Unspeakable grief and horror
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Know them by their fruit:
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Unspeakable grief and horror
Know them by their fruit: |
In Bolivia twenty extremely rich families block parliament and have control of much of the court system despite overwhelming support of the population for President Evo Morales |
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Washington imposes sanctions on Bolivia
By Rafael Azul 1 October 2008
The Bush administration has imposed fresh sanctions on Bolivia in retaliation for the decision of the country’s president Evo Morales to expel the US ambassador and close down US programs in the country.
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Morales’s actions came in response to thinly veiled US backing for what was described as a “civic coup” carried out by the ruling elites in the country’s eastern “Half Moon” region.
The “Half Moon” region is where the wealthy landowning elite has pushed for autonomy in order to gain control over the considerable energy resources that are concentrated in the area.
Atrocities carried out
A coordinated uprising earlier this month left scores dead and nearly 1,000 wounded.
Among the worst atrocities carried out by right-wing rebellion was the massacre of some 30 peasants at El Porvenir, near Bolivia’s northern border with Peru and Brazil on September 11, 2008.
Initial press reports represented the slaughter of peasant marchers as a shootout between two parties.
Further investigation revealed, however, that the victims had been ambushed and attacked by a much more heavily armed force.
The victims of the massacre were supporters of the Amalgamated Federation of Pando Agricultural Workers (FUTCP), part of a group of 1,000 men, women and children marching to rally support against pro-autonomy demonstrations that were taking place in Pando and the other eastern provinces.
The demonstrators were attacked by an armed paramilitary group composed of 300 Bolivian, Peruvian and Brazilian gunmen.
According to a report from the Bolivian Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (BPAHR), “Officials from the Department and gunmen fired with cowardice against men, women, children, peasants and students.”
The BPAHR also accused road authorities of having sent digging crews to open trenches of up to two meters wide to make it harder for the demonstrators to advance, and, once the shooting began, to retreat.
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The Prefect of the Department of Pando, Leopoldo Fernandez, is under arrest—charged with ordering the massacre — as are 14 other Pando officials.
Ana Melena de Suzuki and other leaders of the so-called “civic committee,” which represents the secessionist interests of the landed oligarchy in Pando, have fled to Brazil and are seeking asylum there, claiming persecution by what they call the Evo Morales dictatorship.
As of now the Brazilian government has not granted political asylum to the civic committee leaders and, according to Pagina 12, a Buenos Aires daily, Suzuki and others had been spotted on the streets of Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, though they are supposedly in “hiding.”
The massacre was part of a series of coordinated attacks and provocations between September 9 and 14, 2008.
These included the occupation of government buildings, and of natural gas installations, interfering with gas exports to Argentina and Brazil.
There were also numerous unprovoked attacks on native Bolivians.
A preliminary estimate puts the damages that resulted from what the government calls a campaign of seditious terrorism at US$10 million.
The Morales government charged the United States with supporting the rebellion and expelled Ambassador Philip Goldberg, charging him with working behind the scenes with leaders of the autonomy movement.
Also shut down were offices of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for its complicity in the civic coup.
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USAID is a branch of the US State Department created in 1961 with the supposed purpose of providing “economic and humanitarian assistance” to other countries.
Behind this façade, however, the agency was, from the very beginning, employed as a tool to destabilize and overthrow governments that did not toe the US line.
USAID — Haiti, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay dictatorships
In Haiti, USAID was one of the US agencies that helped kidnap and expel President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
In Venezuela, it helped finance and organize the failed military coup against President Hugo Chavez in April 2002.
In the 1970s, USAID provided cover for torturers and CIA agents sent to exterminate the left in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.
These included such figures as Dan Mitrione, who instructed the repressive personnel of the Brazilian and Uruguayan dictatorships in torture techniques.
In retaliation for the expulsions, the United States announced that it would no longer consider Bolivia a partner in the war on drugs and that it would initiate the legal process to raise duties on imports from Bolivia.
US trade representative Susan Schwab declared: “The Morales administration’s recent actions related to narcotics cooperation are not those of a partner and are not consistent with the rules of these programs.”
US officials said that this decision has been motivated by Bolivia’s decision to close USAID and remove US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) personnel from areas of suspected cultivation of coca, the raw material for cocaine.
The consumption of coca leaves is legal in Bolivia; peasants use it to combat the effects of hunger—in South America’s poorest country—and of living in high altitudes.
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US big business
US officials claim that coca production is on the rise in Bolivia, but Bolivian officials deny this.
The Bolivian government charged that the US government appeared to be acting on behalf of groups representing US big business which had appealed to the Bush administration and the US Congress to cut off trade benefits to both Bolivia and Ecuador on the grounds that business profits are not adequately guaranteed by the two countries’ governments.
In addition, in a move calculated to create the impression of political chaos in Bolivia, Washington ordered all US “non-emergency” personnel and all embassy family members to leave the country and advised all US citizens to leave as well.
The State Department also pulled all 113 Peace Corps volunteers from Bolivia. For its part, American Airlines cancelled flights to the country.
The State Department issued an ominous public warning: “US citizens currently in Bolivia should remain vigilant, monitor local media, review their security posture on a regular basis, and consider departing if the situation allows.”
Taken together, the US actions were widely interpreted in Bolivia and Latin America as a blatant attempt by the Bush administration to further destabilize a democratically elected regime.
United States refuses to condemn rich elite extremists terrorist acts of violence
In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week, Morales denounced the United States for not condemning the Pando massacre and other secessionists acts of violence as “terrorism.”
The government in La Paz strongly suspects the US of being complicit in the attempt by the “civic groups” in Bolivia’s eastern crescent departments — Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz and Tarija — to overthrow Morales and to split the country.
Washington’s sanctions against Bolivia have underscored the growing crisis of US policy in Latin America and the loss of hegemony in a region that it long regarded as its own “backyard.”
Under conditions in which it faces an intractable economic crisis domestically and is engaged in protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US influence in Latin America is on the wane.
Increasingly Brazil, which has become a net exporter of capital, much of it to the region, is attempting to step into this power vacuum.
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Following attacks in Santa Cruz province that sabotaged the pipeline that delivers natural gas to Brazil, the administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reacted swiftly, making it clear to the eastern Bolivian pro-autonomy elites that his government would not tolerate any disruptions to natural gas deliveries, upon which the industrial cities of Sao Paulo and other southern states are heavily dependent.
The Brazilian president brushed aside attempts by the Organization of American States (OAS) to intervene in the crisis.
Instead he threw his government’s support behind Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who convened a summit of the recently created Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) on September 15 at the La Moneda Palace in Santiago.
At the meeting UNASUR made it clear that it would back Morales and would not tolerate autonomist groups in the Bolivian Crescent region launching a coup or dividing the country.
At the same time, UNASUR set up two committees, one to meditate between Morales and the rebel provinces, the other to investigate the massacre of September 11. 2008.
The mediation efforts are aimed at getting Morales and the secessionist landowners in the east of the country to somehow reach a deal on divvying up profits from the energy sector.
A stable Bolivia is a key element to the growth of Brazilian industry.
While Bolivia exported goods and services worth $362 million — mostly jewelry, tin, textiles and oil products — to the US in 2007 and imported goods and services worth $278 million that same year, this represented only 9 percent of Bolivia’s international trade.
This is insignificant in comparison to its trade with the member nations of the South American Free Trade Zone (MERCOSUR) and with Brazil in particular.
In 2007, 45.5 percent of Bolivia’s exports went to Brazil; another 20 went to Chile and Argentina.
Thirty percent of the country’s imports came from Brazil, 27 percent came from Chile and Argentina.
Lula’s intervention in the Bolivian crisis is driven by the profit interests of Brazilian monopoly capitalism.
In 2005, Bolivia renationalized part of its energy sector that had been privatized in the 1990s.
These measures had a disproportionate effect on Brazil’s government-owned oil company, Petrobras, the largest investor in Bolivian oil and gas.
The partial privatization caused a temporary drop in capital inflows and foreign investment, but Petrobras’s need to insure stable sources of natural gas (68 percent of which is imported from Bolivia) drove it to reconsider its decision.
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Morales recently boasted that record investments are expected in 2008 from Brazil, Venezuela, Chile and Iran.
Brazil alone has some $1 billion in investments pending in the Bolivian energy sector.
Bolivia produces 42 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and its domestic consumption is 6 million cubic feet.
Exports to Brazil add up to 31 million cubic feet; the rest supplies Argentina northern provinces.
It was rumored that in a visit to Bolivia late last year, Lula whispered in Morales’s ear, “your partner is Brazil, not Venezuela.”
The Lula government requires a politically stable Bolivia on its border that will ensure reliable supplies of natural gas, oil and other commodities.
For that reason, Lula explicitly rejected a proposal by Chile’s President Bachelet that the OAS, which includes the United States, be invited to the Santiago summit.
Six decades OAS has bowed to demands of Washington
For six decades, the OAS has almost always bowed to the demands of Washington.
Morales, a former leader of the coca growers union and an Aymara Indian, was elected by a 55 percent majority in 2005.
