How Goldman Sachs took over the world
[posted 10/13/08 ] "Almost
whatever the country, you can find Goldman Sachs veterans in positions of
pivotal power ... George Bush picked up the phone this month, partly at the instigation of another Goldman Sachs alumnus, his Treasury secretary, Hank Paulson. Together with Mr Bush's chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, there will be three Goldman Sachs old boys in major positions of influence in the White House – but the US government is hardly alone in finding the bank's executives to be attractive hirees ... They are well-credentialed, partly by design. From its beginning when the German immigrant Marcus Goldman began discounting IOUs among the diamond merchants of New York in the 1870s, Goldman Sachs has always known about the power of the network of influence. Goldman hires former politicians and civil servants, as readily as it supplies
them ..."
Sarkozy, Medvedev Call for New European Security Pact
[10/12/08 ] "The European Union and Russia formally got their relations back on track Wednesday when French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, met for talks on a common future. At an international conference in the south-eastern French resort of Evian, Sarkozy called for a total reconstruction of the European security structure.
Sarkozy also proposed a summit meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to be held at the end of 2009 "to discuss (Russian) proposals and those of the European Union for new concepts of a pan-European defence."
Brzezinski confirmed in 2007 that the United States can
organize attacks in their own territory
[posted 10/12/08] "With the exception of Washington Note and Financial Times, the mainstream media decided not to report Zbigniew Brzezinski’s comments that shatter the United Stator ruling class. Auditioned on February 1st, 2007 by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the former National Security Adviser read a statement the terms of which had been carefully chosen. He indicated that : " a plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and
Pakistan". As you must have noticed: Mr Brzezinski evoked the Bush administration plausible organization of an attack in the United States, and the possibility of holding Iran wrongly responsible for it. In Washington the analysts hesitate between two interpretations of this statement. For certain officials, the former National Security Adviser tried to beat the neoconservatives to it and to cast doubt in advance on any circumstance which would lead to the war. For others, Mr Brzezinski wanted, in addition, to suggest that in case of collision with the war partisans, he could reopen the September 11th file. In any case,
Thierry
Meyssan’s hypothesis - According to which the September 11th attacks would have been perpetrated by a
Military-Industrial Complex faction to provoke the Afghanistan and Iraq wars - Leaves suddenly the taboo domain to be discussed publicly by Washington elites."
Note: of course, Brzezinski backs
Obama.
Operation
Sarkozy : how the CIA placed one of its agents at the presidency of the French
Republic
[by Thierry Meyssan 7/26/08,
reposted 10/12/08] "One should judge Nicolas Sarkozy according to his actions, and not according to his personality. Yet when his doings surprise even his own constituents, it is legitimate to take a detailed look at his biography and question the bonds that brought him to power. Thierry Meyssan has decided to write the truth about the French Republic’s president background. All the information included in this article is provable, except for two assertions
signaled by the author, Thierry Meyssan, who alone takes full responsibility
..." Note:
I vaguely remember seeing this in July.
Well, if this is the case, than definitely this other MySpace
Blog article, which came out October 12, 2008, entitled "French Intelligence Fingers Israeli Planned False Flag On American Soil"
,to which there is a link on the Rumor Mill website, is an intelligence agency
fear-based dark-side ploy, geared to misinform and induce fear, besides being
full of obvious internal contradictions
to things we know are the case. Here is another example of a story which, by
implication, invalidates material in the October 12th story above: French-Israeli cooperation in the field of military R&D.
The use of MySpace by intel agencies for propaganda is already a known fact.
After all, they do wish to have the 'patriots' revolt and induce fear
in gullible people, don't they, in order to 'justify' authoritarian lockdown,
so why not plant the Oct 12 article, which would contribute toward that
dynamic?
George
W. Bush: Torturing Democracy <-Three-Part PBS
Documentary now available online for viewing. Annotated
Transcript is also available. About the issue of torture as a viable
strategy ... and how Cheney, Addington and others were involved in the post
911 strategy.
Western troops root of Afghan turmoil
[10/12/08 ]
"Seven years of western military presence in Afghanistan has led to insecurity, a narcotics production surge and loss of civilian lives but no stability."
Related: 'Afghan war has no end in sight'
"Top British commander has warned that war in Afghanistan shows 'no end point' and foreign troops need to hand over the power to Afghans."
Commodity Futures Trading Commission Head Warned of Derivatives in Congressional Testimony in 1997
[10/11/08 ] "In 1997, Brooksley Born warned in congressional testimony that unregulated trading in derivatives could "threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy without any federal agency knowing about it." Born called for greater transparency -- disclosure of trades and reserves as a buffer against losses. Instead of heeding this oracle's warnings, Greenspan, Rubin & Summers rushed to silence her. As the Times story reveals, Born's wise warnings "incited fierce opposition" from Greenspan and Rubin who "concluded that merely discussing new rules threatened the derivatives market." Greenspan deployed condescension and told Born she didn't know what she doing and she'd cause a financial crisis. (A senior Commission director who worked with Born suggests that Greenspan and the guys didn't like her independence. " Brooksley was this woman who was not playing tennis with these guys and not having lunch with these guys. There was a little bit of the feeling that this woman was not of Wall Street."
Indicated Size of Payments Due on Lehman CDS: $270 Billion
[10/10/08 ] That is much larger than the markets thought just two days ago. It will lead to some hedge fund bankruptcies and strain the banks and insurance companies, further shrinking the pool of
loan-able funds and tightening the credit markets like a corset on a fat banker.
Related: Morgan Stanley's CDS lead credit spreads wider
| Derivatives Bloodbath
| Wachovia Sending 75 Employees on a Mediterranean Cruise
China stiffing U.S. for $100 billion in debt
[10/10/08 ] "
... In 2006, the Chinese Ministry of Finance issued an official communiqué addressed to "the Embassy of the United States of America in China," in which the Chinese government formally repudiated China's defaulted full faith and credit sovereign debt and announced that it would not repay any debt held by American citizens
..."
NATO Agrees on Afghan Drug Role for Military
[10/10/08 ] "NATO defense ministers Friday authorized their troops in Afghanistan to attack drug barons blamed for pumping up to US$100 million (euro74 million) a year into the coffers of resurgent Taliban fighters. The United States has pushed for NATO's 50,000 troops to take on a counter-narcotics role to hit back at the Taliban, whose increasing attacks have cast doubt on the prospects of a Western military victory in Afghanistan. However, Germany, Spain and others were wary and their doubts led to NATO imposing conditions on the anti-drug mandate for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force."
