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April 30th, 2016

4/30/2016

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Hopkins has taken the wealth of Baltimore over these few decades and expanded to many of the nations now tied to Trans Pacific Trade Pact and was probably involved in installing these nations' dictators as well.  Hopkins has been overseas working with the dictator's friends in creating multi-national corporations headquartered in those nations and these are the global corporations that will come to fill the global corporate campuses and global factories Hogan and PUGH and the Wall Street Baltimore Development Corporation establishment want.  UnderArmour has been tied to these nations for decades and embraces these ruthless dictators for the slave labor and environmental devastation they allow.

WHEN A CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR SAYS HE/SHE SUPPORTS THIS MASTER PLAN THEY KNOW ALL THIS IS COMING AS DO THE LEADERS OF ORGANIZATIONS FIXING DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY RACES TO THESE ESTABLISHMENT CANDIDATES.

Citizens in Baltimore have already lived this life of third world autocratic dictator in Hopkins and Baltimore Development----but now citizens know those foreign corporations and executives are coming with NO REFERENCE to what it is to be American.


When Joshua Harris running in the Baltimore Mayoral race first as an Obama Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal and then moving to Green Party to get more name recognition says in December in an interview with Marc Steiner-----I travelled to Arabia to look at green energy construction----and when he ties himself to a Congressional pol who would be lobbying for business for global green corporations in the US----Brunei is on that circuit.  This is how we know Harris is Global Green Corporation neo-liberal----and he is lobbying to sell Brunei green products or he and others are trying to create multi-national mergers with what we see below----solar corporations in Brunei.  So, whether Hopkins or anyone global corporation ----partnered with this Brunei solar corporation ---brings that foreign corporation to the US and VOILA----we have a global corporate factory operating in the US as they do in Brunei complete with Brunei's export of immigrant labor.

THIS IS THE GOAL OF FILLING BALTIMORE WITH THE FRIENDS OF BRUNEI'S DICTATOR AS FOREIGN CORPORATE OWNERS/EXECUTIVES----AND BRINGING BRUNEI'S PASSION FOR GLOBAL SWEATSHOP FACTORIES TO BALTIMORE.


That's why I shouted through this mayoral race-----Wall Street players are given talking points that have nothing to do with the goals they have been given in running for office and they WILL TIE TO WALL STREET BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT AND A VERY, VERY, VERY FAR-RIGHT JOHNS HOPKINS.


Everything Solar, Brunei
April 24 at 8:38am ·
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Available now at Macammacam Ada Enterprise at Unit 39A, First Floor, Airport Mall, Berakas.
For more info: https://www.solarbrunei.com/…/integrated-street-light-qst-p…
*Note: Pole is not included with this package.

___________________________________________

I have many first time public policy students who will openly say---I don't know the difference between having a corporation come to Baltimore whether US or multi-national so they think jobs----but have no connection to how these global corporations will treat the city or people. Citizens are told----YOU WILL BE ABLE TO WALK TO WORK----when talking of these global corporate campus 'headquarters' that expand and bring multi-national corporations from Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia as global garment factories, global dye factories, global robotics factories. Being able to WALK TO WORK looks different if you are strolling from Fells Point to downtown than it does if you are living/eating/schooled/working on that one global corporate campus with the third world International Economic Zone policies. Baltimore City center LOOKS like it is becoming middle-class but if these policies of global corporate campus continue----these city center communities will have executives from Brunei, Vietnam, Peru, Malaysia, strolling to work as the world's rich filling our city center. Meanwhile, citizens of Baltimore will be the ones waking up on global corporate campuses after 15-18 hours of sweat shop work.

America has always had global markets and corporations----the difference being our monopoly laws and US Constitution was written to KEEP THIS MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATION STRUCTURE OUT OF THE US----it is not allowed because it is designed to make of the US a colonial status with no protections for our nation, states, cities, and citizens---they operate under global practices of NO REAL RULE OF LAW.


The gentleman who called during my Marc Steiner interview saying just that----he would be strolling to work from Fells Point to a job downtown is being told that by someone probably tied to Baltimore Development 'justice' non-profits or mayoral candidates.

Multinational Corporations

allensens

Uploaded on Feb 27, 2012
For-profit enterprises with operations in more than one state. MNCs are common but their role and impact in global politics is controversial.


Now that UnderArmour has the corporate campus footprint at Cove Point it now decides all of what global retail, hotels, and its development and real estate corporation controls all that business activity. Then, in the next several years we will see UnderArmour real estate allowed to buy further north and they will decide which foreign partner they bring as a global factory-----and that is when the real extent of these global campuses will be shown although Wall Street global corporate pols and Baltimore Development know this is the Master Plan and it is why the entire surrounding communities in Baltimore and other US cities deemed International Economic Zones were allowed to crumble----and now they are simply pushing citizens out---first the working class and poor---and then they will force the middle-class they are bringing in now in this transition. They need people earning enough to pay more and more taxes to fund all this. THAT IS CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY YOU KNOW.


I like his reference to Disney as BEAUTY AND THE BEAST......this is the Hollywood Clinton worked to make global in the 1990s----and it is consolidated global media--- Over the decade Baltimore will see a growing 'density' of immigrant workers because these global corporate campuses and factories use millions of people---and it starts with the foreign executives from those Trans Pacific Trade Pact nations..


Baltimore citizens are not allowed to know these goals----Baltimore Development 'justice' non-profits only shout against the smallest of problems as all this is planned then next decade when they start expanding----those same non-profits will be really mad about that as well. This is what I call ----THEY KNOW---- we must stop thinking only of a next job and think how to return to an economy that will provide HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF SMALL BUSINESS JOBS.



Under Armour Performance Center


**Non-UA employee review** Gyms are expensive in Baltimore. I moved from Philly where you had your choice of quality, non Planet Fitness or Gold's Gym that were less than $50/month and included classes. To say the least, I was shocked at the prices in Baltimore -- at least in the Fed Hill, Locust Point areas.
The Under Armour Combine Training center is $50/month for non-UA employees.  It's a small, no thrills gym. Classes not included in the monthly price. Depending on the day/time trainers can be holding group seasons and hogging up the 5 treadmills. I find this to be a little annoying as there is a brand new, larger gym for UA employees only less than 100 feet away.
The staff is friendly and if you can get past the fact that you'll be the only one not decked out in UA gear its a decent (& probably cheapest) option in the area.



Kevin Plank sees Fells Point Rec Pier hotel as an extension of Under Armour


Mar 3, 2015, 1:46pm EST Updated Mar 3, 2015, 2:15pm EST
Industries & Tags
Commercial Real Estate

Kevin Litten Reporter Baltimore Business Journal


The Recreation Pier hotel project in Fells Point will become an extension of the Under Armour Inc. brand and a tool for attracting people to the city.
That's how Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank sees his $60 million investment in the conversion of the 100-year-old pier and head house into an "incredibly nice" 128-room hotel. Plank plans to celebrate the groundbreaking of the hotel during a ceremony Wednesday. Plank's privately held real estate company, Sagamore Development Co. LLC, is developing the project, which is expected to be completed in fall 2016.

This is a rendering of how the hotel will appear from the exterior when complete. The… more
Sagamore acquired the property from the city in June for $3.4 million.

Plank said in an interview Monday the hotel is part of a strategy to provide Under Armour guests with a unique Baltimore experience. That will include allowing people to depart the Under Armour headquarters in Tide Point on an authentic Chesapeake Bay crab boat, voyage across the Inner Harbor and arrive in style at the hotel.
"We tell stories for a living — we tell great stories and we build products to support those stories," Plank said. "When [visitors] come here, I want them to have a proper hotel to stay at. When they come and visit, I want them to see a proper campus. I want them to see unique things we have like the distillery."
Although Plank considers the Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore to be a good option for visitors, the Recreation Pier project will "be different than a Four Seasons — it'll be unique to the other properties and unique to Fells Point," he said.
Plank said he is close to announcing who will run the hotel, adding it will be "a world-class operator that will elevate the city."
Plank became interested in taking on the hotel project, he said, because he could see from his office that the pier was on the verge of collapsing into the harbor.
"I stared out my window [at the Recreation Pier] and it depressed me every day," Plank said. "I said we should breathe some life into it."

_______________________________________________

National media always acts as though our Congressional pols don't know what Trans Pacific Trade Pact says----or that the corporate lobbying is about doing business in the US----but Maryland's pols for life-----Cummings, Sarbanes, Cardin, Mikulski and all other pols have been working exclusively since Clinton to expand these global corporations overseas and they act as lobbyists as they do these overseas tours----whether Congress or governor---this is why Maryland's Gov Hogan wears TEAM UNDERARMOUR as his official on-the-job outfit.  So, Congressional staff are hired to do just that---they have absolutely no connection to citizens----they are focused on helping some global corporation in the district more market-share overseas.  This is why they would support an UnderArmour campus----only working to be tied to the foreign corporations UnderArmour will bring with them.

The idea  that Congress thinks the American people believe global corporations have trillions parked offshore and are not bringing them into the country tax-free to build these US International Economic Zone global corporate campuses is RIDICULOUS.  OBAMA'S IRS DOES NOT EVEN AUDIT OR LOOK AT CORPORATE TAX RETURNS----so we are seeing what would be tax revenue coming to our state and city from the Federal government now being sold as CORPORATE DONATION IN FIXING UP OUR COMMUNITIES.....ergo, they are simply building their global corporate campus.  So, they pay no taxes as law requires on work overseas with all those products sold in the US----they get tons of corporate subsidy from state and local government to build these corporate campuses citizens are so desperate for jobs and need----and then they write-off much of this expense as SOCIAL BENEFIT----they are doing us a favor for building this global corporate campus. 

Obviously Congressional, state and local pols are profiting from this----either they are getting in on stock market profits as we saw with the Pelosi/Cardin Insider Trading----or they are being allowed into real estate deals----they are being allowed to be that subcontractor to subcontractor local business that will simply be pushed out of business later----but THERE IS NO HONOR AMONGST THIEVES---AND YOU WILL BE THROWN UNDER THE BUS AS BILLIONNAIRES DO NOT SHARE ANY WEALTH.



This is how you know pols shouting that corporations with offshore tax debt needs to pay now ARE ONLY PROGRESSIVE POSING.   They are filtering all these tax debts into these US International Economic Zones and calling the development SOCIAL GOOD.  
Meanwhile, cities like Baltimore are starved for tax revenue and all that is paid by Baltimore citizens and small business goes only to these global corporate campus development and this will not change when we leave the same people in office.


Wealthy corporations with a trillion dollars stashed offshore lobby for a 'holiday' from U.S. taxes

Rich corporations with money offshore want a tax holiday; Sen. Carl Levin says, 'I want them to pay their taxes like the rest of us'

REALLY CARL LEVIN?  DO YOU REALLY?

By John Aloysius FarrellAaron Mehta
6:00 am, October 24, 2011 Updated: 12:19 pm, May 19, 2014


Shoppers in Shanghai try the Apple iPad. Apple sales in China top $13 billion.
AP

By Aaron Mehta
November 2, 2011

As they lobby for a tax holiday, some big multinational players say they've got plenty of cash on hand

By John Aloysius Farrell and Aaron Mehta
November 4, 2011

Senate committee finds most 'trapped' offshore income is already in U.S.

By John Aloysius Farrell
December 15, 2011


Goaded by battalions of corporate lobbyists, members of Congress are working to give a select group of U.S. multinational firms like Apple, Oracle and Pfizer a lavish tax break on a trillion dollars stashed offshore.
The avowed goal is to generate jobs and investment, but the offshore tax holiday was tried before, in 2004, and the lion’s share of the benefits went not to unemployed workers and their families, but to corporate shareholders and executives.
With today’s high unemployment, and soaring costs for college, health care and other family essentials, critics are asking why an elite class of corporations and their shareholders should get a huge tax break on overseas profits.
The proposed tax holiday could cost the Treasury from $40 billion to $80 billion over the next decade, and the high cost of the measure is one reason that its prospects for passage are mixed.
But 73 members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have signed up as co-sponsors. And cash-rich mega corporations are pushing hard for the tax break.
A number of trade groups and corporations that would benefit have joined in a coalition called WIN America. New lobbying disclosure reports show that the group and its member firms have spent millions of dollars, and employed dozens of lobbyists, to press for the tax break, according to an analysis by iWatch News.
The current rules for tax repatriation, as the process is called, are a thorn for U.S. firms that make money overseas. American companies face a 35 percent corporate income tax. Money earned offshore is taxed only by the country of origin until it is “repatriated” to the U.S., at which time an additional tax is levied to make up any difference and bring the rate to 35 percent.
The 2004 holiday allowed U.S. firms to bring their offshore profits back and pay a rate of only 5.25 percent.
“The repatriation tax break created a competitive disadvantage for domestic businesses that chose not to engage in offshore operations or investments and provided a windfall for multinationals in a few industries without benefiting the U.S. economy as a whole,” said the Democratic staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in its Oct. 11, 2011 report, done in response to the new push for another tax holiday.
“I want them to pay their taxes like the rest of us,” said Sen. Carl Levin, the Democrat from Michigan whose committee compiled the report. Michigan’s unemployment remains among the highest in the country. “The rest of us don’t get a tax holiday.”


Benefitting the Few

There are 27 million businesses in America, and almost 10,000 have foreign subsidiaries and could qualify for the tax break. Yet only 843 of these firms took advantage of the bargain tax rates set by the 2004 law, the IRS says.

Those 843 companies brought around $362 billion home from overseas. More than half the benefits went to only 15 firms. And just five — Pfizer, Merck, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson and IBM — retrieved $88 billion, a fourth of the funds returned.
Two sectors profited disproportionately. Drug companies brought home some 29 percent of the repatriated funds; the computer and electronics industry another 19 percent, according to an IRS analysis.
The holiday also rewarded those who were using offshore funds to dodge taxes in the first place. Among the firms most likely to participate in the tax holiday were many that regularly stash their earnings in tax havens. The countries of incorporation with the largest percentage of repatriated funds under the 2004 law included the Netherlands, Switzerland, Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands.
In many cases, the money was moved through shell companies, often just mailbox drops, that had no employees or physical assets.
Intel and Coca-Cola, the Senate inquiry determined, used shell companies in the Cayman Islands. Proctor & Gamble used a holding company in Bermuda that had no physical office and no full-time employees. Eli Lilly used Switzerland and the British Virgin Islands. Oracle employed an Irish subsidiary.
Many firms used the “repatriated” money, as it is known, to launch stock buy-back efforts, boosting the value of their shares and — via stock awards to senior managers — hiking executive compensation rather than investing the money in new jobs or research and development, as the bill intended.
Because of the law’s lax safeguards, firms that took advantage of the tax break in 2004 “did not … significantly increase employment or research and development,” Dhammika Dharmapala, an expert on tax policy, and one of the authors of a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) study of the 2004 holiday, told iWatch News.
Then, as now, the bill’s proponents insisted that they had included safeguards to guarantee that the benefits of the tax break would be used to create jobs and spur investment. But in the 2004 law, these measures were easily dodged.
The language of the law expressly forbade companies from using repatriated funds for stock buybacks or executive compensation. But that did nothing to keep companies from doing so. “Estimates imply that firms returned almost all of the repatriated cash to shareholders — a use that was explicitly not permitted,” the NBER study concluded. The NBER is a nonpartisan organization whose ranks of current and former members are salted with Nobel Prize-winning economists.
The NBER study of all companies that cashed in on the holiday calculated that 60 percent to 92 percent of the money repatriated was used for payouts to shareholders.
“Stock repurchases and executive compensation climbed at the largest repatriating corporations, while hiring stagnated or declined,” according to the Senate committee’s study of 15 leading firms that profited from the tax break.
Drug giant Pfizer, which repatriated the single largest chunk of cash — $37 billion — announced that it was laying off thousands of employees in 2005. Yet from 2004 through 2006, according to the Senate inquiry, Pfizer repurchased over $17 billion of its stock, and awarded its five most highly compensated executives with shares worth $30 million.
“If you’re looking for straight up, direct job creation, the evidence isn’t there,” says Michael Mundaca, until this summer the Assistant Treasury Secretary for Tax Policy in the Obama administration.
Lobbying HardThe financial return for lobbying in the 2004 debate was indicative of why firms have once more embraced the goal. According to one University of Kansas study, companies reaped $220 in tax benefits for every $1 spent on lobbying — a 22,000% return.
WIN spent the first 9 months of this year actively lobbying for a repatriation bill in Congress. It spent $380,000 to hire two firms (Cauthen Forbes & Williams and Capitol Counsel LLC) and target lawmakers with a total of eight lobbyists. Among the lobbyists hired directly by WIN are several people with strong ties to Congress:
  • Jim McCrery, a former Congressman who represented Louisiana’s 4th district until 2009.
  • Drew Goesl, who served as chief of staff for Rep. Mike Ross and communications director for Sen. Blanche Lincoln; Ross is a co-sponsor of the House bill.
  • Tucker Shumack, a former legislative assistant for Sen. John Isakson, a co-sponsor of the Senate bill.
  • Dena Battle, a former legislative director for Rep. Dave Camp, who as head of the powerful Ways and Means Committee has sway over tax policy in the U.S.
  • Jeff Forbes, a former staff director on the Senate Finance Committee.
  • Libby Greer, a former chief of staff for former Rep. Allen Boyd.
All told, 58 organizations and companies listed “repatriation” on their disclosure forms as an issue they were lobbying on through the first nine months of 2011. While these companies spent at least $71.2 million on lobbying during this period, due to the way lobbying is disclosed it is impossible to tell exactly how much was spent on what issue. If these groups spent a conservative estimate of 10 percent of their money on this issue, that would still be over $7 million. And it is likely to be more — companies and organizations could be lobbying on the issue but simply list it as “taxes” or “funds”.
______________________________________________
This is from 1998 as Americans fighting against these global corporations in International Economic Zone labor and environmental abuse-----we see in 1998 it was Bernie Sanders fighting against this sweat shop labor overseas-----this 2016 election for Bernie was about the same thing only Bernie could not be open about how US International Economic Zone cities like Baltimore would become the same abusive mess all for nothing more than a few percentage of the richest to get richer.
We know how these global corporate campuses worked for decades overseas and we know they will do the same here in our US cities under International Economic Zone and Trans Pacific Trade Pact-----IT IS THE GOAL FOR WALL STREET CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS-----they do not care----WE THE PEOPLE need to find a solution to our election frauds and cronyism that keeps Bernie and good people from preventing this in the US.

PLEASE STOP ALLOWING BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT AND THEIR 'JUSTICE' ORGANIZATIONS CONTROL OUR ACTIVISM----DO NOT JOIN THEM----BE YOUR OWN ACTIVIST AND EDUCATE!




October 15, 1998

Sweatshop Labor

Mr. Kernaghan discussed how American companies were operating in the global economy. He described working conditions in overseas factories producing products for U.S. companies, noting that in most instances workers were not being paid a living wage, children were threatened and exploited, and that factories were closed to outside inspection. He singled out Walmart as the greatest offender. After his remarks he answered questions from the audience.



0 Comments

April 29th, 2016

4/29/2016

0 Comments

 
Hang in there public policy beginners as I finish with complicated international public policy in the next few days.  I will return to education policy next week.

Obama and global pols with national media have tried to sell Trans Pacific Trade Pact these several years as job creators----as expanding markets for American businesses---and always act that many nations are signing on to this illegal action being taken by Bush/Obama and Congress.  Congress DOES NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO PASS TPP AND IT WAS AGAINST NATIONAL INTEREST AND SECURITY TO PROMOTE THIS.

I showed the major economies BRIC are not buying TPP---that the Western nations like Canada, Australia, and US are literally being FORCED into TPP by captured national politics by Wall Street global pols.  All journalism that criticizes TPP points to the fact it is not a trade deal as much as it is intended to RESTRUCTURE A NATION'S GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY AROUND THIS GLOBAL ONE WORLD ECONOMIC SYSTEM.  So, regardless of what nations stay with this treaty----the US will be made into US International Economic Zones minus all that is American----today I want to look at the developing nations having signed on to TPP----or I should say the autocratic dictators controlling those nations.


'If you make the facile assumption that the TPP is actually about free trade, then you might be confused about all the hubbub about it. If you actually take the time to understand that much of what's in there has nothing to do with free trade and, in fact, may be the opposite of free trade, you realize why there's so much concern'.

If You Really Think TPP Is About 'Trade' Then Your Analysis Is Already Wrongfrom the don't-fall-for-the-marketing. dept


George Mason University professor Bill Schneider recently had an interesting blog post over at Reuters in which he discusses how Hillary Clinton is in a tough spot concerning the TPP and TTIP agreements, in that much of the Democratic party is now vehemently against these "trade" deals, while historically, the Clintons have been for them. The piece argues that whichever side Hillary takes will create a problem for her presidential campaign. The politics in the piece may be right, but almost the entire thing is built on the assumption that the TPP agreement really is about "trade" and that such an agreement will lead to cheaper goods and such. Take this passage for example:
Trade is not an ideological issue. It’s a populist issue — the people versus the establishment. Ordinary Americans are suspicious of trade deals. Economists have a hard time understanding this, but most people see trade not as an economic issue but as a moral issue.

People think it’s wrong for them to benefit as consumers from lower prices for foreign-made goods if it throws Americans out of work. Will they purchase the foreign-made goods? Of course they will — as long as they’re cheaper. That’s rational economic behavior. They just don’t think they should be allowed to.

I don't think that's actually what people are thinking at all, but even if we run with it, it's based on the very faulty premise that these agreements have anything to do with free trade at all. As we've discussed in the past, they do not. They are quite clearly often about the opposite of free trade. In the past, we've strongly recommended Michael Goodwin's epic comic about TPP where he shows how it's really got little to do with free trade, and everything to do with the ability to move investment capital around:

Perhaps an even better explanation comes from Tim Lee over at Vox, who goes into the history of these agreements, noting that the "free trade" stuff has mostly already been taken care of, as there aren't that many meaningful tariffs/trade barriers left. Instead, trade agreements have become a sort of secret playground for big corporations to abuse the process and force favorable regulations to be put in place around the globe. He discusses the history and how organized labor, the copyright industries, the pharmaceutical industries and more now basically use trade agreements as a secretive, anti-democratic process to force through regulations they want.
As the opportunities for trade liberalization have dwindled, the nature of trade agreements has shifted. They're no longer just about removing barriers to trade. They've become a mechanism for setting global economic rules more generally.

This trend is alarming to Simon Lester, a free trader at the Cato Institute. "We've added in these new issues that I'm skeptical of," he says. "It's not clear what the benefits are, and they cause a lot of controversy."

And this system for setting global rules has some serious defects. We expect the laws that govern our economic lives will be made in a transparent, representative, and accountable fashion. The TPP negotiation process is none of these — it's secretive, it's dominated by powerful insiders, and it provides little opportunity for public input.

If you make the facile assumption that the TPP is actually about free trade, then you might be confused about all the hubbub about it. If you actually take the time to understand that much of what's in there has nothing to do with free trade and, in fact, may be the opposite of free trade, you realize why there's so much concern.

_________________________________________

'The signing will come four months after the 12 countries in the TPP concluded negotiations in the U.S. on Oct. 5. The 12 countries include Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam (193 ITD, 10/6/15)'.


Obama and global corporations want TPP passed by Congress by July----with the coming economic crash and recession can't you hear our Congress and new President telling us TPP must happen to SAVE THE US ECONOMY!  All that infrastructure sent to build out global corporate campuses and global factories in US cities deemed International Economic Zones.

Canadian citizens are pushing as hard as possible to get rid of the Wall Street global corporate Trudeau-----called of course progressive---European nations are having nothing to do with the Atlantic version of TPP----and Americans are literally being held captive to moving this forward as PUGH and HILLARY love saying---as are Australians----so no one wants this in the developed world.  Citizens in each of these third world nations have mass protests against TPP for years but Wall Street installed dictators in these nations as is always done when International Economic Zones enter a nation.
 

January 6, 2016TPP Countries to Sign Trade Pact in New Zealand Feb. 4

From International Trade Daily



By Lucien O. ChauvinJan. 5 -- The 12 nations party to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will formally sign the agreement on Feb. 4 in New Zealand.
Andres Rebolledo, director general of Chile's General International Economic Relations Bureau (DIRECON), confirmed the Feb. 4 date in a meeting yesterday with the country's National Human Rights Institute to discuss how the agreement would affect human rights issues in Chile.
“We are the only country that has agreements with the 11 other countries in the TPP and we secured important advantages in different areas that will allow us to stimulate trade relations with all our partners. The most important thing is that we achieved an agreement that favors the country's interests,” Rebolledo said in a statement released by DIRECON after the meeting.
Peru's Trade and Tourism Ministry (Mincetur) confirmed that Deputy Trade Minister Edgar Vasquez, the country's TPP negotiator, will be on hand for the signing ceremony in New Zealand.
The signing will come four months after the 12 countries in the TPP concluded negotiations in the U.S. on Oct. 5. The 12 countries include Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam (193 ITD, 10/6/15).
“The signing will be a celebration, but the critical work comes after with the ratification process in national parliaments,” Gary Hufbauer, of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told Bloomberg BNA in a telephone interview.
Peruvian President Ollanta Humala's government hopes to submit the TPP for ratification to Peru's 130-member legislature when it returns to work in March after a two-month recess. The Humala government would like the agreement ratified by July 28, when his five-year term end. Humala is constitutionally banned from running for a consecutive term. Peru will hold presidential elections on April 10.
Watching U.S., Japan“The TPP is only good news for countries like Chile, Peru and Vietnam. It is a good legacy issue for a president,” said Hufbauer.
Peruvian Trade Minister Magali Silva said in December that Peru expects to have the agreement ratified this year and would like to have it implemented by June 2017.
The TPP can come into force once it is ratified by at least six countries. These six countries, however, must represent a minimum of 85 percent of the gross domestic product of the 12 members. In this scenario, Japan and the U.S. would have to be among this group of six.
Hufbauer said he expects the large economies in the TPP—Australia, Canada, Japan and Mexico—to wait and see what happens in the U.S. President Barack Obama's government would like to have the TPP ratified by July.

There is a chance, according to Hufbauer, that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could make a surprise move and take the lead on the agreement. His party has a majority in the Diet and passage, while not ensured, could come along party lines.
“From Obama's perspective, it would be great if Abe would go out front and put the TPP before the Diet,” he said.



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Keep in mind TPP is designed to allow those nations signing on to bring their foreign corporations to the US while allowing the US to open International Economic Zones---or continue operating them in those nations.  Below you see one of those candidates------one of the most brutal dictators who loves to bring foreign labor into the nation to exploit and abuse----key to International Economic Zone policies pushed by Clinton/Bush/Obama in Asia for decades.  So, Wall Street has been busy in Brunei-----I'm sure Johns Hopkins has been busy expanding its presence -----so there are no doubt mergers between Brunei corporations and global corporations to create that multi-national entity that would come to US International Economic Zones like Baltimore.  Since Brunei brings in immigrant labor in Brunei----it would do the same in Baltimore---and since they pay them $1-2 dollars a day----they would do the same in Baltimore.

As you see, this has nothing to do with free trade or trade at all-----TPP is mostly a mechanism to allow multi-national corporations to come to the US and totally ignore US Constitutional rights, US Rule of Law, and our status as citizens.


These is the kind of people who will be brought to Baltimore in partnerships as part of what are going to be called global corporate campuses. 


Minister of Development----

Pehin Dato Suyoi Osman

Govt official at Ministry of Development.
Brunei Darussalam
Construction
Current
  1. Ministry of Development.

Education
  1. The Johns Hopkins University - Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)


The world's enduring dictators: Hassanal Bolkiah, Brunei
Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei
Getty Images

This is an installment in the WorldWatch series, "The world's enduring dictators," inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, in which CBSNews.com takes a look at the men who continue to rule their lands unimpeded by law. See a complete explanation of the series and a list of others profiled here.




Hassanal Bolkiah, Brunei
Length of rule: 44 years. Although tiny Brunei was a British protectorate until 1984, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah became absolute ruler of his country in 1967, meaning he has been monarch and head of government there ever since. In 2006, he changed Brunei's constitution, declaring himself infallible.


Feature page: The world's enduring dictators

Most despotic acts: Bolkiah's government is accused of arbitrary detention; limits on freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association; restrictions on religious freedom; discrimination against women; restricted labor rights; and exploitation of foreign workers, according to the U.S. State Department. Brunei has productive oil and gas fields, and it is an open secret that much of the profit from them flows through the pockets of the Sultan and his family. (In fairness, Brunei's citizens enjoy extensive public assistance as few others do.) Also, occasionally substantiated rumors of harems and sex slaves plague the Brunei royal family.


Outlook for change: As mentioned, Brunei's 400,000 citizens benefit from generous public assistance like free medical care and schooling, and it is regularly ranked as one of the most developed countries in Asia. There has been no visible-from-the-outside public dissent in Brunei, although media there is almost entirely state-owned.






Brunei stats:

Population: 401,890; Malay 66.3 percent, Chinese 11.2 percent, indigenous 3.4 percent, other 19.1 percent; Median age is 28.


Constitution and the Rule of Law: Constitutional sultanate (locally known as Malay Islamic Monarchy); Everyday law based on Indian penal code and on English common law; for Muslims, Islamic sharia law supersedes civil law concerning Muslim marriages and inheritance.


Economic Indicators: Overall GDP is $19.88 billion (world rank is 126); Per capita GDP is $50,300 (world rank is 9); unemployment rate of 3.7 percent (world rank is 32).


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The only nation on this list of TPP partners more brutal than Brunei----is Malaysia----these dictators have been churning out slave labor for decades with International Economic Zone corporations like UNDERARMOUR.

Isn't Plank of UnderArmour tied to Johns Hopkins from his start?  I think so---well, Hopkins which somehow got the funding to expand globally these few decades---it may have been all the Federal funding that never made it to Baltimore communities and citizens----or it may have been all that Federal funding for Homeland Security, Department of Defense, the State Department as NGOs as overseas nation-building----but we see Hopkins and its global education and global healthcare opening in all International Economic Zone nations like Malaysia.

So, since Malaysia is a TPP partner and since Hopkins is already merging and creating multi-national corporations with Malaysian corporations----we will see Malaysian corporations coming to Baltimore as part of global corporate campuses and global factories.

THE MORE RIGHT-WING AUTOCRATIC THE BETTER SAY WALL STREET GLOBAL POLS ----NO WONDER BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION NEEDED THIS MAYORAL ELECTION GO TO PUGH---SHE HAS SHOWN COMPLETE INDIFFERENCE TO PEOPLE IN HER DISTRICT.



Former Malaysian PM Mahathir: ‘I was a dictator’

by Asian Correspondent Staff | 28th March 2016 | @ascorrespondent
126
Social Buzz

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Pic: AP.

MALAYSIAN former Premier Mahathir Mohamad has admitted to being a ‘dictator’ and claimed responsibility for the appointment of Prime Minister Najib Razak, who he now wants to depose.
Speaking at the launch of the ‘Save Malaysia’ campaign, which comprised members of the opposition and disgruntled leaders from the ruling UMNO party, Mahathir conceded that Malaysia’s current situation was the result of his 22-year reign.
However, the elderly statesman insisted that he was not solely to be blamed as the problems began with his predecessors Abdul Razak Hussein, who is also Najib’s father, and the nation’s third Prime Minister Hussein Onn.
“If we have a new Prime Minister, I’m quite sure he will be aware of what happens to Prime Ministers who deviate, or misuse, or abuse their power. I think any new prime minister would not do what Najib has done,” Mahathir said.
“He can do what I did, I was also a dictator, but that is alright (because) people did not demonstrate like this (in going) against me before, but Najib has done something really bad because people are willing to make declarations.”
Dr Mahathir said this during the unveiling of the campaign yesterday.


The effort to unseat Najib has united key figures from the opposition and several prominent members of the ruling coalition, including former Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who was dropped from cabinet last year, and Lim Kit Siang, who is widely considered Mahathir’s long-time nemesis from the Chinese-oriented Democratic Action Party (DAP). The group has also recently made a ‘Citizens’ Declaration’ which called for Najib to step down.
Najib is facing corruption allegations involving the deposit of RM2.8 billion (US$680 million) into his personal bank account, which he claimed was given as a ‘political donation’ from the Saudi Royal family. The issue has been at the centre of the Finance Ministry-owned investment arm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, which among others, had amassed RM42 billion (USD12.7 billion) debt.


“We need to gather enough brave people to sign the declaration, we need to make this a real people’s movement,” Mahathir said.
“I understand how frightened they are, this is a government that frightens people, that threatens people, that arrests people, (and) charge them before the courts.”
Dr Mahathir, whose term in office stretched between 1981 to 2003 claimed that the Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail, who was said to have been forced into retirement amid the probe into the scandal, had been escorted out of his office by police officers when he was ‘sacked’ last year.
“People are afraid of this government, (because) there is no freedom. There is fear and because of that it is going to be difficult for us to get people to sign (the declaration), but I think that fear is not really warranted because I doubt he (Najib) can arrest one million people,” Dr Mahathir said.

____________________________________

Republicans and far-right Clinton/Obama neo-liberals love SINGAPORE----it is the model for US International Economic Zone cities and global corporate tribunal rule.  You can read international media telling the world this dictator was a beacon to his people---Singapore being shiny and new-----one of the earliest International Economic Zones and created on an island for just this purpose.  Let's listen to what Singapore citizens have to say and hear the same talk as we hear in Baltimore----a history of taking people's wealth, property, enslaving them to bring all that wealth to build this first in the world SMART CITY.

WALL STREET BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION HAS ITS EYES ON SINGAPORE-----THE FAR-RIGHT WING DREAM COME TRUE.



'Was the success Singapore has achieved through bankrupting Chee Soon Juan, denying him a job, sending him to jail when he is totally innocent, worth any success that he and his son enjoying the position of Prime Minister claim'?


Please Gooogle the video below ----the young man hits on what live in this shiny new city of Singapore was really like these decades.......



Singapore Dissident

Sunday, March 29, 2015 Latest victim of Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore dictatorship. Silencing the right to free speech of 17 year old Amos Yee Update: 03/30/2015, the earlier YouTube link for Amos Yee's video was taken down. I found another one that works. Here it is.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Lee Kuan Yew, the tyrant and dictator of Singapore island from 1959 till his death a few days ago had a disgraceful record of jailing and torturing those who disagreed with him including his victims Chia Thye Poh who spent 3 decades in jail, while JB Jeyaretnam was repeatedly sued through his famous tactic of defamation lawsuits, not to mention Chee Soon Juan and numerous others who faced a similar fate.

The name of Lee Kuan Yew will live in those who really know the history of the island among men such as Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Franco of Spain and Stalin of Russia. If there is any difference between him and any of these men, it is only a question of degree. In their cases, they actually shot their political opponents, whereas he didn't shoot them. Instead in Lee's case he imprisoned and tortured them. As to whether it is worse to jail a man for decades or to shoot him right away is a question I will leave you to decide.

Just as Stalin brought great economic success to Russia, just as Hitler brought great economic success to Germany under the Third Reich, so did the tyrant Lee Kuan Yew. But it begs the question whether whatever success at this price is worth the success at all? Was the success in Singapore through the imprisonment of an innocent man Chia Thye Poh for 31 years without any trial worth the economic success he claims?

Was the success Singapore has achieved through bankrupting Chee Soon Juan, denying him a job, sending him to jail when he is totally innocent, worth any success that he and his son enjoying the position of Prime Minister claim?

Singapore today thanks to Lee Kuan Yew is a mindless conformist ignorant society who have lost their ability to think independently. Because it is necessary to be politically correct at all times they willingly place this tyrant on a pedestal all because it is the only profitable and safe thing to do. In Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore today being politically incorrect, like I am, means you are attacked not only by the government who have to break your spirit, but also by the average citizen. It would also mean the denial of housing, your job, your security and victimization for the rest of your life.

But I don't want to be politically correct. For me it is important to speak my mind which I have done throughout my life including the time I spent in Lee Kuan Yew's island. I don't want to be another digit among these disgraceful conformists that Lee Kuan Yew and his son demands.

But other than me, there is another Singaporean presently within the island of the father and son who refuses to be another digit in Lee Kuan Yew's island. His name is Amos Yee and he his is 17. A few days ago, he put up a video titled "Amos Yee: Lee Kuan Yew is finally dead".

You can see the video here   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TZPdM3xn24


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Sustainability was an environmental left-leaning policy meaning to consume less, to protect our environment for future generations, and to spread wealth equitably so others may live.

Corporate sustainability is the opposite---it is policy that creates the conditions of using human capital----you and me-----for as much profit as possible and expend as little money to keep us alive to do this.  This makes a global corporation competitive ----and that is the only goal of policy for Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals.

When TPP brings Vietnam on board we are now competing with one of the most brutal dictatorships with International Economic Zone partnerships for global corporations having multi-national corporations coming to the US International Economic Zone to operate in cities like Baltimore as they do in Vietnam.  Don't worry----it will not only be American citizens and Latino immigrants working in these conditions---all TPP partners bringing their foreign corporations to Baltimore will be bringing their own citizens to work in the US as they do in Vietnam-----



Vietnam's lost children in labyrinth of slave labour


By Marianne Brown Hanoi, Vietnam
  • 27 August 2013
  • From the section Asia
Trafficking gangs in Dien Bien, one of Vietnam's poorest provinces, promise to provide work for children but many of the victims are then forced into long hours for little or no pay Last year, three teenage boys jumped out of a third-floor window in Ho Chi Minh City and ran as fast as they could until they found help. It was one in the morning and they did not know where they were going.
"I was really scared someone would catch us," recalled Hieu, 18.
Hieu, who did not want to give his real name, is from the Khmu ethnic minority. He grew up in a small village in Dien Bien, a mountainous area in north-western Vietnam, one of the country's poorest provinces and bordering China.
When he was 16 he had a job making coal bricks in his home village when a woman approached him offering vocational training.

"My parents were happy I could go and earn some money," he said.
He and 11 other children from his village were taken by bus on a 2,100km (1,300 miles) journey and put to work in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), south Vietnam.
They spent the next two years locked in a cramped room making clothes for a small garment factory with no wages.
"We started at 6am and finished work at midnight," he said. "If we made a mistake making the clothes they would beat us with a stick."