In a recall referendum on August 10 2008, his majority increased to 67 percent.
Morales, who demagogically presents himself as proponent of “Andean socialism,” made it clear in his speech at the UN that he will protect the profits of foreign-based multinationals.
On one hand, in his speech he categorized capitalism as “the enemy of humanity,” on the other, he assured foreign investors in Bolivia that they had nothing to fear from his administration.
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“The investor has the right not only to recover his investment but also to obtain profits, including Repsol, Petrobras and all of them,” he said, a reference to the Spanish and Brazilian-based energy conglomerates that exploit Bolivian natural gas.
Lula, in his speech before the UN, declared that “the developing nations are leaving behind bit by bit the old alliances with the traditional power centers.”
He also extolled the benefits of “direct dialogue with no intermediation by major powers” as the means of resolving problems in the “developing countries.”
This, he claimed, was the purpose of UNASUR, obscuring the interests of Brazilian capital that underlie this initiative.
The Brazilian president affirmed that this initiative did not “imply taking a stance of confrontation.”
There can be little doubt, however, that in the corridors of power in Washington it is perceived as just that.
And it can be anticipated that, whatever its present deep-going crisis, US imperialism will not surrender its centuries of domination in the Western Hemisphere peacefully.
See Also:
Latin American presidents
meet with Bolivia on brink of civil war
[16 September 2008]
Latin America: What are the
real interests behind the creation of the Union of South American
Nations?
[28 May 2008]
Bush speech on Latin America—defense
of a failed policy
[9 May 2008]
Copyright 1998-2008 World Socialist Web Site All rights reserved |
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In Bolivia twenty extremely rich families block parliament and have control of much of the court system despite overwhelming support of the population for President Evo Morales |
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Land distribution registration for extreme poor of Bolivian AndesState land and large private ranches are having to give up some land
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BOLIVIA: "Twenty Families Are Obstructing Governability"
by Franz Chávez LA PAZ, September 10 (IPS)
The Bolivian government's determination to hold a referendum, by presidential decree, on a new constitution that it hopes will "re-found" the nation as a "plurinational state," has ceded to pressure from the rightwing opposition. The vote has been postponed several weeks, and Congress will be setting the rules.
Leftwing Bolivian President Evo Morales sought approval from Congress to change the date of the referendum from Dec. 7 to Jan. 25, 2009.
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But he would need the votes of at least 20 of the 56 lawmakers belonging to the rightwing Social and Democratic Power (Podemos) party.
The National Electoral Court (CNE) ruled that the referendum could not be held without parliamentary approval and forced President Morales to withdraw his original decree, issued after a massive showing of public support in the Aug. 10, 2008 recall referendum, in which he took 67 percent of the vote.
The official results announced by the CNE gave Morales a majority of the votes in 82 of the country's 98 provinces, which are subdivisions of its nine departments (regions).
Nationwide, he garnered 2.1 million of 3.1 million votes.
Overwhelming social and political support
It is precisely this avalanche of votes, the greatest proportion won by a president since the restoration of democracy in 1982, that raises questions for sociology Professor Joaquín Saravia, who told IPS that:
"The government appears insecure, because it has overwhelming social and political support, but this has not translated into real control of the country, which is alarming."
The head of the governing Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) parliamentary group, César Navarro, said that democratic changes being promoted by the government are resisted by the elites, who are accustomed to lives of privilege and benefiting from the state.
Morales and his team have called on their supporters to hold counter-demonstrations against the roadblocks set up 17 days ago by the rightwing opposition on the borders with Argentina and Paraguay and south of La Paz.
The opposition is threatening to extend the traffic blockades to highways leading to Brazil, in the eastern department of Santa Cruz.
Military coups d'etat
So far the conflicts have occurred hundreds of kilometres away from the largest cities, like Santa Cruz, Cochabamba and La Paz, which have traditionally been scenarios for the social protests or military coups d'etat that toppled governments throughout Bolivia 183 years of history as an independent nation.
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Although serious difficulties in transporting fuel make it likely that cities near the roadblocks will run out of petrol and cooking gas in less than a week, the government remains calm while keeping a close eye on the protests.
The initial goal of the roadblock protests in the wealthier natural gas-producing provinces in the east was to demand reimbursement to the regions of 49 million dollars in natural gas taxes that the central government had diverted to a monthly pension of 26 dollars a month for the elderly.
But the main aim now is to block the referendum on the new constitution, which includes a legal limit on the size of "latifundios" (huge landed estates).
Professor Saravia estimates that the opposition movement, made up of business organisations, rightwing parties and pro-business and agribusiness Civic Committees, is led and orchestrated by just 20 families of landowners and industrialists.
However, they have the power to obstruct governability for the first indigenous president in the history of Bolivia.
Very small percent of population owns vast areas of land Fifty-five percent of Bolivians are indigenous people, mainly Quechua and Aymara, and a further 30 percent are mestizos (of mixed indigenous and European ancestry). The remaining 15 percent of the population is white, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook. Saravia said he was deeply concerned that in the absence of a government capable of maintaining public order, activists on both the right and the left may try to take the solution of the conflict into their own hands, using violent means. The outcome would be impossible to predict, he said. "The government is behaving short-sightedly and irresponsibly, because social unrest is growing, and the violent protests are violating the rule of law and showing disrespect for the police and the armed forces," he said. The opposition has been using radical rightwing youth groups to occupy public offices by force, triggering violent clashes with the security forces guarding the buildings. On Tuesday the airport at Cobija, the departmental capital of Pando, north of La Paz, was still occupied by opposition demonstrators. |
Government buildings have been taken over in the southern city of Tarija and also in the small northeastern city of Trinidad, the capital of Beni, where the landing strip was occupied as well Tuesday, according to press reports.
New constitution passed by over two-thirds of constituent assembly
Under these circumstances, "the last recourse of the state for imposing the rule of law and defending the constitution is the armed forces, which will be called out if there is widespread violence," he said.
José Antonio Aruquipa of Podemos, a member of the constituent assembly which rewrote the constitution, told IPS that the president's decree for a constitutional referendum is a way of imposing his draft constitution, which "may be divisive and provoke a confrontation."
Ahead of the parliamentary debate, Aruquipa is demanding that the draft constitution be revised, while reiterating his procedural objections to the manner in which the draft text received its final approval in the city of Oruro, on Dec. 9, 2007.
March to exert pressure on Congress
The new constitution was passed by over two-thirds of the constituent assembly with very little discussion, at a marathon all-night session that was boycotted by the rightwing opposition.
The government has called a march by social movements and trade unions which is to arrive at La Paz on Wednesday, Sept. 16, in order to exert pressure on Congress during the debate on the constitutional referendum bill.
Copyright © 2008 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved. |
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In Bolivia twenty extremely rich families block parliament and have control of much of the court system despite overwhelming support of the population for President Evo Morales |
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| Supporters of Bolivia President Evo Morales wait for results of negotiations
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Displaced people from attack by armed paramilitary US backed group return to remote community after receiving government food aid
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| Crosses represent people who died after being attacked by armed paramilitary US backed group
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"One bank to rule them
One bank to bind them..."
BBC rich elite propaganda machine going into action
Using 'rescue package' terminology that psychologists have decided will appease populations better
Nothing of course about anything regarding real truth of this criminal act
Of course the rich elite don't want to loose a dollar of their craftily contrived greed!
Of course the taxpayer should pay!
Too late!
This 'rescue package' won't rescue you!
There isn't a package that will save you!
You can buy more time with worthless electronic monopoly money!
Not a lot, but some!
And you can and will do other terrible things!
Then it's over!
Kewe |
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There was something Kafkaesque about Speaker Pelosi’s appearance at the library that night.
She spoke in the main chamber room of the building to a large, receptive audience.
Her speech was full of worn out clichés, distortions of history and just plain crap.
Its sugary tone almost made me ill.
It seemed Speaker Pelosi was disconnecting from the reality the rest of us see —
The U.S. is in a desperate condition as a result of eight years of the warmongering sparked by the Bush-Cheney Gang
The outsourcing of millions of middle class jobs
Predatory lenders being allowed to run amuck
Widespread economic meltdown.
Pelosi’s library gig reminded me also of a scene out of the 1965 hit movie, “Doctor Zhivago,” which was based on the insightful tome of the same name by the splendid Russian writer, Boris Pasternak.
In the film, two of the principal characters are enjoying themselves with a lavish meal, and dancing the night away at a fancy restaurant in Moscow.
They are totally oblivious to the massive suffering of the vast majority of their fellow countrymen.
This is just before the launching of the Russian Revolution, in 1917, where their world will soon be violently turned upside down.
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The banks are not going to waste their time trying to revive a moribund US market where consumers and businesses are already tapped out.
No way!
It's on to greener pastures.
They'll move their capital wherever they think they can maximize their profits.
In fact, a sizable portion of the $700 billion will likely be invested in commodities, which means that we'll see another round of hyperbolic speculation in food and energy futures pushing food and fuel prices into the stratosphere.
$700 billion?
"It’s not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday.
"We just wanted to choose a really large number."
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$700 billion?