Related: NATO doubtful on defeating Taliban
Map of the week: The mystery of the missing opium
[10/09/08 ] "It's a mystery that has got British law enforcement officials and others across the planet scratching their heads. Put bluntly, enough heroin to supply the world's demand for years has simply disappeared. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) describes the situation as "a time bomb for public health and global security". A crop of 7,700 tonnes will produce around 1,100 tonnes of heroin - it basically works on a 7:1 ratio.The mystery is that the global demand for heroin is less than half that. In other words, Afghanistan only needs to produce 3,500 tonnes to satisfy every known heroin user on the planet. Vast quantities of heroin and morphine are being stockpiled. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UNODC is convinced that is the only explanation. In a recent bulletin he issues an urgent order: 'Find the missing opium.' "As a priority, intelligence services need to examine who holds this surplus, where it may go, and for what purpose" he says. "We know little about these stockpiles of drugs, besides that they are not in the hands of farmers." This week's Map of the Week comes courtesy of the
UNODC. It shows their latest estimate of opium production in Afghanistan - another bumper year
SOCA has a number of undercover operatives in southern Afghanistan. They tell me this: "Whilst the cultivation and production of opium in Afghanistan is in decline, intelligence suggests there is considerable stockpiling of narcotics by Afghan criminal networks in order to control prices in the growing markets in Russia, China and within the local region." Nato's top operations commander is calling for more aggressive tactics against the opium trade in Afghanistan. US General John Craddock will tell Defence Ministers gathering in Budapest that troops should focus on "high-end" targets like drug dealers and laboratories. Some Nato ministers, however, are concerned that any crackdown would prompt a violent backlash against allied troops."
Run On The System: Black Friday
[10/10/08 ]
“The US and advanced economies’ financial system is now headed towards a near-term systemic financial meltdown as day after day stock markets are in free fall, money markets have shut down while their spreads are skyrocketing, and credit spreads are surging through the roof. There is now the beginning of a generalized run on the banking system of these economies; a collapse of the shadow banking system… and now a roll-off of the short term liabilities of the corporate sectors that may lead to widespread bankruptcies of solvent but illiquid financial and non-financial firms ... “At this point the risk of an imminent stock market crash – like the one-day collapse of 20 per cent plus in US stock prices in 1987 – cannot be ruled out as the financial system is breaking down, panic and lack of confidence in any counterparty is sharply rising and the investors have totally lost faith in the ability of policy authorities to control this meltdown….When markets that are clearly way oversold that even the most radical policy actions don’t provide rallies or relief to market participants, you know that you are one step away from a market crack and a systemic financial sector and corporate sector collapse. A vicious circle of
de-leveraging, asset collapses, margin calls, cascading falls in asset prices well below falling fundamentals and panic is now underway.”
Oil outlook clouds Russia’s economic future
[
10/07/08 ] "The era of record profits from oil and gas is over - that's according to Russia's Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin. 2008 is likely to be the year of peak oil and gas production in the country. The big oil companies are cutting investment in new projects. Russia has received up to $1 Billion a day in oil revenues in recent years, and the country's budget and economy remain highly dependent on hydrocarbon earnings. The world financial crisis and recession has triggered big falls in the world's oil price. That will significantly affect the Russian budget, according to Mikhail Kroutikhin, partner at
Rusenergy. We will see a deficit after the price goes down to 70 dollars, at least that s what the Finance Minister says. I believe it could be sooner.” At the beginning of the week oil dropped to an 8 month low, and rebounded slightly on Tuesday to $89 a barrel for Russia’s Urals blend. As the worlds second largest oil exporter, Russia is critically dependent on international consumers. President of the Russian Oil and Gas Industrialists Union, Gennady Shmal, says the oil giants have also looked abroad to borrow. “A lot of our oil companies have high dependence on foreign borrowings. We don't have a common figure but for example Gazprom has around $40 Billion and Rosneft is also around $40 Billion. And Russia exports a lot, so we depend on our international consumers of oil and gas.” The first signs of falling consumption from US and China - the world's largest oil consumer - could see the price of oil down to 60 $ per barrel, analysts say. That could trigger a vicious circle of falling income and investment, as production gets more expensive in Russia's ageing fields."
Click here to see related articles on this page.
Jim Cramer throws in the towel
[
10/07/08 ]
"The host of CNBC's "Mad Money" went on the Today show Monday and told investors to get out.
"Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market right
now, this week," he said. "I do not believe that you should risk those assets in the stock market right now.” Cramer is predicting that the market could fall by as much as 20%. If you can hold off and leave your money in place for the long term, he said, then ride it out. But he's worried about the short-term fallout.."
Related: The Borg: A Financial Allegory |
Dow drops
another 500 points | Mortgage meltdown to hit credit card users
| Bernanke: More Pain Ahead (Video)
|Retirement accounts have lost $2 trillion
October
10: D-Day
[
10/06/08 ]
"Forget the stock market gyrations.
Forget Bernanke and Paulson's ineffective, unconstitutional schemes. Friday's auction for Lehman's credit default swaps (CDS) is much more
important. Why? Well, if banks are reassured by the CDS auction, it could do
more to free up frozen capital than all of the Fed and Treasury's
ill-conceived plans put together. An auction occurred today to determine the
value of Freddie and Fannie's CDS. While there were approximately $500 billion
in CDS written against Freddie and Fannie, those who issued CDS will be repaid
between 91.5 percent and 99.9 percent of protection they sold. In other words,
the issuers of such CDS will only have to pay out between .1 and 8.5 cents on
the dollar ..." Related: Settlement
day approaches for derivatives The $54 Trillion credit
derivatives market faces its biggest test this month as billions of dollars
worth of contracts on now-defaulted derivatives on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac,
Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual are settled..." NOTE: The
are just talking about CDS for a few companies. Derivatives are problematic
concepts. Every kind of derivative device in play, if you added them up, would
be over $1 Quadrillion. See this
important video for an explanation. See below about
derivatives as concepts.
