Wednesday, December 2, 2009
CLIMATE CHANGE 'FRAUD'
CLIMATE CHANGE: Many experts claim man-made global warming is melting sea ice
Wednesday December 2,2009
By John Ingham
Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(71)
THE scientific consensus that mankind has caused climate change was rocked yesterday as a leading academic called it a “load of hot air underpinned by fraud”.
Professor Ian Plimer condemned the climate change lobby as “climate comrades” keeping the “gravy train” going.
In a controversial talk just days before the start of a climate summit attended by world leaders in Copenhagen, Prof Plimer said Governments were treating the public like “fools” and using climate change to increase taxes.
He said carbon dioxide has had no impact on temperature and that recent warming was part of the natural cycle of climate stretching over billions of years.
"If you have to argue your science by using fraud, your science is not valid."
Professor Pilmer
Prof Plimer - author of Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, The Missing Science - told a London audience: “Climates always change. They always have and they always will. They are driven by a number of factors that are random and cyclical.”
His comments came days after a scandal in climate-change research emerged through the leak of emails from the world-leading research unit at the University of East Anglia. They appeared to show that scientists had been massaging data to prove that global warming was taking place
The Climate Research Unit also admitted getting rid of much of its raw climate data, which means other scientists cannot check the subsequent research. Last night the head of the CRU, Professor Phil Jones, said he would stand down while an independent review took place.
Professor Plimer said climate change was caused by natural events such as volcanic eruptions, the shifting of the Earth’s orbit and cosmic radiation. He said: “Carbon dioxide levels have been up to 1,000 times higher in the past. CO2 cannot be driving global warming now.
“In the past we have had rapid and significant climate change with temperature changes greater than anything we are measuring today. They are driven by processes that have been going on since the beginning of time.”
He cited periods of warming during the Roman Empire and in the Middle Ages – when Vikings grew crops on Greenland – and cooler phases such as the Dark Ages and the Little Ice Age from 1300 to 1850.
And he predicted that the next phase would cool the planet.
Climate change is widely blamed on the burning of fossil fuels which release greenhouse gases such as CO2 into the atmosphere, where they trap the sun’s heat.
The talks at Copenhagen are expected to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally.
But Professor Plimer, of Adelaide and Melbourne Universities, said that to stop climate change Governments should find ways to prevent changes to the Earth’s orbit and ocean currents and avoid explosions of supernovae in space. Of the saga of the leaked emails, he said: “If you have to argue your science by using fraud, your science is not valid.”
The CRU’s Professor Jones has admitted some of the emails may have had “poorly chosen words” and were sent in the “heat of the moment”. But he has categorically denied manipulating data and said he stood by the science. And yesterday he dismissed suggestions of a conspiracy to alter evidence to support a theory of man-made global warming as “complete rubbish”.
But mining geology professor Plimer said there was a huge momentum behind the climate-change lobby.
He suggested many scientists had a vested interest in promoting climate change because it helped secure more funding for research. He said: “The climate comrades are trying to keep the gravy train going. Governments are also keen on putting their hands as deep as possible into our pockets.
“The average person has been talked down to. He has been treated like a fool. Yet the average person has common sense.”
But Vicky Pope, head of Met Office Climate Change Advice, said: “We are seeing changes in climate on a timescale we have not seen before.
“There clearly are natural variations. But the only way we can explain these trends is when we include both man-made and natural changes to the climate.
“We have also seen declines in summer sea ice over the past 30 years, glaciers retreating for 150 years, changing rainfall patterns and increases in subsurface and surface ocean temperatures.”
And as the war of words between the rival camps intensified, leading economist Lord Stern dismissed the sceptics as “muddled”.
Lord Stern, who produced a detailed report on the issue for the Government, said evidence of climate change was “overwhelming”. He accepted that all views should be heard but said the degree of scepticism among “real scientists” was very small.
Wednesday December 2,2009
By John Ingham
Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(71)
THE scientific consensus that mankind has caused climate change was rocked yesterday as a leading academic called it a “load of hot air underpinned by fraud”.
Professor Ian Plimer condemned the climate change lobby as “climate comrades” keeping the “gravy train” going.
In a controversial talk just days before the start of a climate summit attended by world leaders in Copenhagen, Prof Plimer said Governments were treating the public like “fools” and using climate change to increase taxes.
He said carbon dioxide has had no impact on temperature and that recent warming was part of the natural cycle of climate stretching over billions of years.
"If you have to argue your science by using fraud, your science is not valid."
Professor Pilmer
Prof Plimer - author of Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, The Missing Science - told a London audience: “Climates always change. They always have and they always will. They are driven by a number of factors that are random and cyclical.”
His comments came days after a scandal in climate-change research emerged through the leak of emails from the world-leading research unit at the University of East Anglia. They appeared to show that scientists had been massaging data to prove that global warming was taking place
The Climate Research Unit also admitted getting rid of much of its raw climate data, which means other scientists cannot check the subsequent research. Last night the head of the CRU, Professor Phil Jones, said he would stand down while an independent review took place.
Professor Plimer said climate change was caused by natural events such as volcanic eruptions, the shifting of the Earth’s orbit and cosmic radiation. He said: “Carbon dioxide levels have been up to 1,000 times higher in the past. CO2 cannot be driving global warming now.
“In the past we have had rapid and significant climate change with temperature changes greater than anything we are measuring today. They are driven by processes that have been going on since the beginning of time.”
He cited periods of warming during the Roman Empire and in the Middle Ages – when Vikings grew crops on Greenland – and cooler phases such as the Dark Ages and the Little Ice Age from 1300 to 1850.
And he predicted that the next phase would cool the planet.
Climate change is widely blamed on the burning of fossil fuels which release greenhouse gases such as CO2 into the atmosphere, where they trap the sun’s heat.
The talks at Copenhagen are expected to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally.
But Professor Plimer, of Adelaide and Melbourne Universities, said that to stop climate change Governments should find ways to prevent changes to the Earth’s orbit and ocean currents and avoid explosions of supernovae in space. Of the saga of the leaked emails, he said: “If you have to argue your science by using fraud, your science is not valid.”
The CRU’s Professor Jones has admitted some of the emails may have had “poorly chosen words” and were sent in the “heat of the moment”. But he has categorically denied manipulating data and said he stood by the science. And yesterday he dismissed suggestions of a conspiracy to alter evidence to support a theory of man-made global warming as “complete rubbish”.
But mining geology professor Plimer said there was a huge momentum behind the climate-change lobby.
He suggested many scientists had a vested interest in promoting climate change because it helped secure more funding for research. He said: “The climate comrades are trying to keep the gravy train going. Governments are also keen on putting their hands as deep as possible into our pockets.
“The average person has been talked down to. He has been treated like a fool. Yet the average person has common sense.”
But Vicky Pope, head of Met Office Climate Change Advice, said: “We are seeing changes in climate on a timescale we have not seen before.
“There clearly are natural variations. But the only way we can explain these trends is when we include both man-made and natural changes to the climate.
“We have also seen declines in summer sea ice over the past 30 years, glaciers retreating for 150 years, changing rainfall patterns and increases in subsurface and surface ocean temperatures.”
And as the war of words between the rival camps intensified, leading economist Lord Stern dismissed the sceptics as “muddled”.
Lord Stern, who produced a detailed report on the issue for the Government, said evidence of climate change was “overwhelming”. He accepted that all views should be heard but said the degree of scepticism among “real scientists” was very small.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Va. teen suffers rare illness after swine flu shot
A 14-year-old Virginia boy is weak and struggling to walk after coming down with a reported case of Guillain-Barre syndrome within hours after receiving the H1N1 vaccine for swine flu.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Saturday, October 31, 2009
END the FED Protest
Date: Sunday, November 22, 2009
Time: 10:00am - 7:00pm
Location: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Street: 1000 Peachtree St NE
City/Town: Atlanta, GA
Time: 10:00am - 7:00pm
Location: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Street: 1000 Peachtree St NE
City/Town: Atlanta, GA
Important News on Audit the Fed
In this Audit the Fed update, Dr. Paul explains what is happening with HR 1207 in the Monetary Policy Subcommittee, describes his plan to protect 1207 in the full Financial Services Committee, and provides ideas on actions we can take to keep Audit the Fed from being watered down.
The thirteen Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee mentioned by Dr. Paul are:
Rep. John Adler, NJ (202) 225-4765 web contact: http://forms.house.gov/adler/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
Rep. Travis Childers, MS (202) 225-4306 web contact: https://forms.house.gov/childers/webforms/contact.htm
Rep. Steve Driehaus, OH (202) 225-2216 web contact: https://forms.house.gov/driehaus/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
Rep. Alan Grayson, FL (202) 225-2176 web contact: https://forms.house.gov/grayson/contact-form.shtml
Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, TX (202) 225-2531 web contact: http://hinojosa.house.gov/contact/office-locations.shtml
Rep. Suzanne Kosmas, FL Toll Free: 1-877-956-7627 web contact: https://forms.house.gov/kosmas/webforms/contact.html
Rep. Dan Maffei, NY (202) 225-3701 web contact: https://forms.house.gov/maffei/contact-form.shtml
Rep. Brad Miller, NC (202) 225-3032 web contact: http://bradmiller.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=17§iontree=9,17
Rep. Walt Minnick, ID (202) 225-6611 web contact: https://minnickforms.house.gov/contact-form.shtml
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, CO (202)-225-2645 web contact: http://perlmutter.house.gov/IMA/issue_subscribe.htm
Rep. David Scott, GA (202) 225-2939 web contact: http://davidscott.house.gov/Contact/
Rep. Brad Sherman, CA (202) 225-5911 web contact: http://bradsherman.house.gov/contact/
Rep. Jackie Speier, CA (202) 225-3531 web contact: http://speier.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=159§iontree=54,159
The thirteen Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee mentioned by Dr. Paul are:
Rep. John Adler, NJ (202) 225-4765 web contact: http://forms.house.gov/adler/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
Rep. Travis Childers, MS (202) 225-4306 web contact: https://forms.house.gov/childers/webforms/contact.htm
Rep. Steve Driehaus, OH (202) 225-2216 web contact: https://forms.house.gov/driehaus/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
Rep. Alan Grayson, FL (202) 225-2176 web contact: https://forms.house.gov/grayson/contact-form.shtml
Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, TX (202) 225-2531 web contact: http://hinojosa.house.gov/contact/office-locations.shtml
Rep. Suzanne Kosmas, FL Toll Free: 1-877-956-7627 web contact: https://forms.house.gov/kosmas/webforms/contact.html
Rep. Dan Maffei, NY (202) 225-3701 web contact: https://forms.house.gov/maffei/contact-form.shtml
Rep. Brad Miller, NC (202) 225-3032 web contact: http://bradmiller.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=17§iontree=9,17
Rep. Walt Minnick, ID (202) 225-6611 web contact: https://minnickforms.house.gov/contact-form.shtml
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, CO (202)-225-2645 web contact: http://perlmutter.house.gov/IMA/issue_subscribe.htm
Rep. David Scott, GA (202) 225-2939 web contact: http://davidscott.house.gov/Contact/
Rep. Brad Sherman, CA (202) 225-5911 web contact: http://bradsherman.house.gov/contact/
Rep. Jackie Speier, CA (202) 225-3531 web contact: http://speier.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=159§iontree=54,159
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Murdoch CEO Labels Bloggers “Political Extremists”
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
A stinging attack by John Hartigan, the CEO of Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited, labels bloggers and alternative media outlets as “political extremists”. Hartigan implies that bloggers should be jailed as they are in oppressive police states like China and Burma.
In a speech to the National Press Club, Hartigan savagely dismissed blogs as, “Something of such little intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance.”
“Bloggers don’t go to jail for their work. They simply aren’t held accountable like real reporters….It could be said the blogosphere is all eyeballs and no insights,” barked Hartigan.
“In the blogosphere, of course, the mainstream media is always found wanting. It really is time this myth was blown apart.”
“Blogs, and a large number of comment sites, specialise in political extremism and personal vilification. Radical sweeping statements without evidence are common.”
Hartigan doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that the mainstream media is always found wanting because they habitually lie about news events and spin stories to suit the demands of their corporate owners. This is the very reason why blogs and alternative media outlets have become so popular and have eaten into the mainstream media’s audience share, because people are sick of being treated like idiots, sick of being lied to, and are desperately in search of the truth.
Indeed, Hartigan’s boss Rupert Murdoch confessed to the fact that his media empire tried to shape public opinion to support the war in Iraq In other words, Murdoch’s many prominent news outlets wantonly put out propaganda supporting the manufactured case for invasion. Murdoch admitted to this while lamenting the corporate media’s “loss of power” to alternative media and Internet blogs, seemingly unaware of the fact that the two are directly connected.