Prostitution, begging and garment factories

Hieu is one of more than 230 child-trafficking victims that the Vietnam-based charity Blue Dragon Children's Foundation has rescued since 2005.
When they realise the kids are now slaves in sweatshops, [their parents] want them back
Michael Brosowski, Blue Dragon Children's Foundation
The charity helps children forced into a variety of jobs from prostitution to begging, but in the past year just over a quarter of that number have been rescued from garment factories in Ho Chi Minh City, the country's largest metropolis and industrial centre.


Conditions are often harsh.


"Last year we raided one factory. I think 14 people work, sleep, eat in a small room with the machines," says Blue Dragon's lawyer. "The factory owner only let them go to the bathroom for eight minutes a day, including brushing your teeth, washing, going to the toilet. "
The youngest was 11 and most were from ethnic minorities.
"They are taking kids from central and northern Vietnam because they are assuming those kids can't escape," said Blue Dragon co-founder Michael Brosowski.
"If they get kids from nearby, those kids can just walk out or walk home."
Mr Brosowski believes traffickers are targeting more remote areas such as Dien Bien province because communities there do not know about the risks of human trafficking.
Gangs approach local officials pretending to offer jobs or vocational training to children of the poorest families. Many are happy to send the children away.
Some villages Blue Dragon visit are missing dozens of children.
Parents and officials only realise there is a problem when the charity shows them pictures of garment factories they have raided in the past.
"When they realise the kids are now slaves in sweatshops, they want them back," he said.
Mr Brosowski believes the problem is getting worse, partly because it is so lucrative and other people in the trafficking business want "a piece of the pie", he said.
It also fits a nationwide trend as the rural poor seek jobs in the city. He does not believe the clothes are produced for export, but cannot say for sure.
'Tens of thousands of kids and adults'Tackling external trafficking has long been on the government's agenda, and Vietnam has been praised for an increase in the number of prosecutions involving overseas gang activity.

A child working in one of the garment factories raided by the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation in Vietnam

 Work conditions for children held against their will in garment factories can be harsh and dangerous

 One of the sweat shops raided by the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation According to official figures, a total of about 7,000 people, 80% of whom are women and children, have been trafficked internationally or domestically since 2005.
Independent experts say the number is likely to be much higher.
Children are taken from all over the country to work in brothels in China, South East Asia and Europe.
China's one-child policy has also led to a demand for male babies, which is met partly by Vietnamese mothers selling their infants, but there have also been cases of Vietnamese girls being sold to Chinese men to be impregnated.
Young men or boys are also trafficked to the UK to work in cannabis farms.
Government figures do not give the ratio of external and internal trafficking. However, the scale of the problem within the country is only just emerging.
"At any given time there must be tens of thousands of kids and adults in situations they have been trafficked [to, within Vietnam]," an expert who works in the field said on condition of anonymity.
The estimate was accepted as accurate by others who work for organisations with expert knowledge on human trafficking in Vietnam who also did not want to go on the record.

Legal confusion
Much of the problem arises because of the legal status of trafficking victims, says Florian Forster, head of the International Office of Migration (IOM) in Vietnam.
"Trafficking across international borders was recognised for a much longer time but internal trafficking has only been officially recognised since 2011. It takes time to implement those things, for the government to spread the message," he says.
The new law came into effect in January last year but as yet no guidelines exist on how to use it.
Mr Forster says the details are "being worked on" but it "requires training."
In the meantime, most internal labour traffickers are generally not treated as criminals but are punished with administrative sanctions, such as illegal detention or use of weapons, Vu Thi Thu Phuong, of the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP), said.
The factory owner who imprisoned Hieu was fined $500 and the factory was closed down, but he did not go to court.
While the government is deciding how to punish internal trafficking, debate continues about the severity of the problem. This is partly because some children receive wages.
"We have come across kids who are paid, and the amount might come to $50 or $100 for a year," said Mr Brosowski. "Given that the children work 18 hours per day, seven days per week, that money is ridiculously paltry.
"No one is doubting that a girl taken to a brothel in China is extremely severe," Mr Brosowski said.
"But culturally there's still a bit of discussion about whether it's so bad that a child whose family are very poor, doesn't have enough to eat, has dropped out of school, if he goes to a factory, is that such a bad thing?"
For Hieu at least, the horror of the sweatshop is in the past. He decided not to go back to Dien Bien, and Blue Dragon is helping him train as a mechanic in Hanoi.
"I hope my life will be better and I can help my family," he said.

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Another TPP nation wanting to bring their foreign corporations to US International Economic Zones to operate in the US as they do in Peru------that's what Wall Street Baltimore Development and the establishment mayoral candidates---and PUGH represent----

Peru and Chile have the same International Economic Zone and global corporate neo-liberal economic history with dictators for decades.  This was the Reagan/Clinton era expansion of neo-liberalism to Latin America and it is why the US has had constant movement of Latino immigrants from these nations for decades-----Peru and Chile have very far-right autocratic and exploitative economies and now we see both nations being opened to global mining corporations---as is the US today----fleecing all natural resources by the same 1%.

These citizens having fled Latin America are now being brought to US International Economic Zone cities----as building DENSITY as in Baltimore for these coming Asian global corporate campuses.  So, they have struggled to stop wage theft in the US only to be sent to working as an Asian sweat shop laborer for $2 a day.

American media showed how Fujimori was chased out of Peru decade ago only to have him come back and people are trying to stop that.  Of course global pols in the US call Fujumori good for Peru.


Latin America


Tens of thousands in Peru protest against presidential candidate Fujimori


A huge crowd of people has taken to the streets of Lima to protest presidential frontrunner Keiko Fujimori. The demonstration came on the 24th anniversary of her ex-president father's notorious power-grab.

Anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 people marched on the streets of the Peruvian capital on Tuesday night amid concern over Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the country's notorious ex-president, who is predicted to win the upcoming election.
The protest occurred on the 24th anniversay of her father Alberto Fujimori's move to dissolve the country's parliament. The elder Fujimori, who governed Peru from 1990 to 2000, is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for human rights abuses.
While his daughter is topping the polls in Peru, she appears to lack the support needed to gain a simple majority. Nevertheless, many protestors fear that if she were to win during Sunday's election, she would simply be a repeat of her father.

Fujimori responds

In an effort to put her detractors at ease, Fujimori published a statement online promising not to follow in her father's footsteps.
"I know how to look at the history of my country," she wrote. "I know the chapters that should be repeated and I'm very clear on those that shouldn't be."
For many, her promise wasn't enough. "I don't believe her at all," Rodolfo Lazo, a 19-year-old protestor, told Reuters news agency. His shirt put it another way: "I'm young but I'm not stupid."


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Mexico has been a mess since Clinton's NAFTA and the anger of citizens exposed to the worst of third world violence and corruption that came with the capture of Mexican leaders to this same global Wall Street neo-liberalism.  Below you see just one incidence of teachers protesting what was the installation of BILL GATES AND GLOBAL CORPORATE EDUCATION POLICIES WITH COMMON CORE-----that is why these people were protesting and you see these protesters were brutally killed for doing that. Mexico's telecommunications was privatized and consolidated to one billionnaire and as this article shows----off to China for partnerships in building simple national infrastructure.  Think Mexico has the people knowing how to build rail infrastructure?  Of course but it is the global corporation coming to Mexico that allows Mexican billionnaires to open businesses in China.  This is what having Mexico as a TPP partner does----



'Pena Nieto’s trip to China has infuriated protesters and relatives of the students, who believe he cares more about Mexico’s business interests than trying to deal with the gang violence that has ravaged much of the country for years.

The trip to China has faced problems since before it began.

On Thursday night, Mexico abruptly canceled a $3.75 billion contract to build a high-speed train line that it had awarded to a Chinese-led consortium after opposition lawmakers accused the government of rigging the process'.


Mexico Protesters Set Presidential Palace On Fire

11/09/2014 02:31 pm ET | Updated Nov 10, 2014


3.3 K
(Reuters) - Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Sunday condemned violent protests over the apparent massacre of 43 students after demonstrators set fire to the door of his ceremonial palace in Mexico City on Saturday night.
Tens of thousands of Mexicans have taken to the streets to protest the government’s handling of the case of the missing students, and last night protesters in central Mexico City set fire to the door of the National Palace.
“It’s unacceptable that someone should try to use this tragedy to justify violence,” Pena Nieto told reporters at the airport in Anchorage, Alaska where he was en route to China. “You can’t demand justice while acting with violence.”

The students were abducted by corrupt police in southwestern Mexico in September. Though the government said on Friday it looked as though the students had been killed, then incinerated by gangsters working with the police, it stopped short of confirming their deaths for lack of definitive evidence.


A man sets fire at the door of Mexican Government Palace during a spontaneous demonstration after Mexico’s government announced on Friday that evidence suggests that 43 missing students were murdered and their charred remains tipped in a rubbish dump and a river in Guerrero, Mexico, on November 08, 2014 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Miguel Tovar/LatinContent/Getty Images)



Pena Nieto’s trip to China has infuriated protesters and relatives of the students, who believe he cares more about Mexico’s business interests than trying to deal with the gang violence that has ravaged much of the country for years.
The trip to China has faced problems since before it began.
On Thursday night, Mexico abruptly canceled a $3.75 billion contract to build a high-speed train line that it had awarded to a Chinese-led consortium after opposition lawmakers accused the government of rigging the process.
The group led by the China Railway Construction Corp were the sole bidders for the project and lawmakers said the government had acted to help the consortium and its Mexican partners, some of which have close ties to the president and the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.


The government denied the accusations.


Grupo Higa was one of the Mexican partners in the rail consortium and on Sunday a local news site noted that a subsidiary of the company, Ingenieria Inmobiliaria del Centro, had built a $7 million seven-bedroom house for Pena Nieto and his family just before he became president.
The house, which features marble floors and underground parking, has never been disclosed in financial records that Pena Nieto has made public and it is in fact still owned by the Grupo Higa subsidiary, the report from Aristegui Noticias said.

Thousands of people protest against Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto during a spontaneous demonstration after Mexico’s government announced on friday that evidence suggests that 43 missing students were murdered and their charred remains tipped in a rubbish dump and a river in Guerrero, Mexico, on November 08, 2014 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Miguel Tovar/LatinContent/Getty Images)


However, the president’s office said in a statement on Sunday that the house was acquired in 2012 from Ingenieria Inmobiliaria del Centro by Pena Nieto’s wife, actress Angelica Rivera, and that she spoke openly about the property last year.
Separately, China on Sunday said it believed China Railway Construction Corp had followed Mexico’s bidding rules and requirements and it hopes Chinese companies will continue to participate in Mexican infrastructure projects.
Another protest took place on Sunday, which included people who had walked more than 100 miles to Mexico City from Iguala, Guerrero, where the missing students were abducted. The protest congregated peacefully in the central Zocalo square.

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OH, GOOD-----FINDING MARKETS FOR OUR US NATURAL GAS EXPORTED FROM MARYLAND---THAT'S A PRIORITY IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST!


When O'Malley or Hogan goes on these foreign economic trips to Asian nations like China----they are not only going to connect Maryland business people to Chinese/Japanese markets----they are looking for merger and acquisition to create multi-national corporation status that come back to the US in US International Zone cities like Baltimore----

Hogan is set to work with soon-to-be Mayor PUGH to FIX BALTIMORE----and that means to MOVE FORWARD with installing International Economic Zone Master Plans of global corporate campuses and global factories----making global corporate partners tied to all Baltimore City agencies proud owner-operator of all that is public infrastructure and that will include making Baltimore a SMART CITY just as Singapore.  Trading global contracts with Baltimore citizens and small businesses as subcontractors to subcontractors forced to work for less and less and less.

SEE WHY ALL MY TALK DURING THE PRIMARY ELECTION OF REBUILDING EACH COMMUNITY WITH A SMALL BUSINESS ECONOMY WAS UNIQUE?

Trans Pacific Trade Pact is not free-market----it is not about jobs, jobs, jobs----it is about bringing the US to the same level of third world structure to operate as done overseas and that is why they are totally ignoring all US Rule of Law, all Constitutional rights, and passing PROGRESSIVE POSING laws they never intend to enforce.

FIXING BALTIMORE starts with a Baltimore to Washington high-speed rail -----THAT'S THE PRIORITY IN TRANSPORTATION IN BALTIMORE.


Hogan calls maglev ride 'incredible,' says state will seek $28 million grant to study
Central Japan Railway Co.'s Maglev train, which is levitated and propelled forward by magnetic force, speeds at an 18.4 kilometre test track in Tsuru, west of Tokyo June 10, 2004. (Reuters)


Michael DresserContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun


After riding Japanese train at 314 mph, Gov. Larry Hogan touts value of maglev for Maryland commuters.
Gov. Larry Hogan took a ride Thursday on Japan's high-speed magnetic levitation train and expressed enthusiastic interest in a technology that has been touted as a way to travel between Baltimore and Washington in 15 minutes.
During a maglev ride on a 27-mile line outside Tokyo, Hogan was wowed by a technology the Japanese want to sell in the United States.
"It was an incredible experience, even more impressive than I expected," Hogan said after the lightning-fast trip, with speeds reaching 314 mph.
Hogan, nearing the end of a 12-day visit to Asia, announced that Maryland would seek a $28 million grant to study the possibility of a Baltimore-Washington maglev line.
The Republican governor met Thursday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Abe's official residence and signed a memorandum of cooperation between Maryland and Japan on maglev, a technology whose advocates have been seeking a foothold in the United States for decades.

Japan revs up maglev train pitch (WSJ)
A high-ranking Hogan aide in Annapolis stressed that the administration isn't proposing an expensive new spending project financed by taxpayers.
"This is, as the governor said, a very interesting technology that's worth exploring," said communications director Matthew Clark. "That's all we're talking about right now."
Nevertheless, Hogan's comments could revive discussion of a technology that received considerable attention in Maryland during the early 1990s. Interest faded, only to re-emerge in the early 2000s with then-Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley as one of its leading advocates.
The focus of recent Japanese efforts to sell maglev has been the rail corridor between Washington and New York, with a proposed first phase between the nation's capital and Baltimore. Proponents say maglev will cut the travel time from Washington to New York to about an hour and unlock the economic potential of the Northeast.
Maglev is a method of propulsion that moves vehicles with magnets rather than wheels, axles and bearings. The sleek, bullet-like trains seem to glide on a cushion of air.
Hogan was joined on the trip by Wayne Rogers, chief executive of Baltimore-Washington Rapid Rail LLC, which has been promoting the local phase of what it hopes will be an eventual Northeast maglev line. Clark said Rogers, a former executive director of the Maryland Democratic Party, paid his own way on the trip.
Nazih Haddad, executive vice president of the Rapid Rail company, said his company would bear all of the operating costs once the line was running. He said the construction costs would be split between the Japanese government, the Central Japan Railway and the U.S. government, with no need for a state contribution.
While maglev's speed — more than twice that of Amtrak's high-speed Acela trains — has been the technology's selling point, the enormous cost of building a Washington-New York line has been the main obstacle. Many proponents of high-speed rail contend conventional technology would be more feasible.
Andy Kunz, president of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, said it would be more practical and less costly to go with the type of "wheels on steel" technology in use for decades in Japan, China and France. He said such technology has reached speeds as high as 378 mph and most of it could be built within the existing railroad right of way, where maglev could not.
"The problem with maglev is that its still an experimental technology," he said. "It's not in widespread use across the world."
Haddad estimated the cost of the 40-mile line from Washington to Baltimore at $10 billion.
That price tag is nearly twice the combined cost of Baltimore's Red Line or the Washington suburban Purple Line — light rail projects that Hogan called too expensive when he was running for governor. The fate of the two mass transit projects is on hold until Hogan decides whether to proceed.
One of the leading advocates for the New Carrollton-to-Bethesda Purple Line complained that Hogan was more willing to hear the Japanese pitch than to visit the Purple Line corridor and hear the case for that project.
"Maglev is in the early planning stages," said Nick Brand, president of the Action Committee for Transit. "If the governor can fly to Japan and look at the maglev line, how come he hasn't found the time to visit Silver Spring or Riverdale Park?"
Clark acknowledged that Hogan had not yet toured the Purple Line or Red Line corridors but said he was not aware of any invitation.

"This has nothing to do with the Purple Line or the Red Line," Clark said.
During his stay in Tokyo, Hogan joined with officials of the energy company Dominion to announce a 20-year agreement under which the company will supply liquefied natural gas from its Cove Point facility in Calvert County to three major Japanese companies. Administration officials said the deal would bring thousands of construction jobs and 75 permanent jobs to the state.
Construction on the Cove Point terminal, long opposed by environmentalists, began in late 2014 and is expected to be completed in late 2017.
Earlier during his Asian trip, Hogan met with high-ranking officials in South Korea and in China.



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April 28th, 2016

4/28/2016

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Although is is old news for long time followers I want to revisit this FED/Wall Street/Obama/Clinton/Bush Congress policy play these several years so people see the collusion between pols and Wall Street to create these manufactured economic crises. Every one of Maryland's Congressional pols up for re-election after doing all I post WON RE-ELECTION YET AGAIN----Anthony Brown who was O'Malley's sidekick as they loaded Baltimore and Maryland with bond debt and Wall Street financial instruments was elected back into a political position.
I started Citizens Oversight Maryland 10 years ago because of this complete capture of the Democratic Party---all the groups pretending to be PROGRESSIVE---like PROGRESSIVE MARYLAND---were Clinton neo-liberal getting progressively richer groups.  That is why I added Maryland Progressives to my social Democratic group to highlight social progressive policy against this raging Wall Street far-right economic progressively rich policy.


The FED under Greenspan created the subprime mortgage loan fraud and bubble while Bernanke created the subprime US Treasury/municipal bond fraud bubble.  In both cases Wall Street banks used depositors' accounts to create massive leverage of derivative debt to sell overseas.  CitiBank and Bank of America were allowed to expand to China and Brazil under Clinton breaking of Glass Steagall and deregulating banks and those branches partnered with Chinese and Brazilian investment bankers who pedaled these subprime mortgage loans and now all those subprime bond deals.  This makes the Chinese and Brazilian partners rich defrauding their citizens and it allows those $600 trillion dollar leverage amounts we are told Wall Street had with subprime mortgage loans and now again with our bond debt.  Remember, none of this is real money and it is all based on bank depositors' cash----it is only when these markets collapse and a bailout of banks is called for that Congress, Maryland Assembly, and Baltimore City pols partnered with Wall Street allow all this fraud to take actual revenue sources like our Social Security Trust, our pensions and 401Ks, our houses, cars, and allows interest rates to soar on credit that Wall Street gets actual money.

Wall Street needed debt so the FED created conditions for corporations to take free money----they did not qualify for it----it was not in the interest of building a stable US economy ---the FED's mission-----the FED simply wanted to maximize the amount of debt through municipal and corporate bonds enough to send the US into a deep economic hole.  At the same time as I said yesterday-----they wanted to implode all US corporations not tied to multi-national partnerships to merge assets into these global corporate tribunal 1% businesses.

THIS IS FOR WHOM CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA WALL STREET GLOBAL POLS HAVE WORKED FOR THESE FEW DECADES AND THOSE POLS ARE WILLING TO DO WHATEVER AS THEY ARE 'SHOW ME THE MONEY' PEOPLE.



Thanks For The Corporate Bond Bubble, Fed

Mar. 5, 2015 8:15 AM ET
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Once upon a time businesses borrowed long term money--if they borrowed at all--in order to fund plant, equipment and other long-lived productive assets. That kind of debt was self-liquidating in the sense that it usually generated a stream of income and cash flow that was sufficient to service and repay the debt, and to kick some earned surplus into the pot as well.
Today American businesses are borrowing like never before--but the only thing being liquidated is their own equity capital. That's because trillions of debt is being issued to fund financial engineering maneuvers such as stock buybacks, M&A and LBOs, not the acquisition of productive assets that can actually fuel future output and productivity.
So it amounts to a great financial shuffle conducted entirely within the canyons of Wall Street. Financial engineering deals invariably shrink the float of outstanding stock among the corporations visiting underwriters. Likewise, they invariably leave with the mid-section of their balance sheets bloated with fixed obligations, while the bottom tier of shareholder equity has been strip-mined and hollowed out.
At the same time, none of this vast flow of capital leaves a trace on the actual operations--such as production, marketing and payrolls-of the businesses involved. Instead, prodigious sums of debt capital are being sold to yield-hungry bond managers and homegamers via mutual funds and then recycled back into windfall gains for stock market gamblers who chase momo plays and the stock price rips that usually accompany M&A, LBO or stock buyback announcements.
Needless to say, central bank financial repression is responsible for this destructive transformation of capital market function. It has made the after-tax cost of debt tantamount to free for big cap corporations--while fueling equity market bubbles that makes stock repurchases and other short-term financial engineering maneuvers irresistible to stock option obsessed inhabitants of the C-suites.
In this context, today's WSJ saw fit to herald the $21 billion of quasi-junk bonds (BBB-) issued by Actavis PLC (ACT) to fund its $66 billion acquisition of Allergan (NYSE:AGN), a company which famously supplies Botox and similar life-enhancing products. Whether this mega-merger will result in any sustainable economic efficiency gains only time will tell, but the odds are not high. The overwhelming share of today's red hot M&A deals fail to earn back the huge takeover premiums invariably paid. And, not infrequently, they are subsequently reborn as equally trumpeted corporate restructurings, spin-offs and other "value unlocking" maneuvers a few years down the road. It's Wall Street's version of "you stab 'em and we slab -em".


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While the FED and national media were reporting the US economy was humming and GDP was growing sometimes they said GDP was 2.5-3%-----all that growth was this subpriming of our US bond market.  Congress in 2009 when Democrats had a super-majority with Obama and the HOUSE and SENATE----not really Democrats but Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal majority----voted to change how GDP was measured in the US and they added things like SALES OF US TREASURY AND MUNICIPAL BONDS as GDP growth.  This has never been done and does not represent GDP growth---it was all progressive posing to make Americans and the world think the US economy was stabilizing.  This allow US corporations that should have been working---hiring employees, creating and selling products for REAL GDP---to simply take that free FED money to expand overseas----these several years were all spent in US corporations merging and accumulating foreign corporations so now these corporations are no longer American----

Wall Street and media sold all this as good---supposedly shareholders in these corporations being imploded with corporate debt were getting dividend checks----kickbacks from corporate profits----which no doubt caused main street to invest more in these corporations being IMPLODED IN DEBT.  See the pattern.  Fool us once as they did the same under Bush---fool us twice shame on us but many Americans allowed this to happen a second time.  I shouted to labor union leaders and members about this and many simply said GO AWAY---OUR PENSIONS ARE GROWING----unable to understand they were being taken again. These will be the people losing all their retirements after this crash settles.


Three Chart Alarm: The Fed Has Set-Up The Corporate Bond Market For A Big Fall

by David Stockman • August 4, 2014

The three charts below, which appeared in this morning’s Wall Street Journal, are still another reminder that the Fed’s heedless fueling of the third financial bubble this century has done enormous damage to the internals of financial markets.  In this case, investors and savers being brutally punished by ZIRP were herded into bonds funds in a desperate scramble for yield. Accordingly, bond fund assets soared from $1.6 trillion at the time of the financial crisis to $4.1 trillion today.
Yet the market’s structural liquidity condition has gone in the opposite direction. Dealer inventories of corporate bonds have plummeted by nearly 75% from pre-crash levels, meaning that the ratio of dealer inventories to bond fund assets has virtually been vaporized. In 2008 that ratio stood at 15%, but presently it is only 1.5%.  Likewise, daily trading volumes have been cut in half since the crisis.
The implication is no mystery. When the financial markets eventually succumb to a “risk-off” selling panic, the corporate bond market will gap down violently. As one astute analyst put it:
“Everyone is hoping to be first through the exit,” said Matt King, global head of credit strategy at Citigroup in London. “By definition, that’s not possible.”
Stated differently, the Fed’s explicit campaign to force grandpa out of CDs and into corporate bond funds has caused a vast mis-pricing of liquidity. In a healthy free market, bond fund yields would carry a significant discount for illiquidity, and issuers of riskier corporate credits would face far higher yield spreads vs. the 10-year treasury benchmark.
So once again, the serial bubble machine in the Eccles Building has generated a huge unnatural market deformation that is inherently unstable and increasingly fragile. When the break comes, years worth of “extra” yield will be wiped-out in a traumatic drop in bond prices caused by a panic at the exit ramp.


As the balance of the WSJ article makes clear, the risk of log-jam at the exit gates is especially acute in the $1.6 trillion junk bond market. Prior to last week’s initial sell-off, yield spreads had been squeezed to absurdly low levels—less than 300 basis points on the Merrill index. Based on the current rate of inflation and historic 4-5% long-term losses on junk bonds, the spread should be 600 basis points or more. Indeed, during the last junk bond sell-off in 2008-2009, the yield spread over the treasury benchmark blew-out to 2000 basis points before the Fed’s artificial flood of liquidity put a stop to the carnage.


But today the junk bond market is far larger; trading liquidity is far thinner; and the Fed has already used up its trick card—that is, zero interest rates and massive monetization of the public debt. Accordingly, the carnage at the junk bond exit ramp is likely to be far more extensive this time around.  More importantly, the punters who harvested gargantuan profits by buying junk at peak yields in the spring of 2009 may find that the fire brigade in the Eccles Building is MIA when the next crash hits bottom.
By Katy Burne  at The Wall Street Journal
A shakeout in the junk-bond market is drawing only cautious interest from bargain-hunters, underscoring investor fears that many once-hot securities could prove hard to sell in an increasingly difficult trading environment.
U.S. funds investing in debt rated below investment grade lost an average 1.33% last month, according to a Barclays PLC index, their second-worst monthly performance since November 2011. In June 2013, after the Federal Reserve began hinting that it would scale back its monetary easing, they lost 2.62%.
The latest junk-bond decline intensified last week as investors continued to make heavy withdrawals of money, in part because of worry that a recharged U.S. economy could prompt the Fed to raise interest rates sooner than expected, a move that would likely pressure bond prices.
Reflecting the cautious mind set, some portfolio managers are selling riskier bonds and replacing them with safer ones because of concern about market liquidity, or the capacity to quickly buy or sell securities at or near quoted prices. Many investors say liquidity is drying up as the Fed pares its monthly stimulus and large banks trim their bond inventories.
Investors pulled more than $5 billion in July from U.S. junk-bond mutual and exchange-traded funds, according to Lipper, a fund tracker, deepening the liquidity fears and adding to concern that the recent selloff could intensify…..
The downdraft in junk debt highlights concerns that purchasers in the $1.6 trillion U.S. market, lured by higher income than on government and highly rated corporate bonds, have paid too much for the securities. Prices have rallied, sending yields to levels too low to compensate buyers for the risk of the investments, many investors say.
The tremors are being closely scrutinized across Wall Street. Many investors this year have expressed concerns that a pullback in junk-bond prices could signal that market participants are rethinking their willingness to take risk, foreshadowing further declines in stocks and other risky assets.
The conditions are heaping extra pressure on sellers at a time when geopolitical unrest from Israel to Ukraine has caused a pullback from stocks and all but the safest debt securities. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped seven of the past eight trading days and is down 0.5% this year.
Jim Swanson, chief investment strategist at MFS Investment Management, which oversees about $438 billion, said he has been demanding extra yield on some bonds to reflect the risk that selling could take longer, and avoiding some less-liquid bonds. “There’s a question of what happens when everyone tries to sell [bonds] at once, and I want compensation for that,” he said.

Brian Connolly, co-founder of hedge fund Millstreet Capital Management in Boston, which oversees more than $200 million in assets, said he recently tried to sell $3 million of energy company bonds but couldn’t find buyers for three days. Typically such a sale takes a day at the most, he said.
“It has become increasingly harder to trade,” he said.

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All of this is important to the policy issues of US International Economic Zones and Trans Pacific Trade Pact as multi-national corporations are not considered as American they are now considered as tied to whatever nation has their registered headquarters and that can be in any developing nation.  They do that to evade taxes but more importantly, they will be brought back to US International Economic Zones to claim under TPP they can ignore US Constitutional rights, Federal, state, and local laws, and will say they are protected from taxes and regulations under the global free-trade status of US International Economic Zones like Baltimore.

Almost all of the Federal stimulus Obama and Clinton neo-liberals in Congress---AND REPUBLICANS----they said was to stimulate the US economy was tied to these global corporate mergers and acquisitions and expanding corporations overseas. This is why nothing came to Baltimore or any other US city for economic stimulus---but Wall Street Baltimore Development threw a few million at its 'justice' non-profits to keep low-income citizens BUSY.


All the policies sent down from Maryland Assembly by Baltimore pols led by PUGH was geared towards all this KEEPING LOW-INCOME BUSY----and NO economic growth in our surrounding communities.


How to Merge Corporate Cultures

Mergers and acquisitions can create strange bedfellows, but the drawbacks of companies' cultures not meshing together can have an impact on the bottom line.

By Tim Donnelly

Inc.com Contributor@TimDonnelly



Follow these tips from merger experts for a smooth transition.
Through all the mergers he's been a part of, Mike Sprouse has yet to see one that doesn't entail at least a few hiccups.
"I don't think I've ever heard of any colleague of mine who's gone through a combination who said it's easier than they thought," says Sprouse, chief marketing officer for Epic Media Group, a digital marketing company that last year merged with a smaller ad network. "Most people say it's more difficult than they thought."
Many of the problems come from the sometimes-awkward mash-up of two distinct corporate cultures—a relationship that experts say is like the first day of high school or a new marriage, because you have no choice but to navigate the unfamiliar situation.
Mergers and acquisitions can create strange bedfellows, but the drawbacks of companies' cultures not meshing together can have an impact on the bottom line.
"The biggest thing it does is it hinders morale," Sprouse says. "When that happens, there's a tendency to hinder relationships with clients, vendors and that sort of thing."
Follow these tips from merger experts to figure out how to prevent your new marriage from ending in a quick divorce:

Merging Your Corporate Cultures: Do Your Due Diligence



Nancy Rothbard, a management professor at Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvannia, says recent studies show the failure rate of mergers is close to 75 percent, and the majority don't produce the expected financial returns for years after the merger has taken place.
"In some of the research, there's been a lot of discussion on how the culture piece has been really central to why they fail," she says.
That happens because most companies don't consider the differences in corporate cultures when analyzing a potential merger in the first place.
"Often the things that are harder to assess are the qualitative aspects," she says. "It often can create a lot of challenge for getting the best out of employees."
You can get a jump on this problem by thinking ahead: While the legal team is scrutinizing the proposed merger, have someone elsetake a look at the cultural differences between the two companies. This way, you're not just plopping new employees into an unfamiliar environment and expecting them to sink or swim.
Culture clash is too often a scapegoat when mergers go wrong, says Joe Aberger, the president of Pritchett, a strategy firm that specializes in mergers and corporate culture and is headquartered in Dallas. Factoring it into the preparations for the merger helps avoid scapegoating.
"Executives would rather blame culture than shouldering the blame for destroying millions of dollars of shareholder value," he says. "You can't get lost in analyzing culture. You need to keep your eye on the bottom line."


Merging Your Corporate Cultures: Don't Try to Change Everything



One mistake companies often make is assuming they need to completely throw out the pre-existing cultures after the merger. In fact, companies that do it successfully converge on a few shared values, some common operating principles, and standard  processes, but leave other aspects as they were.
"You don't need one common culture for everyone to work together," Aberger says. "Sometimes value can be squandered in pursuit of unnecessary consistency between companies."
Experts say there's no such thing as a merger of equals: one company always brings the dominant culture. Smart companies will go out of their way to be protectionist and preserve certain parts of the smaller entity, Rothbard says.
"There may be certain aspects of the culture you want to preserve and value in the firm you're merging with," she says. "Make sure you don't destroy what made that company a really great company to buy or to merge with."
Start by identifying which aspects of the culture are most important to the bottom line; the rest you may be able to leave untouched.
"Don't try to change everything," Aberger says. "Be very mission critical in your approach."
Rothbard says to make sure not to establish a system of "haves" and "have nots" in the office, which can quickly create tension.


Merging Your Corporate Cultures: Communicate Expectations



To combat that "first day of high school" feeling after a merger, communication is key. This can be done through regular updates, employee surveys, one-on-one lunches, and meetings.
"You absolutely have got to empower people to have a voice in defining what the new corporate culture is going to be," Sprouse says. "What you want to do is find aspects of both cultures that work in the new combined culture."

Rothbard says something that often sinks mergers is when employees don't know what's expected of them in the new environment.
"When people move from one firm to another, they have cultural baggage they bring with them, in terms of how you think you should be behaving to be effective in their job," she says. She cited a hypothetical example of discount insurance company Geico merging with a higher-end insurance firm. Should employees of the new company go after a few high-premium customers or stick with Geico's model of signing on lots of low-end customers?

"That can be a very, very delicate operation," she says.
Sprouse says to make sure not to focus just on the central office either. If you have sites outside the main headquarters, make an extra effort to keep them in the loop.
Most of all, don't expect all this to happen right away. Like any new relationship, it takes time to settle in, usually much longer than you may be expecting.
"Often times we don't know what it is about the culture that may be incompatible," Rothbard says. "It takes time: When we have these skirmishes as things flare up, values and behaviors pan out."

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Below you see why national labor union leaders especially those International unions remain with Hillary even as American workers including labor union members have and will be killed by all these global neo-liberal policies and economic crashes.  International unions are feeling they are expanding THEIR MARKET-SHARE----IE THERE UNION MEMBERSHIP with all these mergers creating multi-national corporations.  No doubt the national labor leaders are getting rich.  This article shows one such action with a merger involving Indian corporations with US corporations and India's courts rule for labor.  Know which nation did not sign onto TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT?  INDIA.  No what TPP will do to unions ----kill any labor laws and rights to affect global corporations in ways that harm profit---that means anything.  So, we are seeing some international news making it appear international unions are still in the game but those tied to TPP are always the most abusive to labor.  Remember as well, many nations like India and China are forcing US corporations out of their countries to take back their economies----so these union deals will more and more be tied to TPP nations.

The point with this talk is this-----these multi-national mergers will have that once US global corporation registered as Indian---Chinese----African----Brazilian----etc. and expect to operate in US International Economic Zones as they do in these nations.  Their partners will come to these US International Economic Zones as FOREIGN CORPORATIONS bringing their workforce from that nation and work them as if they were still in that nation.  US workers will either be left unemployed or be forced to work for these foreign corporations as these immigrant laborors do.  It is an extension of what is happening to US workers made to compete with Latino immigrant workers who are victim of wage theft.  Latino workers will become those Asian sweat shop workers as well.
  Asian workers have it far worse than Latinos working in the US.

Merger between two multinational companies and Union

May 7, 2015


At the time of merger between two multinational companies, can the union insist upon the company to handover copy of the said merger agreement?

This is also one of the debatable question and to discuss on this issue, it can say that based on the proportion of decision High Court of Mumbai, even under the process governing civil litigation, discovery and inspection of documents is for assisting the Court to arrive at the truth. The principles of civil law have been accepted in relation to the working of Tribunals as well. Existence of confidential documents in any industrial undertaking would create problems more sensitive than in an ordinary civil litigation where it could be one seeking repayment of money or recovery of an item of immovable property. The information which enables employee’s representatives to obtain the truth and fair view of the performance of the entity and helps the Union protecting interests of the workmen employed, cannot withheld from the Court on the ground of confidentiality.
Hope this small write up will give insight about pertained subject.
Thank you. 

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The nations the US FED and Wall Street used to launder subprime mortgage and other financial frauds were primarily China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.  These are the people who became rich in their nations----the 1% or 5% of those nations and most of the immigrant/foreign investment corporations being brought to the US to US International Economic Zones are these partners.  They are rich because they aided and abetted these Wall Street frauds.  This is of course a generalization---not all folks coming from India, China, Brazil, and South Africa are tied to this---but most are.  These are now the NEW AMERICANS-----THE CLINTON NEO-LIBERAL IMMIGRANT CITIZEN WING OF THIS WALL STREET GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL.  When we see immigrant citizens running for office the first thing we need to think as I am doing with our elections in Baltimore with black and white candidates---those 5% administering all this corporate fraud and government corruption----is that candidate here in the US because they ran from neo-liberal OPPRESSION or are they here because they are partnered with Wall Street.  Since Obama and Clinton neo-liberals made the pathway to citizenship IMMEDIATE for those rich enough to buy it--we are now seeing the newly wealthy world's rich in our elections and of course----they often run as progressive, grassroots Democrats---

While the rich in these nations came to the US with their wealth---the power people in BRIC nations said----

WAIT A MINUTE---WE KNOW HOW CORRUPT AND CRIMINAL THE US WALL STREET SYSTEM IS----WE ARE GOING TO BREAK FROM THAT AND CREATE OUR OWN ECONOMY SO OUR NEW WEALTH IS NOT STOLEN BY US BANKS.