Japan: Yakuza stalk Japanese markets as organised crime opens new front
Historical [
8/28/08 ] "According to one veteran expert on the yakuza, the new activities of the nation's largest crime syndicates have effectively turned the mob into
the biggest private equity firm in Japan ... In a White Paper on the subject, the NPA gives warning that the yakuza's switch from old-fashioned crime rackets such as drugs and prostitution to mainstream financial markets is “a disease that will shake the foundations of the economy” .... The issue has become so acute that the Osaka Stock Exchange has been forced to introduce an entirely new screening system to establish which companies have direct mob links or large quantities of yakuza money on their shareholder registers. Scores of companies, one exchange source said, faced the threat of being delisted .... As well as flagging the risks of a yakuza invasion of financial markets, the police's report also sounds alarm bells over the property and construction sectors. The greatest risk, it says, is that the yakuza gangs match the operational strategies of mainstream global corporations and outsource much of their financial chicanery to “co-operative
groups” .... According to one in-depth investigation by NHK, the state broadcaster, a few yakuza gangs even operate their own stock-dealing floors, where millions of dollars of shares are traded every day. A newly published book on the subject - Yakuza Money - claims that the presence of skilled former bankers, stockbrokers and accountants on the yakuza’s extended payroll has dramatically increased the mob’s income stream and made it virtually impossible to discern the difference between legal and illegal funds as they flow through the Japanese markets .... Joshua Adelstein, an author and consultant on the yakuza, says that one of the key recent developments has been the emergence of mob-backed auditing firms. It is by getting these auditing firms to sign-off false company accounts, he said, that the yakuza were able to manipulate both the apparent earnings and stock prices of numerous small listed companies .... Mr Adelstein said: “The police are worried, but they are understating the problem. Organised crime has made tremendous inroads into the Japanese financial sector. The bad guys now have everything in place to manipulate the stock market.”
Now who wants some bailout money? Related: Current
Japanese Business Market News
Credit crunch: rate cut fails to stop markets tumbling
[10/08/08 ] "The most concerted effort yet by global authorities to bring an end to the 14-month credit crunch using every weapon in their arsenal failed to restore battered confidence
..." Related: Paulson warns that more banks and businesses will fail
" .... In a veiled attack at governments including Ireland and Greece, which have made unilateral moves to save their own banking systems,
Mr. Paulson said: “We must take care to ensure that our actions are closely
coordinated and communicated so that the action of one country does not come at the expense of others or the stability of the system as a
whole ... ” Global financial
crisis and need for a new banking 'policeman’ | IMF calls for action now to combat global recession
Insurance giant AIG's role in market crisis probed
[
10/07/08 ] "Former top executives of insurance giant American International Group Inc. were on the receiving end of a verbal smackdown today as a congressional panel probed the chain of events that forced the government to bail out the
conglomerate .... AIG suffered huge losses when its credit rating was cut, thanks largely to complex financial transactions known as
"credit default swaps." AIG was a major seller of the swaps, which are a form of insurance, though they are not regulated that
way ... Senator Waxman unveiled documents showing AIG executives hid the full extent of the firm's risky financial products from auditors, both outside and inside the firm, as losses
mounted .... Former AIG CEO Greenberg issued a written statement but canceled his appearance before the committee, citing illness."
Click here to see previous material on AIG below.
Derivatives:
(financial fictions) "Derivatives
are financial instruments whose values depend on the value of other
underlying financial instruments, or "Exchangeables".
The main types of derivatives are futures, forwards, options,
and swaps. The main use of derivatives is to reduce risk for one party.
The diverse range of potential underlying assets and pay-off alternatives
leads to a wide range of derivatives contracts available to be traded in the
market. Derivatives can be based on different types of assets such as
commodities, equities (stocks), residential mortgages, commercial real estate
loans, bonds, interest rates, exchange rates, or indexes (such as a stock
market index, consumer price index (CPI) — see inflation derivatives — or
even an index of weather conditions, or other derivatives). Their performance
can determine both the amount and the timing of the pay-offs. Unregulated
Credit derivatives have become an increasingly large part of the derivative
market." Use of Derivatives:
Hedging, Speculation and Arbitrage Types: OTC and
Exchange-traded Classes: Futures or Forwards, Options, Swappings
(equity swap, interest rate swap, credit default). Underlying "Exchangeables":
Property (mortgage) derivatives, Economic derivatives that pay off according
to economic reports as measured and reported by national statistical agencies,
Energy derivatives that pay off according to a wide variety of indexed energy
prices. Usually classified as either physical or financial, where physical
means the contract includes actual delivery of the underlying energy commodity
(oil, gas, power, etc.), Commodities, Freight derivatives, Inflation
derivatives, Insurance derivatives, Weather derivatives, and Credit
derivatives. It should be understood that derivatives themselves are not
to be considered investments since they are not an asset class.
Click on the link above for much more information.
Paulson picks former
Goldman Sachs executive to head rescue effort
[
10/06/08 ]
"The administration has selected a former Goldman Sachs executive to be the interim head of its $700 billion rescue effort for financial institutions. Neel
Kashkari 
(Kneel Cash Carry), the Treasury's assistant secretary for international affairs, was selected Monday to be the interim head of Treasury's new Office of Financial Stability.
The 35-year-old Kashkari is a former Goldman Sachs Inc. banker, the investment giant once headed by Treasury Secretary Henry
Paulson. The new office was created by the emergency legislation enacted Friday to fund the largest government bailout in history. The designation was made by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who was the head of Goldman Sachs before he joined the Bush administration in 2006. Kashkari, 35, will head the office created by the emergency legislation enacted Friday to fund the largest government bailout in history."
Related: Credit squeeze: SBA loans drop 30%
| Poll: 60% say depression 'likely'
| Bank of America profits plunge 68%|Oil tumbles to 8-month low below $88|Dow drop reaches 800 points on credit crisis
|Credit markets to Washington: Bailout isn't enough
| Fear That Some on Wall Street Will Shun Bailout
| Why
The 'Bailout" Won't Work Video|Jobs: Worst in 5 years|
Mortgage rates post gain|
Massachusetts looks into federal aid|
Gold Gains $33 An Ounce Amid Flock To Safety
The
Last Days of the American Republic
Real News Videos [
10/05/08 ] "USA must cut back on military spending and build green infrastructure or face ruin.