When the people know that the corporate media is deliberately lying to them about Niger yellowcake and weapons of mass destruction, they are going to seek alternative avenues of information. The fact that the corporate media habitually lies is a manifestly provable reality, not a “myth” as Hartigan ludicrously claims.
In addition, while mainstream media routinely uses anonymous sources and little more than bluster and hot air to back up their stories, blogs provide links to almost every claim they make so readers can research the source evidence for themselves. This is the opposite from Hartigan’s claim that blogs make “radical sweeping statements without evidence.” Indeed, this phrase perfectly characterizes tactics employed by the mass media on a daily basis.
The corporate media monopoly has terminal cancer and they are losing their power to blogs and alternative media, which is why people like Hartigan are so angry and also why the establishment is aggressively moving to phase out the old Internet altogether and replace it with “Internet 2,” a highly regulated and controlled electronic Berlin wall, where alternative voices will be silenced and giant corporate propaganda organs will dominate once again.
As blogger Darryl Mason writes today, “John Hartigan is full of shit. Bloggers have gone to jail for their work, and to protect their sources, in North Korea, Iran, Egypt, the list of countries persecuting bloggers grows longer by the week. And the CEO of Australia’s biggest news corporation doesn’t know this?”
The jailing of bloggers for speaking too much truth is obviously not the kind of news that John Hartigan, a Rupert Murdoch CEO, is interested in. How could he not know about those jailing and prosecutions.
Remember those words. “Political extremism”.
You will hear that call more and more as the major news corporations scale up their war against independent media, and bloggers.
The source of the establishment’s move to claim that bloggers and alternative media outlets are “extremists” or at worst “terrorists,” as we first reported in September 2006, was a White House strategy document that the government had been following since 9/11.
In a September 5, 2006 speech President George W. Bush referred to the document as “an unclassified version of the strategy we’ve been pursuing since September the 11th, 2001,” that takes into account, “the changing nature of this enemy.”
The strategy paper on how to ‘win the war on terror’ cites “conspiracies” as one of the wellsprings of terrorism and threatens to “address” and “diminish” the problems they are causing the government in fulfilling their agenda.
This notion then reappeared in a March 2009 Homeland Security document entitled “Domestic Extremism Lexicon,” in which the “alternative media” is listed alongside other radical extremist groups with the implication that people who disagree with the mass media’s version of events are potential domestic terrorists.
According to World Net Daily, the DHS document was almost immediately rescinded, but the groups listed alongside Neo-Nazis, Aryan prison gangs and black power extremists again prove that the federal government is targeting American citizens who are merely knowledgeable about their rights and up on current issues as potential domestic terrorists to be treated as a “threat” to law enforcement.
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
A stinging attack by John Hartigan, the CEO of Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited, labels bloggers and alternative media outlets as “political extremists”. Hartigan implies that bloggers should be jailed as they are in oppressive police states like China and Burma.
In a speech to the National Press Club, Hartigan savagely dismissed blogs as, “Something of such little intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance.”
“Bloggers don’t go to jail for their work. They simply aren’t held accountable like real reporters….It could be said the blogosphere is all eyeballs and no insights,” barked Hartigan.
“In the blogosphere, of course, the mainstream media is always found wanting. It really is time this myth was blown apart.”
“Blogs, and a large number of comment sites, specialise in political extremism and personal vilification. Radical sweeping statements without evidence are common.”
Hartigan doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that the mainstream media is always found wanting because they habitually lie about news events and spin stories to suit the demands of their corporate owners. This is the very reason why blogs and alternative media outlets have become so popular and have eaten into the mainstream media’s audience share, because people are sick of being treated like idiots, sick of being lied to, and are desperately in search of the truth.
Indeed, Hartigan’s boss Rupert Murdoch confessed to the fact that his media empire tried to shape public opinion to support the war in Iraq In other words, Murdoch’s many prominent news outlets wantonly put out propaganda supporting the manufactured case for invasion. Murdoch admitted to this while lamenting the corporate media’s “loss of power” to alternative media and Internet blogs, seemingly unaware of the fact that the two are directly connected.
When the people know that the corporate media is deliberately lying to them about Niger yellowcake and weapons of mass destruction, they are going to seek alternative avenues of information. The fact that the corporate media habitually lies is a manifestly provable reality, not a “myth” as Hartigan ludicrously claims.
In addition, while mainstream media routinely uses anonymous sources and little more than bluster and hot air to back up their stories, blogs provide links to almost every claim they make so readers can research the source evidence for themselves. This is the opposite from Hartigan’s claim that blogs make “radical sweeping statements without evidence.” Indeed, this phrase perfectly characterizes tactics employed by the mass media on a daily basis.
The corporate media monopoly has terminal cancer and they are losing their power to blogs and alternative media, which is why people like Hartigan are so angry and also why the establishment is aggressively moving to phase out the old Internet altogether and replace it with “Internet 2,” a highly regulated and controlled electronic Berlin wall, where alternative voices will be silenced and giant corporate propaganda organs will dominate once again.
As blogger Darryl Mason writes today, “John Hartigan is full of shit. Bloggers have gone to jail for their work, and to protect their sources, in North Korea, Iran, Egypt, the list of countries persecuting bloggers grows longer by the week. And the CEO of Australia’s biggest news corporation doesn’t know this?”
The jailing of bloggers for speaking too much truth is obviously not the kind of news that John Hartigan, a Rupert Murdoch CEO, is interested in. How could he not know about those jailing and prosecutions.
Remember those words. “Political extremism”.
You will hear that call more and more as the major news corporations scale up their war against independent media, and bloggers.
The source of the establishment’s move to claim that bloggers and alternative media outlets are “extremists” or at worst “terrorists,” as we first reported in September 2006, was a White House strategy document that the government had been following since 9/11.
In a September 5, 2006 speech President George W. Bush referred to the document as “an unclassified version of the strategy we’ve been pursuing since September the 11th, 2001,” that takes into account, “the changing nature of this enemy.”
The strategy paper on how to ‘win the war on terror’ cites “conspiracies” as one of the wellsprings of terrorism and threatens to “address” and “diminish” the problems they are causing the government in fulfilling their agenda.
This notion then reappeared in a March 2009 Homeland Security document entitled “Domestic Extremism Lexicon,” in which the “alternative media” is listed alongside other radical extremist groups with the implication that people who disagree with the mass media’s version of events are potential domestic terrorists.
According to World Net Daily, the DHS document was almost immediately rescinded, but the groups listed alongside Neo-Nazis, Aryan prison gangs and black power extremists again prove that the federal government is targeting American citizens who are merely knowledgeable about their rights and up on current issues as potential domestic terrorists to be treated as a “threat” to law enforcement.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Worldwide Depression: Review of Global Markets
Bob Chapman
Infowars
June 30, 2009
As you have already seen this is a worldwide depression and no one will escape. Europe’s economy is already in a shambles as is the US economy. Inflation will rage all over the world, because every nation has created massive amounts of money and credit as demanded by US and British elitists. They have all overmedicated the patient. As the Broadway hit play of many years ago told us, we are going to have to go through a “Period of Adjustment.” Some nations will get off easier than others. There will be no decoupling and many nations could have revolutions.
Giving the Fed more powers to regulate is not addressing the underlying problem and shifting private debt into public debt isn’t an answer either.
Government spending and increased debt has been taken on by all countries and to in part pay for that taxes will rise everywhere. Deficits will hit records as far as the eye can see. You can’t have massive spending, massive debt and massive tax increases and expect to have growth. It is impossible.
Thus far government has been able to paper over the systemic meltdown in the financial area. They still haven’t dealt with off balance sheet and derivative losses. Even with the trillions poured into these entities it has not been enough to solve their problems and over the next few years that will become obvious.
The Treasury plans of having the fox, the Fed, take over the chicken coop is pure insanity. These are the very people who caused the problem by encouraging mis-rating, securitization and lending that defied reality. Now the Fed is to become policeman. It is really insulting and removes any sense of security from the system.
The problem of protecting consumers lies in the hands of the Fed, raters, lenders and Wall Street. Greed overcame any semblance of prudence.
The Treasury, as stated under the Constitution, should have the authority to solve financial crisis, but they cannot because the Fed has the tools to do so. Those tools have to be put in the hands of the Treasury again. It is not a cure all, but it is a step forward. That has to be accompanied by ending the revolving door between banking, Wall Street and the positions appointed in Washington, especially the Treasury.
Giving the Fed more powers to regulate is not addressing the underlying problem and shifting private debt into public debt isn’t an answer either. The main cause of the problem is leverage, securitization, and globalization and the massive use of derivatives. Free trade and globalization are the worst and have caused wage-price imbalance and stripping America of its ability to compete.
The advantages all accrue to transnational conglomerates and third world nations. This enriches the rich and takes the living standards in the US, Canada and Europe down to the levels of the third world.
Why would our president want the Fed to have day-to-day supervision over the largest bank holding companies, which own the Fed? This is the group that caused all these failures. The Fed would have a financial empire that would allow them to engage in greater corruption. It would control a financial colossus.
Then the FDIC would receive more powers to wind down whatever banks they decided would be eliminated. If large banks can be bailed out, why can’t small banks receive equal treatment? That is because the big banks want to absorb the small and medium-sized banks eventually leaving us with 20 with a monopoly in banking. This is where this is headed. We are also told many more banks have gone under than we’ve been told about. Insiders expect 500 to 800 will go under this year, not the publicly announced 35 or 45.
Thus, the Fed and the FDIC are to be rewarded for failure. They didn’t use their regulatory powers over banks in mortgage lending, rating and securitization.
The plan of the administration is a copy of the Paulson plan to concentrate more power with the Fed. They have eliminated the Office of Thrift Supervision and merged it with the Comptroller of the Currency.
They previously proposed a merger of the CFTC and SEC, which isn’t about to happen.
The litany goes on and American waits for the other shoe to drop as it falls deeper into depression. As you can see this is a struggle to give the Fed total financial control over America. It can only end in disaster.
The Fed may revamp the repo market for they fear existing arrangements could put the clearing banks in a difficult position in a crisis. As securities’ values fall, clearing banks have to demand more capital or collateral to avoid losses. In that process they could destabilize the market. Positions of investment banks are so large that a default could be fatal. The solution, of course, is that the Fed takes over the defaulted positions to keep its monopoly in tact. The two banks at great risk are JPMorgan Chase and Bank of NY Mellon, both shareholders in the Fed.
A quarter of US employers have eliminated matching contributions to employee 401(k) retirement plans since September. Most say it is temporary, but we don’t believe it.
If exports don’t pick up soon the IMF says the dollar will need to be devalued.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is raising some balance-transfer fees on credit cards to 5 percent, the highest among the nation’s largest banks, citing increasing regulations and costs after the United States put new curbs on the industry.
The lender starts charging more in August, just as the law to curb interest-rate increases, fees, and marketing practices begins to take effect.
The credit card law President Obama signed May 22 prompted warnings from industry executives that they’d be forced to raise fees, curtail credit, and restrict consumer rewards programs. Congress heard testimony yesterday on Obama’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would have authority over increases like the boost JPMorgan is planning, said the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank.
“What Chase is doing is strengthening the argument for the new entity,’’ Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said yesterday before the hearing. Banks should be able to impose fees to cover their costs, not to create a “new profit center,’’ he said.
JPMorgan’s previous average fee for balance transfers was 3 percent, spokesman Paul Hartwick said. He declined to say how many customers will be affected. The increase also applies to cash advances, and fixed interest rates will become variable, the notice said. JPMorgan may choose to offer a lower transfer fee, the notice said; Hartwick declined to elaborate.
“In the current economic environment, our costs of doing business have been impacted by increased losses,’’ Hartwick said in an e-mail. “We are increasing balance-transfer fees to reflect the increasing costs.’
A 65-year-old Massachusetts investment manager pleaded guilty yesterday to securities fraud for running a Ponzi scheme that cost 70 investors, many from the Bay State, about $9 million.
Michael C. Regan, 65, faces up to 20 years in jail and $5 million in penalties after settling the criminal charges with federal officials in New York. He also settled similar civil charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in which he agreed to repay more than $8.7 million.
Officials have not yet determined whether Regan has money or other assets to repay his victims.
And he could face additional fines, SEC spokesman David Rosenfeld said. “We’ll try to find whatever can be recovered in order to [get it] to the investors,’’ he said.
Formerly of Wayland, Regan now lives in Quincy. He was released on bail, with a date for sentencing yet to be set, said a spokesman for the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn.
