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Hannibal Is Still Circling Rome
Even years after his death, the Roman Senate continued to cry “Hannibal is at the gates,” using the peoples’ fear of Hannibal exactly as the U.S. government and its lapdog politicians today use the myth of terrorism. We are sacrificing liberty for “security” because of the created, imagined threat of terrorists.
The government bureaucracy will never accept responsibility for the collapsing economy, and the elite who run the United States will never give up power. Instead, they attack U.S. citizens on all fronts.
The grand design is to take the remaining wealth of the American people. The borders are silently closing. Tax havens are being attacked. And every wire coming into the United States is being traced for identity.
Even if U.S. authorities collected every foreign bank account or investment, it would make absolutely no difference in the financial default that is coming. It’s a ruse!
We have professional, lifelong politicians who are paid by the government and directed by the elite. They don’t dare pass legislation to impose term limits to stop career politicians.
The people are now the enemy of the state, and their remaining wealth is seen by the politicians as their solution to maintaining perpetual power. The peoples’ rights, privileges and immunities are being stripped away.
And after the “Arab Spring” last year, Washington suddenly perceived a cyberattack threat to shut down the whole Internet. For what purpose? There is no threat or capability of such an attack. This is clearly an excuse to stop communication among people as the system collapses, and the government can’t sell its bonds. It is desperation, but dangerous. This Internet “cyberattack” is merely a bogeyman to invoke more control.
The Internet has exposed the crisis, and crisis speeds up events when widely known. The Internet is plainly a serious threat to government tyranny.
All governments turn on their own people in their final days in order to retain power. Those who can’t see this or can’t believe it had better assume it and protect what they have before it’s too late.
Gold and silver is historically the perfect hedge against bad government. It is survival and liquidity in the chaos and crisis of failing government, as now. Please, this means gold and silver in your possession. You figure where to keep your coins.
It amazes me how people will buy gold and silver and then trust this survival wealth to somebody else. If you let another person, bank, public vault or any entity “store” your survival wealth, it may not be there — and probably won’t be there — when there is economic mayhem. It’s time to be sober. All of you must know about MF Global and how it used clients’ funds.
Something Americans don’t understand: There can be no free society once government has granted itself the power to confiscate property, imprison people under any pretext (or without a pretext) and without charge. This is now true in America.
Government consumes so much that it has destroyed capital formation. The government is trying to increase taxes without an increase in production.
The food stamp program is the only thing holding off revolution and collapse. Currently, 46 million Americans are on food stamps.
But even in the face of economic chaos, the United States is warmongering under one pretense or another. War hides the crimes of government.
There is enormous suffering ahead for unaware and unprepared people. There is plenty of historical precedent for this, going back to the decline and fall of Rome.
Nothing good can happen to America without major economic and political reform. Can you see it? The rule of law must return to America.
In time, pensions will go, including government pensions. Some in government have already discussed their confiscation, and there is precedence in several countries. These are called unfunded entitlements and are a ghost that grows while we sleep. Watch!
Is there any good news? Absolutely! But first we have to go through the fire of economic and social collapse. When will it happen? No one knows, but it could happen at any time.
Some crisis will come that will trigger economic collapse. Crisis will speed the collapse and the wiping clean of debt.
The U.S. government will not honor its debts in the end. It will default or most likely inflate the currency away. In the meantime, we can expect at least one big, unannounced devaluation until it is done. Devaluation is default.
At some point, there will have to be a new currency. Have you seen the new $100 bill in waiting? I have seen it. Many people believe it’s prepared for a return to a gold standard.
But the old regime that ruined America must go, to be replaced with new statesmen with limited Congressional terms.
A great short-term danger is war. You know about it.
During this time of economic and social crisis, we will need to be self-sufficient in the extreme, something few Americans understand.
Survival means many things. It means stored food and water, energy for warmth, protection from people who didn’t plan, gold and silver coins, barter items, extra fuel for transportation, cash money for two to three months’ expenses, soaps, salt, dried foods, cleaning products, paper products and needed prescriptions.
It is reasonable to expect that the economic winter in which we find ourselves will give way to spring in the form of a lapse in crippling debt and the shrinkage of government.
As confidence in government falls, the dollar price of gold will rise. Confidence in government will continue to go down as the value of the U.S. dollar declines. And it will decline because money printing is the mode of government.
Gold is trading at $1,670 and silver is at $32. Both are on the bargain counter compared to a year from now. There are many dealers. I like Franklin Sanders at The Moneychanger. He has been in business some 25 years and is honest and reliable.
Now about getting money out of the United States: The U.S. government is building a wall around this country and American citizens.
The Feds are tracking everything. This is not fear or scare talk. If you have been reading beyond the controlled media, you know very well the seriousness of the situation.
The time is coming very soon when financial assets will not legally be able to leave the United States. The door is fast closing. One more good option has closed. There are no longer any insurance companies that will issue fixed-premium Swiss annuities to Americans. This is the only type of Swiss annuity I have ever recommended.
There is a provision buried in a 1,400-page Senate highway bill (S1813) that would revoke or deny a passport if a taxpayer owes $50,000 or more in back taxes. These are types of exchange controls I have long warned about.
Hannibal is not the enemy. The enemy comes from within.
http://personalliberty.com/2012/04/16/hannibal-is-still-circling-rome/?eiid=Even years after his death, the Roman Senate continued to cry “Hannibal is at... more-
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Legalizing pot would raise more than Buffett Rule
Over the past week, President Obama spent time promoting the Buffett Rule surtax on millionaires and paid a visit to Colombia in which he reiterated his opposition to legalizing drugs. Though the two issues were unrelated, it's worth remarking that legalizing drugs would actually do more to reduce deficits than implementing the Buffett Rule.
The Buffett tax, which failed to advance in the Senate last night, would have raised $5.1 billion in 2013 (theoretically its first full year of implementation), according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. Yet a 2010 study by the libertarian Cato Institute found that legalizing marijuana alone would save the federal government $3.3 billion in reduced enforcement expenditures per year and raise an additional $5.8 billion in revenue assuming it would be taxed. If all drugs were legalized, the study estimated it would save the federal government $15.6 billion a year and raise an additional $31.2 billion in revenue -- for a total of $46.8 billion. That's slightly higher than the $46.7 billion the Buffett Rule tax is projected to raise over the full decade.
These numbers only pertain to the federal government, but the majority of the cost of the drug war is imposed on state and local governments. If governments at all levels are included, the Cato study projected that full drug legalization would reduce total budgets by $88 billion when one includes enforcement savings and new tax collections.
To be sure, the issue of drug legalization is less about the budget and more about personal liberty. Those who oppose prohibition believe that individuals should be allowed to do whatever they want and risk the consequences as long as their actions don't harm others in the process. But it's also interesting to put the costs of the drug war in perspective.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/legalizing-pot-would-raise-more-buffett-rule/485101
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Not to mention take a significant revenue stream away from gangs/cartels and keep millions of nonviolent users out of the private prison machine!Over the past week, President Obama spent time promoting the Buffett Rule surtax on... more-
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Romney and Obama Agree: Power Is Good
Under corporatist bipartisanship, the people lose.
So the presidential campaign is shaping up as a contest between a Democrat who says we had a free market from 2001 through 2008 and a Republican who . . . agrees—he says “[w]e are only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy.” You can’t cease to be something you never were.
Thus Barack Obama claims and Mitt Romney implicitly concedes that the free market 1) has existed and 2) therefore presumably created the housing and financial debacle. This bodes ill for advocates of liberty and voluntary exchange.