"It’s not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday
"We just wanted to choose a really large number"
In fact, a sizable portion of the $700 billion will likely be invested in commodities, which means that we'll see another round of hyperbolic speculation in food and energy futures pushing food and fuel prices into the stratosphere |
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You hear the laughter as they stampede the human cattle
One more 9/11 coming down the tube
Kewe |
"One bank to rule them
One bank to bind them..."
Brown's stupidity increasing!
Dissolving — as has been his and Blair's systematic pattern — even more into unreality, if that is possible!
Ditto for the U.S. Congress!
Ditto for McCain, Obama!
Ditto for Ban Ki-moon and all those at the UN still following the insanity!
Obama fascism creeping!
Watch out America!
Watch out UK!
Watch out East, West, those in South America not yet freed — all the many controlled by poisoned western nations and their gangster, illuminati bankers!
Too late for that!
Too late!
It ain't pretty!Kewe |
"One bank to rule them
One bank to bind them..." |
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It's all disgusting
Not as sickening as the mass murder of countless people committed by the west in Iraq and Afghanistan these past many years.
Not as sickening as the murders, injuries and injustices in Palestine, committed by fully US supported and paid for Israel settlers and troops.
“Golden parachute for Washington Mutual CEO”
“Washington Mutual's new CEO Alan Fishman — who had been on the job a measly 17 days — was paid nearly $20 million in the last month.”
“That includes a $7.5 million bonus when he was hired Sept. 8, 2008.
“And it includes a mind-blowing $11.6 million cash severance now that the company has gone under.
“That's on top of his base salary — a cool $1 million a year.
“All this while the company was posting billions in losses.”
Below are two reports — what they speak of, don't matter if tomorrow or next week — it's 2009 and 2010 and the fallout later, and that fallout later!
If you think this coming week and this month is bad, many more months will pass, and a year and more, and yes more!
This is far from finished!
The learning has to take place!
Perhaps at the end of all of this coming cycle we will no longer be so eager to allow our governments to be the killing machines — and the support for other killing machines — that our governments have become!
Perhaps our children, those who survive, will tell us that!
Kewe |
“We're looking at catastrophe, huge, amazing catastrophe.”
“It's going to be really, really nasty.”
“This has the potential to make 1929 look like a walk in the park.” Click here for marketoracle article |
Do we believe in 'free markets' or not?
The answer is important because in genuine free markets, banks would be failing by the dozens and the folks who set up a floating craps game based on your regular house payments as a revenue stream beneath it all, would be thrown out of business (and in jail for fraud) And while there would be momentary pain and suffering, the 'free market' would do its job and clear out the misinvestment and malinvestment that has characterized serial bubbles since 2000 Click here for urbansurvival.com daily report |
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Bailing Out Wall Street Won't Save Main Street
By MOSHE ADLER
Wall Street must be saved for the sake of Main Street, Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke tell us.
First, everyone has toxic financial instruments in their 401k's; and second, these instruments are clogging the credit system. But in fact neither claim is true.
The first claim is not true simply because the majority of Americans don't have any retirement accounts at all.
Credit system — Nothing can be done
And the claim that the credit system is clogged is not true because there is no object that can be removed in order to clear it.
What is true is that the securities that Wall Street invented are toxic.
But this is precisely why they should remain where they belong, in the vaults of those who created and pushed them.
Otherwise they will poison the rest of us, the poorest among us the most.
The government can and should stave off the increase in unemployment, but the only way the government can accomplish this is by hiring workers itself.
A bailout will make matters worse.
If it were indeed true that all Americans owned these new financial instruments, then the decline, or even the total collapse, of their value, would actually not have made a difference to anybody.
When the value of everybody's assets falls by the same proportion, nobody gains and nobody loses, because monetary wealth is only relative.
Thus, if Wall Street and Main Street were really the same, there would have been no economic crisis to begin with.
But the fact is, only 53% of full-time full-year workers participate in a retirement plan, and for Americans who are only part-timers or temporary workers the proportion is even lower.
The majority of Americans will therefore not benefit from the bailout at all.
But will they be hurt by it?
Badly.
Rich would become poorer — poor would become richer
If Wall Street fortunes were to evaporate, the result would be a major realignment of wealth in the country.
The rich would become poorer, and as a result the poor would become richer.
The very first thing a bailout will do is prevent this realignment from taking place.
The rich will continue to have their jets and their palaces and the poor will continue to struggle to go to the doctor and to find housing.
Heads, the rich win.
Tails?
Let's toss again.
There is no doubt that economic uncertainty leads to low investments and low borrowing.
There is also no doubt that mortgage-based-securities are partially responsible for this uncertainty, although the rising price of oil plays an important role as well.
But, as Keynes pointed out during the Great Depression, nobody knows how to restore lenders and investors' confidence once it has been lost.
And, in all likelihood, passing the mortgage backed security to the government will decrease, not increase, this confidence.
If the government acquires these securities, it will be left to a government employee (or, more likely, to a private contractor) to decide when 'the price is right' to sell them.
So large nobody knows how to price
But the volume of these securities is fantastically large, and nobody knows how to price them anyway.
The effect on financial markets will be colossal.
Business schools will start teaching new courses devoted to predicting the behavior of this bureaucrat.
New financial instruments will be invented to take advantage of this new 'expertise.'
The government employee herself will either succumb, or be accused of succumbing, to an overwhelming temptation to sell the old-new securities for prices that will benefit those closest to her.
The calls to regulate the new-new securities and to monitor the government employee in charge of selling the old-new securities will be deafening.
The level of economic uncertainty will increase many times over, and unemployment will increase along with it.
Many services Main Street desperately needs
What Keynes also pointed out during the Great Depression is that the government can increase employment by hiring workers itself.
To press his argument Keynes suggested that the government could always hire half the unemployed to dig ditches and the other half to fill them up.
But thanks to long years of neglect by the government, there are many government services that Main Street actually desperately needs:
More teachers
Better school lunches
More public transportation
More public universities with better facilities
More nurses and doctors...
More nursing homes for elderly people
More parks for the young
More housing for workers
More childcare for their children.
And, Keynes explained, once the government starts using its power to stabilize employment and to increase its citizens' standard of living, there is no doubt that the economic horizon will clear and private lending and investment will rebound as well.
Executive compensation can and should be taxed, heavily and retroactively
Normally, this would be the point at which the reader would ask: "But how do we pay for this all?"
But not today.
First, the government can use the money that the President and Congress want to give Wall Street.
In addition, it is now clear that executive compensation is not a just reward.
It can and should be taxed, heavily, and perhaps even retroactively.
Trickle down solutions to free market problems have had more than a fair chance.
The only way that the government can perform its job is to work for Main Street directly. |
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Patient dies in US Emergency Room after 19 hour wait
Half a day for a sore throat.
Hours for stitches or a sprained ankle.
For 58-year-old Michael Herrara of Dallas help never came.
He died of a heart attack after an estimated 19 hours waiting at Parkland Memorial Hospital's emergency room.
Edward Marquez, Michael Herrera's nephew, said he watched for an hour as paramedics, not doctors, tried
to revive him.
By the time doctors managed to see him, Michael Herrera was in a fatal cardiac arrest.
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After waiting about 19 hours for medical attention at Parkland Memorial Hospital's emergency room, a Dallas restaurateur died
On that day he was one of 270 people who checked into Parkland's ER
Click for wfaa.com report |
| This is mostly fallout because your regular monthly mortgage payments were not enough for the Banksters They took your payments and turned them into a floating craps game... expecting to put the craps game costs onto your shoulders |
There's a certain desperation in the Paulson/Bernanke plea that isn't yet explained.
Do we acquiesce to their demands?
Not no but hell no!
Click for daily report by UrbanSurvival.com |
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Comments on YouTube:Paulson and his cohorts produces a four-page working document that the Bush Administration expects to be jammed down the throats of Americans in keeping with the 'Shock and Awe' principle that worked so well in Iraq.
The Bush Administration has been orchestrating a coup d'etat in slow motion for 7 years.
This bail out is the final nail in the coffin of our democracy. |
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Comment from Kewe —
Activity being monitored by off-planet intelligence includes particle collider acceleration, extreme warfare upon nations bringing death and injury to people who cannot defend themselves, and finance manipulation.
Presently there are somewhat colored jokes passing through the off-planet community monitoring Earth with regard to the US Federal Reserve making available to central banks such as Reserve Bank of Australia, Sweden's Riksbank, Denmark's Nationalbank and Norway's Norges Bank worthless U.S. Federal Reserve currency dollars, these electronic transfers being sent in the form of loans.
These loans follow similar advances to UK, Canada, Japan and the European Central Bank of worthless U.S. Federal Reserve currency dollars.
Excellent Asia Times article below titled, 'Paulson plan throws oil on fire.'
Problem with the article is that it still seeks to make lemonade out of very sour lemons.
The US has no sugar — it is that simple.
Whether Congress approves the Paulson plan or rejects it there is no solution, for those spread around the world who hold US dollars, for the US itself.
The U.S. nation has long been in a bankrupt situation.