Like convicted swindler Bernard L. Madoff, Regan promised investors consistently high returns. He told them his River Stream Fund had earned about 20 percent a year since 2001, using a trading strategy based on short-term market trends, authorities said. In fact, River Stream lost money or had minimal returns most of the time, paid as much as $9 million in bogus profits, and returned capital to investors with money given to him by other investors, according to court documents. Meanwhile, Regan took more than $2.5 million in fees for himself.
Before his fund collapsed in April 2008, Regan claimed it held about $18 million, when in reality it had only $101,600, according to prosecutors.
Regan’s lawyer, Raymond Mansolillo, did not return calls seeking comment.
The Labor Department said the number of mass layoff actions — defined as job cuts involving at least 50 people from a single employer — increased to 2,933 in May from 2,712 in April, resulting in the loss of 312,880 jobs. [This is further evidence of the absurdity of BLS’s 225k job creation in its B/D Model.]
Household-products maker Kimberly-Clark Corp. said Thursday it plans to cut 1,600 jobs, or 3 percent of its global work force, as it slims down in the tough economy.
The maker of Kleenex tissues, Huggies diapers and scores of other household items employs 53,000 people around the world. It plans to make the cuts primarily among salaried and non-production workers and executives said the company doesn’t plan to close any plants.
The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, a reminder that companies will keep cutting staff even as the economy stabilizes.
Initial jobless claims rose by 15,000 to 627,000 in the week ended June 20, from a revised 612,000 the week before, the Labor Department said today in Washington. A report from the Commerce Department showed gross domestic product shrank at a 5.5 percent annual pace in the first three months of the year.
The Japanese government has told Citigroup to cease certain operations due to breaking money laundering laws.
China’s central bank renewed its call for a new global currency and said the International Monetary Fund should manage more of members’ foreign-exchange reserves, triggering a decline in the U.S. dollar.
“To avoid the inherent deficiencies of using sovereign currencies for reserves, there’s a need to create an international reserve currency that’s de-linked from sovereign nations,” the People’s Bank of China said in its 2008 review released today. The IMF should expand the functions of its unit of account, Special Drawing Rights, the report said.
The restatement of Governor Zhou Xiaochuan’s proposal in March added to speculation that China will diversify its currency reserves, the world’s largest at more than $1.95 trillion. Chinese investors, the biggest foreign holders of U.S. Treasuries, reduced holdings in April after Premier Wen Jiabao expressed concern about the value of dollar assets.
“Zhou Xiaochuan sees the current international financial system is flawed, putting too much emphasis on the dollar as a reserve currency,” said Kevin Lai, an economist with Daiwa Institute of Research in Hong Kong.
Consumer spending rose for the first time in three months in May as incomes jumped by the most in a year, a sign that government efforts to revive the economy may be starting to pay off.
The 0.3 percent gain in purchases followed no change in April, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Incomes surged 1.4 percent, reflecting tax cuts and Social Security payments from the Obama administration’s stimulus and driving up the savings rate to a 15-year high.
The U.S. Senate proposal to impose taxes for the first time on “gold-plated” health plans may bypass generous employee benefits negotiated by unions.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, the chief congressional advocate of taxing some employer-provided benefits to help pay for a $1 trillion overhaul of the U.S. health system, says any change should exempt perks secured in existing collective-bargaining agreements, which can be in place for as long as five years.
The exception, which could make the proposal more politically palatable to Democrats from heavily unionized states such as Michigan, is adding controversy to an already contentious debate. It would shield the 12.4 percent of American workers who belong to unions from being taxed while exposing some other middle-income workers to the levy.
“I can’t think of any other aspect of the individual income tax that treats benefits of different people differently because of who they work for,” said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington research group that often criticizes Democrats’ economic proposals. Edwards said the carve-out “smacks of political favoritism.” – As you can see, some are more equal then others.
The nation’s long-term budget outlook has darkened considerably over the past six months, and President Obama’s plan to extend an array of tax cuts and other policies adopted during the Bush administration has the potential to “create an explosive fiscal situation,” congressional budget analysts reported yesterday.
In a new report, the Congressional Budget Office found that extending the Bush administration tax cuts, reining in the alternative minimum tax and canceling a scheduled reduction in payments to Medicare doctors would dramatically slash tax collections at a time when federal spending would be “sharply rising.” The resulting budget gap would drive the nation’s debt over 100 percent of gross domestic product by 2023, the report says, and past 200 percent of GDP by the late 2030s.
Obama has not proposed to extend all of the Bush tax cuts, which are scheduled to expire in December 2010. But he would keep all cuts benefiting the middle class — a substantial portion of the total — and has advocated additional borrowing to cover the costs of that and other policy changes analyzed by the CBO.
Home prices throughout California and in the Las Vegas area fell from a year earlier in May as a glut of foreclosed property pushed down the value of single- family houses and condominiums.
The median price for an existing, single-family detached house in California declined 30 percent to $267,570, the California Association of Realtors said today in a statement. In the Las Vegas area, the median price for houses and condominiums fell 44 percent to $135,000, San Diego-based MDA DataQuick said in a separate statement today.
About 73 percent of all existing houses and condos sold in the Las Vegas-Paradise area were foreclosures last month, up from 56 percent a year earlier, and such sales accounted for 51 percent all existing-home transactions in California, MDA DataQuick said. Foreclosure sales represented 40 percent of California resales a year ago, the research company said.
“In California and the West and, really, a lot of the country, we have to be ready for more waves of foreclosures coming through for at least the next year,” Andrew LePage, an analyst with MDA DataQuick, said in an interview. “And no one really knows how big those waves are going to be.”
California is on target for 556,590 home sales this year, based on May’s pace of transactions, the state’s Realtors association said. That’s up from a 411,770 pace in May 2008. May’s sales were up 2.9 percent from April.
May PCE Deflator rises 0.1%.
The Federal Reserve’s latest weekly money supply report Thursday shows seasonally adjusted M1 rose by $25.8 billion to $1.657 trillion, while M2 rose $15.7 billion to $8.369 trillion.
Confidence among U.S. consumers rose this month for a fourth straight time, reflecting signs that the worst of the recession has passed.
The Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment gained to 70.8, the highest level since February 2008, from 68.7 in May. Today’s measure compares with a preliminary June reading of 69. During the expansion that began in late 2001 and ended in December 2007, the index averaged 89.2.
Households pushed their savings rate to the highest level in more than 15 years in May as a big boost in incomes from the government’s stimulus program was devoted more to bolstering nest eggs than increased spending.
The higher savings rate is healthy in the long term, economists said. But without vigorous consumer spending, the government may have to do more to revive the economy, possibly through further tax breaks and spending.
The Commerce Department said Friday that consumer spending rose 0.3 percent in May, in line with expectations. But incomes jumped 1.4 percent, the biggest gain in a year and easily outpacing the 0.3 percent increase that economists expected.
The savings rate, which was hovering near zero in early 2008, surged to 6.9 percent, the highest level since December 1993.
The income increase reflected temporary factors relating to the $787 billion economic stimulus program that President Barack Obama pushed through Congress in February to fight the recession. That program included one-time payments to people receiving Social Security and other government pension benefits.
What we suspected would happen to California in the mid-1990s is finally taking place. Here we have a state that has lived in - in reality -for years. A state where 40% of the inhabitants live in a black economy and don’t pay taxes. In addition, the state has been overrun with illegal aliens for many years. Of 38 million inhabitants ten million are illegals.
California is in serious financial trouble. Mortgages 90-days past due average 7.6%. Foreclosures continue to climb, as residential and commercial real estate plunge in price. Unemployment is the worst since 1940. In almost two years close to 860,000 jobs have officially been lost, of which officially 740,000 were lost in the last year. Real U6 unemployment is more than 20% and 2-years from now could be 35% or more. Layoffs could reach beyond 100,000 state employees. The state’s credit rating is headed lower. Next is the dumping of California’s municipal bonds due to credit rating downgrades. Over the next two months the state may not be able to meet its payroll. It is probable that in time California will default.
All of these problems will affect the entire economy of the country. There is big trouble on the way.
Our resident geniuses in Washington are considering allowing Fannie and Freddie to refinance loans with current loan value ratios of 125% or more. They say they have to raise the limit level because buyers cannot qualify. Here we are back to the subprime syndrome. A move that proves Washington learned nothing from the real estate bubble. This defies all banking precedent and prudence, because few can qualify who want to be buyers. It also says that foreclosures are not being stopped or slowed down. As unemployment grows house prices will fall further. America is headed toward a debtors revolt, and it is not that far away.
Manhattan apartment prices have fallen 20% and will probably fall 25% more, perhaps even 30% or more. That is because the fall didn’t begin but nine months ago. The securities industry has cut 21,800 jobs over the last year with lots more to come. The industry accounts for 35% of all salaries and wages. Unemployment hit 9% in May, the highest since October 1997, and up from 8% in April.
Health care is a front-page issue and what liberal Democrats want to foist upon Americans could prove deadly for many.
Senator Ted Kennedy believes he has a universal mandate, a right, for all Americans, even illegal aliens, to be forced to have or buy health insurance. Any plan, any American has, will have to meet government specifications. If you do not have insurance, your employer will have to purchase it for you and you may have to pay part of the cost. If your employer refuses to participate he will be fined. The fine will be much less than the insurance cost, so the citizen will have to be covered by government or pay it themselves. You will have to pay for that. If you do not the IRS will fine you, garnish your wages, put a lien on your house and they can imprison you. The cost of this marvelous program is unknown and how it will be funded is unknown as well.
In addition, government will computerize all your most confidential medical records in a federal database, which will eventually be in a worldwide database. Oh, we forgot all bureaucrats in Washington would be exempted.
The bill doesn’t have a number yet, but start contacting all House and Senate members now and let them know you do not want Teddy Care.
We saw what is now happening in America in 1963. The Watts riots were a precursor to what has happened over the years. We lived near Wilshire, just one block away from where the rioters were looting. We were on the roof of our apartment building with our Gerands and Carbines, ready for action. Fortunately the police stopped the rioters before they hit Wilshire Blvd.
We new what was coming some 50 years ago. Few listened over the years, but today it is different. Today it is in your face. Mainline talk show hosts are now stealing our thunder and that is fine. We want the public to prepare for what is coming their way. We are already into depression, over 20% unemployment. Next is demonstrations, food riots, squatting in foreclosed homes has already began, there will be tax protests, gang warfare and unless we are lucky social chaos. We do not know when but it is coming, because the Illuminists have deliberately caused this and are in the process of losing control.
Those who have brains and can think and function outside the box are preparing. Most of the rest are not and they’ll suffer for it. The mainline media, which most of America believes in, will inform them of what is really going on when the shooting in the streets has already begun.
The Fed held monetary policy steady and said the US economic recession was easing, as it signaled its worries over a possible troubling downward spiral in prices were easing. That is another way of saying inflation is rising. They held interest rates at the zero to 0.25% range.
The FOMC said in a prior statement that the pace of contraction is slowing, the same observation they had at the last session. They realize they cannot raise interest rates, because if they do deflation will take over and the economy will collapse.
May durable goods orders rose 1.8%. This was the same as last month. Year-on-year orders are down 24%.
New home sales were 342,000 down from 344,000 in April. Median prices rose to $221,600 from $212,500 in April. Year-on-year sales fell 35%.
New houses sold were 32,000 down from 49,000 or down 34.6%. New home sales are at 1995 levels.
Default rates on mortgages in Colorado are now 19% and the state has a 4.4% unemployment rate.
The Treasury has again changed the way they tally demand at their bond auctions and are artificially inflating indirect bids, a category used by investors as a loose proxy for foreign demand.
As we have noticed they have reached 68% at Tuesday’s two-year bill sale and 62% at the $37 billion in five-year note sales. Nothing is honest in Washington.
The annualized credit-card charge-off rate broke through 10% in May for the first time in 20 years.
Congressman Darrell Issa said the Fed engaged in a cover-up about the details of the Bank of America takeover of Merrill Lynch. The Fed deliberately hid concerns and pertinent details of a merger from government agencies. The Fed is privately owned.
He said Mr. Bernanke engaged in blackmail of Ken Lewis of Bank of America. As you know the House is calling for an audit of the Fed, Ron Paul’s HR 1207, as Bernanke comes under fire for his Merrill Lynch caper.
The FDIC says it may temporarily extend a program guaranteeing accounts that do not pay interest. We can promise you if they do not there will be an exodus of funds out of the banking system into Treasuries, gold and silver.