'BRICS' nations to form development bank to rival World Bank, IMF

The leaders of so-called BRICS nations: Russian President Vladimir Putin, left; India Prime Minister Narendra Modi; Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Chinese President Xi Jinping; and South African President in Fortaleza, Brazil, for the BRICS Summit. (Nelson Almeida / AFP/Getty Images)
Vincent Bevins



'BRICS' nations to start development bank that will be located in Shanghai
The so-called BRICS countries agreed to form an international development bank with aspirations to challenge the dominance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa said Tuesday that the New Development Bank will start with $50 billion in capital and $100 billion as a currency reserve fund for liquidity crises. Operating details still need to be resolved.
Still, the BRICS bank, which could add more member nations, represents a bid to expand the influence of the BRICS emerging markets and act as a counterbalance to institutions run by the U.S. and other developed nations, experts said.
"This is about the consolidation of BRICS 2.0," said Marcos Troyjo, professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University and co-director of the BRICLab Center. "If BRICS 1.0 was about capturing investor attention to the scale of their economic relevance, BRICS 2.0 is about embarking on institution building."
The BRICs acronym was coined by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economist Jim O'Neill in 2001 to describe the four large emerging markets — Brazil, Russia, India and China — that could play a large role in global economic growth. They began meeting for periodic summits in 2009, and were later joined by South Africa.
As developing countries began playing a larger role in the world economy, their leaders repeatedly complained that they have not been given correspondingly larger voices in international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, both based in Washington. The U.S. typically appoints the World Bank president, and European countries appoint the IMF chief.
"International governance structures designed within a different power configuration show increasingly evident signs of losing legitimacy and effectiveness," said the official statement signed by the BRICS leaders, who met in Fortaleza, Brazil, on Tuesday. "We believe the BRICS are an important force for incremental change and reform of current institutions toward more representative and equitable governance."
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and South African President Jacob Zuma hammered out some of the final details before signing the agreement Tuesday.
Among the terms are that the bank will be in Shanghai, its first president will be from India, and the first chair of the board of directors will be from Brazil.
On Wednesday, the BRICS leaders will meet with the heads of South American countries through the intergovernmental Union of South American Nations, which was founded in 2008.
The new bank is expected to make loans for development and infrastructure projects. It also will function as an incubator for development expertise from other emerging economies.
Other countries, such as Indonesia, Mexico or Turkey, could eventually join the bank, Troyjo said, noting that BRICS countries have seen their growth slow over the last few years from the peak of international investor interest in emerging market countries.
"The only thing they may have in common is the use of some kind of state capitalism in their growth," he said. "The BRICS are needing to reinvent themselves, and it's unlikely their route forward can be the same route that got them here."
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Here you see what Obama/Bush/Clinton have been working overtime to push-----these major economies BRICS to join the ONE WORLD Trans Pacific Trade Pact and so far they are saying NO WAY.  This is why the Wall Street 1% plan of ONE WORLD will not work and is already falling apart.  The only way US, Canada, and Australia is tied to it is why these corrupt elections keeping Wall Street neo-liberals in those nations in office as we are seeing in the US----citizens don't want this---we simply cannot get rid of the pols because of US International Economic Zones like Baltimore having systemic election corruption.

The other nations tied to TPP are the poor Asian nations where all the US International Economic Zone enslavement, environmental damage have dictators made rich keeping US in the game in those nations but----THOSE ASIAN NATIONS ARE FEELING THE BURN---OF A STRONG CHINESE ECONOMIC PRESSURE against this partnership with the US and Clinton/Obama/Bush know these deals are not a done deal.  Wall Street is mostly focused on bringing Europe and the US down to Asian third world level so global corporations can operate in the US as they do overseas so will continue to push TPP in the US no matter what.


All of this international public policy is very complicated for those people just starting to look at policy. The important issue is seeing how US corporations are no longer US----and how the foreign rich and foreign corporations are integrating into our US International Economic Zone cities like Baltimore. It will not end well for Americans even those 5% Wall Street players as it will get real third world soon---no holds bar.


Pivoting without the BRICS?
February 25, 2013, 11:22 am


One of the many neoliberal slogans often heard in the corridors of power of the rich (and very much indebted) industrialised west is the virtue of free trade. The theory of free trade preaches that when all follow the same rules all will later enjoy benefits. Practice, however, is very different. The powerful western economies are selective when it comes to membership in free trade areas and those who benefit the most are those who make the rules. Presumably this is the political calculus behind the proposed free trade zones comprising the US and the EU and Washington’s Trans-Pacific Partnership talks – both enterprises intentionally exclude or target the BRICS.

Backgrounder

On November 12, 2011, the leaders of the nine Trans-Pacific Partnership countries – Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States – announced the broad outlines of an ambitious, 21st-century Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) aims to be an ambitious, next-generation, Asia-Pacific trade agreement that reflects US economic priorities and values. The slated aims of this agreement are that through the TPP, the Obama Administration is seeking to boost US economic growth and support the creation and retention of American jobs by increasing exports in the region.


China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) seeks to link 16 Asia-Pacific countries with the notable absence of the US [Xinhua]

The idea of a US-EU free trade zone has also been around for a while. From a purely trade point of view there are compelling reasons to integrate these two huge markets closer than they already are. However, this idea will probably go nowhere on its merits. The Americans and the Europeans need to get their financial house in order before they can seriously consider a closer trading relationship. Further trade integration would be akin to bad money chasing bad money. Meanwhile, the world is rapidly moving forward.


No all-out war
Then there is the issue of serious political realities. American and European publics are in no mood for more integration of anything when the issue of diminished sovereignty is considered. The supporters of this new mega trading zone are prepared for this accusation – it is a card called the BRICS. Tighter economic integrations is not the selling point of a US-EU trading zone; the PR pitch is to counter the economic, financial, and monetary dynamism of the emerging market world. This approach is backward looking and defensive – and is probably doomed to fail as a result.
The idea of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is to overtly counter China’s growing regional economy hegemony and keeping it from going global.
Meanwhile, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and US President Barack Obama confirmed last Friday, that Japan will not have to vow to remove all trade tariffs if it joins the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade initiative, coaxing the country’s early entry into the ongoing talks.
In a very meaningful way the US is creating a red line with the global trading system. China will not let this stand. But what is ahead will not be an all-out trade war embroiling Washington and Beijing. China didn’t become the second largest economy by accident – expect a robust (by Chinese standards) response to Washington.
Again the rhetoric of this “partnership” is free trade. Though it is clear Washington is most interested in corralling its strategic military allies within the Pacific Rim into a trading bloc that is demonstratively at odds with Beijing’s trading interests.


Obama announced US support for a US-EU trade pact during his State of the Nation address [Getty Images]

BRICS to consolidate in face of exclusion from TPP


Washington is pursuing this approach that imperils its own trade and security interests in the region and far beyond. Essentially, Asian trading countries are being asked to choose between a fading economic superpower with entangled alliances all over the world and the “factory of the world.” At this point, it should surprise anyone many Asian countries (even under Washington’s military umbrella) are taking a wait and see approach to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Why are the BRICS excluded? The simplest reason is the lack of vision and uncompetitiveness of the industrialised west. Unable or willing to reform at home, Washington and Brussels are looking for ways to recast much of the global trade system to maintain their advantage. However, without the constructive participation of the BRICS and other emerging economies there is little prospect the west will continue to be able to drive global trade flows. The BRICS today have the wealth, consumption power, geopolitical position, expertise and the political will to influence and re-arrange the global system to their net advantage. And there is the obvious unintended consequence: targeted by the US-EU deal and excluded from Trans-Pacific Partnership will only push the BRICS world closer together (and at the expense of the west).
The Washington-Brussels “pivot” on global trade fails to take into account the protectionist nature of trading blocs today and underestimate the power and dynamism of globalisation. The BRICS have learned the hard way. If you join a club in which you can in no meaningful way influence the rules, then you will always be a junior member, essentially a second-class partner. Since global growth continues to be driven by the emerging market world, there is no reason whatsoever for the BRICS to settle for less.

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Here is just such a multi-national corporation made a global giant during Obama's terms by all these mergers and acquisitions----in the US this global water VEOLA is tied to Ivy League endowments through Wall Street global HighStar Investment Firm part of this multi-national mix.  This article show how it is doing the same in nations around the world as it is in Baltimore and US cities deemed US International Economic Zones.  The major issue for Baltimore citizens was water bills----all of Wall Street Baltimore Development 'justice' organizations PRETENDED to be fighting against this as they only highlighted the establishment candidates in mayoral forums and Dixon/PUGH----both the most responsible for having attached VEOLA ENVIRONMENTAL to Baltimore's water department a decade ago.  Yet, these two LED THE PACK for citizens and I will not believe that many voters actually voted for this KNOWING these privatization ties.

As Wall Street, the FED, and Congress with Obama worked as hard as they could to create these mergers and massive global corporations-----Maryland Assembly and Baltimore City Hall pols were passing laws allowing them to partner with our public agencies creating this pathway to control when this economic crash---also created by these same pols occurs.


Reviving the old demons of water privatisation? Veolia in India


15 October 2013 by Olivier Petitjean

Today, India is a favored market for Veolia and the French water industry. This is both for commercial reasons and because public private partnerships (PPPs) in India are seen as a good opportunity to restore their international reputation and rehabilitate water privatisation. Veolia is eager to paint a very rosy picture of the new contracts it has signed in Nagpur, Delhi and elsewhere. Reality on the ground, however, is very different. Financial opacity, conflicts of interest, opposition from local residents and officials - all the usual problems associated with water privatisation are still there. Have French water multinationals learned nothing from the past?

This article was originally published in French. Also read Veolia’s response (also in French).


Recently, French multinationals Suez and Veolia have been eager to present India as a new El Dorado for water privatization. The largely untapped India market, with its almost infinite potential, would allow them to renew with commercial expansion, restore their reputation, and prove that private water management – a model that has come under heavy criticism recently, both in France and abroad - is still a valid option in today’s world.
In March 2012, Veolia hailed its first contract in India involving the delegation of the water service as a whole across an entire municipality for 25 years, in Nagpur, Maharashtra (2.4 million inhabitants). This came on top of a multitude of smaller deals (pilot projects, construction and maintenance of treatment plants, technical and administrative assistance, etc.), often conceived or advertised as spearheads for future, larger privatisation contracts. In Delhi and in the state of Karnataka, local authorities have implemented pilot projects which are almost openly designed to pave the way for a more general privatisation of their water services. A tantalizing prospect for Suez and Veolia given the scale of the potential market and its needs.
But reality was quick to catch up with the French water companies and their Indian partners. There has been strong resistance to water privatisation both from civil society and within the bureaucracy. Several dubious financial transactions have been exposed, as well as, more generally, a widespread collusion between political and economic interests. These accusations were not without echo in the Indian political context, which is still marked by the important social movements against corruption of 2011 and 2012. Finally, despite the usual stereotypes about the alleged superiority of private management, Suez and Veolia quickly became entangled in multiple technical and operational difficulties on the ground. There, they found exactly the same problems that have hindered the development and operation of successful public water services in Indian cities – plus the disadvantages of their own inexperience in India and of the new requirement to siphon out money from the water service for the benefit of their shareholders and (legally or not) of their local partners.
According to a June 2013 report by the Indian magazine Outlook, identical problems have surfaced in every “public private partnership” (PPP) contract in India, whether they involve French groups or not. Of 30 PPP projects identified by the magazine, none has yet lived up to its promises, although water rates have increased on average by 100%. Several PPPs are on the verge of collapse, such as the contract between the city of Mysore and Jusco (Tata Group).
In Nagpur, the private consortium led by Veolia does not seem to have many allies left. Politicians of the nationalist BJP party (which controls the municipality) and of the Congress (municipal opposition) have unusually agreed among themselves to ask mayor Anil Sole for the PPP contract to be cancelled. They reported a multiplication of mistakes, delays and incidents, especially those involving the tanker trucks supposed to supply off-grid areas, spoke out against the rising cost of water for residents. The mayor promised to launch judicial action in order to force the consortium to meet its contractual obligations, but refuses for now to challenge the contract itself. Recently, Veolia and its partners have had to officially admit that they would not be able to meet the deadline prescribed under the financing agreement with the Indian government, which could lead to a cancellation of all national subsidies for the project and thus increase the final bill for the Nagpur municipality [1].
Ultimately, one is left with a nagging sense of déjà vu: accusations of corruption, conflicts of interest, political and financial opacity, threats of dramattic increases in water rates, unfulfilled promises, difficult relationships with local political authorities... It’s like being back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, at the time of the first great wave of water privatisation, which resulted for Suez and Veolia (then Vivendi) in a succession of scandals, conflicts and forced exits. Are the French water multinationals repeating the mistakes of the past, and are they headed towards the same kind of failures? The dream of reviving and rehabilitating private water management already seems to be running out of steam.


The Indian dream of French water multinationals

Why India? The country offers the double advantage of being an “emerging market” and, somewhat against the global current, being governed by politicians who openly support the privatisation of water. In opposition to what happens in China, for example, where political authorities still control the extent and nature of foreign investments in the water and sanitation sector, the Indian government is a strong supporter of "public-private partnerships". It actively promotes them both through its new "National Water Policy" and, more pragmatically, by making its subsidies to states and municipalities for water projects conditional to the involvement of private investors, Indian or foreigners.
Most of the contracts signed to date in India by Veolia and Suez are joint-ventures with a small group of Indian firms with strong political connections (and probably interested, in the short or medium term, to capture most of the benefits of water privatisation). These deals are also heavily subsidized by the Indian government. This is a reality which Suez and Veolia choose not to stress in their communication. They to emphasize the almost unlimited potential of the Indian market, because of its demographics, its haphazard urban growth and the often poor state of its public infrastructure and water networks. How is it conceivable, they argue, that the Indian giant, as it is gaining the status of an economic and political superpower, is still be unable to provide a modern and efficient water service to a large proportion of its urban population (not to mention rural areas)? How is it conceivable that not only the poor and excluded, but even the middle and upper classes do not have a continuous supply of running water, every hour of every day (which is termed in India "24x7")?
In the era of financialisation, corporate communication and promises of future profits play a critical role in the operation of transnational companies. And especially so for Suez and Veolia, the French water firms. Their traditional business model has been dramatically challenged in recent years because of increasing demands and critics, including in their historical French stronghold. The Indian El Dorado was to provide them with a new commercial and moral legitimacy: Suez and Veolia would bring their technology and expertise to the Indians, in order to meet both the aspirations of the rich and the basic needs of the poor.
And there was even some icing on the cake. This Indian scenario would also allow Suez and Veolia to present themselves as “friends” of the poor without access to water - particularly women, untouchables and all those discriminated against by Indian society. Of course, Veolia and Suez would not repeat their mistakes of the past. The page was turned. They would demonstrate how private companies could facilitate access to water for the poor, by adapting to their “specific needs” thanks to anthropological expertise and to innovative “social business” methods. And thereby they would also prove that they, private sector water multinationals, do have a key role in achieving the “Millennium Development Objectives”, which justifies the subsidies and other advantages granted to them by international financial institutions and development agencies. For instance, Veolia operates in India through its subsidiary Veolia Water India Africa, of which it owns 80.5%, the rest being owned by the French Development Agency (AFD) through its subsidiary Proparco (5.6%) and by the International Finance Corporation (IFC, World Bank Group, 13.9%).
Breaking through the Indian market was particularly crucial for Veolia in this respect since, as the NGO Food and Water Watch has shown, despite the rhetoric of the company on the right to water and the Millennium Development Goals, it almost systematically avoids countries where lack of access to water actually is a problem. India is one of the few exceptions. In Nagpur, Veolia proudly publicised its objectives of connecting slum dwellers to the water system (“A first in India”, they said), as well as the fact that they had commissioned a research study by ESSEC Business School in order to “better understand the needs of local people, especially those living in slums and better meet their expectations”.
To ensure that the message would go down well with international agencies, investors and the French public, Veolia even invited a group of French journalists in Nagpur in September 2012. Although this visit took place only a few months after the French firm had taken over the water service (in March of the same year), the tone of the resulting articles - published in the Figaro, Paris Match and Les Échos - was as euphoric as it was paternalistic: “Finally running water!”, “A revolution inspired by a French firm”... These reports all tell the same story (often interviewing the very same people): how Veolia, providing water continuously to all, was going to save Indians, especially women, from disease, poverty, backwardness and exclusion. And how, at the same time, Veolia was opening for itself a new market of endless potential.


Nagpur: Veolia entangled

Needless to say, what these reports did not mention is that the vast majority of investments in Nagpur come from public sources (national or local). Veolia was allowed to take all the credit for the ’success’ of the PPP (however doubtful that success actually is) without having taken much risk, including in financial terms. The press reports did not mention either that the French group only owns a 51% stake in the consortium, Orange City Water Ltd (OCW), and is associated with local partners, including the giant construction firm Vishvaraj Infrastructure, on which it depends for its political connections and its day-to-day operations. Vishvaraj Infrastructure is a good example of the type of Indian players with which Veolia and Suez have had to work with: after having reaped enormous profits in recent years from its motorway concessions, the group is now looking to expand into the water sector, taking advantage of his “expertise” in PPPs.
More importantly, these reports totally ignored the problems that were accumulating at the very same time and gradually poisoning the relationships between the private operator, residents and local authorities. According to the Times of India, Veolia had even invited the French journalists without notifying municipal authorities, even though they had them visit facilities which are municipal properties.
And all this came at a time when the political authorities were rather expecting the arrival of an official delegation from Veolia’s headquarters in Paris to “put some order”, following complaints that had been addressed, both in writing and orally, to company’s top executives some months before, about delays in undertaking the works. The municipality had even refused to pay its fees to Veolia for the period from December 2011 to February 2012, as no work at all had been done. While the French press was hailing Veolia’s contract as “mission accomplished”, official figures from the Nagpur Municipality showed that the private consortium had only replaced 27 kilometers of pipes and connected 876 new homes in nine months, a pace largely insufficient to meet its contractual obligations. Meanwhile, OCW agents were accused of illegally charging large sums of money to slum residents for their connection to the water network (which in theory is free) and their water consumption, and of threatening them to cut off water in case of nonpayment.
It does seem that for the leaders of Veolia, the complaints of local authorities did not have much weight in comparison to the firm’s dire need of upbeat financial communication, at a time when the company’s share value was going downhill. While in France Veolia was polishing his financial marketing, Veolia India CEO Patrick Rousseau declared the to Times of India: “We are facing problem of finding trained manpower, machinery and equipment in the city. But the company hopes to expedite the works and complete them in time with the help of the local partner. It upsets me that Veolia is being blamed when the responsibility is of OCWL [of which Veolia owns 51%, Ed]”.


Citizens and politicians of all stripes are now calling for the cancellation of the water contract with Veolia and accuse the private operator of sheer incompetence. According to them, OCW has made so many mistakes that it has caused an artificial water shortage in the city.
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April 27th, 2016

4/27/2016

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The dominance of the US dollar has fallen during the Clinton/Bush/Obama decades because of the massive frauds, the bubble-bust economics, and now the unsustainable national and municipal bond debt of $20 trillion ----no nation in the world trusts the US dollar and will move away from it.  If your goal is to break down US sovereignty and eliminate what was this sovereign nation as US International Economic Zones and Trans Pacific Trade Pact do---then imploding the US dollar into JUNK STATUS will do that.  Remember, the 1% have all their wealth overseas invested in International Economic Zones and real estate that will not feel the effects of an American economic collapse----most gold and silver has been bought by that same 1% and is stored overseas as well as the hedge against the disappearing US dollar.

Below you see the dominance of 70 years for America was the social Democratic years since FDR----when wealth equity was strong and the American people had the disposable income to fuel our US economy----When Bush/Obama partner with China in selling the bulk of our national debt to the Chinese---why would they do that?  The goal of this far-right wing global corporate rule is taking the US to the same political and societal structure as China-----one party---autocratic-----naked neo-liberal capitalism----no citizens with rights.  So to the global 1% not caring now the US dollar no longer has value crafting that ONE WORLD currency will start with the model of China.

When the US dollar falls----the US will feel the same spiraling inflation/deflation as other third world nations----our dollars will have no value so we will be in the same boat as nations where simple items require large numbers of dollars.

THIS IS WHY THE ALTERNATIVE B-NOTE CURRENCY IS BEING PUSHED IN US INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ZONES LIKE BALTIMORE.


  1. The dollar's 70-year dominance is coming to an end...www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/...Jul 18, 2014 · The dollar's 70-year dominance is coming to an end Within a decade, greenback's could be replaced as the world's reserve currency



The US Dollar is Rapidly Losing Dominance - The Silver Bug


By Nathan McDonald 2 years ago 
October 23, 2014



There are two key factors that keep the failing US economy together. Firstly, their massive military-industrial complex, and secondly, their reserve currency status. The latter enables the first, along with countless other campaigns of destruction and waste.
Take away the Unites States’ ability to print unlimited funds and you would see a shocking global shift in power. It would shake the foundations of the world, both figuratively and literally.

Since gaining the status as reserve currency of the world, the US has expanded its control to a breaking point. They have overreached and expanded too far. The country is bankrupt and produces little to nothing of any real value. It has sadly become a nation of debtors and serfs.
This change in status has not passed unnoticed in the geopolitical world. For the past decade, the power-duo of Russia and China has been stepping up their game and acquiring real physical assets, such as oil, gold and silver. This accumulation of wealth has enabled these nations to be in the driver's seat they now find themselves in.
Just a short decade ago, if a country even dared to think about circumventing America’s reserve currency status, it would have resulted in an economic and military attack that would of left the perpetrating nation crippled. This is no longer the case, the power structure has shifted. The United States is no longer the only “big player” in the game.
Cue, Russia and China. Two nations who have actively been seeking to replace the US dollar. They know, just as well as anyone else in the power structure, that this is the true source of the United States’ power. Hence, they have been working behind the scenes to settle their trades in Renminbi and Rubles, and not US dollars.For the time being, Russia and China were more than content to simply work together and keep their trade deals between themselves; likely testing the waters to see how the United States reacts. Now they appear ready to go to the next level, the sovereign man reports:


Just this week yet another currency swap agreement was made between the Chinese and Russian central banks. This time for 150 billion renminbi.
Trade volume between China and Russia will reach $100 billion (600 billion renminbi) next year, and is expected to reach $200 billion in 2020. This latest currency swap agreement will greatly reduce the need for dollars in their transactions.
Currently, 75% of trade between the two countries is settled in dollars. When they signed the agreement for the bilateral currency swap, Russian deputy Prime Ministers said this will “encourage companies from the two countries to settle trade in local currencies and avoid the use of a third country’s currency.”

[/ezcol_1third]

Obviously, this unmentioned "third countries currency" is the US dollar. They are now blatantly showing their disdain for the world reserve currency, but it doesn't stop there:
Even the European Central Bank has started discussions on the possibility of including the renminbi as one of its reserve currencies.
And the euro and the renminbi are already directly tradable as of this month.
On Tuesday the UK also became the first country besides China to issue a sovereign bond in renminbi.
This coincided with the issuing of 180 million renminbi of corporate bonds by China’s ICBC in South Korea. Another first. South Korea is firmly on the renminbi train as renminbi deposits in the country jumped 55-times in just one year.
The writing is on the wall. The day of endless money printing and abuse of power by the United States is coming to an end. Its allies are even now beginning to jump ship. This transition will take many years and face much resistance by the current power structure, but that changes nothing.
The transition has begun and there is no stopping it now. As gold is flowing from West to East, so too is economic power. A historic economic change lies just over the horizon.

____________________________________________

The US moved from the gold standard a century ago but retained strong presence of gold in places like Ft Knox tied to our US Treasury.  Well, almost all of American gold has been sold to private investors since Clinton/Bush/and especially Obama and as you see our US Treasury no longer has enough gold----the only asset holding value during these kinds of financial crises-----how far does $10 billion in gold go?  That much falls out of a Congressional pols pocket at one time.

So Wall Street global pols loaded the US with debt, brought the economy to collapse with no gold or silver reserves and VOILA----THE US IS A WARD OF THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND----THE IMF-----the first stage all third world status nations take in becoming a colonial entity of global banks and corporations.

'The remaining 95 percent of U.S. Treasury gold ($10.4 billion in book value) is held in custody for the Treasury by the U.S. Mint'.

Obama and our Congressional pols---both Republican and Clinton/Obama Wall Street neo-liberal sat and watched and facilitated this movement of our national wealth and gold reserves out of the country these few decades with much of this happening these last several years of Obama's terms.

$20 trillion in national debt and $10 billion in actual asset of gold.


Does the Federal Reserve own or hold gold?
The Federal Reserve does not own gold.


The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 required the Federal Reserve System to transfer ownership of all of its gold to the Department of the Treasury. In exchange, the Secretary of the Treasury issued gold certificates to the Federal Reserve for the amount of gold transferred at the then-applicable statutory price for gold held by the Treasury.
Gold certificates are denominated in U.S. dollars. Their value is based on the statutory price for gold at the time the certificates are issued. Gold certificates do not give the Federal Reserve any right to redeem the certificates for gold.
The statutory price of gold is set by law. It does not fluctuate with the market price of gold and has been constant at $42 2/9, or $42.2222, per fine troy ounce since 1973. The book value of the gold held by the Treasury is determined using the statutory price.
Although the Federal Reserve does not own any gold, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York acts as the custodian of gold owned by account holders such as the U.S. government, foreign governments, other central banks, and official international organizations. No individuals or private sector entities are permitted to store gold in the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or at any Federal Reserve Bank.
A small portion of the gold held by the U.S. Treasury (roughly $600 million in book value)--about five percent--is held in custody for the Treasury by the Federal Reserve Banks, as fiscal agents of the United States. The vast majority of this gold is located in the vault at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and a very small portion is on display in several Federal Reserve Banks.
The remaining 95 percent of U.S. Treasury gold ($10.4 billion in book value) is held in custody for the Treasury by the U.S. Mint.

__________________________

Since this coming economic crash from the US Treasury and municipal bond market fraud will create the conditions of government at all level not only having no revenue but no way to generate revenue as in Baltimore------Congress, the Maryland Assembly and Governor will tell us we need the help of the IMF and global investment firms tied to the IMF and global development. This is how third world nations have all sovereignty removed and all wealth assets convert to these world banks and global investment firms.  That is the coming stage in US International Economic Zone cities that are set to feel the worst of the coming economic crash.

The U S FED will take several years pretending the stabilize the economy-----we will see soaring inflation or deflation both killing our economy----but that IMF/global investment firm/developer group will be the source of installing International Economic Zones and global corporate campuses and global factories in our US cities.  Make no mistake---the US will soon officially be termed a third world nation needing to be SAVED by the World Bank.

We could have in this election had politicians who would have fought this---instead we have the same pols creating this economic mess still in office to see it through.


As you see in this statement----and I think American citizens are seeing all this already happening especially since the 2008 economic crash----the exporting terminals and global mining corporations allowed to come in and take US natural resources is the first sign the US is a third world nation


'Our countries are not to be blamed for having been colonies, neo-colonies, banana republics whose role was to produce raw materials, exotic products and fuel at low cost and with cheap labor'.


This is what a US International Economic Zone looks like----
  
 IMF’s policies towards Third World Countries: Lending assistance or exploiting their economies?




With the advent of globalization international institutions began to emerge and role of international institutions and non state actors increased. National boundaries were transcended by international institutions which were governed by these states mutually with a mutual goal of improving political and economic gains. IMF emerged as an international institution after 2ndworld war during the Bretton woods conference in 1944 to rebuild Europe which had been devastated by war. Secondly to save the world from Great Depression, this resulted in huge unemployment’s throughout the entire world. It resulted from beggar thy neighbor policies in which currency of a country was devalued and restricted often at the expense of neighboring countries. This resulted in spreading of depression affecting many countries. IMF was established to monitor money exchange primarily among rich countries later its role expanded towards third world states as it started lending to poor countries to liberalize their economies as the basis goal behind IMF was an international market system based on principles of economic
liberalism. IMF has a similar role like UN where UN is involved in providing collective
security IMF provides collective economic platform. IMF was with the passage of time it
started lending to poor countries.IMF is run by 22 executive member boards and its voting system is based on the monetary
contribution of member country. Larger the contribution larger is the influence of that country.Despite its important role as an international economic institution IMF has been criticized
extensively for its policy, governance issues and its lending conditions specifically with regard to third world countries. Often IMF pushes for economic liberalization and propagates free market ideology without considering their separate economic conditions and social pressures.IMF pressurizes on privatization and competing in international market when domestic industries are not ready to compete and social safety nets are not in place. Many developed countries refused IMF’s policies and applied their own models. USA and Japan privatized a few industries protecting major industries which were not ready to compete. However if any country fails to perform well and does not fulfill its lending conditions economic assistance issus pended from not only IMF but other international institutions like world bank and WTO also withdraw their assistance.

In the case of Ethiopia IMF withdrew its assistance if its budget should be on more solid grounds. IMF wanted Ethiopia to open up its market “liberalize its financial market which USA and Western Europe themselves did not adopt till 1970’s. “IMF was confusing ends with means”. One size fit all approach of IMF often fails in the developing countries as there are no markets in these countries and social and cultural problems are often an obstacle. But IMF pushed for market liberalism as its policies “required it to give little of any consideration of a country’s particular circumstances and immediate problems”. East Asian countries which are economically successful liberalized their economies step by step.IMF encourages privatization but privatization in third world countries led to many social and economic problems. Privatization in Russia led to a few people becoming rich. It affects rate of employment as foreign firms often fire workers without any regard to social cost associated with it.In developing countries privatization of educational institutions often means costly education which cannot be afforded by children of poor people. Privatization in any sector means high rates which are not affordable for a common man. Privatization often leads to corruption as there is no effective means to ensure that money given has been used for privatization. Corrupt politicians often benefit from the aid given as there is no accountability.IMF focuses on bringing down inflation but in the recent case of Pakistan conditions were imposed to increase interest rates to bring down inflation. It adversely affected situation in the country as inflation increased more and manufacturing industry stopped working. In addition debt of 1.3 trillion in five years from 2002-2007 have been incurred. Even in 2009 it incurred a debt of 1.6 trillion.Imposition of VAT and privatization will lead to damaging local industries. VAT will be difficult to achieve due to lack of an affective system of collection of taxes.Excessive spending by government has led to decrease in revenue which in turn leads to decrease in revenue which in turn leads to increase in population which affect poor people more than rich. “VAT will promote a dual economy in the country with unpredictable consequences.For many years country has been in a state of stagflation, the IMF propelled stabilization has failed to materialize.These lending policies towards third world countries are criticized for creating more poverty.“Countries like Botswana which have ignored IMF/World Bank policies are more prosperous whereas IMF’s sanctioned policies have all but crippled once envied and thriving education of Ghanaians resulting in social and economic time bomb.” Social affects of IMF’s policies are damaging for the people whose income relies on local industries which are in turn affected by

 
these policies. Many countries are now increasingly turning away from assistance and creating their own regional organization like Latin American countries did on the model of EU. Many developed Asian countries relied on their own economic models and did not work according to IMF’s advice. They were labeled as failed economies but they succeeded in emerging as developed nations.IMF’s policies led towards rising debts in developing economies which have hindered development of those economies. As Fidel Castro said in his interview of Mexican magazine on21st March 1985 “Our countries are not to be blamed for underdevelopment or for the debt. Our countries are not to be blamed for having been colonies, neo-colonies, banana republics whose role was to produce raw materials, exotic products and fuel at low cost and with cheap labor.The riches and well being of which have been deprived through the imposition of economic dependence and underdevelopment cannot even be estimated let alone be measured. It is our  people who, by right are the creditors of the rich and industrialized western world.”


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We knew this in 2008 and all economic policy from the US FED under Bernanke and all Obama and Congressional laws passed placed the US in overdrive towards US Treasuries being JUNK BOND STATUS.  So, this article in 2008 was right on----and financial analysts have these several years reported the movement of US Treasuries and municipal bonds to junk---it basically means----they are just like toxic subprime mortgage loans and will be traded as junk.


Social Security Trusts and Medicare Trusts don't exist in JUNK STATUS.

Remember, it was Erhlich/O'Malley as governors who pushed all this state and city debt, it was the Maryland Assembly pols led by PUGH and MCINTOSH that loaded on this debt----and we allowed all these Wall Street players be re-elected to further this IMF goal along.


Are U.S. Treasuries Headed For Junk Bond Status?

By Cedric Muhammad
-Guest Columnist- | Last updated: Feb 4, 2008 - 12:52:00 PM

What's your opinion on this article?
“And every nation has a term; so when its term comes, they cannot remain behind the least while, nor can they precede (it).” --Holy Qur’an 7: 34“For lack of guidance a nation falls, but many advisers make victory sure.”  --Proverbs 11:14 (New International Version)
“Moreover he called for a famine upon the land: he brake the whole staff of bread. He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant: Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron: Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him. The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of the people, and let him go free. He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his substance: To bind his princes at his pleasure; and teach his senators wisdom.”  --Psalms 105:16-22 (King James Version)




The fact that it is possible that U.S. Securities could go from the highest credit rating to one of the worst in a matter of a decade or so, if government public finances and the commitments made to the Baby Boomers are not addressed, is one of the reasons why the country�s top government accountants, Mr. David M. Walker is openly, desperately and angrily stating that America is facing a �fiscal tsunami,� and that �the federal government is on a �burning platform.��


What is the truth of United States Senator George Voinovich’s (R-Ohio) statement, made on the floor of the Senate on October 24, 2007: “According to S&P, U.S. Treasuries will lose their triple-A credit rating in 2012 because of the government’s deteriorating long-term fiscal position?”


To learn that, I contacted both the office of Senator Voinovich and the influential ratings agency, Standard and Poor’s (S&P). One can learn more about Standard & Poor’s by visiting their website at: http://www2.standardandpoors.com/.


The office of Senator Voinovich told me that the statement was in fact made, as the Congressional Record indicates, and as was reported, and that it was based upon a reading of a report published by Standard & Poor’s about the impact that America’s aging population—and the Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits promised and owed to it—would have on government solvency.
Government solvency refers to the ability of a government that has borrowed money to pay back that obligation or debt as scheduled, or when demanded by a creditor (the one who has loaned the government money). A government is said to be insolvent when it cannot pay back a debt in its entirety or is unable to even make payments related to the interest it is being charged on the loan.
To personalize it a bit, for clarity sake, we are insolvent as individuals when we can’t pay our bills or money we owe (smile).
In order to verify the existence of the report Senator Voinovich’s staff made reference to, and in order to determine the accuracy of its interpretation of that report, if it existed, I contacted Standard & Poor’s. Here is the question I asked Standard & Poor’s:


I am writing to learn the veracity and the empirical source of Senator Voinovich’s reference to a S&P determination in his October 24, 2007 floor speech. In that speech made on the floor of the United States’ Senate he said: “According to S&P, U.S. Treasuries will lose their triple-A credit rating in 2012 because of the government’s deteriorating long-term fiscal position. What kind of global economic turmoil awaits us five years from now when the U.S. government is considered just as risky as a typical corporation? And what economic catastrophe awaits our children and grandchildren in 2025, when Standard & Poor’s projects that U.S. Treasuries will be classified as junk bonds?” Could you kindly direct me to any available data, statements, research or releases that relate to this statement and your organization?


Here is the answer I received from Standard and Poor’s:


“...please find attached a report which we’ve been publishing annually since 2002. The report reviews the implications of demographic change on sovereign ratings across the developed world. As you’ll note in the report, the analysis in no way constitutes a forecast of ratings trajectories by S&P—it merely states that, if no countervailing structural and fiscal reforms were undertaken, deficits would increase to levels that, sooner or later would become incommensurate with today’s ratings—and by a large margin. The simulation illustrates underlying tendencies of what could happen in the unlikely event of complete government complacency. The message is unambiguous: Without strong and sustained reforms, the high credit ratings on these governments could fall due to demographic spending pressures, starting in the 2010s.
In the case of the U.S.’s ‘AAA’ standing, after 2015 it would fall into the ‘A’ category, and would then drop further into the ‘BBB’ category by 2020. In 2025, U.S. fiscal indicators would have weakened to an extent that they would be more typical of performances currently associated with speculative-grade sovereigns.”
Attached in the response I received from S&P was a report, “Global Graying Country Report: United States Of America,” which indicated that if the current state of American tax and spending policy remained the same and did not improve, the burden of the estimated 78 million individuals commonly known as Baby Boomers on America’s public finances would be so great that it would cause a ‘fiscal deteoriate’ ”of a “magnitude that is not compatible with the current ‘AAA’ sovereign rating of the United States.” The report then goes on to describe how Standard & Poor’s determines (or “derives”) a “hypothetical sovereign rating” that might arise in the future.


Standard & Poor’s assigns bond credit ratings of AAA, AA, A, BBB, BB, B, CCC, CC, C, D.


AAA or Triple-A is a rating given to the highest quality debt or bonds, while D is the poorest quality and refers to a debt that is in payment default.
Bonds like American government securities are generally placed into two broad categories—“investment grade” bonds and “junk” bonds. Investment grade bonds are the top four categories: AAA, AA, A, BBB. And junk grade bonds are those below BBB.

So, what is my conclusion?

If you take what Senator Voinovich says (“According to S&P, U.S. Treasuries will lose their triple-A credit rating in 2012 because of the government’s deteriorating long-term fiscal position. What kind of global economic turmoil awaits us five years from now when the U.S. government is considered just as risky as a typical corporation? And what economic catastrophe awaits our children and grandchildren in 2025, when Standard & Poor’s projects that U.S. Treasuries will be classified as junk bonds?”) and compare it to the report sent to me by S&P, and what S&P told me (“In the case of the U.S.’s ‘AAA’ standing, after 2015 it would fall into the ‘A’ category, and would then drop further into the ‘BBB’ category by 2020. In 2025, U.S. fiscal indicators would have weakened to an extent that they would be more typical of performances currently associated with speculative-grade sovereigns.”) I come to the conclusion that Senator Voinovich is 100 percent accurate except for his statement that Standard & Poor’s is the one definitively concluding that “...U.S. Treasuries will lose their triple-A credit rating.”
Standard & Poor’s is not outright stating that will happen, rather, it is indicating that such an outome is possible in a hypothetical projection or simulation it is making, if conditions continue exactly as they are.
“Government complacency,” as S&P refers to it, cannot be ruled out as impossible, however. As an example, I have consistently pointed out in my writings that no major candidate for President that I am aware of, has forthrightly dealt with this problem or presented a realistic solution to deal with it.
To me that is more than complacency, that is denial and hiding the truth.
The fact that it is possible that U.S. Securities could go from the highest credit rating to one of the worst in a matter of a decade or so, if government public finances and the commitments made to the Baby Boomers are not addressed, is one of the reasons why the country’s top government accountants, Mr. David M. Walker is openly, desperately, and angrily stating that America is facing a “fiscal tsunami,” and that “the federal government is on a ‘burning platform.’”
Are we spiritually, economically, politically and culturally preparing as we should for such a dramatic and life-and-death scenario?
I don’t think so.