Only the willingness of the Japan government, the China government and other governments to continue to buy U.S. bonds, and the unwillingness of bankers to attempt to redeem worthless U.S. dollars, has kept the U.S. currency afloat until now.
Approving the Paulson plan will delay the most major repercussions for the dollar world until after a new administration.
Approving the Paulson plan could delay the demise of the West's present capitalistic system for as long as 2 years.
Not approving the Paulson plan will see a slow slide into world financial hell until the West's present capitalistic system collapses under its own burden.
Approving or not approving the Paulson plan will ultimately make no difference.
The only choice now for the U.S. Congress, if it wishes the U.S. to retain some power in the future, is to take the money gathered from the crimes, from the criminals.
The U.S. must also free itself from the U.S. Federal Reserve system — by declaring the U.S. Federal Reserve system a criminal enterprise.
All bankers and banking families who have participated in the U.S. Federal Reserve criminal enterprise must be stripped of their assets and charged with treason — the U.S. government taking all assets from this criminal enterprise.
Similar activity must be done in Europe and all other nations in thrall to such bankers.
The U.S. government must establish new dollars and must own and print its own money.
It has no choice but to declare bankruptcy of the old dollar.
This will be painful and the upheaval throughout the world will be painful.
Buying on credit will cease for the U.S. until it can be established that currency use by the U.S. has validity again.
Needless to say the U.S. will never again be the reserve currency for the world — likely no one country will ever again have that power.
Declaring bankruptcy of the old dollar or incriminating the bankers responsible for the present U.S. bankruptcy will not be done by the present U.S. congress.
The present U.S. congress will pass or defeat the Paulson plan and little else, and so ultimately, within two years, bring about complete financial collapse of the U.S., and the collapse of a financial system most other nations on the planet have been using.
The world's financial system as we know it, as indeed all other systems as we know them, are at an end.
Kewe
Despite facts the Asia Times article below outlines, it continues to try to make lemonade.
This cannot be done — the U.S. is bankrupt — the U.S. owes even at this time far more than its total citizenry can ever absorb.
There is no solution except to declare formal bankruptcy and complete worthlessness of the present U.S. dollar.
Print a new non-federal-reserve U.S. dollar for its citizens.
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The U.S. Congressional Budget Office had previously projected a record fiscal deficit of US$500 billion for 2009 The MFI will further blow up the deficit to an unprecedented level, exceeding US$1.4 trillion US debt, jumping with the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to 86% of GDP, has moved to an unsustainable level Messrs Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve chairman respectively [are] diverting public resources to bankers, under the guise of protecting the economy and averting systemic risk
Debtors will default, knowing that these loans are secured by the government
Such strong motivation for default can turn the amount of defaulted loans into trillions and push liabilities of the MFI to forbidden levels If the fiscal deficit exerts pressure on interest rates, then the deficit will rise even further, the cost of monumental private debt increase, and mass default both nationally and internationally will set off Click here for Asia Times article |
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How Long Before the Dominos Begin to Tumble?
Les Visible
September 22, 2008 |
Can anyone doubt that the time is at hand!
It’s funny how everything from Biblical prophecy to the Mayan Calendar; everything from sources channeling The Cassiopeans to those channeling The Pleiadians; everything from rational atheists to practicing metaphysicians all say some day is just about now.
Economists (who aren’t lying sacks of shit) say so.
The same liars go on from one day to the next cosmeticizing this hyena culture while they loot the till.
Worst gangs of organized psychopaths that we have ever seen
Who’s to blame?
Well... there are several culprits:
The deregulation junkies whose sole purpose is to allow corporations to rip off the public under the banner of free enterprise.
The ‘greed is good’ crowd — all of the Ayn Rand, “Me first, you later... maybe” contingent.
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The black wash of materialism across the globe, the ‘gospel of wealth’
Religious hypocrites who like to paint sugar water under the eyes of starving black children for their photo-op moments holding these kids on their laps (in their spanking new Banana Republic Safari outfits) in the hope of squeezing money out of the ordinary Nimrods who put their faith in these jerks and who contribute to hunger porn.
The generally bone dead stupid — ‘go along to get along’ public.
And sundry reptiles
And certainly the Zionist controlled media
And certainly the Zionists themselves who are one of the worst gangs of organized psychopaths that we have ever seen.
Will the solutions offered by Secretary Paulson heal the bleeding?
Will Secretary Paulson, who is criminally complicit in the very crimes that brought this about, ride in on his lame horse with his paunchy frame suited up in his Lone Ranger outfit save America from default?
No... He won’t.
What are these conscienceless swine also up to?
They’re working out the final plans for the next Mossad/C.I.A. false flag attack as they step by step frog march from Yemen to the Islamabad Marriot and on to the big one by stages and degrees.
These vampire pigs are tacking into the wind in their last desperate efforts to screw everything up while they lay hold of all the devalued properties and assets that are now in fire sale mode because of conditions they set into play for just that reason.
And they are going to get a spanking the like of which has not been seen in a long time but I can’t talk about that here.
Just mosey on over to Visible Origami in the next few days for the Central Command posting.
Let a pack of vicious weasels rape and pillage at will
It’s amazing isn’t it?
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You take off the controls and let a pack of vicious weasels rape and pillage at will, get their asses into trouble and then... then ‘we the people’ bail them out at our expense because it’s for the greater good of all.
The public whippings and humiliations so well deserved by these blood-stained clowns is nowhere in evidence.
Tune in next week to hear what heroes they all are.
Senator (I can’t remember my name)
Meanwhile, Senator (I can’t remember my name) McCain is giving one of the best impressions of a Tom Fool idiot that I have ever seen.
He thinks nothing of embarrassing himself day after day.
Sooner or later the air in his head is just going to give up and it will hang down on his chest like a flaccid prophylactic that got blown up at a neighborhood sex toy party....
Tupperware just doesn’t have the same attraction anymore in mainline America.
Obama’s team is playing it cool.
All they have to do is just let McCain self-destruct.
And very shortly a lot of Palin’s dirty laundry is going to be hanging out on the international clothesline.
However, Obama has kneeled before the Zionists and offered them his hindquarters so we’ll have to see if he can snatch himself upright should the reins of power fall to him.
One thing America must do is cut Israel loose.
It is a menace and an abomination and a lot of America’s present difficulties can be traced there, one way or the other.
Who would have ever thought that Russia would be the good guys?
Major, strategic kudos to them for finessing the balance of powers game and embracing everyone who doesn’t like the neo-con, mad dog ballerina act — and that’s a whole lot of nations around the world.
You think things are bad now?
You have to realize that quite some numbers of the players are clinically insane.
They don’t know the meaning of reason or fair play.
They want to own the world and enslave the world’s population.
That’s a simple conclusion that can be arrived at with little difficulty.
It’s a funny thing about the arrogance of power.
It robs you of your good sense and leaves you exposed and vulnerable to all sorts of things you didn’t expect.
Don’t stand up and call for their heads — that bravery is beyond you
I’ve said it before and I will say it again — the worst thing about this is the millions of people who bought into the lie and who are going to be sucked down with the ship.
Ignorance is bliss only when the consequences have not yet arrived on the scene.
You go right on trusting the fools who got you into this mess.
Don’t stand up and call for their heads.
That bravery is beyond you and it’s probably because the loss of bravery is directly connected to the loss of integrity.
It’s all the little corruptions that make the big corruptions possible.
It’s the way the prevailing philosophy trickles down into the lives of the people that accounts for the fatal blindness that you now endure.
It’s probably always been on the way because it is human nature to take the easy road as if there ever were an easy road.
Fiat currency game
This present debacle can be traced back to the reinstitution of the Federal Reserve and the country’s money masters and to the fiat currency game.
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These snakes have all got their bolt holes.
They’ve got their bunkers and the gold and they’re just going to be safe and tidy and warm when the cold wind of destiny sweeps around the world.
Not this time though.
This time is going to be different I do believe but we shall see.
When you have good laws that serve the public interest you can count on stability and security.
When those laws can be altered at the whim of those who can employ profit-junkie lawyers to manipulate the landscape of justice for the benefit of the few then you really don’t have any good laws left.
The highest court of the land is a pack of whores
They ably demonstrated that in 2000 when they changed the definition of justice in a permanent way.
When one of the chief justices can freely associate with one of the chief architects of these crimes against the people then you’ve got what you got today.
You got nothing.
Your pensions are evaporating.
Your health care is a joke.
Your streets are filled with a generation of vipers so self absorbed that all they can hear any more is coming out of their ipods.
Judgment is coming folks and I don’t think it matters where you think that judgment is coming from.
From some divine agency or just the consequence of stupid, self interest where the numbers do what numbers do.
No matter what you may believe or not believe you surely know that there is balance in the world and when it goes missing it will adjust itself no matter where you are standing and without a thought for you.
I can’t within the medium of words, adequately convey what I am trying to say but that doesn’t matter either.
Nothing I or anyone says is going to have any effect on what is in front of you.
You have better wake up.
Something New
© 2008 Les Visible
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"One bank to rule them all;
One bank to bind them..."
Section 8 of the proposed legislation says it all:
"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."