Warren Buffett live on CNBC said. “There had been little progress over the past few months in the economic war being fought in the country.” “We haven’t gotten the economy moving yet. While the economy is in a shambles and likely to stay that way for some time, he remains optimistic that there will be an eventual recovery.” We wonder if he has considered the year 2022. He said the nation should concentrate on jobs. Government cannot do that when their priority is to bail out Wall Street and banking,
As real U6 unemployment hovers at 20.4%, Citigroup plans to give salary increases of 50% to their bankers, traders and executives to halt an exodus of senior staff from the company.
They did such a great job of wrecking the company that they have to be given taxpayer funds to remain on the job.
Ben Bernanke spent four hours testifying before Congress on Thursday. He lied about his role in the Merrill Lynch scandal and as usual Congress was a disgusting hunk of putty, pandering again to the elitists. It was another puking exercise.
Someone turned the light on inside Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s head. He says he thinks market manipulation is behind the spike in gasoline prices and that federal regulators should investigate. This has been happening to gold and silver for more than 28 years and no one in congress dares to talk about it.
The Banking Index looks like it is about to break down. Shorts are the order of the day.
The commercial paper market fell $47.5 billion last week. This is the biggest vital source of short-term funding for daily operations at many companies. It fell to $481.4 billion from $502.7 billion.
Unsecured financial issuance rose $18.2 billion to $564.5 billion.
Prime auto ABS delinquencies rose 22% in May.
The Fed tried to keep secret information about the Bank of America deal from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the North Carolina-based bank’s direct regulator and from the SEC.
This is the same lying Fed that is supposed to work collaboratively with other regulators.
The real question is why the Fed Chairman and his fellow criminals should not be prosecuted for criminal offences?
John Williams notes: On July 31st, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will revamp GDP history going back to 1929…GDP reporting remains virtually worthless and is little more than political propaganda.
John notes that income contracted more in Q1 than Q2. GDI is the income-side equivalent of the GDP’s consumption estimate. As estimated in last month’s reporting, reflecting a sharp reversal in “statistical discrepancy,” first-quarter GDI was reported showing an annualized real quarterly contraction of 3.64%, versus a fourth-quarter estimated contraction of 7.78%. Today’s reporting and revision reflected something of a reversal in other trends, showing a deeper 4.31% annualized quarterly contraction in the first quarter. Year-to-year, first-quarter GDI declined by 3.11% (previously down 2.94%), versus a 2.16% contraction in the fourth quarter. http://www.shadowstats.com
The Fed’s balance sheet declined $58.5B due to a $53.758B decline in the ‘Term Auction Credit’ and a $28.692 decline in ‘liquidity swaps’. The Fed monetized $30B of securities.
The WSJ editorial believes Obama’s climate bill, Cap & Trade, will be the largest tax increase in history.
The hit to GDP is the real threat in this bill. The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.
The Chicago Tribune editorial on Cap & Trade: Remember that gargantuan climate change bill we told you about last week? It’s gotten bigger. Over the weekend, the bill grew from 946 pages to 1,201 pages, according to the Sunlight Foundation. It’s still changing, with important amendments in flux.
But Democratic leaders in the House say they’ll push for a vote on the bill as early as Friday. They think they can pass it. This is an incredibly expensive undertaking. If anyone in Congress tells you that he has read and completely understands this bill, and can explain exactly how the system to reduce carbon emissions would work and what its effects would be, he’s lying. [Don’t waste a good crisis, indeed!]
The Baltic Dry Index has tanked 9% since last Friday. When it surged, the usual suspects trumpeted the rally as a sign of economic rebound, even though it was mostly China stockpiling commodities. Now that it has declined sharply, permabulls, Street shills and media hucksters are ignoring it.
Infowars
June 30, 2009
As you have already seen this is a worldwide depression and no one will escape. Europe’s economy is already in a shambles as is the US economy. Inflation will rage all over the world, because every nation has created massive amounts of money and credit as demanded by US and British elitists. They have all overmedicated the patient. As the Broadway hit play of many years ago told us, we are going to have to go through a “Period of Adjustment.” Some nations will get off easier than others. There will be no decoupling and many nations could have revolutions.
Giving the Fed more powers to regulate is not addressing the underlying problem and shifting private debt into public debt isn’t an answer either.
Government spending and increased debt has been taken on by all countries and to in part pay for that taxes will rise everywhere. Deficits will hit records as far as the eye can see. You can’t have massive spending, massive debt and massive tax increases and expect to have growth. It is impossible.
Thus far government has been able to paper over the systemic meltdown in the financial area. They still haven’t dealt with off balance sheet and derivative losses. Even with the trillions poured into these entities it has not been enough to solve their problems and over the next few years that will become obvious.
The Treasury plans of having the fox, the Fed, take over the chicken coop is pure insanity. These are the very people who caused the problem by encouraging mis-rating, securitization and lending that defied reality. Now the Fed is to become policeman. It is really insulting and removes any sense of security from the system.
The problem of protecting consumers lies in the hands of the Fed, raters, lenders and Wall Street. Greed overcame any semblance of prudence.
The Treasury, as stated under the Constitution, should have the authority to solve financial crisis, but they cannot because the Fed has the tools to do so. Those tools have to be put in the hands of the Treasury again. It is not a cure all, but it is a step forward. That has to be accompanied by ending the revolving door between banking, Wall Street and the positions appointed in Washington, especially the Treasury.
Giving the Fed more powers to regulate is not addressing the underlying problem and shifting private debt into public debt isn’t an answer either. The main cause of the problem is leverage, securitization, and globalization and the massive use of derivatives. Free trade and globalization are the worst and have caused wage-price imbalance and stripping America of its ability to compete.
The advantages all accrue to transnational conglomerates and third world nations. This enriches the rich and takes the living standards in the US, Canada and Europe down to the levels of the third world.
Why would our president want the Fed to have day-to-day supervision over the largest bank holding companies, which own the Fed? This is the group that caused all these failures. The Fed would have a financial empire that would allow them to engage in greater corruption. It would control a financial colossus.
Then the FDIC would receive more powers to wind down whatever banks they decided would be eliminated. If large banks can be bailed out, why can’t small banks receive equal treatment? That is because the big banks want to absorb the small and medium-sized banks eventually leaving us with 20 with a monopoly in banking. This is where this is headed. We are also told many more banks have gone under than we’ve been told about. Insiders expect 500 to 800 will go under this year, not the publicly announced 35 or 45.
Thus, the Fed and the FDIC are to be rewarded for failure. They didn’t use their regulatory powers over banks in mortgage lending, rating and securitization.
The plan of the administration is a copy of the Paulson plan to concentrate more power with the Fed. They have eliminated the Office of Thrift Supervision and merged it with the Comptroller of the Currency.
They previously proposed a merger of the CFTC and SEC, which isn’t about to happen.
The litany goes on and American waits for the other shoe to drop as it falls deeper into depression. As you can see this is a struggle to give the Fed total financial control over America. It can only end in disaster.
The Fed may revamp the repo market for they fear existing arrangements could put the clearing banks in a difficult position in a crisis. As securities’ values fall, clearing banks have to demand more capital or collateral to avoid losses. In that process they could destabilize the market. Positions of investment banks are so large that a default could be fatal. The solution, of course, is that the Fed takes over the defaulted positions to keep its monopoly in tact. The two banks at great risk are JPMorgan Chase and Bank of NY Mellon, both shareholders in the Fed.
A quarter of US employers have eliminated matching contributions to employee 401(k) retirement plans since September. Most say it is temporary, but we don’t believe it.
If exports don’t pick up soon the IMF says the dollar will need to be devalued.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is raising some balance-transfer fees on credit cards to 5 percent, the highest among the nation’s largest banks, citing increasing regulations and costs after the United States put new curbs on the industry.
The lender starts charging more in August, just as the law to curb interest-rate increases, fees, and marketing practices begins to take effect.
The credit card law President Obama signed May 22 prompted warnings from industry executives that they’d be forced to raise fees, curtail credit, and restrict consumer rewards programs. Congress heard testimony yesterday on Obama’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would have authority over increases like the boost JPMorgan is planning, said the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank.
“What Chase is doing is strengthening the argument for the new entity,’’ Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said yesterday before the hearing. Banks should be able to impose fees to cover their costs, not to create a “new profit center,’’ he said.
JPMorgan’s previous average fee for balance transfers was 3 percent, spokesman Paul Hartwick said. He declined to say how many customers will be affected. The increase also applies to cash advances, and fixed interest rates will become variable, the notice said. JPMorgan may choose to offer a lower transfer fee, the notice said; Hartwick declined to elaborate.
“In the current economic environment, our costs of doing business have been impacted by increased losses,’’ Hartwick said in an e-mail. “We are increasing balance-transfer fees to reflect the increasing costs.’
A 65-year-old Massachusetts investment manager pleaded guilty yesterday to securities fraud for running a Ponzi scheme that cost 70 investors, many from the Bay State, about $9 million.
Michael C. Regan, 65, faces up to 20 years in jail and $5 million in penalties after settling the criminal charges with federal officials in New York. He also settled similar civil charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in which he agreed to repay more than $8.7 million.
Officials have not yet determined whether Regan has money or other assets to repay his victims.
And he could face additional fines, SEC spokesman David Rosenfeld said. “We’ll try to find whatever can be recovered in order to [get it] to the investors,’’ he said.
Formerly of Wayland, Regan now lives in Quincy. He was released on bail, with a date for sentencing yet to be set, said a spokesman for the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn.
Like convicted swindler Bernard L. Madoff, Regan promised investors consistently high returns. He told them his River Stream Fund had earned about 20 percent a year since 2001, using a trading strategy based on short-term market trends, authorities said. In fact, River Stream lost money or had minimal returns most of the time, paid as much as $9 million in bogus profits, and returned capital to investors with money given to him by other investors, according to court documents. Meanwhile, Regan took more than $2.5 million in fees for himself.
Before his fund collapsed in April 2008, Regan claimed it held about $18 million, when in reality it had only $101,600, according to prosecutors.
Regan’s lawyer, Raymond Mansolillo, did not return calls seeking comment.
The Labor Department said the number of mass layoff actions — defined as job cuts involving at least 50 people from a single employer — increased to 2,933 in May from 2,712 in April, resulting in the loss of 312,880 jobs. [This is further evidence of the absurdity of BLS’s 225k job creation in its B/D Model.]
Household-products maker Kimberly-Clark Corp. said Thursday it plans to cut 1,600 jobs, or 3 percent of its global work force, as it slims down in the tough economy.
The maker of Kleenex tissues, Huggies diapers and scores of other household items employs 53,000 people around the world. It plans to make the cuts primarily among salaried and non-production workers and executives said the company doesn’t plan to close any plants.
The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, a reminder that companies will keep cutting staff even as the economy stabilizes.
Initial jobless claims rose by 15,000 to 627,000 in the week ended June 20, from a revised 612,000 the week before, the Labor Department said today in Washington. A report from the Commerce Department showed gross domestic product shrank at a 5.5 percent annual pace in the first three months of the year.
The Japanese government has told Citigroup to cease certain operations due to breaking money laundering laws.
China’s central bank renewed its call for a new global currency and said the International Monetary Fund should manage more of members’ foreign-exchange reserves, triggering a decline in the U.S. dollar.
“To avoid the inherent deficiencies of using sovereign currencies for reserves, there’s a need to create an international reserve currency that’s de-linked from sovereign nations,” the People’s Bank of China said in its 2008 review released today. The IMF should expand the functions of its unit of account, Special Drawing Rights, the report said.
The restatement of Governor Zhou Xiaochuan’s proposal in March added to speculation that China will diversify its currency reserves, the world’s largest at more than $1.95 trillion. Chinese investors, the biggest foreign holders of U.S. Treasuries, reduced holdings in April after Premier Wen Jiabao expressed concern about the value of dollar assets.
“Zhou Xiaochuan sees the current international financial system is flawed, putting too much emphasis on the dollar as a reserve currency,” said Kevin Lai, an economist with Daiwa Institute of Research in Hong Kong.
Consumer spending rose for the first time in three months in May as incomes jumped by the most in a year, a sign that government efforts to revive the economy may be starting to pay off.
The 0.3 percent gain in purchases followed no change in April, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Incomes surged 1.4 percent, reflecting tax cuts and Social Security payments from the Obama administration’s stimulus and driving up the savings rate to a 15-year high.
The U.S. Senate proposal to impose taxes for the first time on “gold-plated” health plans may bypass generous employee benefits negotiated by unions.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, the chief congressional advocate of taxing some employer-provided benefits to help pay for a $1 trillion overhaul of the U.S. health system, says any change should exempt perks secured in existing collective-bargaining agreements, which can be in place for as long as five years.