Related RN Video: The encirclement of Russia
"It's amazing that we have gone this far pushing the Russians around ... They are the only people on earth who could literally destroy us."
Related Videos: Chalmers Johnson
Speaking Freely
| Speaking
Freely, Part 2 [
10/05/08 ]
If We Get Through This Crisis, We'll Face Another in 5 to 10
Years [
10/07/08 ]
".... You don't need prescience to predict this with confidence; those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We haven't learned a thing from recent history -- it would threaten our underlying economic culture to do so -- so we'll repeat it all over again. Five to 10 years -- mark my
words ..."
US wrong to believe it can maintain both a military and civilian economy
Real News Video [
10/05/08 ] "While debate over the Paulson bailout package dominated the headlines, the US Congress quietly passed a landmark $615 billion defense spending bill. One of the few people to comment on the measure was Chalmers Johnson, in his article "We have the money." Chalmers explains to Real News Network's Senior Editor Paul Jay how the military-industrial complex is a driving force behind the current financial crisis and a determinant of much of what happens in Washington. He also criticizes the omission of the military-industrial complex from the political discourse determined by the two major parties and the media."
[Chalmers Johnson interview Pt.1]
Russia: Devastating problems may block march to power
[
10/05/08 ] "Russia's economy is almost totally dependent on the price of oil. While Russia has capitalized impressively on its oil industry, the volatility of the world oil market means that Putin cannot count on a long-term pipeline of cash flowing from high energy prices. A predicted drop of about one-third in the price of oil will surely constrain Putin's ability to carry out his ambitious agendas, both foreign and domestic. And, worst of all, it's facing a public-health crisis that verges on the catastrophic. Recent decades, most notably since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, have seen an appalling deterioration in the health of the Russian population, anchoring Russia not in the forefront of developed countries but among the most backward of nations. That makes Moscow's announced plan to boost defense spending by close to 26 percent in 2009 - to fully rearm its military with state-of-the-art weaponry - a dicey proposition. What the world saw in Georgia was a badly outdated arsenal, one that would take many years to replace - even assuming the country could afford the $200 billion
cost .... policies seem unlikely to change as the bear lumbers along, driven by disastrously misplaced priorities and the blindingly unrealistic expectations of a resentment-driven political leadership. Moscow remains bent on ignoring the devastating truth: The nation is not just sick, but dying."
Israel attempts to sabotage Iran 'game changer' deal with Russia
[
10/05/08 ]
"Israel's outgoing Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, will lobby Russia against equipping Iran with the powerful S-300 defense system. Expected in Russia on October 6th, 2008, Olmert seeks to convince Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that the sale of the advanced S-300 missile system would 'change the game' significantly. Olmert will argue that the missile defense deal would 'upset the military-strategic balance in the Middle East', a senior Israeli official told Haaretz on Sunday. The advance version of the S-300 system, the S-300PMU1 (SA-20 Gargoyle), can intercept ballistic missiles and aircraft at low and high altitudes within a range of over 150 km. According to intelligence officials aware of S-300 defense capabilities, the surface-to-air system would effectively rule out an Israel-waged war against Iran. "If Tehran obtained the S-300, it would be a game-changer in military thinking for tackling Iran," says long-time Pentagon advisor Dan Goure. "This is a system that scares every Western air force," he adds."Related:
[
10/06/08 ] 'No Russian game changer sold to Iran'
Lessons from the Collapse of Wall Street
[ 10/04/08 ] "The ongoing collapse of the stock market and the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars managed by Wall Street investment banks illustrate the pitfalls and danger of free market capitalism facing the entire working population of the United States."
Dueling Partners: Pakistan and the U.S.
Interview. " .... A country once callously shrugged off simply as India's “lesser” neighbor, now commands global attention and scrutiny as the next, crucial battleground on the never ending “war on terror.” Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama discussed Pakistan in last week's Presidential debates as they detailed their policy initiatives for pacifying the region of its Taliban stronghold. Even Sarah Palin received a surreal crash course in U.S.-Pakistan relations due to a memorable and friendly meeting with newly elected Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari .... However, as respected and prolific commentator, author and critic Tariq Ali observes in his new book the selfish, inequitable relationship between both countries has far reaching, historical roots directly contributing to the tenuous geopolitical stability of modern day Central Asia. In this exclusive interview, TariqAli, a seasoned journalist and Pakistani insider, focuses on all major players, including the Bush Administration, Bhutto, Musharraf, the Pakistani military, and a self centered and oppressive elite as prime contributors to Pakistan's current volatility."
[
10/03/08 ]
The Corporate State Revisited
"Revisiting material first presented in February of 1990, the program compares key features of Mussolini’s Corporate State with salient aspects of the political and economic landscape of George W. Bush’s “Ownership Society.” Beginning with discussion of Treasury Secretary (former Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs) Henry Paulson’s $700 billion bailout proposal for American economic institutions, the broadcast notes Sean Olender’s claim that the program’s exemption from judicial review constitutes fascism."
Related: Billion Bailout of Wall Street is Economic Fascism
Bank
Closure Propaganda Mirrors White House Rhetoric
"A hoax Internet rumor that
has been doing the rounds over the last few days posits that unless the House
follows the Senate in approving the bailout bill tonight then all U.S. banks
will be forced to close for one week. The scam is noteworthy because it echoes
the fearmongering rhetoric being spewed by the White House, while the source
of the claim leads back to an alleged FBI informant ... The reality of the
danger of a run on the banks in a time of financial crisis is all too real,
which makes unsubstantiated Internet hoaxes all the more irresponsible.
Indeed, a Hong Kong man who posted an Internet rumor claiming that a financial
institution would be shut down was arrested this week. Another man was
arrested on Saturday for urging people to withdraw money from a local bank
that he claimed was about to be shut down.There's a clear difference between
warning people about how to secure their assets and outright scare mongering
about runs on specific banks ...."
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
PDF 450 Pages Senate Version (passed) [
10/02/08 ]
Here's a Better Bailout Plan
"By Joseph Stiglitz. There are four fundamental problems with our financial system. The Paulson plan addresses only one."
Related: The Paulson Plan Won't Work and the System Will Implode
Well, the original bill was 3 pages, the House Bill was over a hundred, and
the Senate version was over 400. A lot of pork barrel add-ons for appeasement.