___________________________________________


The last post was from 2008 and from a right-wing source----here is mainstream media telling us the same thing.  We know all pensions, all our US Treasury and municipal bonds, all 401ks for main street are tied to this junk bond market----and the 95% will again be the ones feeling all the loss---

The 5% of Americans working with Wall Street to orchestrate all this-----the Wall Street pols and their Wall Street Development non-profits---will be included in this economic loss of wealth because it will take all investments----hit our community banks----so that 5% who have weathered past crashes will be with the rest of Americans.


SEE WHY PAWN SHOPS AND ALL TV ADS OVER THESE SEVERAL YEARS TO BUY GOLD OCCURRED?

Retirement retirement income

Junk Bond Selloff Is a Warning for Retirees Who Reached for Yield
  • Dan Kadlec @dankadlec
Dec. 16, 2014

Risky assets have paid off well the past few years. But tremors in the junk bond market signal time for a gut check.

In July, Federal Reserve Chief Janet Yellen warned of the “stretched” values of junk bonds. Few seemed to care, and among the unconcerned were millions of retirees who had reached for these bonds’ higher yields in order to maintain their lifestyle. Now, a reckoning may be at hand.

Yellen’s mid-summer warning on asset prices was reminiscent of the former Fed chief Alan Greenspan’s “irrational exuberance” comment regarding stock prices in 1996. Few listened then, either. It turns out that the Greenspan warning was way early. But the dotcom collapse hit later with devastating results.
Yellen’s remarks may be timelier. High-risk, high-yield corporate bond prices have been falling amid the strongest selling in 18 months. Since June, investors have pulled $22 billion out of the market and prices have dropped 8%. The pace of the decline has quickened since October.
The junk bond selloff began in the energy sector, where oil prices recently hitting a five-year low set off alarms about the future profits—and ability to make bond payments—of some energy companies. In the past month, the selling has spread throughout the junk-bond universe, as mutual fund managers have had to sell to meet redemptions and as worries about further losses in a possibly stalling global economy have gathered steam.
The broad decline means that junk bond investors have little or no gain to show for the risks they have been taking this year. Investors may have collected generous interest payments, and so not really felt the sting of the selloff. But the value of their bonds has fallen from, say, $1,000 to $920. The risk is that prices fall further and, in a period of global economic weakness, that issuers default on their interest payments.
Retirees have been reaching for yield in junk bonds and other relatively risky assets since the financial crisis, which presumably is partly what prompted Yellen’s warning last summer. It’s hard to place blame with retirees. The 10-year Treasury bond yield fell below 2% for a while and remains deeply depressed by historical standards. By stepping up to the higher risks of junk bonds, retirees could get 5% or more and live like it was 10 years ago. Many also flocked to dividend-paying stocks.
So far, taking these risks has generally worked out. Junk bonds returned 7.44% last year and 15.8% in 2012, according to Barclays, as reported in The Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, stocks have been on a tear. But the backup in junk bond prices this fall should serve as a warning: Companies that pay a high yield on their bonds—and many that pay a fat stock dividend—do so because they are at greater risk of defaulting or going bust. That’s the downside of reaching for yield, and it doesn’t go away even in a diversified mutual fund.
_______________________________________

To understand where US Wall Street global pols took our nation, state, and US cities one needs to go back to 2008 and watch the nation of Greece.  It's pols did to Greece what American pols did to the US these several years----Greece was imploded with sovereign debt none of which was needed----and it was the first nation having a developed world status to be taken to IMF as a third world debtor.  Again, Greece was a MODEL for bringing Europe, US, and other developed nations to third world status----and the US today looks just as Greece did in 2007 just as the 2008 economic crash hit both Europe and US.

Americans need to take the time to see what Europe's version of Wall Street and the World Bank has done to Greece----the bailout was deliberately set so all the banks, investment firms were insured against any losses----the rich in Greece were allowed to exit with all their wealth as this system of moving all control of the nation went to the IMF and global banks.  Greek citizens had no power----and have tried since then to elect left-leaning candidates wanting to fight against global banks---


NONE OF GREECE'S DEBT WAS BROUGHT BY THE CITIZENS---IT WAS ALL GLOBAL DEVELOPERS PARTNERED WITH GLOBAL BANKS AND INVESTMENT FIRMS ALLOWED TO LOAD THE NATION WITH DEBT AS HAS OCCURRED UNDER OBAMA----


This is to where US Congress, Maryland Assembly, and Baltimore City Hall took the US and we will be hearing national and local media now using these same economic terms in the US and Baltimore---- Citizens in Maryland and Baltimore as with my friends across the US must now look at the leaders in our city who pushed for this vote for PUGH and Hillary AND GET NEW LEADERSHIP----OR CREATE NEW JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS AS WE GEAR UP FOR THIS NEXT FIGHT.


What happens if Greece defaults on its International Monetary Fund loans?Cash-starved Athens has resorted to extraordinary measures to avoid defaulting to the IMF. But what would be the fall-out of a disorderly default?


No county has ever defaulted to the Fund in its 70-year history 



By Mehreen Khan
8:00AM BST 30 Jun 2015


The Greek government faces the prospect of becoming the first developed nation to ever default on its international obligations.

 
After a harrowing five months, and in a drama of soft deadlines, the cash-strapped government now faces a €1.55bn payment to the International Monetary Fund due at 11pm tonight.
With negotiations have broken off in dramatic fashion last week, a cacophony of voices on Syriza's Left have vowed to prioritise domestic obligations unless creditors finally unlock the remainder of its €240bn bail-out programme. Greece only avoided going bust earlier this month after the government has asked for a Zambia-style debt bundling which will now be due on June 30.
The rhetoric is a far cry from February, when Greece's finance minister pledged his government would "squeeze blood out of a stone" to meet its obligations to the Fund.
Greece owes €9.7bn to the IMF this year. Missing any instalment to the IMF would see the country fall into an arrears process, unprecedented for a developed world debtor.
Although no nation has ever officially defaulted on its obligations in the post-Bretton Woods era, Greece would join an ignominious list of war-torn nations and international pariahs who have failed to pay back the Fund on time.

What happens after a default?

In choosing to bundle up four separate June repayments, Greece avoided triggering an immediate default.
But in the event of a delayed repayment, according to IMF protocol, Greece could be afforded a 30-day grace period, during which it would be urged to pay back the money as soon as possible, and before Ms Lagarde notifies her executive board of the late payment.
However, with talks have broken down in acrimonious fashion between the country and its creditors, Ms Lagarde has said she will renege on this and notify her board "immediately".
Having spooked creditors and the markets of the possibility of a fatal breach of the sanctity of monetary union, Greece may well stump up the cash if an agreement to release the country more emergency aid is reached (that's looking increasingly unlikely however).
But should no money be forthcoming however, the arrears process may well extend indefinitely.
Greece's other creditor burden would also start piling up, with the government due to pay another €6.6bn to the European Central Bank in July and August.


Stopping the cash

Although the exact process is uncertain, falling into a protracted arrears procedure could have major consequences for continued financial assistance from Greece's other creditors - the European Central Bank and European Commission.
"If Greece defaults to the IMF, then they are considered to be in default to the rest of the eurozone," says Raoul Ruparel, head of economic research at Open Europe.
The terms of Greece's existing bail-out programme stipulate that a default to the IMF would automatically constitute a default on the country's European rescue loans.


"Such a scenario would risk the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) cancelling all or part of its facility or even declaring the principal amount of the loan to be due immediately," say analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Should the EFSF take such a decisive move, it could activate a range of cross default clauses on Greek government bonds held by private investors and the ECB. These clauses state a default to one creditor institution applies to all.
The political and market damage that may ensue would be substantial. Popular sentiment in creditor nations would turn against the errant Greeks, while the position of the ECB in particular could quickly come under the spotlight.
The central bank has kept Greek banks on a tight leash, maintaining that it would only restore normal lending operations to the country once "conditions for a successful completion of the programme are in place".
A wave of defaults may force the ECB into finally pulling the plug on the emergency assistance it has been providing in ever larger doses since February.

Scrambling for funds

Whatever the outcome, Greece on many measures, is all but bankrupt.
In addition to the half a billion euros plus it owes the Fund this month, the Leftist government will still be paying back the IMF until 2030. In total, its repayment schedule stretches out over the next 42 years to 2057.

_______________________________________________

It starts with not being able to access money and then it becomes about the inflation/deflation that makes money lose so much value that ordinary citizens will not be able to access wealth assets.  The economy already stagnant becomes non-existent and what was left of the public sector is completely dismantled and pensions evaporate---except for of course the Baltimore City Hall pols.  Mass hunger and homeless in Greece have once stable citizens looking like an add for third world Cambodia or Somolia.  Baltimore already exists with surrounding communities being described this way----now we will see the rest of Baltimore follow suit.  Remember, those communities at the city line having a stable, small business economy and lots of green are slated to be extended interstate highway and off-ramps if not global corporate campuses so we will see what took Baltimore's city center expand outward to Greater Baltimore.

People will eventually access their accounts---once the banks have seized a portion to STABILIZE TOO BIG TO FAIL WALL STREET BANKS----but that will be followed by the spiraling effects of Bernanke's FED manipulations on interest rates and inflation----no longer able to be controlled.



“It is like being in a war without weapons,” sighed Alex Aggelopoulos, who runs the Aldemar resort, a chain of hotels in Crete, Rhodes and the Peloponnese.



Of course the liquidity and funding support will pour to the global corporate campuses and national chains as small businesses are left again without financial resources.


This is just last year folks after several years of IMF/global investment firm attachment-


    'The Greek economy is dying, dying before the eyes of its people. A credit squeeze that began with the imposition of capital controls has, eight days on, assumed the terrifying spectre of cash reserves drying up. In less than a week, banknotes of €5, €10 and €20 have become almost extinct; so, too, have €1 coins. “There are a lot of us out there now walking the streets in tears,” said Papaconstantinou. “We just can’t believe that at this stage of our lives this is what we have come to.”'


Greek citizens: 'It's like being in a war without weapons'


As cash becomes more scarce and supermarket shelves empty, Greek people increasingly fear the onset of a siege mentality



Greek pensioners queue with others in Thessaloniki to withdraw money from their accounts.


Photograph: Nikos Arvanitidis/EPAHelena Smith in Athens
Monday 6 July 2015 15.22 EDT Last modified on Monday 6 July 2015 19.01 EDT



It started with the ATMs. At 11pm on Saturday, several simply stopped dispensing cash. Perplexed at first, Mahi Papaconstantinou moved from one to the next, her blood pressure rising a little as she discovered that each one was blocked.
Panicked, the retired civil servant then got in her car and headed across Athens towards home. This time she was lucky. “I thought, thank God, €50,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief.

Greek referendum: optimism fades as eurozone says gulf has widened

The Greek economy is dying, dying before the eyes of its people. A credit squeeze that began with the imposition of capital controls has, eight days on, assumed the terrifying spectre of cash reserves drying up. In less than a week, banknotes of €5, €10 and €20 have become almost extinct; so, too, have €1 coins. “There are a lot of us out there now walking the streets in tears,” said Papaconstantinou. “We just can’t believe that at this stage of our lives this is what we have come to.”
The restrictions, enforced to prevent a collapse of the banking system, were meant to end along with the closure of Greek banks on Tuesday. But at 7pm on Monday, barely 24 hours after the nation rebuffed the idea of further austerity in a referendum that has sent shockwaves through Europe, the Greek Bank Association announced that neither would happen. The cap on ATM withdrawals – a €60 limit reduced to €50 because of smaller denominations running out – would also remain.

People line up at an ATM machine outside a bank in Athens today. Photograph: Milos Bicanski/Getty Images“Our economy is slowly dying, it is in intensive care,” the economist Dimitris Athanasopoulos told SKAI TV amid fears that Greece was now heading for a fully fledged banking crisis. “On every level it is sub-functioning.”



From the flower markets of Thessaloniki to the beach bars of Crete, the effects, are being felt. “We’ve seen a huge drop [in trade] and because money is so scarce, credit cards are almost always being used,” said Dimitris Vgengopoulos, cap on head, smile to the ready as he served customers in Meliartos, a pie shop within view of the Acropolis. “The bill might be €1 in total but they still use their cards.”
The dramatic drop in consumption has brought production to a halt. An inability to source supplies because of the ban on bank transfers has had a devastating effect on imports. Factories have shut, shops have closed and companies are increasingly electing to put staff on enforced leave.
Issuing a dramatic cri de coeur, the head of the National Confederation of Hellenic Commerce implored the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, to “save Greece”. As the umbrella organisation representing some 280,000 small- and medium-sized businesses, the confederation has been especially hard hit by the controls.
“The damage that has occurred with the closure of banks is incalculable,” wrote Vasilis Korkidis in a letter released on Monday.
He appealed for the leftist-led government to agree to a solution that would stave off insolvency in the form of a financial lifeline from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
“The economy is sinking, as one Greek to another, I am sending you a heartfelt message of anguish,” he wrote. “Ignore the voices in your party … respect the sacrifices of the Greek people … and at all costs save the country from bankruptcy.”
Time is now of the essence. If banks collapse, the economy goes with them. On Friday, three days before his resignation, the country’s flamboyant finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, acknowledged that “paper money” would start to be a problem as of this week. Many worry that with credit card overload, the system could crash.
“A preliminary agreement really needs to be signed in the next two to three days,” said Nikos Vettas, general director of the Foundation of Economic and Industrial Research. “If it is not signed, the cash will run out because the ECB [European Central Bank] won’t be able to keep up emergency liquidity assistance. People have been very calm, very civilised, but if they go to the supermarket and cannot find food to put on the table for their families the likelihood is they will become less so.”
Panic buying has already caused shortages in drugs and foodstuffs nationwide, prompting Greeks to rush to buy up staple products.
“I’ve stocked up on coffee and pulses and rice, batteries and soap,” said Papaconstantinou. “After the no vote everyone I know is fearful of the worst; euro exit now looks so possible.”
Pharmacies in central Athens on Monday reported shortages in drugs, including cancer medication.
Growing numbers now speak of survival instincts creating a “siege mentality”.

The tourist industry – Greece’s biggest foreign exchange earner, bringing in more than €30bn a year – has experienced cancellations and a large drop in last-minute bookings. In a country suffering from record levels of unemployment, the sector is vital for jobs, employing one in five over the summer months.
“This time last year we had around 120,000 last-minute bookings a day. Now, with all this, we are down to around 70,000,” said Xenophon Petropoulos at the Greek Tourism Confederation. “As soon as there is an agreement it will turn around but right now there’s concern.”
Hoteliers are not taking any chances, with many of them stockpiling too.
“It is like being in a war without weapons,” sighed Alex Aggelopoulos, who runs the Aldemar resort, a chain of hotels in Crete, Rhodes and the Peloponnese. “We’ve stocked up on meat in particular as 70% of it comes from abroad, and food and beverages,” he said. “We’re keeping our suppliers happy with cash. We’re not taking any chances.”


____________________________________________
There's the global corporate term----SUSTAINABILITY----which simply means we are moving International Economic Zones and global free markets into Peru--------'to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals, which include calls for more climate-friendly industrial policy'.

THERE GOES THE ENVIRONMENT------'the World Bank has been heavily criticized for its very poor record on implementing environmental safeguards'. This is the global corporate tribunal----



The IMF and World Bank to Push Neoliberalism at Peru Meetings



Published 7 October 2015

-
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The international financial insitutions have come under fire for not prioritizing human rights and environmental safeguards with their lending practices.Peru is hosting the 2015 annual meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund, making it the first Latin American country to do so since 1967.
The annual meetings, which take place Oct. 9-11, bring together finance ministers, central bankers, private sector executives, civil society representatives, and academics to assess global economic and financial issues.
The meetings are being held on the heels of a recent U.N. summit to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals, which include calls for more climate-friendly industrial policy.
RELATED: Blood Money – The World Bank and IMF in Latin America
During the weekend-long event, IMF and World Bank representatives will discuss amounts of climate aid to developing countries, targeted to reach US$100 billion per year by 2020.
Over the past decade, the World Bank has launched various pilot programs, including Climate Investment Funds, which aim to provide financial assistance to developing countries to combat climate change.
Despite these efforts, the World Bank has been heavily criticized for its very poor record on implementing environmental safeguards.

-_________________________________________


 If you were to look at this list of US cities tied to soaring debt vehicles like Baltimore's bond leverage debt and other Wall Street financial instruments you will see a pattern----almost all are designated US International Economic Zone cities and all are likely filled with these same Wall Street Baltimore Development/'justice' organizations that pedaled all that debt----or toxic fraud.  With the US Treasury in $20 trillion of debt and more----financial analysts have for years been saying NO FEDERAL FUNDING RESCUE OF CITIES HEADING TO BANKRUPTCY----what will come later as STIMULUS----will be that infrastructure funding sent to global corporations to take all public infrastructure and build out more global corporate campuses.

'The causes are government officials and corporate executives who borrowed too much easy money plus Wall Street bankers and hedge fund vultures who lent too much easy money'.

The article below shows something else----it shows that most of the remaining corporations in the US still considered AMERICAN-----meaning not MULTI-NATIONAL----and they are the ones listed on the US stock exchange with main street investors tied to their stocks----HAVE LOADED THEMSELVES WITH DEBT AS WELL----these major US corporations will be sent into bankruptcy as will your stock holdings---as will community banks-----leaving only multi-national corporations and global Wall Street the only viable economy---and that fits with the goal of US International Economic Zones being the only economic activity in the US.

PLEASE GOOGLE THIS BECAUSE THE ARTICLE WAS TOO LONG TO POST---IT SHOWS THE MAJOR US CORPORATIONS LOADED WITH CORPORATE BOND DEBT THAT WILL BE TAKEN DOWN---AND IT IS IN WHAT MANY AMERICANS ARE INVESTED.


This has been known and followed for years----all politicians know it as well----and joined in the implosion with our municipal bond debt.  This will be the ultimate consolidation of all US corporations to global corporations as they will be there to merge these failing US corporations to global corporations.

This will be the ultimate consolidation of all US corporations to global corporations as they will be there to merge these failing US corporations to global corporations......we watched as executives at these healthy US corporations loaded with massive corporate bond debt while refusing to grow and stimulate the economy with real employment and industry.

September 23, 2015

Waiting for Collapse: USA Debt Bombs Bursting
by William Edstrom



It’s been so easy the past 15 years for local governments in the USA, state governments, government authorities, corporations, banks, hedge funds and the US Federal government to simply say how many millions, billions or trillions of dollars they wanted, pay some high priced call accountants to fill out some paperwork with fine print and voila, millions, billions and trillions of dollars in borrowed money simply appeared. It has been that easy!
Now, the government in the USA owes $46 trillion, US corporations owe $15 trillion, US individuals owe $13 trillion plus there are $315 trillion in outstanding Wall Street derivatives.
(Few Americans know what a derivative is, but we as a nation are on the hook for up to $315 trillion in additional debt because of these derivatives.) These debt figures continue to escalate with each passing month.
Detroit and Puerto Rico have only just begun the debt bombs bursting in the USA, the USA’s slow motion economic collapse. Who’s next? I’m going to tell you about some US local and state governments that have too much debt and are ripe for debt collapse along with a few US government authorities and corporations that borrowed too much money and are also ripe for debt collapse.
Mr. Dudley of the New York Federal Reserve Bank recently warned of a wave of US municipal debt collapses coming soon. The problem is bigger than solely US municipalities as Mr. Dudley no doubt is aware. Chicago or LA, which one is more likely to collapse first? Chicago. Kanakee County IL or Perry County KY? Kanakee County is more likely to go belly up first. Atlantic City (AC) or Yonkers? AC is more likely to bite the dust first. 1 out of 25 states are ready to collapse within months, as are 1 out of 20 US cities, 1 out of 15 US government authorities and 1 out of 7 US corporations. Within a few years, many US cities, counties, authorities, states and corporations will have debt collapsed, before the USA as a nation debt collapses. A tsunami of debt collapses is hitting the USA. The causes are government officials and corporate executives who borrowed too much easy money plus Wall Street bankers and hedge fund vultures who lent too much easy money.
Besides city, county and state collapses, there will also be school debt collapses, hospital debt collapses, government authority debt collapses, individual bankruptcies, corporate debt collapses and finally the nationwide debt collapse of the USA.
If change cannot be brought about fast – like increasing revenue (e.g. raising taxes on the rich) or cutting spending (e.g. ending endless war, cutting military/intel spending) or both – then, the best way forward may be to evacuate. Get away from the places about to collapse as quickly as you can. If you find your home is burning to the ground, as I discovered one Sunday evening in New York City in the Summer of 2011, what are you going to do? Evacuate.
Much of the data about which collapses are forecast to come first, second, third and so forth are from financial data, spreadsheets, credit ratings, revenue vs. debt calculations and the like. These are projections, they are not cast in stone. Any corporation, any individual, any part of government in the USA can stop borrowing too much money and can start paying off the debts they owe anytime they feel like it.
Most likely to be first up to collapse are some US cities like Atlantic City NJ, Chicago IL, Newark NJ and Paterson NJ. If you’ve studied cost accounting at a graduate level, did cost accounting work and you look at publicly available financial data from these cities, it’s like looking at nightmare on main street parts I, II, III and IV about to happen.
The next set of cities most likely to collapse include: Arkansas City KS, Asbury Park NJ, Brownwood TX, Coralville IA, Fairfield IA, La Feria TX, Lockport NY, Maple Heights OH, North Las Vegas NV, Philadephia PA and Poughkeepsie NY.
US cities most likely to collapse next include: Baltimore MD, East Pennsboro PA, Erie PA, Houston TX, Jersey City NJ, Kearny NJ, New Orleans LA, Union City NJ and Yonkers NY. Most likely to be followed by: Bristol VA, Buffalo NY, Carroll IA, Central Falls RI, Eastlake OH, East Chicago IN, Los Angeles CA, Monessen PA, Niles OH, Orlando FL, Phoenix AZ, Pittsburgh PA, Providence RI, Robstown TX, Taylor MI, Toledo OH, Tulare CA, Two Rivers WI, Washington DC, West Haven CT, Williston ND and Woonsocket RI.
Counties most likely to collapse first include Kanakee County IL and Perry County KY. BASF’s decision, in September 2015, to close their nylon and epoxy unit at their Kanakee IL factory is yet another accelerant to the debt collapse of Kanakee County IL. Most likely to be followed by the economic collapses of Allegheny County PA, Baxter County, AR, Boyd County KY, Cullman County AL, Dutchess County NY, Essex County NJ, Gilchrist County FL, Harris County TX, Passaic County NJ, Putnam County MO, Rockland County NY, San Bernadino County CA and Wayne County MI.
Without a doubt, the State of Illinois is the US state most likely to collapse first. Followed by, most likely, New Jersey. Tied for 3rd place for US states most likely to collapse are: Arizona, California, Kentucky and Michigan. Tied for 7th place: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
The severity of this debt collapse around in the USA, coupled with the impotence of the US government, the emperor has no clothes, their inability to mount a rescue of the US economy – because Fed Funds interest rates have been at 0% since December 2008, and cannot be lowered, and because the US Treasury already printed $4.5 trillion out of thin air (QE1, QE2 & QE3); more money printing on that scale will lead to hyper-inflation which will cause the US dollar to become worthless – will accelerate the economic collapse of the USA and worse. An example of worse is an increased likelihood of states such as Texas seceding from the Union.
Vast cultural differences between US regions – like the Rockies, Midwest, Northeast, Southeast and West Coast – will be exacerbated during the USA’s economic collapse 2016-2021, which will increase the likelihood of states or even entire regions seceding from the overly-indebted economically collapsing USA. State defiance of national laws (e.g. marijuana laws) coupled with the far right movement (e.g. Tea Party, Libertarian Party) has set the stage for secession fever to catch fire against the capitol district, Washington DC.
The next article in this USA debt bombs bursting series will cover more on the likely sequence of events such as pension cutting, more lethal health care rationing, escalating unemployment, rising crime, increasing hunger, more Americans freezing to death each winter, possible deflation followed by hyper-inflation, wars, etc. – events which could make the Deagle Inc. economic forecast for the USA more plausible. The main focus of this article is limited primarily to places likely to collapse first before the entire nation, the USA, economically collapses.
Many government authorities will collapse including many schools, school districts and hospitals. Among the most likely authorities to collapse first are the East Liverpool City Hospital in Ohio, Citrus Memorial Hospital in Citrus County FL, the Detroit Public Schools, Pontiac City MI public schools and some universities like Ashland University in Ohio, Dowling College in NY, Franklin Pierce University in NH, the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences and the University of Puerto Rico (UPR). Many universities, public and private, have done borrowing through state dormitory authorities blurring the line between private and public, and leaving taxpayers on the hook for much of the debt that many universities took out for luxurious new dormitories, new gyms, etc.

Student loans guaranteed by the US Federal government are at $1.3 trillion and climbing fast. A higher than ever number of graduates are unable to find work in their majors. The labor participation rate among US adults is 63% employed and 37% unemployed. The US unemployment rate will ratchet up much higher than 37% in 2016, 2017 and subsequent years as the slow motion USA debt collapse climaxes with the entire nation’s final economic collapse, like a house of cards blown away in a cool summer breeze. Like domino’s falling, city by city, corporation by corporation, government authority by government authority and state by state until the entire nation, the USA, debt collapses.
Higher education in the USA is a bubble. That bubble is bursting. Universities most likely to financially collapse and scale back (or close down) first include Ashland, Dowling, Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences, Franklin Pierce and UPR. The next set of US colleges and universities most likely to financially collapse include: Bellarmine University (KY), College of Saint Rose (NY), Delaware Valley College (PA), Dominican University of California, Drew University (NJ), Lake Forest College (IL), Mills College (CA), Morehouse College (GA) and the University of Sacred Heart (PR). The wave of US colleges and universities most likely to financially collapse next include Beloit College (WI), Canisius College (NY), the New York Institute of Technology, the University of West Hartford (CT) and US News top-tier ranked Yeshiva University in NYC.
Yeshiva University’s potential collapse may be caused more from Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme debts, that university’s “investments” in Madoff’s ponzi schemes, and their bad timing to have not gotten out in just in the nick of time.
The USA’s debts are increasingly being compared to ponzi schemes like Madoff’s ponzi schemes. More Elderly Americans getting stiffed out of pensions they were promised. More creditors are getting screwed out the money owed to them. The US government’s $46+ trillion in debts will soon turn out to be the largest ponzi scheme ever in human history.
Public school districts most likely to collapse next include: Charleroi Area School District(SD) in PA, East Allegheny SD in PA, Frazier SD in PA and York City SD also in PA. Next most likely to financially collapse school districts include: Lake County SD in IL, Coatesville Area SD in PA, East Ramapo SD in NY, McLean SD in MD, Odem-Edroy Independent SD in TX, Pocono Mountain SD in PA, Reading SD in PA and Manatee County SD in FL.
Elementary and Secondary school is legally mandated in the USA, so it’s unclear what the outcomes to the tsunami of public school district bankruptcies will be. Will teacher to student ratios mushroom up to more than 50 students in each classroom? Will these school districts stop paying for books, food and buses? What will happen to teacher pay and benefits? Will the quality of teaching decline even further in the USA? The USA has been falling in international educational rankings for decades now, how low can the quality of education in the USA get? Will teachers get stiffed out of their pensions, Detroit style?
There is also a healthcare bubble in the USA with average physician salaries at $187,200, an intentional shortage of physicians in the USA (only 850,000; far fewer physicians per 1,000 people than in most nations), many new blockbuster drugs – like Sovaldi – costing $85,000 per patient or more, bankrupting hospital stays often exceeding $5,000 per day and a decades long wave of hospital closings nationwide leaving the USA exceedingly unprepared for a pandemic or biological crisis. Many US hospitals, in the best of economic times (2010 – 2014), were already routinely reporting Emergency Room waits of more than 24 hours. How long can ER waits get in the USA? And with an acute shortage of both hospital beds and doctors in many areas, what will happen in the USA in the event of a crisis? The USA’s greed ridden healthcare system is too woefully fragile for words.
The hospitals most likely to financially collapse next include: Blue Mountain Hospital District in OR, East Texas Medical Center Regional Healthcare Systems, Guadalupe Regional Medical Center in TX, Indiana County Hospital Authority in PA, West Jefferson Medical Center in LA and Whidbey Island Public Hospital District in WA.
The most likely next wave of hospitals to financially collapse include Clarendon Hospital District in SC, Community Medical Center in Montana, Eisenhower Medical Center in CA, Exeter Hospital in NH, Friendship Village Assisted Living Facility in Columbus OH, Holyoke Medical Center in MA (Romneycare land), Hopkins County Hospital District in TX, San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland CA and Wood County Hospital Association in OH.
Millions of Americans will have to travel further, in many instances, many more miles (kilometers) further, in the event of a ‘minutes make a life or death difference’ healthcare crisis. The looming wave of hospital debt collapses and closings will result in delays for millions of Americans to get emergency care which will result in many more Americans dying each year because they cannot get the healthcare they need in time. Is this intentional on the part of US government planners to save money? Or is it due to ignorance and a depraved indifference to human life (the human lives of US citizens) on the part of US government officials.
Many of the too expensive Obamacare deductibles are not being paid, Medicaid cuts and the political talk of turning Medicare into a voucher system, that is a system of coupons for health care discounts, will accelerate hospital bankruptcies and closings around America, resulting in many more deadly delays for Americans in the USA trying to get healthcare just in the nick of time. None of the hospitals on the above list of endangered hospitals are in the areas where the richest 10% of Americans live. Ditto for endangered school districts.
The Rostaver Township Sewage Authority in PA is also on the verge of financial collapse. One of the largest municipal bankruptcies in the past decade, the Jefferson County AL bankruptcy, traces back to an expensive sewage system financed in that county.
The San Joaquin Hills Corridor Transportation Authority has $2.1 billion in debt for a 12 mile stretch of toll road (Route 73) in Orange County CA. Overly optimistic toll revenue projections fell short and this is yet another government authority on the verge of debt collapse. Who’s going to pay $2.1 billion plus interest and fees for that 12 mile stretch of road?
1 out of 7 corporate bonds are classified as junk with a high risk of imminent default. Many of these corporations are Fortune 1000 corporations on the verge of financial collapse during the USA’s current financial nosedive.

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If you have followed my posts these several years we know this corporate bond debt was deliberate-----the FED reduced to 0% its lending rate and Wall Street banks lent to US corporations 'free money' in bonds which these corporations then spent expanding overseas.  These several years would have seen US corporations forced to grow jobs and industry in the US to keep afloat but the FED's 'free 0% money' created this corporate bond bubble that will burst with this coming bond market collapse and economic crash.  Keep in mind---the executives who are supposed to protect shareholders KNOW this and they were allowed to deliberately do a BAINS CAPITAL on their own large US corporations----loading it with debt just to bring into bankruptcy and we will see assets moved to global multi-national corporations locating in our US International Economic Zone cities.  This is why I shouted years ago that the US stock market will be gone----as once this happens---multi-national corporations have no need to list publicly---IPOs.

When I say the $15 an hour is progressive posing in these US International Economic Zones like Baltimore---this is why----Baltimore's entire economy will be tied to a few global corporate campuses that will be exempt from all US, state, and local laws---including labor laws---and that is why Wall Street global corporations and their pols orchestrated this massive corporate and municipal bond fraud=====and it is fraud====because corporate executives cannot conspire against their shareholders and our Federal, state, and city pols cannot conspire against citizens and taxpayers to deliberately create MASSIVE HARM.


'1 out of 7 corporate bonds are classified as junk with a high risk of imminent default. Many of these corporations are Fortune 1000 corporations on the verge of financial collapse during the USA’s current financial nosedive'.


The Clintons and Wall Street love to tout themselves as SMART PEOPLE in orchestrating the demise of America-----but ANYONE can be a mobster----people taking the low road to fraud and corruption are almost always people who would not succeed competing on equal ground-----and all of this was fraud driven by the 1% and installed by 5% of American citizens working for Wall Street----the pols and Wall Street Baltimore Development 'justice' organization leaders.  Politicians not working for Wall Street would have been shouting throughout this process as I was---to make it difficult to create these deals---it was their silence in not educating the American people that AIDED AND ABETTING these crimes.

This is the exact modus operandus the IMF and World Bank has been using overseas for decades in bringing other nations' into debt and bankruptcy and VOILA----they brought it to our US cities and corporations.




Too Much Debt + Too Little Cash = Most Distressed Pain Since ’08

Lisa Abramowicz
July 14, 2015 — 10:55 AM EDT


Peabody Energy's Gateway Coal Mine near Coulterville, Ill.

Photographer: Seth Perlman/AP Photo


If a company has too much debt and too little income, it’s going to struggle to pay its bills, regardless of when its bonds come due.
This is a lesson that investors are learning as distressed U.S. bonds suffer their worst performance since 2008. The notes have plunged 7.5 percent so far this year and 3.2 percent this month alone, with some of the biggest losers being the debt of Lightstream Resources Ltd., Peabody Energy Corp. and Cliffs Natural Resources Inc., according to Bank of America Merill Lynch index data.
It’s a painful wakeup call for investors who’ve gotten used to high-yield debt being synonymous with big returns in an era of unprecedented Federal Reserve stimulus. Even as companies have pushed back debt maturities and lowered interest expenses, that doesn’t mean they can continue to work magic in the face of a slowing world economy and oil prices that have fallen 51 percent since the 2014 peak.
“It seems to us that focusing too much on the maturity wall is probably unhelpful” for determining when corporate defaults will spike up, wrote Ara Lovitt, who manages the GMO Credit Opportunities Fund, a distressed-debt hedge fund at GMO LLC, in a report this month. “Based on the experience of the last three credit cycles, there seem to have been much larger forces at work.”


Dubious Winner


Indeed, the speculative-grade default rate has already begun ticking up from historically low levels, even though most existing corporate bonds don’t have to be repaid for another four years or more. Take American Eagle Energy Company, which filed for bankruptcy after missing the first coupon on a bond it issued just seven months earlier.
The corporation is “a recent winner of the credit market’s version of the NCAA (as in ‘No Coupon At All’),” Lovitt wrote.
Standard & Poor’s calculates the energy and natural resources default rate at 6.9 percent for the past 12 months from 4 percent six months earlier, and UBS AG analysts expect the rate to accelerate.
“How high will energy default rates go?” UBS analysts Matthew Mish and Stephen Caprio wrote in a July 9 report. “We have been very consistent on this question: 10 to 15 percent by mid-2016.”


Growing Pool

The pool of distressed U.S. corporate bonds, typically those yielding more than 10 percentage points above benchmarks, has swelled to $127 billion, from the low last year of $43.7 billion, Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data show. This month alone, Peabody Energy’s $4.8 billion of bonds have fallen 14.9 percent, while Cliffs Natural Resources’s $2.5 billion of notes have declined 14.6 percent.
The most-indebted companies are generally more vulnerable to hiccups, such as oil prices that have fallen to about $52 a barrel from as high as $61.82 last month.
The International Monetary Fund this month downgraded its forecast for global growth, and China’s facing a roller coaster in its stock market, as economists forecast its slowest annual expansion since 1990.
There’s a reason the highest-yielding U.S. bonds are called distressed.



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April 26th, 2016

4/26/2016

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We are going to move from elections to global public policy by first noting the soaring mentioning of TWITTER in main stream media during this election season.  Here in Baltimore we see or soon to be former mayor high-fived for her Tweeting prowess----DeRay and Kwame Rose were both spoken of by how many TWITTER-followers they had.  I personally have no desire to be tied to people or have them tied to me that much----but there is a reason media has exploded with this information-----social media will be changing next decade and Facebook will be out----texting in as Americans will mostly not be able to access streaming video and Facebook, not able to become profitable or gain traction overseas---will divest and end.  Johns Hopkins likes to attach itself to the Facebook idea as Zuckerberg was attending Hopkins for a while and Hopkins as a global surveillance corporation developed the idea for surveillance and indeed---since its start Facebook has been the place for NSA, Homeland Security, and any future corporate employer to know who we are.  It's never been secret----and if elections go as planned with Wall Street global pols attached to President, Governor, and Mayor positions---they will not need Facebood for surveillance as there is now SMART CITY surveillance technology and they will start eliminating ways US citizens can communicate---BYE, BYE US POST OFFICE THEY SAY!

That leaves text messaging which is already what many of the low-income citizens have already been pushed to----more US citizens moved to poverty with this coming economic crash will be in the same boat.  Also as I mentioned earlier---here in Baltimore we are already seeing high-speed internet being dominated by global corporations and their overseas connections taking all our high-speed internet access---dropped phone calls---no video streaming with WiFi----are early signs. 

THIS IS WHY WALL STREET HAS NATIONAL MEDIA ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT TWEETING AND GETTING THE LOCAL LEADERS TALKING ABOUT IT TOO.


'On Twitter, DeRay McKesson is the man. Followed by Beyonce, he regularly exchanges tweets with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, and posts selfies with celebrities in between inspirational sonnets and black fist emojis.
His television interviews with Wolf Blitzer, on several shows on Comedy Central, and on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert were widely shared and celebrated by many.
BLACK LIVES MATTER LEADER RUNNING FOR BALTIMORE MAYOR
He's wicked smart, casts a great image, is ambitious, and is clearly not afraid of the camera.
All of that said, if he could've run for Mayor of Twitter, he would've likely been competitive. Mayor of Baltimore? Not so much'.




Rawlings-Blake named top U.S. mayor on Twitter
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced that she will not seek re-election as Mayor for the city of Baltimore. She stated that she is  going to spend her remaining 15 months as Mayor focusing on the recovery efforts since the Freddie Gray unrest.

Colin CampbellContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun


Report says Baltimore's mayor is the best — at TwitterBaltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who decided not to run for re-election this year, was named the top mayor in the U.S. on Twitter in a report Tuesday by an international marketing firm.
In the report, Development Counsellors International examined the Twitter use of the mayors of the 250 largest U.S. cities, and ranked them by audience, frequency, responsiveness, engagement and influence.
"Twitter has emerged as a powerful tool for mayors to interact with citizens on a daily basis and actively listen to views outside of their inner circle," said Andy Levine, the firm's president. "Our aim was to highlight the 'jedi masters' of this important communications tool."
Rawlings-Blake said she was proud of the recognition.
"We have worked hard to leverage the power of 140 characters to create an important communication tool that has connected me to Baltimore City in new ways," she said in a statement.