Notice what will happen if this framing is widely accepted: Genuinely freed markets won’t make the list of feasible options. That will leave us with mere variations on a statist theme, namely, corporatism. How will voters choose among them? Most of those who abhor “socialism” (however they define it) will rally round Republican corporatism because of the pro-market rhetoric, while most who abhor the cruel “free market” (“Look at the hardship it created!”) will rush to Democratic corporatism because of its anti-market rhetoric.
And the winner will be: Corporatism. (That is, the use of government force primarily to benefit the well-connected business elite.) The loser? The people, who would benefit from freedom and freed markets—markets void of privileges and arbitrary decrees. That’s what maximizes consumer and worker bargaining power and enhances general living standards.
No Fundamental Difference
Does that mean the two contenders are really on the same side? Yes and no. They each want the reins of power. But the stakes are not what they are represented to be, and the differences are not fundamental. At the most fundamental level and despite appearances, Obama the government man and Romney the business man share common ground. Romney says, “Washington has to become an ally of business, not the opposition of business” (as though those were the only alternatives), and Obama would not disagree. Ask Jeffrey Immelt of GE, Jim McNerney of Boeing, and other beneficiaries of the Export-Import Bank. Or ask the principals of Bank of America. Obama would just want government to be the more dominant voice in any dispute.
As Roderick Long wrote in his 2006 Rothbard Memorial Lecture:
We might compare the alliance between government and big business to the alliance between church and state in the Middle Ages. Of course it’s in the interest of both parties to maintain the alliance—but all the same, each side would like to be the dominant partner, so it’s no surprise that the history of such alliances will often look like a history of conflict and antipathy, as each side struggles to get the upper hand. But this struggle must be read against a common background framework of cooperation to maintain the system of control.
Long is on to something important, and people as different as Ron Paul and Ralph Nader get it. At the rhetorical level the differences between the major parties look substantial: One side says it favors a dominant role for the central government (to promote fairness and jobs); the other, a dominant role for “the private sector” (to promote economic growth). This difference in emphasis sometimes matters at the margin. The fuzzy line between “private” and “public” sector may move slightly this way or that, depending on which side is in power. But big changes do not occur when power changes hands. Do you want recent evidence? Look at the central government’s record since 1981. If you want evidence from the more distant past, read Roy A. Childs’s 1971 libertarian classic, “Big Business and the Rise of American Statism.”
Viewing History
Each side of course views recent and distant history through its own self-serving lens. To gain power each must persuade voters that its philosophy differs sharply from the other’s and that the fate of the country—indeed, the world—hangs in the balance.
It all works neatly to the advantage of the permanent regime—the ruling elite, which has elements both inside and outside the formal government apparatus. Signs of the permanent regime can be seen in the presence of high-ranking corporate personnel from Wall Street banks and other firms no matter which party is in power. The revolving door is well greased. This phenomenon is captured in various Venn diagrams illustrating the bipartisan role of corporate leaders in government. (Here are a few.)
Things are not so different from the days of Thomas Hodgskin, the great English libertarian author and editor, who wrote, among other works, The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832). (See another article about him here.) Hodgskin was one of many classical liberals who understood that one cannot adequately analyze government without employing class analysis. (Others included Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, J. B. Say, Frédéric Bastiat, Ludwig von Mises, Albert Jay Nock, and Murray Rothbard. Marx didn’t invent class analysis; he inherited it, before mangling it.) Hodgskin wrote:
And this law, founded on oppression, upheld by force and fraud, intended solely to preserve ill-gotten power, or ill-gotten wealth, to maintain the dominion of an aristocracy, and the supremacy of a priesthood, to perpetuate the slavery, ignorance, and poverty of the great body of the people, the political writers of our day, call on all mankind to obey, as the only means of social salvation.
When Obama and Romney argue over whether taxes should be raised on the rich, bear in mind that such disagreements are nothing new among factions of the ruling elite. (Besides, the rich can always find ways around higher rates). No matter which faction wins, the people will lose.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/15/romney-and-obama-agree-power-is-goodUnder corporatist bipartisanship, the people lose. So the presidential campaign is... more-
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Deepak Chopra: Divided Politics & Bad Marriages
Whether the Democrats and Republicans like it or not, they are in bed together and may as well be married. Neither has a majority in both houses of Congress that can impose one-party rule. The filibuster provision in the Senate allows a minority to stymie the majority. The Constitution doesn't guarantee that political bedfellows will get along -- there were no parties when the Constitution was written, and now we observe a marriage from hell. Unlike civil marriage, there's no chance for a divorce.
Is it possible to approach the situation in the role of a marriage counselor? There are several aims when a counselor faces two spouses whose relationship has become rocky.
- Provide a safe place for honest discussion.
- Air grievances without becoming obsessed by them.
- Find an opening for compromise.
- Encourage adult behavior rather than impulsiveness and a desire for revenge.
- Find a renewed basis for the relationship to move forward.
These aims aren't always reached, and in the end the marriage dissolves. But since the Democrats and Republicans can't divorce, our only hope is that reconciliation is possible. For that hope to materialize, the points I've listed must become feasible. What they imply is a process. One of the biggest problems in Congress is that both sides want to skip the process and jump straight to the results.
The results are also familiar from bad marriages. Both sides want to win, to be proven right, to make the other eat humble pie, and to bypass compromise out of a sense of self-righteous certainty. We hear the word "ideology" applied a lot to the most rigid partisans on the left and the right. But I think ideology is a mask for being a bad spouse. This marriage will never work when one or both spouses insists on getting their own way, no matter what.
Another problem with refusing to start the process of reconciliation centers on posturing. The term "political Kabuki theater" applies here. both sides say and do things for ritualistic purposes, like passing a budget that has no chance of being enacted, accusing the other side of being totally at fault, making demands that are stalking horses to satisfy the most extreme wing of the party. This resembles nothing more than two warring spouses fighting through their lawyers with wildly inflated blame, knowing all the while that the actual settlement will be a compromise.
I don't think that compromise has become a dirty word, especially among the Tea Party, merely because of extreme intransigence or the vaunted ambition of making government less corrupt. Congress is no more corrupt than human nature and no less. The reason compromise is a dirty word is that when it is reached, neither side is satisfied. When Solomon offered to settle a dispute between two mothers by cutting the baby in half, the compromise was deliberately outlandish in order to bring the true mother to light -- she would be the one who selflessly gave up her claim so that the baby might live.
In Congress we see bad-faith compromises that are designed not to work. The health care act is a prime example, and so is the debt-ceiling deal. The Right sabotaged a viable compromise by forcing legislation that they could denigrate in public afterwards. In the final analysis, Congress is acting as badly as its constituency wants it to. The public decries how divided our current politics is while electing rigid representatives who make the division worse. The voting public is acting like the families of two bickering spouses, pleading for an end to the fighting while at the same time telling each party that they are right and the other spouse is totally at fault.
What this comes down to is human relations. In the coming year leading up to November, both parties seem ready to adopt a scorched earth policy. Kabuki theater and ideology will have a field day. But behind the scenes, expectations have moved in a direction that nobody wants. Lincoln's words about a house divided still apply. If Congress keeps up its current behavior, we may see all reasonableness come to an end, and the marriage may turn as ridiculously vicious as the one in the movie The War of the Roses, where nothing less than destroying our spouse is acceptable. Without the process of reconciliation, the only foreseeable outcome is a massive crisis with debt, entitlements, or Iran, that forces husband and wife to cling to each other because peril has forced them to go into survival mode.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/divided-politics-and-bad-_b_1429124.htmlWhether the Democrats and Republicans like it or not, they are in bed together and may... more-
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Mitt Romney, Bain Capital Defrauded U.S. Government of $25,000,000
Perhaps the most emphasized argument in favor of Mitt Romney is his business experience, mostly regarding his tenure at Bain Capital. His presidential campaign attempts to present him to voters as the man to tackle the nation’s economic problems because of his ‘wealth’ of economic savvy.