[
10/01/08 ]
McCain: ‘I Always Aspire To Be A Dictator’
"Discussing the Wall Street bailout yesterday during an interview with the Des Moines Register editorial board, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said the failure of Congress to act is “just not acceptable.” Then — presumably making an attempt at humor — McCain added that, if only he were a dictator, then the bill would be just right:
MCCAIN: "I just want to make a comment about the obvious issue and that is the failure of Congress to act yesterday. Its just not acceptable. […] This is just a not acceptable situation. I’m not saying this is the perfect answer.
If I were dictator, which I always aspire to
be, I would write it a little bit differently." McCain has urged the Bush administration to bypass the will of
Congress and invoke executive orders to pass the bailout bill, along with a further $1 trillion dollar spend on buying up bad mortgage debt.
McCain's senior economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin has also called on the executive branch to ignore Congress and force through the bailout legislation, which was voted down on Monday. Another senior economic advisor to McCain, Phil Gramm, vice chairman of UBS's US division and a lobbyist for UBS, successfully pushed for foreign banks to be included in the bailout plan after they were initially excluded.
The fact that McCain said he yearned to be a dictator without so much as cracking a smile makes the comment all the more disturbing especially in comparison to similar sentiments expressed at least three times by George W.
Bush. Bush infamously said, 'If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator,' during a December 2000 speech. He also remarked, 'A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it,' in a July
2001 Business Week interview. When Bush was Governor of Texas in 1998 he stated, 'You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier.'
[
10/01/08 ] Related: McCain turns irritable, sarcastic in interview
| See
Video of 57 min interview or segments. McCain says that only 4%
of the country thinks the US is on the 'right track' ... and blames the 96%
who say otherwise for having a 'lack of confidence' (error in reasoning) ...
dictatorship doesn't inspire confidence, John McCain.
Figures Reveal Corporate Cronyism At Work In Bailout Vote
"A public watchdog database has conducted some interesting research into representatives who voted yes to the bailout bill, shedding light as to who their loyalties truly lie with."
Related: House members who voted ‘yes’ on bailout received 54% more from banks/securities firms
[
10/01/08 ]
Summer 2008 Housing Bill
Authorized $1 trillion for purchase of mortgage-backed securities -
Gov't did Nothing ('McCain Adviser: Treasury Doesn't Need Congress for Bailout')
"Since the $700 billion bailout plan went down in the House of Representatives by a 228-205 margin, talking heads and politicos have been looking for ways to circumvent Congress and give the executive branch the authority to perform a bailout without their consent .... Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., first made the suggestion to NBC News correspondent Kelly O’Donnell. His senior economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, later confirmed to MSNBC that McCain said Congress has already given the Treasury Department authority to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the tune of a trillion dollars .....
“This past summer 2008, Congress passed and the President signed a housing relief bill that had a variety of things in it,” Holtz-Eakin said in an interview with NBC Washington correspondent Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC Sept. 30 .... “Among them,” Holtz-Eakin said, “in addition to appointing a new regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that legislation
contained the authority for purchases of mortgage-backed securities and other housing-related
instruments. It simultaneously increased the debt limit of the United States by a trillion
dollars. So in effect, the government could borrow up to – nearly a trillion more dollars and use those funds to purchase these housing-related securities.”
BUT .... the government did nothing ... and in Sept 2008 they asked for
a $700 billion 'floating" automatically re-chargeable balance to 'fix'
problems deliberately allowed to happen. [
10/01/08 ]
Full text of the September 29, 2008, draft bailout bill
PDF 110 Pages House Version (didn't pass)
Fed Pumps Further $630 Billion Into Financial System
" The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression. The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.
The Fed's expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial
industry. (see below) The crisis is reverberating through the global economy, causing stocks to plunge and forcing European governments to rescue four banks over the past two days alone."
[
09/29/08 ] Funny, how close
$630B is to $700B. So, they were going to do this anyway, and hoped to
get 'paid back' by taxpayers? Related: Giuliani's law firm seeking bailout business
Congress Rejects Bail-Out Plan
"The House of Representatives has voted against the $700bn bail-out plan for the US economy - sending the Dow Jones plummeting. The Dow Jones immediately crashed by 6% on the news. Earlier, in London, banks including HBOS, Lloyds TSB and RBS were among the FTSE 100’s biggest fallers. The index of the UK’s top 100 companies closed down 5.3% at 4818.8 - the lowest it’s been since April 2005."
Endgame continues. "As a vote neared on the $700 billion dollar plus bailout bill,
Congressman Ron Paul took to the House floor this morning (Video)
before the vote, to warn that the passage of the legislation will destroy the dollar and the world economy. The Congressman was not afforded the time to read his full prepared remarks, but they were entered into the Congressional record and can be
read
at Paul's Campaign For Liberty website .... Paul's comments follow those of Congresswoman Marcy
Kaptur (Video) who slammed the bailout bill this past weekend as the work of criminal insiders who have shut down the normal legislative process to commit “high financial crimes” and defraud the American people, while Rep. Michael Burgess warned that
“martial law” , an
internal legislative term allowing for 'last resort' action, had been declared by Nancy Pelosi in order to ram the bill through.
Under the 'martial law procedure', long-standing House rules that require at least one day between the unveiling of significant legislation and the House floor vote on that legislation — so that Members can learn what they are being asked to vote on — are swept away.
In other words, rush the thing through before the Representatives can take a good look at
it." [
09/29/08 ] Related: Fannie, Freddie disclose subpoenas, investigations
| Paulson: No alternative to bailout (video)
| As of the close of Wall Street business at 4pm today, 1.6 billion shares had
been traded, with the DOW losing 777 points. Traders dumped stocks and jumped
into bonds. NASDAQ down 200 points, S&P down almost 90 points) $840
Billion in value traded. There is unlikely that there will be any more voting
until at least Thursday Oct 2. Whether or not a bill passes, commodity
prices will now begin to inflate - food, fuel, etc. (because
commodity futures are also in play, and who controls the commodities matters -
they now will continue to make a killing while the planet starves). Who
Voted What
About
the '$700 Billion" figure
- it was arbitrary
".... "The secretary and the administration need to know that what they have sent to us is not acceptable," says Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn. The committee's top Republican, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, says he's concerned about its cost and whether it will even work. In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.
