be when pushed.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21....
Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world
AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.
The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.
The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Change is a coming friends time for you to join up !!!
When the system is utterly corrupt and unfixable, it is our right to revolt. Thomas Jefferson made that clear over two hundred years ago:
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure."
The young people leading this protest in a tiny park, surrounded by hoardes of armed police, amongst the skyscrapers built by their fathers and grandfathers, are sparking a revolution that is spreading across the globe. Technology is being used like never before to spread truth and ideas. This makes those in control very nervous. And they should be nervous. Their corrupt crony capitalist system is begining to crumble. This little town square sparked protests across the world on Saturday.
The rebirth of democracy is inspiring to those willing to enter the fray. If you stand on the sidelines and scorn and ridicule those willing to fight for justice, then you are part of the problem. Your world will change anyway, but you won't be part of the change.
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure."
The young people leading this protest in a tiny park, surrounded by hoardes of armed police, amongst the skyscrapers built by their fathers and grandfathers, are sparking a revolution that is spreading across the globe. Technology is being used like never before to spread truth and ideas. This makes those in control very nervous. And they should be nervous. Their corrupt crony capitalist system is begining to crumble. This little town square sparked protests across the world on Saturday.
The rebirth of democracy is inspiring to those willing to enter the fray. If you stand on the sidelines and scorn and ridicule those willing to fight for justice, then you are part of the problem. Your world will change anyway, but you won't be part of the change.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
FREE PEOPLE OCCUPY WALL STREET
"Free people can say "no". Free people can refuse demands for their money, time, and children. Slaves cannot. There is no freedom without the freedom to say "no". If someone demands that you do something and you can say "no" and refuse to do it, then you are a free human being. If you can be forced to do something or surrender something that you do not wish to, then you are a slave. No other test need be applied"
Friday, October 14, 2011
Pat Buchanan SAYS SUICIDE OF A SUPERPOWER IS COMING !!!!
America is disintegrating.
The “one Nation under God, indivisible” of the Pledge of Allegiance is passing away. In a few decades, that America will be gone forever. In its place will arise a country unrecognizable to our parents.
This is the thrust of Pat Buchanan’s Suicide of a Superpower.
The author of six New York Times bestsellers traces the disintegration to three historic changes: America’s loss of her cradle faith, Christianity; the moral, social, and cultural collapse that have followed from that loss; and the slow death of the people who created and ruled the nation.
America was born a Western Christian republic, writes Buchanan, but is being transformed into a multiracial, multicultural, multilingual, multiethnic stew of a nation that has no successful precedent in the history of the world.
Where once we celebrated the unity, the melting pot and shared experience, that the Depression and World War gave us, our elites today proclaim, “Our diversity is our greatest strength!”—even as racial, religious, and ethnic diversity are tearing nations to pieces.
Rejecting the commitment to a God-given equality of rights for all as inadequate, our government is engaged in the manic pursuit of equality of rewards, as it seeks to erect an egalitarian utopia that has never before existed. Less and less do we Americans have in common. More and more do we fight over religion, morality, politics, history, and heroes. And as our nation disintegrates, our government is failing in its fundamental duties, unable to defend our borders, balance our budgets, or win our wars.
How Americans are killing the country they profess to love, and the fate that awaits us if we do not turn around, is what Suicide of a Superpower is all about.
BOOK WARNS OF END
"As the faith that gave birth to the West is dying in the West, peoples of European descent from the steppes of Russia to the coast of California have begun to die out, as the Third World treks north to claim the estate. The last decade provided corroborating if not conclusive proof that we are in the Indian Summer of our civilization."
So begins Pat Buchanan in his hardcore work, SUICIDE OF A SUPERPOWER.
"Will America Survive to 2025?"
Buchanan, set for maximum controversy, launches all rockets at introduction "Disintegrating Nation" -- and does not let up for 400-plus pages.
"America is disintegrating. The centrifugal forces pulling us apart are growing inexorably. What unites us is dissolving. And this is true of Western Civilization....Meanwhile, the state is failing in its most fundamental duties. It is no longer able to defend our borders, balance our budgets, or win our wars."
The books reads as if its been written to be left behind in the ruins, only to be found by a future civilization.
SUICIDE ranked #2,668 on AMAZON's hit parade early Friday. It streets on Tuesday.
Now only the DRUDGE REPORT can offer a look inside.