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Paulson rose to power in a stealthily-executed Banksters’ Coup in which he, and his coterie of dodgy friends, declared martial law on the US economy Congress is infinitely grateful for its purely ceremonial role, the equivalent of Caligula's horse The banksters own this country, always have; only now they've decided to strip away the curtain and reveal the ghoulish visage of the puppet-master
It ain't pretty Complete article by Mike Whitney |
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Too big to fail? We'll see
“...The capital we thought was there is gone. A lot of it was actually translated over the years into Hamptons villas, Gulfstream jets, and other playthings that will now go up on Ebay or some equivalent as we turn into Yard Sale Nation in a general liquidation of remaining assets.... Everything is for sale and nobody has any money.”
— James H. Kunstler, 9/15/08
Richard Rhames Friday, September 17, 2008 |
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A bail-out to nowhere
The tremors come faster now. Candidate McCain mimics Herbert Hoover asserting that the economic “fundamentals” are sound, even as Wall Street asset Hank Paulson announces the latest lofting of US Treasury life preservers.
The fiscal flotation devices will allow Hank’s cohorts a “soft landing” in more comfortable climes than await the majority here in America the Deflating.
Even the corporate media, reflexively dedicated to promoting “consumer confidence” and keeping the gullible in their seats long enough for the swag-toting executive larcenists to make for the exits, murmur about a new 1929.
As if stock market mattered to ordinary people
With the usual misdirection, the press reports plummeting Wall Street stock prices as if they mattered to ordinary people.
In fact, as economist Dean Baker has repeatedly pointed out
“[T]he stock market is not a good barometer of the economy’s health.
“It can be driven up as a result of a redistribution from wages to profits, or simply as a result of irrational exuberance.
“Neither is good for the economy as a whole, although anything that pushes up stock prices is obviously good news for the small minority of people who own substantial amounts of stock.”
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Real wages stagnant for 34 years
Meanwhile, Baker’s colleague at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Mark Weisbrot informed Miami Herald (9/1/08) readers that real — inflation adjusted — wages have been virtually stagnant for 34 years.
Since 1973, as the stock market climbed, “productivity — the amount that workers produce per hour — increased quite substantially...”
But, while this “ ‘useable productivity’ — the increased production that we can expect to be reflected in rising wages —” rose 48 percent from 1973 to 2007, paychecks didn’t.
Only well-connected at top benefited
The “economy” grew but only the well-connected at the top benefited.
Wall Street exulted in the new profits extracted from the under-compensated toil of the same working people who were now repeatedly urged to cheer the increasing fortunes of their masters.
As the downscale waged workers fell behind, they were offered EZ credit, first through deregulated credit card loan sharkery, and then, as the real estate bubble was ruthlessly inflated, through the infamous “home equity extraction” gambit and/or serial “house flipping.”
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Deferred wages converted into crap-shoot schemes
Their “defined benefit” pension plans — deferred wages — were converted into crap-shoot “defined contribution” schemes and Enronized.
Most people’s “wealth” is represented by their house and maybe their car.
People were encouraged to feel (and act) richer as the housing bubble and its heady irrational exuberance seemed to boost house values by $8 trillion nationwide.
But now the music has stopped, the chickens flutter home to roost, and the piper shrieks for payment.
As massive asset deflation continues, housing prices return to their long-term historic levels, and on average Baker notes, that vanishing $8 trillion in illusory “housing bubble wealth” translates into a $110,000 hit per homeowner.
These hapless folks, “will see much of the equity in their home disappear.”
Using house as an ATM machine
Since so many Americans essentially re-mortgaged themselves in bubble time — using their house as an ATM machine through an equity withdrawal — and continued to consume at a level their stagnant or declining wages no longer allowed, this implacable (and unfinished) deflationary swoon spells real pain.
Yet the media / political focus is on the Wall Street Weak and Dr. Hank’s hundred billion dollar injections.
Pundits and “analysts” worry aloud about the fate of a rumored “free market economy” — a construct that exists only in the misty realm of unicorns, Easter bunnies, tooth fairies, “honest Republicans”, and “good corporate citizens.”
Government securing outlandish private profits of society’s greediest people
Sadly and unsurprisingly the story is an old an familiar one: Government socializing costs and risk while securing the outlandish private profits of society’s greediest people.
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There’s nothing new here.
The more interesting question is whether we are at a point in our rather lamentable and bloody history when the usual tricks may no longer work.
In a country that no longer manufactures much except weapons of war, or cultural weapons of mass distraction, kept afloat mainly by massive infusions of foreign capital, with a domestic/domesticated population famously dependent on “credit” and buried in personal debt, are we approaching the End of Something?
Great Depression U.S. still had —
As James H. Kunstler has reminded us lately, in that last great greed-induced deflationary spiral, called the Great Depression, the US had not yet squandered its vast oil and gas reserves, its productive industrial base, demeaned and vanquished its proud and self-conscious working class, depopulated its agricultural landscape, emptied and beggared its great cities.
And outside of a few genocidal romps against the American Indian and the “pockmarked Khadiak ladrone” Filipinos, the population had not perhaps yet acquired the taste for blood, booty, and blitzkrieg that now so exemplifies The American Way.
“The Great Depression of the thirties never came to an end,” wrote John Kenneth Galbraith (American Capitalism, 1952).
“It merely disappeared in the great [W.W.II] mobilization of the forties.”
And — by the 1950s —in an effort to prevent another Depression, “the permanent war economy was born.”
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For decades, a not-yet bankrupt America found the money for easy living, suburban sprawling, and endless war: Guns and butter.
But now the butter may have to be put aside.
Our foreign creditors grow weary of enabling our haughty bloodlust.
European Union with its prosperous cities
The European Union, with its prosperous cities, assertive worker culture, and strengthening currency has surpassed the US in economic size and power — not to mention standard-of-living.
Presidential candidates flatter a distracted public that the US is “the hope of the world — the shining city on the hill.”
But like much of their hucksterism, it’s a comforting lie.
That hour (if ever it existed) has passed.
Something less congenial this way comes.
Click here to read and view Liberty News TV |
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The problems cannot be resolved by shifting the debts of the banks onto the taxpayer.
That's an illusion.
By adding another $1 or $2 trillion dollars to the National Debt, Paulson is just ensuring that interest rates will go up, real estate will crash, unemployment will soar, and foreign central banks will abandon the dollar.
In truth, there is no fix for a deleveraging market anymore than there is a fix for gravity.
The belief that massive debts and insolvency can be erased by increasing liquidity just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of economics.
That's why Henry Paulson is the worst possible person to be orchestrating the so called rescue project.
Paulson comes from a business culture which rewards deception, personal acquisitiveness, and extreme risk-taking.
...No one has any idea of the magnitude of the deleveraging ahead or the size of the debts that will have to be written down.
That's because 30 years of deregulation has allowed a parallel financial system to arise in which over $500 trillion dollars in derivatives are traded without any government supervision or accounting.
Mike Whitney |
The entire system is deleveraging with the ferocity of a Force-5 gale touching down in the Gulf and yet Henry Paulson has decided that the prudent thing to do is build levees around the system with paper dollars The Paulson strategy is to create another ocean of red ink while refusing to face the underlying problem head-on The malfunctioning of the markets and the freeze-over in the banking system are the outcome of a massive credit unwind instigated by trillions of dollars of low interest credit from the Federal Reserve which was magnified many times over via complex derivatives contracts and extreme leveraging by speculative investment bankers.
This has generated the biggest equity bubble in history click here for complete article |
U.S. Debt Escalating Military Spending — Income Redistribution in Disguise |
US recognised public debt close to 10 trillionActual debt — US already completely bankrupt |
How it went wrong |
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Daniel Castillo — German Economy in the 1920s
There were several characteristics which Germany possessed after the First World War which made them vulnerable to being manipulated by someone like Adolf Hitler
As in most nations, the economic factors of the time play a significant role in determining how a society will behave.... |
Something extraordinary is going on with these government bailouts...
... Treasury bills are the I.O.U.s of the federal government
We the taxpayers are on the hook for the Fed’s "enhanced liquidity facilities," meaning the loans it has been making to everyone in sight, bank or non-bank, exercising obscure provisions in the Federal Reserve Act that may or may not say they can do it.
Ellen Brown |
And there’s the catch: What if the hedge fund doesn’t have the $100 million? The fund’s corporate shell or limited partnership is put into bankruptcy but both parties are claiming the derivative as an asset on their books which they now have to write down It is also why the banking system cannot let a major derivatives player go down and it is the banking system that calls the shots the Federal Reserve is literally owned by a conglomerate of banks It's the Derivatives, Stupid! click here for derivatives — the Best Game in Town |
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Thursday, 18 September 2008
Northern Rock expands state debt |
The government rescue of Northern Rock bank last year has pushed up the level of the national debt.
In August, net government debt stood at £633bn which was 43.3% of the nation's economic output, known as GDP.
A year ago, the level of state debt stood at £507bn, or just 36.4% of economic output.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said most of this was due to the cost of buying Northern Rock and taking on its liabilities.