Let’s take a moment to reflect on just one of the business dealings that made Romney rich(er) and in turn molded him into the one candidate, as he claims, that can fix our countries economic woes.
According to Forbes:
In 1989, Bain Capital purchased controlling interest in Damon Corp., a medical testing company located in Needham, Massachusetts.
During the time that Bain held its ownership of the company, Mitt Romney personally sat on the Board of Directors. And during that same period, Damon Corp. was busy submitting fraudulent reimbursement claims to Medicare to the tune of millions of dollars charged for unnecessary blood tests.
According to federal government prosecutors, Damon was misleading physicians into ordering unnecessary blood tests, assuring the doctors that the testing would be covered by Medicare.
By the time Damon Corp. pleaded guilty to defrauding the United States Government of $25 million—and paid a total of $119 million in what was, at that time, the largest penalty of its kind in Massachusetts history—Bain was long gone having sold the company in 1993 to Corning, Inc.
The right man to fix the economy, huh? Now, don’t get me wrong, I honestly believe that Romney has a solid grasp on economic issues and business management. However, is it wise to entrust our economy to a man who still has a substantial financial interest in a company that profits when other companies are struggling? A company that has a record of defrauding the government already?
It is also worthy to note that while the company eventually went bankrupt, with thousands losing their jobs, Bain Capital walked away with a $12 million profit—a little over $400,000 of that money ending up in Mitt’s pocket.
http://libertarianreview.us/2012/04/15/mitt-romney-bain-capital-defrauded-u-s-government-of-25000000/Perhaps the most emphasized argument in favor of Mitt Romney is his business... more-
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If Ron Paul Were US President…
Imagine a possible future where Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination and goes on to beat Barack Obama come November.
Of course, all the establishment pundits tell us that’s implausible, if not downright impossible. And if Paul does win, do you think they’ll eat their words? No way: the papers, airwaves, and cyberspace will brim with grumbles, moans, and howls about the terrible fate that has befallen America and the West.
As usual, the pundits will be wrong.
Of course, Ron Paul has made a variety of promises to make dramatic changes including: abolish the Fed, bring all American troops home, end the war on drugs, get rid of the income tax, pardon all prisoners jailed for non-violent crimes, get the Feds out of the marriage law business, repeal Roe vs. Wade, and cut $1 trillion from the budget.
No wonder the establishment Republicans, Democrats, and foreign policy wonks have declared war on Ron Paul: it’s always hazardous to one’s health to threaten to take away somebody’s rice bowl.
As a candidate, a major attraction decidedly in Paul’s favour is that he appears to be a man who will keep his word. One only has to think of Barack “Dubya” Obama, Mitt “where does he stand today?” Romney or Newt “WTF did he just say?” Gingrich to realise how rare a quality that is in a politician. (Only Gary Johnson, the likely Libertarian Party nominee, has a similar quality.)
Since Paul has been saying pretty much the same thing since before he first ran for Congress in 1976, let’s assume he won’t change his spots if he’s inaugurated next January.
So in this possible (or impossible – take your pick) future, by the end of 2012 America and the world will be a totally different place.
Well…
…unfortunately for Paul supporters, probably not.
For example, come budget time President Paul will send his proposed budget, including spending cuts of $1 trillion, to…ah…Congress.
Congress in 2012 will be a slightly different place than it is today. Lacking Congressman Ron Paul in the House of Reps, there’ll only be one vote (instead of two) he can count on: his son’s, Rand Paul in the Senate.
Not enough.
Paul’s budget will go through the normal Congressional meatgrinders and come out the other end looking more like spaghetti that the document that went in.
President Paul will have to veto it.
So it will go back to Congress which, with enough votes to override Paul’s veto, will pass it unchanged just to spite him.
Many of his other promises will face a similar fate. Repealing the income tax requires a constitutional amendment – which has to be proposed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress (or two-thirds of the state legislatures)! Then, three-quarters of the state legislatures must sign on. It’s hard to imagine all those “representatives” giving up their pork barrels. Altruism is something politicians recommend unto others, not something they practice themselves.
Alternatively, President Paul could include, as part of his budget, cutting the income tax rate to zero. Like his proposals to end the war on drugs, abolish the Fed, get the Feds out of the marriage law business, and repeal Roe vs. Wade, they all require an act of Congress.
Don’t Hold Your Breath
That said, there’s still a hell of a lot President Paul can do. After all, American presidents since Lincoln (if not before) have firmly established the precedent that presidents can rule by decree (ah…”executive orders” in politically correct speech) whether Congress or the Supreme Court likes it or not.
And: just because Congress authorises a budget of $X trillion in expenditure, it doesn’t follow that a president has to spend it; just because Congress passes a law, it doesn’t follow that a president has to enforce it.
So President Paul could repeal all the decrees he doesn’t like, bring all American troops home (along with the “drug warriors” around the world) – by decree. Congressmen can scream all they want: after all, most of those troops were stationed abroad without Congress’ direct approval, so how can they disapprove if Paul brings them back?
But Congress isn’t the only opposition President Paul would face. As president he could direct the bureaucracy to stop enforcing Roe vs. Wade, the drug laws – and he could even order the IRS to stop auditing tax returns. (Imagine that!)
In theory, that would mean if Californians all want to get stoned and cheat on their taxes, President Paul’s Feds won’t stop them.
But would all those bureaucrats follow orders?
They should. But in practice, every government bureaucracy has finely-honed skills directed to achieving its own ends despite the desires of its political masters.
One is the “go slow.” Everyone complains how slow government agencies are getting things done. Imagine how slow they could if they put their minds to it!
And one thing a president cannot do is order a court to do anything. While a law’s still on the books, a court can make a judgment which goes again a president’s expressed desires.
But a president has the power to pardon anyone convicted of a federal crime. How long do you think the police would bother prosecuting, or the courts trying, someone they knew would be pardoned immediately after they were convicted?
And then, while President Paul is doing his best to ensure that all those laws are not enforced, what will Congress do? Pass a law telling the president he must enforce the law? Go to the Supreme Court and seek a writ of mandamus (Latin for “we command”) ordering the president to enforce the law? (Would the Supreme Court rule that unconstitutional? These, days, who know?)
Whatever Congress, the bureaucracy, the Supreme Court, and the military-industrial complex do, it will be fascinating to watch.
One thing Paul will achieve if he wins: the nature of the policy debate in America will change dramatically and probably forever. For example, if the world doesn’t fall apart after four years without America as the world’s policeman and Californians (and God knows who else) all with their minds blown, the pundits’ prognostications of doom and gloom will look pretty stupid and won’t get much support.
And think of the alternatives. Without Ron Paul in the race, American voters face a hardly-inspiring choice of a Republican administration (Mitt Romney or whoever) or a Republican administration with health care (Barack “Dubya” Obama).
President Ron Paul would be a helluva lot more fun!
http://www.moneymorning.com.au/20120416/if-ron-paul-were-us-president.htmlImagine a possible future where Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination and goes on to... more-
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99 Percent Spring Gets Progressives Using Obama Campaign Rhetoric and Advocating for Inadequate Solutions to the Wealth Divide
MoveOn, Rebuild the Dream, SEIU and its allies are so sophisticated at getting people to work for their Democratic Party agenda. Initially Van Jones tried to turn Occupy into a Tea Party for the Dems, promising thousands of 99% candidates -- thankfully, that did not materialize as Occupy refused his invitation to co-option. Now, they are trying a more discreet approach. They know that to herd cats is a challenge -- unless you put out food! The food here is civil disobedience trainings. Once they get the Occupiers and others in the 99% to come to their trainings they direct them to support the "Buffett Rule for Tax Fairness." This carefully poll and focus group tested language supports the prime campaign weapon of President Obama against the out of touch one percenter, Mitt Romney.