The exception, which could make the proposal more politically palatable to Democrats from heavily unionized states such as Michigan, is adding controversy to an already contentious debate. It would shield the 12.4 percent of American workers who belong to unions from being taxed while exposing some other middle-income workers to the levy.
“I can’t think of any other aspect of the individual income tax that treats benefits of different people differently because of who they work for,” said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington research group that often criticizes Democrats’ economic proposals. Edwards said the carve-out “smacks of political favoritism.” – As you can see, some are more equal then others.
The nation’s long-term budget outlook has darkened considerably over the past six months, and President Obama’s plan to extend an array of tax cuts and other policies adopted during the Bush administration has the potential to “create an explosive fiscal situation,” congressional budget analysts reported yesterday.
In a new report, the Congressional Budget Office found that extending the Bush administration tax cuts, reining in the alternative minimum tax and canceling a scheduled reduction in payments to Medicare doctors would dramatically slash tax collections at a time when federal spending would be “sharply rising.” The resulting budget gap would drive the nation’s debt over 100 percent of gross domestic product by 2023, the report says, and past 200 percent of GDP by the late 2030s.
Obama has not proposed to extend all of the Bush tax cuts, which are scheduled to expire in December 2010. But he would keep all cuts benefiting the middle class — a substantial portion of the total — and has advocated additional borrowing to cover the costs of that and other policy changes analyzed by the CBO.
Home prices throughout California and in the Las Vegas area fell from a year earlier in May as a glut of foreclosed property pushed down the value of single- family houses and condominiums.
The median price for an existing, single-family detached house in California declined 30 percent to $267,570, the California Association of Realtors said today in a statement. In the Las Vegas area, the median price for houses and condominiums fell 44 percent to $135,000, San Diego-based MDA DataQuick said in a separate statement today.
About 73 percent of all existing houses and condos sold in the Las Vegas-Paradise area were foreclosures last month, up from 56 percent a year earlier, and such sales accounted for 51 percent all existing-home transactions in California, MDA DataQuick said. Foreclosure sales represented 40 percent of California resales a year ago, the research company said.
“In California and the West and, really, a lot of the country, we have to be ready for more waves of foreclosures coming through for at least the next year,” Andrew LePage, an analyst with MDA DataQuick, said in an interview. “And no one really knows how big those waves are going to be.”
California is on target for 556,590 home sales this year, based on May’s pace of transactions, the state’s Realtors association said. That’s up from a 411,770 pace in May 2008. May’s sales were up 2.9 percent from April.
May PCE Deflator rises 0.1%.
The Federal Reserve’s latest weekly money supply report Thursday shows seasonally adjusted M1 rose by $25.8 billion to $1.657 trillion, while M2 rose $15.7 billion to $8.369 trillion.
Confidence among U.S. consumers rose this month for a fourth straight time, reflecting signs that the worst of the recession has passed.
The Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment gained to 70.8, the highest level since February 2008, from 68.7 in May. Today’s measure compares with a preliminary June reading of 69. During the expansion that began in late 2001 and ended in December 2007, the index averaged 89.2.
Households pushed their savings rate to the highest level in more than 15 years in May as a big boost in incomes from the government’s stimulus program was devoted more to bolstering nest eggs than increased spending.
The higher savings rate is healthy in the long term, economists said. But without vigorous consumer spending, the government may have to do more to revive the economy, possibly through further tax breaks and spending.
The Commerce Department said Friday that consumer spending rose 0.3 percent in May, in line with expectations. But incomes jumped 1.4 percent, the biggest gain in a year and easily outpacing the 0.3 percent increase that economists expected.
The savings rate, which was hovering near zero in early 2008, surged to 6.9 percent, the highest level since December 1993.
The income increase reflected temporary factors relating to the $787 billion economic stimulus program that President Barack Obama pushed through Congress in February to fight the recession. That program included one-time payments to people receiving Social Security and other government pension benefits.
What we suspected would happen to California in the mid-1990s is finally taking place. Here we have a state that has lived in - in reality -for years. A state where 40% of the inhabitants live in a black economy and don’t pay taxes. In addition, the state has been overrun with illegal aliens for many years. Of 38 million inhabitants ten million are illegals.
California is in serious financial trouble. Mortgages 90-days past due average 7.6%. Foreclosures continue to climb, as residential and commercial real estate plunge in price. Unemployment is the worst since 1940. In almost two years close to 860,000 jobs have officially been lost, of which officially 740,000 were lost in the last year. Real U6 unemployment is more than 20% and 2-years from now could be 35% or more. Layoffs could reach beyond 100,000 state employees. The state’s credit rating is headed lower. Next is the dumping of California’s municipal bonds due to credit rating downgrades. Over the next two months the state may not be able to meet its payroll. It is probable that in time California will default.
All of these problems will affect the entire economy of the country. There is big trouble on the way.
Our resident geniuses in Washington are considering allowing Fannie and Freddie to refinance loans with current loan value ratios of 125% or more. They say they have to raise the limit level because buyers cannot qualify. Here we are back to the subprime syndrome. A move that proves Washington learned nothing from the real estate bubble. This defies all banking precedent and prudence, because few can qualify who want to be buyers. It also says that foreclosures are not being stopped or slowed down. As unemployment grows house prices will fall further. America is headed toward a debtors revolt, and it is not that far away.
Manhattan apartment prices have fallen 20% and will probably fall 25% more, perhaps even 30% or more. That is because the fall didn’t begin but nine months ago. The securities industry has cut 21,800 jobs over the last year with lots more to come. The industry accounts for 35% of all salaries and wages. Unemployment hit 9% in May, the highest since October 1997, and up from 8% in April.
Health care is a front-page issue and what liberal Democrats want to foist upon Americans could prove deadly for many.
Senator Ted Kennedy believes he has a universal mandate, a right, for all Americans, even illegal aliens, to be forced to have or buy health insurance. Any plan, any American has, will have to meet government specifications. If you do not have insurance, your employer will have to purchase it for you and you may have to pay part of the cost. If your employer refuses to participate he will be fined. The fine will be much less than the insurance cost, so the citizen will have to be covered by government or pay it themselves. You will have to pay for that. If you do not the IRS will fine you, garnish your wages, put a lien on your house and they can imprison you. The cost of this marvelous program is unknown and how it will be funded is unknown as well.
In addition, government will computerize all your most confidential medical records in a federal database, which will eventually be in a worldwide database. Oh, we forgot all bureaucrats in Washington would be exempted.
The bill doesn’t have a number yet, but start contacting all House and Senate members now and let them know you do not want Teddy Care.
We saw what is now happening in America in 1963. The Watts riots were a precursor to what has happened over the years. We lived near Wilshire, just one block away from where the rioters were looting. We were on the roof of our apartment building with our Gerands and Carbines, ready for action. Fortunately the police stopped the rioters before they hit Wilshire Blvd.
We new what was coming some 50 years ago. Few listened over the years, but today it is different. Today it is in your face. Mainline talk show hosts are now stealing our thunder and that is fine. We want the public to prepare for what is coming their way. We are already into depression, over 20% unemployment. Next is demonstrations, food riots, squatting in foreclosed homes has already began, there will be tax protests, gang warfare and unless we are lucky social chaos. We do not know when but it is coming, because the Illuminists have deliberately caused this and are in the process of losing control.
Those who have brains and can think and function outside the box are preparing. Most of the rest are not and they’ll suffer for it. The mainline media, which most of America believes in, will inform them of what is really going on when the shooting in the streets has already begun.
The Fed held monetary policy steady and said the US economic recession was easing, as it signaled its worries over a possible troubling downward spiral in prices were easing. That is another way of saying inflation is rising. They held interest rates at the zero to 0.25% range.
The FOMC said in a prior statement that the pace of contraction is slowing, the same observation they had at the last session. They realize they cannot raise interest rates, because if they do deflation will take over and the economy will collapse.
May durable goods orders rose 1.8%. This was the same as last month. Year-on-year orders are down 24%.
New home sales were 342,000 down from 344,000 in April. Median prices rose to $221,600 from $212,500 in April. Year-on-year sales fell 35%.
New houses sold were 32,000 down from 49,000 or down 34.6%. New home sales are at 1995 levels.
Default rates on mortgages in Colorado are now 19% and the state has a 4.4% unemployment rate.
The Treasury has again changed the way they tally demand at their bond auctions and are artificially inflating indirect bids, a category used by investors as a loose proxy for foreign demand.
As we have noticed they have reached 68% at Tuesday’s two-year bill sale and 62% at the $37 billion in five-year note sales. Nothing is honest in Washington.
The annualized credit-card charge-off rate broke through 10% in May for the first time in 20 years.
Congressman Darrell Issa said the Fed engaged in a cover-up about the details of the Bank of America takeover of Merrill Lynch. The Fed deliberately hid concerns and pertinent details of a merger from government agencies. The Fed is privately owned.
He said Mr. Bernanke engaged in blackmail of Ken Lewis of Bank of America. As you know the House is calling for an audit of the Fed, Ron Paul’s HR 1207, as Bernanke comes under fire for his Merrill Lynch caper.
The FDIC says it may temporarily extend a program guaranteeing accounts that do not pay interest. We can promise you if they do not there will be an exodus of funds out of the banking system into Treasuries, gold and silver.
Warren Buffett live on CNBC said. “There had been little progress over the past few months in the economic war being fought in the country.” “We haven’t gotten the economy moving yet. While the economy is in a shambles and likely to stay that way for some time, he remains optimistic that there will be an eventual recovery.” We wonder if he has considered the year 2022. He said the nation should concentrate on jobs. Government cannot do that when their priority is to bail out Wall Street and banking,
As real U6 unemployment hovers at 20.4%, Citigroup plans to give salary increases of 50% to their bankers, traders and executives to halt an exodus of senior staff from the company.
They did such a great job of wrecking the company that they have to be given taxpayer funds to remain on the job.
Ben Bernanke spent four hours testifying before Congress on Thursday. He lied about his role in the Merrill Lynch scandal and as usual Congress was a disgusting hunk of putty, pandering again to the elitists. It was another puking exercise.
Someone turned the light on inside Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s head. He says he thinks market manipulation is behind the spike in gasoline prices and that federal regulators should investigate. This has been happening to gold and silver for more than 28 years and no one in congress dares to talk about it.
The Banking Index looks like it is about to break down. Shorts are the order of the day.
The commercial paper market fell $47.5 billion last week. This is the biggest vital source of short-term funding for daily operations at many companies. It fell to $481.4 billion from $502.7 billion.
Unsecured financial issuance rose $18.2 billion to $564.5 billion.
Prime auto ABS delinquencies rose 22% in May.
The Fed tried to keep secret information about the Bank of America deal from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the North Carolina-based bank’s direct regulator and from the SEC.
This is the same lying Fed that is supposed to work collaboratively with other regulators.
The real question is why the Fed Chairman and his fellow criminals should not be prosecuted for criminal offences?
John Williams notes: On July 31st, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will revamp GDP history going back to 1929…GDP reporting remains virtually worthless and is little more than political propaganda.
John notes that income contracted more in Q1 than Q2. GDI is the income-side equivalent of the GDP’s consumption estimate. As estimated in last month’s reporting, reflecting a sharp reversal in “statistical discrepancy,” first-quarter GDI was reported showing an annualized real quarterly contraction of 3.64%, versus a fourth-quarter estimated contraction of 7.78%. Today’s reporting and revision reflected something of a reversal in other trends, showing a deeper 4.31% annualized quarterly contraction in the first quarter. Year-to-year, first-quarter GDI declined by 3.11% (previously down 2.94%), versus a 2.16% contraction in the fourth quarter. http://www.shadowstats.com
The Fed’s balance sheet declined $58.5B due to a $53.758B decline in the ‘Term Auction Credit’ and a $28.692 decline in ‘liquidity swaps’. The Fed monetized $30B of securities.
The WSJ editorial believes Obama’s climate bill, Cap & Trade, will be the largest tax increase in history.
The hit to GDP is the real threat in this bill. The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.
The Chicago Tribune editorial on Cap & Trade: Remember that gargantuan climate change bill we told you about last week? It’s gotten bigger. Over the weekend, the bill grew from 946 pages to 1,201 pages, according to the Sunlight Foundation. It’s still changing, with important amendments in flux.
But Democratic leaders in the House say they’ll push for a vote on the bill as early as Friday. They think they can pass it. This is an incredibly expensive undertaking. If anyone in Congress tells you that he has read and completely understands this bill, and can explain exactly how the system to reduce carbon emissions would work and what its effects would be, he’s lying. [Don’t waste a good crisis, indeed!]