Nationalisation
The near-insolvent Northern Rock was formally nationalised in February.
However, the ONS has now revised its monthly state borrowing figures back to October 2007, to include the effect of the bank's bail-out in the national debt.
That was when the Rock was first included in public finances as a result of the rescue operation mounted that summer and autumn by the Bank of England and the Treasury.
By the end of June this year, the government had loaned directly the Northern Rock £21bn.
However, the liabilities taken on through the Rock's takeover have boosted the national debt by much more — pushing it up by £92bn last October.
The Bank of England's extra financing to the banking system because of the credit crunch, known as the Special Liquidity Scheme, may also be included in public finances as well.
However the ONS said it had not yet come to a decision on how to do this.
Record borrowing
In August alone, net borrowing by the government rose by a record monthly sum of £10.4bn as it sought to finance its own spending.
The figure was higher than expected because weak growth in tax revenues, due to the economic slowdown, had not kept pace with increased public spending.
Earlier this year the chancellor Alistair Darling predicted that he would have to borrow an extra £43bn this year.
But so far, in the first five months of the financial year he has already borrowed £28.2bn, suggesting he may well exceed his target.
"If recent trends are sustained, borrowing would reach £64bn for the year as a whole — almost 50% higher than the government’s £43bn target and well above the record deficit of £51bn in 1993," said Andrew Goodwin of the Ernst & Young ITEM Club.
"And with the economic outlook likely to worsen over the coming months there is a good chance that the outturn could be even worse," he added.
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Status Report on the Collapse of the U.S. Economy
by Richard C. Cook Global Research, July 16, 2008 With the economic news of the week of July 14—the continuing crisis among mortgage lenders, the onset of bank failures, the announced downsizing of General Motors, the slide of the Dow-Jones below 11,000 — we are seeing the ongoing collapse of the U.S. economy. |
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Even the super-rich are becoming nervous as cries for an emergency suspension of short selling ring out.
Crushed by overall debt burden
What is really taking place, however, is that the producing economy of working men and women is being crushed by the overall debt burden on households, businesses, and governments that could reach $70 trillion by 2010.
Financial system bankrupt
The financial system, including mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is bankrupt, as the debts it is based on cannot be repaid.
This is because the producing economy of people who work for a living simply can no longer generate enough purchasing power for people either to pay their debts or allow them to purchase what is being sold in the marketplace.
In turn it is the debt burden and the loss of societal purchasing power that are crashing the stock market.
Destroying producing economy
Thus the collapse of the financial economy has started to destroy the producing economy as well.
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It’s a “perfect storm,” the result of a 200-year-old financial system where money is largely created by bank lending and where since 1980 our industry and jobs have been increasingly outsourced abroad to cheap labor markets.
Thus domestic incomes have stagnated while the nation’s GDP has not been able to keep up with the exponential growth of debt.
Jobs taken away, pensions eroded, homes foreclosed
While the mainstream media are blind, deaf, and dumb as to the causes, the victims within the middle and working classes are seeing their livelihoods ruined, jobs taken away, pensions eroded, homes foreclosed on, and are being saddled with ever-increasing debt and forced to work under more and more stress due to rising burdens of taxation, gas and food price inflation, and bureaucratic rules and regulations.
The only places a more-or-less normal life may still be possible will be the wealthiest imperial centers like Washington, New York, Houston, Chicago, or San Francisco.
Creating more debt to shore up failing financial institutions
All that the current bailouts being engineered by the Federal Reserve are doing is to create more debt to shore up failing financial institutions. No new wealth is being created.
It’s band-aids on band-aids.
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The problem politically is that control of the U.S. long ago was turned over to the bankers and the financiers of the Western world.
It was called financial “deregulation,” accelerated under President Ronald Reagan, and has run amok since then.
From a longer historical view, it’s the same phenomenon that first created and then ruined the British Empire , and it’s what created and is now ruining the American Empire today.
Side-effect of control by bankers and financiers is that they are also Zionists
A side-effect of control by the bankers and financiers is that they are also Zionists, so we have the added multi-trillion dollar burden of trying to conquer the Middle East on behalf of the international oil interests and the state of Israel.
The situation has deteriorated sharply since the 1970s as U.S. affairs have been managed on behalf of the financial interests by what you might call the “Three Amigos” — Henry Kissinger, Paul Volcker, and Alan Greenspan.
Kissinger, while Nixon’s secretary of state, made the U.S. dependent on the Middle East for oil, lavished billions on Israel ’s war machine, and created the petrodollar to support our trade and fiscal deficits.
Volcker, while chairman of the Federal Reserve, crashed the U.S. producing economy in the recession of 1979-1983, leading to the rise of the “service economy.”
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Greenspan presided over bubble economy created through massive official fraud
Greenspan, during his own Federal Reserve chairmanship, presided over the bubble economy which was created through massive official fraud in home mortgage lending and is now sinking like the Titanic.
The politicians have enabled these financial crimes.
Above all it’s been the Bush family
Above all it’s been the Bush family which has served as a political Trojan Horse for the financiers for three generations, with affairs having become much worse since George H.W. Bush invaded Iraq for the first time in 1991.
The enablers have included a majority of the members of the U.S. Congress.
(See the conclusion of Patrick Buchanan’s new book, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War for an account of how the U.S. since the Bush I presidency has replicated the catastrophic errors of failed British imperialism.)
The American people are not entirely innocent.
Financier-owned media
We have been so lulled to sleep by the financier-owned media that we have allowed these disasters to take place and are now reaping the consequences.
We have been the fodder for their wars and the signers of their loans.
We have tried to carve out our own piece of the pie which is now crumbling.
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What is taking place is not just the collapse of the U.S., but more than likely the final crash of Western civilization, since we are the last of the world empires to go down the drain.
World War I saw the end of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman empires.
World War II saw the disappearance of the French, British, Japanese, and Italian empires, along with Nazi Germany.
The Soviet empire collapsed in 1991.
The American is next.
The danger is that we may lash out and start a nuclear World War III out of frustration and to appease the elitists of the world who see war and famine as their pathway to world control.
Such a war would also mean a military takeover domestically to manage the pathetically weak nation that we are becoming.
Bankers and financiers do not care if nations and empires destroy themselves because they are internationalists
The bankers and financiers do not care if nations and empires destroy themselves and each other, because they are internationalists.
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In fact, the more war and mass starvation there is the better off they feel.
All they need is a base from which to operate.
London has been their main base of operations since the Bank of England was founded in 1694, though they have a strong presence in other nations.
Elitism in the form of Freemasonry
They have been especially influential in northwest Europe, where elitism in the form of Freemasonry endeavored since the time of the French Revolution to destroy the authority of the Catholic Church.
In fact, World War I was a project of the Freemasons in dismembering Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, both largely Catholic.
This destruction allowed the masters of usury to flourish within the atheistic and materialistic culture that Freemasonry fostered across Europe.
World War I also resulted in the virus of Communism, largely egged on by the internationalists and Freemasons, though it had such a tragic impact on Russia and Central Europe before spreading to China and East Asia.
It is theoretically possible that the US as a nation could still save itself through an internal revolution, while playing a much reduced role in the world.
After all, England , France , and Italy still exist as shadows of their past greatness.
Try to survive
But, realistically, all ordinary people can do today is try to survive, perhaps by working with friends and neighbors in planting food and living within the underground economy.
At least people might not then have to starve to death, because hard as it is to believe that “it could happen here,” widespread famine in the U.S. seems a real possibility over the next several years.
Nations take such risks when they allow capitalist agribusiness to destroy local agriculture.
On a national level, it is likely that as a response to the economic crisis some attempt will be made by desperate politicians to try to replicate the New Deal, but to do this effectively would require political control by a nationalistic reform party.
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Even then, additional reform measures such as control of credit as a public utility, a basic income guarantee, and a national dividend would be needed for real economic security to replace the current madness that could soon make the U.S. a relic of history.
www.RichardCCook.com
© Copyright 2005-2008 GlobalResearch.ca |
Most Americans, including the presidential candidates and the media, are unaware that the US government today, now at this minute, is unable to finance its day-to-day operations and must rely on foreigners to purchase its bonds.
The government pays the interest to foreigners by selling more bonds, and when the bonds come due, the government redeems the bonds by selling new bonds.
The day the foreigners do not buy is the day the American people and their government are brought to reality.
Paul Craig Roberts |
When airlines were regulated, they could afford standby equipment, and cancelled flights were rareDeregulating the airlines destroyed famous American brand names such as Pan Am shrank the number of companies, and caused a decline in service Goods and services for American markets that US corporations outsource offshore return as imports which widen the US trade deficit All that's left is finance, and it is crumbling before our eyes |
U.S. Debt Escalating Military Spending — Income Redistribution in Disguise |
The rich are playing and you are paying
Rich elite setting up derivatives on India Stock Exchange
Cannot get enough of the poison that is causing the rise in food commodity prices and oil prices
The reason your food bill is going up |
The reason your house mortgage is going up
The reason the price of your home is going down
The reason your gas — petrol — oil has gone up
The reason all bills are going up
The reason the price of everything you touch is going up!