Of course, the Buffett rule: having the wealthy pay the same as working Americans, is woefully -- WOEFULLY -- inadequate. The United States needs to return to a progressive tax structure and not the flattened tax structure we currently have. Shouldn't the 25 top hedge fund managers who made a combined income of $14.4 billion last year be paying a higher tax rate than 35%? Why not go back to any of the tax rates of the late 40's to early 80's when the wealthiest paid between 70% and 92% on their income. How about increasing the corporate tax to what it used to be? And, how about raising the capital gains tax to be equal to the income tax? Further, the Wall Street Speculation Tax, or Robin Hood Tax, on the purchase of stocks, bonds and derivatives is needed. See The 99%’s Deficit Proposal: How to create jobs, reduce the wealth divide and control spending.
No, MoveOn, Rebuild, SEIU, Campaign for America's Future and other Dem allied groups -- we want much more than Obama is offering. Decades of theft through corruption of government so the wealthiest 400 Americans have wealth equal to 160 million of us needs a much more aggressive antidote than treating Buffett's income as equal to his secretary. That is insufficient and we should not stand for it.
Thanks to "Insider" for catching this sly co-option effort by the Dem front groups. Now, that Occupy is aware of it, its chance of success greatly diminishes. Occupiers who take the MoveOn course should create their own actions and ignore directives from MoveOn and their allies. Occupy needs to continue to build an independent movement for the radical transformation of government and the economy.
http://october2011.org/blogs/kevin-zeese/99-percent-spring-gets-progressives-using-obama-campaign-rhetoric-and-advocating-iMoveOn, Rebuild the Dream, SEIU and its allies are so sophisticated at getting people... more -
The Federal Reserve and Bank of America Initiate a Coup to Dump Billions of Dollars of Losses on the American Taxpayer
Bloomberg reports that Bank of America is dumping derivatives onto a subsidiary which is insured by the government – i.e. taxpayers.
Yves Smith notes:
If you have any doubt that Bank of America is going down, this development should settle it …. Both [professor of economics and law, and former head'sS&L prosecutor] Bill Black (who I interviewed just now) and I see this as a desperate move by Bank of America s management, a de facto admission that they know the bank is in serious trouble.
The short form via Bloomberg:
Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation
Bank of America s holding company the parent of both the retail bank and the Merrill Lynch securities unit held almost $75 trillion of derivatives at the end of June, according to data compiled by the OCC. About $53 trillion, or 71 percent, were within Bank of America NA, according to the data, which represent the notional values of the trades.
That compares with JPMorgan s deposit-taking entity, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, which contained 99 percent of the New York-based firm s $79 trillion of notional derivatives, the OCC data show.
Now you would expect this move to be driven by adverse selection, that it, that BofA would move its WORST derivatives, that is, the ones that were riskiest or otherwise had high collateral posting requirements, to the sub. Bill Black confirmed that even though the details were sketchy, this is precisely what took place.
And remember, as we have indicated, there are some derivatives that should be eliminated, period. We ve written repeatedly about credit default swaps, which have virtually no legitimate economic uses (no one was complaining about the illiquidity of corporate bonds prior to the introduction of CDS; this was not a perceived need among investors). They are an inherently defective product, since there is no way to margin adequately for jump to default risk and have the product be viable economically. CDS are systematically underpriced insurance, with insurers guaranteed to go bust periodically, as AIG and the monolines demonstrated. [Background.]
The reason that commentators like Chris Whalen were relatively sanguine about Bank of America likely becoming insolvent as a result of eventual mortgage and other litigation losses is that it would be a holding company bankruptcy. The operating units, most importantly, the banks, would not be affected and could be spun out to a new entity or sold. Shareholders would be wiped out and holding company creditors (most important, bondholders) would take a hit by having their debt haircut and partly converted to equity.
This changes the picture completely. This move reflects either criminal incompetence or abject corruption by the Fed. Even though I ve expressed my doubts as to whether Dodd Frank resolutions will work, dumping derivatives into depositaries pretty much guarantees a Dodd Frank resolution will fail. Remember the effect of the 2005 bankruptcy law revisions: derivatives counterparties are first in line, they get to grab assets first and leave everyone else to scramble for crumbs. [Background.] So this move amounts to a direct transfer from derivatives counterparties of Merrill to the taxpayer, via the FDIC, which would have to make depositors whole after derivatives counterparties grabbed collateral. It s well nigh impossible to have an orderly wind down in this scenario. You have a derivatives counterparty land grab and an abrupt insolvency. Lehman failed over a weekend after JP Morgan grabbed collateral.
But it s even worse than that. During the savings & loan crisis, the FDIC did not have enough in deposit insurance receipts to pay for the Resolution Trust Corporation wind-down vehicle. It had to get more funding from Congress. This move paves the way for another TARP-style shakedown of taxpayers, this time to save depositors. No Congressman would dare vote against that. This move is Machiavellian, and just plain evil.
The FDIC is understandably ripshit. Again from Bloomberg:
The Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. disagree over the transfers, which are being requested by counterparties, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren t authorized to speak publicly. The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting, said the people. The bank doesn t believe regulatory approval is needed, said people with knowledge of its position.
Well OF COURSE BofA is gonna try to take the position this is kosher, but the FDIC can and must reject this brazen move. But this is a bit of a fait accompli,and I have NO doubt BofA and the craven, corrupt Fed will argue that moving the derivatives back will upset the markets. Well too bad, maybe it s time banks learn they can no longer run roughshod over regulators. And if BofA is at that much risk that it can t survive undoing this brazen move, that would seem to be prima facie evidence that a Dodd Frank resolution is in order.
Bill Black said that the Bloomberg editors toned down his remarks considerably. He said, Any competent regulator would respond: No, Hell NO! It s time that the public also say no, and loudly, to this new scheme to loot taxpayers and save a criminally destructive bank.
Professor Black provided a “bottom line” summary in a separate email:
1.The bank holding company (BAC) is moving troubled assets held by an entity not insured by the public (Merrill Lynch) to the Bank of America, which is insured by the public
2. The banking rules are designed to prevent that because they are designed to protect the FDIC insurance fund (which the Treasury guarantees)
3. Any marginally competent regulator would say “No, Hell NO!”
4. The Fed, reportedly, is saying “Sure, no worries” by allowing the sale of an affiliate’s troubled assets to B of A
5. This is a really good “natural experiment” that allows us to test whether the Fed is protects the public or the uninsured and systemically dangerous institutions (the bank holding companies (BHCs))
6. We are all shocked, shocked [sarcasm] that Bernanke responded to the experiment by choosing to protect the BHC at the expense of the public.
Bank of America has repeatedly become insolvent due to fraud and risky bets, and repeatedly been bailed out by the government and American people. The government and banks are engineering an age of permanent bailouts for this insolvent, criminal bank (and the other too big to fails). Remember, this is the same bank that is refusing to let people close their accounts.
This is yet another joint effort by Washington and Wall Street to screw the American people, and to trample on the rule of law.
The American people will be stuck in nightmare of a never-ending depression (yes, we are currently in a depression) and fascism (or socialism, if you prefer that term) unless we stand up to the overly-powerful Fed and the too big to fail banks.
http://www.darkpolitricks.com/2011/10/the-federal-reserve-and-bank-of-america-initiate-a-coup-to-dump-billions-of-dollars-of-losses-on-the-american-taxpayer/Bloomberg reports that Bank of America is dumping derivatives onto a subsidiary which... more -
88 Million (That’s 1 in 3 Americans) Are Invisible to Government Employment Statistics
With recovery in full swing and unemployment dropping to an Obama administration near record low of 8.2%, the US economy seems to be bouncing back stronger than ever.