The Baltic Dry Index has tanked 9% since last Friday. When it surged, the usual suspects trumpeted the rally as a sign of economic rebound, even though it was mostly China stockpiling commodities. Now that it has declined sharply, permabulls, Street shills and media hucksters are ignoring it.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Obama Administration Shuts Down 9/11 Families Lawsuit
Court case aimed at revealing Saudi Royal family links to attacks quashed after pressure from government
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Monday, June 29, 2009
The Obama administration has effectively ended the efforts of families of victims of the September 11th attacks to bring lawsuits against members of the Saudi Royal family for financial links to the conspiracy.
The Supreme Court today ruled that it will not allow any lawsuits to go ahead, just a few weeks after the government filed a court brief asking that the case be quashed.
The court, in an order Monday, is leaving in place the ruling of a federal appeals court that the country and the princes are protected by sovereign immunity, which generally means that foreign countries can’t be sued in American courts, reports the Associated Press.
In late May, the Justice Department had sided in court with the Saudi monarchy in seeking to halt further legal action to hold it liable for the attacks.
The move came less than a week before Obama was scheduled to meet Saudi King Abdullah as part of his “rebuilding” trip to the Middle East.
More than 6000 family members denounced the move as an “apparent effort to appease a sometime ally” in a public statement.
The lawsuits claimed that Saudi Arabia and four of its princes actively aided in financing the plot through front groups posing as charities.
Obama Administration Shuts Down 9/11 Families Lawsuit
Last week, the New York Times ran a report highlighting how documents uncovered by lawyers for the 9/11 families “provide new evidence of extensive financial support for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups by members of the Saudi royal family.”
The documents consist of “several hundred thousand pages of investigative material” assembled by the 9/11 families, according to the report.
The families also point to a 28-page, classified section of the 2003 joint congressional inquiry into 9/11 that deals with the Saudi role in the attacks.
Senator Bob Graham, who sat on the 9/11 Commission, has also charged that Saudi involvement in the attacks has been covered up.
As we have previously reported, US authorities, including the FBI, allowed the entire Bin Laden family to fly out of the US, and back to Saudi Arabia, in the days after 9/11, without questioning any of them.
Furthermore, agency documents later revealed that the FBI were aware that Osama Bin Laden himself may have personally chartered one of the flights. They subsequently redacted his name from the records in order “to protect privacy interests.”
The documents provide clear proof that the FBI was protecting the Bin Laden while the rest of the world was being told that he had masterminded the biggest terror attack in history. The FBI then attempted to cover up this fact.
The same documents revealed that the Bureau did not consider a single Saudi national nor any of the Bin Laden family worthy of investigative value.
The protection of Bin Laden by federal authorities has been ongoing since BEFORE 9/11 when agents were told to “back off the Bin Laden family” in order to protect business interests that the Bush family had with the Bin Ladens and other Saudi nationals.
The FBI asserts that no one on the planes that left had any terrorist links, yet documents (specifically FBI document 199I WF213589) uncovered back in November 2001 prove this to be a falsehood.
The Obama administration is now continuing the exact same long running policy as the Bush administration by obediently backing the Saudi monarchy and keeping secret this vital information on 9/11.
How disgustingly ironic it is that “sovereign immunity” is cited in a case relating to 9/11, when the same notion of sovereign immunity is violated on a daily basis as CIA drone delivered missiles rain down on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As pointed out by writer Barry Grey, in his excellent piece on the effort to shut down the lawsuits, any exposure given to the Saudi connection would open the flood gates for more suppressed evidence:
“The revelations would undoubtedly shatter the official explanations of the September 11 attacks and point to complicity on the part of US intelligence and security agencies.” Grey writes.
“Given its longstanding and intimate ties to the Saudi royal family and Saudi intelligence, it is not possible to believe that the CIA would have been unaware of Saudi support for Al Qaeda and at least some of the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals, as they were preparing to carry out the attacks on New York and Washington.”
Again, the mountain of suppressed information regarding the most important event of the century, as well as the continued efforts on the part of the new administration to keep it that way, highlights the need for a new independent investigation into 9/11.
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Monday, June 29, 2009
The Obama administration has effectively ended the efforts of families of victims of the September 11th attacks to bring lawsuits against members of the Saudi Royal family for financial links to the conspiracy.
The Supreme Court today ruled that it will not allow any lawsuits to go ahead, just a few weeks after the government filed a court brief asking that the case be quashed.
The court, in an order Monday, is leaving in place the ruling of a federal appeals court that the country and the princes are protected by sovereign immunity, which generally means that foreign countries can’t be sued in American courts, reports the Associated Press.
In late May, the Justice Department had sided in court with the Saudi monarchy in seeking to halt further legal action to hold it liable for the attacks.
The move came less than a week before Obama was scheduled to meet Saudi King Abdullah as part of his “rebuilding” trip to the Middle East.
More than 6000 family members denounced the move as an “apparent effort to appease a sometime ally” in a public statement.
The lawsuits claimed that Saudi Arabia and four of its princes actively aided in financing the plot through front groups posing as charities.
Obama Administration Shuts Down 9/11 Families Lawsuit
Last week, the New York Times ran a report highlighting how documents uncovered by lawyers for the 9/11 families “provide new evidence of extensive financial support for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups by members of the Saudi royal family.”
The documents consist of “several hundred thousand pages of investigative material” assembled by the 9/11 families, according to the report.
The families also point to a 28-page, classified section of the 2003 joint congressional inquiry into 9/11 that deals with the Saudi role in the attacks.
Senator Bob Graham, who sat on the 9/11 Commission, has also charged that Saudi involvement in the attacks has been covered up.
As we have previously reported, US authorities, including the FBI, allowed the entire Bin Laden family to fly out of the US, and back to Saudi Arabia, in the days after 9/11, without questioning any of them.
Furthermore, agency documents later revealed that the FBI were aware that Osama Bin Laden himself may have personally chartered one of the flights. They subsequently redacted his name from the records in order “to protect privacy interests.”
The documents provide clear proof that the FBI was protecting the Bin Laden while the rest of the world was being told that he had masterminded the biggest terror attack in history. The FBI then attempted to cover up this fact.
The same documents revealed that the Bureau did not consider a single Saudi national nor any of the Bin Laden family worthy of investigative value.
The protection of Bin Laden by federal authorities has been ongoing since BEFORE 9/11 when agents were told to “back off the Bin Laden family” in order to protect business interests that the Bush family had with the Bin Ladens and other Saudi nationals.
The FBI asserts that no one on the planes that left had any terrorist links, yet documents (specifically FBI document 199I WF213589) uncovered back in November 2001 prove this to be a falsehood.
The Obama administration is now continuing the exact same long running policy as the Bush administration by obediently backing the Saudi monarchy and keeping secret this vital information on 9/11.
How disgustingly ironic it is that “sovereign immunity” is cited in a case relating to 9/11, when the same notion of sovereign immunity is violated on a daily basis as CIA drone delivered missiles rain down on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As pointed out by writer Barry Grey, in his excellent piece on the effort to shut down the lawsuits, any exposure given to the Saudi connection would open the flood gates for more suppressed evidence:
“The revelations would undoubtedly shatter the official explanations of the September 11 attacks and point to complicity on the part of US intelligence and security agencies.” Grey writes.
“Given its longstanding and intimate ties to the Saudi royal family and Saudi intelligence, it is not possible to believe that the CIA would have been unaware of Saudi support for Al Qaeda and at least some of the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals, as they were preparing to carry out the attacks on New York and Washington.”
Again, the mountain of suppressed information regarding the most important event of the century, as well as the continued efforts on the part of the new administration to keep it that way, highlights the need for a new independent investigation into 9/11.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Obama Regulatory Reform Plan Officially Establishes Banking Dictatorship
Paul Joseph Watson & Steve Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, June 18, 2009
President Obama’s plan to give the privately-owned and unaccountable Federal Reserve complete regulatory oversight across the entire U.S. economy, which is likely to be enacted before the end of the year, will officially herald the beginning of a new form of government in the United States - an ultra-powerful banking dictatorship controlled by a small gaggle of shadowy and corrupt elitists.
The new rules would see the Fed given the authority to “regulate” any company whose activity it believes could threaten the economy and the markets.
This goes a step further than the centrally planned economies of the Soviet Union or Communist China, in that the Federal Reserve is not even accountable to the U.S. government, it is a private entity that according to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, is accountable to nobody but the banking families that own it.
Obama’s regulatory “reform” plan is nothing less than a green light for the complete and total takeover of the United States by a private banking cartel that will usurp the power of existing regulatory bodies, who are now being blamed for the financial crisis in order that their status can be abolished and their roles handed over to the all-powerful Fed.
According to an Associated Press report today, Democratic leaders have committed to enacting the plan before the end of the year and Republicans in both the House and Senate have indicated that they won’t stand in the way of the overhaul.
“The final plan….is expected to sidestep most jurisdictional disputes and simply impose across the board standards to be applied by all financial regulators, according to administration and industry sources, ” reports the Washington Times.
In other words, the Fed, which is already totally unaccountable to Congress, is to be placed in complete control of the entirety of the U.S. financial system, to do as it wishes without repercussion.
As the LA Times reports, the government, in conjunction with the private Federal Reserve, would effectively have the clout to simply seize and take over any company it desires.
In order to appease those opposed to the plan, such as Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, the Obama administration has agreed to create a “watchdog” council of regulators to “advise the Fed”.
However, as former chairman Alan Greenspan has most recently pointed out, given that the Fed is an independent entity, and therefore accountable to no one, it will have the power to simply reject and overrule any advice it is offered.
Pointing out the flagrant conflict of interest in empowering the Federal Reserve to essentially regulate itself, Professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin Robert Auerbach writes, “The Federal Reserve has massive conflicts of interest that make it ill suited for its present regulatory functions and certainly for an expanded regulatory reach. The officials leading the Fed today preside over an organization that is run in substantial part by the bankers they regulate. Bank regulation begins at its 12 district Federal Reserve Banks, each governed by a nine-member board of directors, two-thirds of whom are elected by the bankers in the district.”
As economic author Nomi Prins highlights, Obama’s plan does nothing whatsoever to fix the excesses of financial institutions blamed for the financial collapse, it only ensures their continued operation and an expansion of the practices that contributed to the economic crisis in the first place.
“The ’sweeping overhaul’ of the financial system detailed by Geithner on behalf of the Obama administration does not overhaul the system at all,” writes Prins, “giving the Fed a bigger role, creating a ‘council of regulators’ to oversee the existing oversight bodies and allowing the biggest Wall Street players to maintain their status, leaves the system intact.”
“The Federal Reserve is not a fully public entity. It has amassed a set of $7.87 trillion worth of facilities and other entities through which it has lavished cheap loans in return for questionable collateral from the banking system. It has kept the true nature of these transactions a secret despite numerous FOIA requests. And, it has actively promoted the creation of bigger institutions in a chaotic environment, rather than putting the brakes on the creation of these giants,” concludes Prins.
Proof that the agenda of implementing overt financial dictatorship is being carefully coordinated can be seen in the fact that an almost identical scheme is also being set up in the United Kingdom, where “The governor of the Bank of England has called for greater powers to allow it to fulfil its new role of promoting financial stability,” according to a BBC report.
Just as in the U.S., King is calling for traditional independent regulatory bodies to be all but abolished and replaced by the Bank of England itself, which just like the Federal Reserve is a private outfit with no accountability to the government whatsoever.
The mainstream media, for the most part, has reported the oversight plan as a much needed regulatory crackdown on those responsible for the financial crisis. However, the details of the plan constitute almost exactly what lobbyists for leading bankers have been pushing for over the past few weeks.
“All derivatives contracts will be subject to regulation and all derivatives dealers subject to supervision,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said at a Time Warner Economic Summit in New York on Monday, also noting “When you have too many people involved, there’s an accountability problem.”
As we reported earlier this month, heads of nine of the biggest banks in the derivatives market, including JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of America, secretly lobbied to keep derivatives under Federal Reserve “oversight” and away from real scrutiny.
As reported by The New York Times, they all met secretly to discuss how to use the lax regulation and institutional secrecy of the NY Fed to shield their credit-default swaps business from prying eyes and attempts at regulation.
The banks formed a lobby– the CDS Dealers Consortium– only weeks after accepting TARP funds in October 2008 to protect its interests. Heading this effort was Edward Rosen, who previously helped fend off derivatives regulation. Rosen wrote and circulated a “confidential memo” to the Treasury Department and leaders on Capital Hill, making their agenda clear, the Times reported.