It's the rich elite playing the derivative market
The rich are playing and you are paying |
The international elite cartel running the US government will not make the rich pay for their play
The international elite cartel running Europe will not make the rich pay for their play
The international elite cartel who control everything
They are the one's doing the playing
Watch out India!
That middle class you think is being created
Just like in the US!
Just like in the UK!
Going! Going! Going! Gone! |
U.S. Debt Escalating Military Spending — Income Redistribution in Disguise |
ANYONE BUT DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS |
| Canada, US, Western rogue governments — War crimes continue |
Afghanistan hit by record number of bombs
Bruce Rolfsen, Air Force Times
July 19, 2008
Air Force and allied warplanes are dropping a record number of bombs on Afghanistan targets.
For the first half of 2008, aircraft dropped 1,853 bombs — more than they released during all of 2006 and more than half of 2007’s total — 3,572 bombs. |
Western Terror States: Canada, US, UK, France, Germany, Italy Photos of Afghanistan people being killed and injured by NATO |
Cluster bombs Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon US new generation of landmines called Spider |
| IraqAlmost a million dead4 million displaced, scattered into other countriesUntold injuredHorror of US UK invasion continuing |
Basra, Fallujah, Baghdad, Mosul... US created Iraq — devastated cities They are such liars |
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EndGame — Alex Jones, you have done the world a great favor
It has taken me until now to view this great masterpiece that chronicles the planet's true history
But I am glad for this delay as my awareness of reality, and the events that seemingly must unfold to educate humankind, have come from sentience off planet — now with this movie the circles merge
A movie par excellence, it will likely be considered the most significant in the downfall of the rich and powerful who control the world and rising politicians already in their pocket — the imprisonment of all those who seek to bring forth this horror, this enslavement of 'New World Order'
Kewe
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| The aim of TheWE.biz is to make us all aware that the most murderous violence and terror by far, committed by anyone, is done by The West
Violence and terror is the footprint and modus operandi of Western Government and the shadow power that operates from behind these 'elected officials'
This film helps us to focus on that reality
Indonesia's 9/11 — Exposing US government operations in the Bali Bombing
Kewe |
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 Archives only for We The People Radio Network |
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Questioning War, Organizing Resistance — Carol Brouillet Glen Clancy, from Victoria, Australia, created "Fool Me Twice" described as 'A documentary about the Australian government's lies about the East Timor massacres, the cover-up of the Bali Bombings and subsequent anti-terror laws.' The 25 year old, Clancy is Australia's Dylan Avery (of Loose Change fame). The work was originally created to be viewed online, but Clancy is working on improving the resolution for larger screen and theatrical viewing. Glen wrote (at the Fool Me Twice Blog on December 4, 2008)
To all,
After discovering 911 was an inside job, through such movies as Loose Change, Terrorstorm and Zeitgeist, I decided to investigate the Bali bombings. The evidence was overwhelming. There had been a cover-up.
As shocking as the truth may be, please keep an open mind while viewing this documentary. FOOL ME TWICE is 100% sourced. Please see reference list below. I tried to produce a documentary as true to the genre as possible, limiting opinion and simply documenting the facts.
I believe that 911 Truth is one of the most important movements of our time and exposing the cover-up of the 2002 Bali bombings can help destroy the "911/War on terror/Al-CIAda" myth.
Please help spread this information.
Kind regards,
Glen
To listen to the March 10, 2008 interview of Glen Clancy by Carol Brouillet broadcast on:We The People Radio Network — Right Click Here (Save Target As, Link As, File) MP3 1 hour
Americans are politically paralyzed by both cognitive dissonance and by what psychologists call “learned helplessness,” the result of years of having one outrage after another foisted upon them, without there ever being any real accountability.
So, as many truthers have discovered, the most common reactions of average Americans, when presented with the facts of 9/11, are either, “My government would never do that,” or, “Okay . . . but what can anybody do about it?”
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Before that he was with the City of Sacramento as a Firefighter Paramedic.
He first began working in Emergency Services in 1988 in the Sacramento area with a 911 private paramedic ambulance company.
He has 20 years experience in Emergency Services.
He earned my pilot's license in 1987, and have been recreationally flying since.
He graduated with a Bachelor's of Science in Mathematics from the University of California at Davis in 1993, with 2 years of elective Engineering courses, and a Minor in Psychology.
Erik wrote a moving account of his own shift in consciousness regarding 9/11 which prompted him to start Fire Fighters For 9/11 Truth entitled: MAYDAY...MAYDAY...MAYDAY.
Here's an excerpt:
I, like most Americans, remember exactly where I was when I saw the attacks and had the overwhelming urge to take action.
I was shocked, outraged, scared and confused.
I called my Battalion Chief and asked if Seattle would be sending any teams to help.
I was a member of the MMST, and figured we would be needed and I wanted to know where to report.
Due to the nature of the incident we were not called up, and instead USAR teams, including Seattle's, were sent.
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I first visited Ground Zero in October of 2001 with several firefighters from Seattle.
We went to pay our respect and show support.
We raised money for our brother firehouses and attended the funerals of our fallen Brothers.
I was deeply moved and humbled by the community support, the sheer enormity of the tragedy along with the courage and compassion of the FDNY "Brotherhood."
I vividly remember the anger, the intense desire for vengeance,the feelings of helplessness
Even though I listened to their stories for days, I cannot even begin to imagine the pain and tragedy they suffered on that day and the years to come.
I vividly remember the anger I felt, the intense desire for vengeance, and the feelings of helplessness.
I was relieved when the government identified the terrorists and satisfied that we were going to have a swift deliverance of "justice."
I've been a conservative my entire life; a registered Republican since I could vote.
I am a self proclaimed Patriot with George Washington as one of my all time heroes.
So when conspiracy theories quickly surfaced, and "Liberals" cried foul on the erosion of civil liberties, I chalked it up to their political beliefs and bitterness towards the Republican President.
I read many debunking articles — including Popular Mechanics — and watched many debunking videos including, Farenhype 9/11.
I was convinced that these "Liberals" were misinformed and were grasping at straws to discredit the "official" story.
Don't confuse me with the facts, I have my mind made up!
Like most people with strong opinions, instead of looking at all the facts, I was specifically looking for anything that supported my own beliefs.
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As soon as I discovered any inaccuracy in a conspiracy claim, I wrote it off.
My father, a big city cop and Korean War veteran, loved to say, "don't confuse me with the facts, I have my mind made up!"
Well, I had my mind made up.
I told conspiracy theorists like my own Truck Officer, Lt. Earl Emerson, that they were insane if they thought anyone other than the terrorists did this.
Bin Laden confession tapes — how much clearer did they need it
Heck, we have ID cards, security camera videos, Bin Laden confession tapes — how much clearer did they need it?
The years went on and I was satisfied in my beliefs.
I even believed these "Wackos" that doubted the "official" story were distracting our country from focusing on the real threat of terrorism...
Fast forward to March of 2008.
A great friend of mine with a Business degree from West Point, as conservative and non-conspiratorial as they get, came over one night to talk about what he saw happening in the economy.
Began researching such things as economies, who is in control of currencies
He provided some disconcerting evidence that we as a nation are at risk of entering into another depression; he pointed out historical parallels where other countries, such as Germany, suffered economic collapse.
THAT was my eye opener.
I became obsessed researching things such as economies, who is in control of currencies, what causes depressions, who profits during war, etc.
So many things kept pointing to 9/11.
Another one of my dad's favorite quotes was, "believe half of what you see and none of what you hear."
So, I looked at both sides and quickly noticed a pattern.
On one side, the general media ignores some of the most compelling evidence that contradicts the "official" story...
When I voiced my new opinion and concerns most of my friends listened.
Shocked that a staunch Conservative could have such a major shift
I think because they were shocked that a staunch Conservative could have such a major shift, or because they thought I had lost my mind and wanted to diagnose the cause.
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Curiously, some became angry at my new questions and actually thought I was supporting Terrorists with my concerns.
Being a part of that same mindset myself only a few weeks ago, and then having a major shift in consciousness, really shook me to the core.
What has happened to our collective consciousness that we believe anyone who doubts the "official" story or what the government tells us is an enemy?
What has happened to us — are we not founded on Freedom of Speech and taught to check our Government?
Anyone who asks for the Truth is labeled a "Wacko" or "Terrorist Sympathizer?"
What has happened to us?
Are we not founded on Freedom of Speech and taught to check our Government?...
To be honest, I was asleep at the wheel, and relied on what I was being told by mainstream media.
The same media whose parent corporations, are some of the largest suppliers of weapons in this war.
Before this "awakening" I had no idea the extent of our civil liberties that had been eroded in the name of Terrorism.
I had never really wrapped my brain around what legalized torture means.
I had always claimed America was noble.
Just look at how we treated POW's during WWII and Vietnam compared to our enemies.
[Ever check out the real story of John McCain as a POW, keep investigating! — TheWE.biz]
That separated us.
We were setting the example of Human Rights to the rest of the world.
[Check out the real facts of US instigations in Central and South America! — TheWE.biz]
Sure, you'll always have individuals that will take things too far, but Government sponsored torture?