Unless, of course, you look at the numbers no one in mainstream media, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, or the administration is talking about. As many of our readers already know, the official unemployment rates released monthly by the BLS (U-3, U-6) fail to account for one very key figure – those individuals who are no longer in the labor force.
The number of those folks – the ones that don’t matter anymore because counting them would hinder the President’s reelection bid – is absolutely staggering for what is supposed to be the engine of the global economy and the world’s only super power:
Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%.
Over the past several years people have dropped out of the labor force at an astounding, almost unbelievable rate, holding the unemployment rate artificially low. Some of this was due to major revisions last month on account of the 2010 census finally factored in. However, most of it is simply economic weakness.
…
In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,604,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 1,315,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,289,000.
The Civilian Labor Force fell by 164,000.
Those “Not in Labor Force” increased by 310,000. If you are not in the labor force, you are not counted as unemployed.
Those “Not in Labor Force” is at a new record high of 87,897,000.
Source: Townhall Finance
With some 248 million people over the age of of 15, nearly one in three Americans in this country are not working.
While the participation rate includes people like those in retirement and stay-at-home moms (because they definitely haven’t worked a day in their lives, as was recently noted by democrat strategist Hilary Rosen) who have no intention of joining the traditional labor force, the last four years have seen an unprecedented drop in the rate of labor force participation as well as unemployment overall. Charlie McGrath of Wide Awake News explains:
The government… pretending everything is getting better because we spent trillions of dollars bailing out firms we now call too-big-to-fail. But the fact of the matter is, in order to get this kind of 8.3% fictitious fantasy number they had to lower the participation rate.
In the last four years we’ve lost 10 million people out of the participation rate. Just to give you an idea of how many people that is, it would take the city of Dallas, Salt Lake, San Diego, Spokane, Roanoke and Cincinnati… the people living in those city limits. If you double that number that gives you the number of people that have left the participation rate that are no longer in the working pool.
Yet, that isn’t stopping the mainstream media from reporting that things are getting better. We’ve spent this nation into absolute financial servitude.
…
Understand that when you turn on the mainstream media you are being fed propaganda.
The Obama administration is pulling out all the stops.
If the real story came out – that the true unemployment rate in this country (those out of work plus those who the government deems as no longer participating) is almost triple that of the official BLS U-3 rate of 8.2% – confidence in the financial markets and the government’s ability to mitigate the crisis would be lost almost immediately. So, too, would Obama’s hope for another four years of fundamentally changing America.
But just because the President and his media conglomerates are preaching of recovery doesn’t mean that everyone believes it. A large portion of Americans, especially those millions of people without jobs, are not going to be swayed by the mainstream propaganda.
They are living in a modern day depression right here and now, and they, too, will be headed to the polls in November. And, as Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup, recently pointed out to RT, they don’t care about anything else except for their personal economic and financial circumstances:
RT: What are the dynamics in terms of opinion polls as far as the economy goes, among the American people, the way it was four years ago and the way it is now?
JC: We were going just fine in 2007, first part of 2008, then we crashed down. Now it’s coming back a little bit.
RT: Enough to win President Obama the next election?
JC: I don’t think quite yet… According to the Gallup poll, if we vote tonight, Romney will beat him… They are not voting for Romney – they just vote against the president.
RT: What are the main reasons not to vote for the president?
JC: Strictly unemployment. Just one reason. Foreign policy plays no role at all right now. If something really big happens… that will only make a little bit of a difference. Americans don’t want to hear about foreign policy. They should, but they don’t. Gallup shows real unemployment is close to 20 per cent in America. Not 8.5 but 20 per cent. 30 million people are out of work. 60 per cent of them told Gallup they have no hope of getting a job. That is 18 million.
RT: Do Americans blame the president for that?
JC: There are two questions here. Do I think they should? No. Do they? Yes.
President Obama most certainly inherited this crisis from his predecessor(s), but he’s taken no steps to change anything for the better.
The hope many had that life would improve under policies designed to redistribute wealth to the masses by taking from those with the ability and giving to those with the need is rapidly diminishing.
The trillions of dollars backed by human collateral that has been thrown at the crisis has done nothing to fix the underlying issues that caused it in the first place. All of the problems we faced in 2007/2008 are still here, and they are only going to get worse.
If you think 88 million not participating and 20%+ unemployment is bad, give it another four years.
Right now the safety nets are in place to help most of those who can’t find work – at least for 99 weeks until they are no longer counted as unemployed. But those safety nets, including medical care and food assistance, can only take so much before they snap.
That moment is rapidly approaching.
http://www.freedominfonetwork.org/profiles/blogs/88-million-that-s-one-in-three-americans-are-invisible-to-governmWith recovery in full swing and unemployment dropping to an Obama administration near... more -
BREAKING: New Information Answers John Doe Question; Reveals Scott Walker Was Solely Responsible for
Source: Democratic Party of Wisconsin
New research obtained by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin reveals that Scott Walker alone was responsible for the hire and promotion of Tim Russell and Kelly Rindfleisch, two key figures in the John Doe criminal corruption probe that has, to date, charged six close Walker aides and supporters with 15 felonies, resulted in two convictions and required Scott Walker himself to establish a criminal defense fund.
Personnel records obtained through an Open Records Request from the Milwaukee County Department of Human Resources show that Scott Walker was solely responsible for hiring Kelly Rindfleisch and Tim Russell, and for their subsequent promotions to increasingly trusted, responsible and lucrative positions in the Walker administration. Russell, charged with embezzling charitable contributions intended for wounded veterans and families of fallen military servicemembers and using the money, in part, to finance illegal corporate contributions to Scott Walker’s campaign, is well known as a longtime aide and adviser to Scott Walker who served in a number of roles in the Walker administration, including Deputy Chief of Staff. Scott Walker alone signed off on Russell’s hire with the County – available to view here.
Rindfleisch’s hire to the County Executive’s office, however, has been wrapped in suspicion. In court documents released in the criminal investigation into Rindfleisch’s alleged felony misuse of public office, Walker’s then-Chief of Staff Tom Nardelli stated that he had been unaware of the circumstances of Rindfleisch’s hire to the office he ran. Rindfleisch stated that she was hired to the office to do political work on Walker’s campaign, under the direction and supervision of Tim Russell.
Milwaukee County personnel records indicate that Scott Walker alone signed off on both Rindfleisch's initial hire to his administration and her subsequent promotion to Deputy Chief of Staff.
Read more: http://www.wisdems.org/news/blog/view/2012-04-breaking-new-information-answers-john-doe-question-r
"So will this be the Final Nail leading into Scott Walker's recall???" =)Source: Democratic Party of Wisconsin New research obtained by the Democratic Party... more-
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Mexico's corruption put to shame by children
MEXICO CITY -- A video "mockumentary" that shows children as kidnappers, corrupt cops and drug traffickers has sparked a fierce debate in violence-torn Mexico, with some people calling it a needed wake-up call while others described it as political manipulation or even child abuse.
Kids playing the role of businessmen, criminals and corrupt officials are seen robbing, paying bribes and shooting it out in a mock Mexico made up entirely of children, all to the deceptively laid-back tune of the 1970s ballad "Una Manana," or "One Morning."
Produced by a foundation supported by private companies and universities and distributed over the Internet, the video ends with a direct message to the candidates in the Mexico's July 1 presidential race.
A little girl faces the camera and says: "If this is the future that awaits me, I don't want it. Enough of working for your political parties instead of for us. Enough of cosmetic changes."
'Discomforting Kids'
Dubbed "Ninos Incomodos," roughly "Discomforting Kids," the four-minute video opens with a pudgy kid-businessman waking up in the morning dragging on a cigarette, and closes with a kiddie-version of alleged drug lord Edgar Valdez, aka "La Barbie," being dragged off to an overcrowded jail full of children by junior cops.