Chapter 1: The Passing of a Superpower
“We have accepted today the existence in perpetuity of a permanent underclass of scores of millions who cannot cope and must be carried by society -- fed, clothed, housed, tutored, medicated at taxpayer’s expense their entire lives. We have a dependent nation the size of Spain in our independent America. We have a new division in our country, those who pay a double or triple fare, and those who ride forever free.”
Chapter 2. The End of Christian America
If [Christopher] Dawson is correct, the drive to de-Christianize America, to purge Christianity from the public square, public schools and public life, will prove culturally and socially suicidal for the nation.
“The last consequence of a dying Christianity is a dying people. Not one post-Christian nation has a birth rate sufficient to keep it alive....The death of European Christianity means the disappearance of the European tribe, a prospect visible in the demographic statistics of every Western nation.”
Chapter 3. The Crisis of Catholicism
“Half a century on, the disaster is manifest. The robust and confident Church of 1958 no longer exists. Catholic colleges and universities remain Catholic in name only. Parochial schools and high schools are closing as rapidly as they opened in the 1950s. The numbers of nuns, priests and seminarians have fallen dramatically. Mass attendance is a third of what it was. From the former Speaker of the House to the Vice President, Catholic politicians openly support abortion on demand.”
“How can Notre Dame credibly teach that all innocent life is sacred, and then honor a president committed to ensuring that a woman’s right to end the life of her innocent child remains sacrosanct?”
Chapter 4. The End of White America
“[W]hite America is an endangered species. By 2020, whites over 65 will out-number those 17 and under. Deaths will exceed births. The white population will begin to shrink and, should present birth rates persist, slowly disappear.”
“Mexico is moving north. Ethnically, linguistically and culturally, the verdict of 1848 is being over-turned. Will this Mexican nation within a nation advance the goals of the Constitution -- to “insure domestic tranquility” and ‘make us a more perfect union’? Or have we imperiled our union?” (Page 134)
Chapter 5. Demographic Winter
“Peoples of European descent are not only in a relative but a real decline. They are aging, dying, disappearing. This is the existential crisis of the West.” (Page 166)
“Not any Iranian weapon of mass destruction but demography is the existential crisis Israel faces....By mid-century...Palestinians west of the Jordan river will out-number Jews 2-1. Add Palestinians in Jordan, it is 3-1.”
“In a startling development of history, Russia’s population has fallen from 148 million in 1991 to 140 million today and is projected to plunge to 116 million by 2050, a loss of 32 million Russians in six decades.”
Chapter 6. Equality Vs. Freedom
“Those who would change society begin by changing the meaning of words. At Howard University, LBJ changed the meaning of equality from the attainable -- an end to segregation and a legislated equality of rights for African-Americans -- to the impossible: a socialist utopia.”
“Where equality is enthroned, freedom is extinguished. The rise of the egalitarian society means the death of the free society.”
“A time for truth. As most kids do not have the athletic ability to play high school sports, or the musical ability to play in the band, or the verbal ability to excel in debate, not every child has the academic ability to do high school work. No two children are created equal, not even identical twins. The family is the incubator of inequality and God its author.”
Chapter 7. The Diversity Cult
“The non-Europeanization of America is heartening news of an almost transcendental quality,” Wattenberg trilled.4 Yet, one wonders: What kind of man looks with transcendental joy to a day when the people among whom he was raised have become a minority in a nation where the majority rules?”
“Historians will look back in stupor at 20th and 21st century Americans who believed the magnificent republic they inherited would be enriched by bringing in scores of millions from the failed states of the Third World.”
Chapter 8: The Triumph Of Tribalism
America’s war of revenge against Japan was a race war. Newsreels, movies, magazines, comic books, headlines treated “Japs” as a repulsive race whose extermination would benefit mankind....Only well after the war was over was it re-branded a war to bring the blessings of democracy to...Japan.
We may deny the existence of ethnonationalism, detest it, condemn it. But this creator and destroyer of empires and nations is a force infinitely more powerful than globalism, for it engages the heart. Men will die for it. Religion, race, culture and tribe are the four horsemen of the coming apocalypse.
Chapter 9. ‘The White Party’
“Through its support of mass immigration, its paralysis in power to prevent 12-20 million illegal aliens from entering and staying, its failure to address the “anchor-baby” issue, the Republican Party has birthed a new electorate that will send it the way of the Whigs.”