"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." [
09/29/08 ] They made it up to be sufficiently ginormous to frighten everyone into rapid action. And it worked.
Also, whatever they propose is a rolling balance that must be
maintained. If they 'borrowed' $700 billion and used $500 billion, the
government would have to put in another $500 billion. Keep in mind the the
total worthless derivatives total $1.5 Quadrillion, more money than is present
on the planet.
Russia, China See End To American Hegemony
"Seven years ago the Bush administration brought neoconservatives into a position of power with a dream of everlasting American hegemony, a unipolar superpower who would dictate military, economic and cultural terms to the world. The end of history in many neocon minds came with a momentous date - 9/11. Seven years later, the Bush administration’s mismanagement of the nation has ensured that that the neoconservative dream is crushed .... Then there’s China, where reports have it that financiers are nervous about the possibility of America’s imminent economic collapse. Again, it was the Bush administration and a financial version of the neoconservative arrogant wish for American domination that brought American power to its current state .... having your largest rivals - China, Russia and Europe - pondering the demise of your ability to protect your hegemony and knowing your own kind ruined American power."
9/28/08 Related:
Germany - US Will Lose Financial Superpower Status
9/26/08
Strengthening
EU-China trade relations
"The EU-China Joint Economic and Trade Committee, which was held on September 23rd, covered a wide range of topics, including trade in goods and services, Intellectual Property Rights, sustainable development and trade, and investment. During the Joint Committee the two sides agreed on a number of points of consensus to overcome hurdles in the EU-China trade relationship."
9/26/08
Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers
"By Eliot Spitzer, Thursday, February 14, 2008; Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers. Shortly after Eliot Spitzer wrote this article, his career was destroyed in the media with the exposure of his connections to the Emperor's Club VIP. Even at the time, it was obvious that a double standard was in play, because the same media that continued to downplay sexual misadventures of government elites (including the Deborah Palfrey
client list) made a point of plastering Eliot's face all over the place."
Foreign Bondholders Pressured U.S. For Bailout
"For anyone who still doubted the growing global influence of such emerging powerhouses as China, consider this: The U.S. government’s decision to take control of foundering mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) was driven not by worries about the fading U.S. housing market, but by concerns that foreign central banks in China, Japan, Europe, the Middle East and Russia might stop buying our bonds. As the bailout announced Sunday is currently structured, more than $1.3 trillion worth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt currently held by the central banks and other investors in those regions will be guaranteed by the U.S. government - even if one or both of the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) were to fail. That means that U.S. taxpayers - government parlance for you and me - will ultimately foot a big part of the bill for making sure those foreign bondholders are “made whole.” The government apparently felt it had no choice. As speculation about the possible collapse of the two firms spiraled higher in recent weeks, central banks, sovereign wealth funds and foreign investors throughout the world were reportedly threatening to halt their purchases of Fannie and Freddie debt, grousing that the mounting risk was making them leery of buying any more bonds. And that would make it virtually impossible for the two mortgage operators - and by extension, the U.S. mortgage market - to function effectively. “It was the mounting evidence that central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and other global investors were growing [increasingly] reluctant to invest in the debt that was the catalyst for the Treasury Department’s actions,” Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s/Economy.com in West Chester, Pa., wrote in a recent research report. “Fannie and Freddie debt is now effectively U.S. Treasury debt, ensuring that holders will remain whole.”
Related: Foreign Bondholders - and not the U.S. Mortgage Market - Drove the Fannie/Freddie Bailout
"It wasn’t the mortgage market itself that forced the hand of U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. “Hank” Paulson: It was the $5.2 trillion in so-called Fannie and Freddie “agency debt” - of which more than $1.3 trillion, or about 25%, was held by foreign investors. Total U.S. agency debt of all types was said to be slightly more than $1.5 trillion."
More
Note: It's a lot more complicated ... underneath there is the
$1.5 Quadrillion dollars in derivatives, which are barely legal in the first
place, that are worthless (not illiquid) ... there is NOTHING that will bring
the planetary economic system back, and, it's ironic, because its a debt-based
currency worth nothing in the first place. Very Shakespearean .. much ado
about nothing! What a bunch of vacuous people .. air-heads .. the
whole Orion system is like this.
The Real Story Behind Marriott Attack
"When Gen. Musharraf submitted to U.S. pressure after 9/11 and ditched the Taliban in Afghanistan, he provided air bases as well as logistics support and shared intelligence with CIA. He allowed CIA and FBI to recruit agents in FATA and other places and to establish their outposts. The focus of ISI and other agencies was shifted towards hunting and nabbing so-called terrorists all over the country, in monitoring dissident elements within the army and in political wheeling and dealings. The CIA acquired all the links ISI and MI had both sides of the Pak-Afghan border and gradually took most agents on ISI payroll within its fold. By virtue of having better technology and means the CIA was able to take over intelligence acquisition and dissemination system. As a consequence the troops operating in FATA became entirely dependent upon CIA inputs. Taking advantage of complete liberty of action, CIA succeeded in buying the loyalties of many tribal chiefs and notables in FATA by doling out dollars in sacks since it knew that the Pashtun could not be crushed by force but could be purchased. Those not falling in line were got
killed ..."
An Israeli Trojan Horse
"How Israeli Backdoor Technology Penetrated the U.S. Government's Telecom System and Compromised National Security.
Since the late 1990s, federal agents have reported systemic communications security breaches at the Department of Justice, FBI, DEA, the State Department, and the White House. Several of the alleged breaches, these agents say, can be traced to two hi-tech communications companies, Verint Inc. (formerly Comverse Infosys), and Amdocs Ltd., that respectively provide major wiretap and phone billing/record-keeping software contracts for the U.S. government. Together, Verint and Amdocs form part of the backbone of the government’s domestic intelligence surveillance
technology ..."
History of U.S. Gov't Bailouts
"Note how $1.3 trillion of those bailouts happened while a Bush was on the Oval Office. "If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched." -- George Bush, cited in the June, 1992 Sarah McClendon Newsletter."
Pre-election Militarization of the North American
Homeland
"US Combat Troops in Iraq repatriated to " help with civil unrest".