Little girls carrying purses scream and scurry for cover as boys their own age spray machine guns from huge SUVs and assault-rifle toting little cops run to detain them at gunpoint.
Despite the video's grim images of knife-wielding, migrant-smuggling, gun-toting kids, all the major candidates had praise for it. Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called it "well done, it's tough but it's the truth."
Earlier, the candidate of the former governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, Enrique Pena Nieto, wrote in his Twitter account: "I support the message of Discomforting Kids. I hear it all the time on the campaign trail; that 'time is running out.' It's time to renew hope and change Mexico. "
Josefina Vazquez Mota, the candidate of President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party, tweeted that "the video of Discomforting Kids is a call that can't be ignored. I accept the challenge, I want to join you."
Mexico cartels, US battle in classified ads
Not everyone was happy, however.
The video's vision of a smog-choked, apocalyptic Mexico where kid cops crack down on tiny anti-corruption protesters while pint-sized lazy or corrupt politicians stand by is manipulative, and no candidate could afford to criticize it, TV critic and newspaper columnist Alvaro Cueva said.
"No sane candidate is going to say, 'I want a future with crime, a future with criminals,'" Cueva said.
He called the video damaging and "a very clear violation of the (electoral) law."
A sense of 'despair'
It is a sensitive question in Mexico, where many people believe the 2006 elections were unfairly influenced by a series of privately produced and sponsored ads that sought to inspire fear of Lopez Obrador, warning Mexicans they could "lose everything" if he were elected. He narrowly lost to Calderon.
"The only thing this video does is to further muddy the election campaigns," Cueva said. "This video does nothing but foment a sense of desperation and despair."
7 taxi drivers shot dead outside Monterrey, Mexico
While the 2006 "fear" ads against Lopez Obrador, sponsored by private business groups, benefited Calderon, Cueva thinks this year's fear-video benefits the presidential front-runner, Pena Nieto, whose PRI party has extensive machines in most states that could help him win in the event of a low voter turnout.
"When one watches this video, one loses any desire to vote, and so it foments a low turnout, and in an environment of low turnout, the winner is the PRI candidate, Enrique Pena Nieto," Cueva said.
Pena Nieto's campaign was not immediately available to comment.
Others, like former presidential spokesman and political analyst Ruben Aguilar, accepted the private group's arguments that the video is an attempt to make citizens think.
"In this country, everyone thinks the worst, and they can never accept that somebody is doing something good," Aguilar said. "I think it is good, it is intelligent and it can help."
One killed every half hour in Mexico drug-related violence
The group that made the video, headed by Mexican insurance company GNP, took out full-page ads in Mexican newspapers saying it was merely reflecting the concerns of millions of citizens "who want to see themselves living in a Mexico that has left behind crime, corruption poverty, unemployment, drug trafficking."
But some objected to the video's use of children.
"It is unacceptable, scandalous, that they have shown children smoking, armed, kidnapping people with pistols and locking them in trunks," Labor Party congressman Mario di Costanzo said on the floor of Congress on Wednesday.
PRI congressman Miguel Angel Garcia Granados called on the Calderon administration to ban the video.
"We are not going to solve the big problems this country faces with sensationalism and shrillness, and certainly not by using underage children in documentaries," said Garcia Granados.
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/13/11177072-money-drugs-guns-and-gangs-child-actors-shame-mexicos-politicians-with-mockumentary?liteMEXICO CITY -- A video "mockumentary" that shows children as kidnappers,... more-
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Fukushima Radiation INCOMING! Taste the Rainbow
This is a public service announcement. Your government has lied to you. The safety regulators have lied to you. The media has lied to you. You and your children are currently breathing Strontium, Cesium, Xenon, and radioactive Iodine, which is still spewing from the “active” Fukushima-Daiichi reactor complex. The irrefutable evidence I present needs to be front page news everywhere. Inform everyone.
http://rezn8d.net/2012/04/12/fukushima-radiation-incoming-taste-the-rainbow/This is a public service announcement. Your government has lied to you. The safety... more-
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Palin PAC raises 388K in 1st Quarter, not one dime to candidates
The Wasilla grifter took the money and is laughing all the way to the bank.
Sarah Palin’s political action committee raised $388,000 in the first three months of the year, but it spent $418,000 and didn’t give a dime to any candidates — which is the purported purpose of the PAC.
Instead, Sarah PAC spent $255,000 on fundraising and a small team of political consultants that Palin has continued to support even as she receded from the political spotlight during the heat of the GOP presidential primary. It also appears to have spent $19,000 on a video rebutting the HBO film “Game Change.”
The PAC also paid $4,500 to reserve space at Channelside Bay Mall in Tampa, Fla., near the site of the Republican National Convention, suggesting that Palin plans to have an independent presence at the event separate from the formal proceedings.
Sarah PAC, a so-called leadership PAC set up to help the former Alaska governor maintain a political presence, finished March with $983,000 in the bank, according to a report filed Wednesday afternoon with the Federal Election Commission.
Sarah PAC’s website says it is “dedicated to building America’s future by supporting fresh ideas and candidates who share our vision for reform and innovation.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75036.html#ixzz1rqAj9ESPThe Wasilla grifter took the money and is laughing all the way to the bank. Sarah... more -
Unrepentant Clergy and Dirty Banksters, The Vaticans’ Finest Hour
Vatican website hacked for church’s ‘crimes’
MARCH 7, 2012
In its statement, Anonymous also cited the Vatican’s “significant role in helping Nazi war criminals find refuge in foreign countries and evade international justice” among the reasons for the attack.
The group also accused the church of burning books of “immense historic value,” of executing its critics, of interfering in Italian internal matters and of being responsible for the “enslavement of entire civilizations.”
The statement stressed that the attack was “not against the Christian religion or the faithful around the world but against the corrupt Roman Apostolic Church.”
Anonymous Hacker Torments Vatican in 2nd Site Attack: ‘Luther Once Nailed 95 Theses To The Door’
MARCH 13, 2012 5:25 PM EDT
“There was a second attack we are aware of directed against the [Vatican IP] address,” said a Vatican spokesman today. “[Concerning] Vatican Radio, a database on an old server was accessed. Thirty percent of the information on the server was so outdated it was of no use.”
Moar here:
http://rezn8d.net/2012/04/10/unrepentant-clergy-dirty-bankster-vaticans-finest-hour/Vatican website hacked for church’s ‘crimes’ MARCH 7, 2012 In... more-
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Matt Taibbi: Why Obama's JOBS Act Couldn't Suck Worse
Boy, do I feel like an idiot. I've been out there on radio and TV in the last few months saying that I thought there was a chance Barack Obama was listening to the popular anger against Wall Street that drove the Occupy movement, that decisions like putting a for-real law enforcement guy like New York AG Eric Schneiderman in charge of a mortgage fraud task force meant he was at least willing to pay lip service to public outrage against the banks.
Then the JOBS Act happened.
The "Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act" (in addition to everything else, the Act has an annoying, redundant title) will very nearly legalize fraud in the stock market.
In fact, one could say this law is not just a sweeping piece of deregulation that will have an increase in securities fraud as an accidental, ancillary consequence. No, this law actually appears to have been specifically written to encourage fraud in the stock markets.
Ostensibly, the law makes it easier for startup companies (particularly tech companies, whose lobbyists were a driving force behind its passage) to attract capital by, among other things, exempting them from independent accounting requirements for up to five years after they first begin selling shares in the stock market.
The law also rolls back rules designed to prevent bank analysts from talking up a stock just to win business, a practice that was so pervasive in the tech-boom years as to be almost industry standard.