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Zuckerberg was of course outed in national media for QUESTIONABLE public listing tactics when he waited until AFTER all Facebook most profitable years in the US to take the corporation public knowing those main street investors would be on the downward value side of Facebook stock.  It was illegal because he ignored standard practices and was allowed to get away with it as usual.  The idea was to expand Facebook globally to make it more profitable and they have had success for a decade globally but here is the catch-------nations around the world are seeing Facebook as a US surveillance tool and are now starting to create their own national versions of Facebook and pushing US Facebook out of many national markets.  This will continue and drive Facebook profit down and down.  Meanwhile, Zuckerberg has long ago DIVESTED all those billions made from Facebook into other global corporations and really has no vested interest in keeping Facebook floating----this article shows the decline of Facebook globally-----and we will see social media like My Space and Facebook disappear as Americans like me have much of our business and communications tied to it.  This is why broad based small business media is CRITICAL----print media, radio, TV because internet access is going, going, gone.


I keep my website page and blog to add diversity with NO STREAMING VIDEO for this reason---but even that will be compromised if citizens cannot afford to access the internet.  If you have a website business you need to look at this because if you have streaming video attached to that webpage it will not open.


Is Facebook Losing Teens?
Written by Sebastian Hedencrona on Friday, November 8 2013

Yes, Facebook is losing teens.
As far as GlobalWebIndex is concerned, the biggest news from Facebook’s Q3 earnings call last week was a statement by Facebook’s CFO, David Ebersam, where he said engagement among teens was declining, and Facebook itself is having a hard time measuring the decline.
Here is an excerpt of his comments: "this is a hard issue for us to measure ... we've developed other analytic methods. ... our best announcement on youth usage [is that] among U.S. teens was stable overall from Q2 to Q3 but we did see a decrease in daily users partly among younger teens." He also added that the decline was of “questionable significance”.
Facebook usage globally is something that GlobalWebIndex has been tracking for the past four years, and we thought it important to add some insight on Facebook’s popularity among teenagers, not only in the US, but around the world. Below are answers to three key points that will do just that:


1. “Are teens leaving Facebook?”


Firstly, it is important to understand how GlobalWebIndex defines active usage: users must have an account on Facebook as well as have “used or contributed to Facebook in the past month on any device.” This is a simple measure of active engagement that works very well in market research, something that is near impossible to track using passive data collection or analytics due to the issues with auto-logins, multiple devices and ghost accounts (an issue we explored in an earlier post). In short, it is easy for analytics to record users as active despite no actual human activity. Also, Facebook uses a very broad definition of “active” which includes signing in with a Facebook login on a third party site or clicking a “Like” button. These would likely not be recognised by a user as being active. For these reasons, we believe our market research approach provides the most accurate measure.
Moving back to the issue at hand, Chart 1 below tracks Facebook active usage among 16-19 year olds in the US vs. Global (our research covers 16-65 year olds in 32 countries) since Q2 2012.
What this clearly demonstrates is that just 56% of US teens claim to be active on Facebook in Q3 2013, down 35% from Q1 2013 (76%). This is a substantial decline but also one that is mirrored globally (excluding China).
So the answer to this is categorically yes. Facebook is losing teens all over the world from its peak in Q4 2012.



2. “Is Facebook close to ‘penetrated in the US’ amongst teens – as claimed by David Ebersam”?


GlobalWebIndex data shows that 89% of US teens and 88% of teens globally (excl. China) have an account on Facebook. This, one could argue, is near penetration.


3. Is the Facebook teen decline only a US phenomenon?


David Ebersam also alluded to the fact that this is only a US phenomenon. Chart 1 above shows that actually the global figures are similar. If we segment (chart 2 below) this by market, we get a clear context and can see that decline across 2013 amongst teens is much larger in other markets. The lowest levels of decline are in South Africa, Poland and Russia where adoption of Facebook has been a more recent phenomenon. However, some markets show substantially higher levels of decline, led by the Netherlands which has seen active user numbers fall by 52% y-o-y in Q2 2013. The Dutch are followed by Malaysia (-45%), France (-44%), Turkey (-43%) and Mexico (-35%), demonstrating that Facebook teen decline, global and happening on all continents.
 

What does this mean?

The key question we are asking internally is whether this slump is driven by seasonality in Facebook usage or is, in fact, a genuine slide in user numbers.
What is clear is that competition from other social media platforms is increasing, and as we can see users are adopting supplementary services that serve specific needs rather than switching to other platforms entirely. Mobile is a key driver of this change where built-in OS functions and applications make it very easy to use many different services, all of which focus on doing very specific tasks e.g Snapchat or Whatsapp.
Moving forward, we are tackling these questions in two ways. Firstly, the Stream Analyst team is investigating where teens are going if not to Facebook. Secondly, we are releasing the next wave of our Q4 data at the end of December 2013, which will enable us to better address the seasonality question.

___________________________________________
You will read about many nations blocking Facebook----censoring Facebook but you don't hear much about nations developing their own national version of Facebook to replace what will become a complete refusal to allow Facebook in other nations.  The amount of money and time being placed into circumventing all this censuring has many around the world looking for different vehicles of global communications.

I have seen for a few years ordinary media outlets once having the Facebook Share icon no longer having it as it becomes harder and harder to share articles on Facebook----I have been copying and pasting them but as we know TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT seeks to make it illegal to copy the most basic of journalism including these kinds of articles.  So, soon enough---if you cannot afford a subscription you will not receive information and that will be OVER 80% OF AMERICANS VERY SOON.



The Great Firewall Blocking Facebook In China

The Chinese government blocked access to Facebook across the entire country in July 2009 in a response to unrest.
12:43, UK, Tuesday 04 February 2014
Facebook mobile apps open in China, but they do not update

For many around the world, Facebook is part of everyday life.
It has 1.2 billion active users globally, 757 million of whom log on daily. Many more than that will have flirted with it over the past decade.
But Facebook remains beyond the reach of one fifth of the world's population - the 1.3 billion people of China.
The Chinese government blocked access to Facebook across the entire country in July 2009. Anyone who's visited China on holiday or for business will know: it just doesn't work.

Try to log on to it from a desktop and the page simply won't open. On smartphones, the app opens up but won't update.
China's government has little time for Mark Zuckerberg's vision
It is blocked, so the joke goes, by The Great Firewall of China.
Facebook falls into a category of websites that China's Communist leaders deem unsuitable for their population.
Others include Twitter and YouTube.
Even some Google searches (the sensitive ones: think Tiananmen, Tibet and Taiwan) are tripped up by the Great Firewall.
News organisations who upset the government find themselves sporadically blocked too. Current culprits include the New York Times and Bloomberg.
Somewhere in China, an army of censors with sophisticated equipment do the blocking and the monitoring.
There was a time when Chinese users could "poke" and "tag" as much as they wished. But in July 2009, riots in the country's far western Xinjiang Province between Muslim and Han Chinese communities put an end to it all.
Activists for Xinjiang's independence were found to have used Facebook to garner support.
Quickly, the government realised the potential power of Facebook to connect the aggrieved and rally the discontented right across the vast nation.
They also realised that they couldn't simply censor specific posts given that it's operated via servers outside China. The only answer therefore was to block it completely. They did the same with Twitter.
Last month, the Chinese Ambassador to the UK defended his government's censorship of websites in an interview on Sky News.
Homegrown alternatives like Weibo have grown in popularity. Their servers are in China and so that army of censors can delete specific posts which concern them.
There are ways to leap over the Great Firewall which are vital for those of us who live in China and use Facebook, Twitter and Google for work.
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) can be used to trick computers and phones into thinking they are operating in another country. I use my VPN countless times every day.
China's not alone. The people of North Korea don't even have an internet.
The regime of Kim Jong-Un has developed its own 'intranet' - a mini and highly restricted version of the World Wide Web.
Curiously though, visitors to North Korea are able to use Facebook and Twitter, perhaps because of the less sophisticated nature of North Korean censors.
In Egypt, the 2011 revolution became known as the Facebook Revolution by those who attributed the overthrow of the government to activity on Facebook. The site was blocked for a few days.
Who'd have thought a website dreamt up by college students in Boston could, in just 10 years, grow quite so powerful?
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Just to refresh this IPO listing of Facebook came at the same time Americans were made aware of the massive Wall Street frauds.  This article looks at how this IPO listing in one way was fraudulent but as well the process of allowing a small group of venture capitalists fund Facebook in its early climb to profit-making and then having them as major shareholders at this IPO listing taking most of that initial profit knowing Facebook stock values were going down hill was not legal as well.  Main street investors came on board at an initial IPO value and started losing money right away.

From surveillance tool to IPO profit scam----we entered the 21st century economy model of profit anyway you can----as usual under Obama nothing never occurred---they took the money and expanded overseas.


Facebook, One Year Later: What Really Happened in the Biggest IPO Flop Ever


After Facebook's disastrous debut, the preferred clients of big banks walked away with huge profits. How? Public documents and interviews with dozens of investment bankers and research analysts reveal that the Street caught wind of something the public didn't. The social network and the banks told half the story. Here is the other half.
Facebook IPO Lawsuits Consolidated in New York
By Sarah Pierce
 
Facebook investors won their motion to consolidate dozens of securities fraud lawsuits filed throughout the United States over the bungled Facebook IPO before a federal judge in New York. The social networking behemoth, NASDAQ exchange and Facebook’s underwriter’s face over 30 lawsuits seeking class-action status on behalf of Facebook investors who suffered major losses during the company’s initial public offering in May.
A panel of federal judges ordered the potential Facebook IPO class action lawsuits to be transferred to U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet in Manhattan. The move was requested by Facebook and the majority of investor Plaintiffs because witnesses, IPO evidence and the underwriter banks are located in New York. Only a few investors sought to keep their cases in California.

Investors allege in the potential Facebook IPO class action lawsuit that the company, its officers, directors and underwrites violated securities laws by making false and misleading statements in connection with the May 18 IPO, which was tarnished by technical glitches on the NASDAQ exchange and accusations that Facebook selectively disclosed unflattering information about its business prospects to privileged investors.

Facebook stock (NASDAQ:FB) tumbled as much as 50 percent after its debut.
Plaintiffs in at least 33 Facebook stock fraud lawsuits are asking the Court to hold Facebook and its underwriters responsible for their losses. They are seeking unspecified damages, which could cost Facebook millions of dollars.
Facebook has said that it did not violate any rules and that NASDAQ was to blame for trading glitches on the day of the offering. Separate Facebook investor class action lawsuits have been filed against NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. alleging it negligently failed to execute trades during the record-breaking Facebook IPO.
The newly consolidated case is In Re: Facebook Inc., IPO Securities and Derivative Litigation, Case No. 12-md-2389, U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

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Most Facebook users know this surveillance arm of social media and that is why they do not comment or post controversial memes and article often----so we have adapted to this idea of employers seeing our posts----connections with FB friends that may have the NSA trailing----if we thought of all this Americans would not be able to communicate at all these days.

Here we see this concern in the US but also in other nations as the WikiLeaks network made public the extent of industrial and personal espionage happening AND NO ONE LIKES THIS---OVERSEAS OR IN THE US.   All the national press on this issue these few years after the exposure entailed Obama and Congress placing some sort of policy in place to protect citizens but we all know there is no oversight and accountability and therefore it is all still happening.  Again, it is another public private partnership that has telecommunications completely controlled by global corporations that has the American people unable to secure their rights as citizens and Wall Street global pols simply passing more and more laws to deregulate and consolidate these groups into larger monopolies----the goal will be to have one massive CORPORATE STATE TELECOM LIKE MEXICO AND SLIM.


This is where securing space on US city conduits for telecommunications protecting individual citizen and small business access with oversight and accountability is critical.


All of this is simply part of building the SMART CITY infrastructure and when candidates for Mayor of Baltimore promote Silicon Valley technology corporations as they all do ---this is tied to the surveillance network.



Don’t Listen to Google and Facebook: The Public-Private Surveillance Partnership Is Still Going Strong


And real corporate security is still impossible.


A surveillance camera outside Google's China headquarters in 2010 Jason Lee / Reuters
  • Bruce Schneier
  • Mar 25, 2014
  • Technology
If you’ve been reading the news recently, you might think that corporate America is doing its best to thwart NSA surveillance.
Google just announced that it is encrypting Gmail when you access it from your computer or phone, and between data centers. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg personally called President Obama to complain about the NSA using Facebook as a means to hack computers, and Facebook's Chief Security Officer explained to reporters that the attack technique has not worked since last summer. Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and others are now regularly publishing "transparency reports," listing approximately how many government data requests the companies have received and complied with.
__________________________________________
From US citizens learning the ever increasing fewest ways to use texting space to the rise of hashtag-----Wall Street follows Facebook and phone texting with Twitter and each time Americans are being tied to minimalist communications.  Our language has been truncated into this global rush to texting with the least amount of letters and as everyone sees----even texting package costs are rising---

The American people now understand that Wall Street rolls out new corporations often tied to creating these new 21st century structures and that includes ending the first world access to communications and citizen voice----and they are doing this through social media and increasing loss of access----decline of citizen journalism----

Think about the movement of citizen communications over these few decades and you see we are slowly losing connections with our language----with our ability to express ourselves broadly and with depth----and as one social media goes out of business--the next one lowers us to hashtags and minimalist texting----WAKE UP FOLKS.  Keep in mind this same thing is happening in International Economic Zones around the world----citizens in China---Latin America----Middle-East----all being moved from local communications models to this same texting, hashtag, SMART PHONE format.


Rise of the Hashtag: How the Humble #Hash Sign Is Taking Over Social Media
by Dave Awl
The @ sign needs to watch its back if it wants to hold on to its status as the most influential keyboard character of the Internet age. Yon hash sign (#) has a lean and hungry look.
In fact, Facebook’s long-awaited announcement earlier this month that hashtags are now active and clickable on Facebook means that hashtags now work on all of the major social media sites—including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, Instagram, and more.
But it doesn’t stop there. Hashtags have become so pervasive that their reach extends beyond the online conversations that birthed them, popping up in TV shows and movies and even becoming a factor in political campaigns.




Figure 1: Comedian Stephen Colbert makes the hash sign with his fingers.


So this seems like a good time to look at the rise of the hashtag—from its humble beginnings on Twitter to its current status as a force in pop culture and politics, as well as how it functions as a tool for marketing and branding. We’ll look at some tips for creating your own hashtags and using them effectively, too.
What the Heck Are Hashtags, Anyway?A couple of days after Facebook announced the arrival of hashtags, a panicked friend of mine posted: “Since Facebook is the only social media I use, I’ve remained blissfully uneducated on all the mechanics of hashtags. Now that they’re coming to Facebook, will I have to lose my innocence?”
I reassured her that hashtags are easy to understand—their bark is much worse than their bite. So let’s start with a quick definition for those who, like my friend, have been holding on to their hashginity.
Hashtags are a way of organizing conversations and making them easier to follow. They work a little bit like keywords that give you an easy way to view recent postings on a specific topic—and a way to make sure your own contributions show up in that stream of postings, too.
At its simplest, a hashtag is simply a string of characters preceded by the hash sign: #. So, for example, #typography is a hashtag. #InDesign is a hashtag. #CreativePro is a hashtag.
When you see a hashtag on any of the sites where hashtags work, all you have to do is click on it and you’ll be taken to a search listing that shows the most recent postings that include that tag.
Maybe you want to see what people outside your own set of friends are saying about the latest episode of #MadMen or #DoctorWho, or a developing news story like the current situation in #Syria, or what’s happening at a conference like the #MacWorldExpo or #WWDC. You could click on those tags to get a sense of the buzz.
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WHEN SOCIETIES LOSE THEIR LANGUAGE---THEY SOON LOSE THE CULTURE---LOOK HOW HARD THE NATIVE AMERICANS ARE TRYING TO KEEP THEIR LANGUAGES ALIVE.

Many Americans think academics steeped in language and usage are being elite and stylistic language is useless.  I am guilty in loving written language.  What we need to do is look beyond all the technical issues of grammar or punctuation and think about language making citizens unique----the US uses a form of English language but it is uniquely different---and English has over decades been the global language so other nations learned English to communicate with one another.  We are being told the US is in decline----the national debt of $20 trillion with a coming bond market collapse will no doubt be the nail in the coffin of the US dollar being the world's currency and Wall Street, the FED, and Obama/Congress created this debt deliberately.  It looks like they are moving to make our US currency irrelevant.  Now think about English as that global language-----what is happening when around the world people are using this truncated texting and tweeting of the American language?  It is killing our American language and moving to create a global language----a ONE WORLD LANGUAGE.

Remember, Wall Street global pols designated US cities as International Economic Zones and are trying hard to install Trans Pacific Trade Pact so our US cities will operate AUTONOMOUSLY ----without any regard to US Constitutional law---Federal, state, or local law----and operate as all other International Economic Zones around the world do under this TPP-----global corporate tribunal rule----so they are eliminating what it means to be American----and creating in the US simply autonomous economic zones ALL OF WHICH WILL MAKE A COLONIAL ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF US CITIES LIKE BALTIMORE.  Global pols are eliminating all that is American -----currency, language, laws, culture, education----to meld this 21ST CENTURY ONE WORLD MODEL.

This idea is complex for many folks not following public policy but many Americans are seeing this happening---and WE THE PEOPLE will not be citizens with rights if this dismantling of all that is America continues.


The death of language?


By Tom Colls
Today programme

An estimated 7,000 languages are being spoken around the world. But that number is expected to shrink rapidly in the coming decades. What is lost when a language dies?
In 1992 a prominent US linguist stunned the academic world by predicting that by the year 2100, 90% of the world's languages would have ceased to exist.


Far from inspiring the world to act, the issue is still on the margins, according to prominent French linguist Claude Hagege.
"Most people are not at all interested in the death of languages," he says. "If we are not cautious about the way English is progressing it may eventually kill most other languages."
According to Ethnologue, a US organisation owned by Christian group SIL International that compiles a global database of languages, 473 languages are currently classified as endangered.



The death in 2008 of Chief Marie Smith Jones signalled her language's death

Among the ranks are the two known speakers of Lipan Apache alive in the US, four speakers of Totoro in Colombia and the single Bikya speaker in Cameroon.
"It is difficult to provide an accurate count," says Ethnologue editor Paul Lewis. "But we are at a tipping point. From here on we are going to increasingly see the number of languages going down."


What is lost?


As globalisation sweeps around the world, it is perhaps natural that small communities come out of their isolation and seek interaction with the wider world. The number of languages may be an unhappy casualty, but why fight the tide?


WAR OF WORDS


6% of the world's languages are spoken by 94% of the world's population
The remaining 94% of languages are spoken by only 6% of the population
The largest single language by population is Mandarin (845 million speakers) followed by Spanish (329 million speakers) and English (328 million speakers).
133 languages are spoken by fewer than 10 people
SOURCE: Ethnologue
"What we lose is essentially an enormous cultural heritage, the way of expressing the relationship with nature, with the world, between themselves in the framework of their families, their kin people," says Mr Hagege.
"It's also the way they express their humour, their love, their life. It is a testimony of human communities which is extremely precious, because it expresses what other communities than ours in the modern industrialized world are able to express."
For linguists like Claude Hagege, languages are not simply a collection of words. They are living, breathing organisms holding the connections and associations that define a culture. When a language becomes extinct, the culture in which it lived is lost too.


Cross words


The value of language as a cultural artefact is difficult to dispute, but is it actually realistic to ask small communities to retain their culture?
One linguist, Professor Salikoko Mufwene, of the University of Chicago, has argued that the social and economic conditions among some groups of speakers "have changed to points of no return".



The story of Babel bestowed great power on societies with one language

As cultures evolve, he argues, groups often naturally shift their language use. Asking them to hold onto languages they no longer want is more for the linguists' sake than for the communities themselves.
Ethnologue editor Paul Lewis, however, argues that the stakes are much higher. Because of the close links between language and identity, if people begin to think of their language as useless, they see their identity as such as well.
This leads to social disruption, depression, suicide and drug use, he says. And as parents no longer transmit language to their children, the connection between children and grandparents is broken and traditional values are lost.
"There is a social and cultural ache that remains, where people for generations realize they have lost something," he says.
What no-one disputes is that the demise of languages is not always the fault of worldwide languages like our own.
An increasing number of communities are giving up their language by their own choice, says Claude Hagege. Many believe that their languages have no future and that their children will not acquire a professional qualification if they teach them tribal languages.
"We can do nothing when the abandonment of a language corresponds to the will of a population," he says.


Babbling away


Perhaps all is not lost for those who want the smaller languages to survive. As the revival of Welsh in the UK and Maori in New Zealand suggest, a language can be brought back from the brink.



Hebrew was successfully revived from a written to a living language

Hebrew, says Claude Hagege, was a dead language at the beginning of the 19th century. It existed as a scholarly written language, but there was no way to say "I love you" and "pass the salt" - the French linguists' criteria for detecting life.
But with the "strong will" of Israeli Jews, he says, the language was brought back into everyday use. Now it is undeniably a living breathing language once more.
Closer to home, Cornish intellectuals, inspired by the reintroduction of Hebrew, succeeded in bringing the seemingly dead Cornish language back into use in the 20th Century. In 2002 the government recognised it as a living minority language.


But for many dwindling languages on the periphery of global culture, supported by little but a few campaigning linguists, the size of the challenge can seem insurmountable.
"You've got smallest, weakest, least resourced communities trying to address the problem. And the larger communities are largely unaware of it," says Ethnologue editor Paul Lewis.
"We would spend an awful lot of money to preserve a very old building, because it is part of our heritage. These languages and cultures are equally part of our heritage and merit preservation."



Do you think the world's languages should be preserved? Are you a member of a community trying to keep your language alive? Here are a selection of your comments.
Each language is a seed-bed for poetic expression - that can capture some thing beyond mere communication. Every time a language is lost the "genetic basis" for such poetry is less rich.
Gavin Brelstaff, Alghero, Sardinia

At least we have come a long way from the times when languages were repressed and forbidden in favor of the language of the dominant polical or colonial power. But I believe that the matter of preserving declining languages should best be left to private iniative among those who have a personal interest in seeing them preserved.
Paul Kachur, Oberheimbach, Germany



I'm a sociolinguist specializing in endangered languages and language planning. I'm Italian and in my country over 40 historical languages are spoken, but most of them are endangered, particularly those which are are known as 'dialects'. This applies to the area where I was born as well, Milan. Milanese (which is as different from Italian as, say, Spanish is) is highly endangered and nothing is being done to promote it. In Brunei, too, where I live and work (I'm a lecturer at the local university), at least 9 out of the 11 local minority languages are endangered, some only slightly (like Iban for example), some severely (like Belait). Here, too, nothing is being done to preserve them...
Paolo Coluzzi, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

I believe that all languages are unique and helps to identfy who we are as a people and as an individual. It is unfortunate that most languages are on the verge of dying but thats the price of progress.
Namron, Barbados



The flip side of the revival of Hebrew, which the article doesn't mention, is the probably imminent demise of Yiddish and Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish), two previously vibrant Jewish languages (New York City once had seven Yiddish newspapers!). The movement to transform Hebrew from a liturgical language into the national language of Israel had as much to do with 19th-century Zionist romanticism as anything else. Yiddish and Ladino were considered ghetto languages by Zionist intellectuals, and so not only not worthy of preservation, but deserving of oblivion. Early Jewish immigrants to Palestine and later Israel, for example, were encouraged to discard their "ghetto" names and take Hebrew ones; the speaking of languages other than Hebrew (but especially Yiddish) was actively discouraged. So is the result the triumphant revival of a dead language, or the loss of a thousand years of the Jewish experience in Europe?
MD, Canterbury, UK



The utility of a single global language, spoken by everyone as their mother tongue, would surely outweigh any loss of cultural heritage. The proliferation of Scots Gaelic bilingual signs in areas without Gaelic speakers (Aberdeenshire?!) is eccentric to say the least. Let languages die their natural deaths -there are plenty left.
Danny McShane, Aberdeen



Native Irish speaker and I have almost lost it. Government spending millions promoting same. Very difficult against TV and reading almost exclusively English. Endangered languages should be archived and let go.
Charles Mc Fadden, London England



Its sad when a language dies out, but it is unavoidable isn't it? If not by suddenly no longer being used, it will happen simply due to the language changing slowly over time. The 'English' that exists today is very different from a thousand years ago and from what will be in a thousand years.History is littered with languages which no longer exist.
Nik, London, U.K



Absolutely; language is intrinsicly linked between culture and ethnisity. Preserving the language is preserving the history and identity of a specific people. My own language is closely linked with Illyrian and I can make out some ancient etruscan, messapian, macedonian,thracian, and egyptian words and phrases because of it. It is absolutely amazing that my langugae was able to survive the influx of greek and slavic/mongolian invasion.
Anne Gillette, New York



I have studied languages reconstructed completely from written records, and know first-hand the enormous scholarly value in preserving languages. But languages are not here for our intellectual amusement. The economic and social benefits of fewer languages to the living world are clear - that's why it's happening. People should not be made to feel guilty about releasing past traditions, linguistic or otherwise. They do not live in a museum. Rather than diminishing a person's sense of self-worth by telling them that they are bad for giving up old traditions, maybe they should be lauded for not being trapped in the past, and shown their intrinsic value as human beings regardless of the culture in which they partake!
Scott, San Francisco, USA


When a language dies, a way of thinking dies with it. Some Native American languages have completely different concepts of past and present embedded in their language. Russian verbs offer a variety of ways to express actions, that Hebrew doesn't have, but Hebrew has a way of expressing actions that a person does for others that doesn't exist in Russian. Romance languages have well-defined ways to express things that should happen, but not necessarily do - a trait not found in every language. This list could go on forever.
Amir E. Aharoni, Jerusalem, Israel



I think that the reduction in the number of languages spoken is also a great way to help unify the world and the human race in general. How can we expect cultures to keep peace between each other when they cannot understand each other? Having one, or a few global languages will make things much more convenient and seamless. Also languages isolate communities. Which are most likely to be economically weak. 'Our heritage' is only history, and history will never and can never be more important than the present or the future.
Parsa, UK



No, languages naturally evolve, Professor Salikoko Mufwene is absolutely right when he says that asking groups to hold onto languages they no longer want is more for the linguists' sake than for the communities themselves. Communities are best served by a language which can be used to communicate intelligibly with the greatest number of people. It would seem to me that the fewer the number of languages, the fewer the chances for misunderstanding one another. The revival of dead or minority languages such as those mentioned in the article is an affectation at best and insular at worst. Even if people no longer communicated with one another using these minor languages that does not mean that knowledge of these minor languages would be gone. After all, no one now speaks Latin, but the language itself is not lost.
Alex McCallum, Airdrie, Scotland



Most of the problems in the world stem from a lack of communications. If we all spoke English then these problems might disapear. It may be sad to lose other languages, but we must strive for one universal language.
Ray Dorrity, Lymington, Hampshire



When a language disappears, the knowledge and thought that has been stored in the language through generations of use, disappears with it. With the growth of powerful and widespread world languages, such as English, Chinese and Spanish, it will be necessary to take steps to protect linguistic diversity, in order to ensure the survival of smaller languages.
Shouvik Datta, Orpington, Kent, United Kingdom

If we as human beings can all communicate in the same tongue, then maybe we will start to treat the whole polulation od the world equally and that can be no bad thing!
David Evans, Frinton on Sea, Essex



Not only is the death of languages a natural thing, it's also a good thing. 'Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent' wrote Wittgenstein. By that he meant if you can't describe an object or a concept in a language, then you can't think about it or engage with it. Concepts of parliamentary democracy, the liberal economy or multicultural societies cannot be expressed in Mayan or Navajo or even Latin. It's one of the reasons they're dead while English-speaking societies thrive and prosper around from the world.
Alex Clarke, Brora, Highlands




I grew up speaking a German dialect, and didn't speak English until I went to school. My father always asked us if we were richer having two dollars or one dollar. He said the same was true of language.
Eugenia Bostwick, Pinckney, Mi, USA

A good proverb: A house divided against itself cannot stand. The Earth is the home of humans, plants, animals, various forms of life. Right now we humans have divide this home of ours' into divided nations, languages, religions, etc. In this time and age we need unity more than divisions. What is the point of having hundreds of languages that will make it difficult for people from different places to communicate.
A Lwin, Geneva, Switzerland


Every word has stories woven through it. When we lose a language, we lose so many words and stories. I'd like them to be remembered somehow.
Steve Rpe, Woodinville, USA



Languages that are dying out should just be catalogued for the interests of linguists, but communities shouldn't be forced to use it, and at the very most it should be taught to the next generation as a secondary language, much like Welsh is in Wales.
James Turner, Cardiff, Wales



0 Comments

April 25th, 2016

4/25/2016

0 Comments

 
Let's take one day to talk primary elections as Tuesday---tomorrow is Maryland's primary. You could see the disappointment in Bernie's eyes when he came to the Baltimore Bernie rally in a city he openly stated was third world in every measure----and the stadium was not filled with citizens from those underserved communities----BECAUSE THEY DO KNOW ABOUT BERNIE OR SOCIAL DEMOCRACY.....THEY ARE WORKING FOR GRANTS FROM WALL STREET BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT POLS JUST TO HAVE TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT.....the very, very, very Wall Street Hopkins neo-conservative system of corporate socialism. So, Baltimore should have had thousands of black poor voters and instead we had lots of voters including voters of color----but they were almost exclusively people with a higher education and more politically informed.

This is where Ben Jealous as head of NAACP comes in ----his million dollar job requires he keep confusing black voters as to the opposite goals of Clinton/Obama Wall Street global corporate neo-liberalism---far-right economics----and not know a thing about social democracy. Who would be on a stage with Bernie in Baltimore? Cindy Walsh for Mayor of Baltimore---having felt the BERN for 40 years. Not one mention of me by a BERNIE campaign controlled by Ben Jealous. Even if the goal of black leadership was keeping a black Mayor of Baltimore---the last candidate one would want is PUGH----or Dixon or Stokes----and most black voters know this and yet---Jealous is SO DETERMINED TO GET PUGH ELECTED----and this brings me to Kwame Rose and his video endorsing guess who-----PUGH.

Below the Baltimore Sun announces the people backing Bernie Sanders and there are the Obama Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal candidates for Mayor of Baltimore-----Calvin Young and Joshua Harris----no Cindy Walsh----and again we see Kwame Rose-----so in  Baltimore all the energy around Bernie comes from the Baltimore Development 'justice' non-profits and the individuals highlighted the most are almost all coming out for PUGH.....if you follow Kwame Rose as a Black Lives Matter leader he is telling you to vote for PUGH.  If you are a Baltimore United for Change---BUC---you are directed to forums and campaigns of only Baltimore Development establishment candidates.  Remember, CHANGE----like Gov Larry Hogan's I WILL FIX BALTIMORE---by moving global corporate campuses and global factories to replace all surrounding communities----THAT IS CHANGE!


One Year Later - Impact Hub Baltimore Forum
Streamed live on Apr 20, 2016
With guest speakers: activist Kwame Rose, photographer Devin Allen, and Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis.



So Rose is the name tied most often to Bernie in Baltimore---mine never mentioned-----and Rose gives a heartfelt video endorsement of PUGH---Baltimore Development Corporations favorite because she has the drive to move Baltimore forward as that US International Economic Zone and pushed every public policy for over a decade to create the conditions in Baltimore to do that.

Keep in mind---Ben Jealous as national NAACP leader moving away from civil rights and social democracy and towards SHOW ME THE MONEY MAKING THE RICH RICHER NAACP with Wall Street Clinton global corporate neo-liberalism has been doing this dis-information in US cities with heavy black votership leading voters to Wall Street pols every election. They are determined to stop the left-leaning movement from coming to Baltimore----continuing the Wall Street global corporate socialism of patronage and no real local economy---only temporary stents of employment for those willing to pay-to-play.

Bernie Sanders endorsed by Maryland activists


Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign stop.

(Matt Rourke / AP)  April 7, 2016
John FritzeContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun
Aaron Maybin and Kwame Rose among social justice advocates backing Sanders.




Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign announced support Thursday from several civil rights advocates in Baltimore, including Aaron Maybin and Kwame Rose.
Maybin is a former NFL linebacker and founder of Project Mayhem. Rose is a prominent Baltimore activist who has been involved in the protests following the death of Freddie Gray last year.

In the midst of a race dominated by divisive antics, and candidates appealing to their self-interests in lieu of what's best for the American people, sincerity and honesty are the cornerstones of Sen. Sanders' historic candidacy," the activists wrote in an internet posting.
"As criminal justice reformers, we stand with Sen. Sanders because he’s fervently committed to ending mass incarceration and increasing equity in the justice system, reflected in his more than three decades of standing at the forefront of inequality and his courage to hold violators of justice accountable," they wrote.
Sanders is the only presidential candidate -- aside from former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley -- who has visited West Baltimore as part of the campaign. Sanders toured Sandtown-Winchester in December. Old Line State voters will head to the polls on April 26.

Hillary Clinton to campaign in Maryland on Sunday
Other Maryland advocates backing Sanders include: Anthony Johnson, Calvin Young, ShaiVaugh Crawley, James Williams, Donna Brown, Joshua Harris, Megan Kenny, Keanuu Smith-Brown, Chris Wilson, Dejuan Patterson and Rashad Staton.

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Below you see the interweaving of Baltimore Development Corporation and its 'justice' non-profits and the 15 black ministers tied to Wall Street Baltimore Development who always tell black voters to vote for these same establishment candidates every election-----Carter Memorial Church thrilled to greet Bill Clinton in Baltimore with Kwame Rose right in the mix-----

So, you see Kwame Rose with Bernie----endorsing PUGH-----who is a raging Clinton Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal----this is why poor black citizens who get absolutely no information on political policy keep being brought out by Baltimore Development 'justice' groups to vote for the Wall Street candidates.  Make citizens as justice leaders and then have them all tied to Clinton/Obama Wall Street global corporate neo-liberalism.

For those not knowing South Africa under Zuma has become the worst of neo-liberal International Economic Zone abuse of black citizens in global sweat shop factories and police brutality---some say worse than white apartheid----it is bad. Black leaders being allowed wealth and power here in our US cities are tying themselves to this move by Clinton/Obama to bring Asian International Economic Zones to other African nations enslaving Africans as Asian citizens were these decades. No doubt US black leaders envision themselves as the ones getting rich from all this. People are free to make whatever decision in these regards they want---the problem is these few decades of deliberate deceit by these Clinton/Obama Wall Street players that have killed 90% of black citizens and are killing all citizens in the working and middle-class. RUN AS REPUBLICANS IF YOU WANT TO PRESS FAR-RIGHT PUBLIC POLICY !




Larry Cohen added 5 new photos — with ShaiVaughn Crawley and 6 others at

Carter Memorial Church of Baltimore-COGIC.




The panel discussion on black youth in Sowebo was heartwarming in it's love & authenticity. The initial disbelief of Bernie internalizing the number of heroin
addicts in Bmore was fascinating in how he knows that the extreme doesn't need to be. I wish others could have been there. He was everything I knew he was. I'm hopeful, as he is, that there can be change if we will it, but I'm also saddened by so many people who are voting without hope, belief, & love in their hearts. Also, proud of Kwame Rose for rising to the occasion.


Carter Memorial Church of Baltimore-COGIC

21 hrs ·
Currently on ‪#‎Pstreet‬! Mr. President Bill Clinton.

Here comes Bill-----Baltimore has a hundreds of black churches many not wanting what Wall Street Baltimore Development is pushing but Bill and Hillary have created their own religious campaigners-----like the wall of pastors hanging at Plank's Cove Point UnderArmour campus----not too many follow this but this is from where getting the poor to the voting polls eminates----so we have poor that do not vote and poor being brought by Wall Street Baltimore Development 'justice' groups to the polls telling them to vote for PUGH and HILLARY.

You can believe this is why Hillary won across the south----and Maryland is a southern state----citizens here in Baltimore understand all this cronyism but I want my friends across the nation to understand why a candidate who really wants to do good for civil rights and liberties cannot get the votes today---the rigging of primary elections is strong---BUT NOT SO STRONG AS TO BE REVERSED---AND WE WILL DO THIS.


Bill Clinton visits Baltimore churches

Caption Bill Clinton
Kenneth K. Lam / Baltimore Sun  April 24, 2016

Former president Bill Clinton speaks to the congregation of Southern Baptist Church to campaign for his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton ahead of Tuesday's primary election.


Caption Bill Clinton
Kenneth K. Lam / Baltimore Sun
Former President Bill Clinton visited Southern Baptist Church and two other Baltimore churches to campaign for his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton ahead of Tuesday's primary election.

President Bill Clinton, touring to campaign for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, visits three Baltimore churches Sunday.
__________________________________________

Cummings was the original Clinton Wall Street neo-liberal back in the 1990s breaking the banking wall Glass Steagall to create these few decades of massive and systemic fraud of our government coffers and people's personal wealth-----he and Pugh are the pols of the district Freddie Gray lived and are the faces of the third world conditions---deep poverty, militarized policing that led to the riots.  So, Kwame Rose somehow goes viral in media with stars tweeting him for yelling at a reporter which happened all throughout the protests----becomes a 'leader' in Black Lives Matter from hundreds of black citizens who took to the streets-----Kwame backs Bernie controlling the Bernie movement in Baltimore and then very publicly endorses PUGH-----who all knew would promote Clinton.

Keep in mind----EVERYONE in Baltimore knows the fix is in and crony politics captures the city for decades----but they are going to SHAKE IT UP IN 2016!


Congressman Elijah Cummings endorses Senator Catherine Pugh for Mayor

WMAR Staff
5:54 PM, Apr 12, 2016
6:27 AM, Apr 13, 2016
Congressman Cummings endorses Senator Catherine Pugh for mayor of Baltimore

WMAR

After endorsing Hillary Clinton during her trip to Maryland over the weekend, congressman Elijah Cummings has made an endorsement in Baltimore's mayoral race. 
 