Chapter 10: The Long Retreat
“We borrow from Europe to defend Europe. We borrow from the Gulf states to defend the Gulf states. We borrow from Japan to defend Japan. Is it not a symptom of senility to be borrowing from the world so we can defend the world?”
“Are vital U.S. interests more imperiled by what happens in Iraq where were have 50,000 troops, or Afghanistan where we have 100,000, or South Korea where we have 28,000 -- or by what is happening on our border with Mexico?...What does it profit America if we save Anbar and lose Arizona?”
Chapter 11: The Last Chance
“We are trying to create a nation that has never before existed, of all the races, tribes, cultures and creeds of Earth, where all are equal. In this utopian drive for the perfect society of our dreams we are killing the real country we inherited -- the best and greatest country on earth.”
BYE BYE MISS AMERICAN PIE A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST IT-SELF CAN NOT STAND !!!!
The “one Nation under God, indivisible” of the Pledge of Allegiance is passing away. In a few decades, that America will be gone forever. In its place will arise a country unrecognizable to our parents.
This is the thrust of Pat Buchanan’s Suicide of a Superpower.
The author of six New York Times bestsellers traces the disintegration to three historic changes: America’s loss of her cradle faith, Christianity; the moral, social, and cultural collapse that have followed from that loss; and the slow death of the people who created and ruled the nation.
America was born a Western Christian republic, writes Buchanan, but is being transformed into a multiracial, multicultural, multilingual, multiethnic stew of a nation that has no successful precedent in the history of the world.
Where once we celebrated the unity, the melting pot and shared experience, that the Depression and World War gave us, our elites today proclaim, “Our diversity is our greatest strength!”—even as racial, religious, and ethnic diversity are tearing nations to pieces.
Rejecting the commitment to a God-given equality of rights for all as inadequate, our government is engaged in the manic pursuit of equality of rewards, as it seeks to erect an egalitarian utopia that has never before existed. Less and less do we Americans have in common. More and more do we fight over religion, morality, politics, history, and heroes. And as our nation disintegrates, our government is failing in its fundamental duties, unable to defend our borders, balance our budgets, or win our wars.
How Americans are killing the country they profess to love, and the fate that awaits us if we do not turn around, is what Suicide of a Superpower is all about.
BOOK WARNS OF END
"As the faith that gave birth to the West is dying in the West, peoples of European descent from the steppes of Russia to the coast of California have begun to die out, as the Third World treks north to claim the estate. The last decade provided corroborating if not conclusive proof that we are in the Indian Summer of our civilization."
So begins Pat Buchanan in his hardcore work, SUICIDE OF A SUPERPOWER.
"Will America Survive to 2025?"
Buchanan, set for maximum controversy, launches all rockets at introduction "Disintegrating Nation" -- and does not let up for 400-plus pages.
"America is disintegrating. The centrifugal forces pulling us apart are growing inexorably. What unites us is dissolving. And this is true of Western Civilization....Meanwhile, the state is failing in its most fundamental duties. It is no longer able to defend our borders, balance our budgets, or win our wars."
The books reads as if its been written to be left behind in the ruins, only to be found by a future civilization.
SUICIDE ranked #2,668 on AMAZON's hit parade early Friday. It streets on Tuesday.
Now only the DRUDGE REPORT can offer a look inside.
Chapter 1: The Passing of a Superpower
“We have accepted today the existence in perpetuity of a permanent underclass of scores of millions who cannot cope and must be carried by society -- fed, clothed, housed, tutored, medicated at taxpayer’s expense their entire lives. We have a dependent nation the size of Spain in our independent America. We have a new division in our country, those who pay a double or triple fare, and those who ride forever free.”
Chapter 2. The End of Christian America
If [Christopher] Dawson is correct, the drive to de-Christianize America, to purge Christianity from the public square, public schools and public life, will prove culturally and socially suicidal for the nation.
“The last consequence of a dying Christianity is a dying people. Not one post-Christian nation has a birth rate sufficient to keep it alive....The death of European Christianity means the disappearance of the European tribe, a prospect visible in the demographic statistics of every Western nation.”