Even worse, the JOBS Act, incredibly, will allow executives to give "pre-prospectus" presentations to investors using PowerPoint and other tools in which they will not be held liable for misrepresentations. These firms will still be obligated to submit prospectuses before their IPOs, and they'll still be held liable for what's in those. But it'll be up to the investor to check and make sure that the prospectus matches the "pre-presentation."
The JOBS Act also loosens a whole range of other reporting requirements, and expands stock investment beyond "accredited investors," giving official sanction to the internet-based fundraising activity known as "crowdfunding."
But the big one, to me, is the bit about exempting firms from real independent tests of internal controls for five years.
When I first read this, I asked myself: how does a law exempting a Silicon Valley startup from independent accounting actually encourage investment? If American companies have to have their internal processes independently verified before and after they go public, doesn't that give investors all around the world a big reason to put their money here, instead of investing in, say, Mobbed-Up Siberian Aluminum LLC, or Bangalore Sweatshop Inc.?
In other words, how does letting www.investonawhim.com go to market (and stay on the market for five years!) without publishing real numbers actually help the industry attract more financing in general, when the whole point of all of these controls is to make investment a less risky experience for the investor?
Get ready for the ostensible answer, because you won't believe it. Here's how CNN explained the reasoning behind that exemption:
Having 500 investors or raising $5 million previously forced a company to register with the SEC -- a costly endeavor. Filling out stacks of legal forms and undergoing independent accounting audits can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The law loosens requirements for most companies by raising several thresholds.
We needed Barack Obama and the congress to compromise the entire U.S. stock market because it's too expensive for a publicly-listed company with billion-dollar ambitions to hire an accountant? That almost sounds like a comedy routine:
SILICON VALLEY EXECUTIVE: Listen, IJustThoughtOfSomething.com is the hottest thing on the internet. We're so huge it hurts... I can't even walk to my corner bodega without women throwing me their phone numbers!
INVESTOR: I'd love to invest. Can I see your numbers from last year?
SILICON VALLEY EXECUTIVE: Well, that's just the thing. We painted the bathrooms last March, and then we also had that Vitamin Water machine put in the lounge. You know, the one next to the ping-pong table? So we just didn't have any money left over for an accountant. But I estimate our revenues for 2014 to be $4.2 billion.
INVESTOR: Sounds hot! Where do I send the check?
There's just no benefit that the JOBS Act brings to an honest startup company. In fact, it puts an honest company at a severe disadvantage, because now it has to compete against other, less scrupulous companies that can simply make their projections up on the backs of envelopes.
This is like formally eliminating steroid testing for the first five years of a baseball player's career. Yes, you can pretty much bet that you'll see a lot of home runs in the first few years after you institute a rule like that. But you'd better be ready to stick a lot of asterisks in the record books ten or fifteen years down the line.
In the same way, get ready for an avalanche of shareholder suits ten years from now, since post-factum civil litigation will be the only real regulation of the startup market. In fact, there are already supporters talking up future lawsuits as an appropriate tool to replace the regulations being wiped out by this bill.
The JOBS Act seems like it will invite a replay of the disastrous tech-stock bubble of the late nineties. That mess was made possible by a historic collapse in accounting standards, with the great investment banks the pioneers of the collapse. In the old days, in the fifties and sixties for instance, you would never take a company public that wasn't profitable at the time of the IPO, or didn't have a multi-year track record of solid revenues.
When the banks stopped insisting on proven track records or real profitability before taking a company public, there was a sudden explosion of stock-market investment into heretofore unknown internet firms. Companies with no track records went from having literally no revenues at all to having five or six billion dollars' worth of market capitalization overnight. Banks explained that the new way to measure a company was by the quality of its ideas, not boring old indicators like revenues.
Continued at:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-obamas-jobs-act-couldnt-suck-worse-20120409Boy, do I feel like an idiot. I've been out there on radio and TV in the last few... more-
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Worse Than SOPA! New CISPA Cybersecurity Bill Will Censor The Internet!
April 03, 2012 Russia Today News http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoM_tKfwDWA-
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Romney's NLRB Mole.
Mitt Romney’s labor adviser, Peter Schaumber, has gone too far. The inspector general of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found that improper, unethical disclosures of privileged information to Schaumber were used to benefit his consulting practice and attack the NLRB—the federal agency tasked with protecting workers’ rights.1
Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, says the concerns raised in the inspector general’s report are “very serious and involve potential criminal implications.”2
How candidate Romney responds to these findings is a test of his character. Will Romney embrace Washington insiders who trade on confidential and even attorney-client privileged information? Or will he demand they abide by the same ethical standards the rest of us—the 99%—pride ourselves on and expect others to live up to?
Please join the AFL-CIO in demanding that candidate Romney renounce Peter Schaumber’s involvement with these ethical breaches and fire him immediately.
According to the report of the NLRB’s Office of the Inspector General and news reports, here’s what we know about Romney adviser Peter Schaumber:
He was named to the NLRB by President George W. Bush and served until Aug. 27, 2010. After he left the agency, Schaumber marketed himself as a “consultant” with “[NLRB] agency connections.” During that time, he did press work to attack the NLRB and the modest workplace protections workers have.2
Schaumber benefited from the improper and unethical receipt of confidential, inside information to support his anti-worker consulting business and his press work aimed at giving the NLRB a bad name. The inappropriate disclosures were made to Schaumber from his former staffer, Terence Flynn—who remained at the NLRB and became a board member.1
Flynn acted as Schaumber’s mole inside the agency, feeding him internal, confidential, attorney-client privileged information. According to the IG report, this broke government ethics rules. Flynn needs to resign immediately, and Romney needs to hold Schaumber accountable.1,3
1 http://democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/sites/democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/
files/documents/112/pdf/letters/DOCFlynnTransmittal.PDF
2 http://www.salon.com/2012/03/27/team_romneys_alleged_labor_mole/singleton/
3 http://www.aflcio.org/Press-Room/Press-Releases/Statement-by-AFL-CIO-President-
Richard-Trumka-On-Ethical-Violations-by-NLRB-Member-Terence-FlynnMitt Romney’s labor adviser, Peter Schaumber, has gone too far. The inspector... more -
Financiers and Sex Trafficking
THE biggest forum for sex trafficking of under-age girls in the United States appears to be a Web site called Backpage.com.
This emporium for girls and women — some under age or forced into prostitution — is in turn owned by an opaque private company called Village Voice Media. Until now it has been unclear who the ultimate owners are.
That mystery is solved. The owners turn out to include private equity financiers, including Goldman Sachs with a 16 percent stake.
Goldman Sachs was mortified when I began inquiring last week about its stake in America’s leading Web site for prostitution ads. It began working frantically to unload its shares, and on Friday afternoon it called to say that it had just signed an agreement to sell its stake to management.
“We had no influence over operations,” Andrea Raphael, a Goldman Sachs spokeswoman, told me.
Let’s back up for a moment. There’s no doubt that many escort ads on Backpage are placed by consenting adults. But it’s equally clear that Backpage plays a major role in the trafficking of minors or women who are coerced. In one recent case in New York City, prosecutors say that a 15-year-old girl was drugged, tied up, raped and sold to johns through Backpage and other sites.
Backpage has 70 percent of the market for prostitution ads, according to AIM Group, a trade organization.
Village Voice Media makes some effort to screen out ads placed by traffickers and to alert authorities to abuses, but neither law enforcement officials nor antitrafficking organizations are much impressed. As a result, pressure is growing on the company to drop escort ads.
After my last column on this issue, 19 U.S. senators wrote the company, asking it to stop abetting traffickers. On Thursday, antitrafficking campaigners protested outside the Village Voice newspaper (which is owned by Village Voice Media). A petition on Change.org criticizing the company has gathered 220,000 signatures.