He's endorsed senator Catherine Pugh. 
Cummings says Pugh has passed a lot of meaningful legislation during her time as Senate Majority Leader and since she has already made such a difference across the state, she would make a great leader for Baltimore. 
 
"She's experienced. She's prepared. She's knowledgeable. And she's smart. And most of all, she knows how to get things done," Cummings said. "That to me is so important. We can talk, talk, talk, but the question is when all the dust settles, have you gotten things done? Have you made something? Have you made somebody's life better?"
 
Cummings also mentioned Pugh's ability to take the lead on three key issues plaguing Baltimore City - finding jobs for young people, education and public safety. 
 
"Catherine has even developed a plan to equip buses, which she calls mobile employment centers, to go into under-served neighborhoods and have employment experts match up people and their skills with existing available jobs," he said. "That's visionary. And that's leadership." 
 
The congressman discussed innovations Pugh introduced like the new Baltimore Design School and how she's looking to reduce the number of property crimes in the city. 
 
Pugh was leading the race according the most recent poll numbers, but former mayor Sheila Dixon was only a few points behind her. 
 
Copyright 2015 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

________________________________________

Bernie Sanders called Freddie Gray's community third world---the worst in the city was PUGH's and Cumming's district----FREDDIE GRAY'S COMMUNITY and it is.  Pugh was the Baltimore City Council and Maryland Assembly pols passing all the laws sending all funds downtown to global corporate campus Enterprise Zones and not community enterprise zones.  She is the one watching one Wall Street fraud after another target these communities---she is the one deregulating----dismantling oversight and accountability----tying global corporations in 'partnerships' to our city agencies including global VEOLA TRANSPORTATION and VEOLA WATER----the privatization of our public water and transit----all things hitting her constituents hardest.  Yet, this is who Kwame Rose sentimentally endorsed for mayor----as he stood on the podium with Bernie as a Black Lives Matter media leader.

WE CAN AND WILL FIX THIS-----FASCISM IS STRONG WHEN NO ONE KNOWS WHO IS ZOOMING WHOM?  THAT IS WHAT HAS BALTIMORE CAPTURED---AND IT IS FAR-RIGHT CORPORATE SOCIALISM.



Bill Clinton in Baltimore
  • Bill Clinton
  • Hillary Clinton
  • Catherine E. Pugh
Bill Clinton visited three Baltimore churches Sunday, speaking about Baltimore and his wife, Hillary Clinton, who appears on Tuesday's primary ballott as a Democratic candidate for president. Here, Clinton is joined by Sen. Catherine Pugh (center), a candidate for mayor, and Congressman Elijah Cummings (right).
Colin Campbell / Baltimore Sun

___________________________________________

Black Lives Matter would of course not be linked to Clinton-----through PUGH----


This article leaves out two major issues----first, Bernie voted for a first version of a crime bill that ended up looking very different when it came around for the second vote----the second vote he voted NO.  Second, Bill Clinton likes to allude to creating jobs during his terms but as we all know this was the beginning of the BUBBLE AS ECONOMY POLICY---this was the Tech Bubble that crashed to a recession as soon as he left office.  What everyone needs to remember is Clinton policies from NAFTA to global markets brought devastation to our cities and labor ---stagnant economies and high unemployment---so look beyond the immediate time in office.



Bill Clinton Says He Regrets Showdown With Black Lives Matter Protesters


By AMY CHOZICKAPRIL 8, 2016


Former President Bill Clinton had a heated exchange with a protester during a rally for Hillary Clinton on Thursday in Philadelphia. Credit Ed Hille/The Philadelphia Inquirer, via Associated Press
Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that he regretted drowning out the chants of black protesters at a rally in Philadelphia the day before, when he issued an aggressive defense of his administration’s impact on black families. His reaction thrust a debate about the 1990s into the center of his wife’s presidential campaign, one that has focused heavily on issues of race and criminal justice.
“I know those young people yesterday were just trying to get good television,” Mr. Clinton said Friday of the Black Lives Matter protesters who had accused him and Hillary Clinton of supporting policies that devastated black communities. “But that doesn’t mean that I was most effective in answering it.”
His statement did not quiet a raging storm of criticism. Still, it was a remarkable reversal for Mr. Clinton, who occupies a singular role in his wife’s campaign as a spouse and a popular former president who can sometimes make himself into a lightning rod. He has had to campaign for his wife in an era when signature policies of his administration have been repudiated both by Mrs. Clinton and her opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
None of those issues has been more central to the 2016 campaign than the 1994 crime bill, which created tougher penalties for nonviolent drug offenders, erected dozens of new prisons, banned certain types of assault weapons and sent 100,000 more police officers to American cities.
Today, Black Lives Matter protesters have pointed to the effects of that legislation as contributing to the high rates of incarceration of black men and the current tensions between police officers and black communities.
Both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders supported the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and have had to answer to Black Lives Matter protesters at their events. Both candidates will face tough questions on racial issues next week at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network annual convention, less than a week before the April 19 New York primary.
“I was painting crack houses saying, ‘Why isn’t anyone doing anything about it,’” Mr. Sharpton recalled of the 1990s. “But when that bill came out, we panicked because we felt it would go too far.”

At a convention of the N.A.A.C.P. last July, Mr. Clinton even conceded that the law he championed sent low-level criminals to prison “for way too long” and “made the problem worse.”
But on Thursday, when confronted with protesters over the issue, the former president refused to silently listen as a signature policy of his presidency was trampled upon.
“I don’t know how you would characterize gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack and sent them out on the street to murder other African-American children,” an animated Mr. Clinton said, waving a finger. “Maybe you thought they were good citizens. She didn’t,” he said of Mrs. Clinton.
The video and accounts of his remarks ignited a fierce backlash and came as Mrs. Clinton seeks to solidify the support of black voters, who have voted for her overwhelmingly in primary contests across the South and Midwest.
In her current campaign, Mrs. Clinton has been a fierce advocate of overhauling the criminal justice system, often campaigning alongside the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland and others who have lost children to gun violence or clashes with the police.
Last April, as protests were consuming Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo., after the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers, Mrs. Clinton devoted her first major policy speech to overturning key parts of the bill. “It’s time to end the era of mass incarceration,” she said.


Hillary Clinton being introduced by the Rev. Johnny Ray Youngblood on Sunday at Mount Pisgah Baptist Church in Brooklyn. Credit Victor J. Blue for The New York Times



On Sunday, she addressed three black churches in Brooklyn alongside Nicole Bell, the fiancée of Sean Bell, who was killed in a police shooting the morning of their wedding in 2006.
In both of Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaigns, Mr. Clinton has proved both her best asset and an occasional liability. He remains widely popular and Mrs. Clinton often talks about his economic achievements. “When he was president, 23 million new jobs, incomes went up for everybody, not just folks at the top,” she said on Sunday.
But other parts of Mr. Clinton’s record, including his support for global trade deals, deficit reduction and deregulation of Wall Street, have haunted Mrs. Clinton, as she confronts a challenge from the left.
And Mr. Clinton has, at times, been an unpredictable and disruptive presence on the campaign trail. He infuriated blacks in 2008 when, after Senator Barack Obama appeared poised for a landslide victory in South Carolina, Mr. Clinton reminded the news media that Jesse Jackson had won the state’s Democratic primary twice. He also called Mr. Obama’s position against the Iraq war “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”
This time, Mr. Clinton has a close relationship with Mrs. Clinton’s senior campaign aides and has mostly remained dutifully on message, but the incident on Thursday served as a reminder that he remains a volatile force.
His clash with black protesters on Thursday also underscored the drastically different political landscape Mrs. Clinton faces from the centrist wave that swept her husband to power.
When Mr. Clinton ran for president in 1992, crack cocaine was ravaging American cities and the Willie Horton ad that the elder George Bush had used in 1988 to portray Michael Dukakis as soft on crime had wounded the Democratic Party.

“You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter,” Mr. Clinton said Thursday to protesters who held up signs that read “Clinton Crime Bill Destroyed Our Communities” and “Black Youth Are Not Super Predators,” a reference to a term used by Mrs. Clinton in 1996 to describe gang members and which she has said she regretted using.
“Tell the truth,” Mr. Clinton told them.
His reaction prompted wide criticism online. “Bill Clinton Reached Peak White Mansplain in a Face-Off Against Black Lives Matter Protesters,” read a headline in Jezebel. Salon called his response “cringe worthy.”
“He just did to an entire generation what he did to Sister Souljah a generation ago,” Ben Jealous, a former president of the N.A.A.C.P. who is supporting Mr. Sanders, said in an interview, referring to Mr. Clinton’s forceful rebuttal of the activist and rapper in 1992 for remarks he deemed hateful.
By Friday, Mr. Clinton said, “I almost want to apologize.”
But Clinton allies said he should be putting into context his record and the landscape he confronted at the time.
In 1993, violent crime had more than tripled in the previous three decades and law enforcement had not caught up. By the time Mr. Clinton left office, crime had dropped to a 25-year low and the homicide rate had declined by more than 40 percent, according to F.B.I. data. Median family income for African-Americans increased by 33 percent in the Clinton years, according to census data, a statistic he often cites when facing criticism of the 1996 overhaul of the welfare system.
Representative James E. Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat and the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, voted for the 1994 crime bill. “There’s no question one of the biggest issues confronting the country at that time was the whole phenomenon of crack cocaine, which had precipitated tremendous anxiety through the African-American community,” Mr. Clyburn, who has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, said in an interview.
But others say that the crime bill and the welfare overhaul, which cut federal spending on assistance for the poor by nearly $55 billion over six years, were done for political expediency at a time when the Democratic Party had lost five out of the last seven presidential campaigns and had to shift to the center to survive.
“What Clinton did well was to stop the erosion of a certain class of Democratic voters who were fleeing to the Republicans,” said Nicholas Turner, president of the Vera Institute of Justice. “You can’t think about crime policy in this country at that time without thinking about the politics of it.”
As for Mr. Clinton’s defense of the crime bill, Mr. Turner said, “I think the correct answer was simply, ‘I was wrong.’”

__________________________________________
Bernie Sanders called Freddie Gray's community third world---the worst in the city was PUGH's and Cumming's district----FREDDIE GRAY'S COMMUNITY and it is. Pugh was the Baltimore City Council and Maryland Assembly pols passing all the laws sending all funds downtown to global corporate campus Enterprise Zones and not community enterprise zones. She is the one watching one Wall Street fraud after another target these communities---she is the one deregulating----dismantling oversight and accountability----tying global corporations in 'partnerships' to our city agencies including global VEOLA TRANSPORTATION and VEOLA WATER----the privatization of our public water and transit----all things hitting her constituents hardest. Yet, this is who Kwame Rose sentimentally endorsed for mayor----as he stood on the podium with Bernie as a Black Lives Matter media leader.
WE CAN AND WILL FIX THIS-----FASCISM IS STRONG WHEN NO ONE KNOWS WHO IS ZOOMING WHOM? THAT IS WHAT HAS BALTIMORE CAPTURED---AND IT IS FAR-RIGHT CORPORATE SOCIALISM.


Bill Clinton in Baltimore
  • Bill Clinton
  • Catherine E. Pugh
  • Hillary Clinton
Baltimore Sun----April 24, 2016Bill Clinton visited three Baltimore churches Sunday, speaking about Baltimore and his wife, Hillary Clinton, who appears on Tuesday's primary ballott as a Democratic candidate for president. Here, Clinton is joined by Sen. Catherine Pugh (center), a candidate for mayor, and Congressman Elijah Cummings (right).

There is a tie between black US leaders and African expansion of Clinton Wall Street global corporate neo-liberalism and as we see here-----black South Africans have been trying to get rid of Zuma for years. Wall Street Clinton neo-liberals have their NGOs and 'justice' non-profits in South Africa doing there what they do in US cities like Baltimore. Calm the riots and protests with temporary fixes as they continue to build the very, very, very far-right global corporate campus and global factory SOCIALISM. South Africa under Zuma has the same police brutality because International Economic Zones use militarized policing AS IN BALTIMORE---probably the same global policing and security training corporation.
White US citizens who think this is not about them---who may not care that people of color will be hit first hardest-----need to

WAKE UP-----GLOBAL CORPORATIONS SEE HUMAN CAPITAL NO MATTER THE RACE, SEX, OR CREED.


US black leaders are going to ZUMA's aid in quelling citizen protest as they are doing in the US cities----remember, a small percentage of US citizens from ALL population groups are recruited to do this---this is simply how it is working in the black communities. Brown, white communities all have the same 5% of citizens as Wall Street players posing progressive.  Where will that 5% be after this coming crash and installing US International Economic Zones by flooding Baltimore with immigrants from around the world---especially the administrators? They will be under the bus with those 'losers' as Wall Street likes to call good people following the rules.


ZUMA MUST GO! CORRUPTION AND NEO-LIBERALISM MUST GIVE WAY!


UNITED FRONT PRESS STATEMENT
10 February 2016


If President Zuma respected the people and Constitution of this country, he would use tomorrow’s State of the Nation Address to resign. As confirmed yet again by yesterday’s Constitutional Court hearing on the so-called “Nkandla security renovations”, he has repeatedly breached his obligation to the law and the Constitution. The United Front is extremely angry that President Zuma, the Minister of Safety and Security Nathi Nhleko and the National Assembly had the audacity to abuse their power and positions to defend and protect Zuma’s undue benefits from public expenditure on the so-called “Nkandla security renovations”. The UF condemns Zuma, Nhleko and the National Assembly for flagrantly breaching the law in order to defend Zuma’s ill-gotten wealth. This is willful lawlessness on the part of the President, the Cabinet and the National assembly.
As yesterday’s extraordinary Constitutional Court hearing heard, the President and the National Assembly now finally admit and accept the Constitution’s directive that the Public Protector’s findings are binding unless taken on judicial review, and that President Zuma had no legal right to ask the Minister Nhleko to determine whether he owed anything for the Nkandla renovations. For its part, the National Assembly violated the Constitution in its failure to hold President Zuma accountable on the Nkandla renovations.
All this confirms that Zuma must go.
He is simply unfit to be our President.
Zuma has not only unduly benefitted from public expenditure or undermined democratic checks and balances. He has also presided over the most naked and unashamed looting of state coffers by tenderpreneurs directly linked to him. His presidency has also seen the continuation of anti-poor and anti-worker neo-liberal economic policies that continue to produce unemployment and tie our economy to the interests and power of financial oligarchs. Indeed, Zuma and the ANC government must fall because they have spectacularly failed to provide for the people of the country and have mortgaged our future to the imperialist speculators, financial institutions and investment bankers and their funds.
To this end, the United Front calls on mass movements, trade unions, progressive churches and other religious bodies, youth, students, women, landless people and other progressive forces across the country to unite behind the call for Zuma to go. This must be part of a broader effort to mobilise for, and win democratic political reforms, end neo-liberal policies and win alternative economic policies that create sustainable jobs and transform the economy.

The president of the country must be directly elected by the people, Cabinet ministers must be elected by parliament, Parliament must be elected by a majority constituency based system and voters must have the right to recall their elected public representatives. These changes will put the power to elect a President, the most important single position in the country, directly into the hands of the people. The president, regardless of, until now exclusively “his”, dominance over the political party will not matter as he would be directly accountable to the populace. It would also ensure that Members of Parliament would be directly accountable to and subject to recall by the people from the area that voted the MP into parliament. In addition to appointing Ministers, MPs would be directly accountable for voting for or against economic interests of the specific community that elected them.

________________________________________
A 'justice' march through the third world district with the incumbent pols having made that district third world the day before the Democratic primary election all planned to promote these candidates.    All of this happening as Baltimore citizens are heading to primary polls with PUGH and Dixon----two top Wall Street Baltimore Development candidates being highlighted as feeling the pain of these crumbling communities.

---'The two front-runners for mayor, Catherine E. Pugh and Sheila Dixon, each arrived with an entourage, causing a rush of TV cameras. Red-shirted Dixon volunteers seemed to be everywhere'.




Politicsby Fern Shen8:00 amApr 25, 2016


A policeman, a pastor and a publicist script a unity march in West Baltimore

The imagery at a Freddie Gray commemoration march is carefully controlled on the eve of the Baltimore primary
Above: Mayoral candidates Catherine Pugh and Sheila Dixon stand on either side of Pastor Jamal Bryant at yesterday’s march. (Louie Krauss)
A year ago – carrying homemade signs and with faces raw with emotion – people poured into the streets of West Baltimore for what felt like spontaneous protests over the fatal arrest of one of their own.
Yesterday the crowd that assembled for a “Unity March” in remembrance of Freddie Gray appeared to be organized by a top-ranking police official, a megachurch pastor and a publicist from Bowie carrying a leopard print handbag.
“Young ladies can you move over there? If you’re not media, would you move over there?” Lt. Col. Melvin Russell told a group of young women in the midst of a scrum of reporters, political candidates, campaign handlers and onlookers.
Russell explained that Pastor Jamal H. Bryant, organizer of the event, wanted young people prominently displayed at the media staging spot at the intersection of Pennsylvania and North avenues.
Lt. Col. Melvin Russell directs the crowd at Sunday’s Unity March at Penn-North. (Louie Krauss)
“Jamal wants everybody behind him. They want you guys on cameras so we can get started. Nobody’s going to see you if you’re back here,” Russell told them, eliciting some arched eyebrows.
“Hey, I’m just relaying a message from the pastor,” Russell said with a shrug.
“All of you who are over 18 and potty-trained, head over there,” another organizer said.


Actors and Politicians


Held on the weekend before both the 2016 mayoral primary election and the anniversary of the Freddie Gray protests and riot, the march mingled many agendas and brought out a bevy of big names from Baltimore and beyond.

Empowerment Temple publicist Nicole Kirby directs marchers with the flourish of a symphony conductor. (Louie Krauss)
“The Wire” actress and activist Sonja Sohn was there, a film crew tagging behind her. So was former NAACP president and CEO Benjamin Jealous.
The two front-runners for mayor, Catherine E. Pugh and Sheila Dixon, each arrived with an entourage, causing a rush of TV cameras. Red-shirted Dixon volunteers seemed to be everywhere.

Buttonholing Pugh, Sandtown resident Leona Berry-Bova told her that people need help with basic education and skills. “People up in here need to learn to read and write or they’re never going to get anywhere,” Berry-Bova said.
“I developed a lot of programs around literacy. Let’s talk about that some time,” Pugh told her, turning away as actor Danny Glover appeared on the scene.
Berry-Bova told a reporter that she is a Dixon fan, but wanted to give Pugh a chance. “I been with Ms. Dixon from the age of 14 and I’m 44 now,” Berry-Bova said. “I’m living in one of the houses she gave me and my sister.”
Actor Danny Glover addresses the crowd at Penn-North. (Louie Krauss)
Other mayoral candidates were spotted as well, mostly on the fringes of the crowd. Among them Democratic mayoral candidates Carl Stokes and Patrick Gutierrez and Green Party candidate Joshua Harris with a dog on a leash.
“This is not a march against anything. It is a march for unity, it is a march for peace,” Pastor Bryant told the crowd.
Glover also addressed the crowd, at one point offering the Martin Luther King quote, “Peace is not simply the absence of tension, but the presence of justice.” He was standing in front of the CVS drugstore that had been looted and set ablaze during the April 27, 2015 civil unrest and has since been rebuilt.
Pumped up by a Publicist

Eventually, it was time for the march to start. Taking charge was Nicole Kirby, the publicist at Bryant’s Empowerment Temple in Northwest Baltimore.
She positioned Pugh and Dixon on either side of Pastor Bryant, and the phalanx of VIPs began moving forward.

Adroitly, she stopped their advance so that the gaggle of photographers could get footage and photos. It was as if someone had hit the “pause” button. After weeks of rancorous campaigning against each other, Pugh and Dixon stood uneasily nearly side-by-side as their images were captured.
Along the march route, Malik Creighton, 6, leaps into the arms of his brother Brian Rice, 14. (Louie Krauss)
Then Kirby commenced the march. She positioned herself at the front of the line where the young people had been assembled. She led them in the chant (“One Baltimore! One vision!”) and demonstrated the excitement she wanted them to show, shooting her fist in the air and po-going up and down at one point.
Motorcycle-mounted police led the crowd of several hundred people along West North Avenue toward their eventual destination – Bryant’s “Freddie Gray Empowerment Center” on Eutaw Place, a resource for young people.
Burning stick uplifted, a masked woman walks down North Avenue as part of yesterday’s “Unity March” in remembrance of Freddie Gray. (Louie Krauss)
Walking along in the crowd – and running at one point to get to the front – was U.S. Senate candidate Chris Van Hollen.
Also weaving through the crowd was an aroma that many assumed to be marijuana.
The source? A young woman who eventually donned an “Anonymous” mask she was carrying. Whether it was a blunt the size of a polish sausage, or simply a smudge stick, she was waving it around as if it were ceremonial incense.




_____________________________________________

If you know that Empowerment Temple is a chain mega-church found in US cities tied often to being US International Economic Zones----and always seem to be the ones playing with the Wall Street Development Corporations in those cities----you see the capture for black citizens and voters. This is the Clinton capture of black churches----in Baltimore, Jamal Bryant's church is central to what will become the most wealthy city center community along Eutaw Street---so he knows none of the folks in those communities will be there in a decade. Below you see a PUBLICIST for Empowerment Temple taking photos of the most Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal candidates for Mayor of Baltimore walking for Freddie Gray. This publicist is from Prince George's County----Maryland's second US International Economic Zone with the same conditions and same global corporate campus/global factory goals. I liked how someone pointed to this publicist's LEOPARD-SKIN HANDBAG.

Remember, Jamal Bryant is the feeling the BERN member surrounded by the most Clinton of Wall Street neo-liberals in this Mayoral race.


Empowerment Temple Ministries


1314 Fairlawn Ave Toledo, Ohio 43607


About
Empowerment Temple Ministries is located at the address 1314 Fairlawn Ave in Toledo, Ohio 43607. They can be contacted via phone at (419) 531-1459 for pricing, hours and directions.

Empowerment Temple Ministries has an annual sales volume of 501K - 999,999. .

Empowerment Temple Ministries provides Confirmation, Reconciliation Counseling, Christian Counseling to it's customers. For maps and directions to Empowerment Temple Ministries view the map to the right. For reviews of Empowerment Temple Ministries see below.

*****************************************************************************
'Pumped up by a Publicist

Eventually, it was time for the march to start. Taking charge was Nicole Kirby, the publicist at Bryant’s Empowerment Temple in Northwest Baltimore.

She positioned Pugh and Dixon on either side of Pastor Bryant, and the phalanx of VIPs began moving forward'.

_______________________________________________
'What are White Collar Sweatshops'?

US citizens are so tied to the long history of first world nation and having personal wealth they are not thinking these US International Economic Zones are going to take them to third world labor standards---they may not be toiling in global factory sweat shops---but they will and are now toiling. Developing nations have professional employees paid third world wages---what in the US is far below current minimum wage. That is why developing nation professional are trying hard to be part of our US International Economic Zones----more money by their standards---
A global UnderArmour campus will have white collar jobs as well as global factories and both will be SWEATSHOP LABOR---white collar US workers WILL work as they do overseas---professional or not. Very, very few people move up this economic ladder because you are competing with everyone in the world---global workforce willing to work for next to nothing to have a job.
Citizens in US International Economic Zone cities like BAltimore need to WAKE UP----those jobs brought for high-skilled workers will pay third world wages. They may be a step up from global factory workers in having better work environments---but they will be SWEAT SHOP WORKERS.


 Those foreign high-skilled workers being brought to the US as cheaper labor for global corporations like Google and Apple will, if Trans Pacific Trade Pact is installed---then be working as if they were still in China or India taking US workers with them.



What are White Collar Sweatshops?

White collar sweatshops are characterized as high-stress environments that overwork employees and offer no job security.




The banking, communications and technology industries are considered to have jobs that are part of "white collar sweatshops."
White collar sweatshops received their name from the low paid, work-intensive environment of sweatshops.
Corporate buyouts and hostile takeovers often contribute to overwork in white collar jobs.


White collar sweatshops are office jobs that feature overwork, underpay, too much stress, and not enough security for their workers. They are based on the combined idea of the anxiety, rigor, and job cuts of blue collar jobs, and the frantic work days and low pay of sweatshops. The term was popularized by Jill Andresky Fraser in her 2001 book White Collar Sweatshops: The Deterioration of Work and its Rewards in Corporate America.
Andresky shows that shrinking benefits packages, hostile takeovers, mergers, contingency workers, corporate buyouts, longer work days, and cost cutting all contributed to the emergence of an overworked workforce. She cites Citigroup, Disney, and IBM as examples of white collar sweatshops, and blames many federal regulatory changes for these transformations among the upper working class at many places.
With the rise of competitive big-money corporations has come an increase in competition over jobs and salary. This has led to an increased workload by employees unsure of their job security. Not knowing where their future within a corporation may lie, white collar sweat shop workers find themselves pulling longer days, more weekends, and harder shifts. They reduce break times, increase productivity, and continue working from laptops well after shifts are over.

This competitive increase of work-related duties, coupled with a decrease of free time, sleep, or family time, leads to a high stress level at white collar sweatshops. This stress takes its toll on mental and physical health, making the increased duties even more difficult to carry out for many employees. According to the author, more Americans are working between 49 and 60 hours per week than ever before, and the rise of beepers, cell phones, and laptops has increased the anxiety of the work day more than ever before.
The banking, communications, and high technology industries are especially susceptible to white collar sweatshops. Industries such as these often feature high turnover, and stress-inducing ratings, rankings, and statistics. The economic boom of the 1990s, according to the author, skipped the white collar employees that run these industries, and went straight to the top of the companies. Perks and bonuses were sacrificed by the white collar sweatshops worker, while stalemated salaries and entry-level wages became the norm.
Fraser, a financial reporter, blamed the emergence of white collar sweatshops on 24-on-call weeks, shrinking pension plans, and the ability of a boss to access an employee anytime through e-mail. She cites employee-unfriendly situations and bosses at Intel, and says that the culture of the white collar job has changed unalterably in an age of big money and big business. The change has led to the white collar sweatshops and the stress, risks, and insecurity that accompanies them.
________________________________________________
You can really tell Bernie cares and wants a left-leaning social Democratic Revolution----his rhetoric is strong and revolutionary---he shouts TRUTH TO POWER and does not mince words about it----the Clinton controlled DNC sent a message to Bernie to tone it down as they are sure Hillary is going to win and feels it will be hard for Bernie to back Hillary with that kind of language.

No one knows motives----I feel he ran as a Democrat knowing third parties would get NO media or event exposure---and they do not----and in signing on as a Democrat had to work with the DNC----ergo, he had to make a commitment to back Hillary if he lost. I don't see him losing---and I do not see him actively engaged in campaigning for Hillary. He will say Trump must be stopped---but Trump and Hillary are the same far-right, autocratic, global wealth and corporate power candidates---Hillary would be Trump. The only worry for the 1% in Trump is the international stage.

Sanders at Baltimore Rally Draws Contrasts with Clinton
April 23, 2016


BALTIMORE – More than 6,600 supporters cheered U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday as he continued to draw distinctions with rival Hillary Clinton ahead of next Tuesday’s round of presidential primary contests in five Northeast and mid-Atlantic states.
Maryland Democrats go to the polls on Tuesday along with voters in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Sanders was headed to rallies in Delaware later Saturday and in Rhode Island on Sunday.
“All of you are enormously powerful people if you choose to exercise that right,” Sanders told the rally at Royal Farms Arena. “Our job is to tell the establishment that the status quo is not acceptable.”
All of you are enormously powerful people if you choose to exercise that right. Our job is to tell the establishment that the status quo is not acceptable.- Sen. SandersHe spelled out clear differences between his record and Clinton’s on campaign funding, foreign policy and war, the minimum wage, Wall Street reform, climate change, college affordability, retirement security and other critical issues.
Sanders contrasted his grassroots campaign, which is supported by more than 7 million donations averaging about $27 apiece, to Hillary Clinton’s campaign bankrolled by high-dollar donors to her White House campaign and to her super PACs, which have taken more than $25 million from Wall Street and other special interests.
Sanders was introduced by the civil rights activist and actor Danny Glover and by Benjamin Jealous, the former head of the NAACP.
In an interview taped earlier Saturday for the NBC News program “Meet the Press,” Sanders was asked about his differences and similarities with Clinton.
“I think there is a lot that unites us. I think there is a lot that divides us. I think the fact that all of us are in agreement that Donald Trump would be a disaster for this country if he became president unites us. The fact that we understand, for example, that climate change is real while our Republican opponents ignore that reality unites us,” Sanders told Chuck Todd.
“On the other hand, I think what divides us is the understanding on the part of millions of people who are supporting my candidacy that it really is too late for establishment politics and establishment economics. We have to deal in very substantive way with income and wealth inequality. We need to understand that we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people, not to provide paid family and medical leave. We have to deal aggressively with a corrupt campaign finance system which allows big- money interests to buy elections. Those are areas I think of difference,” Sanders said.
The full interview airs Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”




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April 23rd, 2016

4/23/2016

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I will finish with housing policy this week by looking at costs of maintaining our houses once we have them.  If we are going to rebuild each community with hundreds of thousands of new homeowners we need policy that protects citizens.  Maryland has no oversight and accountability---it has no public justice in that State's Attorneys only become involved AFTER LARGE AMOUNTS OF FRAUD HAVE OCCURRED.  Therefore, most citizens in Baltimore are fearful every time they have to call for repairs---from contractor fraud to homeowner insurance fraud.  Seriously, people try hard to find an honest contractor and those few are loaded with consumers.   So, we must grow our small business home repair contractors WHILE BUILDING OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY ----it is critical not only for the consumer but as this article says---the contractor industry is harmed by all this fraud.


Baltimore should have plenty of thriving home repair contracting businesses in each community but if conservative voters keep saying they want no regulations or oversight we will simply grow that industry in our communities and all the fraud will grow.  A Mayor of Baltimore who really wants to grow home-ownership and new citizens as residents goes beyond just getting them into a house----they provide consumer protections from home insurance corporations playing with paying out claims and contractor fraud.  Baltimore's courts are bias towards businesses and will rule against these home-owners in most cases BECAUSE----THE CONTRACTORS ARE BEING ALLOWED TO WRITE SUCH VAGUE CONTRACTS FILLED WITH LOOPHOLES that will allow them to escape accountability.  People made desperate to find a home repair person are held captive to predatory business practices YET AGAIN.

A CITY HALL THAT REVIEWS CONTRACTOR AGREEMENTS FOR SOUND LEGAL PROTECTIONS FOR CONSUMERS----A CITY HALL THAT HAS A FUNCTIONING PERMIT AND CONTRACTOR INSPECTION DEPARTMENT----A CITY HALL THAT HAS PUBLIC JUSTICE DEFENSE THAT WILL TAKE ALL CASES THAT ARE VALID-------

This is a must as we rebuild each community and grow the number of mixed-income home-owners.


Avoiding Fraudulent Contractors

by Marcus Pickett
See if We Have Top-Rated
Home Improvement Contractors in Your Area

Fraudulent contractors are a blight on the contractor industry. Unfortunately, home improvement lends itself to contractor scams and fraud. To protect yourself from these unscrupulous members of the building community (most contractors are honest, upstanding members of society), there are several practices to look out for and several steps you can take to ensure you don't become a victim.


Get an Honest Referral


Your best bet when it comes to avoiding fraudulent contractors is to go through the proper channels. Sure, you might get cheaper rates from a door-to-door salesman or someone recommended by a stranger, but you should never go with the cheapest price you can find. In fact, dramatically cheaper prices may indicate contractor fraud is present in one form or another. Using HomeAdvisor, or a trusted friend's recommendation, is the best way to get a contractor you can trust. Doing so will save you bundles of money in the end, especially if your cheap alternative ends up taking you for a ride.


Watch Out for "Travelers"


The most common contractor fraud involves "travelers" that go door-to-door soliciting work they never plan to provide. Be it roofing or remodeling, these scam artists posing as contractors offer cut rate prices with a sales pitch that often includes reduced prices due to left over supplies from a job purportedly done in the area. The best way to avoid being a victim of this scam is to hit the phone book. Don't accept offers from any door-to-door salesmen, ever. Instead call at least three reputable contractors in your directory to get bids on your job. If they post a listing in the yellow pages, at the very least you'll know where to find them, and where to send your lawyers, if something goes wrong along the way.
The Best and the Worst Online Information
On the other hand, don't confuse an address listed online as foolproof evidence that a contractor isn't a "traveler." Some online websites, who lack the infrastructure to check information for accuracy, may publish an address from anybody who can type. Just as fraudulent contractors give reputable companies a bad name, this fraudulent online information gives reputable companies, like HomeAdvisor, a bad name. As the leading online resource connecting homeowners to home improvement contractors, you can trust that each and every contractor in our database has been put through a rigorous ten-step screening process. Our ratings and reviews are compiled exclusively from homeowners who actually completed a service request through our system.


Avoid Fraudulent Contractors by Never Paying Cash Up Front


An easy way to spot contractor fraud is the payment schedule. A reputable contractor will never ask for cash, and will never require that the entire job be paid "up front." If a contractor asks for such provisions, your red flag should go up immediately. A good contractor rarely seeks payment until the job is done. Anyone who asks otherwise is probably looking to take your money and run. It's a tried and true tactic of fraudulent contractors, especially the aforementioned "travelers."


Building Permits and Contractor Fraud


Another way to spot a contractor who doesn't know the business is if they ask you to obtain and pay for your own building permits. A good contractor should do all this work themselves. It's part of what you're paying them for. If they ask you to do permit legwork yourself, it's time to sever your ties and look for somebody who is willing to do the job you're paying them for.



Other Protective Measures


  • Read and understand every word of a contract before signing. If you don't understand something, ask for clarification. If you don't get clarification, hire the job out to someone else.



  • Never sign a contract with a service professional who makes promises that sound too good to be true. Chances are they need to create these incentives to attract customers for a reason.



  • Be wary of contractors who try to scare you into signing for repairs that they say are urgent. Before agreeing to any additional costly repairs, seek other opinions.


Victims of Contractor Fraud


If you think you've been taken advantage of by contractor fraud, take steps immediately to remedy the situation. Talk to a lawyer first, to get an idea of what you need to do to get compensated, and be sure to report the offending party to the Better Business Bureau and the authorities. Fraudulent contractors give a bad name to contractors everywhere. Making sure that nobody else falls victim to their scams is the best way to ensure the greater community doesn't suffer from the same dishonest practices, as well.

Avoid Fraud, but Respect Reputable Contractor Practices
As much as reputable contractors shouldn't ask for payment upfront or in cash, they do some way to protect their own financial liability. Smaller, independently-owned contractors offer some of the best rates because they don't have large overheads or price-gouge. Yet, these same practices can put their business in jeopardy by a string of homeowners who refuse payment for a job well done. Some of these contractors may opt to take a lien out on your property, especially if you can't provide assurances that payment is forthcoming. Contractors, who protect their business, are also protecting you, the customer, by affording them the security to offer the best bids possible.

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Of course all of what does not happen in Baltimore as regards consumer protections for home-owners is in another QUASI-GOVERNMENTAL organization that should be part of our Baltimore Housing Agency------THE HOUSING AUTHORITY.

If you are going to inject all kinds of frauds into how real estate moves in the city, rig the bidding process for housing needs, and if you are going to have contracting businesses operating wanting to get away with predatory building or evasion of zoning and property maintenance laws----you create a quasi-governmental agency and then say there is NO TRANSPARENCY because it is a corporate entity.  This is how Baltimore has operated for decades or longer and this is the #1 issue for expanding home-ownership and having new owners feel they are empowered and able to grow equity over a long term living in our Baltimore communities.

If a candidate is working under the Baltimore Development Master Plan of only rebuilding HEALTHY communities-----ie. city center----then they are not going to end the quasi-status of these agencies because they do not intend to build mixed-income housing into what is slated as only affluent development.  If a candidate does not talk about taking global corporations out of Baltimore City agencies then they are not going to fix this quasi-status because they were created by Baltimore Development Corporation just so more wealth could be extracted from Baltimore citizens.  That is why a candidate who is establishment---tied to Baltimore Development campaigns to make these changes and then never does.

BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION CREATED THESE QUASI-AGENCIES JUST TO BE PREDATORY.  A POL WORKING FOR BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT PASSES LAWS TO ALLOW THAT.


When you have a city council President like Jack Young bound to an inch of his life to Wall Street Baltimore Development----he will make sure policy to reform this housing agency does not get through. Cindy Walsh for Mayor of Baltimore will take it to the communities and pressure city council to DO THE RIGHT THING.


Baltimore Housing Authority


  • Code Enforcement Legal SectionThe primary responsibility for enforcing the zoning, building and related codes of Baltimore City lies with the Housing Inspections Services Division of HCD. When violators fail to comply voluntarily with the notices issued by those inspectors, the matter is referred to the Housing Inspection Services Division's Legal…
    Tags: Code Enforcement Legal Section
  • HCVP Property RegulationsThe Housing Authority of Baltimore City Administrative Plan for the Housing Choice Voucher Program generally requires that all participating property owners comply with Federal, State and Local law and regulations. Property owners with rental properties constructed prior to 1950 must register with the Maryland Department of the Environment Rental Property Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. Additionally, all non-owner occupied Property Owners in the City…
    Tags: HCVP Property Regulations
  • Homeownership -Policies and ProceduresBuyers Cash Requirements Borrower must contribute a minimum of $1,000 from their savings. One-on-One Homeownership Counseling Requirement In order to secure funding from any of our Homeownership programs, the borrower must receive One-on-One Homeownership Counseling from a City-approved counseling agency. The borrower must also secure a Homeownership Counseling Certificate prior to executing a sales contract. …
    Tags: Homeownership -Policies and Procedures
  • Homeownershipo -Federal Mortgage Programs and Homeownership AssistanceThe Office of Homeownership established a new program designed to assist first time home buyers. The program, the Community Development Block Grant Program, can give qualified first time home buyer $5,000 toward down payment and settlement expenses. Who is eligible? …
    Tags: Federal Mortgage Programs and Homeownership Assistance
  • NSP Contracting OpportunitiesGeneral Contractor St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center seeks qualified general contractors to bid on a 6-house rehab project in Baltimore City. Interested parties should contact Carolyn Fischer at 410-366-8550, ext.267 or Carolynf@stambros.org for bidding…
  • Fiscal OperationsIt is the mission of the Division of Fiscal Operations to support the operation of Baltimore Housing (HABC and DHCD) through strategic allocation of resources, accurate and timely reporting of accounting transactions, safeguarding of Agency's assets, procurement of goods and services, and sound management for the long-term sustainability of Baltimore's housing…
    Tags: Fiscal Operations
  • Quicktrac Permitting -2Quicktrac: Cancel an Inspection Call 443-984-2776. Press [2] then... A) Enter permit type See instructions under Schedule an Inspection B) Enter permit number (begin with year). The permit number can be found at the top right of your permit. C) Enter four-digit inspection code Refer to the inspection code list for a list of four-digit codes. Enter…
    Tags: Quicktrac Permitting
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This agency was created in 2005 no doubt in the height of the subprime mortgage fraud, for-profit education fraud, pension fraud,  Enterprise Zone as global corporate campus misappropriation of funds.  It was O'Malley no doubt POSING PROGRESSIVE in wanting to protect against fraud when Baltimore was ground zero as worst in the nation in all these categories.  CITY STAT would of course tie nicely to the enforcement by OIG if OIG wanted to enforce any oversight and accountability.  As all Baltimore citizens know tens of billions of dollars were lost to the city from fraud and government corruption after this agency was created.