Rosen and his backers propose that derivatives be “traded in privately managed clearinghouses, with less disclosure,” according to the Times. The clearinghouse of choice for the big banks in Rosen’s CDS Consortium is ICE U.S. Trust, which is in turned regulated only by the Federal Reserve system.
So the upshot of all this is that the bankers get what they want, are allowed to carry on as they were, while at the same time the fractional reserve banking system and the federal government are both greatly expanded and empowered, and the compliant corporate media ludicrously tells us that a strict crackdown is underway.
This kind of activity is exactly what some leading representatives have warned of in recent weeks.
A fortnight ago, the Democratic Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Collin Peterson, announced to the press that “The banks run the place,” in reference to the US Congress.
While Peterson is also pushing for legislation to regulate derivatives trading, his proposed bill would limit derivatives trading to public exchanges, rather than private clearinghouses, which are managed by banks.
Peterson’s warning mirrors that of Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who just a few weeks before uttered the same rarely acknowledged truth.
“And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place,” Durbin said.
How simultaneously dangerous and ridiculous it is that the Federal Reserve is given more authority to oversee the economy. This is the same privately run entity that refused to comply with congressional demands for transparency and disclose the destination of trillions dollars in bailout funds. It is the same privately owned entity that has withheld internal memos, in spite of freedom of information act requests. It is the same private entity, run for the most part by European banking elites, that has arrogantly refused to tell Senators and Congressmen which banks were in receipt of government loans.
The government is ready to hand over everything to a monolithic private corporation and a gaggle of bastard banker offspring, that have gobbled up an amount close to the entire GDP of the country in taxpayers’ money and figuratively stuck the middle finger up regarding questions over where that money has gone.
It can be no more apparent than at this time that legislation to audit, repeal and eventually end the Federal Reserve, must be supported by Americans if they want to see their children and their grandchildren grow up without indentured debt and entrenched servitude to a fascistic marriage of private banks and hugely inflated government.
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, June 18, 2009
President Obama’s plan to give the privately-owned and unaccountable Federal Reserve complete regulatory oversight across the entire U.S. economy, which is likely to be enacted before the end of the year, will officially herald the beginning of a new form of government in the United States - an ultra-powerful banking dictatorship controlled by a small gaggle of shadowy and corrupt elitists.
The new rules would see the Fed given the authority to “regulate” any company whose activity it believes could threaten the economy and the markets.
This goes a step further than the centrally planned economies of the Soviet Union or Communist China, in that the Federal Reserve is not even accountable to the U.S. government, it is a private entity that according to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, is accountable to nobody but the banking families that own it.
Obama’s regulatory “reform” plan is nothing less than a green light for the complete and total takeover of the United States by a private banking cartel that will usurp the power of existing regulatory bodies, who are now being blamed for the financial crisis in order that their status can be abolished and their roles handed over to the all-powerful Fed.
According to an Associated Press report today, Democratic leaders have committed to enacting the plan before the end of the year and Republicans in both the House and Senate have indicated that they won’t stand in the way of the overhaul.
“The final plan….is expected to sidestep most jurisdictional disputes and simply impose across the board standards to be applied by all financial regulators, according to administration and industry sources, ” reports the Washington Times.
In other words, the Fed, which is already totally unaccountable to Congress, is to be placed in complete control of the entirety of the U.S. financial system, to do as it wishes without repercussion.
As the LA Times reports, the government, in conjunction with the private Federal Reserve, would effectively have the clout to simply seize and take over any company it desires.
In order to appease those opposed to the plan, such as Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, the Obama administration has agreed to create a “watchdog” council of regulators to “advise the Fed”.
However, as former chairman Alan Greenspan has most recently pointed out, given that the Fed is an independent entity, and therefore accountable to no one, it will have the power to simply reject and overrule any advice it is offered.
Pointing out the flagrant conflict of interest in empowering the Federal Reserve to essentially regulate itself, Professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin Robert Auerbach writes, “The Federal Reserve has massive conflicts of interest that make it ill suited for its present regulatory functions and certainly for an expanded regulatory reach. The officials leading the Fed today preside over an organization that is run in substantial part by the bankers they regulate. Bank regulation begins at its 12 district Federal Reserve Banks, each governed by a nine-member board of directors, two-thirds of whom are elected by the bankers in the district.”
As economic author Nomi Prins highlights, Obama’s plan does nothing whatsoever to fix the excesses of financial institutions blamed for the financial collapse, it only ensures their continued operation and an expansion of the practices that contributed to the economic crisis in the first place.
“The ’sweeping overhaul’ of the financial system detailed by Geithner on behalf of the Obama administration does not overhaul the system at all,” writes Prins, “giving the Fed a bigger role, creating a ‘council of regulators’ to oversee the existing oversight bodies and allowing the biggest Wall Street players to maintain their status, leaves the system intact.”
“The Federal Reserve is not a fully public entity. It has amassed a set of $7.87 trillion worth of facilities and other entities through which it has lavished cheap loans in return for questionable collateral from the banking system. It has kept the true nature of these transactions a secret despite numerous FOIA requests. And, it has actively promoted the creation of bigger institutions in a chaotic environment, rather than putting the brakes on the creation of these giants,” concludes Prins.
Proof that the agenda of implementing overt financial dictatorship is being carefully coordinated can be seen in the fact that an almost identical scheme is also being set up in the United Kingdom, where “The governor of the Bank of England has called for greater powers to allow it to fulfil its new role of promoting financial stability,” according to a BBC report.
Just as in the U.S., King is calling for traditional independent regulatory bodies to be all but abolished and replaced by the Bank of England itself, which just like the Federal Reserve is a private outfit with no accountability to the government whatsoever.
The mainstream media, for the most part, has reported the oversight plan as a much needed regulatory crackdown on those responsible for the financial crisis. However, the details of the plan constitute almost exactly what lobbyists for leading bankers have been pushing for over the past few weeks.
“All derivatives contracts will be subject to regulation and all derivatives dealers subject to supervision,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said at a Time Warner Economic Summit in New York on Monday, also noting “When you have too many people involved, there’s an accountability problem.”
As we reported earlier this month, heads of nine of the biggest banks in the derivatives market, including JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of America, secretly lobbied to keep derivatives under Federal Reserve “oversight” and away from real scrutiny.
As reported by The New York Times, they all met secretly to discuss how to use the lax regulation and institutional secrecy of the NY Fed to shield their credit-default swaps business from prying eyes and attempts at regulation.
The banks formed a lobby– the CDS Dealers Consortium– only weeks after accepting TARP funds in October 2008 to protect its interests. Heading this effort was Edward Rosen, who previously helped fend off derivatives regulation. Rosen wrote and circulated a “confidential memo” to the Treasury Department and leaders on Capital Hill, making their agenda clear, the Times reported.
Rosen and his backers propose that derivatives be “traded in privately managed clearinghouses, with less disclosure,” according to the Times. The clearinghouse of choice for the big banks in Rosen’s CDS Consortium is ICE U.S. Trust, which is in turned regulated only by the Federal Reserve system.
So the upshot of all this is that the bankers get what they want, are allowed to carry on as they were, while at the same time the fractional reserve banking system and the federal government are both greatly expanded and empowered, and the compliant corporate media ludicrously tells us that a strict crackdown is underway.
This kind of activity is exactly what some leading representatives have warned of in recent weeks.
A fortnight ago, the Democratic Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Collin Peterson, announced to the press that “The banks run the place,” in reference to the US Congress.
While Peterson is also pushing for legislation to regulate derivatives trading, his proposed bill would limit derivatives trading to public exchanges, rather than private clearinghouses, which are managed by banks.
Peterson’s warning mirrors that of Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who just a few weeks before uttered the same rarely acknowledged truth.
“And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place,” Durbin said.
How simultaneously dangerous and ridiculous it is that the Federal Reserve is given more authority to oversee the economy. This is the same privately run entity that refused to comply with congressional demands for transparency and disclose the destination of trillions dollars in bailout funds. It is the same privately owned entity that has withheld internal memos, in spite of freedom of information act requests. It is the same private entity, run for the most part by European banking elites, that has arrogantly refused to tell Senators and Congressmen which banks were in receipt of government loans.
The government is ready to hand over everything to a monolithic private corporation and a gaggle of bastard banker offspring, that have gobbled up an amount close to the entire GDP of the country in taxpayers’ money and figuratively stuck the middle finger up regarding questions over where that money has gone.
It can be no more apparent than at this time that legislation to audit, repeal and eventually end the Federal Reserve, must be supported by Americans if they want to see their children and their grandchildren grow up without indentured debt and entrenched servitude to a fascistic marriage of private banks and hugely inflated government.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
President John F. Kennedy's Speech on Secrecy
The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association
President John F. Kennedy
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
New York City, April 27, 1961
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:
I appreciate very much your generous invitation to be here tonight.
You bear heavy responsibilities these days and an article I read some time ago reminded me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present day events bear upon your profession.
You may remember that in 1851 the New York Herald Tribune under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed as its London correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of Karl Marx.
We are told that foreign correspondent Marx, stone broke, and with a family ill and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per installment, a salary which he and Engels ungratefully labeled as the "lousiest petty bourgeois cheating."
But when all his financial appeals were refused, Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame, eventually terminating his relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents full time to the cause that would bequeath the world the seeds of Leninism, Stalinism, revolution and the cold war.
If only this capitalistic New York newspaper had treated him more kindly; if only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent, history might have been different. And I hope all publishers will bear this lesson in mind the next time they receive a poverty-stricken appeal for a small increase in the expense account from an obscure newspaper man.
I have selected as the title of my remarks tonight "The President and the Press." Some may suggest that this would be more naturally worded "The President Versus the Press." But those are not my sentiments tonight.
It is true, however, that when a well-known diplomat from another country demanded recently that our State Department repudiate certain newspaper attacks on his colleague it was unnecessary for us to reply that this Administration was not responsible for the press, for the press had already made it clear that it was not responsible for this Administration.
Nevertheless, my purpose here tonight is not to deliver the usual assault on the so-called one party press. On the contrary, in recent months I have rarely heard any complaints about political bias in the press except from a few Republicans. Nor is it my purpose tonight to discuss or defend the televising of Presidential press conferences. I think it is highly beneficial to have some 20,000,000 Americans regularly sit in on these conferences to observe, if I may say so, the incisive, the intelligent and the courteous qualities displayed by your Washington correspondents.
Nor, finally, are these remarks intended to examine the proper degree of privacy which the press should allow to any President and his family.
If in the last few months your White House reporters and photographers have been attending church services with regularity, that has surely done them no harm.
On the other hand, I realize that your staff and wire service photographers may be complaining that they do not enjoy the same green privileges at the local golf courses that they once did.
It is true that my predecessor did not object as I do to pictures of one's golfing skill in action. But neither on the other hand did he ever bean a Secret Service man.
My topic tonight is a more sober one of concern to publishers as well as editors.
I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future--for reducing this threat or living with it--there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security--a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.
This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President--two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.
I
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.
But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.
Today no war has been declared--and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.
If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.
It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions--by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.
Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security--and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.
For the facts of the matter are that this nation's foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery or espionage; that details of this nation's covert preparations to counter the enemy's covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.
The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national security. And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.
The question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration.
On many earlier occasions, I have said--and your newspapers have constantly said--that these are times that appeal to every citizen's sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal.
I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or any new types of security classifications. I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.
Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: "Is it news?" All I suggest is that you add the question: "Is it in the interest of the national security?" And I hope that every group in America--unions and businessmen and public officials at every level-- will ask the same question of their endeavors, and subject their actions to the same exacting tests.
And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate whole-heartedly with those recommendations.
Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In times of peace, any discussion of this subject, and any action that results, are both painful and without precedent. But this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.
II
It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation--an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people--to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well--the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.
No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.
I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.
Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed--and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment-- the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.
This means greater coverage and analysis of international news--for it is no longer far away and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved understanding of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means, finally, that government at all levels, must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security--and we intend to do it.
III
It was early in the Seventeenth Century that Francis Bacon remarked on three recent inventions already transforming the world: the compass, gunpowder and the printing press. Now the links between the nations first forged by the compass have made us all citizens of the world, the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all. In that one world's efforts to live together, the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warned mankind of the terrible consequences of failure.
And so it is to the printing press--to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.
President John F. Kennedy
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
New York City, April 27, 1961
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:
I appreciate very much your generous invitation to be here tonight.
You bear heavy responsibilities these days and an article I read some time ago reminded me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present day events bear upon your profession.
You may remember that in 1851 the New York Herald Tribune under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed as its London correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of Karl Marx.