The Army Times reports that the 3rd Infantry’s 1st Brigade Combat Team is returning from Iraq to defend the Homeland, as "an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks." The BCT unit has been attached to US Army North, the Army's component of US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). (See Gina Cavallaro, Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1, Army Times, September 8, 2008). "Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. This new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control."
Why India is upset with George W Bush & Co
"A part of the bill, which the Committee titled the 'United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Nonproliferation Enhancement Act,' that India found unpalatable were in particular that it had to be in strict conformity with the Hyde Act, and also that in the event India tests, the US would not simply 'discourage' other Nuclear Supplier Group members to deny India nuclear equipment, materials and technology to India but work to 'prevent' such transfers. Also, that the commitments regarding fuel supplies are indeed political and not legally binding."
BBC uncovers lost Iraq
billion - Bush Puts Gag Order In Place Until He and Cheney Can Escape :
" ... A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.
A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations. The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.
The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and
rebuilding .... Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it's egregious. "It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history." In the run-up to the invasion, one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth $7bn that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president.
The
Paulson-Bernanke Derivatives Scam Bailout
" ... Paulson is a ruthless and brutal eco-freak usurer who learned his trade at the Goldman Sachs stock-jobbing operation. He is now the leading member of the committee of public safety which rules in Washington, and which includes Gates, Rice, and Mullen. He now demands the astronomical sum of 700 billion dollars for the bailout of mortgage-backed derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and other poisonous derivatives .... These derivatives now amount to a total worldwide notional value that can be estimated between
1 quadrillion and two quadrillion US dollars. This sum is so large that it dwarfs the total value of the entire planet earth and all those who live here. Compared to the cancerous, bloated, and fictitious mass of derivatives which is at the root of this crisis, the $700 billion demanded by politicians, large as this may seem, is nothing but a drop in the bucket. And a drop in the bailout bucket is what it will be. The mass of world derivatives between $1 and $2 quadrillion represents an insatiable black hole which is capable of putting an end, not just to civilization, but the human life
itself ..."
NATO accused of sheltering Afghan heroin trade
" ... Since NATO forces invaded Afghanistan, the production of heroin in the country increased by 2.5 times and Afghanistan has become the world leader in heroin production. Eighteen tonnes of heroin from Afghanistan ends up in Russia each year.
As a result of this war Russia has become one of the main markets for Afghan opiates, involuntary acknowledged Russian Federal Drugs Control Service, and drug traffickers are financing terrorist organizations worldwide, says the Interfax news agency.
The head of the FDCS insists that it is not just the Taliban that manages the heroin traffic but the Afghan governmental and security services’ officials known by name. The fact that dozens of high-ranking Afghan officials are known to be involved in the drug industry means that corrupted authorities work hand in hand with the Taliban terrorist movement, which in turn means that NATO military forces support the current Afghan regime. Within the framework of the Russia-NATO Council Russia is financing and conducting special training for Afghan police squads dealing with drug trafficking. Unfortunately, for more than a year not a single Afghan policeman came to Russia for training which is no wonder considering the fact that all actions of Afghanistan’s security services should be sanctioned by the U.S."
Related: Drug trafficking to Russia and Western Europe increases
| Seeds of Pain: Afghan drug addiction
| Thousands of Georgians in drug trap
John le Carré: Britons have been 'stripped' of civil liberties
" ... Britons have been "stripped" of their civil liberties amid an "atmosphere of panic" over the threat from terrorism, according to the novelist John le Carré.
"We have been taken to war under false pretences, and stripped of our civil rights in an atmosphere of panic. Our lawyers don't take to the streets as they have done in Pakistan. "Our MPs allow themselves to be deluded by their own spin doctors, and end up believing their own propaganda." "People call me an angry old man. Screw them. You don't have to be old to be angry about that. We've sacrificed our sovereignty to a so-called 'special relationship' which has nothing special about it except to ourselves."
Reporter Warns Staged Financial Crisis Part Of Fascist Coup
" ... A reporter for the left leaning alternative news website The Huffington Post has been attacked by neo-con bloggers and phony right-wing patriots after pointing out that the current financial crisis is part of an intentional coup to transfer unprecedented power to the Executive Branch and place public funds in the hands of the global corporate elite."
Related:
Proposed Bailout: Feds Could Speculate, Nationalize Any Company or Industry
| Naomi Klein: Financial crisis part of Bush ’shock doctrine’
| Millions At Risk Of Foreclosure Fraud
| Wall Street crisis rattles dreams for new WTC towers
And, finally, there are these: Ten Reasons Why Bush's Proposed Bailout Is Larceny
| Spitzer Whacked For Warning Of Financial Crisis:
Well, in a February 2008 Washington Post article
entitled "Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers",
it came to light that: "Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders...These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets."
... "Spitzer's omen went further to note that not only did the White House do nothing, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye after 50 state Attorneys General and many legislative attempts failed to halt the worst of the predatory lending excesses.
The AGs and their banking superintendents fought the Bush Administration's use of a Civil War era banking provision which established federal preemption of all state predatory lending laws and the new rules which emasculated state consumer protections from national
banks ..."
Bill Clinton Signed Legislation in 1999
Repealing Depression Era Controls on Banks - Permitted Current Crisis
"The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act, Pub. L. No. 106-102, 113 Stat. 1338 (November 12, 1999), is an Act of the United States Congress which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act, opening up competition among banks, securities companies and insurance companies. The
Glass-Steagall Act prohibited a bank from offering investment, commercial banking, and insurance services. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate. For example, Citibank merged with Travelers Group, an insurance company, and in 1998 formed the conglomerate Citigroup, a corporation combining banking and insurance underwriting services. Other major mergers in the financial sector had already taken place such as the Smith-Barney, Shearson, Primerica and Travelers Insurance Corporation combination in the mid-1990s. This combination, announced in 1993 and finalized in 1994, would have violated the Glass-Steagall Act and the Bank Holding Acts by combining insurance and securities companies, if not for a temporary waiver process [1]. The law was passed to legalize these mergers on a permanent basis. Historically, the combined industry has been known as the financial services industry."
A related article on this (1999): Clinton, Republicans agree to deregulation of US financial system
However, even the original Glass-Steagall Act would not have stopped the concept
of "collateralized debt obligations" and other dynamics unforeseen
in 1933 which ran wild in an unregulated industry.