This agency MUST WORK as we rebuild each community with housing and small business economies that are HEALTHY AND STABLE.

This was created by executive order meaning I suppose it is not in the Baltimore City Charter and it should be.  Why would a Baltimore City Council not want to approve this city charter addition?


This is the agency that works hand-in-hand with the Baltimore Housing agency and HOLDS that agency accountable to corruption.  None of this works now----and it will under Cindy Walsh for Mayor of Baltimore.  This should be a strong agency staffed with employees wanting to work for citizens and consumers.

Welcome to the City of Baltimore Office of Inspector General (OIG)

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) was created as an oversight authority that could effectively investigate at all levels of City government, while remaining autonomous, independent and insulated from political influences.
The scope of authority and powers of inquiry vested in the OIG are, by necessity, quite broad. These include conducting objective and independent audits, reviews and investigations relating to Baltimore City Government and, in some cases, those who do business with the City, in order to:
  • promote economy, efficiency and effectiveness,
  • detect and deter fraud, waste and abuse, and
  • promote ethical, fiscal and legal accountability.
The citizens of Baltimore have a right to expect that City government will operate with maximum efficiency, accountability, and integrity.  The OIG is uniquely positioned to serve as a major contributor in the effort to build and maintain an increased level of public trust in City government and to assist the City in achieving better results with limited resources. The OIG is committed to working toward an open, honest, and accountable government. 
Accordingly, this website is designed to educate you about the OIG - to let you know who we are, what we do, and how you can contact us. Together, we can work to make the Baltimore City government truly an entity that does the most good for all of its residents and employees.
Lastly, I am mindful that our efforts could not be successful without the support and assistance of the overwhelming majority of City employees who do their jobs honestly and effectively everyday and the ever vigilant public who bring forward their concerns and observations in carrying out the mission of the OIG.
-Robert H. Pearre, Jr., Inspector General


Mission


The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the City of Baltimore was authorized by Executive Order which was signed by the Mayor on July 27, 2005.

The Mission of the Office of Inspector General is to promote accountability, efficiency, and integrity in City government. Investigating complaints of fraud, waste, and abuse is one way we carry out our mission. The Office of Inspector General will consider all complaints of fraud, waste and abuse involving:
  • Any City employee;
  • Any municipal officer, including all of the following:
    • heads of City departments
    • agencies
    • bureaus
    • and all persons exercising comparable authority
  • Any member of a City board or commission;
  • Any individual, organization, or business receiving City-granted funds or other benefits, including, but not limited to, loans, grants, tax credits, below market rate property transfers, tax increment financing, payment in lieu of taxes, or other City subsidies of any kind;
  • Any individual, organization, or business providing goods or services to the City pursuant to a City contract; or
  • Any individual, organization, or business seeking certification of eligibility to provide goods or services to the City pursuant to a contract.
The Executive Order states that all municipal officers and City employees shall promptly provide to the Inspector General any information, document, report, record, account, or other material requested by the Inspector General in connection with any formal investigation.
The Inspector General may, with the approval of the City Solicitor, issue a subpoena, to require any person to appear under oath as a witness; or require the production of any information, document, report, record, account, or other material. The Inspector General may enforce any subpoena issued in any court of competent jurisdiction.
________________________________________

Citizens in Baltimore are having problems from roofing to water damage-----builders adding additions to houses that insurance corporations then deny claims because no housing inspector signed off to this construction.  All across the nation we are hearing these same reports----homeowner insurance corporations are simply denying what should have been covered.  So, it is a double-whammy when you have building contractors defrauding during the building process and then homeowner insurance denying legitimate claims.  

Below you see where both take the homeowner------we are made responsible for taking all this to court----lawyer's fees----and as I said in Baltimore courts almost always side against the consumer.  All the while Baltimore City agencies tasked with oversight and accountability and an OIG agency tasked with finding fraud does NOTHING.


You can imagine the hardship for working class and some middle-class homeowners already stressed because of stagnant economic policy.

What to Do if Homeowner's Insurance Is Denied After a Claim?

By Desdemona Delacroix

The whole point of having insurance is so you won't have to pay out-of-pocket expenses to repair or replace any damages that occur to your house in the event of an accident or a severe weather event. Read the fine print on your policy carefully, and if you believe you're homeowner claim has been unfairly denied, there are steps you can take to fight it.

Send a Letter to the Insurance Company
  • Prepare a letter to your insurance agent. You'll want to type the letter in a formal business format. Begin the letter by stating who you are and explaining the homeowner claim. Also, explain that you believe a mistake has been made, that you believe your claim is justified and that you would like your claim reviewed again. In the third paragraph, ask to be provided with the name and contact information for the person who reviewed your original claim, and ask for copies of the files that were used to make a decision on your claim. You want to review the claim using exactly the same documentation they did to ensure everything is accurate. Finally, close the letter by thanking your insurance agent for cooperating, but let him know you will follow up, if necessary.
Formally Appeal the Decision
  • If your insurance agent receives your letter and still insists your claim is invalid, you can formally appeal his decision. Contact your insurance company to ask how their appeals process works. Each insurance company will have its own way of carrying out an appeal, but it usually involves a formal investigation by the insurance company. You'll be informed of the company's decision once the investigation is complete.
Hire a Lawyer
  • If your claim is still denied by the insurance company after your appeal, you can seek legal counsel to help you go over your policy. A lawyer can help you sift through any confusing language to see whether your claim should have been covered or not, and they'll often conduct their own investigation into your policy.
Sue the Insurance Company
  • Take the insurance company to court. If your lawyer can prove your claim was wrongfully denied, which is known as a "bad faith" insurance claim, you can sue the company to get your damages covered. And if you are forced to take an insurance company to court and you win the case, you may be entitled to additional money above and beyond your homeowner claim costs. Things like emotional stress, lost wages for missing work to handle the situation and any other losses you suffered because of the denied claim can be compensated in court.
Sponsored Links
Maryland Home Insurance


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I have talked for years about the homeowner and utility costs rising so I will not do so now other than to say ----when you allow only monopoly corporations control utilities as is the case in Baltimore---consumers will be soaked.  I am trying to figure out how to solve a WIFI problem in my community I know is caused by Johns Hopkins and its growing hold on high-speed internet capacity.  I have not been able to open video streaming on WiFi after having done so for years.  So, who do I call?  Forget 311-----they will say that is a private corporation----call Comcast and will they say----sorry, we are redirecting bulk high-speed internet capacity to Johns Hopkins?  Of course not.  There will be nothing I or others can do as this occurs more and more widely.

Baltimore is controlled by one telecommunications in high-speed---that is Comcast also known as the worst in customer service.  Even if we added Verizon---they would do the same.  The answer would be to have a functioning Maryland Public Service Commission----only a Baltimore branch......A BALTIMORE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION.  Currently Maryland's MPSC only works to protect corporate wealth but a Baltimore branch could be consumer oriented as it should be -----

THAT IS TO WHOM CONSUMERS WOULD CALL FOR THESE UTILITY PROBLEMS----EVEN WITH WATER IF CITY HALL DOES NOT RESPOND.

The costs of utilities in US International Economic Zones like Baltimore are all going to soar and this will be a tool to move a city from middle-working class and poor----to being for only the rich.  All of these issue decide whether an individual or family can be a homeowner in Baltimore ----AND IT IS CRITICAL FOLKS.


Comcast fails again: Customers are being renamed with expletives
By Mike Flacy -- February 7, 2015

In yet another public relations disaster related to Comcast’s dismal control over customer service representatives, 63-year-old Mary Bauer recently told WGN News that she received a Comcast bill in the mail in which her name was changed to “Super Bitch Bauer.” According to the details of the story, Bauer previously had poor service with her Comcast connection and more than 39 technicians showed up to help her fix the connection over a six month period.
She also had to request her bill from Comcast, which had stopped sending the bill over a four month period. Speaking about that process, Bauer said “I was nice enough to call them to ask how much I owe. I was little hot and a little angry because I never got good service.”
She claims that she didn’t treat the customer service representative with disrespect though, either with expletives or rude name calling. When asked about the name change on her bill, Bauer said “This is a disgrace to me. Why are they doing this to me? I pay my bills. I do not deserve this.”
A Comcast representative told WGN News that the incident was being investigated, but it’s not clear why Comcast didn’t rectify the situation after previous incidents. During late January 2015, Ricardo and Lisa Brown of Washington received a Comcast bill that had the name “Asshole Brown” on it. During the last verbal interaction with Comcast, the Browns had successfully downgraded their service package to Internet-only after speaking with an employee in the retention department.
After this incident, Comcast PR released a statement which read “We have apologized to our customer for this unacceptable situation and addressed it directly with the employee who will no longer be working on behalf of Comcast.  We’re also looking at a number of technical solutions that would prevent it from happening moving forward. We are working with our customer to make this right and will take appropriate steps to prevent this from happening again.”
According to consumer advocate Chris Elliot, other customers have also suffered similar indignities. One woman had the name on her bill changed to “Whore Julia” and another customer had her online account renamed to “dummy.” Basically, when she would log into her online account to give Comcast money for service, she would be greeted by “Hello, dummy’ each time.
Of course, this is only another in a string of horrible customer service experiences that have been brought to light over the last few years due to information sharing on YouTube, blogs and other areas of the Internet. During December 2014, a Reddit user recorded calls of Comcast reps pushing him around.
During August 2014, a customer was abandoned on hold for three hours until the store closed. During July 2014, journalist Ryan Block recorded a painful 8-minute call of himself attempting to cancel his service with Comcast while the retention rep refusing to do so without Block providing a reason for cancellation.



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April 22nd, 2016

4/22/2016

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Just as Baltimore City Hall has created this huge injustice in corporate tax subsidy and tax breaks for wealthy corporations---it has now moved to use tax code to extend that targeted tax break to what are called MARKET-BASED housing.  If a city has already artificially inflated the market price of housing in certain areas it has as well created that artificial zone for market-rate housing tax credits.

Baltimore does this because Baltimore's Maryland Assembly pols passed laws that PRETEND all these groups of taxes can ignore TAX UNIFORMITY LAWS and they cannot.  This of course hits the same developer/building corporations that built corporate campuses that now are moving to build multi-family homes ---remember, these are apartment buildings and not individual homeowner/landlords.  This promotes the very kind of development with the very kind of development corporation we do not want.  Yesterday's example of luxury college housing would qualify for these tax credits.

Now Baltimore pols are telling us we will extend corporate tax breaks from corporate building to residential building complexes.  Baltimore City Department of Planning is Johns Hopkins and Hopkins happens to be heavily invested in global construction corporations.

Baltimore Development writes these laws----Maryland Assembly and Baltimore City pols pass them---and this is the ongoing inequity even as these same Baltimore Development Wall Street players run for office shouting----AFFORDABLE HOUSING----AFFORDABLE HOUSING---


Everyone in Baltimore knows the only REAL tax policy around housing is REDUCING property taxes for all homeowners and that is only done with a Mayor of Baltimore that will revisit all these bond deals and Wall Street financial instruments tied to our taxes.


Housing Policy Watch
Working to ensure fair and healthy housing for all Marylanders.
April 21, 2014


City to Offer Tax Credit for Market-Rate Housing



I received this missive today from Thomas Stosur, Director of Baltimore City’s Department of Planning:
RE: CITY COUNCIL BILL #14-0359 / TAX CREDITS – CITYWIDE HIGH-PERFORMANCE MARKET-RATE RENTAL HOUSING
For the purpose of providing a Citywide property tax credit for certain newly constructed or converted high-performance market-rate rental housing projects; imposing certain limitations, conditions, and qualifications; providing for the administration of the credit; defining certain terms; setting a date for termination of the program; and generally relating to property tax credits. (Citywide)
The Department of Planning will present information and a recommendation on the above-mentioned matter for consideration by the Planning Commission at a meeting on May 1, 2014.
Because of your interest, you may wish to attend this Commission meeting which will begin at 2:00 p.m. at 417 East Fayette Street, 8th Floor.
Please note that the security procedures in the Benton Building require that you bring photo-identification with you.
If you require special accommodations to attend or participate in the Planning Commission hearing, please provide information about your requirements at least five business days in advance of this event. The building and hearing room are wheelchair accessible.
If you have any questions, please call Alexandra Hoffman of my staff at 410-396-8484 for further information.
Sincerely,
Thomas J. Stosur,
Director


COMMENTER:
I find it distressing that the City is willing and able to use our tax dollars to fund market-rate housing, especially in light of the fact that Maryland is now the 4th most expensive state for renters, as reported in 247/Wall Street. As detailed here, Baltimore is in dire need of middle-income housing — the median income in Baltimore City is far below that of the rest of the state, and a frightening number of people are spending well over the recommended 25-30% of their monthly net income on housing costs.  It is far less expensive (and therefore less of a burden on taxpayers) to prevent people from sliding into poverty and homelessness than it is to help them climb back up the mountain towards financial stability.
Tell your elected officials on the City Council, and tell Thomas Stosur, Director of Planning, that we need middle-income housing — and we need to encourage its development.  With 30,000+ vacant structures in Baltimore City, there’s no reason why middle-income working families should be struggling to keep a roof over their heads!

___________________________________________


Yes----this is why Baltimore City Hall allowed all those vacants to sit for decades----holding out for real estate boom prices. Breaking laws to do that means-----YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO THOSE HOUSING GAINS----

Seems like the community and city needs those gains to recoup having to live around these vacants-----especially those homeowners in these communities having lost market-value from community decline.

THAT'S WHAT I WOULD BE TALKING ABOUT IF I WAS RUNNING FOR CITY HALL ON ISSUE OF HOUSING.



  • NY Real Estate Residential
Upper West Side Eyesore Sells for Millions Owner of Once Elegant Brownstone, Beseeched to Fix Up the Place, Paid $5,000 in 1976

ENLARGE The home at 118 W. 76th St. Adrienne Grunwald for The Wall Street Journal By Josh Barbanel Sept. 5, 2014 12:25 p.m. ET 3 COMMENTS For decades along West 76th Street, neighbors watched with mounting alarm as a vacated brownstone, traces of its 19th-century glory still etched into in its facade, fell into deeper and deeper disrepair.
The front stoop's brownstone banisters crumbled, floors collapsed and stonework cracked
Now the Upper West Side property has been sold by $6.6 million to a developer who plans to restore it as a single-family mansion, brokers say.
City records show that the seller, Diane Haslett Rudiano, paid $5,000 for the home in 1976 in a government-supervised estate sale. The sale follows years of complaints by neighbors, preservationists and elected officials.

Ms. Rudiano said she didn't sell the house for many years because she had an emotional attachment to it. She said her late husband, Jean, had "a lot of plans of trying to do something with the house" and dreamed of living there and renting out part of the space.
"It is a very emotional thing for me," said Ms. Rudiano, the chief clerk of the Board of Elections in Brooklyn. "Life doesn't always turn out the way you wish. I am satisfied that the buyer is going to do a very fine job of renovation."
Mike Sieger, a broker at Fenwick Keats Real Estate who handled the sale, said Ms. Rudiano sold the property in a private transaction without listing it after he approached her with a recent offer.
He said he had been trying to reach out to Ms. Rudiano year after year ever since he became a broker 20 years ago.
"Everybody has been trying to get this lady to sell because the building is falling apart," he said. "I was successful in getting her to say yes."
The four-story house at 118 West 76th St. is at an end of a row of five Renaissance Revival row houses built in 1890 between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues. The homes are now part of the Upper West Side / Central Park West Historic District.
A rear view of the structure Rachel Levy/Landmark West!
The house has a large bay window on the second floor and a curved window and entry way on the ground floor. A sculpted head looks out over a doorway under the front stoop.
By the early 1940s, the house was converted to a rooming house. City records show it was vacant by February 1978.
The the building had tens of thousands of dollars of unpaid violations, including two for failure to maintain a building in a landmark district, one for failure to properly seal the building, and another for an unsafe building. Over the years, neighbors complained about graffiti, garbage, and rats. The house is adjacent to a synagogue and a preschool.
Judith Samuels, a teacher who has lived in a brownstone next door since 1984, said the rodent problem was once so bad that she put up a "rat crossing" sign.
She said she had to spend $3,000 to repair a wall damaged by water seeping into her third floor apartment from snow accumulated in the vacant building through an open skylight. She said she was excited by prospect of seeing the building restored. "It is such a beautiful building," she said.
Judith Bronfman, who has lived across the street since the 1960s, said neighbors had long been pressing Ms. Rudiano to either fix up or sell the building. "It simply deteriorated ever since, it has become an eyesore," she said.
Gale Brewer, the Manhattan Borough President who previously represented the neighborhood in the council, was among those who complained. In the end, but Ms. Rudiano, it was Ms. Brewer who persuaded her to sell.
After speaking with Ms. Brewer, she said she decided that "it would be a better thing for my husband's memory to give it to somebody who could enjoy it," she said.
The buyer of the property was an investment group, Holliswood 76 LLC, headed by Dana Lowey Luttway, a developer and daughter of U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey (D, N.Y.).
Ms. Luttway said that while the home's exterior "was a disaster," its shell was structurally sound. "We have plans drawn up and are ready to go," she said. "We want to make it a gorgeous new addition to the neighborhood.

_________________________________________
PUGH, STOKES, THE MARYLAND ASSEMBLY AND CITY HALL USED THE SCHOOL BUILDING BOND NOT ONLY TO GAME THE STOCK MARKET WITH BOND DERIVATIVE FRAUD----BUT AS THE EXCUSE TO CLEAR COMMUNITIES BEING MADE GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUSES---INCLUDING FREDDIE GRAY'S COMMUNITY----AND ENDORSING AN ESTABLISHMENT CANDIDATE MEANS YOU SUPPORT THIS ATTACK ON OUR COMMUNITIES.

Raise your hand if you understand Baltimore's vacant to value program was never meant to solve this problem.  We all know those houses could have been part of a huge rehabbing community development strategy -----we know enforcing property laws would have brought absentee homeowners to sell or fix and occupy.

As this lady says---just let people have them and fix them up over time.  Baltimore does not do this because they are holding large real estate parcels to sell on the cheap to Wall Street real estate investment/development firms----TELESIS is one garnering much real estate in Old Goucher for example---right in what they plan to be the most wealthy city center.

Reinvestment to Wall Street Baltimore Development means finding a big investment corporation for residential city center----and hold that vacant and decaying real estate for global corporate campuses.  We all know any profit made from selling these market-value needs to come to our communities---and not sold on the cheap to Wall Street.

ALL OF THESE CITIES SEEING THIS DECLINE ARE SLATED TO HAVE GLOBAL REAL ESTATE FIRMS TAKING THE BULK OF LAND----THIS IS A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF PROPERTY OWNERSHIP LOST TO CITIZENS.


Here we see the Master Plan of global corporate campus over needs of community going so far as to close public schools under the guise of UNHEALTHY neighborhood status.  What Baltimore Development and Johns Hopkins was saying is----we are handing this huge parcel of real estate to Wall Street investment firms.  This article shows how easy it becomes for an UNHEALTHY neighborhood with low population density to become HEALTHY----with a re-opening of a public school in each community---

AND YES-----BALTIMORE CITY HAS PLENTY OF REVENUE TO DO THIS! 


 
Neighborhoodsby Fern Shen10:39 amApr 7, 201641


More than 11,000 vacants are within walking distance of Baltimore schoolsAnalysis



– including one school surrounded by 722 vacants – comes as collapsing rowhouses spur concern about the dangers of blight and need for demolition
Above: Data showed 722 vacants within a quarter-mile radius of one West Baltimore school. (Fern Shen)


With at least five vacant buildings collapsing in West Baltimore since March 28, including one that fell on and killed a man, city officials acted quickly to allay concerns that one of the dangerously slumped buildings was across from an elementary school.
The next day they razed 1625 North Payson Street, which is just opposite Matthew A. Henson Elementary School.
But their quick reaction and assurances that they are doing their best to protect citizens from the impact of nearly 17,000 vacants obscures the scope of the problem, especially when it comes to children.
About 68% of Baltimore’s vacant buildings are within a quarter of a mile of a public school, according to an analysis of publicly available data by civic blogger Justin Elszasz.
That works out to about 11,537 vacant buildings that children could potentially be walking past every day, says Elszasz, a mechanical engineer who crunches data about social and environmental issues in his spare time.
What does that mean for individual schools?
Elszasz’ analysis found 358 vacants within a quarter-mile radius of Matthew Henson Elementary at 1600 North Payson Street.
But that West Baltimore school’s grim numbers are topped by another’s: “The school with the most vacant buildings within a quarter of a mile is the Roots & Branches School with a whopping 722 vacant buildings surrounding it,” Elszasz said in his blog, The Training Set.
“Unfortunately it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it’s in West Baltimore, just a few blocks south of where Freddie Gray lived,” he adds in a post he titled “Bmore Schools Surrounded by Blight and Danger.”
“Context is everything and the story these data tells us about what it’s like to be a school-aged kid in Baltimore is harrowing.”
Hazardous Vacants “an Emergency” Over the last year, politicians in City Hall and the Statehouse have been debating what to do about Baltimore’s desperately poor neighborhoods and focusing on one of the most glaring symbols of them – boarded-up, dilapidated rowhouses.
The city now spends $10 million a year on demolition, and the legislature this session approved millions more for additional Baltimore blight-clearing.
MAP of all of Baltimore’s vacants

How many vacant buildings are there?


Elszasz used the city’s official count of 16,897 vacant structures, last updated on March 21, but some groups say that official tally vastly undercounts the total.

With the recent blow-downs and fatality, calls for the city to speed up demolition plans have increased, with City Council members and candidates demanding the swift razing of the 500 buildings deemed most unstable.
Trying to articulate alternatives to demolition, Elszasz suggested offering some close-by lots or buildings to schools.
Once they were cleaned up and certified safe, he said, they could be used for greenhouses, gardens, art and sculpture classes or other activities.
He recognized that his idea would “hardly put a dent in the problem, but at least we’d be doing something with a few.”
Overall, he wrote in his his piece, which was posted months before the recent incidents, the situation dire. He cited studies that found abandoned buildings are not only safety hazards but “magnets for serious crime, including gang activity, drugs, murder, assault and rape.”
“The obvious concern is the exposure of children to serious hazards in and around these lots and buildings,” he said. “Based on the numbers this is nothing short of an emergency of the highest order.”
Campaign Signs and “RIP Tyree” Yesterday that danger was apparent outside Roots & Branches at 1807 Harlem Avenue.
Directly across the street from the school stands a block of occupied and boarded-up buildings, including one on the corner of Kirby Lane with blown-out windows and a sagging porch roof projecting out over the sidewalk.
In full view of the grassy area in the front of the school is the bedraggled backside of another vacant, with jagged broken window glass and vines overtaking the side of it.
Around the corner on Fulton Avenue, and throughout the neighborhood, more abandoned houses. Their fronts were like an urban trauma-themed art show, considering the signs and fliers tacked to doors and plywood window-coverings.
“We buy houses – cash fast!” were on several. “RIP Tyree” was spray-painted on one.


Neon green “LEAD PAINT WARNING: NO OCCUPANCY” notices from the Baltimore City Health Department were plentiful.
So were faded-orange signs for the city’s Vacants to Value program. And on several unoccupied structures, bright red campaign signs for mayoral candidate Nick Mosby.
Sitting on marble steps of a house across from the school, a man who gave his name as Keith said the squalid places were clearly dangerous to children and the entire neighborhood.
“People get up in there messing around and smoking. They could set one of these things on fire,” Keith said. “How long is it going to take them to do something?”
What should be done?
“Just take ’em down, I guess,” he said. “But you know, I wish they didn’t get this way in the first place. Why did they?”


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I spoke about this in detail a few weeks ago but it is critical in the creation of a building strategy for each community with mixed-income housing.  Sadly, as with all social Democratic policy this LAND TRUST issue is being turned into a wealth real estate management tool-----in Baltimore the goal with Land Trusts will be to hold real estate under the guise of affordable housing-----to later hand it to wealthy developer/global corporation as that global corporate campus is ready to be built.

THAT IS NOT HOW LAND TRUST WAS USED DURING SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC 20TH CENTURY!

It is critical that as we downsize communities and open green spaces that they remain PUBLIC and it is critical that this policy of land trust only be used to inject some multi-family housing into a mixed-income community.  When we have such a power hold by corporations in this city----targeted use of land trusts with more public real estate space assures real estate stays with citizens and with later community development.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND AND GLOBAL GREEN CORPORATION PARTY ARE PROMOTING THE GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS LAND TRUST. 

Baltimore Development simply wants to use Land Trust to hold real estate in a tax-/personal shelter fashion.



 Seven reasons to use land trusts for titling property to real estate.
Legal Wiz

You wouldn’t walk around with a financial statement taped to your back, would you?  Then why are you holding title to your real estate in your own name?  Whether it’s your personal residence or your rental properties, you are a “sitting duck” for disgruntled tenants, ex-employees, ex-spouses, the IRS and their attorneys.  Real estate is very public, and ownership is public record for anyone to view online.
Land trusts are a very powerful tool for the savvy real estate investor. A land trust is a revocable, living trust used specifically for holding title to real estate. Each property is titled in a separate trust, affording maximum privacy and protection.
Here are seven reasons to use land trusts for titling property to real estate.

1. Privacy. In today’s information age, anyone with an internet connection can look up your ownership of real estate. Privacy is extremely important to most people who don’t want others knowing what they own. For example, if you own several properties within a city that has strict code enforcement, you could end up being hauled into court for too many violations, even minor ones. Having your real estate titled in land trusts makes it difficult for city code enforcement to find who the owner is, since the trust agreement is not public record for everyone to see.

2. Protection from liens. Real estate titled in a trust name is not subject to liens against the beneficiary of the trust. For example, if you are dealing with a seller in foreclosure, a judgment holder or the IRS can file a claim against the property in the name of the seller. If the property is titled into trust, the personal judgments or liens of the seller will not attach to the property.

3. Protection from title claims. If you sign a warranty deed in your own name, you are subject to potential title claims against you if there is a problem with title to the property. For example, a lien filed without your knowledge could result in liability against you, even if you purchased title insurance. A land trust in your place as seller will protect you personally against many types of title claims because the claim will be limited to the trust. If the trust already sold the property, it has no assets and thus limits your exposure to title claims.

4. Discouraging Litigation. Let’s face it, people tend to only sue others who appear to have money. Attorneys who work on contingency are only likely to take cases which they can not only win, but collect, since their fee is based on collection. If your properties are hard to find, you will appear “broke” and less worth suing. Even if a potential plaintiff thinks you have assets, the difficult prospect of finding and attaching these assets will discourage litigation against you.

5. Protection from HOA Claims. When you take title to a property in a homeowner’s association (HOA), you become personally liable for all dues and assessments. This means if you buy a condo in your own name and the association asseses an amount due, they can place a lien on the property and/or sue you PERSONALLY for the obligation! Don’t take title in your name in an HOA, but instead take title in a land trust so that the trust itself (and thus the property) will be the sole recourse for the homeowner’s association’s debts.

6. Making contracts assignable. The ownership of a land trust (called the “beneficial interest”) is assignable, similar to the way stock in a corporation is assignable. Once property is title in trust, the beneficiary of the trust can be changed without changing title to the property. This can be very advantageous in the case of a real estate contract that is non-assignable, such as in the case of a bank-owned or HUD property. Instead of making your offer in your own name, make the offer in the name of a land trust, then assign your itnerest in the land trust to a third party.

7. Making Loans “Assumable”. A non-assumable loan can become effectively assumed by using a land trust. The seller transfers title into a land trust, with himself as beneficiary. This transfer does not trigger the due-on-sale clause of the mortgage. After the fact, he transfers his beneficial interest to you. This latter transaction does trigger the due-on-sale, but such transfer does not come to the attention of the lender because it is not recorded anywhere in public records. This effectively makes a non-assumable loan “assumable”. As you can see there are many creative and effective uses for the land trust, limited only by your imagination!



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April 21st, 2016

4/21/2016

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We spoke of affordable housing which includes middle-class, working class, and poor----EASY PEASY TO GET THIS GOING IN EACH COMMUNITY IN BALTIMORE.

Getting the middle-class to move into underserved communities being stablilized necessitates the enforcement of existing zoning and property maintenance laws. Absentee and slum landlords fill our communities and have been a major drain in community wealth for decades.
Slum landlords are the other side of housing in Baltimore and US cities across the nation.

This organization does a great job at activism and by tagging the pols in the district they are publicly outed and pressure may get results.  Baltimore because it was allowed to decay for decades has in our surrounding communities absentee landlords----investment firms with management companies who are often not connected to the city.  It seems very strange that Baltimore does not hesitate to bush to tax auction a homeowner living and trying to keep a home while using the excuses of zoning or city code not allowing more aggressive actions against these properties.  One imagines vacants and slum landlords are simply trying to hold properties until some kind of development makes them valuable and THAT is likely why these houses sit for decades with no city action.




July 23, 2015


Our new address is slumlordwatch.com — please update your bookmarks. This will remain, but it won’t be updated. For updates, you’ll have to visit the new site.
Thanks!

Written by Baltimore Slumlord Watch 
July 16, 20151318 Druid Hill Avenue: Historic Blight Property Address: 1318 Druid Hill Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217
Property Owner: Janice Stanton Hines, 3339 Charleston Street, Houston, TX 77021
City Council District and Contact: District 11, Eric T. Costello
State Senator: Shirley Nathan-Pulliam
State Delegate:  Keith Haynes
The current owner of this home (a lawyer, no less) was jailed in Michigan, in 2010, for stealing $800,000 from her mother, who was 95 at the time. She was released in August of the same year, after repaying the money. In 2011, she sued family members, but the case was dismissed for failure to pay the $175 filing fee.


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As this article states many US cities used Federal housing aid in ways that allowed for mixed-income housing in all communities and with that came Section 8 housing in neighborhoods where neighbors would be quick to fight and fix landlord problems described above.  Cities like Baltimore always use Federal funding to segregate by class and race---and if a Federal program is attached to it---as in Section 8----then the goal is to place that housing and landlord in a position of fleecing both the tenets and the Section 8 program.  Baltimore has Foundations enriched from simply slum/landlord fraud.  All of that money was the revenue that would have been reinvested in each community's economy.

With no oversight and accountability of the Section 8 program with inspections of housing comes what we see below-----illegal uses for houses for drugs and prostitution.  Baltimore was the city where ACORN was filmed in a similar situation although be entrapment the fact that these kinds of discussions occur show the systemic and open disregard to Federal guidelines for this Federal Housing funding.  If ACORN was lax it was because the City of Baltimore was lax causing the city to loose billions of dollars in housing funds that could have led to stabilized communities and a big dent in housing insecurity.


'To eliminate the incentive structure that rewards landlords who convince voucher holders to live in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, there is a simple fix. The formula that calculates Fair Market Rent should be reformed to use numbers for individual neighborhoods, rather than citywide averages. Last week, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it is considering a proposal to do just this. Such a remedy could save money, and that matters since currently there isn’t enough to go around: Only one in four qualified families receives housing aid'.

Fair market rent in these cases of Federal housing aid can also pertain to the need for mixed-income housing in all communities----so this is key to rebuilding housing.

The Power of Landlords

Despite the aims of federal housing policy, segregation persists—in part because it's in the interests of those who own property in the poorest neighborhoods.

Baltimore's Park Heights neighborhood, in 2012 Eva Rosen
  • Eva Rosen
  • Jun 9, 2015
  • Business
Jim Lewis is a 55-year-old landlord who specializes in finding tenants for hard-to-rent units in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Baltimore. On more than one occasion I watched Lewis work his magic, often with single moms he calls “Section 8 girls,” after the former name of a federal housing-voucher program. He chauffeurs them from their front door to the vacant property, whisking them straight from the car into the newly renovated home, with little time to take in the neighborhood. He opens the door to reveal a sparkling new kitchen, refreshed with upscale amenities—glossy granite countertops, stainless steel appliances—that distract from the oftentimes dilapidated houses next door. Lewis puts his strategy in simple terms: “It’s like, if you build a better mousetrap—you know how they say that?” (The landlords in this story have been given pseudonyms in order to protect their confidentiality, which was granted as a condition of their participation in my research.)
Landlords in every city are salesmen aiming to persuade potential renters, which may lead them to underplay a property’s flaws and exaggerate its strengths. But what’s happening in cities such as Baltimore is different: Landlords lure renters to disadvantaged neighborhoods, perpetuating housing segregation and limiting social mobility. Baltimore has a long history of segregation, but today, it persists within one of the very programs designed to dismantle the problem: housing vouchers.
It was hoped that Housing Choice Vouchers, previously called “Section 8,” would break up dense concentrations of poverty by subsidizing rents for poor families. But the program has fallen far short of its promise. By and large, voucher holders are not moving to areas of opportunity. They are not finding places to rent in neighborhoods that include a mix of higher-income people, the kind of move shown in recent research by Harvard economist Raj Chetty and others to have long-term positive impacts on health and economic well-being. Rather, voucher holders are now concentrated in poor neighborhoods. This is even more the case for black voucher holders, whose neighborhoods are far more segregated than those of white voucher holders. Why are these patterns of segregation being recreated under a system that was meant to undo them?
A big part of the answer lies in a middleman: the landlord. Landlords play a key role in where people find homes. Yet their role in sorting residents in and out of neighborhoods remains largely unseen.
* * *
In Baltimore, where you live has everything to do with the color of your skin. I learned this firsthand in 2011, when I was a graduate student beginning research on neighborhoods with high poverty and racial segregation, and moved into just such an area.
To begin my own housing search, I called a number on a Craigslist ad for a one-bedroom in Park Heights, a neighborhood in the northwest part of the city, and the landlord on the other end of the line asked me skeptically if I was sure I knew where Park Heights was. I convinced him to show me the converted row home later that afternoon. When I showed up, the landlord, an Air Force retiree with a head of thick, silvery hair, took one look at me and simply said, “Sweetheart, this is not a neighborhood for a girl like you.” What he meant was that this is not a neighborhood for white people. One thing was eminently clear to me even at this early stage: Landlords have enormous power to affect where people live.
I ended up spending more than a year in Park Heights, getting to know landlords and watching them show properties, do repairs, paint and repaint walls, and unclog toilets. Residents in Park Heights, as in many other neighborhoods to which voucher holders are flocking, face unimaginable poverty and violence. Life expectancy is almost 15 years lower than in affluent, white areas of the city. One in four households lives under the federal poverty line, compared to only one in six nationwide. Unemployment is rampant. Despite the drastic drop in crime across the country, the crime spike of the 1980s and 90s has only marginally abated in neighborhoods such as this one. On the day after the riots following the death of Freddie Gray a couple months ago, a man was murdered in Park Heights in an unrelated incident—the city’s 69th murder this year.
Park Heights, like so many neighborhoods across the country, reflects a legacy of years of housing policy that confined black residents to poor areas. After the Great Depression, federally-backed mortgages made it easy for whites to buy homes, but nearly impossible for blacks to do so. Banks refused to lend in predominantly black “redlined” neighborhoods, because the investment was deemed hazardous, and white neighborhood associations enacted restrictive covenants to keep blacks out. In the 60s, real-estate agents stoked fears of black incursion in Park Heights by flipping white-owned homes one at a time—a practice known as blockbusting. As whites fled in the subsequent decade, Park Heights transformed from 95 percent white and predominantly Jewish to 95 percent black.
In 1967, Otto Kerner, then the governor of Illinois, led a commission that looked into the causes of urban unrest in cities like Detroit, Newark, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The Kerner Commission’s final report revealed discrimination entrenched in federal housing policies ranging from how home loans were granted to where public housing was built. The commission warned of a nation “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” This prophecy only became more true as public housing stock aged and inner cities across the country declined. The reality today in cities such as Baltimore is not far off from this prophecy.
In the 1990s, facing levels of concentrated poverty never before seen, Henry Cisneros, the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), proposed to “end public housing as we know it.” Nationwide, blighted high-rise towers were demolished, and vouchers were used to transfer much of the burden of sheltering the poor to the private market. Out of the five million households across the country that receive some form of federal housing assistance, over half now live in privately-owned properties. By making up the difference between what a needy household can afford and the cost of a unit in the private market, the voucher was supposed to create opportunities for people to move to safer neighborhoods with better schools and more jobs. By many accounts, it hasn’t.
* * *
In Baltimore, where nearly all of the high-rise public housing was torn down in the 90s, one in five households lives under the federal poverty line and the voucher rate is one of the highest in the country. Landlords face high vacancy rates and have difficulty collecting rent from poverty-stricken tenants. Filling all of those vacancies requires that landlords play a complicated game of matching tenant characteristics—such as family size, race, voucher status, and financial risk—to property characteristics such as size, condition, and location.
As landlords manage their portfolio of properties across different types of neighborhoods, they cherry-pick the tenants they want and match them to the units they most need to fill. “The thing is, you don’t need a lot of help when it’s a good area. But in the bad area, that’s when it’s hard,” says Oscar Mayfield, a landlord who also works as a property manager. “The key is, you got to understand that everyone needs somewhere to live. There’s a tenant for every house. You’ve just got to find the right tenant.”
In other words, there is a hierarchy of tenants, just as there is a hierarchy of homes. If the landlord plays the matching game wisely, “there’s a tenant for every house.” What this means though, is that the tenants at the bottom of the social ladder are also being matched to the worst homes, in the worst neighborhoods.
In disadvantaged areas, finding and attracting tenants who are able to pay their rent reliably is no easy task. This provides an incentive for landlords to entice voucher tenants to these units, since a big chunk of their rent is paid by the housing authority. “Everybody prefers Section 8,” Mayfield explains. “It’s tough times now. If the tenant doesn’t pay the mortgage, you have to. Section 8 ensures that you going to get your money.” Since the voucher program offers steady payment (for at least of the government’s portion of the rent), many landlords have oriented their businesses towards attracting and retaining voucher holders.
Beyond steadier rent payments, having a tenant with a voucher brings another benefit. Landlords can often charge more for units occupied by voucher holders than what they would go for on the open market. The voucher program’s rent ceilings are determined by what’s called Fair Market Rent, a standard based on average rents across the entire city, so they are often higher than what a typical unit might rent for in a less-affluent neighborhood.
One landlord I met had two identical units in the same building: The third-floor apartment was rented to a family with a voucher and went for $250 more than the identical unit on the fourth. This loophole creates perverse incentives for landlords to recruit poor voucher holders to properties in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Baltimore’s landlords have a whole toolbox of strategies to get the tenants they want to the often underwhelming properties they need them in. They range from benign sales tricks to more insidious manipulation. For example, one young, African-American landlord says that an effective tactic is to “put the tenant in a position where they are in control. So you come into a room and say, ‘What color do you want this room?’ And they feel like now it belongs to them, so it makes them want the property even more.”
Once the tenant has rented the home, a new set of issues arises. At this point, the landlord’s main concerns are to manage the tenant’s behavior in the unit, and to keep costs low by attenuating turnover. If the tenant tries to move while indebted to the landlord, she will lose her voucher, so some landlords strategically allow tenants to get behind on rent.  As the debt accrues, it gets harder and harder for the tenant to consider a move without jeopardizing his or her subsidy. The threat of voucher loss looms large. One white landlord in his thirties explains, “It’s a big threat. If there’s 16,000 people that are waiting for a voucher in Baltimore, that’s a pretty big incentive. I would be scared.”
Together, these practices help landlords keep voucher holders trapped in units that deliver the biggest profits, in some of the very neighborhoods the voucher is supposed to afford them the opportunity to escape.
* * *
To eliminate the incentive structure that rewards landlords who convince voucher holders to live in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, there is a simple fix. The formula that calculates Fair Market Rent should be reformed to use numbers for individual neighborhoods, rather than citywide averages. Last week, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it is considering a proposal to do just this. Such a remedy could save money, and that matters since currently there isn’t enough to go around: Only one in four qualified families receives housing aid.
In addition, families need to be better informed of their rights—for example, what they should expect from the landlord, and under what circumstances they can break their lease without losing their voucher. Providing mobility counseling, as a bill recently approved in Connecticut does, would help families learn about neighborhood resources such as schools, jobs, and crime when considering a move. And extending the period of time allotted to use the voucher (in Baltimore, it’s 60 days) would mean that families who don’t find an approved home in time would not be at risk of losing their voucher.
Housing policy in the U.S. has featured various attempts at dismantling poverty. In the 1930s, slums were razed and public housing was built. In the 1990s, towers were torn down and voucher subsidies came to be seen as an effective way of letting the private market remedy concentrated poverty and segregation. In theory, voucher programs should be providing opportunities for poor households to move to better neighborhoods. But in some cases they have done just the opposite. If the goal is for housing to be part of the solution to deep poverty and inequality, housing policies need to undo patterns of residential segregation—not recreate them.
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Below you see what makes Baltimore rent court so corrupt---the drive to constantly move citizens having housing subsidy into a place where they cannot receive that subsidy.  The same goal comes with zero tolerance ticketing the poor over and over and over so the fines reach a point of felony for failure to pay the city---this felony keeps a citizen from being qualified for housing.

'If the tenant tries to move while indebted to the landlord, she will lose her voucher, so some landlords strategically allow tenants to get behind on rent.  As the debt accrues, it gets harder and harder for the tenant to consider a move without jeopardizing his or her subsidy. The threat of voucher loss looms large'.

This is the point----even if you are a person wanting housing segregation----not liking Federal Housing assistance which many conservatives don't----why allow all of that Federal funding be misappropriated or lost to fraud creating the conditions that make Baltimore known to be worst in the nation for housing?  Around the nation all that housing funding was used under Federal guidelines and often socially progressive in inclusion with great success----

It becomes a case of great injustice to push that and decades later Baltimore citizens haven't left because THEY FEEL THESE PLACES ARE THEIR HOMES.

This is what we know shown below and this problem soared when Federal oversight was dismantled----much of the abuse of the program came from the landlords and city agency employees who knew they could game the system.  The big losers----citizens simply wanting housing stability so needed to get employment, family, and health on track.  This was the original intent of Federal Housing programs----with long-term unemployment it kept people trapped in a safety net living.

Those wanting to end housing subsidy will shout against all this corruption and yet---they are the ones dismantling all the oversight and accountability that allowed this program to operate effectively for decades.


Section 8 abuse? Why aren't we surprised?
Valley Press ^ | Tuesday, February 19, 2008. | EDITORIAL

Posted on 2/20/2008, 1:10:29 PM by BenLurkin


The Section 8 housing program - is funded by the federal government and administered by local housing authorities across the nation - is supposed to provide a hand up for needy or disabled people to make ends meet. It's not supposed to be permanent and, most of all, it's not supposed to be for people with criminal records, or people who use illegal drugs, or people who invite in unauthorized tenants or people who receive unreported income to cheat the system.
Yet, as we've been reporting for the last two years, all these activities are rampant in Section 8 housing.
We've written many times in praise of Lancaster and Palmdale, as well as Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, for attacking the problem with regular inspections as well as for setting up a tip line to report fraud or abuse.
So it comes as no surprise that, as reported in a Los Angeles newspaper on Monday, federal auditors have found that Carlos Jackson, director of the county housing authority, has not properly administered the $200 million program.
Under Section 8, tenants pay what they are able for a house, condo or apartment, and the government pays the rest of the rent to the landlord. Tenants typically pay about a third of the full rent.
So, for example, if the rent is $1,500, the tenant pays $500 and the government $1,000.
But the Feds say money sent to Los Angeles County has been mismanaged - and they want millions of dollars back.
Problems include failing to check annually on tenants' eligibility and tenants receiving larger subsidies than they are entitled to.
Jackson disputes the findings.

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As you can see below this issue of Fair Market Rent goes beyond sound Federal Housing policy---it is what BAltimore needs as we build in mixed-income housing in each community including those downtown Enterprise Zones.  If  a city has rents so high that 3 university students feel they must share an apartment for one -----you have not met the Fair Market Rent.

When Baltimore City Hall works for Wall STreet Baltimore Development they are only interested in how to maximize profits for real estate owners but when the pendulum swings SO HIGH IN PROTECTING LANDOWNER profits----it causes adverse affects throughout the city and economy.  Do students want to come to a Baltimore university if this is the housing conditions?  Will young adults take that job with a Baltimore business knowing rents will take a sizable chunk of disposable income.  Youth are being targeted in any number of attacks on wealth accumulation and this is one---knowing young adults are being brought to US cities for jobs and to work as VISTAs/interns.

This is the housing market a city like Baltimore should want to cater to----young adults---professionals----and yet we cannot get beyond protecting the landlord.  I LOVE LANDLORDS AS SOMEONE WHO HAS CHOSEN TO RENT SINCE COMING TO BALTIMORE----and many I have encountered are fair and good property managers----we simply have too many landlords whose values are SHOW ME THE MONEY.  There must be balance in rebuilding our communities as to these housing needs.  Mixed-income housing breaks that cycle of concentrated wealth and poverty.


This is what PUGH FOR MAYOR OF BALTIMORE GETS YOU----and think who are coming out for these establishment candidates all intending to continue these practices.

Baltimore being a COLLEGE TOWN as it likes to promote should be proud to give students the accommodations students need.



Renting Less Affordable Than Buying in Most U.S. Markets But Not Where Millennials Are Moving Most
  • Dec 23, 2014
  • Daren Blomquist

Biggest Rent Increases in Williamsport, Pa., Elizabethtown, Ky., Midland, Texas;
Least Affordable Rental Markets Include New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Miami
IRVINE, Calif. – Dec. 23, 2014 — RealtyTrac® (www.realtytrac.com), the nation’s leading source for comprehensive housing data, today released an analysis of fair market rents and median home prices in more than 500 U.S. counties, which shows that buying is still more affordable than renting in the majority of U.S. housing markets, while the opposite is true in markets with the biggest increase in the millennial share of the population over the last six years.
RealtyTrac analyzed 2015 fair market rental data recently released by the U.S. Department for Housing and Urban Development for three-bedroom properties in 543 counties nationwide with a population of at least 100,000. In the 473 counties with sufficient rental and home price data, the fair market rent for a three-bedroom property in 2015 will require an average of 27 percent of median household income, while buying a median-priced home requires an average of 25 percent of median household income based on the median sales price in November.
Buying a median-priced home was more affordable than renting a three-bedroom property in 68 percent of the counties analyzed, representing 57 percent of the total population in those counties.
But in the 25 counties with the biggest increase in millennials between 2007 and 2013, fair market rents for a three-bedroom property in 2015 will require 30 percent of the median household income on average while buying a median-priced home requires 36 percent of median household income on average. For the analysis millennials were defined as anyone born between 1977 and 1992.


“First-time buyers and potential boomerang
homebuyers are stuck between a rock and a hard place in today’s housing market: many of the markets with the jobs and amenities they want have hard-to-afford rents and even harder-to-afford home prices;
while the more affordable markets have fewer well-paying jobs and tend to be off the beaten path,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “Those emerging markets with the combination of good jobs, good affordability and a growing population of new renters and potential first-time homebuyers represent the best opportunities for buy-and-hold real estate investors to buy low and benefit from rising rents in the years to come.”


Rental trends in markets with biggest increase in millennial population

The top markets with the biggest increase in the percentage of millennials over the past seven years were counties in Washington D.C., San Francisco and Denver, all of which saw an increase of more than 50 percent in the share of the population that is millennials.
Other markets in the top 25 for biggest increase in millennials included counties in New York, Nashville, Portland, St. Louis, Seattle, Charlotte, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Orlando, Austin, Des Moines and Midland, Texas.
–The average 2015 fair market rent in these top 25 counties is $1,459, 19 percent above the national average for all counties analyzed.
–On average 2015 fair rents increased 3 percent from a year ago in these counties, with the standouts being Denver County and Midland County, Texas, both of which saw fair market rents increase more than 20 percent.
–Median home prices increased 8 percent from a year ago in these counties on average compared to an average 7 percent increase among all counties analyzed nationwide.
–The average unemployment rate among these counties was 5.2 percent in October compared to an average of 5.5 percent for all counties analyzed.


Markets with biggest jumps in fair market rents


The top counties in terms of increasing fair market rents on three-bedroom properties were in Williamsport, Pa., Elizabethtown, Ky., and Midland, Texas, all of which saw an increase of 24 percent or more in fair market rents compared to 2014. Williamsport and Midland are both experiencing oil and gas booms facilitated by fracking, and Elizabethtown is home to the Fort Knox U.S. Army post.
Other markets among the top 25 for increasing rents included counties in Denver, Colo., Asheville, N.C., Chicago and Santa Barbara, Calif.
–The average 2015 fair market rent in these top 25 counties is $1,327, 8 percent above the national average for all counties analyzed.
–Among these counties, 2015 fair market rent on a three-bedroom property will require 25 percent of median household income on average while buying a median-priced home requires 27 percent of median household income on average.




Least affordable rental markets

The top counties where fair market rents were least affordable as a percentage of median household income were in New York, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, Miami, Virginia Beach, San Francisco, Eureka, Calif., and Los Angeles. Fair market rents required at least 40 percent of median household income in all of the 10 least affordable counties.
“With interest rates still at record lows, the buy analysis is compelling for many renters,” said Mike Pappas, CEO and president of the Keyes Company, covering the South Florida market. “We are beginning to see those who lost their homes in the great recession re-enter the purchase market. Coupled with the re-emergence of the low down payment loans and the aging of the millennials – 2015 bodes well for an improving purchase market.”

JUST AS THE ECONOMIC CRASH IS AROUND THE CORNER!!!


________________________________________________
As US universities move to recruiting foreign students having wealth that makes for university campus living arrangements tied to the same AMENITY policy that made university tuition soar these few decades.  Since Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals are not hiding their vision of our US universities being GLOBAL -----with ever-decreasing ability for ordinary citizens to get into most universities----the student living in Baltimore's College Town is tied heavily on these new campus structures increasing annual tuition while living off-campus sends students into Baltimore's wealth vs poverty community housing crisis.


You're going to love it here.®Going to college at the University of Maryland is extraordinary — how you live it should be too. The Varsity’s fully furnished, modern living spaces feature enhanced-privacy floor plans for comfort and study, amenities promoting health, fitness, and socialization, and professional on-site management.
And, we make sure you also have the resources you need to succeed. Our 24-hour Academic Success Center with iMacs and free printing; study lounges; Wi-Fi hotspots and internet access included in every apartment help you stay connected to your studies — not to mention your friends and family.

Obama and Clinton neo-liberals created higher-education reforms deliberately meant to send higher education GLOBAL for students with the goal of students only able to afford to pay these high tuition rates being allowed to attend.  Maryland Assembly passed these same policies and now start with SPECIAL CONDITIONS FOR RECEIVING STUDENT HIGHER-EDUCATION FUNDING----creating the same need for citizens to be in the right place doing the right thing in order to get ahead----THE PAY-TO-PLAY OF HIGHER EDUCATION FUNDING----and of course PUGH for Mayor of Baltimore leads in this private funding for the right student in Baltimore.  Meanwhile, we see in Baltimore the same conditions in housing as this article shows in other states. 

THIS IS HAPPENING BECAUSE OF CLINTON/OBAMA/REPUBLICAN  WALL STREET GLOBAL POLICIES ----

Feb. 1, 2013 at 10:03 a.m.
michael walser: Amen to you for speaking the truth. I would like to add something missed here. All of this "luxury" housing also makes it nearly impossible for a non student to find an apartment. Yes, I realize there are other properties away from campus. However, some folks don't need three plus bedrooms. These out of state corporations charging outlandish rent fairly well block an average single working person from getting a small apartment.
Feb. 1, 2013 at 5:43 p.m.
tiger091: YES. THANK YOU. Someone needed to say this.
Feb. 1, 2013 at 9:03 p.m.
MB: Yes, agree with tiger 091. Somebody had to say this. The issue should not be overlooked.
Feb. 4, 2013 at 8:08 p.m.
Jack: SERIOUSLY. get your head out of your butt, como. This is a college town. Think of your damn students first. We don't want to spend what earnings we have on housing. we just want to walk to campus! make cheaper housing. fix east campus. screw the frills. ...and that ninth street complex is an EYESORE - completely ruined the quaintness that was right off campus.

This is very much what is happening in Baltimore's housing around our city center universities

Editorial: Too much 'luxury' student housing hurts everyone

Feb. 1, 2013

Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Maneater editorial board.
Columbia, Missouri is a college town. It was founded with education in mind — particularly the kind of education that attracts all kinds of Missourians. For the last 150 years, three institutions of higher learning — Columbia College, Stephens College and MU — have each made an irreversible impact on our city.
It would seem, then, that City Council would be receptive to the needs and wants of the nearly 40,000 postsecondary students living within city limits. However, the dismal and embarrassing state of student housing in Columbia today gives us the impression that city administrators place profit and expansion above helping provide its residents — all of them — with a good quality place to live.
This fall, three new “luxury" student housing complexes will open in Columbia: Aspen Heights, The Domain and The Lofts at 308 Ninth. Each has some pretty nifty amenities, including pools, wood floors, and even (in The Domain’s case) a full-swing golf simulator. Because of these features, each charges above-average rent.
These three add to the handfuls of similar “luxury" student housing complexes that have opened over the last decade, mostly in the Grindstone area a few miles south of campus. Most were planned and are operated by national corporations, which often employ questionable construction practices to get them up and occupied before the next “hot property” complex is built.
Students who lease at such places pay higher rents for granite countertops, rooftop pools and in-house tanning salons; however, shoddy construction is often part of the deal. More students living far off-campus can add to the growing sense of detachment and “commuter-ism” at our university — driving to class and back each day and not spending as much time contributing to our campus’ social activity.
Meanwhile, the valuable land around campus, particularly to the north and east, has many problems in relation to student housing. Much of it is too expensive for most students. If it is affordable, it’s in extremely high demand or unavailable to students due to reticent landlords. If it is affordable and available, it often lacks modern amenities or has fallen into disrepair — East Campus, the traditional heart of off-campus student housing, is crumbling.

Simply put, the problem is not a shortage of student housing. It’s a shortage of the affordable, no-frills housing close to campus that students want.
Part of the problem is the massive marketing budgets of the “luxury" student housing companies. We see all sorts of swag — hats, shirts, backpacks, water bottles emblazoned with the logos of these developments — being given out and carried around campus. If it weren't for word of mouth, it seems many freshmen would have no idea that there's off-campus housing available to them other than Aspen Heights, The Domain and the like.
But much of the blame for Columbia’s student-housing mess falls on city officials’ willingness to rubber stamp nearly every new complex that gets proposed, regardless of whether it’s smart growth that fills a demonstrated need, or even if it hurts longtime Columbia residents. Last year, a low-income mobile home park housing many of the city’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged residents was razed to make way for Aspen Heights, a national chain housing development. Now, the city is even considering tearing down the oldest and possibly the most historic building in Columbia — the Niedermeyer house at Tenth and Cherry — to make way for more of this "luxury" student housing.
To be fair, these new developments are enticing to students. They provide comfort and security to parents. There is nothing wrong with “luxury" student housing in itself. But the problem comes when there is simply too much “luxury” and not enough affordable housing close by. The city benefits from higher rents, too, but seems to miss, or ignore, the disservice that is being done to students and Columbians alike by encouraging a "red-hot" luxury apartment market too quickly and without a solid backbone. City Council and the Planning & Zoning Commission need to regulate rent prices, help restore East Campus and other housing close to campus and need to learn how to say no to development companies.

There isn’t much organized opposition to this pattern on campus, either. After losing its battle to stop Aspen Heights' development, the Missouri Students Association has stopped pursuing this issue of affordable and accessible student housing. As MU students’ primary representatives, MSA members should re-establish the special commission they created to advocate smarter housing. And students should educate themselves to be better tenants and consumers.
We are constantly building in anticipation of an ever-expanding student body. But unlike the Grindstone prairie south of campus, the university is fast approaching its carrying capacity. What will happen when our university stops admitting “record-highest” freshman classes each year? We’ll have a city full of cheaply-built, under-occupied student housing.
The city of Columbia needs to understand this and give more attention to the affordable housing around campus and less to out-of-state corporations who come in and build overvalued "luxury apartments." Columbia is a college town, not a playground for developers. It’s time to step up and make our city better.


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April 20th, 2016

4/20/2016

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Both housing justice organizations and every Baltimore City council pol could have long ago taken these housing issues to Federal courts.  They could have organized a petition to referendum the right of citizens in Baltimore to change city charter by referendum----all other counties have that right ACCEPT BALTIMORE CITY. This gives voters the ability to make those city charter changes including power of mayor -----but pols don't want to do that because then they couldn't stand there and say decade after decade---it's all the mayor's fault.

You can see Port Covington was not the first one to get this illegal exemption from the city's inclusionary housing law and we already know we don't need an inclusionary law with Federal Equal Housing laws and all these Enterprise Zone development are soaked in Federal funding of all kinds.


If Baltimore had functioning media---functioning justice organizations, and a functioning Democratic Party all this would never have happened.  It is time to place people in leadership positions that WANT TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.


You can pass laws that pretend to hold power accountable on TIFS while ignoring the gorilla in the room on affordable housing and saving our communities from simply becoming massive global corporate campuses.

Business & Developmentby Mark Reutter4:45 pmApr 19, 2016

Like Harbor Point, Port Covington will be exempt from city’s Inclusionary Housing Law

“Same old smoke and mirrors,” say two longtime housing advocates of the agreement that Mayor Rawlings-Blake is set to sign tomorrow


Above: A crowd gathers in front of City Hall in 2013 to protest the lack of inclusionary housing at city–subsidized Harbor Point. (Mark Reutter)


Since 2007, Baltimore has had on the books an Inclusionary Housing Law designed to ensure that developers getting city subsidies build some units that moderate and low income people can afford.
The city’s decision that Kevin Plank’s Port Covington – with 7,500 proposed residential units, the biggest single housing project in Baltimore’s history – is going to be excluded from this requirement should come as no surprise. (The exemption was not publicly announced, but rather revealed on page 46 of this week’s Board of Estimates agenda.)
The Inclusionary Housing program is weak and has never been improved, despite years of criticism from housing advocates and occasional hand-wringing by the program’s board.

As Lauren Siegel of City Advocates in Solidarity with the Homeless put it, “City leadership has had every opportunity since the last debacle at Harbor Point to change the ordinance or the regulations. An Inclusionary Housing Advisory group has been meeting and made many recommendations last year to the IH Board, which responded by saying that they do not have the capacity to make changes.”
The City Council’s response to the program’s inadequacies has been to establish a 13-member Inclusionary Housing Task Force dominated by the same city officials who let the program lapse.
The group has met once, with a second meeting postponed until after the primary elections. According to its chair, Councilman Bill Henry, “The work group is trying to coalesce the various conversations that have taken place between individuals and groups trying to develop a set of consensus changes that we can propose as legislation to the Council.”


Barely Solvent

In the meantime, the program grows weaker by the month.
Starting with $2 million in cash, the IH program has just $70,000 left in its coffers, according to its latest report to the Council.
Because the fund is barely solvent, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is set to sign a Memorandum of Understanding tomorrow with Plank’s Sagamore Development Co. that opens the possibility of some inclusionary housing financed by state and federal programs, which Plank says he favors.
Siegel and Jeff Singer, retired president of Health Care for the Homeless, said the MOU reveals how the political rhetoric “about equity and inclusion” in the wake of last year’s Freddie Gray-related civil unrest “is just the same old smoke and mirrors.”
That little or no housing for residents in desperate need of affordable housing – over 58,000 people signed up for a chance to be randomly selected for Section 8 housing – may be the end result of tomorrow’s agreement is a travesty, Siegel and Singer said in a statement to The Brew.
The tagline for Port Covington’s social media campaign for the $535 million TIF public subsidy is “We will build it. Together.” Wednesday’s MOU will confirm that not everyone will live in it. (buildportcovington.com)
“Baltimore’s Inclusionary Housing ordinance and regulations seem to have been written by Rube Goldberg emulating Franz Kafka,” they said. “As best we can tell, the goal of the ordinance is to make developer’s profits feasible, rather than to create housing affordable to our vulnerable neighbors.”


Straight from Harbor Point Playbook


Three years ago, the program’s structural weakness was exposed when the $1 billion Harbor Point project was released from the requirement to set aside 20% for affordable housing in return for its $107 million in city TIF (tax increment financing) subsidies.

The exemption was made because the IH program didn’t have the funds to “make the developer whole” by reimbursing the roughly $250,000 cost for each affordable unit. (The IH law generously allows a developer to be fully reimbursed for each affordable unit he sets aside, which the city then purchases at market rate.)
The same process that took place then is now repeating itself.
Once again, as he did with Harbor Point, Baltimore Housing Commissioner Paul Graziano has determined that the proposed $5 billion Port Covington project is “exempt from the requirement to create affordable housing under the IH Law.”
As a consequence, the Board of Estimates, controlled by Mayor Rawlings-Blake, will call on developer Kevin Plank tomorrow to voluntarily set a “goal” of 10% (as opposed to the law’s 20%) affordable housing if and when the developer is able to obtain housing credits from state and federal sources to pay for the units.
“If the publicly subsidized Affordable Housing Units cannot be constructed on a financially reasonable basis, Developer will contribute an amount [stet] to the Inclusionary Housing Fund,” the Board of Estimates agenda says.


Full of Loopholes

The amount of Sagamore’s prospective contribution was not disclosed in this week’s agenda. But based on the past, the contribution will be made in the distant future and will be full of loopholes.
Mayor Rawlings-Blake and Under Armour’s CEO Kevin Plank cut the ribbon opening the company’s innovation lab in 2011. (Brew file photo)
In the case of Harbor Point, for example, developer Michael Beatty agreed to contribute as much as $3 million to the IH fund when Harbor Point completes its projected build-out of 1,000 residential units.
So far, no residential units have been started. With the completion date for the units expected in the mid-2020s, Beatty’s contribution is about 10 years away. Who knows if the IH program will still be in existence then.
In the meantime, though, Beatty has benefited from $35 million in city TIF financing, with a “phase II” slug of TIF funding expected in the near future.


Revolving Door

Plank’s development company is seeking $535 million in TIF financing to pay for parks, bike paths, roadways and other infrastructure across 160 acres of former industrial land that Sagamore Development has purchased in Port Covington in South Baltimore.
In pursuit of his goals, Plank, the founder and CEO of Under Armour, has hired a number of local powerbrokers and influence peddlers to win approval of the TIF and other concessions from the city.
Among those hired by Sagamore Development is Michael Pokorny, manager of the city’s Inclusionary Housing Program from 2009 until he was hired by Plank last summer.
Before that, Pokorny managed TIF and PILOT projects for the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC).
Last month, the BDC formally recommended the $535 million TIF subsidy to Port Covington after a series of meetings closed to the press and public.
__________________________________________

Here we see CA with a CA Supreme Court ruling that inclusionary housing law is constitutional and the Supreme Court declined to address this giving strength to that state ruling.  Now, since inclusionary housing is simply Federal Equal Opportunity Housing when Federal funds are involved we all know legal precedence is CREATE MIXED-INCOME HOUSING BECAUSE IT IS THE BEST DEVELOPMENT POLICY.

Over and over we see cities with affordable housing crises after two decades of US cities having Enterprise Zone development Federal funding for just that-------so it is not only about these two exceptions to inclusionary----

AND BALTIMORE NEEDS TO GET BUSY WITH USING WHAT ARE PLENTY OF FUNDS FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING TO REBUILD EACH COMMUNITY ----IT BENEFITS ALL COMMUNITIES IN BALTIMORE TO DO THIS.

If I was a realtor in Baltimore I would be very concerned with how I will make a living when global corporations come in with there own real estate firms.  We have Baltimore Development with its own real estate firms buying all the city real estate they can ----and this consolidation of ownership is to NO CITIZENS' BENEFIT.


AN EXEMPTION TO INCLUSIONARY HOUSING LAW------BALTIMORE CITY HALL SHOULD BE ASHAMED.


RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU KNOW THESE COUNCIL PEOPLE ESPECIALLY BILL HENRY KNOW THEY ALWAYS WRITE PROGRESSIVE POSING LAWS WITH LOOPHOLES.    

'Councilman Bill Henry admits that the law has only been marginally effective. He and other members of the Council as well as the Inclusionary Housing Advisory Board have been discussing “an array of possible legislative fixes.”'


SCOTUS Passes on San Jose Inclusionary Housing Law

By Casey C. Sullivan, Esq. on March 1, 2016 12:05 PM


The Supreme Court declined to address the constitutionality of San Jose's inclusionary housing law on Monday, denying cert of real estate developers petition from a recent California Supreme Court ruling upholding the affordable housing plan. Under the inclusionary housing law, developers of large residential projects must set aside a small percentage of units as affordable, below market rate housing, which real estate developers had claimed was an unconstitutional taking.
The denial leaves the law, and the California Supreme Court's ruling, intact, but as Justice Thomas noted in a separate opinion, the conflict raises important constitutional issues that are likely to be before the Supreme Court at some time in the future.
San Jose's Affordable Housing Crisis
San Jose, like much of the Bay Area, is in the midst of a rental crisis. With a growing population, limited housing stock, and influx of high-paid professionals, rents have been skyrocketing over the past years. According to Rent Jungle the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Jose is now $2,380 a month -- almost double what average rents were in 2009. Prices aren't much cheaper in neighboring towns.
Instead of building public housing, San Jose has responded by requiring developers to include affordable units in larger projects. Under San Jose's inclusionary housing policy, all residential developments with 20 or more units must reserve 15 percent or more of their units for below-market sales to lower income buyers. Those restrictions remain in place for 45 years. Or, developers could opt out by paying a fee.
Similar laws are in place in more than 170 municipalities, but San Jose was the largest to adopt such stringent requirements.
When San Jose's policy was adopted in 2010, the California Building Industry Association sued, arguing that inclusionary housing was an unconstitutional taking of property without just compensation. The California Supreme Court rejected the developers' challenges last summer and the case was promptly appealed to the U.S. Supremes.


An Important Issue, but an Untimely One


Justice Thomas wrote a concurrence to the Supreme Court's denial of cert, noting the important issues raised by the case. Under Supreme Court takings precedents, administrative agencies may not condition land use approval on relinquishment of property rights unless there's a clear nexus and "rough proportionality" between the exaction and the land use. (The Nollan/Dolan test.)
But, San Jose's inclusionary housing policy wasn't adopted by an administrative agency; it was passed through the city's legislature. And for the past two decades, Thomas notes, courts have been split on how the Nollan/Dolan test applies to legislatively-imposed conditions on land use, if it applies at all.
San Jose's inclusionary housing policy could have provided the opportunity to settle that question. But, "threshold questions about the timeliness of the petition for certiorari might preclude us from reaching the Takings Clause question," Thomas wrote.
Until a timelier case presents itself, there will still be some uncertainty about the constitutionality of inclusionary housing policies -- but there might be some more affordable housing in San Jose.
___________________________________________
Baltimore has a quasi-governmental Parking Authority----a quasi-governmental Housing Authority-----and you see below yet another quasi-governmental agency that would be tasked with making sure all Federal, state, and local funding for housing and laws surrounding housing are enforced.  Why would a then Mayor Dixon make this organization quasi-----?  Why does it have to exist outside of having a city agencies in each community all handling housing issues?  The answer is---there is no transparency in this designation and keeping it grant oriented instead of simply having public employees working for citizens responding directly to them is not done under a Wall Street BAltimore Development and a very, very, very neo-conservative Johns Hopkins.

Baltimore is great at sending funding to keep citizens occupied with services and activities----but there is absolutely no serious advocacy fighting against misappropriation of funding so critical to rebuilding our communities.  We have another layer of non-profits that are doing what many other non-profits are doing---and none of this is getting people housing.

BALTIMORE MUST END THIS QUASI-GOVERNMENTAL DESIGNATION ALL AROUND BUT ESPECIALLY FOR OUR AGENCIES DEALING WITH HOUSING----

Calling a city agency---INC. is the height of Wall Street global corporate capture---they want everything that is public made into a corporation.


I can tell you by ex-offenders' being angry that not much is happening in housing with any of these agencies and it starts with the fact all the revenue is allowed to be misappropriated.

If you try to open this website you cannot and it looks as though it has moved to being a Johns Hopkins/NAACP organization.  The city has too much trying to make people feel good and no making actual community development AND ESPECIALLY FOR HOUSING.  Housing and rebuilding each community IS BALTIMORE RISING.
Baltimore Rising
201 E. Baltimore Street, 15th floor
Baltimore, MD 21202
Phone: 410-396-4274
Fax: 410-396-8137
Website:http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/government/baltimorerising/


Baltimore Rising Inc. is a quasi-city governmental organization that has the primary responsibility of advancing Mayor Shelia Dixon's vision to maximize the human potential of Baltimore residents from the beginning to the end of life through mentoring, family strengthening training, and facilitating the re-rentry of returning offenders to their families and the community.


Baltimore has given decades of training in construction to underserved citizens in communities thinking they will be lifting up their communities but end having no jobs and no communities.  Johns Hopkins and Wall Street Baltimore Development spend more revenue PRETENDING TO BE PUTTING PEOPLE TO WORK---PRETENDING THEY ARE BUILDING OPPORTUNITY----AND NEVER DO.

We know part of the loss for black citizens is immigrant labor but that is not the problem----REBUILDING EACH COMMUNITY WITH HOUSING WOULD PROVIDE WORK FOR BOTH BLACK CITIZENS AND IMMIGRANTS.

This is where all of the election networking happens as these low wage trades workers are simply trying to get project funding to give them work---they have no idea of what these Baltimore Development pols are doing with a Master Plan ------



EBDI: Baltimore Trades Guild

from EBDI3 years ago

Some of the most detailed construction work in our community is being done by the Baltimore Trades Guild, which works with our neighbors who often struggle to gain work – particularly, ex-offenders.
Baltimore Trades Guild provides training – connecting with the EBDI Workforce Pipeline – while also serving as a subcontractor on projects.
Currently, the Baltimore Trades Guild team is working on the restoration of historic wood cornices on the 25 row houses being renovated by Verde Construction near our office.
Baltimore Trades Guild President Mylo Celsy talks about the project:
"The crew that I’m working with is from the EBDI pipeline. They are up working on scaffolding, over 25 feet in the air, restoring the cornices of the houses. So they’re learning a lot of skills in woodworking, in safety and how to work up in the air."
"While our participants are on the job learning as they are working, they are also earning a living wage. Additionally, we work with them a couple of hours a week doing advanced skills training, managing finances, how to get a drivers license, and peer mentoring with men who have built construction companies out of nothing."
Lead Carpentry Supervisor Oral Lampart explains how they help build careers:
"Most of the guys that come to me have very little skill – or limited experience in general contracting – but not the intricate work we do. We work with very fine detail, which is very painstaking. It's a slow tedious process, but at the end we have a beautiful product. It gets frustrating for the guys at times because I'm constantly picking on getting it better, getting more details. And if they do that well – then construction will be a piece of cake to them."
In the video, you’ll also hear from our neighbor Unandus Dyson, who connected with the Baltimore Trades Guild through our pipeline, and is supporting himself doing construction while also attending Morgan State University. And his story represents what we are working together to achieve – working with our neighbors to learn skills, gain employment and pursue even greater opportunities.
Thank you for reading this weeks email. Please take a few minutes to watch our video and see our neighbors hard at work, restoring our community.
Sincerely,
_________________________________________

PEOPLE CONSTANTLY SHOWING ENTHUSIASM FOR WANTING TO WORK AND BEING ALLOWED NO OPPORTUNITY IS WHAT WALL STREET BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT AND A VERY, VERY, VERY NEO-CONSERVATIVE JOHNS HOPKINS IS ABOUT.



I met one of the church leaders fighting for jobs for his construction team trained to do all of the above-------they were of course denied any jobs in East Baltimore Development and he was actually arrested and threatened with jail for protesting for his trained construction group.

When I met him after having to deal with Baltimore courts for months for doing nothing I told him about a developer in their neighborhood starting to build and he said-----THEY AREN'T GOING TO HIRE US.

All of this show and tell pretending over development and affordable housing HURTS ALL CITIZENS IN BALTIMORE.  There is nothing good about saving all surrounding communities to be global corporate campuses and global factories-----it is far better for everyone to have our citizens working----paying taxes-----having money to spend at a local small business.  Baltimore has plenty of revenue for rebuilding each community and rehabbing houses so there is no reason for this third world housing condition----JUST GET RID OF THESE WALL STREET BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT POLS AND CANDIDATES.




Church group urges construction jobs for E. Balto. residentsCommunity Churches United plans to meet with EBDI


December 08, 2011|By Lorraine Mirabella, The Baltimore Sun



A job advocacy group in East Baltimore plans to demand that the developer of a $1.8 billion redevelopment project north of Johns Hopkins medical campus hire more local residents for the next phase of construction, including work on a new public school and a state public health laboratory.

The group, Community Churches United, said Thursday it would meet later this month with East Baltimore Development Inc., the nonprofit leading the renewal of 88 acres in the Middle East neighborhood, to make its hiring proposals.
During a meeting Thursday afternoon at Triumph Christian Church on East Oliver Street, organizers told an overflow crowd, mostly unemployed men from the neighborhood, that all future construction projects should be required to hire at least half their workers locally.
"EBDI will continue to build in the community, and it's time for us to claim these jobs and make sure everyone in this room is working," said Jermaine Jones, an organizer, who estimated the community had unemployment levels of more than 19 percent. "I need everyone in this room to be ready to go to work."
EBDI aims to fill at least 15 percent of commercial jobs with skilled and unskilled minority workers, with the first priority given to residents, according to an EBDI plan that took effect in August. For residential projects, the goal is to have local minority residents fill 20 percent of jobs.

Christopher Shea, EBDI's CEO, did not attend Thursday's meeting at Triumph Christian Church and could not be reached afterward.
During a City Council hearing last month, Shea said that work so far had created 759 permanent jobs in East Baltimore, a quarter of which went to residents. In addition, he said, 813 construction jobs were added in the past year and a half, with 74 going to East Baltimore residents.
Organizers of Community Churches United, a coalition of local churches, called those levels unacceptable.

"Enough is enough. The existence as a black community is at stake," said organizer Richie Armstrong, referring to EBDI's relocation of 584 families from the Middle East neighborhood since 2003. "If we don't stop it today, our kids will be in the same kind of meeting figuring out where they're going to work."
The church group, which partners with the Laborers' International Union of North America to train workers in construction trades, proposes to become a partner with EBDI, offering a pipeline for trained, local workers to the construction jobs planned for the next decade.
The renewal project ultimately could include 1,500 to 2,000 new and renovated residential units and up to 1.7 million square feet of commercial space.

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    Cindy Walsh is a lifelong political activist and academic living in Baltimore, Maryland.

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