In Washington State, the governor signed a bill into law on Thursday that could expose Backpage to criminal sanctions if it advertises under-age girls for sex without verifying their ages. (There’s some uncertainty about the constitutionality of the law.)
Village Voice Media has been able to resist pressure partly because, as a private company, it doesn’t disclose its owners. But I’ve obtained documents that, with some digging, shed light on who’s behind it.
The two biggest owners are Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey, the managers of the company, and they seem to own about half of the shares. The best known of the other owners is Goldman Sachs, which invested in the company in 2000 (before Backpage became a part of Village Voice Media in a 2006 merger).
A Goldman managing director, Scott L. Lebovitz, sat on the Village Voice Media board for many years. Goldman says he stepped down in early 2010.
Let’s be clear: this is a tiny investment by a huge company, and I have no reason to think that Goldman’s top executives knew of its connection to sex trafficking. Goldman prides itself on its work on gender: its 10,000 Women initiative does splendid work supporting women in business around the globe. Full disclosure: Goldman’s foundation was one of about 15 funders of a public television documentary version of a book that my wife and I wrote about the world’s women.
That said, for more than six years Goldman has held a significant stake in a company notorious for ties to sex trafficking, and it sat on the company’s board for four of those years. There’s no indication that Goldman or anyone else ever used its ownership to urge Village Voice Media to drop escort ads or verify ages. Elizabeth L. McDougall, chief counsel for Village Voice Media, told me Friday that she was “unaware of any dissent” from owners.
Several lesser-known financial companies also hold significant stakes in Village Voice Media, and one person close to the company says that there are about a dozen owners in all. One is Trimaran, an investment company in New York. It wouldn’t disclose the size of its stake but told me that it had “no influence whatsoever” on management and is now trying to sell its shares.
Two other companies, Alta Communications and Brynwood Partners, did not respond to my repeated inquiries about ties to Village Voice Media (Brynwood may be an asset manager rather than an owner). One thought: If the minority shareholders, Goldman included, worked together instead of rushing for the exits, they might be able to pressure Village Voice Media to get out of escort ads.
There are no easy solutions to sex trafficking. I think the most important single step is for prosecutors to focus more on pimps and johns. Closing down the leading Web site used by traffickers would complicate their lives, and after so many years of girls being trafficked on this site, it’s time to hold owners accountable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/kristof-financers-and-sex-trafficking.html?_r=1&ref=businessTHE biggest forum for sex trafficking of under-age girls in the United States appears... more -
Inside The Brotherhood
A six part documentary looking into allegations of corruption inside Freemasonry.
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Playlist runs straight through. Gets choppy on a couple of parts, but clears up.A six part documentary looking into allegations of corruption inside Freemasonry.... more-
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No More Band aids - These 3 Resolutions moved on to MN CD6!
Last Saturday, (3/10/2012) this author attended the Wright County MN BPU Convention.
Among the items of business completed was the vote to move these three resolutions forward to the CD6 Convention.
While the candidates for President and other elected officers are out offering a myriad of promises ranging from jobs to free birth control, this delegate refuses from being distracted from the real issues facing America.
While arguments over free birth control during a crisis in which the government is on the brink of fiscal collapse and moral bankruptcy seem ill timed, even solutions to address some of the relevant problems are mere, ineffective band aids. Promising jobs and lower gas prices are not permanent solutions to the problems our government faces.
No candidate has offered solutions which are permanent in nature. Promising jobs and blaming the other party for spending to much or not taxing enough are not solutions.
In fact they are intended as distractions to for WE THE PEOPLE. Your elected officials do not want rank and file America making voting decisions based on their reckless spending and systemic corruption.
This author puts it to you, the reader, that these 3 resolutions actually strike at the root of the problems that are causing the economic and moral demises of America.
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
Henry David Thoreau
[Article Continues below almost universal translator]
Vertaal na Afrikaans |Translate në shqip | ترجمةإلىالعربية | Թարգմանելհայերեն| Azərbaycan Tərcümə | Euskal Translate| Перавесці на беларускай| বাংলাঅনুবাদ | Превод на български| Traduir al català | 转换为中文（简体)|翻譯到中國（傳統） | Prevedi na hrvatskom | Translate to Czech | Oversæt til dansk | Te vertalen naar het Nederlands | Tõlgi eesti | Isalin sa Filipino sa| Käännä Suomen | Traduire en français | Traducir a Galego | თარგმნეთსაქართველოს| Übersetzen auf Deutsch | Μετάφραση στα ελληνικά| ગુજરાતીઅનુવાદ | Tradui kreyòl ayisyen | תרגוםעברית | सेहिन्दीअनुवाद| Fordítás magyar | Þýða til Íslenska | Terjemahkan ke bahasa Indonesia| Aistrigh go Gaeilge| Traduci in italiano | 日本語に翻訳| ಕನ್ನಡಗೆಭಾಷಾಂತರಿಸಿ | 한국어번역| Translate to Latine | Tulkot uz latviešu | Latvian Tulkot uz latviešu| Versti į lietuvių| Преведете на македонски| Terjemah ke Bahasa Malaysia| Ittraduċi għall-Malti| Oversette til norsk |ترجمهبهفارسی| Przekłada się na polskim | Traduzir para Português | Traduceţi în română |Перевести на русскую|Преведи на Српском | Preložiť na slovenský |Prevedi v slovenski | Traducir al español | Tafsiri kwa Kiswahili | Översätt till svenska | தமிழ்மொழிபெயர்க்கவும்| తెలుగులోఅనువదించడానికి | แปลเป็นไทย| Çevir Türkçe>| Перекласти українською| اردومیںترجمہکریں | Dịch cho người Việt Nam| Cyfieithu i'r Gymraeg | איבערזעצןצוייִדיש|
Please join with this author and your fellow citizen in pressing these resolutions that we might restore our Constitution and Liberties. Please distribute and champion these Caucus Resolutions at your own Caucuses and Conventions.
Given the staggered natured of America’s primaries and caucuses, some of you have already had your precinct caucuses and some have not. (Even if you have a primary, there is a caucus) The Author encourages you to make double sided copies of these documents and distribute them at every caucus and convention you attend. (Why you must attend your caucus this year! http://bit.ly/AyRuGR)
You can down load them in Word format here......
To continue reading for free, click here No More Band aids - These 3 Resolutions moved on to MN CD6!
Those were my thoughts.
In Closing:
Thank you, my fellow citizens, for taking your valuable time to read and reflect upon what is written here.
Please join with me in mutually pledging to each other and our fellow citizens our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to our mutual endeavors of restoring liberty and economic opportunity to WE THE PEOPLE as our Founding Fathers envisioned and intended. [Last
This article is written with the same intentions as Thomas Paine http://ushistory.org/paine. I seek no leadership role. I seek only to help the American People find their own way using their own “Common Sense” http://amzn.to/kbRuar
TellMyPolitician http://goo.gl/1FWfz
Keep Fighting the Good Fight!
In Liberty,
Don Mashak
The Cynical Patriot
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WE THE PEOPLE TAR
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End the Fed(eral Reserve Bank System)
National http://bit.ly/ta3Rju Minneapolis http://bit.ly/tjZJKF
Lawless America
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Justice in Minnesota #JIM
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Bring Home the Politicians #BHTP
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Get out of our House #GOOOH
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Critical Thinking Notice - This author advises you as no politician would dare. Exercise Critical Thinking (http://bit.ly/ubI6ve) in determining the truthfulness of anything you read or hear. Do not passively accept nor believe anything anyone tells you, including this author... unless and until you verify it yourself with sources you trust and could actively defend your perspective to anyone who might debate you to the contrary of your perspective.Last Saturday, (3/10/2012) this author attended the Wright County MN BPU Convention.... more-
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