[Let's mention CIA activity across the planet since its inception, including inside the US, and other black budget US government special operations agencies! — TheWE.biz]
What has happened to our country?
What kind of example are we setting for our children, and the world?
You would be interested to learn how many of our own rights have been stripped away recently.
Look up the Military Commissions Act of 2006, John Warner Defense Authorization Act, Homegrown Terrorism Act, Presidential Directive 51.
Amazing the rights we have all lost
It is amazing the rights we have all lost in the past couple of years and very little is covered by the U.S. media.
After discovering this, I applied the "common sense" test that my Grandfather always said wasn't so common.
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Why would a government so aggressively suppress truth and blatantly destroy evidence if there was nothing to hide?
Why has every testimony from sworn government and military officials that points to "prior knowledge" been stricken from the 9/11 Commission Report?
How did paper business cards, cloth bandanas, and plastic ID's that implicate the terrorists survive so neatly through jet fueled fireballs hot enough to destroy titanium and steel?
I've seen bodies burned beyond recognition, yet I have never found one that was wearing unburned clothing.
These questions alone are enough to make me risk everything for a real investigation and accounting...
When I truly realized the enormity of the effect 9/11 has had on our Rights, our Economy, our Beliefs, our Fears, our Intolerances and our Government — I felt fear, then anger, then the need to take action.
Bill Chickering said it best:
“Anger is a very appropriate and necessary response to an injustice.
“But stand back now; the truth, clearly spoken, is always your best weapon.
“Calmly spoken, it can burn a hole through the hardest heart.”
When I realized the extent of the force and attitudes working to silence those who peacefully ask questions, demand answers, and seek truth, it became clear to me that our Country is in serious trouble and I must now stand alongside those Patriots who seek Truth and Constitutional Restoration.
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Richard Gage, AIA is the founding member of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth ae911Truth.org.
He has been a practicing Architect for 20 years and has worked on most types of building construction including numerous fire-proofed steel-framed buildings.
He is employed with a San Francisco Bay Area architecture firm and has most recently performed Construction Administration services for a new $120M High School campus including a $10M steel-framed Gymnasium.
Currently he is working on the Design Development for a very large mixed use urban project with 1.2M sq.ft. of retail and 320K sq.ft. of mid-rise office space — altogether about 1,200 tons of steel framing.
He has been one of the most tireless speakers on the issue of 9/11 truth, and more specifically on challenging the official narrative of the disintegration of the 3 major skyscrapers in the World Trade Center complex that took place on September 11th.
He has been lecturing widely across the US and in Canada.
Those who see his presentation rarely walk away still thinking that fires alone could have brought down the buildings.
When NIST came out with a report recently that fires were responsible for the destruction of WTC7, Richard and Architects and Engineers were quick to challenge that report.
See NY Times quotes Richard Gage on WTC7 "collapse"
Aside from the NYT's reporter and a media request from Bulgaria, the press has tried to ignore the serious criticisms that Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth has raised about their reports.
Richard Gage gives an insightful interview on major points that scientifically do not agree with the official story of 9/11.
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 | Click logo for Firefighters for 9-11 truth |
| Click logo for architects & engineers for 9/11 truth |  |
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For Film: Elephant in the Room
— Click Here
Elephant in the Room is a documentary following British filmmaker Dean Puckett through his journey into the 9/11 Truth Movement: a global movement of 'conspiracy theorists' who believe that the official explanation about what happened on 9/11 is totally or partially inaccurate.
The filmmakers travel from middle England, across Europe and to New York for the six year anniversary of the attacks, where the film takes one final twist as we are introduced to the 9/11 first responders who are suffering from various grave health difficulties due to the toxic dust that they breathed in trying to help their country during the weeks after this tragic event.
Told with a personal hands on approach that avoids advancing any one position, the film asks the question: are these crazy conspiracy theorists?
Or is 9/11 Truth a credible political movement?
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For Film: Loose Change Final Cut
— Click Here
Loose Change Final Cut is the third installment of the documentary that asks the tough questions about the 9/11 attacks and related events.
This movie hopes to be the catalyst for a new independent investigation, in which the family members receive answers to their questions, and the TRUE PERPETRATORS of this horrendous crime are PROSECUTED and PUNISHED. |
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9/11
By all accounts, the unprecedented events of September 11th, 2001 changed the way our country functions, and in turn, the world.
It is therefore critical that conscientious Americans, as well as people around the globe, understand these events in detail.
Unfortunately the official reports, including The 9/11 Commission Report and the NIST WTC Report, written by those working under the direction of the Bush Administration, have been proven to be elaborate cover-ups.
Film: 9/11 Revisited
September 11th Revisited is perhaps the most riveting film ever made about the destruction of the World Trade Center.
This is a powerful documentary which features eyewitness accounts and archived news footage that was shot on September 11, 2001 but never replayed on television.
Featuring interviews with eyewitnesses & firefighters, along with expert analysis by Professor Steven E. Jones, Professor David Ray Griffin, MIT Engineer Jeffrey King, and Professor James H. Fetzer.
This film provides stunning evidence that explosives were used in the complete demolition of the WTC Twin Towers and WTC Building 7.
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For Film: 9/11 Revisited
— Click Here
Film: 9/11 Press for Truth
An excellent documentary about the families of the victims of 9/11 and their fight to uncover and expose the truth about what happened that day.
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For Film: 9/11 Press for Truth
— Click Here
Film: 9/11 Mysteries
90 minutes of pure demolition evidence and analysis, laced with staggering witness testimonials.
Moving from “the myth” through “the analysis” and into “the players,” careful deconstruction of the official story set right alongside clean, clear science.
The 9/11 picture is not one of politics or nationalism or loyalty, but one of strict and simple physics. How do you get a 10-second 110-story pancake collapse?
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'Oh! You don't believe the 9-11 official version,' they say.
'You mean where they want you to accept the buildings were not blown up from below.
'Plane fuel! Substance never burns higher then a gas stove! That it caused the inner core steel to melt!
'Steel melting!
'Concrete vaporizing!
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'No! I don't believe that conspiracy theory.
'Cheney! Bush! Rudy Giuliani! HA! HA!
'Tower 7 that never had a plane hit — just came tumbling down!
'You believe that, eh!
'Ever think it had to be blown up because the plane scheduled to fly into it was off getting shot down.
'Thermite in Tower 7's walls, you see — incriminating evidence — impossible to get out without people watching!
Had to be blown up!
'Next you'll be saying Obama is not a Wall Street Illuminati banker stooge?
'Take your pick: The partner in a comedy team who feeds lines to the other comedians.
'Him who allows himself to be used.
'Oh! I can't really blame you, Television it turns minds to pulp.
'Turn off the television. It's the only way.'
'Turn off the television?'
'Get rid of it really. I mean what else is there to do!'
'Get rid of the television?'
'Don't forget all radio garbage is propaganda, even the songs.
'Then those five minute propaganda hits they send you every hour!
'The ones they refer to as News
'Get rid of all the propaganda from your brain, the only way to do it.'
'Stop being hooked on those Hollywood movies — even those that make you think they are making you think'
'All paid performers to make your brain dead.
'You turn the brainwashing off, you'll begin to become yourself.
'It really is the only way!'
'Oh!'
Kewe — TheWE.biz
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| Click logo for Firefighters for 9-11 truth |
| Click logo for architects & engineers for 9/11 truth | |
The War On Democracy is a powerful new documentary from award winning journalist and film-maker John Pilger.
Pilger interviews several ex-CIA agents who purportedly took part in secret campaigns against democratic countries and who he claims are profiting from the war in Iraq.
The film uses archive footage to show how democracy has been wiped out in country after country in Latin America since the 1950s.
The Venezuelan segment of the film features the President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez being captured in the coup of 2002, a takeover backed by rich and powerful interests under U.S. support. |
Humankind as we know it at the 'End Point'
Don't forget:
Behind it all is the desire for depopulation — by those rich enough to have their islands for temporary residence while depopulation takes place.
Doesn't matter if it is killing in the fight for food when the trucks no longer arrive at your local supermarket.
Doesn't matter if it is tribe against tribe.
Or thermobaric bombs — environmentally friendly compared to nuclear. Bombs that send ultra-sonic shock waves and searing fireballs to destroy everything in their dropping wake.
Or those special bombs that do not destroy the infrastructure — kill only you and those you love.
You are in the way, folks!
There are too many of you!
This is the plan.
Kewe |
Twenty Questions Radio/TV interviewers avoid asking about Israel Which parts of the Declaration of Human Rights and Geneva Conventions don't Israelis understand? Why is Israel still stealing Palestinian land for more illegal construction? |
Israel, chemical weapons and phosphorous bombs New and unknown deadly weapons used by Israeli forces Undetectable poison-needle gun for 'clean' assassinations |
The Negative Return Economy — a discourse on America’s black budget Fascinating and lucrative Black Budget? What Black Budget? |
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Unspeakable grief and horror
...and the circus of deception killing continues... | |||
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| Kewe Archives | TheWE.biz | The Poles |