We are told that foreign correspondent Marx, stone broke, and with a family ill and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per installment, a salary which he and Engels ungratefully labeled as the "lousiest petty bourgeois cheating."
But when all his financial appeals were refused, Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame, eventually terminating his relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents full time to the cause that would bequeath the world the seeds of Leninism, Stalinism, revolution and the cold war.
If only this capitalistic New York newspaper had treated him more kindly; if only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent, history might have been different. And I hope all publishers will bear this lesson in mind the next time they receive a poverty-stricken appeal for a small increase in the expense account from an obscure newspaper man.
I have selected as the title of my remarks tonight "The President and the Press." Some may suggest that this would be more naturally worded "The President Versus the Press." But those are not my sentiments tonight.
It is true, however, that when a well-known diplomat from another country demanded recently that our State Department repudiate certain newspaper attacks on his colleague it was unnecessary for us to reply that this Administration was not responsible for the press, for the press had already made it clear that it was not responsible for this Administration.
Nevertheless, my purpose here tonight is not to deliver the usual assault on the so-called one party press. On the contrary, in recent months I have rarely heard any complaints about political bias in the press except from a few Republicans. Nor is it my purpose tonight to discuss or defend the televising of Presidential press conferences. I think it is highly beneficial to have some 20,000,000 Americans regularly sit in on these conferences to observe, if I may say so, the incisive, the intelligent and the courteous qualities displayed by your Washington correspondents.
Nor, finally, are these remarks intended to examine the proper degree of privacy which the press should allow to any President and his family.
If in the last few months your White House reporters and photographers have been attending church services with regularity, that has surely done them no harm.
On the other hand, I realize that your staff and wire service photographers may be complaining that they do not enjoy the same green privileges at the local golf courses that they once did.
It is true that my predecessor did not object as I do to pictures of one's golfing skill in action. But neither on the other hand did he ever bean a Secret Service man.
My topic tonight is a more sober one of concern to publishers as well as editors.
I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future--for reducing this threat or living with it--there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security--a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.
This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President--two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.
I
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.
But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.
Today no war has been declared--and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.
If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.
It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions--by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.
Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security--and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.
For the facts of the matter are that this nation's foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery or espionage; that details of this nation's covert preparations to counter the enemy's covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.
The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national security. And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.
The question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration.
On many earlier occasions, I have said--and your newspapers have constantly said--that these are times that appeal to every citizen's sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal.
I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or any new types of security classifications. I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.
Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: "Is it news?" All I suggest is that you add the question: "Is it in the interest of the national security?" And I hope that every group in America--unions and businessmen and public officials at every level-- will ask the same question of their endeavors, and subject their actions to the same exacting tests.
And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate whole-heartedly with those recommendations.
Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In times of peace, any discussion of this subject, and any action that results, are both painful and without precedent. But this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.
II
It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation--an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people--to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well--the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.
No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.
I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.
Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed--and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment-- the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.
This means greater coverage and analysis of international news--for it is no longer far away and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved understanding of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means, finally, that government at all levels, must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security--and we intend to do it.
III
It was early in the Seventeenth Century that Francis Bacon remarked on three recent inventions already transforming the world: the compass, gunpowder and the printing press. Now the links between the nations first forged by the compass have made us all citizens of the world, the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all. In that one world's efforts to live together, the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warned mankind of the terrible consequences of failure.
And so it is to the printing press--to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Rant
The fever revolution has not broken. My fellow Americans are starting to wake up to this simulacra… The veil and that has been draped over our eyes for so long. That glimmer, that special something… I hear the whispers in the air… "I will not stand for this oppression." The police state must stop. No longer will Americans sit idly by and allow the activities of tyranny to take over our liberties. This is America, founded on the rights of all humankind. As Patrick Henry said, “is life so dear or peace so sweet, and as to be purchased at the price of the chains and slavery? Forbid it, almighty god! ---I know now what courses others may take; but as for me; give me liberty or give me death!”
It is time to demand the news agencies stop catering to the will of the elite. News is not for your entertainment purpose… not for the profit of the almighty dollar; but for the spreading of knowledge and the gaining of wisdom. Wake up! We must regain control of our most important asset. The power of the pen will destroy all those who wish to rule and influence the masses from the will of a few.
It is time to demand the news agencies stop catering to the will of the elite. News is not for your entertainment purpose… not for the profit of the almighty dollar; but for the spreading of knowledge and the gaining of wisdom. Wake up! We must regain control of our most important asset. The power of the pen will destroy all those who wish to rule and influence the masses from the will of a few.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Swine Flu and the Police State
I am very concerned that the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies will capitalize on the hype around the "swine flu" (actually a cross strain of bird/swine/human influenza). The fact of the matter is that over 10,000 people die from the flu in the U.S. every year. Last year there were over 13,000 cases of TB. The media is doing what they do best...fear mongering. I fear that we will see another abuse of our liberties due to the false worries perpetuated by the propaganda tube.
Below are links to news articles I found very interesting:
1) DHS Sets Guidelines For Possible Swine Flu Quarantines
See: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/04/28/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry4975598.shtml
2) U.S. Bracing For Swine Flu Pandemic
See: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/27/health/main4970710.shtml
3) Mass. Senate approves pandemic flu prep bill
See: http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/2009_04_28_Mass__Senate_approves_pandemic_flu_prep_bill/
4) AP:
See: http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/186/st00/st00018.htm
Below are links to news articles I found very interesting:
1) DHS Sets Guidelines For Possible Swine Flu Quarantines
DHS Assistant Secretary Bridger McGaw circulated the swine flu memo, which was obtained by CBSNews.com, on Monday night. It says: "The Department of Justice has established legal federal authorities pertaining to the implementation of a quarantine and enforcement. Under approval from HHS, the Surgeon General has the authority to issue quarantines."
McGaw appears to have been referring to the section of federal law that allows the Surgeon General to detain and quarantine Americans "reasonably believed to be infected" with a communicable disease. A Centers for Disease Control official said on Tuesday that swine flu deaths in the U.S. are likely.
See: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/04/28/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry4975598.shtml
2) U.S. Bracing For Swine Flu Pandemic
...Her briefing came shortly before the World Health Organization raised the severity of its pandemic alert level to four from three on a six-point scale. Level four means there is sustained human-to-human spread in at least one country. Level six is a full-fledged pandemic, an epidemic that has spread to a wide geographic area.
See: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/27/health/main4970710.shtml
3) Mass. Senate approves pandemic flu prep bill
“The new Senate version would allow the public health commissioner — in a public health emergency — to close or evacuate buildings, enter private property for investigations, and quarantine individuals.”
See: http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/2009_04_28_Mass__Senate_approves_pandemic_flu_prep_bill/
4) AP:
See: http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/186/st00/st00018.htm
The Massachusetts Senate has unanimously passed a pandemic flu preparation bill that has languished in the Legislature before the recent swine flu outbreak.
The 36-0 vote today sends the measure to the House. Both branches have taken it up in past years, but have not been able to agree on the details.
The new Senate version would allow the public health commissioner — in a public health emergency — to close or evacuate buildings, enter private property for investigations, and quarantine individuals.
The bill specifically mandates the following:
(1) to require the owner or occupier of premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises;
(2) to close, direct, and compel the evacuation of, or to decontaminate or cause to be decontaminated any building or facility, and to allow the reopening of the building or facility when the danger has ended;
(3) to decontaminate or cause to be decontaminated, or to destroy any material;
(4) to restrict or prohibit assemblages of persons;
(5) to require a health care facility to provide services or the use of its facility, or to transfer the management and supervision of the health care facility to the department or to a local public health authority;
(6) to control ingress to and egress from any stricken or threatened public area, and the movement of persons and materials within the area;
(7) to adopt and enforce measures to provide for the safe disposal of infectious waste and human remains, provided that religious, cultural, family, and individual beliefs of the deceased person shall be followed to the extent possible when disposing of human remains, whenever that may be done without endangering the public health;
(8) to procure, take immediate possession from any source, store, or distribute any anti-toxins, serums, vaccines, immunizing agents, antibiotics, and other pharmaceutical agents or medical supplies located within the commonwealth as may be necessary to respond to the emergency;
(9) to require in-state health care providers to assist in the performance of vaccination, treatment, examination, or testing of any individual as a condition of licensure, authorization, or the ability to continue to function as a health care provider in the commonwealth
Any person who knowingly violates an order of the commissioner or his or her designee, or of a local public health authority or its designee, given to effectuate the purposes of this subsection shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 6 months, or by a fine of note more than one thousand dollars, or both.
Monday, April 27, 2009
The Federal Reserve System
"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
--Thomas Jefferson
WHAT IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE?
· First off, the Federal Reserve is NOT a government agency. But, it is not a private organization either.
· The Federal Reserve is a banking cartel. It is a group of private banking interests that have brought the government in as a partner in order to use federal law to enforce the cartel’s policies.
· The Federal Reserve System is in fact a banking cartel with a monopoly over the creation of the nation’s money supply.
· One of the functions of the Fed is to protect the large banks by passing their losses off to the tax payers.
· The purpose of the Federal Reserve System is to promote the best interests of the banking members of the Federal cartel.
THE CREATION OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE
· The Federal Reserve was not formed in Congress, but on a private island off the coast of Georgia called Jekyll Island.
· At that time, Jekyll Island was owned by J.P. Morgan.
· Those who attended the meeting on included : Abraham Andrew, assistant secretary of the treasury; Frank Vanderlip, president of the National City bank of New; Henry Davison, senior partner of J.P. Morgan Company; Charles Norton, president of the First National Bank of New York; Benjamin Strong, the head of J.P. Morgan’s Bankers Trust Company and soon to the 1st head of the Federal reserve; and Paul Warburg, brother to Max Warburg, representative of the Rothschild family, and partner of Kuhn Loeb &Company.
· This meeting took place in November of 1910 under great secrecy. It was not until many years later through the memoirs of those who attended the meeting that we find out what in fact actually went on that day.
· When the Federal Reserve act was introduced to the American people they were told that it was to break the grip of the money trust on the nation’s currency. But what they were not told is that it was actually written by the money trust.
HOW MONEY IS CREATED OUT OF NOTHING
· It starts with the government’s side in the partnership when Congress needs more money.
· When Congress needs more money and does not want to raise taxes, they must borrow the money; but when it comes time to pay back the loan, they must borrow more money.
· The continuation of this process is what creates the national debt.
· When Congress needs to borrow more money than is available the Federal Reserve steps in.
· Through the partnership with the government, the Federal Reserve agrees to literally create the money.
· This money is loaned to the government at interest.
· This is how the money supply continues to grow.
· If you borrow money from someone who actually has it then the money supply does not increase, it’s simply is transferred.
· Now, when the government issues this money to its citizens through spending, that money will eventually be deposited into a bank.
· Private Banks can in turn loan out $9.00 for every dollar deposited.
· This is how our fiat money is created.
· If we were to repay all loans, there would not be one penny left in circulation.
· Every single dollar in our economy is based upon debt. The dollar is nothing more than debt.
THE PROBLEM
· When you give men the power to create money out of nothing that is exactly what they do.
· Since antiquity, men that hold this power have abused it and they have created more money at a rate faster than the expansion of goods and services.
· This is inflation.
· Now, there is a misconception that inflation is the rise in prices of goods and services. Inflation is actually the decline in the value of the dollar.
· This lost purchasing power is a hidden tax.
· Inflation is the result of the power to create money out of nothing.
· And that is the power we have given to the Federal Reserve System.
· Therefore, the Federal Reserve System is the agency of a hidden tax called inflation.
THE SOLUTION
· Our paper currency must eventually be backed by gold or silver in order to protect the purchasing power of the common man.
· The purchasing power of 1 ounce of gold is exactly the same as it was 2000 years ago. Because they are both based on production.
· The Federal reserve system of today must be phased out gradually just as it has been introduced gradually.
· The first step is for people to realize this is a fiat monetary system.
· The second step is the incremental abolition of the Federal Reserve over the next 30 to 40 years.
· If this happens too quickly the elites in control of the banking system will simply implement international monetary system as we see in the World Bank the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization.
· An attempt to implement this system has been seen at this year’s G-20 meeting. The president has resisted this attempt but it is only a matter of time before the bankers implement their policies over the United States people just as they did on Jekyll Island 1910.
· If we allow ourselves to become completely dependent on the state, we lose our freedom.
· This must not be allowed to happen!
"Put down all banks, admit none but a metallic circulation that will take its proper level with the like circulation in other countries, and then our manufacturers may work in fair competition with those of other countries, and the import duties which the government may lay for the purposes of revenue will so far place them above equal competition."
--Thomas Jefferson
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