Bush
Installed 300 Federal Judges over his term
" ... Bush installed more than
300 federal judges. Here are a few to keep a close eye on."
September 11th From Chile to Washington: George W Bush Follows in Pinochet's Footsteps
"Torture. Murder. Kidnappings. Secret Prisons. Concentration Camps. War. Impunity.
This is the legacy of human rights abuses September 11th sadly leaves us--a legacy first executed by former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and, more recently renewed by an equally culpable President George W. Bush. The 35th anniversary of the September 11th, 1973 Washington-backed coup which saw Pinochet overthrow the democratically elected administration of Salvador Allende, and the General's subsequent "War on Terrorism" targeting so-called communists (which included anyone who opposed his bloody regime), offers a standard to measure President Bush's "War on Terrorism," the U.S. Commander-in-Chief's legacy of human rights abuses, as well as how he might one day face justice. The parallels between the two regime's crimes are frighteningly similar, though it shouldn't be lost that Pinochet carried out many of his crimes with financial, intellectual and political support from Washington. The Washington Post wrote in 2004 that, "The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Augusto Pinochet brings shame on American democracy." Two years later Amnesty International echoed The Post's observation when it accused President Bush of taking pages out of Pinochet's playbook in his "acceptance of torture and disregard of legal restraints."
Tel Aviv Municipality raid: Top Officials Arrested
"According to police, the investigation netted 10 arrests, including city officials, businessman and real estate developers all suspected of bribery, tax evasion, fraud, money laundering and breach of trust. The investigation was conducted as an undercover operation for over three months before revealing itself on Sunday, when the first four of the 10 suspects were
arrested ..."
Suitcase-Gate, CIA Drug Plane Scandals Meet in Miami Trial
[
09/30/08 ] "The luxury business jet carrying a suitcase filled with $800,000 in bribes whose discovery last August kicked off the Suitcase-Gate Scandal had the same American registration, or" N" number, as that of a plane flying for a CIA contractor in
Iraq. The so-called Suitcase-Gate Scandal is playing out in a trial currently underway in a Federal courtroom in Miami. Testimony in the trial indicated that the $800,000 in the suitcase, discovered by a rookie Customs Agent in Argentina, as well as $4.5 million in cash in a second suitcase which wasn't discovered, was a bribe from Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez to the couple running Argentina, former President Nestor Kirchner and his wife Cristina, the current President of Argentina. Newspaper photos taken of the Citation X top-of-the-line business jet right after the ill-fated suitcase flight show ‘N’ number N5113S on the tail. But a Florida-based CIA air contractor called Air-Scan Inc. is assigned that tail number, according to FAA records, for a Cessna 182 flying in Iraq. Air-Scan Inc. is an American military contractor which has—even for an American military contractor—a checkered past. Still, there has been no mention during the trial so far of the murky provenance of the
plane ..."
Pakistan: On War Path with US, Worlds Biggest Sponsor of Terrorism
"The entire CIA backed coup against Musharraf was for this very purpose. He had always resisted this U.S. desire despite his dangerously close and lopsided relationship with U.S. Zardari has been made President for a purpose. Now the U.S. is not going to back down from their ultimate desire to destabilize Pakistani State and to create a justification to overrun Pakistani nukes. From allies to a threat, U.S. and its President have already downgraded Pakistan’s rating. Pakistan is now the next theatre of operations for U.S. forces after Iraq and Afghanistan. The meetings have begun at the highest levels to counter this “threat” from Pakistan army! Things are moving fast here and their pace is breathtaking. While the military commanders were fairly blunt and open in their rejection of US threats of cross border incursions, the political leadership was caught with red faces and even responded with deafening silence. The PM reluctantly gave a weak statement of support to the stance of the army but the CIA appointed President decided to stay silent, in fact was fuming with anger and decided to go to U.K. and U.S., canceling his visit to China! Pakistan is now on a war path with U.S., at least the battle lines are being drawn. We shall start with U.S. missile attacks and ground incursions inside Pakistan. Last week we had done the following analysis on the developing situation which has the potential of getting out of hand for both U.S. and
Pakistan ..."
The 65 mpg Ford the U.S. Can't Have
"Ford's 2009 Fiesta ECOnetic goes on sale in November. But here's the catch: Despite the car's potential to transform Ford's image and help it compete with Toyota Motor and Honda Motor in its home market, the company will sell the little fuel sipper only in Europe. "We know it's an awesome vehicle," says Ford America President Mark Fields. "But there are business reasons why we can't sell it in the U.S." The main one: The Fiesta ECOnetic runs on diesel."
Welcome to the final stages of the coup...
"In 2000, the long fought for and long admired democracy of the United States of America began a slow and steady decline toward fascism - a Bush family tradition - with the installment of a president - a man the citizens overwhelmingly rejected (although the funny math told a still believed myth) - by a few corrupt judges on the US Supreme Court. That coup is now nearly complete and checkmate is all but
unavoidable ..."
Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation: The unknown 20 trillion dollar company
"There is a busy little private company you probably never have heard about, but which you should. Its name is the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. See their website. Looks pretty boring. Some kind of financial service thing, with a positive slogan and out there to make a little business. You can even get a job there. Now, go and take a look at their annual report. Starts with a nice litte Flash presentation and has a nice message from the CEO. And take a look at the numbers. It turns out that this company holds 23 trillion dollars in assets, and had 917 trillion dollars worth of transactions in 2002. That's trillions, as in thousands of thousands of millions. 23,000,000,000,000 dollars in assets."
Related: Understanding Just How Screwed We All Are
" .... stories below include press releases by MARKIT and the DTCC announcing their combined efforts to make an accurate accounting of all of the trades in the world so that they can be balanced with what is actually available. What was interesting to me was how cryptic the stories were about who/what MARKIT and DTCC was. In none of the articles did they even provide the full name of the DTCC (so I took a look and did some research after a friend told me about their nickname that he read about in 1999. CEDE (as in turning over something to another) comes from: “Depository Trust Company (DTC) A central securities certificate depository (also known as "CEDE" by virtue of its nominee name, CEDE & Co.) It seems that the holders of the actual stocks have a sense of
humor ..."
Treasury’s Financial-Bailout Proposal to Congress
"The following is the legislative proposal from Treasury Department for authority to buy mortgage-related assets:"
" ... 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."
Related:
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