Chapter 3. The Crisis of Catholicism
“Half a century on, the disaster is manifest. The robust and confident Church of 1958 no longer exists. Catholic colleges and universities remain Catholic in name only. Parochial schools and high schools are closing as rapidly as they opened in the 1950s. The numbers of nuns, priests and seminarians have fallen dramatically. Mass attendance is a third of what it was. From the former Speaker of the House to the Vice President, Catholic politicians openly support abortion on demand.”
“How can Notre Dame credibly teach that all innocent life is sacred, and then honor a president committed to ensuring that a woman’s right to end the life of her innocent child remains sacrosanct?”
Chapter 4. The End of White America
“[W]hite America is an endangered species. By 2020, whites over 65 will out-number those 17 and under. Deaths will exceed births. The white population will begin to shrink and, should present birth rates persist, slowly disappear.”
“Mexico is moving north. Ethnically, linguistically and culturally, the verdict of 1848 is being over-turned. Will this Mexican nation within a nation advance the goals of the Constitution -- to “insure domestic tranquility” and ‘make us a more perfect union’? Or have we imperiled our union?” (Page 134)
Chapter 5. Demographic Winter
“Peoples of European descent are not only in a relative but a real decline. They are aging, dying, disappearing. This is the existential crisis of the West.” (Page 166)
“Not any Iranian weapon of mass destruction but demography is the existential crisis Israel faces....By mid-century...Palestinians west of the Jordan river will out-number Jews 2-1. Add Palestinians in Jordan, it is 3-1.”
“In a startling development of history, Russia’s population has fallen from 148 million in 1991 to 140 million today and is projected to plunge to 116 million by 2050, a loss of 32 million Russians in six decades.”
Chapter 6. Equality Vs. Freedom
“Those who would change society begin by changing the meaning of words. At Howard University, LBJ changed the meaning of equality from the attainable -- an end to segregation and a legislated equality of rights for African-Americans -- to the impossible: a socialist utopia.”
“Where equality is enthroned, freedom is extinguished. The rise of the egalitarian society means the death of the free society.”
“A time for truth. As most kids do not have the athletic ability to play high school sports, or the musical ability to play in the band, or the verbal ability to excel in debate, not every child has the academic ability to do high school work. No two children are created equal, not even identical twins. The family is the incubator of inequality and God its author.”
Chapter 7. The Diversity Cult
“The non-Europeanization of America is heartening news of an almost transcendental quality,” Wattenberg trilled.4 Yet, one wonders: What kind of man looks with transcendental joy to a day when the people among whom he was raised have become a minority in a nation where the majority rules?”
“Historians will look back in stupor at 20th and 21st century Americans who believed the magnificent republic they inherited would be enriched by bringing in scores of millions from the failed states of the Third World.”
Chapter 8: The Triumph Of Tribalism
America’s war of revenge against Japan was a race war. Newsreels, movies, magazines, comic books, headlines treated “Japs” as a repulsive race whose extermination would benefit mankind....Only well after the war was over was it re-branded a war to bring the blessings of democracy to...Japan.
We may deny the existence of ethnonationalism, detest it, condemn it. But this creator and destroyer of empires and nations is a force infinitely more powerful than globalism, for it engages the heart. Men will die for it. Religion, race, culture and tribe are the four horsemen of the coming apocalypse.
Chapter 9. ‘The White Party’
“Through its support of mass immigration, its paralysis in power to prevent 12-20 million illegal aliens from entering and staying, its failure to address the “anchor-baby” issue, the Republican Party has birthed a new electorate that will send it the way of the Whigs.”
Chapter 10: The Long Retreat
“We borrow from Europe to defend Europe. We borrow from the Gulf states to defend the Gulf states. We borrow from Japan to defend Japan. Is it not a symptom of senility to be borrowing from the world so we can defend the world?”
“Are vital U.S. interests more imperiled by what happens in Iraq where were have 50,000 troops, or Afghanistan where we have 100,000, or South Korea where we have 28,000 -- or by what is happening on our border with Mexico?...What does it profit America if we save Anbar and lose Arizona?”
Chapter 11: The Last Chance
“We are trying to create a nation that has never before existed, of all the races, tribes, cultures and creeds of Earth, where all are equal. In this utopian drive for the perfect society of our dreams we are killing the real country we inherited -- the best and greatest country on earth.”
BYE BYE MISS AMERICAN PIE A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST IT-SELF CAN NOT STAND !!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Subscribe To AMERICA NEEDS MY HELP
Posts
All Comments
Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments