Citizens' Oversight Maryland---Maryland Progressives
CINDY WALSH FOR MAYOR OF BALTIMORE----SOCIAL DEMOCRAT
Citizens Oversight Maryland.com
  • Home
  • Cindy Walsh for Mayor of Baltimore
    • Mayoral Election violations
    • Questionnaires from Community >
      • Education Questionnaire
      • Baltimore Housing Questionnaire
      • Emerging Youth Questionnaire
      • Health Care policy for Baltimore
      • Environmental Questionnaires
      • Livable Baltimore questionnaire
      • Labor Questionnnaire
      • Ending Food Deserts Questionnaire
      • Maryland Out of School Time Network
      • LBGTQ Questionnaire
      • Citizen Artist Baltimore Mayoral Forum on Arts & Culture Questionnaire
      • Baltimore Transit Choices Questionnaire
      • Baltimore Activating Solidarity Economies (BASE)
      • Downtown Partnership Questionnaire
      • The Northeast Baltimore Communities Of BelAir Edison Community Association (BECCA )and Frankford Improvement Association, Inc. (FIA)
      • Streets and Transportation/Neighbood Questionnaire
      • African American Tourism and business questionnaire
      • Baltimore Sun Questionnaire
      • City Paper Mayoral Questionnaire
      • Baltimore Technology Com Questionnaire
      • Baltimore Biker's Questionnair
      • Homewood Friends Meeting Questionnaire
      • Baltimore Historical Collaboration---Anthem Project
      • Tubman City News Mayoral Questionnaire
      • Maryland Public Policy Institute Questionnaire
      • AFRO questionnaire
      • WBAL Candidate's Survey
  • Blog
  • Trans Pacific Pact (TPP)
  • Progressive vs. Third Way Corporate Democrats
    • Third Way Think Tanks
  • Financial Reform/Wall Street Fraud
    • Consumer Financial Protection Bureau >
      • CFPB Actions
    • Voted to Repeal Glass-Steagall
    • Federal Reserve >
      • Federal Reserve Actions
    • Securities and Exchange Commission >
      • SEC Actions
    • Commodity Futures Trading Commission >
      • CFTC Actions
    • Office of the Comptroller of the Currency >
      • OCC Actions
    • Office of Treasury/ Inspector General for the Treasury
    • FINRA >
      • FINRA ACTIONS
  • Federal Healthcare Reform
    • Health Care Fraud in the US
    • Health and Human Services Actions
  • Social Security and Entitlement Reform
    • Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP Actions
  • Federal Education Reform
    • Education Advocates
  • Government Schedules
    • Baltimore City Council
    • Maryland State Assembly >
      • Budget and Taxation Committee
    • US Congress
  • State and Local Government
    • Baltimore City Government >
      • City Hall Actions
      • Baltimore City Council >
        • Baltimore City Council Actions
      • Baltimore Board of Estimates meeting >
        • Board of Estimates Actions
    • Governor's Office >
      • Telling the World about O'Malley
    • Lt. Governor Brown
    • Maryland General Assembly Committees >
      • Communications with Maryland Assembly
      • Budget and Taxation Committees >
        • Actions
        • Pension news
      • Finance Committees >
        • Schedule
      • Business Licensing and Regulation
      • Judicial, Rules, and Nominations Committee
      • Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee >
        • Committee Actions
    • Maryland State Attorney General >
      • Open Meetings Act
      • Maryland Courts >
        • Maryland Court System
    • States Attorney - Baltimore's Prosecutor
    • State Comptroller's Office >
      • Maryland Business Tax Reform >
        • Business Tax Reform Issues
  • Maryland Committee Actions
    • Board of Public Works >
      • Public Works Actions
    • Maryland Public Service Commission >
      • Public Meetings
    • Maryland Health Care Commission/Maryland Community Health Resources Commission >
      • MHCC/MCHRC Actions
    • Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition
  • Maryland and Baltimore Development Organizations
    • Baltimore/Maryland Development History
    • Committee Actions
    • Maryland Development Organizations
  • Maryland State Department of Education
    • Charter Schools
    • Public Schools
    • Algebra Project Award
  • Baltimore City School Board
    • Charter Schools >
      • Charter Schools---Performance
      • Charter School Issues
    • Public Schools >
      • Public School Issues
  • Progressive Issues
    • Fair and Balanced Elections
    • Labor Issues
    • Rule of Law Issues >
      • Rule of Law
    • Justice issues 2
    • Justice Issues
    • Progressive Tax Reform Issues >
      • Maryland Tax Reform Issues
      • Baltimore Tax Reform Issues
    • Strong Public Education >
      • Corporate education reform organizations
    • Healthcare for All Issues >
      • Universal Care Bill by state
  • Building Strong Media
    • Media with a Progressive Agenda (I'm still checking on that!) >
      • anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com
      • "Talk About It" Radio - WFBR 1590AM Baltimore
      • Promethius Radio Project
      • Clearing the Fog
      • Democracy Now
      • Black Agenda Radio
      • World Truth. TV Your Alternative News Network.
      • Daily Censured
      • Bill Moyers Journal
      • Center for Public Integrity
      • Public Radio International
      • Baltimore Brew
      • Free Press
    • Far Left/Socialist Media
    • Media with a Third Way Agenda >
      • MSNBC
      • Center for Media and Democracy
      • Public Radio and TV >
        • NPR and MPT News
      • TruthOut
  • Progressive Organizations
    • Political Organizations >
      • Progressives United
      • Democracy for America
    • Labor Organizations >
      • United Workers
      • Unite Here Local 7
      • ROC-NY works to build power and win justice
    • Justice Organizations >
      • APC Baltimore
      • Occupy Baltimore
    • Rule of Law Organizations >
      • Bill of Rights Defense Committee
      • National Lawyers Guild
      • National ACLU
    • Tax Reform Organizations
    • Healthcare for All Organizations >
      • Healthcare is a Human Right - Maryland
      • PNHP Physicians for a National Health Program
      • Healthcare NOW- Maryland
    • Public Education Organizations >
      • Parents Across America
      • Philadelphia Public School Notebook thenotebook.org
      • Chicago Teachers Union/Blog
      • Ed Wize Blog
      • Educators for a Democratic Union
      • Big Education Ape
    • Elections Organizations >
      • League of Women Voters
  • Progressive Actions
    • Labor Actions
    • Justice Actions
    • Tax Reform Actions >
      • Baltimore Tax Actions
      • Maryland Tax Reform Actions
    • Healthcare Actions
    • Public Education Actions
    • Rule of Law Actions >
      • Suing Federal and State government
    • Free and Fair Elections Actions
  • Maryland/Baltimore Voting Districts - your politicians and their votes
    • 2014 ELECTION OF STATE OFFICES
    • Maryland Assembly/Baltimore
  • Petitions, Complaints, and Freedom of Information Requests
    • Complaints - Government and Consumer >
      • Sample Complaints
    • Petitions >
      • Sample Petitions
    • Freedom of Information >
      • Sample Letters
  • State of the Democratic Party
  • Misc
    • WBFF TV
    • WBAL TV
    • WJZ TV
    • WMAR TV
    • WOLB Radio---Radio One
    • The Gazette
    • Baltimore Sun Media Group
  • Misc 2
    • Maryland Public Television
    • WYPR
    • WEAA
    • Maryland Reporter
  • Misc 3
    • University of Maryland
    • Morgan State University
  • Misc 4
    • Baltimore Education Coalition
    • BUILD Baltimore
    • Church of the Great Commission
    • Maryland Democratic Party
    • Pennsylvania Avenue AME Zion Church
    • Maryland Municipal League
    • Maryland League of Women Voters
  • Untitled
  • Untitled
  • Standard of Review
  • Untitled
  • WALSH FOR GOVERNOR - CANDIDATE INFORMATION AND PLATFORM
    • Campaign Finance/Campaign donations
    • Speaking Events
    • Why Heather Mizeur is NOT a progressive
    • Campaign responses to Community Organization Questionnaires
    • Cindy Walsh vs Maryland Board of Elections >
      • Leniency from court for self-representing plaintiffs
      • Amended Complaint
      • Plaintiff request for expedited trial date
      • Response to Motion to Dismiss--Brown, Gansler, Mackie, and Lamone
      • Injunction and Mandamus
      • DECISION/APPEAL TO SPECIAL COURT OF APPEALS---Baltimore City Circuit Court response to Cindy Walsh complaint >
        • Brief for Maryland Court of Special Appeals >
          • Cover Page ---yellow
          • Table of Contents
          • Table of Authorities
          • Leniency for Pro Se Representation
          • Statement of Case
          • Questions Presented
          • Statement of Facts
          • Argument
          • Conclusion/Font and Type Size
          • Record Extract
          • Appendix
          • Motion for Reconsideration
          • Response to Defendants Motion to Dismiss
          • Motion to Reconsider Dismissal
      • General Election fraud and recount complaints
    • Cindy Walsh goes to Federal Court for Maryland election violations >
      • Complaints filed with the FCC, the IRS, and the FBI
      • Zapple Doctrine---Media Time for Major Party candidates
      • Complaint filed with the US Justice Department for election fraud and court irregularities.
      • US Attorney General, Maryland Attorney General, and Maryland Board of Elections are charged with enforcing election law
      • Private media has a responsibility to allow access to all candidates in an election race. >
        • Print press accountable to false statement of facts
      • Polling should not determine a candidate's viability especially if the polling is arbitrary
      • Viability of a candidate
      • Public media violates election law regarding do no damage to candidate's campaign
      • 501c3 Organizations violate election law in doing no damage to a candidate in a race >
        • 501c3 violations of election law-----private capital
      • Voter apathy increases when elections are not free and fair
  • Maryland Board of Elections certifies election on July 10, 2014
  • Maryland Elections ---2016

May 31st, 2017

5/31/2017

0 Comments

 
  1. Bill List - Mental Health Association of Maryland
  2. www.mhamd.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2017-MHAMD-Bill-List-Final.pdf Apr 11, 2017 ... Education – Specialized. Intervention Services -. Reports. Requires county school boards to report on the number of K-12 students receiving ...

Please goggle this BILL LIST to see the Maryland Assembly bills tied to health and education as regards mental health.



Today let's look at the very first Senate bill 1 again HEALTH AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE this time pertaining to SPECIAL EDUCATION STUDENTS in K-3.  If we read this bill we might think our Maryland Assembly cares about students with disabilities.  Maryland being far-right global Wall Street has these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA allowed the worst of conditions for all Federal Education Title 8 rights----including special education students. Now, some counties may handle the funding they receive from this Federal program differently----there may be counties in Maryland that do the right thing and invest that Federal funding into strong programs for our special needs students----Baltimore City for one does not and the State of Maryland has over 3 decades allowed this failure to stand.  Federal funding for special needs in Baltimore as with public K-12 funds in general were largely lost to misappropriation, fraud, and corruption.  Parents of special needs in Baltimore have shouted these same decades about the failure to meet standards -----a transference of control of Baltimore City School Board to the STATE was predicated on these special needs failures 3 decades ago under the guise of the state correcting failures and VOILA----special needs in Baltimore is worse than 3 decades ago.  In fact all in-school staff once charged with being those support staff have systematically been fired---down-sized---outsourced making matters worse.

This is not to say a Montgomery County does not use its Federal special needs and Title 8 funding as it should----we have not looked into that school system.  The point is this:  Race to the Top along with changes in PER PUPIL FUNDING FOR SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS lowered funding for these students and they are systematically being tracked into low-performing schools. 


SENATE BILL 1(A) IN THIS SECTION, “SPECIALIZED INTERVENTION SERVICES” MEANS 1 SERVICES PROVIDED TO STUDENTS IN KINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADE  3 WHO:
(1) ARE NOT CURRENTLY IDENTIFIED AS NEEDING SPECIAL
EDUCATION OR RELATED SERVICES UNDER TITLE 8, SUBTITLE OF THIS ARTICLE;

So, when we get yet another education policy geared towards special needs students-----we are SKEPTICAL



EXPLANATION: CAPITALS INDICATE MATTER ADDED TO EXISTING LAW.  
  [Brackets]
indicate matter deleted from existing law.
Underlining
indicates amendments to bill.
Strike out
indicates matter stricken from the bill by amendment or deleted from the law by
amendment.


*sb0001*
SENATE BILL 1
F1
7lr0396
(PRE
–
FILED)
By:
Senator Conway
Senators Conway, Madaleno, Lee, Zucker, and Smith
Requested: June 29, 2016
Introduced and read
first time: January 11, 2017


Assigned to: Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs
Committee Report: Favorable with amendments
Senate action: Adopted
Read second time: February 13, 2017



CHAPTER ______
AN ACT concerning
1
Education
–
Specialized
Intervention Services
–
Reports
2
FOR the purpose of requiring certain county boards of education to report certain
3
information relating to the provision of specialized intervention services to the State
4
Department of Education and the General Assembly on
or before a certain date each
5
year;
requiring the State Department of Education to establish certain guidelines;
6
requiring certain county boards and the Department to publish annually certain
7
information on certain Web sites; defining a certain term; and
generally relating to
8
the reporting of specialized intervention services.
9
BY adding to
10
Article
–
Education
11
Section 5
–
111.1
12
Annotated Code of Maryland
13
(2014 Replacement Volume and 2016 Supplement)

______________________________________


One of the first things we see is ------the bill states these policies do not apply to special needs children ---a category called 'Specialized
Intervention Services' seems to differentiate between special needs and students having other classroom challenges. This article sounds a request by parents of special needs for improvements---this bill looks to do the opposite.


The article clearly identifies students with disabilities-----

'The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is important for students with disabilities.  It holds substantial promise for students in need of early intervention'.

And here is that Senate Bill 1-----clearly stating these policies do not pertain to students identified as needing special education.  Again. our Maryland and Baltimore media will only place this bill's title in a media headline and it looks like the assembly is addressing the concerns of parents with special needs children.

FAR-RIGHT WING GLOBAL WALL STREET CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS PRETENDING TO THROW LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE BONES HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR THESE FEW DECADES WHILE RUNNING AS DEMOCRATS.



SENATE BILL 1(A) IN THIS SECTION, “SPECIALIZED INTERVENTION SERVICES” MEANS 1 SERVICES PROVIDED TO STUDENTS IN KINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADE  3 WHO:
(1) ARE NOT CURRENTLY IDENTIFIED AS NEEDING SPECIAL
EDUCATION OR RELATED SERVICES UNDER TITLE 8, SUBTITLE OF THIS ARTICLE;



How Maryland legislators can fix a problem one mother found with special education

By Valerie Strauss March 2

A therapist works with a child with autism doing ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) therapy. The photo chart and pictures are all my own (I make therapy materials for special needs kids). The exercise done here helps a child identify and manage emotions.
I recently wrote a post about Katherine Spurlock, a former public school teacher who moved to Montgomery County, Md., from a tiny school district in New York and discovered shocking about special education.

Spurlock wanted to make sure that her daughter, who has dyslexia, received appropriate interventions and placement in school but learned that Montgomery County — nor any other county in Maryland and perhaps across the United States — did not compile  data about how much money was being spent on early academic or behavioral interventions for students who need them.

Why does this matter? As I wrote in the earlier post, research shows that early interventions — from kindergarten through third grade — can help alleviate learning disabilities and improve student outcomes. The Maryland Special Education Census Data 2014-2015 showed that a large number of students in special education receive referrals after the K-3 period has passed -- and that data suggests that by the time students with learning disabilities are referred for special-education services, wide achievement gaps already exist. But there isn’t a systematic way for a state to know who is doing what with specialized interventions for young children — even though federal law says schools must have intervention programs.


Spurlock persuaded some Maryland state legislators to introduce legislation requiring boards of education to annually report data on specialized intervention services to the State Department of Education and the General Assembly. Here’s a piece she wrote about where that legislation is headed and why it matters so much.

By Katherine Spurlock
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is important for students with disabilities.  It holds substantial promise for students in need of early intervention.

About half the students in special education have severe disabilities such as blindness, deafness, Down Syndrome, mental retardation, and other disabilities evident at birth or early in development. When these students receive effective intervention, their outcomes are better, but it wasn’t a lack of early intervention that created the disability they live with.

For about half the students in the United States served by special education, the situation is murkier.  They have mild or late appearing disabilities — often affecting learning and attention — that schools identify in later elementary school or even in middle or high school.  Part nature and part nurture, these learning problems can be curbed through early intervention.
But this means stark disparities exist between the children of the haves—who can better get intervention both inside and outside the schools—and the have nots.  Further, it’s not fanciful to say that a lack of effective early intervention creates many of the learning, attention, and emotional disabilities we see down the road.

Starting with the reauthorization of IDEA in 2004, federal law took the view that schools are accountable for disparities by mandating that schools have early-intervention programs in order to avoid racial disproportionality in special education, evident when more poor children are consigned to the special education classroom rather than the general education classroom.

IDEA 2004 made clear that it wasn’t only racism and cultural bias that were to blame for the over-representation of minorities in more restrictive learning environments, but the lack of effective early intervention.  Schools with significant over-representation were required to re-direct federal funding that supports special education to prevention in the form of early intervention programs focusing primarily on kindergarten through third grade.


But IDEA, while mandating early intervention, does not demand the data reporting that would provide real accountability.  This is a real problem, because sanctioning schools for over-representation creates a perverse incentive for schools to delay referring children of color for special education services.  The law designed to promote early intervention can in some cases have the opposite impact. If minority students are not significantly over-represented in schools in categories like learning disabilities because they have received quality intervention that’s a good thing.  But if the needs of minority children are more likely to be ignored, that is not a good thing at all.

____________________________________

Here we see what Bill 1 addresses-----it is mental health and we are not surprised that an affluent county like Montgomery County would OPPOSE THIS while supporting the work group. 

If we read the bill again ---the synopsis------we see what most statutes coming from our state assembly say-----CERTAIN THIS----CERTAIN THAT------CERTAIN OVER THERE.  These statutes are targeted ----not held to all citizens in Maryland.  In this case this reporting on how much is spent and how for each child will only be required of children with mental health issues and indeed it will hit urban children of low-income---and rural children of low-income.  Targeting a select group of citizens for reporting ----from grades K-3---while these children are already being tracked into lower-performing schools COMPOUNDS the inequity for these children.

WE WANT TO SAY TO MARYLAND ACLU WHICH ALWAYS LEADS IN PROMOTING THE WORST OF UNJUST EDUCATION POLICIES----YOU ARE AGAIN ON THE WRONG SIDE OF CIVIL LIBERTIES.





Montgomery County Public Schools, 850 Hungerford Drive, Rockville, Maryland 20850
Senate BillsSenate Bill 1 
Education - Specialized Intervention Services – Reports
Senator Conway
Oppose (but support workgroup)



We are MOVING FORWARD to such a degree of 'specialization' of education with all kinds of for-profit schools having these programs that any kind of equal rights, equal opportunity and access, and rights for our disabled----remember, children with behavior that may not be main stream are not necessarily mentally ill.




OnTrack Maryland

What is the OnTrack Maryland Program?

OnTrack


Maryland, a program for young adults offered at Family Services, Inc., offers specialized programs for the early identification, evaluation, and treatment of adolescents and young adults who have started experiencing certain troubling thoughts and/or experiences, or exhibiting changes in behavior, such as:
  • Hearing or seeing things that others do not see or hear
  • Having unusual thoughts or beliefs that appear as strange to themselves or others
  • Feeling fearful or suspicious of others, sometimes including others they usually trust
We use an integrated approach to address educational, employment, physical and mental needs of young adults, including providing support for managing concerns with substance abuse.  We are committed to equipping individuals at risk for more serious mental health difficulties and their families with tools to manage these troubling thoughts and/or experiences, achieve their goals for school, work, and relationships, and establish a life of their choosing.



Who does OnTrack Maryland serve?
  • Individuals (ages 15-30) who gave recently started having strange and unusual thoughts and/or experiences.
  • Family members, friends, educators, and others interested in understanding more about what these experiences might mean, and learning how to help individuals connect with appropriate help.
What services are available?

OnTrack Maryland provides evidence-based interventions for youth with early psychosis, including:
  • Care based on model of mental health recovery that takes into account the treatment preferences and goals of young people and their families;
  • Psycho-education about early psychosis for young people and families;
  • Prescription and management of recommended pharmacological treatments;

  • Supported employment and education for helping young people re-engage in work, school or pursuing new educational and/or work opportunities;

  • Behavioral interventions to improve social functioning and reduce substance use;

  • Assisting young people and families in times of acute need;

  • Connecting young people and their families to resources and other support services in their communities.
________________________________________


We encourage all citizens to keep an eye on this dismantling of all Federal Education Titles and what will be the same defunding-----services becoming worse to harmful-----because that is to where RACE TO THE TOP takes our special needs students and believe global Wall Street does not take time for children with behavioral/emotional issues---they will track those challenged right out of any school system and into workshops.

Baltimore is a city that hates public education and it does not think left social progressive public health exists.



Top Ten Most Ridiculous Comments Heard at an IEP Meeting

By Dennise Goldberg


In my job as a special education advocate, and my other job as a parent of a child with special needs, I have been involved in too many Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings to count.  During these numerous IEP meetings I have met some wonderful, caring, knowledgeable, well meaning Teachers and School Personnel.


I have also, at times, heard some of the most outrageous statements!!!  These ridiculous comments fly in the face of everything the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) stands for.  What you will find below are ten of most ridiculous statements that I have heard and why they are so ridiculous.


Ridiculous Statement #1

Your child’s emotional disturbance is interfering with her academic performance so she doesn’t qualify for an IEP.


Fact:  There are 13 disability categories under IDEA.  In order to qualify for an IEP you must meet the definition of one of the 13 categories and by reason thereof NEED special education and related services.  One of the 13 disability categories is emotional disturbance and if that disability is interfering with the child’s ability to access the curriculum then by definition she has a need for an IEP.


Ridiculous Statement #2

This is a Magnet School we don’t do IEP’s here.


Fact: All public schools are required, by law, to provide children with a disability a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE).  Since magnet schools are public schools they are required to execute IEP’s for those children that require special education.  This would also go for advanced study schools and charter schools.


Ridiculous Statement #3

We don’t perform Functional Behavior Assessments (FBA) or write Behavior Support Plans (BSP) for Children exhibiting off-task behavior.  FBA’s are only for kids that are not nice.



Fact:  IDEA requires the IEP Team to consider five special factors when writing an IEP.  One of those five special factors is behavior.  It states:  (i) In the case of a child whose behavior impedes the child’s learning or that of others, consider the use of positive behavioral interventions and supports, and other strategies, to address that behavior.  Behavior that impedes learning comes in many forms and does not always manifest itself in violent outbursts.  Off-task behavior can and does impede learning.


Ridiculous Statement #4

Maybe your daughter’s behavior issues are being caused by you telling her she has autism and she is emulating how she thinks someone with autism should act.  I suggest not talking with her so much about her autism.


Fact: Wow, I’m still amazed at this one and I’m not sure where to start.  Let’s focus on the fact that they are blaming the parent for the child’s behavior in school.  If the School really believes the IEP isn’t working because of the parent they are required to provide training to the parent via the related service, parent training and counseling.  In my opinion, the School needs the training not the parent but let’s move on.:)


Ridiculous Statement #5

We can’t test your child for an IEP until we have first tried Response to Intervention.


Fact: This ridiculous statement was used by so many School Districts that on January 21, 2011 the United States Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services issued a memo reminding School Districts that Response to Intervention cannot be used to delay-deny an evaluation for eligibility under IDEA.   You can download the memo here: OSERS Memo on RTI Office of Special Education


Ridiculous Statement #6

Your child will be graduating at the end of the month whether you like it or not.


Fact: Graduation with a diploma is considered a change of placement under an IEP.  Any change of placement triggers extensive due process rights.  If the parents disagree with their child (who has not reached the age of majority) graduating they can stop it by filing for due process.  This would trigger a Stay Put.  Stay Put means there can be no change of placement or reduction of services while the disagreement is being worked out.


Ridiculous Statement #7

I won’t let you add your comments to the parental concerns section of the IEP form because the IEP is a School document and I disagree with your description of the events that occurred.


Fact: This question has been responded to in the United States Federal Register where it was said, “Parents are free to provide input into their child’s IEP through a written report if they so choose.”


Ridiculous Statement #8

I spoke to my supervisor at the School District and she has authorized me to offer you one hour of speech therapy a week.


Fact: IDEA specifically says that all decisions regarding an IEP need to be decided in an IEP Team meeting.  If a faceless supervisor is making the decision regarding the IEP outside of the team meeting then this is called predetermination.  That supervisor would need to join the IEP Team and discuss her recommendations with the Team before any decisions could be made.


Ridiculous Statement #9

 I agree she needs a full-time aide but I don’t have the authority to authorize that.


Fact: IDEA requires every IEP Team to have a District Representative that is knowledgeable about the District’s curriculum and resources that has the authority to bind the District.


Ridiculous Statement #10 Your child is too smart to have an IEP.


Fact:  Intelligence has no bearing on disability or need.  Even individuals with genius level IQs can have a disability that affects their ability to access the curriculum.


Dennise Goldberg is the owner of Special Education Advisor a community of parents, educators, and special education service providers dedicated to helping families with children who have special needs understand their special education rights and receive appropriate special education services.

Dennise works with children with all forms of disabilities including autism, cerebral palsy, aspergers, and down syndrome, to name a few. She is also the mother of a beautiful 10-year old boy who has dealt with developmental delays, apraxia of speech, fine motor delays, sensory issues, gross motor delays, and now has a learning disability (auditory processing disorder).
_________________________________________


This school system uses this education corporation, this school system uses that education testing corporation each having testing and education data that follows our children through LITERALLY---LIFE.

The only real testing we need is for SOCIOPATHY---LET'S GET RID OF GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS BY REQUIRING AN ANNUAL MENTAL HEALTH TESTING.


'Brigance Testing covers a variety of school based curriculum topics through a series of 12 assessments, including language development, science and math proficiencies and gross motor skills'.

Baltimore is heading for the worst of K-career for-profit global education corporation structures and policies-----each pol in office runs as a Democrat----serves as a far-right wing global Wall Street with the most repressive---regressive public policy especially in EDUCATION =====



Last edited Feb 27, 2017 @ 10:01 pm


What is Brigance Testing?


Brigance is a screening tool widely used by schools for students in Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten and First Grade. The test is not an IQ test nor is it a full scale educational assessment – it is a norm referenced test that compares each child’s results with the performance of other examinees. Brigance Testing covers a variety of school based curriculum topics through a series of 12 assessments, including language development, science and math proficiencies and gross motor skills.


  • 1 Who administers the test?
  • 2 How is the test scored?
  • 3 Why do schools use Brigance Testing?
  • 4 Do all schools use Brigance Testing?
    • 4.1 Related

Who administers the test?



The test is administered in a one-on-one setting and takes approximately 15 minutes. In many schools the test can be done by the reading specialist, the classroom teacher, or school psychologist.


How is the test scored?The test is scored by the test administrator in 3 steps. First, the administrator scores each of the 12 assessment areas individually. They do this by multiplying the total correct answers for that section by a specific point value per question. Each section has questions weighed at a different amount based on the skill level required and age of testing. For example, a Kindergartener will only get ½ point for each uppercase letter named correctly but gets 3 points for each correct question related to number readiness. Second, after they have determined the child’s scores for each section they compile the results. The test is based on a total score of 100 points.  Third, the total score is compared to a national average scale to indicate if the student is above, below, or of average ability level.


Why do schools use Brigance Testing?

Many schools use this screening tool to identify incoming students who may be at risk for learning difficulties and who might benefit from intervention. Likewise, the test has the capability to indicate a child who may be above average and thus provide the support necessary for a more enriching learning experience.


Do all schools use Brigance Testing?

No, they do not. The use of Brigance Testing is subject to the administrative decisions of each school and school district’s procedures when screening incoming Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten, and First Grade students.


By Danielle Meyer, Reading Specialist
0 Comments

May 30th, 2017

5/30/2017

0 Comments

 


We want to spend this week discussing legislation passing through Maryland Assembly.  First we need to note this----Maryland is one of a few states having a legislative period of only 3 MONTHS.

Maryland has kept its assembly sessions at the same 3 months for centuries back when a session may have had a few hundred bills.  Look today to see our 2017 Maryland Assembly session with 1200 bills all done in 3 months.  Needless to say----there is no time to discuss beyond a cursory superficial way------there is no time for Maryland citizens to have time to bring input-----almost all session public voice comes from global Wall Street non-profit leaders.  If you are a citizen with a voice NOT GLOBAL WALL STREET you will find these committee chairs coming up with all kinds of reasons for you not to have time to speak.  Left social progressive voices are silenced in general session public meetings while CAMERAS ARE SHOWING THAT COMMITTEE MEETING.

Needless to say--------these bills are rammed through a crony process and there is so many bills made public in so short of time----the general public has NO TIME to organize fight ---no way to know that a bill pages long sounding social progressive with very, very, very, very bad global Wall Street policies buried inside.

Maryland has always been global Wall Street----making the rich extremely richer but this format----3 month sessions with tons of bills are now coming to US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones.  This is how global Wall STreet pols pass all that policy for MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE while most people are watching Trump on CNN.



Legislative Session Length

12/2/2010
Table of Contents
  • Legislative Session Length
Contact
  • Jonathan Griffin
Legislative session length may be unrestricted, or it may be limited. Session length limitations are set in a variety of ways. The limits may be found in constitution, statute or chamber rule. They also may set indirectly by restricting the number of days for which a legislator receives compensation, per diem or mileage reimbursement.


In the early 1960s, 17 states did not place restrictions on the length of their legislative sessions. In another 10 states, the limits were indirect. Several states increased their session length. These were Colorado (from 120 to 160); Georgia (from 80 to 85); Kansas (from 90 to 120); Minnesota (from 90 to 120); and South Dakota (from 60 to 75).



Throughout the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, session limitations became more defined. Fewer states had unrestricted sessions, and the number of states with indirect session limits declined.

REAGAN/CLINTON ERA----


Since the late 1980s, several session lengths were shortened.  Colorado's session was cut to 120 days in 1988. In 1992, Louisiana changed its constitution to shorten and limit the scope of its even-year session. In 1998, the citizens of Nevada adopted a constitutional amendment that restricts the legislative session to 120 days. In 2002, an amendment to the Louisiana Constitution changed the timing of its general and fiscal sessions and adjusted the length of the fiscal session; the changes went into effect January 2004.  In 2006, Alaska voters passed an initiative establishing a 90 day session in statute, which took effect in 2008.



In November 2008, however, South Dakota voters approved a constitutional amendment that lengthened legislative sessions. The amendment equalized the length of session at 40 legislative days each year. Previously, session length was 40 legislative days in odd-numbered years, and 35 legislative days in even-numbered years.

Currently, only 11 states do not place a limit on the length of regular session. In the remaining 39, the limits are set by constitution, statute, chamber rule or indirect method.



Legislative Session

LengthStateCurrent Session Length Limit


Method of Setting


Alabama30 L in 105 CStatute

Alaska
90 C
Statute


Arizona

Sat of week in which 100th C falls
Chamber rule

Arkansas
Odd-60 C
Even-30 C
Constitution

California
Odd-None
Even-Nov 30

Odd-Sept 12
Even-Aug 31
Constitution





Chamber Rule

Colorado
120 C
Constitution

Connecticut
Odd-Wed after 1st Mon in June
Even- Wed after 1st Mon in May 
Constitution

Delaware
June 30
Constitution


Florida
60 C
Constitution

Georgia
40 L
Constitution

Hawaii
60 L
Constitution


Idaho
None
Not applicable

Illinois
None
Not applicable

Indiana
Odd-Apr 29
Even-Mar 14
Statute


Iowa
Odd-110 C
Even-100 C
Indirect

Kansas
Odd-None
Even-90 C
Constitution

Kentucky
Odd: 30 L or Mar 30
Even:60 L or Apr 15
Constitution


Louisiana
Odd-45 L in 60 C
Even-60 L in 85 C
Constitution

Maine
Odd-3rd Wed in June
Even-3rd Wed in Apr 
Statute

Maryland
90 C
Constitution


Massachusetts
Formal sessions:
Odd-3rd Wed in November
Even-July 31 
Informal sessions: None
Chamber rule

Michigan
None
Not applicable

Minnesota
120 L total within biennium or 1st Mon after 3rd Sat in May each year
Constitution


Mississippi
90 C except year after gubernatorial election,
then 125 C
Constitution

Missouri
May 30
Constitution

Montana
Biennial session; 90 L
Constitution


Nebraska
Odd-90 L
Even-60 L
Constitution

Nevada
Biennial session ; 120 C
Constitution

New Hampshire
45 L or July 1
Indirect


New Jersey
None
Not applicable

New Mexico
Odd-60 C
Even-30 C
Constitution

New York
None
Not applicable

North Carolina
None
Not applicable


North Dakota
Biennial session ; 80 L
Constitution

Ohio
None
Not applicable

Oklahoma
Last Fri in May
Constitution

Oregon
Odd-160C
Even-35C
Constitution

Pennsylvania
None
Not applicable


Rhode Island
None
Not applicable

South Carolina
1st Thurs in June


Statute

South Dakota
40 L
Constitution

Tennessee
90 L
Indirect


Texas
Biennial session ; 140 C
Constitution

Utah
45 C
Constitution

Vermont
None



Virginia
Odd-30 C
Even-60 C
Constitution


Washington
Odd-105 C
Even-60 C
Constitution

West Virginia
60 C
Constitution

Wisconsin
None
Not applicable

Wyoming
Odd-40 L
Even-20 L
Constitution


________________________________________

We wanted to share Maryland Assembly's legislative agenda---below we see only the SENATE----think as well the HOUSE has near the same and think how as a citizen do we have any opportunity to have political power?  Remember, most of these bills are introduced through our global Wall Street pols for the benefit of corporations and the rich in Maryland or even a corporation tied to Maryland interests.  These bills are not seen by WE THE PEOPLE until these sessions.  This is how corporate interest bills fly right through with only a clause surrounded by lots of PRETEND LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE talking points.

Meanwhile, the pols of course having to throw those bones to local voters install what is a small portion of bills directed at citizens or small business and guess what?  You can bet global Wall Street has reviewed those bills to make sure they do not undermine MOVING FORWARD.



TO EDUCATE ON PUBLIC POLICY IS TO BE WILLING TO READ THROUGH WHAT ARE DELIBERATELY BORING, LEGALESE, AND LONG BILLS TO FIND THOSE VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY BAD GLOBAL WALL STREET NEO-LIBERAL  ONE WORLD POLICIES.

Twelve hundred bills is a really long list so we simply are printing the first and last few pages to show the length.
Status of All Senate Legislation Introduced
2017 Session
As of 5:50 AM on 5/30/2017
(Bill numbers in
bold
indicate enacted legislation;
italics
indicate last action;
dates shown are
calendar dates, with legislative dates in parentheses as needed)
Bill
Short Title/Current Status
SB 1
Education
–
Specialized Intervention Services
–
Reports
Chapter 728
–
5/25
SB 2
Maryland Heritage Areas Authority
–
Revision of Boundaries and
Bounda
ry Maps
Chapter 512
–
5/4
SB 3
Income Tax
–
Subtraction Modification
–
Military Retirement Income
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
1/18
SB 4
Minority Business Enterprises
–
Program Participation
–
Requirements
and Reauthorization
Chapter 340
–
4/18
SB 5
Juvenile Law
–
Continued Detention
–
Minimum Age
Senate: Unfavorable Report by Judicial Proceedings
–
1/30
SB 6
Occupational and Professional Licensing Boards, Commissions, and
Regulatory Entities
–
Notifications of Applicants, Licensees,
Registrants, and Permit Holders
Chapter 246
–
4/18
SB 7
Governor
’
s P
–
20 Leadership Council
–
College and Career Readiness and
College Completion Reporting
–
Revisions
Chapter 775
–
5/25
SB 8
Insurance
–
Risk Management and Own Risk and Solvency Assessment
Act
Chapter 36
–
4/11
SB 9
Motor Vehicles
–
Autonomous and Connected Vehicles
Senate: Unfavorable Report by Judicial Proceedings
–
2/13
SB 10
Child Custody and Visitation
–
Deployed Parents
Senate: Unfavorable Report by Judicial Proceedings
–
3/17
SB 11
Correctional Services
–
Correctional Officers
’
Bill of Rights
–
Composition of Hearing Board
Senate: Unfavorable Report by Judicial Proceedings; Withdrawn
–
1/30
SB 12
Vehicle Laws
–
Obstruction Hanging From Rearview Mirror
–
Enfor
cement
Senate: Returned Passed
–
4/10 (4/4)
SB 13
Public Safety
–
State Militia
House: Hearing Health and Government Operations
–
3/30

Bill
Short Title/Current Status
SB 14
Earned Income Tax Credit
–
Individuals Without Qualifying Children
–
Expansion
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
1/24
SB 15
Insurance
–
Charitable Gift Annuities
–
Special Permit Holders
–
Required Financial Statements
Chapter 504
–
5/4
SB 16
Public Safety
–
Firearm Application
Chapter 192
–
4/18
SB 17
Unemployment Insurance
–
Eligibility for Benefits
–
Business Operation
Closings
Chapter 249
–
4/18
SB 18
Public Ethics
–
Bicounty Commissions
–
Financial Disclosure
Chapter 283
–
4/18
SB 19
Insurance
–
Surplus Lines Insurers, Surplus Lines Brokers, and
Reinsurers
Chapter 37
–
4/11
SB 20
Wicomico County
–
Vehicle Dealer
’
s Licenses
–
Motor Home and Travel
Trailer Shows
Senate: Unfavorable Report by Judicial Proceedings
–
2/13
SB 21
Unemployment Insurance
–
Recovery of
Benefits
–
Collection by
Assessment
Chapter 244
–
4/18
SB 22
Criminal Procedure
–
Criminal Injuries Compensation Board
–
Claimant
Award Ba
sis
Chapter 7
–
4/4
SB 23
Handgun Permits
–
Alternative Expiration Date
–
Private Detectives,
Security Guards, and Special Police Officers
Chapter 190
–
4/18
SB 24
Public Safety
–
Eyewitness Identification Policies
–
Repeal of Submission
Requirement
Chapter 8
–
4/4
SB 25
Maryland Transit Administration
–
Transit Service
–
Contracted
Taxicab Service
Chapter 716
–
5/25
SB 26
Maryland False Claims Act
–
Municipal Corporations
Chapter 632
–
5/25
SB 27
Child Abuse and Neglect
–
Substance
–
Exposed Newborns
–
Reporting
Senate: Unfavorable Report by Judicial Proceedings
–
2/20
SB 28
State Lottery Tickets
–
Prohibited Acts
–
Delivery Service
Senate: Recommitted to Education, Health, and Environmental
Affairs
–
1/19

***************************************************************

**********************************************************




77
Bill
Short Title/Current Status
SB 1161
Education
–
Summer Meals Expansion Grant Program
–
Established
Senate: Hearing Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs
–
3/16
SB 1162
Creation of a State Debt
–
Prince George
’
s County
–
Capitol Heights
Municipal Multiservice Center
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/13
SB 1163
Motor Vehicles
–
Duplicate Drivers
’
Licenses
–
Victims of Robbery
Senate: First Reading Senate Rules
–
3/1
SB 1164
Maryland Transportation Authority
–
Membership
Senate: Hearing Finance
–
3/22
SB 1165
Maryland Longitudinal Data System
–
Student and Workforce Data
Linkage
–
Extension of Time Limit
Senate: Returned Passed
–
4/10 (4/2)
SB 1166
State Designations
–
The Preakness Stakes as the State Cultural Event
Senate: Hearing Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs
–
3/16
SB 1167
Creation of a State Debt
–
Cecil County
–
Elkton Sportsplex Campus and
Performing
–
Visual Arts Center
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/11
SB 1168
Pharmacists
–
Administration of the Influenza Vaccination
–
Age
Requirement
Senate: Hea
ring Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs
canceled
–
3/21
SB 1169
Unemployment Insurance
–
Charge of Benefits
–
Waiver Due to Natu
ral
Disaster
Chapter 733
–
5/25
SB 1170
Creation of a State Debt
–
Howard County
–
Tau Pi Mentoring Program
Ho. Co. 25
–
17
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/11
SB 1171
Harford County
–
Alcoholic Beverages
–
Waiver from School Distance
Restrictions
Senate: Passed Enrolled
–
4/10 (4/3)
SB 1172
Alcoholic Beverages
–
Class 5 Breweries
–
Barrelage and Hours of Sale
Senate: Hearing Educati
on, Health, and Environmental Affairs
–
3/16
SB 1173
Higher Education Degree and Job Certification Without Debt Act of 2017
Senate: Hearin
g Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs
–
3/16
SB 1174
Public Health
–
Certificates of Birth
–
Births Outside an Institution
Senate: Returned Passed
–
4/10 (4/2)

78
2017 Regular Session
-
Current
Status Report (Senate)
Bill
Short Title/Current Status
SB 1175
Creation of a State Debt
–
Prince George
’
s County
–
Transit Oriented
Development Public Art P
rojects
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/11
SB 1176
Creation of a State Debt
–
St. Mary
’
s County
–
Maryland Dove
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/11
SB 1177
Harford County
–
Alcoholic Beverages
–
Common Direct or Indirect
Sharing of Profit
Chap
ter 497
–
5/4
SB 1178
Creation of a State Debt
–
Prince George
’
s County
–
District Heights
Veterans Park
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/11
SB 1179
Creation of a State Debt
–
Harford County
–
McComas School Museum
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/11
SB 1180
Public Safety
–
Handgun Permit Review Board
–
Repeal
Senate: First Reading Senate Rules
–
3/6
SB 1181
Creation of a State Debt
–
Anne Arundel County
–
Historic Annapolis
Museum
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/11
SB 1182
Creation of a State Debt
–
Baltimore City
–
Baltimore Museum of Art
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/11
SB 1183
Creation of a State Debt
–
Baltimore City
–
Maryland Center for
Veterans Education and Training
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/13
SB 1184
Foreclosed and Vacant Residential Property
–
Common Ownership
Communities
–
Payment of Regular Assessments
Senate: Unfavorable Report by Judicial Proceedings; Withdrawn
–
3/17
SB 1185
Real Property
–
New Residential Construction
–
Correction of
Drainage
Defect
Senate: Unfavorable Report by Judicial Proceedings; Withdrawn
–
3/30
SB 1186
Creation of a State Debt
–
Baltimore City
–
C
ross Street Market
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/11
SB 1187
Criminal Procedure
–
Life Without Parole
–
Repeal of Sentencing
Proceeding
Senate: Recommitted to Judicial Proceedings
–
4/4 (3/29)
SB 1188
Creation of a State Debt
–
Baltimore Cou
nty
–
Bais Yaakov Middle
School
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/13
SB 1189
Creation of a State Debt
–
Baltimore County
–
Ner Israel Rabbinical
College
Senate: Hearing Budget and Taxation
–
3/13


79
Bill
Short Title/Current Status
SB 1190
Bay Restoration Fund
–
Upgraded Wastewater Facilities
–
Grants to
Counties and Municipalities
Chapter 397
–
5/4
SB 1191
Schools and Child Care Centers
–
State Grant Program
–
Security
Upgrades for Facilities at Risk of Hate Crimes or Attacks
Chapter 732
–
5/25
SB 1192
Labor and Employment
–
Unemployment Insuran
ce
–
Independent
Contractors and Severance Pay
Senate: Hearing Finance canceled
–
3/28
SB 1193
Anne Arundel County
–
Controlled Water Ski Areas in Maynadier Creek
–
Operation of Vessel
–
Hours of Operation
House: First Reading House Rules and Executive Nominations
–
4/5
(3/29)
SB 1194
Public Health
–
Substance Abuse Treatment Outcome Partnership Fund
House: Hearing Health and Government Operations
–
4/7
SB 1195
Environment
–
Reduction of Lead Risk in Housing
–
Blood Lead Level
Senate: Hearing Judicial Proceedings
–
3/29
SB 1196
Tri
–
County Council for Southern Maryland
–
Financing Purchase or
Lease of Property
–
Exemption From Procurement Law
House: Hearing Health and Government
Operations
–
4/10
SB 1197
Public Health
–
Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission
–
Membership,
Licensing, and Studies
Senate: Hearing Finance
–
3/29
SB 1198
Prince George
’
s County Regional Medical Center Act of 2017
Chapter 19
–
4/6
SB 1199
Long
–
Term Care Insurance
–
Sale or Transfer of Book of Business
Senate: Hearing Finance
–
3/30
SB 1200
Internet Consumer Privacy Rights Act of 2017
House: Referred Economic Matters
–
4/10 (4/3)

____________________________________
Below we see one sad example of LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE POSING.  Maryland exempted itself from Medicare oversight these few decades--illegally------just to pool health funding and send billions of dollars to growing health corporations nationally and expand overseas.  This pooling of Federal health funds with private state health system insurance is what created TIERED HEALTH CARE and is that model for ROMNEY CARE---THE RIGHT WING END OF PUBLIC HEALTH.  The citizens of Maryland have watched as equal protection administration of Medicare and Medicaid brought lots and lots of Federal funding to low-income communities---to our seniors and their health facilities while Maryland was allowed to let those public health facilities decline and become harmful for citizens.

Baltimore and global Johns Hopkins is ground zero for patenting health devices, health procedures, PHARMA and it is top lobbyist for NOT REGULATING HEALTH CARE.  It drives the push to keep name brand patented medicine front and center while allowing vital generic PHARMA and highly successful medical devices out of patent be sidelined while pushing newly patented PHARMA and medical devices foremost.


BAltimore pols are front and center on all that is global health corporation systems and profit-driven health care policies these few decades and below you see almost all these Baltimore pols signed on to this GENERICS BILL.  Which corporations had a voice in writing health policy in Trans Pacific Trade Pact?  Global Johns Hopkins----global Bill Gates PHARMA ---and TPP says----patented medicine trumps generics. 



Keep in mind---Baltimore is building two biotech facilities tied to global Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland Medical System hospitals both of which are designed to be medical PATENT MILLS. All Maryland and Baltimore pols pushed this kind of funding and they almost all support TPP.



Public Health
–
Essential Off
–
Patent or Generic Drugs
–
Price Gouging
–
Prohibition
House: Passed Enrolled
–
4/10 (4/2)

Entitled:

Public Health - Essential Off-Patent or Generic Drugs - Price Gouging - Prohibition
Sponsored by:Speaker
Status:In the House - Passed Enrolled


  • Summary
  • Documents
  • History


Synopsis:



Prohibiting a manufacturer or wholesale distributor from engaging in price gouging in the sale of an essential off-patent or generic drug; establishing that it is not a violation of a specified provision of the Act for a wholesale distributor to increase a price of an essential off-patent or generic drug under specified circumstances; authorizing the Maryland Medical Assistance Program to notify the Attorney General of an increase in the price of an essential off-patent or generic drug under specified circumstances; etc.


The Speaker (By Request - Office of the Attorney General) and Delegates Bromwell, Anderson, Atterbeary, Barkley, B. Barnes, D. Barnes, Barron, Barve, Beidle, Brooks, Carr, Chang, Clippinger, Conaway, Cullison, Davis, Dumais, Ebersole, Fennell, Fraser-Hidalgo, Frick, Frush, Gaines, Gilchrist, Glenn, Gutierrez, Hayes, Haynes, Healey, Hettleman, Hill, Hixson, Holmes, C. Howard, Jackson, Jalisi, Jameson, Jones, Kelly, Knotts, Krimm, Lafferty, Lam, R. Lewis, Lierman, Lisanti, Luedtke, McCray, McIntosh, A. Miller, Moon, Morales, Oaks, Patterson, Pena-Melnyk, Platt, Proctor, Queen, Reznik, Robinson, Rosenberg, Sample-Hughes, Sanchez, Sophocleus, Stein, Sydnor, Tarlau, Turner, Valderrama, Vallario, Waldstreicher, Walker, A. Washington, M. Washington, C. Wilson, K. Young, P. Young, Pendergrass, Angel, Kipke, McDonough, Metzgar, Miele, Saab, West, Aumann, Carey, Mautz, and S. Howard


************************************************


This is what we call left social progressive posing as 99% of Maryland citizens want generics access pols are simply pretending to be listening to WE THE PEOPLE.

Maryland is ground zero for TPP---ground zero for the most private state health system---ground zero for privatizing and ending Federal Medicare and Medicaid making it block grant-----and ground zero for BIOTECH PATENT MILLS not wanting generics taking from profits. Yet we have that bill with tons of global Wall Street pols as CO-SPONSORS......


Maryland is ground zero for TPP---ground zero for the most private state health system---ground zero for privatizing and ending Federal Medicare and Medicaid making it block grant-----and ground zero for BIOTECH PATENT MILLS not wanting generics taking from profits. Yet we have that bill with tons of global Wall Street pols as CO-SPONSORS......


And here is the POSING------Maryland always passes laws sold as social progressive with language TOO VAGUE TO ENFORCE.............


'Despite this unparalleled level of success, the Maryland General Assembly today passed a bill, at the behest of the state attorney general, to give the attorney general the authority to take legal action against generic pharmaceutical companies that engage in “price gouging,” defined as a company instituting a price increase believed to be “unconscionable,” a vague and imprecise term that provides no meaningful standard by which companies may discern whether their prices set in the free market comply with the law'


 So this law was actually written against generics under the guise of PRICE GOUGING ----what will a Maryland Attorney General who is BFF with the US FED think is price gouging and will it be used to make it unprofitable for generics to be manufactured? YOU BETCHA.

Veto Maryland House Bill 631, Which Would Harm Patients by Chilling Generic Drug Competition
  • Home
  • /Advocacy
  • Veto Maryland House Bill 631, Which Would Harm Patients by Chilling Generic Drug Competition
Everyone supports proposals to control rising prescription drug prices, but H.B. 631 would just make the problem worse for Maryland patients and our economy.
  • Chester “Chip” Davis, Jr. calls on Governor Hogan in a commentary article for Maryland Matters to veto H.B. 631, legislation that would decrease generic drug competition in Maryland.  “In order to preserve the savings that generic drugs provide to Marylanders, Gov. Hogan should veto this bill,” said Davis.
  • H.B. 631 ignores the real cause of increasing prescription drug costs.  The bill only applies to generic drugs, not much more expensive brand-name drugs that cost Maryland patients and tax-payers billions of dollars per year.
      • Brand name drugs cost patients in Maryland over $3.5 billion dollars, while generics saved Maryland $3.7 billion, including state programs and your tax dollars – in just one year alone.
        • This equates to more than 28% of what Governor Hogan’s Administration proposed to spend on all healthcare expenditures in the state for FY 2017.
      • Generic drugs are a true success story. Generic medicines account for 90% of all prescriptions, but they only account for 27% of drug costs.
  • H.B. 631 would chill competition among generic drug manufacturers and allow government bureaucrats to operate the market instead of free market competition.  The bill allows the government to impose costs and regulatory burdens whenever bureaucrats believe that pricing of a medicine is “not justified.”
      • Year over year, generic drug prices fall, while brand name drug prices rise. The overall price of generics fell over 8% in 2016, and prices are down over 70% since 2008.  Rather than allow the free market to continue working, Maryland would become the first state to reject the market in favor of more government regulation.
      • By subjecting manufacturers of generic drugs to draconian penalties – while ignoring the substantial costs of brand-name prescription drugs – the policy in H.B. 631 would provide an incentive for generic drug companies to avoid selling their products in our state.
      • If fewer affordable generic drugs are available in Maryland, we all lose.
  • H.B. 631 has no meaningful standard to allow companies to know when they are breaking the law.  The bill does not define when a price is “not justified” or “excessive.”
    • Given the vague standards set forth in the bill, companies would perpetually be at risk of facing prosecution for taking actions that normally occur during the course of business within the competitive free market.
    • Without a true standard dictating when a free market price is “justified,” H.B. 631 would provide no notice for companies to know whether they are in violation of the new law.
    • Without clear guidance under the law, companies will need to find ways to mitigate the risk of costly litigation with the Attorney General, which creates incentives that could ultimately harm patients.
  • Gerard F. Anderson, a professor of health policy and management and professor of international health at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School Public Health said “the generic industry works incredibly well when there are three, four competitors in the market. It works less well when there are two, and it doesn’t work at all when there’s none.”
____________________________________
'By providing the attorney general with this new level of unchecked and unprecedented authority, where he or any of his successors could choose to sue a manufacturer for raising the price of a generic statin from 10 cents to 12 cents, the Maryland General Assembly has increased the likelihood of the marketplace described by Prof. Anderson that “doesn’t work.”'
And here it is as well------Maryland Assembly did not pass laws to control private patented name brand profiteering---it aimed at generics with law written so vaguely as to be used to CHILL GENERIC MANUFACTURING killing a healthy, competitive market. Mind you, MR Chip Davis is no LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE on protecting generics-----generics have been allowed to profiteer as well----but it is a sign of Maryland wanting to DISSUADE GENERIC MANUFACTURING.


This is how Maryland writes all its bills----making them sound helpful to 99% of citizens with a goal of harming them all for maximized health industry profits. This health care bill is MOVING FORWARD the ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION and Trans Pacific Trade Pact policies.

Guest commentary: Hogan should veto legislation that would decrease generic drug competition
Posted on April 10, 2017 by marylandmattersblogBy Chester “Chip” Davis



Generic drugs have been and continue to be an amazing success story in our health care system.
According to the annual Generic Drug Saving and Access Report compiled by QuintilesIMS, in 2015 generic drugs delivered $227 billion in savings to the U.S. health care system, and $1.6 trillion in savings over the last decade. For that same calendar year, generic drugs comprised 89 percent of all prescriptions written in the United States, but accounted for only 27 percent of total prescription drug costs.

This means the remaining 11 percent of all prescriptions in the U.S. market — branded pharmaceuticals — accounted for 73 percent of total costs. It is an incredible feat when any industry can meet almost 90 percent of all market demand, while doing so for less than one-third of all total costs.


Unlike almost every other sector in health care, including hospitals, insurance, branded pharmaceuticals, etc., year over year the generic drug sector actually experiences price deflation, not inflation. This was reflected in a five-plus year study released last fall by the Government Accountability Office. The primary reason for overall prices going down in the generic sector is due to the level of fierce competition in the generic marketplace, where multiple manufacturers are forced to aggressively compete on price.


Despite this unparalleled level of success, the Maryland General Assembly today passed a bill, at the behest of the state attorney general, to give the attorney general the authority to take legal action against generic pharmaceutical companies that engage in “price gouging,” defined as a company instituting a price increase believed to be “unconscionable,” a vague and imprecise term that provides no meaningful standard by which companies may discern whether their prices set in the free market comply with the law.
The term is defined even further, yet just as vaguely, as “excessive.” To make their case, the attorney general and other supporters often cite to several high-profile cases over the last few years – such as the AIDS drug Daraprim – that have provoked a level of public outrage and political momentum to take action.

Too bad Daraprim is not a generic drug. It is a branded drug with no competitors. Curiously, the bill passed by the Maryland General Assembly today ignores the pricing of branded drugs with no competitors. Yet generic drugs in a competitive market that take a 500 percent price increase – from one cent to five cents per pill – could be subject to legal action by the attorney general.


While the desire to take action against bad actors in the industry is understandable, what has been utterly lost in the debate over prescription drug costs in Maryland this session is the law of unintended consequences; namely, that by giving the attorney general this unbounded and unprecedented level of authority to control pricing in a competitive free market, generic companies will be exposed to a level of risk in Maryland that will require them to evaluate whether they want to continue to market affordable medicines within the state.


And if the new level of risk presented by the legislation compels several manufacturers, all competing in the same therapeutic market, each on its own, to decide that the risk is too high, they will look to stop manufacturing or marketing certain medicines. If that happens, it will mean less competition, not more, and that will translate into fewer options and ultimately higher health care costs, none of which is a good for Maryland patients and taxpayers.


Recently before a U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Gerard Anderson, a professor of health policy and management and professor of international health at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, testified on the need to remove barriers to generic competition. As part of his testimony Prof. Anderson stated:


“The generic industry works incredibly well when there are three, four competitors in the market. It works less well when there are two, and it doesn’t work at all when there’s none.”


By providing the attorney general with this new level of unchecked and unprecedented authority, where he or any of his successors could choose to sue a manufacturer for raising the price of a generic statin from 10 cents to 12 cents, the Maryland General Assembly has increased the likelihood of the marketplace described by Prof. Anderson that “doesn’t work.” While lawmakers had the opportunity to narrow the focus of the bill, which would have still given the attorney general the authority to go after bad actors such as the manufacturer of Daraprim and other branded pharmaceuticals, they chose not to do so.


In 2015, generic drugs saved the state of Maryland $3.7 billion, which equates to more than 28 percent of what Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration proposed to spend on all health care expenditures in the state for  fiscal 2017. And with this bill set to become law, that historical level of savings is now at risk, yet another policy that would work against, not for, Maryland patients and taxpayers.

In order to preserve the savings that generic drugs provide to Marylanders, Gov. Hogan should veto this bill.

A number of Maryland lawmakers are already touting Maryland’s leadership in being the first state in the U.S. to pass this type of legislation. One day, in the not too distant future, they should be prepared to defend why Maryland was the first state to lead the nation in creating less market-based competition and higher overall prescription drug costs, while simultaneously increasing the risk of future drug shortages for Maryland’s patients.
Chester “Chip” Davis is the president and CEO of the Association for Accessible Medicines.


___________________________________________


'In the second letter, after a meeting with Senate Finance Committee International Trade Counsel Everett Eissenstat, Flórez wrote that Eissenstat said that authorizing the generic version would “violate the intellectual property rights” of Novartis. Eissenstat also said that if “the Ministry of Health did not correct this situation, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States and related interest groups could become very vocal and interfere with other interests that Colombia could have in the United States,” according to the letter'.

Global Johns Hopkins is of course front and center in this International Trade Counsel-----look at how captured these Congressional Senate committees are----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA-----waxing for the DARK AGES days of Roman Empire.

When a state's Congressional pols are raging Clinton/Obama neo-liberals-----when a state assembly is filled with raging Clinton neo-liberals ----when a Baltimore City Hall is filled with raging Bush/Clinton global Wall Street---then they are not going to pass laws helping GENERICS.

If we notice Baltimore Sun and all Maryland media out of 1200 Senate bills and even more House bills chose to make this bill headlines to FOOL MARYLAND CITIZENS.


Leaks Show Senate Aide Threatened Colombia Over Cheap Cancer Drug

Zaid Jilani
May 14 2016, 10:30 a.m.



Leaked diplomatic letters sent from Colombia’s Embassy in Washington describe how a staffer with the Senate Finance Committee, which is led by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, warned of repercussions if Colombia moves forward on approving the cheaper, generic form of a cancer drug.


The drug is called imatinib. Its manufacturer, Novartis, markets the drug in Colombia as Glivec. The World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines last year suggested it as treatment not only for chronic myeloid leukemia, but also gastrointestinal tumors. Currently, the cost of an annual supply is over $15,000, or about two times the average Colombian’s income.
On April 26, Colombian Minister of Health Alejandro Gaviria announced plans to take the first step in a multi-step process that could eventually result in allowing generic production of the drug. A generic version of the drug that recently began production in India is expected to cost 30 percent less than the brand-name version.



Andrés Flórez, deputy chief of mission at the Colombian Embassy in Washington, D.C., wrote letters on April 27 and April 28 to Maria Angela Holguin of Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, detailing concerns he had about possible congressional retaliation for such a move. The letters were obtained by the nonprofit group Knowledge Ecology International, which works on drug patent issues. They were also leaked to Colombian media outlets El Espectador and NoticiasUno.


In the second letter, after a meeting with Senate Finance Committee International Trade Counsel Everett Eissenstat, Flórez wrote that Eissenstat said that authorizing the generic version would “violate the intellectual property rights” of Novartis. Eissenstat also said that if “the Ministry of Health did not correct this situation, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States and related interest groups could become very vocal and interfere with other interests that Colombia could have in the United States,” according to the letter.
In particular, Flórez expressed a worry that “this case could jeopardize the approval of the financing of the new initiative ‘Peace Colombia.’”


The Obama administration has pledged $450 million for Peace Colombia, which seeks to bring together rebels and the government to end decades of fighting that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and a shattered civil society. These funds will be used for, among other things, removing land mines. The country has the second-highest number of land-mine fatalities in the world, behind only Afghanistan.


Hatch has close ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical and health product manufacturers form the second-largest pool of donors to his campaigns. The industry’s main trade association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, spent $750,000 funding an outside nonprofit that backed Hatch’s re-election in 2012. The lobbying group also employed Scott Hatch, one of the senator’s sons, as a lobbyist, while donating to his family charity, the Utah Families Foundation.


For his part, Eissenstat has won the “Lighthouse Award” at the annual dinner of the Washington International Trade Association. WITA’s board of directors is composed largely of government relations staff from major corporations who help shape trade and intellectual property policy in their favor: WalMart, Microsoft, and Gap all have representatives. In bestowing the award on Eissenstat, WITA board member Bill Lane said the award is given to a “shining light of the trade community.”
The same year, his boss Hatch received the dinner’s Congressional Leadership Award.


Andrea Carolina Reyes, a pharmacist who works with the Colombia-based medical nonprofit Misión Salud, called the pressure to suppress the cheaper drug harmful. “I would … ask [Hatch] to consider that we’re talking about people’s lives, and this needs to mean something to him,” she told The Intercept. “In Colombia, we really have health constraints. There’s people, they have no access to anything. They live hours from health institutions, and they don’t have even the cheapest medicines.”


Neither Eissenstat nor Hatch responded to multiple requests for comment. “We do not comment on internal correspondence,” Olga Acosta, press officer at the Colombian Embassy, told The Intercept.


_________________________________________


WHO PUSHED HOUSE BILL 631-----AS PROTECTING GENERICS?
MAGGIE MCINTOSH was chair of Health before being moved to APPROPRIATIONS ----Antonio Hayes and Sandy Rosenberg -----being the usual global Wall Street tools in Baltimore-----Pena-Melnyk always sells herself as left social progressive and always makes these bad votes. Please watch as MAGGIE MCINTOSH----SIMPLY AN O'MALLEY is moved into a possible run for governor----she is the face of MARYLAND AS RAGING GLOBAL FAR-RIGHT WING CLINTON NEO-LIBERALISM----ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE ----
Washington----Oaks----Robinson ---Hayes---Haynes----Conaway-----all PRETENDING THIS BILL PROTECTS GENERICS----if you are angry at PHARMA going sky high----of generics being under attack---hold these global Wall Street CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA pols accountable.


When WE THE PEOPLE have rolling peaceful protests for days, weeks, and months to get rid of global Wall Street pols----these are they! SHOW THEM THE MONEY AND THEY WILL DO ANYTHING THEY ARE TOLD!


This is that black, brown, and white citizen 5% to the 1%-------killing WE THE PEOPLE.



HOUSE OF DELEGATES
STANDING COMMITTEES

HEALTH & GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS COMMITTEE
[photo, House Office Building, 6 Bladen St. (from College Ave.), Annapolis, Maryland]
Origin & Functions
Subcommittees




KAREN LEWIS YOUNG
Democrat, District 3A, Frederick County

CHRISTOPHER R. (CHRIS) WEST
Republican, District 42B, Baltimore County

KATHY SZELIGA
Republican, District 7, Baltimore County & Harford County

SHEREE L. SAMPLE-HUGHES
Democrat, District 37A, Dorchester & Wicomico Counties

SID A. SAAB
Republican, District 33, Anne Arundel County

SAMUEL I. (SANDY) ROSENBERG
Democrat, District 41, Baltimore City

ANDREW PLATT
Democrat, District 17, Montgomery County

JOSELINE A. PEÑA-MELNYK
Democrat, District 21, Anne Arundel & Prince George's Counties

JAMES MATTHEW (MATT) MORGAN
Republican, District 29A, St. Mary's County

MARICE I. MORALES
Democrat, District 19, Montgomery County

CHRISTIAN J. MIELE
Republican, District 8, Baltimore County

RICHARD W. METZGAR
Republican, District 6, Baltimore County

PATRICK L. McDONOUGH
Republican, District 7, Baltimore County & Harford County

SUSAN W. KREBS
Republican, District 5, Carroll County

NICHOLAUS R. KIPKE
Republican, District 31B, Anne Arundel County

ARIANA B. KELLY
Democrat, District 16, Montgomery County

TERRI L. HILL, M.D.
Democrat, District 12, Baltimore County & Howard County

ANTONIO L. HAYES
Democrat, District 40, Baltimore City

BONNIE L. CULLISON
Democrat, District 19, Montgomery County

EREK L. BARRON
Democrat, District 24, Prince George's County

ANGELA M. ANGEL, Esq.
Democrat, District 25, Prince George's County

The Speaker (By Request - Office of the Attorney General) and Delegates Bromwell, Anderson, Atterbeary, Barkley, B. Barnes, D. Barnes, Barron, Barve, Beidle, Brooks, Carr, Chang, Clippinger, Conaway, Cullison, Davis, Dumais, Ebersole, Fennell, Fraser-Hidalgo, Frick, Frush, Gaines, Gilchrist, Glenn, Gutierrez, Hayes, Haynes, Healey, Hettleman, Hill, Hixson, Holmes, C. Howard, Jackson, Jalisi, Jameson, Jones, Kelly, Knotts, Krimm, Lafferty, Lam, R. Lewis, Lierman, Lisanti, Luedtke, McCray, McIntosh, A. Miller, Moon, Morales, Oaks, Patterson, Pena-Melnyk, Platt, Proctor, Queen, Reznik, Robinson, Rosenberg, Sample-Hughes, Sanchez, Sophocleus, Stein, Sydnor, Tarlau, Turner, Valderrama, Vallario, Waldstreicher, Walker, A. Washington, M. Washington, C. Wilson, K. Young, P. Young, Pendergrass, Angel, Kipke, McDonough, Metzgar, Miele, Saab, West, Aumann, Carey, Mautz, and S. Howard

0 Comments

May 26th, 2017

5/26/2017

0 Comments

 
For US citizens wanting US PROTECTIONISM because that is the only way we rebuild our US cities with an economy designed to benefit all citizens and their ability to start, grow, and feel a lifelong stability in that business the last major public policy in achieving this is infrastructure development.  We shared a few articles from Maryland and Baltimore pols and their direction with these infrastructure plans.  Whether it is rail tunnels, telecom and energy conduits, ports, interstate and road construction---these are structures vital to ALL AMERICAN CITIZENS and how they are built and operate determine whether our citizens and their businesses will be able to compete and/or stay in business for the long term.  Baltimore has these few decades been a city of PATRONAGE for all business structures for the 99% because policies were leaving people unemployed, underemployed leaving no consumers for small business.  This attack on American wage and quality of life leads to extreme poverty for 99% and no consumers for anyone wanting to start a local business.  We all know what third world economies look like for small business owners---they are almost all MICRO-LOAN subsistence businesses. 

WE HAVE BALTIMORE POLS BOTH CITY HALL AND MARYLAND ASSEMBLY BREAKING DOWN ALL AVENUES OF WAGE MOVING FORWARD TO THIRD WORLD WAGES NO MATTER THE POSING AROUND $15 AN HOUR.

Our government was always the biggest buyer of small business products just to maintain and grow local economies.  Today almost all government purchases are from global corporations.  US PROTECTIONISM comes with this commitment to buy local as we know strengthening and broadening local economies LOWERS the price and becomes competitive with global corporations. 

PLEASE DO NOT FALL INTO THE PUSH TO EVER-LOWER WAGES TO GROW SMALL BUSINESS---PLEASE DON'T FALL FOR THE PUSH TO BUY AT THE CHEAPEST PRICE. 

I shared the article of our Mayor PUGH working with Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration....NTIA.  This is ONE WORLD ONE GRID and the INTERNET OF THINGS has PR and marketing as usual that these policies are DEMOCRATIC----WILL INCLUDE ALL GLOBAL CITIZENS---when in fact we already know it will be highly exclusive to global corporations and the global 1%  and the information WE THE PEOPLE will be able to access will be only that information the global 1% want us to receive. We are well on the way with national media controlling all  our local media and all this filled with FAKE NEWS.  Take away our TV, Radio, print and move all online----under a GLOBAL GOGGLE---

THERE IS NO PATHWAY TO US PROTECTIONISM for WE THE PEOPLE with these infrastructure development plans MOVING FORWARD.  We should have a city full of citizens bringing rolling protests every day for weeks and months JUST OVER THIS ISSUE.  

THERE CAN BE NO US PROTECTIONISM FOR OUR LOCAL ECONOMIES WHEN MOVING FORWARD IS BUILDING ONE WORLD ONE GRID FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND GLOBAL BANKING.

Here we see what will continue to be the stance with global Wall Street pols----NO REGULATION OF INTERNET=====THE OPPOSITE OF INTERNET AS A UTILITY which is NET NEUTRALITY.



Critical Read
NTIA: The internet of things doesn't need new rules
  • By Mark Rockwell
  • Jan 13, 2017
 What: A paper from the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration on how to foster advancement of emerging internet of things technology.




'The rise of IoT, it said, will place more pressure on already stretched spectrum resources'.


Is this the future of the Internet of Things?

Global Agenda
  • Digital
  • Future of the Internet
  • ScienceThis article is published in collaboration with SAP Community Network. 


  • Imagine that your home security system lets you know when your kids get home from school. As they’re grabbing an afternoon snack, your kitchen takes inventory and sends a shopping list to your local supermarket. There, robots prepare the goods and pack them for home delivery into an autonomous vehicle – or a drone. Meanwhile, your smart watch, connected to a system that senses and analyzes real-time health indicators, alerts you to a suggested dinner menu it just created based on your family’s nutritional needs and ingredients available in your pantry. If you signal your approval, it offers to warm the oven before you get home from work.


  • This scenario isn’t as futuristic as you might think. In fact, what Gartner calls “the device mesh” is the logical evolution of the Internet of Things. All around us and always on, it will be both ubiquitous and subtle — ambient intelligence.


  • We’ll do truly different things, instead of just doing things differently. Today’s processes and problems are only a small subset of the many, many scenarios possible when practically everything is instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent.


  • We’re also going to need to come up with new ways of interacting with the technology and the infrastructure that supports it. Instead of typing on a keyboard or swiping a touchscreen, we’ll be surrounded by various interfaces that capture input automatically, almost incidentally. It will be a fundamental paradigm shift in the way we think of “computing,” and possibly whether we think about computing at all.


    The Internet of not-things


  • The foundation will be a digital infrastructure that responds to its surroundings and the people in it, whether that means ubiquitous communications, ubiquitous entertainment, or ubiquitous opportunities for commerce. This infrastructure will be so seamless that rather than interacting with discrete objects, people will simply interact with their environment through deliberate voice and gesture — or cues like respiration and body temperature that will trigger the environment to respond.


  • Once such an infrastructure is in place, the possibilities for innovation explode. The power of Moore’s Law is now amplified by Metcalfe’s Law, which says that a network’s value is equal to the square of the number of participants in it. All these Internet-connected “things” — the sensors, devices, actuators, drones, vehicles, products, etc.  — will be able to react automatically, seeing, analyzing, and combining to create value in as yet unimaginable ways.  The individual “things” themselves will meld into a background of ambient connectedness and responsiveness.


  • The path is clearly marked
    Think of the trends we’ve seen emerge in recent years:


  • Sensors and actuators, including implantables and wearables, that let us capture more data and impressions from more objects in more places, and that affect the environment around them.
 
  • Ubiquitous computing and hyperconnectivity, which exponentially increase the flow of data between people and devices and among devices themselves.
 
  • Nanotechnology and nanomaterials, which let us build ever more complex devices at microscopic scale.
 
  • Artificial intelligence, in which algorithms become increasingly capable of making decisions based on past performance and desired results.
 
  • Vision as an interface to participate in and control augmented and virtual reality
  • Blockchain technology, which makes all kinds of digital transactions secure, verifiable, and potentially automatic.
 
  • As these emerging technologies become more powerful and sophisticated, they will increasingly overlap. For example, the distinctions between drones, autonomous vehicles,and robotics are already blurring. This convergence, which multiplies the strengths of each technology, makes ambient intelligence not just desirable but inevitable.


  • Early signposts on the way


  • We’re edging into the territory of ambient intelligence today. Increasingly complex sensors, systems architectures, and software can gather, store, manage, and analyze vastly more data in far less time with much greater sophistication.
    Home automation is accelerating, allowing people to program lighting, air conditioning, audio and video, security systems, appliances, and other complex devices and then let them run more or less independently. Drones, robots, and autonomous vehicles can gather, generate, and navigate by data from locations human beings can’t or don’t access. Entire urban areas like Barcelona and Singapore are aiming to become “smart cities,” with initiatives already underway to automate the management of services like parking, trash collection, and traffic lights.


  • Our homes, vehicles, and communities may not be entirely self-maintaining yet, but it’s possible to set parameters within which significant systems operate more or less on their own. Eventually, these systems will become proficient enough at pattern matching that they’ll be able to learn from each other. That’s when we’ll hit the knee of the exponential growth curve.


  • Where are we heading?


  • Experts predict that, by 2022, 1 trillion networked sensors will be embedded in the world around us, with up to 45 trillion in 20 years. With this many sources of data for all manner of purposes, systems will be able to arrive at fast, accurate decisions about nearly everything. And they’ll be able to act on those things at the slightest prompting, or with little to no action on your part at all.


  • Ambient intelligence could transform cities through dynamic routing and signage for both drivers and pedestrians. It could manage mass transit for optimal efficiency based on real-time conditions. It could monitor environmental conditions and mitigate potential hotspots proactively, predict the need for government services and make sure those services are delivered efficiently, spot opportunities to streamline the supply chain and put them into effect automatically.


  • Nanotechnology in your clothing could send environmental data to your smart phone, or charge it from electricity generated as you walk. But why carry a phone when any glass surface, from your bathroom mirror to your kitchen window, could become an interactive interface for checking your calendar, answering email, watching videos, and anything else we do today on our phones and tablets? For that matter, why carry a phone when ambient connectivity will let us simply speak to each other across a distance without devices?


  • How to get there


  • In Tech Trends 2015, Deloitte Consulting outlines four capabilities required for ambient computing:
  • Integrating information flow between varying types of devices from a wide range of global manufacturers with proprietary data and technologies
  • Performing analytics and management of the physical objects and low-level events to detect signals and predict impact
 
  • Orchestrating those signals and objects to fulfill complex events or end-to-end business processes
  • Securing and monitoring the entire system of devices, connectivity, and information exchange
  • These technical challenges are daunting, but doable.


  • Of course, businesses and governments need to consider the ramifications of systems that can sense, reason, act, and interact for us. We need to solve the trust and security issues inherent in a future world where we’re constantly surrounded by connectivity and information. We need to consider what happens when tasks currently performed by humans can be automated into near invisibility. And we need to think about what it means to be human when ambient intelligence can satisfy our wants and needs before we express them, or before we even know that we have them.

    & Technology
_________________________________________________

'Do conservatives realize our founder fathers were strict trade protectionists and reviled the concept of "free trade" like Trump'?


Below we have the most obvious attack on US PROTECTIONISM----global Wall Street. As John Adams states---nothing kills prosperity more than banks. When 2008 economic crash revealed the massive global Wall Street frauds WE THE PEOPLE should have been out en masse every day for weeks and months in protest of an Obama appointing the same Wall Street fraudsters and Clinton era people bringing these frauds. Then we watched these several years as the next massive global banking fraud----US Treasury bond and municipal bond debt unfolded. That occurred because we left global Wall Street CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS in office.

US PROTECTIONISM cannot be driven by banking and debt. This is what brought the US FED into place at the time of ROARING 20s Wall Street frauds-----US citizens and pols had the knowledge of keeping a central bank away----they had the knowledge of keeping freemasonry out of government because they were educated and remembered why we fought The American Revolution. Those folks saying that was then and this is now are either DELIBERATELY MISLEADING OR NOT EDUCATED ON AMERICAN HISTORY.....WORLD HISTORY. Most citizens understand it is bad to lose national, state, or local sovereignty and along with it rights as citizens.
WE ARE WATCHING AS THE ENTIRE PLANNING DESIGN FOR INFRASTRUCTURE IS BEING DONE BY GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND GLOBAL BANKING.


"Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good." - John Adams


'This pattern even predates American independence. During the colonial period, the British government tried to force its American colonies to become suppliers of raw materials to the nascent British industrial machine while denying them any manufacturing industry of their own'.


I like John Hagerman's response to basic common sense economics as being FLAT EARTH.....that coming from a global neo-conservative Stanford IVY LEAGUE grad.


Do conservatives realize our founder fathers were strict trade protectionists and reviled the concept of "free trade" like Trump?

Rob Weir, Politically libertarian, personally conservative
Answered 23 Feb

Yes, most conservatives understand that knowledge of modern economics was not widespread among the 18th century agrarian gentry who founded the country. I suspect this is understood, on some level, by most people, regardless of political orientation.




Gregory Norton, studied at Stanford Graduate School of Business
Answered 23 Feb


The first widely-accepted explanation of why trade protectionism was harmful was not published until 1776, and the founders were probably too busy to read it. Further amplification and explanation of the benefits of free trade (and the harm of protectionism) was not published until the 1840s, when the founders were dead.
I suppose anyone who is familiar with the history of economic theory realizes that.
How many people realize that today’s protectionists are the economic equivalent of flat-Earthers, 170 years out of date?





John Hagerman, studied at Augsburg College
Answered 3 Mar



The previous answer that dismissed the founder fathers fears about free trade prompted me to answer this question with a different take.

To simply dismiss the founding fathers as ignorant of modern economic theory is to sidestep the question. The founders of this country were very aware of the effects of trade policy. To be specific, they were very aware of the unfair trade practices of the British Parliament and King George. Many members of parliament, as well as the king, owned stock in the East India Company. This in itself might not have been a problem, but when they passed a law giving a special tax cut to the East India Company that was designed to make them money, at the expense of American businesses, the colony pushed back. The Boston Tea Party is an example of that push back.

When the crown decided to impose the Stamp Act as a way to force the colonies to pay the costs of maintaining British occupying forces, while at the same time again benefitting the East India Company at the expense of American business, that was too much for the colonies and the revolution was on.


In writing the constitution those founder fathers were very aware of the corrupting power of unfettered corporations and tried to write a document that would protect our citizens against the power. Unfortunately, when Reagan came along the conservatives forgot the lessons of two hundred years and decided to pursue policies that returned nearly unfettered power to corporations at the expense of the people.
This has resulted in money corrupting our politics and the dividing of our country.
_______________________________________

Here is a wise citizen educated in public policy as regards the effects of not only monopoly but multi-national corporations on his nation's economy. The US is a first world, developed nation MOVING FORWARD to being brought to this developed nation status. When global corporate campuses and global factories fill our US cities our economies become just like that of this developed nation and its citizen.

These few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA has seen gradual movement towards this decline staging re-occupation of our national economy. National, state, and local global Wall Street pols have been and are today writing all the economic policies creating an environment for these global corporations to operate free from any US laws or oversight. That includes PROTECTIONISM for our local small, regional, corporations in US.

'Some people think that globalization plays a major role in the progress of developing nations because of the presence of these companies. Definitely, they are not the basis for the progress of developing countries. Multinational companies’ presence has more serious negative impacts on developing countries’ labor rights, human health and economy'.




Multinational Companies: A Curse to Developing Countries?


Posted on January 20, 2010 in Business and EconomyThasomini Palaniyandy:


In this twenty-first century, multinational companies have become the central institutions of developing nations. The government of a country should be concerned about food security, industrial production and other commodities that the country needs for its citizens. These concerns encourage developing nations to implement transnational corporation to fulfill their necessities.


Globalization connects people from all over the world, specifically, through advance in technology and transportation. Removal of trade barriers encourages multinational companies to start new branches in developing nations. Although multinational companies have become ubiquitous in the developing world, there has always been an uncertainty about them, in both positive and negative ways.


Some people think that globalization plays a major role in the progress of developing nations because of the presence of these companies. Definitely, they are not the basis for the progress of developing countries. Multinational companies’ presence has more serious negative impacts on developing countries’ labor rights, human health and economy.


Peoples’ common concept is that multinational companies’ existence in developing countries provides employments to the populace. In this globalized world, the integration of these companies allows people to earn money by on own, without relying on others. However, people, forget to consider labor exploitation, where labors receive low wages, work in hazardous environment without protection, and are deprived of labor rights. For instance, women perform two-thirds of all work, if it includes unpaid labor, but they receive only ten percent of the total wages paid worldwide. People consider globalization as a tool for the development of women. If globalization provides a better environment, why are women still getting low wages and are treated as slaves?


These global companies are profit minded and they search for cheap human power, exploiting laborers’ rights in developing countries, especially of women’s by giving them fewer wages and by misusing their rights. Thus, presence of multinational companies is promoting the existence of a callous environment for employees in third world nations.


Next, in developing world, food selling companies are omnipresent, which creates a general perception among people that it will make life easier. Globalization leads multinational companies to promote consumerism. There are many fast food companies, such as Mc Donald’s and KFC, in the developing world that provide alternative foods and makes life easier. However, does anyone notice the consequences of this consumerism? People consider fast food easy, and become addicted to it, which is unhealthy. Multinational corporations promote a certain kind of consumerist culture and spread western lifestyle among the people of developing countries; 115 million people suffer from obesity-related problems as well. The consequences of obesity for adults are well known. Obesity increases mortality from many causes, including cardiovascular disease and cancer. As a result, fast food companies are not making life easier, but they are also making death easier and life miserable in developing countries.


Finally, it is said that existence of multinational companies mitigates poverty in developing nations. Most of the countries are involved in free trade, and they exchange commodities with each other. As the trade barriers are reduced, the rich nations dump cheap products into poor countries, and the multinational companies act as catalysts for this process. Conversely, the process of globalization has exploited manufactures in developing countries, and has caused massive disruptions in living conditions.


As multinational companies have emerged in developing countries, local producers have to compete with these large companies, adversely affecting the local economy. Moreover, these multinational companies also use the national resources of these developing nations such as natural resources, infrastructure and human power. For example, some companies are making furniture by destroying forests in developing countries, which devastates the natural environment and affects the local furniture producers as well.

In conclusion, globalization challenges the progress of developing nations by adversely affecting the life of labors, the nations’ health and economy. Multinational companies’ existence in third world nations has many drawbacks, which are often disregarded by people. As rich nations utilize developing countries resources, the present form of globalization must be changed and developing countries must free themselves from the grasp of multinational companies for real growth.

0 Comments

May 25th, 2017

5/25/2017

0 Comments

 
We wanted to share this as all of what were middle-class professions are disappearing---here is OBAMA/RAHM EMMANUEL CHICAGO bringing public K-12 DOWN and replacing it with global neo-liberal vocational training corporations. With that our professional teachers will be replaced with part-time and temporary education techs. Only that 1% of educators will be extremely rich while 99% of citizens tied to education will be extremely poor global labor pool workers.

$30,000 is the Living Wage poverty line-----if privatization of K-12 MOVES FORWARD Foreign Economic Zones like Chicago and Baltimore will pay the same here as in Foreign Economic Zones in developing nations!

AND NONE OF THESE SMALL BUSINESS EDUCATION OWNERSHIP OR PATRONAGE NGOS WILL BE AROUND.

Trans Pacific Trade Pact and its protectionist policies will have those global education corporations coming to US cities and saying----WE CAN DO THIS CHEAPER AND MORE EFFICIENTLY and grab hold just as a global VEOLA ENVIRONMENT controls our public water and waste agencies---just as VEOLA TRANSPORTATION controls our public transportation agencies---just as global hedge funds control our US Ports.

Our US Constitutional and Federal laws for 300 years with court precedence protects against MONOPOLY AND ESPECIALLY GLOBAL MONOPOLY----LET'S JUST STOP AND REVERSE THIS EASY PEASY.



'Charter School Teachers Plan to Strike on May 25th
May 20, 2017


On May 04, 2017, teachers, their assistants, and paraprofessionals at the Edgewater, Il-based Passages Charter School voted 43-0 to strike. On May 19, 2017, they set the prospective strike date as May 25, 2017, as noted in the Chicago Sun-Times:

Teachers say they are paid “rock-bottom” salaries in the $30,000 to $40,000 range — well below Chicago Public Schools teachers and low even for charter schools — while the current and former CEOs of the stand-alone school earned a combined $540,000 in the year ending June 30, 2016. Union members believe their salaries are low because of administration’s spending on itself — tax records show $281,000 alone on “other compensation” for the retired CEO — and overhead expenses and because those leaders do no fundraising.

As the Sun-Times notes, if Passages teachers follow through with plans to strike, they will be the first charter school faculty to do so.

The union that represents Passages Charter School employees is ChiACTS Local 4343, which represents professionals at 12 other Chicago charter schools (Passages is not the list, but news of the Passages strike date can be found on this ChiACTS Local 4343 web page).

Passages Charter Schools is operated by the Chicago-based nonprofit, Asian Human Services, Inc. (AHS).

The Sun-Times article notes that meanwhile, according to the Passages school website message to parents, negotiations continue. (Note that the letter below represents the official school stance– that of AHS– not that of the teachers and other school personnel who are represented by the union in the AHS negotiation):

May 19, 2017

Dear Parents/Guardians and Students:

As you may be aware, AHS has been in contract negotiations with the Union that represents the teachers and teacher assistants at Passages Charter School. We want to update you about these negotiations, and reassure you that our main concern is the education and well-being of our more than 400 students who attend Passages.

We have been meeting with the Union for more than a year. During that time, we have discussed many issues at the bargaining table. We have reached agreement on several of those issues, including employee discipline, health and safety, grade entry, and after school events.

At the same time, we have several issues that remain open, including salaries, and the length of the school day and school year. And we continue to negotiate these issues at a time of significant financial uncertainty, given the local and State-wide budget issues that have resulted in reduced funding to all charter schools, including Passages. Most recently, Passages’ funding was reduced yet again, by $189.58 per pupil, causing a reduction of approximately $83,000 in the current fiscal year.

We know that the Union took a strike authorization vote two weeks ago. We understand this raised questions and concerns for you, and we were disappointed that the Union chose this path. A strike is a serious step that affects all of us within the Passages community.

We met with the Union last week for another bargaining session. At that meeting, we asked the Union about the strike vote and if they had set a strike date. The Union told us that no strike date had been set.

We have several more meetings scheduled with the Union over the next few weeks. In fact, we are set to meet with the Union at 4:00 p.m. today. However, we just learned that the Union is going to announce a strike date today at 4:00 p.m., at the same time we are scheduled to meet, and before we have been able to make another counterproposal.

We want you to know that we are working very hard to reach a fair compromise with the Union, and that we take very seriously our duty to bargain in good faith. We also want you to know that we continue to keep the education of Passages students first in all that we do.

We are thankful for your understanding and cooperation at this time. We will do all we can to minimize any impact on students, and will keep you informed of further developments as we learn them. Please check the website http://www.passagescharterschool.com, call 773-433-3530, or email passages.info@ahschicago.org with any questions.

The above letter to parents does not mention the stark differences in teacher and CEO salaries noted in the Sun-Times. The letter also includes no information about whether Passages CEOs will agree to a salary reduction to coincide with the per-pupil funding cut.

May 25th, 2017, is less than a work week away.

Will American education experience its first charter school teacher strike?

Stay tuned, readers. Stay tuned.

__________________________________________


'U.S. Foreign-Trade Zones: Background and
Issues for Congress



Mary Jane Bolle
Specialist in Internatio
nal Trade and Finance
'


Below is that graphic we share often as a site to let a citizen know where Foreign Economic Zones are inside your state.  It is the status of FTZ that gives the Federal government and particularly the President===Executive branch control of our local and state economies.  His power is only with duties and tariffs---NOT the powers given by Trans Pacific Trade Pact.  Foreign Economic Zones are illegal because they attack the sovereignty of states and local governments to exercise their control of these economies.  States and city/counties have these few decades passed laws allowing the Federal control even as our state constitutions state PROTECTIONISM, ANTI-MONOPOLY, FREE MARKET.

What has been allowed these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA now Trump was illegal and unconstitutional so WE THE PEOPLE must stand against these FTZ designations.  This is the only way we will have control of local city/county economies.  If you are shouting for jobs, businesses, against being relegated to subcontractor to a subcontract to a global corporation----this is what we must fight and it is the original founding father PROTECTIONISM we are fighting for.


'U.S. FOREIGN-TRADE ZONES
This list gives the address and phone number of the contact person for each FTZ project. If the contact person is not an employee of the grantee, the name of the grantee organization is also given. If assistance is needed or if your contact information has changed, please call ((202) 482-2862) or e-mail the FTZ Staff, U.S. Department of Commerce.
Grantees: Contact us to add your email and/or web address to the list below'.

U.S. Foreign-Trade Zones: Background and
Issues for Congress



Mary Jane Bolle
Specialist in Internatio
nal Trade and Finance


Brock R. Williams
Analyst in International Trade and Finance
November 12, 2013



Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
R42686



U.S. Foreign-Trade Zones: Background and Issues for Congress
Congressional Research Service



Summary

U.S. foreign-trade zones (FTZs) are geographic areas declared to be outside the normal customs
territory of the United States. This means that, for foreign merchandise entering FTZs and re-
exported as different products, customs procedures
are streamlined and tariffs do not apply.
For
products intended for U.S. consumption, full customs procedures are applied and duties are
payable when they exit the FTZ.


In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, Congress passed the U.S. Foreign-Trade Zones
Act. It was designed to expedite and encourage international trade while promoting domestic
activity and investment. The U.S. FTZ program offers
a variety of customs benefits to businesses
which combine foreign and domestic merchandise in FTZs. Similar types of “zones” exist in 135
countries, employing about 66 million workers worldwide. Though some aspects differ, all have
streamlined customs procedures and no duties applicable on components and raw materials
combined in zones and then exported. Use of the zones can facilitate cooperative international
production for a substantial share of the global supply chain.


U.S. FTZs can affect the competitiveness of U.S. companies by allowing savings through (1) duty
reduction on “inverted tariff structures” (where tariffs are higher on imported components than on
finished products); (2) customs and inventory efficiencies; and (3) duty exemption on goods
exported from, or consumed, scrapped, or destroyed in, a zone. Though difficult to achieve, other
possible alternatives, such as broad-based tariff
reductions through multilateral negotiations, and
overall customs reform might provide some of the same competitive advantages as zone use in a
more efficient manner, while also ensuring that all importers have equal access.



Zone activity represents a significant share of U.S. trade. In 2012, over 13% of foreign goods
entered the United States through FTZs or bonded warehouses—72% of them as crude oil. Most
shipments arriving through FTZs were consumed in the United States; the rest were exported.
Crude oil byproducts such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, kerosene, and petrochemicals dominate
FTZ output.
Other key products include autos, consumer electronics, and machinery. U.S. zone
activity occurs primarily in FTZ manufacturing operations.


The U.S. FTZ system is overseen by the Secretaries of Commerce and the
Treasury, who constitute the U.S. FTZ Board. The Board is responsible for the establishment of
zones, the authorization of specific production activity, and the general oversight of zones.
It also
appoints an Executive Secretary, who oversees
the Board’s staff. Homeland Security’s Customs
and Border Protection (CBP) directly oversees FTZs. It activates the zones and secures and
controls dutiable merchandise moving into and out of them. CBP oversight also includes both
protection of U.S. tariff revenue and protection from illegal activity through screening, targeting,
and inspections.

In 2012, the U.S. FTZ Board issued new regulations. They focused primarily on streamlining the
application procedures and shortening, generally from a year to four months, the time for FTZ
approval for manufacturing

______________________________________



Here we see WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION AND WORLD BANK telling us which nations have the nerve to protect SOVEREIGN ECONOMIES.  These few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA have seen World Bank/IMF brought in to install global corporate tribunal rule and each time they brought those nations' economies down with installed 1%.  This is what happened to the US these few decades and WORLD BANK/WORLD TRADE wants the US to end its sovereign rights to its economy as well----that is what Trans Pacific Trade Pact and here the term PROTECTIONIST comes in.

The right wing voters are often led to believe this is simply about getting rid of social programs from New Deal-----they are led to believe these policies really do create jobs and businesses for local citizens when these policy goals have the OPPOSITE GOALS.

Where global Wall Street tied to WORLD BANK/ like to create national and international media that lots of nations are falling into line on ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES-----they are actually NOT.  Most global financial analysts never thought this would occur AND THEY STILL DO NOT THINK IT WILL.

CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA now TRUMP don't care---they are simply trying to end US sovereignty----return US to colonial status as all North, Central, and South American nations and then they will worry about those Asian, Near-Far East OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE.



Trade protectionism: Nigeria, China listed among target countries
  • Punchng
  • 21/06/2010 19:00:00

Global Trade Alert has listed Nigeria, China and Argentina as some of the target countries for trade protectionism.
Reuters reported on Monday that major trading powers were continuing to impose protectionist measures in defiance of a promise by G20 leaders to keep markets open, quoting a report by independent economists.


The report, by GTA, to be issued later this week to coincide with the G20 summit in Toronto, finds that such policies in 2009 turned out much worse than was known at the time of the Pittsburgh summit last September.
Russia, Argentina and Nigeria also feature high in its lists. China, followed by the EU and United States, was the main target.


”The costs of the ineffectual G20 pledges mount quarter by quarter,” Simon Evenett, an economics professor at St. Gallen University in Switzerland and coordinator of GTA, said.
The report finds that nearly 650 protectionist measures implemented since the first crisis-related G20 summit in November 2008, when leaders promised to avoid protectionism, remain in place.


The findings of GTA, which has consistently warned that protectionism is running at a far higher level than governments acknowledge, are not shared by all economists.

The World Trade Organisation, for example, says that the rules-based global trading system, and memories of the 1930s Great Depression that was partly triggered by beggar-thy-neighbour policies, have kept protectionism in check.
In its own report issued last week for the G20 summit, the WTO said governments had largely resisted resorting to trade barriers.


It said the number of new trade measures was falling, with new measures since November 2009 covering only 0.4 per cent of global imports – with a smaller reduction in trade of those goods. From October 2008 to October 2009, trade measures covered one per cent of imports.


GTA on the other hand says this understates the problem.
”The contribution of the WTO has been overstated; its agreements have channelled protectionist pressures into policies not well covered by enforceable rules,” Evenett said.
Ranked by measures such as the number of actions taken, and the number of products, sectors and trading partners affected, GTA found that the European Union was one of the most active protectionists.


The report identifies 22 far-reaching ”jumbo” actions hurting more than 15 G20 trading partners and affecting more than $10bn in trade, that should be a starting point for any G20 exit strategy on trade.


”Few of these jumbo measures are policies for which there are strong WTO rules,” Evenett said.
The policies, covering $1.6tn or more than 10 per cent of world imports, include measures such as China’s export tax rebates and US’ “Buy American” provisions in its stimulus package.

_____________________________________


While Trump rants about far-right wing global Wall Street issues like TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT AND PROTECTIONISM pretending to be working for WE THE PEOPLE-----here we see the back door approach that will occur these several years of a Trump Administration---the same was done under Obama.  Our US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones like Baltimore have rigged elections that keep global Wall Street pols in office----here is a raging ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE as with O'Malley----Catherine PUGH.  You have these same kinds of mayors in your neck of the woods.  They are going to KEEP MOVING FORWARD-----so here we see a PUGH partnered with a Governor HOGAN both working for Trans Pacific Trade Pact and global free trade/WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION making those requests to grow more and more and more global corporate campuses and global factories -----

This tag team of pretend left and right wing politics captured to global Wall Street brings this swing allowing these pols to pose right conservative or left social progressive.  THIS IS THE INSTALLATION OF OLD WORLD EAST INDIA GLOBAL CORPORATE PROTECTIONISM.  We cannot have these global corporate campuses in our US cities and still have any US, state, or city sovereign rights.  So, PUGH is continuing the MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE policies pushed by global Wall Street Baltimore Development, Greater Baltimore Development, and global Johns Hopkins and we already know Trump will see these funds come to PORT COVINGTON ET AL.  If Trump wanted to protect US and MAKE AMERICA GREAT----he would be working to shed that $20 trillion in US Treasury bond debt fraud in Federal and state court RIGHT NOW.  Trump knows this debt will bring in the WORLD BANK/IMF and by extension the WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION POLICIES LIKE TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT AND THEIR PROTECTIONISM.

For those not knowing BTOP -----that is the ONE WORLD GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY BROADBAND INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDED FOR GLOBAL ONLINE CORPORATIONS THAT WILL KILL INTERNET ACCESS AND ABILITY TO CREATE SMALL TECHNOLOGY BUSINESSES FOR THE 99%.    THAT IS WHY THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE IS PUSHING IT.  ONE GRID.


“The city is eager,” Pugh writes, “to apply for additional federal grant opportunities similar to the $2 million received from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), led by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to help Baltimore realize its goal of having the most robust broadband infrastructure possible.”

Politicsby Mark Reutter8:05 pmDec 12, 201619

Pugh letter asks Trump to back Port Covington and three other projects


Letter hand-delivered to the president-elect contains list of potential “partnerships”


Above: The letter Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh gave to President-elect Donald Trump focused on infrastructure. (Office of the Mayor)


In the letter she hand-delivered to President-Elect Donald Trump at the Army-Navy game on Saturday, Mayor Catherine Pugh praises Trump for his insight into the value of infrastructure improvements and offers Baltimore “as the perfect place to target” such investment.


“You have so rightly spoken at length on the need for both urban renewal and sizable infrastructure investment,” the letter begins.


The mayor then urges Trump “to use the power of your office to support robust investment” in four projects, two of which the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) rejected earlier this year.


These were a $76 million request for a FASTLANE grant for new highway ramps off of Interstate-95 to serve Kevin Plank’s Port Covington development and $155 million to help enlarge CSX’s Howard Street tunnel.
When the Port Covington proposal was turned down last July, a spokesman for Republican Gov. Larry Hogan blamed the Democratic Obama administration for “overlooking Baltimore.”


The application was made by Sagamore Development, the real estate arm of Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank, as part of a package of city, state and federal subsidies sought for his proposed $7 billion “new city” at Port Covington.

In August, the City Council and then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake approved $660 million in tax increment (TIF) bond funds for the project.


In her letter to Trump, Pugh says that Port Covington will not realize its full potential without the roadway improvements, which state officials vowed to re-submit to DOT in the next round of competitive FASTLANE applications.


Regarding the Howard Street Tunnel, the mayor argues that raising the height of the tunnel to allow double-stack container trains to serve the Port of Baltimore will create 500 construction jobs and up to 3,000 permanent jobs.


Steering Clear of Controversy

The letter avoids infrastructure projects directed specifically at reviving low-income city neighborhoods, such as eradicating vacant houses, ending food deserts or fixing public schools.


Nor does it touch on such controversial issues as community policing that many think will require federal funds and direction to implement properly. There is no mention of the consent decree under negotiation following the U.S. Department of Justice finding of racial bias and excessive force by the Baltimore Police Department.


Instead, the mayor asks for help to modernize Baltimore’s aging water and sewer systems through “federally funded State Revolving Loan funds, tax-exempt revenue bonds, public-private partnerships and innovative projects.”

The Trump administration should also help Baltimore with broadband infrastructure, the mayor writes.


“The city is eager,” Pugh writes, “to apply for additional federal grant opportunities similar to the $2 million received from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), led by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to help Baltimore realize its goal of having the most robust broadband infrastructure possible.”


“I look forward to working with you and your Administration on these important matters,” the two-page letter concludes.
Below is the text of the letter, released tonight by the mayor’s office at the request of The Brew:

___________________________________


A nation like US-----a state like Maryland----a city like Baltimore cannot maintain its sovereignty ---cannot be PROTECTIONIST as original founding fathers wanted in protecting American citizens and their ability to own and grow businesses if the MAYORS AND GOVERNORS ARE HANDING ALL OUR US CITY INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT TO GLOBAL CORPORATIONS TO BUILD AND CONTROL.
This is what a Baltimore Mayor PUGH and a Maryland Governor Hogan is MOVING FORWARD. Yes, a Trump will hand the US, our states, our cities to WORLD BANK in the coming economic crash staged with massive US Treasury and state municipal bond debt fraud.
THESE ARE THE ISSUES A 99% OF WE THE PEOPLE--WHETHER RIGHT WING OR LEFT WING SHOULD FIGHT IF INDEED WE WANT AMERICAN PROTECTIONISM.

But those 5% to the 1% will get that patronage---they will be made players! Pugh and Hogan's PEEPS ----last call on global 1% needing to PAY-TO-PLAY FOLKS.


 Let's think beyond the next decade or so.


Hogan meets with Trump administration officials

March 17, 2017 Baltimore Sun

Gov. Larry Hogan met with three members of President Donald Trump's cabinet Wednesday pressing to prevent cuts to the state's health care access and to win funding for major transportation projects, the governor's aides said.

The meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price in Washington came a day before the House of Representatives plans to vote on the Republican plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a program that could reduce the federal money Maryland receives for expanding Medicaid access.

Hogan spokesman Doug Mayer said it was the governor's fifth direct appeal to Price. He said the popular Republican was leaving it up to the state's congressional representatives to lobby their colleagues on Capitol Hill.

"The message is the same," Mayer said. "We want to protect our Medicare waiver, we want to protect the level of funding that we have, and we don't want to see people lose their health care."
Four Democratic members of Congress visited Annapolis Monday to urge Hogan to speak more forcefully about the ways Maryland relies on provisions of the Affordable Care Act targeted for repeal.


While in Washington, Hogan was also scheduled to meet with Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to press for his top transportation priority: a $155 million federal grant to help defray the $445 million cost of expanding the Howard Street Tunnel in Baltimore.


The railroad tunnel, built in the 1890s, cannot accommodate freight trains carrying shipping containers stacked two high. Officials say it creates a bottleneck that slows the movement of freight out of the port of Baltimore, and inhibits the port's growth.

The governor also planned to press for four other top projects: widening Interstate 81 in Western Maryland, building new I-95 access to the Port Covington development in Baltimore, replacing the American Legion Bridge that carries traffic on I-495 between Maryland and Virginia northwest of the District of Columbia, and plans for a high-speed, magnetic-levitation train between Baltimore and Washington.


The governor also talked with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson about a program to help people with student debt buy homes and another to demolish vacant houses in Baltimore.

ecox@baltsun.com
twitter.com/ErinatTheSun



0 Comments

May 24th, 2017

5/24/2017

0 Comments

 

'Stop Calling Cronyism Protectionism'

We can see capitalism working in our communities so let's look at these terms locally before showing how distorted global Wall Street has made our US economy---DELIBERATELY.  When immigrants come to America they usually congregate into community helping one another build business, find housing, gain wealth.  It is not a coincidence that a China Town has almost nothing but Chinese businesses----small businesses, regional businesses.  Today black citizens are saying they need to press for more concentration of black businesses in black communities helping each other find housing, gain wealth.  Both cases are setting the stage for PROTECTIONISM.

White communities are not exclusive but have that same concentration.  These communities open to others because white citizens have that stability and economic strength and can be less PROTECTIONIST.

PROTECTIONISM is vital in maintaining a local, core economy no matter the socioeconomic measure.  Where the US has always had global markets it was after FDR and the Great Depression that empire-building laissez-faire started gaining steam.  If your goal is to create MONOPOLIES as Wall Street and right wing pols moved forward then MONOPOLIES ARE PROTECTIONIST.  Creating economic policy that kills a competitor and makes it impossible for small businesses to grow is PROTECTIONIST.  Who pushed MONOPOLY? RIGHT WING REPUBLICANS----WHO ARE THE ONES ALWAYS SHOUTING AGAINST PROTECTIONISM?  RIGHT WING REPUBLICANS.

The statement above STOP CALLING CRONYISM PROTECTIONISM is the response from citizens REALLY wanting a FREE MARKET economy in US.  Once you allow MONOPOLY ----cronyism is right behind because wealth and power continue to grow.

While PROTECTIONISM does not harm in our local communities----CORPORATE MONOPOLY does harm free market.
  PATRONAGE ECONOMY comes as a result of too much wealth and power cronyism as in Baltimore City and PATRONAGE is an economic policy designed for cronyism and PROTECTIONISM of that 1%.

Below we see how US economy became crony and a monopoly-----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA and empire-building global market policies like NAFTA.  The right wing always paints LABOR as being the one to hate NAFTA but anyone wanting free market and a healthy local economy would hate NAFTA.




'CHACE: Jobs like Bertha's, he says, were leaving the United States. Because of this rule, they went to Mexico and Central America rather than China. And also because of this rule, places like Parkdale had built-in customers. The U.S. textile negotiator on NAFTA, Ron Sorini, he says that without this rule, you'd have no NAFTA, because senators in the textile-making South would not have let it through Congress.
RON SORINI: If we had not committed to negotiate a yarn-forward rule of origin, we wouldn't have gotten NAFTA, and we wouldn't have had the World Trade Organization'.

And all the offshoring of US corporations and jobs was tied to PROTECTIONISM---








The Secret Protectionism Buried Inside NAFTA

December 26, 20134:02 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
Zoe Chace


The Secret Protectionism Buried Inside NAFTA

In order to get the North American Free Trade Agreement signed 20 years ago, a specific trade-off was made. The trade-off would not protect U.S. jobs from moving overseas.


DAVID GREENE, HOST:


Now NPR's Zoe Chace, from our Planet Money Team, reminds us about one industry that played a big role in NAFTA's passage: men's underwear.


ZOE CHACE, BYLINE: Now you're used to the labels: made in Mexico, made in China, made in Bangladesh. But back in the '80s, when they were first talking about NAFTA, about half of American clothing was made in America, by people like this.

BERTHA MARR: Graduated from the eighth grade, then went straight on in to working at Fruit of the Loom.
CHACE: Bertha Marr sewed Fruit of the Loom's most popular product: men's boxer briefs.

MARR: I did one thing.

CHACE: What was it?

MARR: It was that little - well, I'm afraid to say it on the phone.

(LAUGHTER)
MARR: It was that little flap that goes right up the front of it.

CHACE: It was a good job, sewing the fly of men's underwear. Bertha said she made about $100 a day. And the big fear was, when it came to NAFTA, that good manufacturing jobs like Bertha's would leave the United States and go to Mexico. Presidential candidate Ross Perot characterized the fear most memorably in a 1992 debate.

(SOUNDBITE OF DEBATE)
ROSS PEROT: Pretty simple: If you're paying 12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory south of the border, pay $1 an hour for labor, there will be a job-sucking sound going south.

CHACE: And that's what happened to Bertha's job. Here's Fruit of the Loom's current president, Rick Medlin.

RICK MEDLIN: To be competitive, we had to move those high-labor-content jobs offshore.

CHACE: Specifically to Mexico and Central America.

MEDLIN: NAFTA was the start, and CAFTA came along later.

CHACE: The economic idea is this: Casualties like Bertha are for the greater good. Some people lose their jobs, but we sell more stuff to Mexico and Canada, which is good for business, and our clothes are cheaper overall. But in order to get this deal signed into law, there was a specific tradeoff that was made, a tradeoff that's sort of the opposite of what free trade is: a restriction that had everything to do with the men's boxer brief.

The restriction didn't save Bertha. It saved the people who did the step just before Bertha.

DAN NATION: We're the largest textile company in this hemisphere, we believe.

CHACE: This is Dan Nation, CEO at Parkdale, headquartered in North Carolina. What Parkdale does, is it takes cotton and spins it into yarn.

NATION: I think we may be the largest yarn spinner in the world. We're certainly one of the largest. You never quite know in China.

CHACE: Now, yarn looks to you and me like thread. The little lines you see in your cotton clothes, that's yarn. Yarn is what your underwear is made of, and yarn is at the center of this restriction that made NAFTA possible. The restriction is this: You can make men's boxer briefs in Mexico, send them here duty-free, but you can't use yarn made in China.

In order to get the duty-free deal, you have to use yarn produced in the NAFTA region. This is called the yarn-forward rule of origin. It means everything in the underwear-making process. Yarn forward has to be done in the region. Again, Rick Medlin, the president of Fruit of the Loom.

MEDLIN: The real caveat that has allowed us to be competitive with Asia is the yarn forward rule.

CHACE: Jobs like Bertha's, he says, were leaving the United States. Because of this rule, they went to Mexico and Central America rather than China. And also because of this rule, places like Parkdale had built-in customers. The U.S. textile negotiator on NAFTA, Ron Sorini, he says that without this rule, you'd have no NAFTA, because senators in the textile-making South would not have let it through Congress.

RON SORINI: If we had not committed to negotiate a yarn-forward rule of origin, we wouldn't have gotten NAFTA, and we wouldn't have had the World Trade Organization.

CHACE: Yarn forward became the price of admission to get U.S. free trade deals done. The irony here is that despite the whole purpose of the free trade deal to have importers bring in clothes for free as long as they do this one thing, it turns out it's a lot of paperwork. So lots of importers say, I'm just going to bring it in from China and pay the duty. Despite NAFTA, China is the number one supplier of clothes to the United States. Zoe Chace, NPR News.
_________________________________________


Trump comes to office after these few decades of PROTECTIONISM in US caused by ignoring US anti-monopoly laws and killing our free market US economy and is now a right wing Wall Street pol shouting against PROTECTIONISM.   Make no mistake----having US Foreign Economic Zone policies that only allow EXPORT MANUFACTURING is PROTECTIONISM.

When the global 1% want to grow their market share they define PROTECTIONISM differently than WE THE PEOPLE.  This is why we know Trump and our global Wall STreet Clinton/Obama neo-liberals are up to KNOW GOOD FOR THE 99% of citizens.

Trump is POSING RIGHT CONSERVATIVE in shouting FOR PROTECTIONISM and he will in no way stop TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT moving massive global corporate campuses to MONOPOLIZE our US city economies.  

TPP IS PROTECTIONISM FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.


Why Attacking Free Trade Is Great Politics and Bad Economics

Roger Lowenstein
Jan 23, 2017


If Donald Trump cracks down on trade, he will not be the first politician to fly in the face of economic wisdom, only the loudest. As Dani Rodrik of Harvard said famously, on no other issue do politicians and economists disagree so much as they do on trade.
You can expect to see a lot of that disagreement in the news this week. On Sunday, Trump announced his intentions to begin renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement as soon as possible. He may also issue an order announcing the U.S.'s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
He is not, as we've said, the first politician to defy the logic of free trade. But now we have evidence that politicians do not really believe in protectionism. They only act as if they do.


The evidence emerges from two studies of American politics conducted by a group of Italian economists. The first, published in 2014, examined the timing of protectionist (that is, anti-free trade) votes by U.S. senators. The second, hot off the press, looked at the timing of trade disputes launched by U.S. Presidents.
The studies, which appeared in the Journal of International Economics reached a similar conclusion. To generalize: American politicians care very much about restricting trade as they approach re-election, and care very little about it at other times.

It has long been known that America’s Senate is less protectionist (i.e., more likely to favor trade deals) than the House. The usual explanation was that senators, representing larger territories, took a broader view.
But Paola Conconi, Giovanni Facchini and Maurizio Zanardi discovered that only certain U.S. senators were less protectionist. Which senators? Precisely those basking in the relative comfort of the first four years of their terms.

“Policymakers’ Horizon and Trade Reforms:

The Protectionist Effect of Elections,” examined 29 final roll-call votes on trade liberalization between 1973 and 2005, involving a total of 267 senators. It revealed that senators serving out the final two years of their terms were significantly more protectionist. In other words, once a senator’s political longevity was reduced to that of a House member, he or she started voting like a House member.


There were only two classes of senators who did not become more protectionist: those who had announced a decision to retire, and those holding ultra-safe seats. “Close to election, the incumbent politicians manipulate regular government decisions,” the authors concluded. Indeed, various senators who voted pro-trade on some occasions never supported trade liberalization during their last two years.


Does the premise of vote-seeking trade hawks hold true for the executive branch? Hillary Clinton’s switcheroo on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which she vigorously endorsed as Secretary of State and vigorously denounced when campaigning for President, suggests that it does.


Five economists (including two of the authors from the earlier study) have now put meat on the bones. Remember when Barack Obama, while on a campaign swing through Ohio, which is home to many auto parts makers, initiated a trade dispute at the World Trade Organization alleging that China was unfairly subsidizing automobile-part exports? That was filed less than two months before Election Day, 2012. George W. Bush filed a similar dispute against the European Union in 2004, alleging that the EU unfairly subsidized Airbus (a competitor of Boeing), just a month before Election Day.

Were these sudden conversions to protectionism, respectively 44 and 45 months into Presidential terms, a coincidence? Assuredly not, according to the evidence presented in the second study, the pointedly titled “Suspiciously Timed Trade Disputes.” As the authors elaborate, “Our results confirm that U.S. presidents are more likely to initiate WTO disputes during the last year of their first term”—and that such disputes disproportionately involve politically sensitive industries in states that are up for grabs. They did not find any pattern during Presidents’ second terms, when they no longer faced reelection.


Trump, who has the swing states Ohio and Michigan, among others, to thank for winning the election, took office amid a blur of threats to clamp down on trade via tariffs of as much as 45% on China and 35% on Mexico, and via social-media bullying (witness his tweets against the auto industry and Carrier). Economists, with surprising near-unanimity, believe that either approach would damage America’s economy.

In brief, protection restricts consumer choice, raises prices (for all), dubiously involves the government in picking economic winners and losers, and shelters inefficient firms. It will boost the rate of inflation—the sleeper economic issue, it will be seen, of the Trump tenure—and ultimately depress U.S. exports by triggering retaliatory tariffs from our onetime friends. Policies that lead to a depression in Mexico or China (the U.S.’s second- and third-biggest export market, respectively) will hardly be good news in Akron or Flint. An extreme protectionist policy could even provoke a world-wide recession. In the long term, trade nurtures peace, tariffs excite international suspicions and bellicosity.

Pollsters say protectionism is good politics because the few people whose jobs may be affected care very much, whereas the scores of millions whose standard of living is improved by trade are not particularly aware of it. This misbegotten argument for restricting trade would similarly argue for curtailing Amazon, Walmart, or Uber. The benefits of lower prices and enhanced consumer choice that innovative companies have delivered to millions of consumers have, for sure, hurt employees in selected industries. That’s the tradeoff for progress in a capitalist society.


In reality, protecting America from China makes no more sense than protecting Ohio from Indiana, or protecting Barnes & Noble from Silicon Valley, or protecting any industry from the lower costs delivered through greater efficiencies, including through automation. It’s understandable that voters are slow to grasp the fact. The benefits of trade are dispersed and appreciable only over time. They also are significant. Imagine how depressed the citizens of Ohio, or of any state, would become in 20 years if its citizens could buy only products manufactured in-state, and never trade with people in other states or other lands. Insulation would lead to isolation, depressing not only their economy but also their civilization.

But as we now know, thanks to the Italian studies politicians do grasp these facts. They or the more honest among them recognize that trade barriers are a patent medicine for the masses, a god that has failed. Will Trump and the protectionist bloc in Congress put the squeeze on trade all the same? There is a word that describes politicians pushing popular (in the short run) policies that they know to be harmful to their constituents. It is called demagoguery.

__________________________________________

Yes, America was founded on a revolution against MONOPOLY AND PROTECTIONISM.    Wait-----it was a revolution FOR PROTECTIONISM. 

Again, we must look broadly to understand from where an article is coming.  The colonial EAST INDIA CORPORATION tied to the England 1% had indeed a monopoly and was protected against competition both from colonists building local industry AND from other nations bringing products.

THIS WAS MONOPOLY AND PROTECTIONISM AND THIS IS EXACTLY TO WHERE MOVING FORWARD US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE POLICIES TAKE THE US AGAIN.

So, a GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL OF THE GLOBAL 1% created policies saying EAST INDIA CORPORATION could be a monopoly and protectionism was fine just as Trans Pacific Trade Pact does today.

Meanwhile, LOCALLY in America's communities the 99% of citizens were shouting FOR PROTECTIONISM from that pesky global corporation killing any ability of American small business growth.  America passed laws protecting the US economy against MONOPOLIES AND GLOBAL CORPORATIONS by installing PROTECTIONIST POLICIES.



'Thus the American Revolution was to some extent a war over industrial policy, in which the commercial elite of the Colonies revolted against being forced into an inferior role in the emerging Atlantic economy. This is one of the things that gave the American Revolution its exceptionally bourgeois character as revolutions go, with bewigged Founding Fathers rather than the usual unshaven revolutionary mobs'.

The same OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE and KINGS AND QUEENS tied to secret societies are behind CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA pushing the US back to colonial economics. WE THE PEOPLE the 99% must think from what perspective these public policy discussions come----the far-right wing global Wall Street CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA are only coming from a right wing extreme wealth extreme poverty so these terms are the opposite to what is good for the 99%. This happens because Democratic voters allow a far-right wing Clinton neo-liberalism capture our people's left social progressive party which is REALLY FREE MARKET AND PROTECTIONIST FOR AMERICAN BUSINESSES.

THE BLOG
09/12/2010 12:25 am ET | Updated May 25, 2011
America Was Founded as a Protectionist Nation
By Ian Fletcher

Contemporary American politics is conducted in the shadow of historical myths that inform our present-day choices. Unfortunately, these myths sometimes lead us terribly astray. Case in point is the popular idea that America’s economic tradition has been economic liberty, laissez faire, and wide-open cowboy capitalism. This notion sounds obvious, and it fits the image of this country held by both the Right, which celebrates this tradition, and the Left, which bemoans it. And it seems to imply, among other things, that free trade is the American Way. Don’t Tread On Me or my right to import.


It is, in fact, very easy to construct an impressive-sounding defense of free trade as a form of economic liberty on the basis of this myth. Unfortunately, this myth is just that: a myth, not real history. The reality is that all four of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore were protectionists. (Even the pseudo-libertarian Jefferson came around after the War of 1812.) Historically, protectionism has been, in fact, the real American Way.


This pattern even predates American independence. During the colonial period, the British government tried to force its American colonies to become suppliers of raw materials to the nascent British industrial machine while denying them any manufacturing industry of their own. The colonies were, in fact, the single biggest victim of British trade policy, being under Britain’s direct political control, unlike its other trading partners. The British knew exactly what they were doing: they were happy to see America thrive, but only as a cog in their own industrial machine. As former Prime Minster William Pitt, otherwise a famous conciliator of American grievances and the namesake of Pittsburgh, once said in Parliament,

If the Americans should manufacture a lock of wool or a horse shoe, I would fill their ports with ships and their towns with troops.
Thus the American Revolution was to some extent a war over industrial policy, in which the commercial elite of the Colonies revolted against being forced into an inferior role in the emerging Atlantic economy. This is one of the things that gave the American Revolution its exceptionally bourgeois character as revolutions go, with bewigged Founding Fathers rather than the usual unshaven revolutionary mobs.


It is no accident that after Independence, a tariff was the very second bill signed by President Washington. It is also no accident that the Constitution — which notoriously does not authorize a great many things our government does today — explicitly does give Congress the authority “to regulate commerce with foreign nations.” (Article I, Section 8.) This fact drives flag-draped libertarians crazy, but there it is.


Protectionism’s first American theorist was Alexander Hamilton — the man on the $10 bill, the first Treasury Secretary, and America’s first technocrat. As aide-de-camp to General Washington during the Revolution, he had seen the U.S. nearly lose due to lack of capacity to manufacture weapons. (France rescued us with 80,000 muskets and other war materiel.) He worried that Britain’s lead in manufacturing would remain entrenched, condemning the United States to being a producer of agricultural products and raw materials.

In modern terms, a banana republic. As he put it in 1791:


The superiority antecedently enjoyed by nations who have preoccupied and perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a more formidable obstacle than either of those which have been mentioned, to the introduction of the same branch into a country in which it did not before exist. To maintain, between the recent establishments of one country, and the long-matured establishments of another country, a competition upon equal terms, both as to quality and price, is, in most cases, impracticable. The disparity, in the one, or in the other, or in both, must necessarily be so considerable, as to forbid a successful rivalship, without the extraordinary aid and protection of government.


Hamilton’s policies came down to about a dozen key measures. In his own words:

1. “Protecting duties.” (Tariffs.)
2. “Prohibition of rival articles or duties equivalent to prohibitions.” (Outright import bans.)
3. “Prohibition of the exportation of the materials of manufactures.” (Export bans on raw materials needed for industrialization here at home.)
4. “Pecuniary bounties.” (Export subsidies, like those provided today by the Export-Import Bank and other programs.)
5. “Premiums.” (Subsidies for key innovations. Today, we would call them research and development tax credits.)
6. “The exemption of the materials of manufactures from duty.” (Import liberalization for industrial inputs, so some other country can be the raw materials exporter and we can industrialize.)
7. “Drawbacks of the duties which are imposed on the materials of manufactures.” (Same idea, by means of tax rebates.)
8. “The encouragement of new inventions and discoveries at home, .and of the introduction into the United States of such as may have been made in other countries; particularly those, which relate to machinery.” (Prizes for inventions and, more importantly, patents.)
9. “Judicious regulations for the inspection of manufactured commodities.” (Regulation of product standards, as the USDA and FDA do today.)
10. “The facilitating of pecuniary remittances from place to place.” (A sophisticated financial system.)
11. “The facilitating of the transportation of commodities.” (Good infrastructure.)



Hamilton set forth his case in his Report on Manufactures, submitted to Congress in 1791. Perhaps the most startling thing about his suggested policies is how modern they are: few people realize that the R&D tax credit was first proposed in 1791!


Due in large part to the domination of Congress by Southern planters, who favored free trade, Hamilton’s policies were not all adopted right away. It took the War of 1812, which created a surge of anti-British feeling, disrupted normal trade, and drastically increased the government’s need for revenue, to push America firmly into the protectionist camp. But when war broke out, Congress immediately doubled the tariff to an average of 25 percent. After the war, British manufacturers undertook one of the world’s first cases of predatory dumping, whose purpose was, in the words of one Member of Parliament, to “stifle in the cradle, those rising manufactures in the United States, which the war had forced into existence.” In reaction, the American industrial interests that had blossomed because of the tariff lobbied to keep it, and had it raised to 35 percent in 1816. The public approved, and by 1820, America’s average tariff was up to 40 percent.


Fast-forward a few years. Gloss over a number of important tariff-related political struggles, such as the South Carolina Nullification Crisis of 1832, one of the precursors of the Civil War, in which South Carolina tried to reject a federal tariff. There was a brief free trade episode starting in 1846, coinciding with the aforementioned zenith of classical liberalism in Europe, during which America’s tariffs were lowered. But this was followed by a series of recessions, ending in the Panic of 1857, which brought demands for a higher tariff so intense that President James Buchanan—the last free-trade president for two generations—gave in and signed one two days before Abraham Lincoln took office in 1861.


Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and most of the other great names from American history were all protectionists. Protectionism was, in fact, Lincoln’s number two issue after slavery. As he put it in 1847,
Give us a protective tariff, and we will have the greatest nation on earth.

Revealingly, the only major exception to America’s protectionist consensus was the antebellum South, because free trade is the ideal policy for a nations that actually wants to be an agricultural slave state. An economy founded on slave-based agriculture has no hope of achieving competitive advantage in anything else, as slaves have proven unsuitable for industrialization since the time of Ancient Rome. Because the tariff was the main source of federal revenue in those pre-income tax days, the South also bore a disproportionate share of the nation’s tax burden. No wonder it was in favor of free trade—which the Confederate constitution eventually mandated.


Back when protectionism was American policy, it enjoyed a broad popular consensus. Only the left- and right-wing extremists of the day dissented. Extreme right wing Social Darwinists like William Graham Sumner—who published a fuming book in 1885 entitled Protectionism, the Ism That Teaches That Waste Makes Wealth—saw protectionism as a subsidy for the incompetent and an interference with the divine justice of the free market and the survival of the fittest. At the other extreme, Karl Marx, who was alive in those days and keenly watching American capitalism, wanted to see American capitalism break down and therefore favored free trade for its destructive potential.

Unfortunately for Marx, this was the golden age of American industry, when America’s economic performance surpassed the rest of the world by the greatest margin. It was the era in which the U.S. transformed itself from a promising mostly agricultural backwater, pupil at the knee of European industry, into the greatest economic power in the history of the world.

What happened to America’s long protectionist tradition? In the end, America only seriously turned away from protectionism as a Cold War gambit to prop up capitalist economies abroad and tie them to the U.S. Geopolitics trumped domestic economics.


Ironically, our old protectionist playbook for economic development is the same one, in many respects, that China and other nations are using against the United States today. Back when we were the ascending economic power in the late 19th century, it was Britain that complained about “unfair trade!” They were right, of course—but given that nobody forced free trade upon them, it was their own fault. Today, having forgotten our own history, we can’t even recognize the game being played against us, let alone figure out how to counter it. We will continue to pay a high price in lost jobs and declining industries until we wise up.

_________________________________________


Trump and Republicans are at it again trying to confuse their right conservative Republican base shouting for PROTECTIONISM  while working for global corporations and monopolies to take our US cities and economy.

Clinton global Wall Street neo-liberals are doing this as well.  No one has worked harder to block the import of competitive PHARMA, TIMBER et al than CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS. They allowed the complete capture of our US economy to global corporations and monopolies, created the cronyism in our local city and state Democratic Committees, built the patronage non-economy structure all to assure no local US economy grew in US cities that were not global corporate campuses.

We posted that MERCATUS was that global Wall Street neo-liberal outlet writing this article.  Why is all of the above OK with Mercatus but protectionism in imports from Canada not OK. 

ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE ONE GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL REQUIRES ALL FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES AROUND THE WORLD HAVE THE SAME TRADE LAWS FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.

So again we see PROTECTIONISM defined in a way that protects global corporations not our local US economies.

BOTH RIGHT WING REPUBLICAN AND LEFT DEMOCRAT ARE CAPTURED BY THAT SAME EAST INDIA GLOBAL CORPORATION AND GLOBAL 1% WANTING TO RETURN TO COLONIAL ECONOMIC POLICY.



'Stop Calling Cronyism Protectionism


Donald J. Boudreaux
Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal:
Uncle Sam’s scheme to punitively tax Americans who buy low-priced lumber from Canada is yet another instance of what is commonly called “protectionism.” The term, of course, refers to the protection from foreign competition that tariffs and other import restrictions bestow upon politically powerful domestic producers. Yet “protectionism” – with the sweet sound of the verb “to protect” – is far too kind and inaccurate a word for this policy'.


Institutes for Justice is that right wing public policy outlet silent on these few decades of MONOPOLY, CRONYISM, creating protectionism in our US cities for global corporations. Now they are on the PROTECTIONIST band wagon----we need to ask WHY? The answer is---MOVING FORWARD TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT which is hyper-protectionist for global corporations against our local economies.

We would read this thinking----THIS GROUP IS WORKING TO PROTECT WE THE PEOPLE---when they are actually working for those pesky GLOBAL EAST INDIA CORPORATION AND ROYALS.



Center for Judicial Engagement  

  |    July 30, 2015
Evan Bernick


Assistant Director of the Center for Judicial Engagement
Could the government prohibit LeBron James from playing professional basketball simply to put more money in the pockets of less talented athletes? Absolutely, said the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, in a surprising — and appalling — decision last week upholding a nakedly anticompetitive restriction on non-dentist teeth-whiteners in Connecticut. The decision deepens a split between the federal circuits concerning the constitutionality of economic protectionism — a split that cries out for resolution by the Supreme Court.


In 2011, the Connecticut Dental Commission issued a ruling that only licensed dentists were permitted to provide certain teeth‐whitening procedures. Non-dentist teeth-whiteners were threatened with up to $25,000 in fines and five years in jail per customer. Tasos Kariofyllis and Steve Barraco, co-owners of Sensational Smiles LLC, brought suit, arguing that this prohibition (like similar prohibitions in other states) does nothing to promote the state’s legitimate interests in public health and safety; instead, the prohibition is plainly designed to protect dentists from having to compete with cheaper, more convenient non-dentist teeth-whiteners. The parties agreed that only one rule applied to Sensational Smiles — a rule stating that only licensed dentists can shine an LED lamp at the mouth of a customer during a teeth-whitening procedure. These lights are no more powerful than a household flashlight and it is perfectly legal to make these lights available for customers to position in front of their own mouths.

Writing for himself and another judge on the Second Circuit panel, Senior Judge Guido Calabresi conceded that the would-be teeth-whiteners “forcefully argue[d] that the true purpose of the Commission’s LED restriction is to protect the monopoly on dental services enjoyed by licensed dentists.” However, he concluded that a “simple preference for dentists over teeth-whiteners” on the government’s part would be a “rational” justification, even if the challenged rule was neither meant to nor actually did anything to protect public health. “[E]ven if the only conceivable reason for the LED restriction was to shield licensed dentists from competition,” explained Calabresi, the rule would stand.


Judicial review of economic regulations is a sham under such an approach. As recited by Judge Calabresi, the default rule in constitutional cases–the so-called “rational basis test” — requires judges to determine whether there is a “rational relationship between… legislation and a legitimate legislative purpose.” The Supreme Court has made plain that legislative classifications must be supported by “legitimate” ends that are “independent” of mere political will to impose those classifications. The Court has consistently affirmed that Americans have a constitutional right to earn an honest living. Even in its most deferential rational basis cases, the Court has always required some assertion, however patently pretextual and insincere, of a public-spirited purpose for burdening the right to earn a living–some public-oriented end that is distinguishable from a bare desire to harm the politically powerless or benefit the politically powerful. As Judge Christopher Droney observed in his concurrence, to say that the court is inquiring into whether the government is pursuing a “legitimate” end is “disingenuous” if any reason — even one that is indistinguishable from pure political will — is sufficient.


Remarkably, this is not the first time that a federal court of appeals has endorsed naked economic protectionism as a constitutionally legitimate government interest. In Powers v. Harris (2004), the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that a state could forbid non-funeral directors from selling caskets simply to give state-licensed funeral directors a lucrative monopoly on that trade. Judge Deanell Tacha quipped that “while baseball may be the national pastime of the citizenry, dishing out special economic benefits to certain in-state industries remains the favored pastime of state and local governments.”


By contrast, in St. Joseph Abbey v. Castille (2013) and Craigmiles v. Giles (2002), the Fifth and Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeal displayed the kind of judicial engagementrequired to ensure that any restrictions on the right to earn a living are justified by legitimate government ends. Both the Fifth and Sixth Circuits have rejected the notion that naked protectionism is constitutionally legitimate. Confronted with facts nearly identical to those in Powers — that is, state laws forbidding non-funeral directors from selling caskets–both courts engaged in impartial scrutiny of the evidentiary record to determine whether the licensing schemes at issue were justified by legitimate health or safety interests and concluded, correctly, that they were not. There is thus a “circuit split” prime for Supreme Court review, squarely presenting a question of fundamental importance to ordinary Americans across the nation–whether their right to earn an honest living can be extinguished by entrenched incumbents whose lobbying power they cannot match.

The answer to that question is a resounding “no.” The Second Circuit and Tenth Circuits’ endorsement of rent-seeking is flagrantly at odds with our Constitution’s basic premises. Founding-era jurists used the example of legislation that took from A and gave to B without any public-spirited justification as a paradigmatic example of illegitimate legislation. Such legislation, the Supreme Court recognized in Calder v. Bull (1798), is not law at all–it is a mere exercise of force, indistinguishable from the act of a robber or a bandit. It is high time the Court clarified that theft by government of a right held sacred by the Framers and critical to ordinary Americans’ peaceful pursuit of happiness will not be tolerated.

___________________________________________

Trans Pacific Trade Pact is written to end all that PROTECTIONIST policy our FOUNDING FATHERS installed to protect and grow our American economy.....indeed from CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA and their trade deals almost every protection for our US economy is gone.  This is why our US cities have stagnant economies---why our local community economies are dead---and yes, it was Obama and Clinton neo-liberals pushing TPP as hard overseas and  in Congress as they could.  They want to keep our US economies dead.

'Trade officials met in Hawaii in late July with hopes of reaching a final agreement, but the talks broke down over issues that have bedeviled a potential pact from the beginning, including the removal of protectionist agricultural policies'.

We are already seeing in our US cities where global corporate campuses are the only development---all our public agencies are controlled by global corporations---what WE THE PEOPLE 99% need is PROTECTIONISM-----policy that keeps MONOPOLY AND GLOBAL CORPORATIONS at bay.  Who works hardest for global Wall Street killing our local US economies?  All of our Baltimore City pols ----Baltimore Maryland Assembly pols, all the global Wall Street Baltimore Development and Greater Baltimore Development 'labor and justice' organizations ----those pesky 5% to the 1% who turn around and pretend they CARE ABOUT COMMUNITIES, JOBS, GROWING SMALL BUSINESS----like THE URBAN LEAGUE----


These global corporate campuses create new businesses we are told----NO, THEY BUILD SUBSIDIARY businesses tied to the global corporations pretending to be local or regional when they are not.

East India Company: The Original Too-Big-to-Fail Firm - Bloombergwww.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2013-03-12/east-india-company-the-original-too-big-to-fail-firm Mar 12, 2013 ... In the U.K., the East India Company's extraordinary rise and fall have ... ban on Indian calicoes, and it was behind this protectionist wall that the ... the right to export the tea itself to Britain's American colonies. The arrival of this controversial corporation inflamed a flagging protest against Britain's taxes on tea.





 The PROTECTIONIST policy in TPP is the laws stating there can be no local laws protecting local businesses and economies---THOU SHALT NOT PASS ANY LOCAL LAWS HARMING GLOBAL CORPORATE PROFITS. This is what global Wall Street and national media with those 5% players will say to confuse WE THE PEOPLE that TPP is good because it is PROTECTIONIST ---


The Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal Explained

By KEVIN GRANVILLEMAY 11, 2015

PhotoA container wharf in Tokyo. Credit Kazuhiro Nogi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Like a huge container ship pushing its way into port, the trade pact known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership has dropped anchor in Washington. The document is weighty and secret, stretching to perhaps 30 chapters. It took 10 years of talks to take shape, and it would set new terms for trade and business investment among the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations — a far-flung group with an annual gross domestic product of nearly $28 trillion that represents roughly 40 percent of global G.D.P. and one-third of world trade.



Trade officials met in Hawaii in late July with hopes of reaching a final agreement, but the talks broke down over issues that have bedeviled a potential pact from the beginning, including the removal of protectionist agricultural policies.



Talks will resume in the future, but the failure to reach a settlement is a setback for President Obama. In June, he successfully overcame opposition from Democrats to win trade promotion authority: the power to negotiate trade deals that cannot be amended or filibustered by Congress. Once negotiators complete the trade pact, he would need to convince Congress — his fellow Democrats, in particular — to approve the trade deal. The latest setback means the ratificatication fight will likely be in 2016, a presidential election year, raising the degree of difficulty.



The debate in Congress, whenever it takes place, would put all the elements of the trade pact under scrutiny. It would be the final step for United States adoption of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the most ambitious trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s.

Why the Pact Is So Divisive


Supporters say it would be a boon for all the nations involved, that it would “unlock opportunities” and “address vital 21st-century issues within the global economy,” and that it is written in a way to encourage more countries, possibly even China, to sign on. Passage in Congress is one of President Obama’s final goals in office, but he faces stiff opposition from nearly all of his fellow Democrats.


Opponents in the United States see the pact as mostly a giveaway to business, encouraging further export of manufacturing jobs to low-wage nations while limiting competition and encouraging higher prices for pharmaceuticals and other high-value products by spreading American standards for patent protections to other countries. A provision allowing multinational corporations to challenge regulations and court rulings before special tribunals is drawing intense opposition.
Why This, Why Now?The pact is a major component of President Obama’s “pivot” to Asia. It is seen as a way to bind Pacific trading partners closer to the United States while raising a challenge to Asia’s rising power, China, which has pointedly been excluded from the deal, at least for now.


It is seen as a means to address a number of festering issues that have become stumbling blocks as global trade has soared, including e-commerce, financial services and cross-border Internet communications.

Trans-Pacific Partnership Countries
Canada
$577
United States
Japan
$194
Mexico
Vietnam $45
$532
Brunei $0.2
Malaysia $46
Singapore
$47
Peru
$14
Australia
$36
Chile
$24
Total goods traded with the United States in 2015
New Zealand $8
Imports plus exports, not including services, in billions of dollars


Census Bureau

By The New York Times


There are also traditional trade issues involved. The United States is eager to establish formal trade agreements with five of the nations involved — Japan, Malaysia, Brunei, New Zealand and Vietnam — and strengthen Nafta, its current agreement with Canada and Mexico.


Moreover, as attempts at global trade deals have faltered (such as the World Trade Organization’s Doha round), the Trans-Pacific Partnership is billed as an “open architecture” document written to ease adoption by additional Asian nations, and to provide a potential template to other initiatives underway, like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.


What Are Some of the Issues on the Table?

Tariffs and Quotas

Long used to protect domestic industries from cheaper goods from overseas, tariffs on imports were once a standard, robust feature of trade policy, and generated much of the revenue for the United States Treasury in the 19th century. After the Depression and World War II, the United States led a movement toward freer trade.



Today, the United States and most developed countries have few tariffs, but some remain. The United States, for example, protects the domestic sugar market from lower-priced global suppliers and imposes tariffs on imported shoes, while Japan has steep surcharges on agricultural products including rice, beef and dairy. The pact is an attempt to create a Pacific Rim free-trade zone.


Environmental, Labor and Intellectual Property Standards United States negotiators stress that the Pacific agreement would seek to level the playing field by imposing rigorous labor and environmental standards on trading partners, and supervision of intellectual property rights.


Data Flows The United States wants the Pacific trade pact to address a number of issues that have arisen since previous agreements were negotiated. One is that countries agree not to block cross-border transfers of data over the Internet, and not require that servers be located in the country in order to conduct business in that country. This proposal has drawn concerns from some countries, Australia among them, that it could conflict with privacy laws and regulations against personal data stored offshore.



Services A big aim of the Pacific pact is enhancing opportunities for service industries, which account for most of the private jobs in the American economy. The United States has a competitive advantage in a range of services, including finance, engineering, software, education, legal and information technology. Although services are not subject to tariffs, nationality requirements and restrictions on investing are used by many developing countries to protect local businesses.


State-Owned Businesses United States negotiators have discussed the need to address favoritism often granted to state-owned business — those directly or indirectly owned by the government. Although Vietnam and Malaysia have many such corporations, the United States has some too (the Postal Service and Fannie Mae, for example). The final agreement may include terms that seek to insure some competitive neutrality while keeping the door open to China’s future acceptance of the pact.


Why All the Secrecy?


The office of the United States Trade Representative has said that “negotiators need to communicate with each other with a high degree of candor, creativity and mutual trust. To create the conditions necessary to successfully reach agreements in complex trade and investment negotiations, governments routinely keep their proposals and communications with each other confidential.”



But previous trade agreements were shared more openly and, despite the secrecy efforts, portions of the document have been leaking out, through WikiLeaks and other organizations.


Why Isn’t China In on the Talks?

China has never expressed interest in joining the negotiations, but in the past has viewed the pact with concern, seeing a potential threat as the United States tries to tighten its relationship with Asian trading partners. But lately, as the talks have accelerated, senior Chinese officials have sounded more accepting of the potential deal, and have even hinted that they might want to participate at some point. At the same time, the deal provides China some cover as it pursues its own trade agreements in the region, such as the Silk Road initiative in Central Asia.

United States officials, while making clear that they see the pact as part of an effort to counter China’s influence in the region, say they are hopeful that the pact’s “open architecture” eventually prompts China to join, along with other important economic powers like South Korea.


The Shadow of Nafta, and the Debate in Washington


Nafta, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, helped lead to a boom in trade among the United States, Mexico and Canada. All three countries exported more goods and services to the other two, cross-border investments grew, and the United States economy has added millions of jobs since then. But of course not all those trends were attributable to Nafta, and the benefits were not equal: The United States had a small trade surplus with Mexico when the pact was signed, but that quickly became a trade deficit that has widened to more than $50 billion a year. Critics of Nafta also point out that job growth in the United States does not account for the loss of jobs to Mexico or Canada; the A.F.L.-C.I.O. contends about 700,000 United States jobs have been lost or displaced because of Nafta.


Nafta was a significant victory for President Clinton after a difficult congressional battle, where he won support from just enough fellow Democrats to ensure passage. The votes were 234 to 200 in the House, and 61 to 38 in the Senate.
President Obama may yet win that kind of outcome. Working with Republican leadership in the House and Senate, he gained final approval for trade promotion authority, a critical step that allows the White House to present the trade package to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote, without amendments.


But the tortuous legislative process further soured relations with many fellow Democrats, as well as unions and progressive groups, who vehemently oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Many Democrats said the president would have to address their concerns over labor and environmental standards and investor protections when he returns to Congress seeking approval of the trade deal.


_______________________________________
WE THE PEOPLE must remember that these global corporations being brought back to US are not US----they are the same as the EAST INDIA CORPORATION. These massive corporations are owned by that global 1% empire-building and do not tolerate lost market share. Those same OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE----MERCHANTS OF ASIA----MERCHANTS OF NEAR-FAR EAST are those on boards and those wanting protection from any US business or citizen interest that may take from its profit. These are not fair and balanced US business ethics corporations---they are that raw, empire-building corporate raider.
When our US cities like Baltimore are allowed to be one massive group of global corporate campuses----under PROTECTIONISM of Trans Pacific Trade Pact----there will be nothing but PATRONAGE non-economies for 99% of WE THE PEOPLE. Baltimore is already trapped in these failed economic policies---please make sure as we fight to get rid of them that your global Wall Street pols are not PULLING THE WOOL OVER YOUR EYES!
WE NEED THE PROTECTIONIST POLICIES PUT IN PLACE BY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS IN ORDER TO REBUILD OUR LOCAL ECONOMIES---SMALL, REGIONAL US BUSINESSES.

This is why our US ECONOMY is filled with LYING, CHEATING, STEALING, NO MORALS OR ETHICS. NO US RULE OF LAW, NO GOD'S NATURAL LAW----and we have that 5% to the 1% thinking they are PLAYERS and will push all this as they are heading under the bus---------

'East India Company: The Original Too-Big-to-Fail Firm - Bloomberg


Mar 12, 2013 ... In the U.K., the East India Company's extraordinary rise and fall have ... ban on Indian calicoes, and it was behind this protectionist wall that the ... the right to export the tea itself to Britain's American colonies. The arrival of this controversial corporation inflamed a flagging protest against Britain's taxes on tea'.


Rather than having a developed nation, broad free market economy fueled by workers earning enough to consume and live a quality of life ---we really want to go back to the DARK AGES.

The East India Company: The original corporate raiders

For a century, the East India Company conquered, subjugated and plundered vast tracts of south Asia. The lessons of its brutal reign have never been more relevant


The Mughal emperor Shah Alam hands a scroll to Robert Clive, the governor of Bengal, which transferred tax collecting rights in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the East India Company. Illustration: Benjamin West (1738–1820)/British Library William Dalrymple


Wednesday 4 March 2015 00.59 EST Last modified on Thursday 11 May 2017 07.31 EDT


One of the very first Indian words to enter the English language was the Hindustani slang for plunder: “loot”. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this word was rarely heard outside the plains of north India until the late 18th century, when it suddenly became a common term across Britain. To understand how and why it took root and flourished in so distant a landscape, one need only visit Powis Castle.

The last hereditary Welsh prince, Owain Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, built Powis castle as a craggy fort in the 13th century; the estate was his reward for abandoning Wales to the rule of the English monarchy. But its most spectacular treasures date from a much later period of English conquest and appropriation: Powis is simply awash with loot from India, room after room of imperial plunder, extracted by the East India Company in the 18th century.


There are more Mughal artefacts stacked in this private house in the Welsh countryside than are on display at any one place in India – even the National Museum in Delhi. The riches include hookahs of burnished gold inlaid with empurpled ebony; superbly inscribed spinels and jewelled daggers; gleaming rubies the colour of pigeon’s blood and scatterings of lizard-green emeralds. There are talwars set with yellow topaz, ornaments of jade and ivory; silken hangings, statues of Hindu gods and coats of elephant armour.

The latest in our audio long reads examines how, for a century, the East India Company conquered, subjugated and plundered vast tracts of south Asia. The lessons of its brutal reign have never been more relevant.



Such is the dazzle of these treasures that, as a visitor last summer, I nearly missed the huge framed canvas that explains how they came to be here. The picture hangs in the shadows at the top of a dark, oak-panelled staircase. It is not a masterpiece, but it does repay close study. An effete Indian prince, wearing cloth of gold, sits high on his throne under a silken canopy. On his left stand scimitar and spear carrying officers from his own army; to his right, a group of powdered and periwigged Georgian gentlemen. The prince is eagerly thrusting a scroll into the hands of a statesmanlike, slightly overweight Englishman in a red frock coat.


The painting shows a scene from August 1765, when the young Mughal emperor Shah Alam, exiled from Delhi and defeated by East India Company troops, was forced into what we would now call an act of involuntary privatisation. The scroll is an order to dismiss his own Mughal revenue officials in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and replace them with a set of English traders appointed by Robert Clive – the new governor of Bengal – and the directors of the EIC, who the document describes as “the high and mighty, the noblest of exalted nobles, the chief of illustrious warriors, our faithful servants and sincere well-wishers, worthy of our royal favours, the English Company”. The collecting of Mughal taxes was henceforth subcontracted to a powerful multinational corporation – whose revenue-collecting operations were protected by its own private army.



It was at this moment that the East India Company (EIC) ceased to be a conventional corporation, trading and silks and spices, and became something much more unusual. Within a few years, 250 company clerks backed by the military force of 20,000 locally recruited Indian soldiers had become the effective rulers of Bengal. An international corporation was transforming itself into an aggressive colonial power.


Using its rapidly growing security force – its army had grown to 260,000 men by 1803 – it swiftly subdued and seized an entire subcontinent. Astonishingly, this took less than half a century. The first serious territorial conquests began in Bengal in 1756; 47 years later, the company’s reach extended as far north as the Mughal capital of Delhi, and almost all of India south of that city was by then effectively ruled from a boardroom in the City of London. “What honour is left to us?” asked a Mughal official named Narayan Singh, shortly after 1765, “when we have to take orders from a handful of traders who have not yet learned to wash their bottoms?”

It was not the British government that seized India, but a private company, run by an unstable sociopath

We still talk about the British conquering India, but that phrase disguises a more sinister reality. It was not the British government that seized India at the end of the 18th century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by an unstable sociopath – Clive.

_________________________________

There is very little a Pat Buchanan and a left social progressive would agree but there were REAL right wing conservatives in the Republican Party before Bush/Reagan.  There still are only their voice has been silenced by global Wall Street Bush neo-cons just as our left social progressive voice has been silenced by Clinton/Obama global Wall Street neo-liberals.

The top priority for 99% of citizens left or right is to rebuild these PROTECTIONIST laws as originally designed---for our US small, regional, and US corporate economic market as we rebuild our US cities.

THIS SHOUTS----NO TO GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUSES AND FACTORIES IN US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES----THEY ARE MONOPOLIES---


'Buchanan on the history of U.S. protectionism: “Behind a tariff wall built by Washington, Hamilton, Clay, Lincoln, and the Republican presidents who followed, the United States had gone from an agrarian coastal republic to become the greatest industrial power the world had ever seen — in a single century. Such was the success of the policy called protectionism that is so disparaged today.”'

CATO is of course that far-right wing global Wall Street think tank.  CATO will not tell us the ROARING 20s economic crash and Great Depression were deliberate, willful, done with malice fueled by fraud and government corruption just as today just to REBUILD our US economic policy.  FDR set the stage for empire-building deregulating some of those original TRADE PROTECTIONS ---of course dismantlement soared these few decades.

Commentary


The Truth about Trade in History

By Bruce Bartlett

This article appeared on freetrade.org on July 1, 1998.
The ongoing globalization of economic life leaves many Americans nervous and suspicious. Pat Buchanan has played to this anxiety with his book, The Great Betrayal, a root-and-branch rejection of free trade in favor of a “new nationalism.”

In this series, Cato Center for Trade Policy Studies scholars take issue with much of what Buchanan writes, and offer an alternative perspective to Buchanan’s protectionist analysis.


Buchanan on the history of U.S. protectionism: “Behind a tariff wall built by Washington, Hamilton, Clay, Lincoln, and the Republican presidents who followed, the United States had gone from an agrarian coastal republic to become the greatest industrial power the world had ever seen — in a single century. Such was the success of the policy called protectionism that is so disparaged today.”

Pat Buchanan contends that the United States grew economically strong and prosperous because of trade barriers. But America has experienced several phases in its trade history. It is more accurate to say that the country grew in spite of import restrictions.


From Colony to Republic


British trade policy toward the American colonies was mercantilistic. The mother country expected to gain materially from all colonial trade. The Navigation Acts, as noted earlier, generally required that all colonial trade be conducted on British ships manned by British sailors. Also, certain goods had to be shipped to Great Britain first before they could be sent to their final destination. The country’s mercantilist policies were a major burden on the colonies.2 In that way, British protectionism was a significant cause of the Revolution.


Having achieved independence, however, many Americans advocated protectionist policies similar to those they had earlier condemned.3 Alexander Hamilton, the principal advocate of import restrictions, based his proposals on the alleged needs of infant industries. As he wrote in his “Report on Manufactures” (1791):


The superiority antecedently enjoyed by nations who have preoccupied and perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a more formidable obstacle … to the introduction of the same branch into a country in which it did not before exist. To maintain, between the recent establishments of one country, and the long-matured establishments of another country, a competition upon equal terms, both as to quality and price, is, in most cases, impracticable. The disparity … must necessarily be so considerable, as to forbid a successful rival ship, without the extraordinary aid and protection of government.4


The First Wave of Protectionism


Although Congress adopted the first tariff in 1789, its principal purpose was to raise revenue. Rates went from 5 percent to 15 percent, with an average of about 8.5 percent. However, in 1816 Congress adopted an explicitly protectionist tariff, with a 25 percent rate on most textiles and rates as high as 30 percent on various manufactured goods. In 1824, protection was extended to goods manufactured from wool, iron, hemp, lead, and glass. Tariff rates on other products were raised as well.


That first wave of protectionism peaked in 1828 with the so-called Tariff of Abominations. Average tariff rates rose to nearly 49 percent. As early as 1832 Congress began to scale back tariffs with further reductions enacted the following year. In 1842, tariffs were again raised; but by 1846 they were moving downward, and further lowered in 1857. Following the 1857 act, tariffs averaged 20 percent.5


Failed Tariff Policies


Economist Frank Taussig, in a thorough examination of those tariffs, found that they did nothing to promote domestic industry. “Little, if anything, was gained by the protection which the United States maintained” in the first part of the 19th century, he concluded. That finding considerably questioned the validity of the infant industry argument. “The intrinsic soundness of the argument for protection to young industries therefore may not be touched by the conclusions drawn from the history of its trial in the United States, which shows only that the intentional protection of the tariffs of 1816, 1824, and 1828 had little effect,” Taussig said.6


Thus, the early experience of the United States confirms the weakness of the idea that protection can aid infant industries. In practice, so-called infant industries never grow competitive behind trade barriers, but, instead, remain perpetually underdeveloped, thus requiring protection to be extended indefinitely. As Gottfried von Haberler put it:


Nearly every industrial tariff was first imposed as an infant-industry tariff under the promise that in a few years, when the industry had grown sufficiently to face foreign competition, it would be removed. But, in fact, this moment never arrives. The interested parties are never willing to have the duty removed. Thus temporary infant-industry duties are transformed into permanent duties to preserve the industries they protect.7

It is also important to note that the adverse effects of tariffs in 19th century America were more than offset by the economic activity that constituted the western expansion across the continent. Some 20 million immigrants came to the United States in that century. Also, much economic growth came from transportation, farming, mining, and construction of infrastructure. In effect, the United States was a giant, continental-size free-trade zone, from the Atlantic to the Pacific — the equivalent of the distance from Madrid to Moscow.
Figure 1:

Customs Duties as a Share of Imports



Source: The Department of Commerce



Following the Civil War, some tariff liberalization occurred, mainly assuming the form of exempting items from duties, rather than reducing tariff rates. As Figure 1 illustrates, until that time, duties had covered a large percentage of imports, as shown by the close relationship between the tariff rate on all imports and that on dutiable imports only. But after the Civil War, those rates began to diverge sharply.


Turn-of-the-Century Tariffs


In the election of 1888, Republicans called for tariffs to protect American manufacturing. Benjamin Harrison’s defeat of Democrat free trader Grover Cleveland led to passage of the McKinley tariff in 1890. An interesting aspect of the 1890 debate over the tariff is that protectionists abandoned any pretense that high tariffs were needed to protect infant industries. Even mature industries, they argued, needed protection. They further argued that high tariffs were needed to reduce the Treasury’s surplus. They understood that sufficiently high rates would so discourage imports that tariff revenues would fall.8


Protectionist tariffs remained the bedrock of economic policy of the Republican Party for the next 20 years. Indeed, Republicans were so intent on passing the Payne-Aldrich tariff in 1909 that President William Howard Taft supported the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution creating a federal income tax as the political price for Democratic support of the tariff.9 That has to have been one of the worst deals in history — a lose-lose situation if ever there was one.


The Underwood tariff of 1913, passed early in the administration of President Woodrow Wilson, liberalized trade somewhat. But as soon as the Republicans reassumed power after World War I, they raised tariffs again. The Fordney-McCumber tariff of 1922 generally increased tariff rates across the board. However, it also gave the President power to raise or lower existing tariffs by 50 percent.


Deepening Depression


The infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 was the last outrage inflicted by the Republican protectionists. Rates on dutiable imports rose to their highest levels in over 100 years. Increases of 50 percent were common and some rates went up 100 percent. Table 1 indicates how much tariffs in creased during the 1920s as a result of both the Fordney-McCumber and Smoot-Hawley tariffs. A recent analysis estimates that the Smoot-Hawley tariff, on average, doubled the tariffs over those in the Underwood Act.10


Figure 2:
Collapse of World Trade Following Smoot-Hawley



Source: League of Nations


Economists and historians continue to debate how important the Smoot-Hawley tariff was in causing the Great Depression.

MASSIVE WALL STREET FRAUD AND GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION DURING ROBBER BARON ROARING 20S BROUGHT THE GREAT DEPRESSION--NOT TRADE TARIFFS.


11 Whatever the degree, the effect certainly was adverse and the tariff was certainly bad policy. As Figure 2 indicates, world trade virtually collapsed following passage of the Smoot-Hawley tariff. Thus, if that tariff was not the single cause of the Great Depression, it certainly made a bad situation worse.



The Free-Trade Path

Politically, at least, in the long term the memory of the Smoot-Hawley tariff has kept Americans committed to a free-trade policy. For more than 60 years, a guiding principle of U.S. international economic policy has been that tariffs and other trade barriers should be reduced, that trade wars must be avoided at all costs, and that the best way to achieve those goals is through multilateral negotiations. Thus, the United States took the lead in establishing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that reduced global tariffs in the decades following World War II, and spearheaded major GATT rounds of multilateral trade liberalization, including the Kennedy Round, Tokyo Round, and Uruguay Round.

In recent years, the free-trade consensus has begun to weaken. One must look back to 1929 to find protectionist rhetoric as heated as that commonly heard today. Throughout most of the postwar era, protectionists were embarrassed to call themselves protectionists. Today, however, prominent politicians such as Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan and Senator Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) wear the label proudly.12 Yet protectionist policies have not been the source of America’s economic strength. And American policy, fortunately, remains largely directed toward free trade.

___________________________________________


What a BALTIMORE SUN tied to global Wall Street Baltimore Development will not tell us is this-------the Port of Baltimore was privatized by then Governor O'Malley to a global hedge fund which was enriched by the massive subprime mortgage loan frauds including in Baltimore. What was tax revenue coming to state and city of several hundred million was signed away ----reduced to some millions as the public becomes the RENTER. This means that global hedge fund is now raking in billions---and as the Port grows with building of GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUSES AND GLOBAL FACTORIES----that few billion in profits will soar---none of it reaching our city coffers.
Then global Wall Street Baltimore Development, the global hedge fund, and global Johns Hopkins handed management of our Port to a CHINESE CORPORATION because of course Asian Foreign Economic Zones have those global corporations managing overseas ports. So, this global corporations is earning millions. But wait---what about the trucking and rail----oh, well all transportation coming to these US ports are owned by global trucking and BUFFETT billionaire rail corporations because our independent truckers can no longer compete.
As we see here our once strong, well-paid LONGSHOREMEN UNION is being sliced and diced as global labor pool will soon move in taking those jobs.
THIS IS WHAT US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE POLICIES DO TO LOCAL FREE MARKET ECONOMIES. This Port of Baltimore is NOT PUBLIC----our tax revenue maintains for free infrastructure for all those global corporations.
GET RID OF GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS ---CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA--NOW TRUMP

'Dockworkers' union threatens one-day strike on US East Coast ...
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/02/27/dock-f27.html

Feb 27, 2017 ... Tens of thousands of longshoremen are poised to shut down ports from ... ports along the East and Gulf coasts to protest “government interference” in ... On the East Coast, terminals in Norfolk, Baltimore and Jersey City, New' ..


US Constitutional trade tariffs and monopoly laws do not allow for these economic structures in our US cities.

 US Foreign Economic Zones as EXPORT ONLY MANUFACTURING----will have these cargo ships bringing materials for global factories----taking away products to export overseas----nothing going on in Baltimore communities except restaurants, hotels, resorts


Port of Baltimore sets first-quarter record with 2.56 million tons of general cargo

Colin CampbellContact Reporter

The Baltimore Sun




The Port of Baltimore set a first-quarter record in 2017, handling more than 2.56 million tons of general cargo at its public marine terminals in the first three months of the year — a five percent increase from the same quarter last year, officials said.


Increases in the number of cars and containers drove the overall bump in traffic at the port, officials said. Cars were up six percent year-over-year, and containers were up eight percent, which officials attributed to the massive container ships that can now reach Baltimore through the expanded Panama Canal.

A record 538,567 containers crossed the public piers last year.
The port has led the country in shipping cars for the past six years, and it has been named the most efficient U.S. port for the third year running. It averaged 71 container moves per hour per berth, faster than any other major American port.

The port generates about 13,650 direct jobs, and is indirectly linked to 127,000 jobs across the state, officials said.
0 Comments

May 23rd, 2017

5/23/2017

0 Comments

 
We will continue discussion on economic policy looking at how to rebuild our US city/county local economies in the midst of an orchestrated, deliberate, willful, and done with malice massive US Treasury and state/local municipal bond frauds in the tens of trillions of dollars all designed to move that revenue to global corporate tribunal development.

Bringing the GEO-POLITICAL POLICY discussion back to our communities----both right wing and left wing 99% of citizens must understand those far-right wing global Wall Street CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA are lying when they say to the right----KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS IS BAD-----saying to the left----laissez-faire neo-liberalism creates jobs and businesses----

THEY ARE BOTH LYING TO ADVANCE EXTREME WEALTH AND EXTREME POVERTY.

Local economics for thousands of years of capitalism has been a form of BOTH.  Keynesian economics creates stability for local and national governance-----laissez-faire allows for global market trading.   There has always been global market trading---it is not bad when YOU REGULATE, PROVIDE OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY AND DON'T ALLOW MONOPOLY TO KILL LOCAL ECONOMIES as CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA did.

We will discuss the new global Wall Street POSING term-----PROTECTIONISM.  This term is already being corrupted just as the far-right global Wall Street corrupted the terms FREE MARKET and TRADE DEFICIT.

Remember, the US has a trade deficit because global Wall Street pols sent all our US corporations to China to then RETURN PRODUCTS to US as IMPORTS.  It is not Chinese corporations creating a trade deficit---it is our own US corporations manufacturing overseas creating those import vs export deficits.  Who shouts loudest against these corrupted trade deficit standards?  Right wing Republicans and left wing Democrats both parties captured by global Wall Street---

THEY ARE LYING, CHEATING, AND STEALING FROM OUR LOCAL COMMUNITIES AND ECONOMIES.


What is 'Trade Deficit'

Trade deficit is an economic measure of a negative balance of trade in which a country's imports exceeds its exports. A trade deficit represents an outflow of domestic currency to foreign markets.


BREAKING DOWN 'Trade Deficit'

Economic theory dictates that a trade deficit is not necessarily a bad situation because it often corrects itself over time. However, a deficit has been reported and growing in the United States for the past few decades, which has some economists worried. This means that large amounts of the U.S. dollar are being held by foreign nations, which may decide to sell at any time. A large increase in dollar sales can drive the value of the currency down, making it more costly to purchase imports.

As we said----the NEW WORLD ORDER will see Foreign Economic Zones where global corporations move from Asian and Latin American nations to African and Western nations.  Those Asian nations having hosted global corporations these several decades will now simply fill these economic zones with their own corporations.  Chinese Foreign Economic Zones filled with global corporations from other nations will now be filled with Chinese corporations.   The Chinese global 1% KNOW the US Foreign Economic Zones are being built with global corporate campuses and global factories to EXPORT-----NOT IMPORT.  Remember, US Foreign Economic Zone policies do not allow for manufacturing that is retail---it only allows for manufacturing that is EXPORT.  This is why for several decades we heard nothing about a TRADE DEFICIT and now we hear nothing but TRADE DEFICIT.



As long as US Foreign Economic Zone policy states the US zones are EXPORT MANUFACTURING ONLY----we cannot rebuild our local US economies. THIS IS THE TOP 99% ECONOMIC POLICY PRIORITY.


Is the United States slipping down a path toward protectionism?

By David Page, opinion contributor - 02/15/17 12:00 PM EST


In the weeks since inauguration, the new administration has struck a more protectionist tone. Trump’s White House seems less convinced by the benefits the United States has accrued from globalization and comparative advantage through international trade. Rather, it has focused on the continuing decline of manufacturing jobs.


Peter Navarro, head of the new National Trade Council, has theorized that open trade—particularly with China—has impacted U.S. manufacturing job prospects. His views appear to have found resonance with others in the administration. This has created uncertainty over the direction that U.S. trade policy will take.


In his first month, President Trump has already pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), voiced concerns over currencies in China and Japan, and opened negotiations over the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico. Navarro has also criticised German trade policy. Yet meetings between President Trump and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which included future trade relations, appeared productive.


Looking ahead, trade relations with Mexico and China appear priorities. In the first instance, Mexican trade relations appear to be wrapped up with the renegotiation of NAFTA. The scale of sought after change here is unknown. However, this process will take some time. Do not expect unilateral protectionist measures while such talks are underway.

The outlook for China is less certain. The administration has loosely talked about currency manipulation. Although China currently breaches only one of the U.S. Treasury Department’s three guidelines for manipulation (and importantly, China has been supporting the value of its currency for around 18 months), we see some risk of this. Yet such a move would be largely symbolic and designed to provoke broader negotiations.  

 

More direct action cannot be ruled out. Broad-based tariffs would risk a comprehensive retaliation from the Chinese authorities that would prove damaging to U.S. economic interests, harming both producers and consumers. A series of targeted-tariffs are more likely. The president enjoys a wide range of executive authority over trade policy that goes largely unchecked by Congress.


The current administration has renewed targeted anti-dumping tariffs on China steel imports, but may go further by pursuing a different approach. Concentrating on sectors that account for significant portions of the U.S.-China bilateral trade deficit and that have had a significant impact on U.S. jobs, as proxied by the scale of import penetration, the electronic and computer sector, as well as the electrical and appliance sector, may face a high risk for targeted tariffs in the future. However, even these measures should be expected to prompt retaliatory action from China, with the risk of further escalation.  

 

The prospects for domestic production do not lie solely with trade policy. Another key element to domestic competitiveness is tax policy. For years, corporate America has called for a more competitive system that does away with worldwide taxation—a practice eschewed by most other OECD economies—and lowers the headline tax rate from the currently uncompetitive 35 percent rate.


House Republicans have proposed a shift to a destination-based, cash flow tax system. This would overhaul of the current system and combine a lower headline corporate tax rate—Republicans argue for 20 percent—with other incentives for investment, including full expensing of capital investment. Proponents state this would modernize the tax system, incentivize investment and underpin domestic competitiveness. This could significantly boost the outlook for U.S. production without recourse to trade policy.
That is before we consider border tax adjustability, which is a mechanism that would exclude U.S. exports and input costs from domestic production from taxation. To proponents of tax reform, a move to a destination-based, cash flow tax system requires measures to prevent base erosion—or an accelerated process of corporate inversions, outsourcing and intellectual property transfers.


Border tax adjustability is proposed as a policy designed to remove incentives for base erosion, which should prove trade neutral. However, the assumption of  trade neutrality requires significant dollar appreciation of 25 percent, which is an unlikely outcome. Without such an appreciation, border tax adjustability would likely have a marked additional impact on the balance of trade beyond any prospective boost that broader tax reforms could provide. Border tax adjustability policies would also likely be considered protectionist by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), due to the unlike tax treatment of domestic and foreign production.  

  

Hence the scale and direction of corporate tax reform remains uncertain for now, although President Trump has promised an announcement over the coming weeks. Some degree of tax reform looks likely, although the scale proposed by the House Republicans now appears ambitious. Progress would be a key development for the competitiveness of domestic manufacturing. As such, the administration might only be in a position to determine trade policy in the light of tax reform.


I remain wary of the new administration’s direction over protectionism, although I acknowledge marked uncertainty in this regard. Direct protectionist measures remain a threat. For 2017, I consider a renegotiation of NAFTA and trade relations with Mexico to be the most likely priorities. I also consider the United States unlikely to strike out with direct tariffs ahead of concluding corporate tax reform measures. Yet there is a likelihood of increased trade tensions. I see the risk of the United States labelling China a currency manipulator. And I consider further risks ahead with the prospect of direct import restrictions or tariff measures, if the administration considers progress towards boosting domestic production inadequate.

________________________________________


As long as US Foreign Economic Zone policy states the US zones are EXPORT MANUFACTURING ONLY----we cannot rebuild our local US economies. THIS IS THE TOP 99% ECONOMIC POLICY PRIORITY.


 As long as global Wall Street 5% to the 1% train our young adults to be global Wall Street 1% followers and NOT COMMUNITY LEADERS this will MOVE FORWARD.

As we see here in Baltimore every higher education institution that should be training our young adults to be community leaders are indeed tied to GLOBAL WALL STREET 1% EMPIRE-BUILDING----and they train our young adults to be FOLLOWERS OF GLOBAL WALL STREET.  Whether black, white, or brown citizen---this is what the 99% must change.  Global Johns Hopkins is raging global 1% IVY LEAGUE-----our HBCUs sadly are tied to global IVY LEAGUE working for global 1%----and even our local U of B----has appointed leaders tied to global Wall Street and yes, all leadership training is tied to GLOBAL WALL STREET 1% POLICIES.

If the goal for the 99% is changing US Foreign Economic Zone policies from EXPORT MANUFACTURING ONLY to local manufacturing with retail sales of products---how are we going to make that policy goal when all our youth are being trained to work for GLOBAL WALL STREET 1%?

These same global Wall Street institutions control all of our K-12 after-school programs meaning absolutely no training for 99% being leaders is happening.

THIS SAME DYNAMIC IS HAPPENING IN YOUR NECK OF THE WOODS----IF THE 99% DOES NOT BREAK THIS HOLD BY GLOBAL WALL STREET ON OUR HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS WE CANNOT BUILD OUR LOCAL ECONOMIES FOR WE THE PEOPLE.



The US Urban League and Greater Urban League are partnered with global Wall Street Baltimore Development and Greater Baltimore Development ---they are those pesky 5% to the 1%------stop allowing these folks to be leaders-----they are simply PLAYERS.

Saturday Leadership Program & Summer Leadership Program

SIGN UP TODAY
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
​
The Greater Baltimore Urban League launched the Saturday Leadership Program in 2013. Each month, 100 Saturday Leadership Fellows from all neighborhoods in Baltimore convene to develop their leadership potential. We hold the sessions at Baltimore colleges. Last year, we met at Coppin State University, Goucher, MICA, Morgan State University, Notre Dame, Sojourner Douglass College, and the University of Baltimore. This year, we are planning sessions at 10 colleges. At the beginning of a Saturday Leadership day, students grades 8-12 meet at the host university at 8:00am for breakfast and are welcomed by a fellow student serving as the morning MC. The students are divided into four groups for the day’s activities, each group named after a notable African American from Baltimore who reflects the day’s theme. The Greater Baltimore Urban League Young Professionals conduct two leadership development sessions. The workshop themes include standard leadership development exercises such as teambuilding as well as themes reflecting the social mission of the Urban League. These two areas, of personal development and community-focused leadership, are integrated into each session’s activities. Students also participate in grade-specific college readiness activities. Following lunch, the host university takes participants on a campus tour. On the weekends between sessions, GBUL organizes field trips and public service activities. Every college visited is on the MTA bus line, and the MTA has donated day passes for each participant for every Saturday. The program is free.

The specific program dates are determined by the colleges, but they will not conflict with any PSAT, SAT, or ACT testing dates or Baltimore City Public Schools vacation dates. The first session is held in September. 

The Saturday Leadership Program is committed to including students of all abilities in our programs. We want to help our students succeed in school, career, college and community life. We provide reasonable accommodations for students of all abilities and we work with families and the community to create an out-of-school program where all of our students can succeed.

WHY SATURDAY LEADERSHIP?
​

We know that our youth have unlimited potential. They can become leaders in their fields and their communities. So why wait to unleash that potential?


BECOME A SATURDAY LEADERSHIP FELLOW

The program is free of charge but heavy in commitment. When a student joins the Saturday Leadership Program, they are committing to attending every session on time for the entire time (8:00 am to 2:30 pm). We welcome students with any G.P.A. who have a desire to develop their leadership potential and are ready to make the serious commitment to attend. Because this commitment is so important, the application requires three signatures: the student, the parent or guardian, and a sponsoring agency. The sponsoring agency can be any program (example: church youth group, tutoring program, sports team, college access program) in which the student is currently participating. The sponsoring agency will verify that the student has excellent attendance (90% or more) in the agency’s program and commits to ensure that the student will attend every Saturday Leadership Session.

The sponsoring agency will select prospective participants from their program and distribute the application to these students. Families completing the application will submit the application to the sponsoring agency and the agency will submit the application to the Greater Baltimore Urban League. We only accept applications submitted by sponsoring agencies. We have 70 spots for new applicants, they are filled first come first served.


SATURDAY LEADERSHIP ACTIVITIES

In previous years, session topics have included:
  • community leadership and service
  • finding career and academic aspirations
  • notable African Americans & notable Baltimoreans
  • financial literacy
  • scholarships and financial aid in  college
  • networking & mock interviews
  • Freedom Readers (an Enoch Pratt Free Library collaboration)
  • Stress & Time Management
  • History Wall
  • Public Speaking & Debate
  • College Tours and Sessions on College Life (on-campus culture)

Off-Saturday activities give the opportunity for even more activities that fall outside of the typical SLP curriculum. Past Off-Saturday events have included the MLK Day Parade, theatre/dance workshops, an Orioles game, help with resume-writing, college applications and more. 


________________________________________
It is important that each nations' 99% of citizens understand the dynamic of these Foreign Economic Zones.  Where early in US Foreign Economic Zone policies entailed only duties and tariffs----during Clinton/Bush/Obama these FTZ laws were changed making these zones ready for global corporate manufacturing ONLY.  The reason we are seeing NO local manufacturing replacing those that left Baltimore these few decades is the laws surrounding FTZ.

If WE THE PEOPLE want to rebuild our local economies to that same thriving FREE MARKET economy filled with small businesses, regional businesses all competing with corporations in manufacturing and sales----we must GET RID OF US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE POLICIES that allow only GLOBAL MONOPOLIES.

This is for what our global Wall Street Baltimore Development---Greater Baltimore Development---Johns Hopkins works and their 5% to the 1% 'labor and justice' organizations are tied to MOVING FORWARD GLOBAL CORPORATE MANUFACTURING ONLY.  This is why the 5 % to the 1% are filling our US cities with NON-ECONOMIES----NGOS-----and these institution's leadership KNOWS WHAT MOVING FORWARD looks like.  THESE 5% PLAYERS DON'T CARE.


We are watching as global 1% create ANCIENT PHOENICIA while pretending to rebuild our modern US economy.



'SEZs have a long pedigree: the first free-trade zones were in ancient Phoenicia. The first modern one was set up at Shannon airport in Ireland in 1959, but the idea took off in the 1980s after China embraced them. There are now more than 4,000 SEZs (see chart). A study conducted in 2008 estimated that 68m people worked in them. They come in many forms, from basic “export processing zones” to “charter cities”, urban zones that set their own regulations in all sorts of areas that affect business'.  

What each city and county will need as this massive economic collapse occurs is KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS----our government revenue needs to fuel our economic development---but wait!  OBAMA AND CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA created $20 trillion in US Treasury bond debt ILLEGALLY tied to only global corporate campus development---these global Wall Street pols deliberately staged this economic crash so the only RECOVERY will be for those dastardly global 1%. 

THIS IS WHY A $20 TRILLION NATIONAL DEBT WAS ALLOWED TO OCCUR---AND WHY STATES LIKE MARYLAND LOADED WITH MUNICIPAL BOND DEBT---TO KEEP ANY LOCAL ECONOMY FROM BEING REBUILT.


'Debt doesn’t matter? Really? That’s the most irresponsible fiscal notion since the tax-cutting mania brought on by the advent of supply-side economics'.


The Dangerous Notion That Debt Doesn’t Matter


Steven Rattner JAN. 20, 2012


WITH little fanfare, a dangerous notion has taken hold in progressive policy circles: that the amount of money borrowed by the federal government from Americans to finance its mammoth deficits doesn’t matter.


Debt doesn’t matter? Really? That’s the most irresponsible fiscal notion since the tax-cutting mania brought on by the advent of supply-side economics. And it’s particularly problematic right now, as Congress resumes debating whether to extend the payroll-tax reduction or enact other stimulative measures.


Here’s the theory, in its most extreme configuration: To the extent that the government sells its debt to Americans (as opposed to foreigners), those obligations will disappear as aging folks who buy those Treasuries die off.

If that doesn’t seem to make much sense, don’t be puzzled — it doesn’t. Government borrowing is still debt that must eventually be paid off, just as we were taught in introductory economics.

Failing to repay the debt would mean not only the ugliness of default but also depriving the next generation of whatever savings their parents parked in government bonds.


And remember that just a small fraction of Treasuries are owned by individual Americans. Institutions and many foreign entities own the rest and are not about to give up claims that they are owed.

The more realistic alternative of continuing to service that debt offers the unattractive eventual prospect of either higher taxes or sharp cutbacks in government programs, or both.


That problem is greatly compounded by the fact that the $10 trillion of debt that is held by investors represents only a fraction of the federal government’s obligations and ignores an additional $46 trillion of commitments to Social Security and Medicare.


Of course every modern economy both tolerates and benefits from some amount of debt. But the United States has been on a binge, brought on by a toxic mix of spending increases and tax cuts that began with the Reagan tax cuts in the 1980s and were later turbocharged by those of President George W. Bush.


The figures are stark. In 1975, government debt per household was roughly equal to half of a typical household’s annual income. Today, it’s 1.7 times. Add entitlements, and the obligations would take a mind-boggling nine years of family income to pay off.


Even deficit hawks like me recognize that with the economy still barely above stall speed, now is hardly the moment for the government to slam on the fiscal brakes, debt or no debt.


So that means there’s no realistic alternative to more debt. But we can reduce the adverse consequences by how we spend this borrowed money. There are two main forms of stimulus: one kind is channeled through tax cuts and then mostly spent, just like a strapped family that puts its monthly expenses onto a credit card. Alternatively, government can direct its resources toward long-term investments that earn a return; think roads and dams but also medical research and education.


At the moment, gridlock grips Washington, and about all that Congress has offered is a two-month cut in the payroll tax, which may help shake the economy out of the doldrums but provides little lasting benefit.
We could just as effectively throw borrowed hundred-dollar bills out of airplanes. About the only worse approach would be nothing at all.


Government’s focus should shift toward investment. To do so, multiple challenges must be overcome.
First, unlike every company in America, the government doesn’t keep its books in a way that highlights these important two categories, investment and consumption. As a result, Congress can’t evaluate the long-term impact of its actions.


Second, the dark shadow of the Tea Party movement has made added spending — the route for most new government investment — taboo.


While public investment may take longer to unleash its positive forces, the case for it is compelling, in part because rising entitlement expenditures have crowded out government’s investment activities.


In the early 1950s, government devoted about 1.2 percent of gross domestic product to infrastructure; by 2010, that amount had fallen to just 0.2 percent. Meanwhile, federal spending on research and development dropped from a high of nearly 2 percent in 1964 to 0.9 percent in 2009.


By contrast, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s much-praised Works Progress Administration spent the equivalent of at least $1.5 trillion over eight years on projects that in New York City alone ranged from building La Guardia Airport to reroofing the New York Public Library to creating a lasting body of literary and artistic work.


I agree that short-term help for the economy combined with long-term deficit reduction is the right direction for budgetary policy.


But we also need to make every dollar of debt matter, and therefore we should be directing our efforts to lifting the economy toward programs that provide long-term benefit, not just a short-term burst of caffeinated energy.

-________________________________________

Before the right wing global Wall Street pols start blaming Obama and Clinton neo-liberals for these $12 trillion in national debt from US Treasury bond fraud----let's be clear the BUSH/CHENEY crew of global Wall Street pols were these same cheerleaders----bringing $4 trillion in national debt from subprime mortgage loan and many other frauds of our US agencies. WE THE PEOPLE MUST DEMAND THESE BOND DEBTS BE VOIDED---DEFAULTED----in order to redirect our local taxation to rebuilding local economies.


 This is the problem and solution for 99% of WE THE PEOPLE.


Yes, we can default on all this US Treasury and state municipal bond debt BECAUSE it was always done ILLEGALLY.  Now, this is why 2016 elections were rigged an fraudulent to assure US mayors and governors were in place who would not DEFAULT----they are global Wall Street 5% of players.  Here in Maryland that is Governor Larry Hogan who ran as a Republican but is that global Wall Street Bush neo-conservative----and in Baltimore that is Catherine Pugh as mayor running as a Democrat but being a far-right wing global Wall Street Clinton neo-liberal.

ANY GROUP THAT IS REALLY LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE WOULD HAVE BEEN SHOUTING THIS THESE SEVERAL YEARS.  WHAT WE HAVE ARE GROUPS CAPTURED BY THAT 5% TO THE 1% MAKING SURE THE 99% DOESN'T KNOW.

This is bad for all US citizens and immigrant citizens----black, white, or brown citizens---right wing or left wing citizens----WAKE UP and STOP MOVING FORWARD.

Krugman is that far-right global Wall Street neo-liberal economist national media pretends feels the pain of 99% WE THE PEOPLE.



'Krugman is trying to argue that because government debt did not hinder private wealth creation we should use government debt to create private wealth. The cart is not even before the horse using this “logic”, as the cart and horse aren’t even on the same road'.

Krugman's Debt Doesn't Matter Mantra------Goes Back To America's Greatest Swindler, Jay Cooke

By Jeffrey P. Snider. Posted On Sunday, February 15th, 2015

With the G-20 recoiling itself back into the same kinds of mistakes made in the 1960’s, leading directly to the Great Inflation, we will have to take into account the other end of that, namely other forms of “stimulus.” With the global economy sinking, and worries about it beginning to resound beyond just inconvenient bears, there is growing official consensus on central banks taking a clearer approach but also that governments need to face up to “austerity.”


Paul Krugman has been leading the critique against what he sees is a disastrous and ignorant deformation against debt. In times like these, which he “predicted” based on too little government spending, Krugman derides fiscal sense as “cold-hearted.”


This misplaced focus said a lot about our political culture, in particular about how disconnected Congress is from the suffering of ordinary Americans. But it also revealed something else: when people in D.C. talk about deficits and debt, by and large they have no idea what they’re talking about — and the people who talk the most understand the least…


People who get their economic analysis from the likes of the Heritage Foundation have been waiting ever since President Obama took office for budget deficits to send interest rates soaring. Any day now!


The above quoted passage was taken from a column he wrote back on New Year’s Day 2012. While it has aged three years, given the global slowdown that was about to take place and the ineffectiveness of monetarism alone to dispel it, his words are being taken increasingly as both prescient and prescriptive. However, the logic behind his anti-austerity agenda is more of a sleight of hand than actual argument.



The primary misdirection lies in that second last sentence of the second paragraph quoted above, “budget deficits to send interest rates soaring.” While that could be a concern under some conditions, that is by no means proof that so much “fee money” isn’t a negative factor. The problem with this government-centric view is that it is government-centric not just to begin with but in every part of the formulation. Governments occupy a unique place in society, by design, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into superpowers:


First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base. The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation.


Second — and this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves.


Debt isn’t money in the truest sense of the word, but Krugman is right that national debt functions in many ways like currency. But that is taken a step further. This argument isn’t new, in fact it was used many times in the nineteenth century to end fiscal restraint (how well did that work?). Even in the US, in 1865, Jay Cooke wrote a famous pamphlet extolling the virtues of the national debt incurred to fight and complete the Civil War. He made the same argument that Bank of England officials had been making throughout the first half of that century about English colonialism, explicitly that national debt was not debt but actual wealth.


Since taxes are needed to pay off national debt, and taxes represent a government extraction of accumulated wealth, paying off national debt amounts to reducing national wealth – or so it was said. Cooke made the argument as a bond dealer hoping to continue selling government bonds, but the point stuck; so well that Paul Krugman is representing it more than a century and a half later.


But there is still something slightly dishonest about the entire idea, especially in this 21st century expansion. Krugman again:


This was clearly true of the debt incurred to win World War II. Taxpayers were on the hook for a debt that was significantly bigger, as a percentage of G.D.P., than debt today; but that debt was also owned by taxpayers, such as all the people who bought savings bonds. So the debt didn’t make postwar America poorer. In particular, the debt didn’t prevent the postwar generation from experiencing the biggest rise in incomes and living standards in our nation’s history. [emphasis added]



Here he is making the same argument as above, in that incurring a massive national debt hasn’t been an impediment to prosperity. Thus he makes the further supposition that it won’t be because it hasn’t both in the current era and in the past where government borrowing was equally as intensive. But that is the disingenuous part, as it does not represent the primary problem at all.


Maybe government debt did not pose an existential problem to our post-war prosperity, but it didn’t create it either! That seems to be the proper framing of the apparently eternal question about the current economic malaise. Maybe government spending through deficits won’t send interest rates skyrocketing, or fiscal imbalances that will destroy the “dollar” (a laughable assertion where the “dollar” is concerned), but that isn’t the point. Government debt of whatever size fails to create the wealth by which taxes are extracted to repay it, or not – that function is independent and prior.


Krugman is trying to argue that because government debt did not hinder private wealth creation we should use government debt to create private wealth. The cart is not even before the horse using this “logic”, as the cart and horse aren’t even on the same road.


Private wealth creation comes first, and government attention to “aggregate demand”, spending of the sake of spending, has been woefully inadequate because actual wealth is not based on simple transactions. The transactional nature of the economy is incidental to wealth, not its primary focus. Generic spending doesn’t do anything but waste resources, which is anathema to private wealth creation axiomatically in opposition to such short-termism. Waste is unprofitable; wealth is profit.


Unfortunately, these Keynesian mythologies are coming back again as nobody (besides the Chinese, ironically) seems to remember the “stimulus” non-impact of the ARRA (or the serial “stimulus” programs in Japan). Like the G-20 appeal to currency devaluations all over the world (which is impossible because somebody has to appreciate if others depreciate, and the only one that can do that is the “dollar” which everyone hates when it “rises”; circular logic is the only logic here), there can only be statist solutions to these intractable economic problems, especially because those statist solutions make them intractable. The only real alternative and solution is to destroy the status quo entirely, which markets attempted to do in 2008 but were interrupted and then co-opted once more.


Paper wealth isn’t wealth, and government debt isn’t “free money.” There are consequences to both which their proponents never include in the “prospectus.” Orthodox economics has no sense of a balance sheet, only the idea that activity matters; and that any activity in the short run will lead to prosperity in the long run. So we have had a few decades of “any activity” and yet economists are left wondering why the global economy won’t recover and is at the same time so easily susceptible to the slightest negative pressures. Though they hate free markets, they will come to eventually appreciate their absence just as the current economy appreciates and suffers the absence of actual wealth drowned out by religious devotion to the “aggregate demand” falsity.

________________________________________
What the American people have seen these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA is PATRONAGE GOVERNMENT-----where all the wealth and opportunity is moved to the 1% and their 5%-----and our government elections rigged to players and public appointments are as well.  This is what captured a functioning democratic republic locally, statewide, and nationally.  When WE THE PEOPLE allow $20 trillion in US Treasury bond debt stand it will not only be used as an excuse for AUSTERITY against social programs and public trusts ---it will relegate our local economies to global corporate campuses and that global 1% receiving all our tax and public assets while throwing a few million out to non-economies. Baltimore City has had this economy for decades soon to become more extreme in its wealth and poverty if MOVING FORWARD continues.

We must break these $20 trillion bond debts to bring that tax revenue to our cities/counties/states free to develop local small business and small manufacturing business.

IT IS EASY PEASY----AS ALL THAT US TREASURY BOND AND MUNICIPAL BOND DEBT WAS DONE ILLEGALLY AND UNCONSTITUTIONALLY.  JUST SAY NO TO BOND DEBT.

A functioning KEYNESIAN economy with combination free market capitalism with government funding to aid in economic development cannot exist when $20 trillion in bond debt is secured to global 1%.  It creates the most CRONY OF ECONOMIES---IT IS LITERALLY A GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS PLANTATION.

The UK is captured more than the US by that OLD WORLD MERCHANT OF VENICE GLOBAL 1%----but here is a discussion all public universities should have been having these few decades and especially NOW.  Whether those public universities are in Republican states leaning right wing---or in Democratic states leaning left wing.  We must get rid of this PATRONAGE SOCIETY BUILT THESE FEW DECADES OF CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA in order to rebuild real local economies.

PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS TO WHAT ARE NOTHING BUT COMMITTEES ----THIS IS NOT DEMOCRATIC --IT DOES NOT MEET OUR US CONSTITUTIONAL 3 BRANCHES OF GOVERNANCE WITH CITIZENS DETERMINING LEGISLATION.


 

EXPLAIN HOW PUBLIC POLICY IS AFFECTED BY A RELIANCE ON PATRONAGE
 APPOINTMENTS TO THE PUBLIC SECTOR.


WHAT SORTS OF POLICIES ARE DELIVERED? WHAT SORTS ARE NOT?


Polina Panainte-Culeac
University College London, University of London,MSc, Public PolicyFebruary 2012


Patronage appointments' effects on public policy continue to be a debated topic among public management scholars, with no unified position on whether appointees or careerist bureaucrats have the best impact on public management. This essay explores what are these competing viewson the effects of patronage appointments on the public sector. The first part outlines positive effects stressed by scholars which argue the need of increased political responsiveness. The second  part refers to the drawbacks of patronage appointments that result in costly and less efficient  policies. Drawing on the readings, I group these adverse effects into four categories that offer a clearer picture explaining the relationship between patronage appointments and public policy.


Patronage appointments are believed to mostly have a negative impact on public policy, but attempts are made to prove certain positive effects. The neutral competence of bureaucrats, seenas the key to performance in the public sector (Heclo, 1975) has been targeted by criticism seeking to accommodate the need for increased political responsiveness among bureaucrats.William West (2005) claims that 
“ 
 politics and administration are intertwined 
” 
and in order to increase outcomes produced by the public sector there is a need for combining nonpartisan objectivity (characteristic for merit based systems) with responsiveness toward political executives (typical for patronized systems). This view is supported by Bok, Maranto and Moe,which argue that political appointees bring to administration more energy, human capital and higher levels of education than careerists do (Lewis, 2007). They also claim that appointees contribute to a better implementation of their political principals' agenda. Thus responsiveness is the outstanding advantage of patronage, as opposed to careerist bureaucrats, who, according to Dunleavy (1985) tend to make choices based on their own preferences and orientations, thus diverging from the current political agenda. Having political appointees in executive positions may also help mitigate the lack of trust issue that many have in non-elected officials exercising political discretion (West, 2005). The need for responsiveness argument even if conclusive was questioned by David E. Lewis(2007) in his quantitative research on USA agencies performance. He reported that even though responsiveness is important, it does not outweigh advantages careerists have: strategic planning,public management and effective outcomes.Lewis conclusions can be challenged by rational choice theories that describe careerist bureaucrats as oriented to budget-maximizing, bureau-shaping and rent-seeking (Niskanen,1971), which theoretically has enormous implications on how public policy is delivered.Probably, if political appointees would also satisfy the professional criteria, they could satisfy both prerequisites for efficiency: responsiveness and objectivity in decision making. But, this is
only a hypothesis, which may prove right or false and further research is required to see the potential results of such a model of patronage.Till then, Lewis (2007) makes it clear that programs administrated by political appointees get lower results than programs administrated by career bureaucrats. Evans and Rauch (1999)confirm this theory at macro-level, providing evidence in favour of merit based systems. The reasons behind poor performance of patronage appointments and more effects to the public sector are detailed next. I distinguish four categories of effects patronage appointments have: political consequences,institutional consequences, consequences on social policies and consequences on economic development. 


Political consequences


Scholars agree that across democracies and non-democracies political appointments are mainly used by politicians as a method to boost their political support (Remmer, 2007; Lewis, 2007). Even though patronage outcomes depend upon political systems, agency
’
design, culture, level of democracy, a set of political consequences can be widely observed:

 
politicized bureaucracies - where partisanship shapes policy choices;

 
electoral manipulation with a clear advantage of the incumbent politician
–
that useadministrative resources and public institutions as their private tools;

 
fragile political institutions
–
with corrupt judges, MPs and ministers;

 
fragmented society: ''ours'' and ''against us'';

 
defective political system that does not transform political inputs in outputs;

 
mistrust in public institutions.Due to these ends, Remmer (2007), citing Diamond (1998) and Fox (1994) calls patronage a
“
distasteful form of governance fundamentally antithetical to democratic rule
”
.
Institutional consequences 


The main difference between efficient and non-efficient bureaucracies is shelled in the personnel that runs the organisation, and has less to do with other factors (Wilson, 1989). In patronized public sectors politicians do not pay much if any attention to appointees' qualifications and knowledge. Appointed executives do not meet the required skills level and in effect, the public policies delivered are neither efficient, nor effective or economically advantageous.

Appointees' policy choices are not based on evidence and record, but they rather define tasks from political principal's perspective, which may not be in the best interest of the population.Sometimes the interest of political principal can be neglected as easily as public interest,manifesting as a principal
–

agent problem. Due to moral hazard and adverse selection in addition to the high level of discretion appointed managers have, they may tend to shirk the irresponsibilities and act on their own will and interest.Similarly, Lewis (2007) illustrates other adverse effects patronage has on institution' performance. In his research on USA federal agencies, he makes clear that programs administrated by political appointees
“ 
systematically get lower evaluations than programs run by civil service
” 
. The lack of knowledge on how certain agencies work and public management
experience of appointed managers is highlighted as being the reason.Another effect patronage has on institutions is given by disruptions in the implementation of reforms and other long term policies. Moe (1989) too endorses the opinion that politicians and senior appointed bureaucrats have short term objectives and are not preoccupied about economy and efficiency as ends. Thus, the policies delivered are usually short term oriented,symbolic, with little impact.



Consequences on social policy 


Patronage channels public resources to party's networks of supporters and clientele (Remmer,2007). Evidences from 1999 Ghana (Miguel and Farhan, 2004), show that the party in power allocated almost 30% more funding for schools in the areas where it had good results in parliamentary elections of 1996. Similarly, in 2010, in Pakistan, the government protected from floods only districts that paid bribes to state officials, despite the considerable donations from the international community (Quiroz Flores and Smith, 2010). Social spending is correlated with patronage spending and depend on electoral competitions.Social spending increases before elections to expand political support, but decreases after elections, when bigger slices of the public budget are allocated for administrative costs (Remmer,2007).Such policies even though represent a powerful tool for incumbent governments, directly affect the quality of public goods delivered to citizens. That includes the unequal provision of education, health, justice, social security, infrastructure, police, etc. which mainly are delivered to political supporters, and make citizens dependent upon patronage networks.


Consequences on economic development 
 
Most of scholars agree on the adverse impact patronage has on state economy and welfare(Remmer 2007; Rauch and Evans, 2000; Van Biezen and Kpesky, 2007). Corruption and nepotism are often used to characterize the effects of patronage, but a deeper look reveals other associated effects.Patronized public sector is permanently expanding in terms of personnel size and budgetary spending. Expansions take place after each electoral cycle
–
adding up on the existing number of 
civil servants. Remmer (2007) points out to Argentina
’
s public sector, where until 2001 the public spending exceeded revenue growth, but the government continued to increase personnel spending by increasing provincial employment by 40%. This led to Argentina
’
economic meltdown in 2001.Growth is much dependent on governance, Rauch and Evans (1999) claim. They explored the connection between the quality of the bureaucracy and growth, proving that a bureaucratic system compiling Weber's characteristics determines positive growth, while the supply of patronage varies with poverty and inequality of electorate. A key reason behind this negative connection is that entrepreneurs avoid long term investments in countries with patronized public sector because of the corruption, unpredictable bureaucracy, lack of transparency and reduced accountability.


CONCLUSION


The lack of an agreement in the academic community regarding the effects of patronage on public policy reflects the disproportionate focus on testing hypothesis related to partisanship’s disadvantages, rather than its potential advantages. In my opinion current research looks at a limited number of variables when measures the effects of patronage, introducing consistent bias and leaving space for interpretation whether patronage is the cause or the result of inefficient income distribution, poor education, and democracy level in a particular country.The existent research reveals that patronage appointments to public sector have adverse impact on citizens' lives. In consequence, people face economic insecurity; unemployment, poor services and in many cases poverty. More than that, patronage combined with autocratic systems may exclude people from enjoying
“
pure public
goods”
which are by default non-
excludable (as defence, fresh air, protection from disasters). We attest that people’s dissatisfaction with their leadership instigates people to mass protests as the current examples of Middle East revolts, Greece or Russia show.


___________________________________________


Everyone knowing financial policy knew in Bush era not only were US subprime mortgage loan frauds being marketed globally filled with fraud and government corruption---we knew in Europe and to a lesser extent in US SOVEREIGN DEBT FRAUD was soaring. Sovereign debt fraud occurs when a corrupt national leader allows a nation to take on so much debt he/she knows cannot be handled just to send that nation into the hands of the global 1%. This is what Greek and Spanish leaders did during Bush era over in Europe. They wanted to send Greek and Spanish citizens into these WORLD BANK/IMF structures.
Goldman Sachs was identified early on in staging these massive sovereign debt frauds---here we see HIDING THE DEBT----talked about without using the words fraud and government corruption. We all knew Greece was soaked in national debt when their books hid that fact. All of those businesses partnered in sovereign debt contracting and outsourcing were being staged to be LOSERS. Think how many US businesses are tied to US Federal contracting debt as we MOVE FORWARD into an economic collapse with $20 trillion in national debt----just like Greece. You can bet none of that Federal contracting debt will be tied to a global corporation!
THE WORLD KNEW GOLDMAN SACHS COMMITTED BANKING FRAUD----THE WORLD KNEW THOSE PESKY GREEK LEADERS WERE GUILTY OF MALFEASANCE AND CORRUPTION AS THEY WORKED TO MOVE GREECE'S WEALTH TO THOSE OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1%.


Greece should have defaulted on that fraudulent sovereign bond debt ---and would then have been able to control the rebuilding of Greece. Now, if you are right wing believing the mantra of Greece as a social capitalist nation needed to be turned global neo-liberal---then watch as the same comes to your neck of the woods in US.


 The amount of global banking fraud is incredible.



Greek debt crisis: Goldman Sachs could be sued for helping hide debts when it joined euro

Exclusive: A leading adviser to debt-riven countries has offered to help Athens recover some of the vast profits made by the investment bank
  • Jim Armitage, Ben Chu

  • Friday 10 July 2015 23:15 BST






Goldman Sachs' current headquarters Getty Images

Goldman Sachs faces the prospect of potential legal action from Greece over the complex financial deals in 2001 that many blame for its subsequent debt crisis.

A leading adviser to debt-riven countries has offered to help Athens recover some of the vast profits made by the investment

bank.

The Independent has learnt that a former Goldman banker, who has advised indebted governments on recovering losses made from complex transactions with banks, has written to the Greek government to advise that it has a chance of clawing back some of the hundreds of millions of dollars it paid Goldman to secure its position in the single currency.


The development came as Greece edged towards a last-minute deal with its creditors which will keep it from crashing out of the single currency.

The deal is based on fresh economic reform proposals submitted by Athens which bear a striking similarity to the creditors’ offer rejected by the Greek people in a referendum last Sunday – sparking claims that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has effectively executed a huge U-turn in order to avoid a catastrophic “Grexit”.


Greece managed to keep within the strict Maastricht rules for eurozone membership largely because of complex financial deals created by the investment bank which critics say disguised the extent of the country’s outstanding debts.




Goldman Sachs is said to have made as much as $500m from the transactions known as “swaps”. It denies that figure but declines to say what the correct one is.
The banker who stitched it together, Oxford-educated Antigone Loudiadis, was reportedly paid up to $12m in the year of the deal. Now Jaber George Jabbour, who formerly designed swaps at Goldman, has told the Greek government in a formal letter that it could “right historical wrongs as part of [its] plan to reduce Greece’s debt”.


Mr Jabbour successfully assisted Portugal in renegotiating complex trades naively done with London banks during the financial crisis. His work helped trigger a parliamentary inquiry and cost many senior officials and politicians their jobs. It also triggered major compensation payments by banks to the Portuguese taxpayer.



Mr Jabbour, who now runs Ethos Capital Advisors, has also helped expose other cases including allegations against Goldman Sachs and Société Générale over their dealings with Libya relating to financial transactions that left the country’s taxpayers billions of dollars out of pocket. Both banks deny wrongdoing.


Based on publicly available information, he believes the size of the profit Goldman made on the transactions was unreasonable. Scrutiny and analysis of the documents and email exchanges could give Greece grounds to seek compensation and assess if the deals were executed for the sole purpose of concealing the country’s debts.


Antigone (Addy) Loudiadis

Greece’s membership of the euro gave it access to billions of easy credit which it was then incapable of paying back, leading to its current crisis. Lenders took its euro membership as a stamp of creditworthiness, but the true state of its economy was far less healthy.


Under Ms Loudiadis’s guidance, Goldman swapped debt issued by Greece in dollars and yen for euros which were priced at a historical exchange rate that made the debt look smaller than it actually was. The swaps reportedly made about 2 per cent of Greece’s debt disappear from its national accounts.


The size and structure of the deal enabled the bank to charge a far bigger fee than is usual in swap transactions, and Goldman persuaded Greece not to test the transaction with competitors to ensure it was getting good value for money.


_______________________________________
As this article states---Trump was installed to do just that --default on all that US Treasury bond debt sending all US assets to those bond holders and creditors.  Of course there is a pecking order so the global 1% and global corporations will get all of US assets.

What WE THE PEOPLE across the nation must do LOCALLY is the same-----that municipal bond debt as with the US Treasury debt was not ours in the making----Baltimore simply defaults on all that 30 years and more of bond debt.  Keep in mind-----there is no pretty way out of massive public malfeasance like this ====we are all going to be hurt.  What WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% MUST THINK ABOUT-----is it better to shed debt now and get control of local development----building that local small business economy to recover----or will we hand all to those global 1% who no matter the default by Trump will MOVE FORWARD with all our national, state, and local assets and tax revenue.

If Americans want to maintain US economic structures with whatever version of KEYNESIAN, SUPPLY SIDE, NEO-LIBERAL ECONOMICS we must say NO TO ILLEGAL SOVEREIGN DEBT.  MOVING FORWARD simply brings old world laissez faire by a global 1% having all our nations' wealth.


THINK NOW ABOUT WHAT A NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL DEFAULT OF SOVEREIGN DEBT WILL LOOK LIKE TO PLAN OUR PROACTIVE RESPONSE!

If a 'labor and justice' organization has not been shouting against all this sovereign debt ---but promoting it----if they do not have that plan for the coming economic crash and default---they are working as that 5% to the 1% wanting to hand all our US, state, and local wealth to those global 1%. This means no sovereign local economy.

 I hear no talk in Baltimore about the debt---about how we will respond to debt----no 99% plan---only a Baltimore City Hall and mayor ready to hand Baltimore to global banking.



Of Course the US Government Will Default on Its Debt


05/09/2016Tho Bishop


Last week Donald Trump set the financial punditry class aflame with his suggestion that the United States may end up asking lenders to take a haircut on its debt obligations. The resulting firestorm created a race to see who could come up with the strongest condemnation of Trump, David Ader of CRT Capital Group told Bloomberg the comments were “stupid and ridiculous,” while Business Insider’s Josh Borro labeled them “insane.” Vox’s Matt Yglesias described the proposal as a threat to “incinerate the world economy.”


While Yglesias is correct that a US default would have major ramifications for the global economy, lost in all this hand wringing is the fact that the damage has largely already been done. As Jim Grant noted in his Time cover article this month, the United States debt situation is far more serious than most "experts" would like to believe. By accumulating a debt that now towers over $19 trillion, the United States government has written a check it will not be able to cash.


Of course the irony here is that many of the same pundits attacking Trump for his comments today are those who have encouraged on the fiscally reckless policies that have led us to this point. For example, The Weekly Standard described Trump’s comments as a “Plan to Destroy the U.S. Economy”, highlighting the pain that Americans would feel from such a move. Of course, this publication was perhaps the loudest cheerleader for the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, which could end up costing taxpayers over 6 trillion dollars, and continues to campaign for further expansion of America’s military presence that currently costs over $700 billion a year. Meanwhile, conservative estimates of the cost of bailing out Wall Street — actions that would still be defended today by most of the mainstream financial class - weighs in at over $3 trillion dollars.



These expenditures, added on to firmly implanted and growing welfare state managed by a political class lacking the courage required to make serious attempts at debt reduction, has always made default, in some form, inevitable. As Congressman Ron Paul (who was discussing the reality of US insolvency during his last presidential campaign in 2012)  was always fond of pointing out, government spending is itself a form of taxation. So while the Weekly Standard is correct that a debt default will hurt the pocketbook of American families, this is an inevitable consequence of the spending it advocated — an insidious form of tax collection, the consequence of electing politicians who followed the publications own advice.



So the real question about an American default has always been less a matter of if, and more a matter of how and when.


While it is still popular to claim that the United States has never defaulted on its debt, this is a myth. The US has been forced to default a couple of times throughout history, the last of which being when Richard Nixon&rsquo closed the gold window. By cutting the ability of foreign governments to redeem US dollars for gold, America was allowed to pay back past debt with devalued fiat money. This form of default has long been a popular option for governments with debt obligations it can’t or won’t honor.



Of course, as Peter Klein wrote last week, even Trump’s suggestion of the US restructuring its debt isn’t the doomsday scenario CNBC talking heads have made it out to be, noting that:



[T]he idea that the US can never restructure or even repudiate the national debt — that US Treasuries must always be treated as a unique and magical "risk-free" investment — is wildly speculative at best, preposterous at worst.



Murray Rothbard himself advocated for outright repudiating the national debt, arguing:

The government is an organization, so why not liquidate the assets of that organization and pay the creditors (the government bondholders) a pro-rata share of those assets? This solution would cost the taxpayer nothing, and, once again, relieve him of $200 billion in annual interest payments. The United States government should be forced to disgorge its assets, sell them at auction, and then pay off the creditors accordingly.


Trump himself has even touched on the possibility of selling of assets held by the Federal government as a form of debt reduction. This solution would have the added benefit of a number of additional benefits, including solving many of the issues that currently exist with the Federal owning of land used by ranchers. Plus, the country as a whole would benefit if Federal bureaucrats were kicked out of the various government buildings that pollute America’s capitol city — perhaps they could follow the lead of the old DC post office and be turned into Trump hotels?



Unfortunately, lost in the media firestorm over Trump’s comments about the debt is the rapid deteriorating hope that The Donald would offer a challenge to the reckless monetary policy that has helped facilitate the US government’s disastrous spending spree. As I touched on last week, Trump, in stark contrast to past comments, praised the work of Janet Yellen and fully endorsed a continuation of the US’s historically low interest rates. Even more troubling, he seemed to endorse some disastrous aspects of Modern Monetary Theory by suggesting that the United States could never default because it could simply print more money.



The ramifications for this are far more dangerous than his pointing out that the government has no real plans to pay back its debt. 
___________________________________________
We wanted to start this week's discussion of protectionism and building our local US economies by first KNOWING WHAT IS COMING.

Any economic policy group not discussing what is coming and being honest about its illegality and DELIBERATE HARM TO WE THE PEOPLE will not offer any good discussions for the future. 

The last article I shared was from a LIBERTARIAN think tank MISES----this article is from a NEO-LIBERAL think tank MERCATUS------both are Austrian folks---can we get economic policy that is AMERICAN?

We wanted to start by showing a far-right wing global Wall Street discussion on WHAT IS PROTECTIONISM.  Remember, the MASTER PLAN of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA was to send US corporations overseas these few decades growing wealth and power then bringing them back to US cities deemed FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.  Moving US corporations overseas created the TRADE DEFICIT OF EXPORTS FROM CHINA----so moving global corporations back to US Foreign Economic Zones will create the conditions of MADE IN USA EXPORTS ONLY.  This is what global Wall Street neo-liberals support---and it is PROTECTIONISM.


MADE IN AMERICA TIED TO US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES BECOMES EXPORT ONLY----AND THAT IS PROTECTIONIST.




'The Mercatus Center’s “economic toolkit” draws from the work of Nobel laureates Friedrich A. Hayek, Ronald H. Coase, Douglass C. North, Elinor C. Ostrom, and George Mason University’s own James M. Buchanan and Vernon L. Smith'.

Stop Calling Cronyism Protectionism

Donald J. Boudreaux
Wednesday, May 10, 2017


Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal:


Uncle Sam’s scheme to punitively tax Americans who buy low-priced lumber from Canada is yet another instance of what is commonly called “protectionism.” The term, of course, refers to the protection from foreign competition that tariffs and other import restrictions bestow upon politically powerful domestic producers. Yet “protectionism” – with the sweet sound of the verb “to protect” – is far too kind and inaccurate a word for this policy.


It’s too kind because it masks the reality that the protection given to domestic producers is an attack on domestic consumers. To protect with trade barriers the incomes of some of its subjects, government preys upon the incomes of other of its subjects. (And, by the way, economics is clear that the total value of the incomes lost to such government predation exceeds the total value of the incomes that are protected.)



The word “protectionism” is too inaccurate because it hides the scheme’s illogic. If “protectionism” worked as its champions claim, it enriches nearly everyone in the domestic economy not by increasing people’s access to goods and services, but by decreasing this access. Protectionism is the theory that people are made richer when the flow of goods and services available for their consumption is artificially slowed or when the cost of acquiring goods and services for their consumption is artificially raised. Protectionism is the bizarre notion that government-induced scarcity is really government-induced abundance.


So let’s make the language honest and more revealing. George Mason University economics doctoral student Jon Murphy proposes that we replace the misleading words “protectionism” and “protectionists” with the words “scarcityism” and “scarcityists” – words that better expose the true nature of government-erected obstacles to people’s access to goods and services.



Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

0 Comments

May 22nd, 2017

5/22/2017

0 Comments

 
We'll finish today with ZERO HEDGE and the article on this coming economic crash and talk this week about???????????????, remember------



TRUMP DIDN'T BRING THIS MASSIVE ECONOMIC CRASH----CHINA DIDN'T ----RUSSIA AND PUTIN DIDN'T ----OUR GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS---CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA ALL WORKED HARD THESE SEVERAL YEARS TO STAGE MASSIVE US TREASURY AND STATE MUNICIPAL BOND MARKET FRAUD JUST SO THERE WOULD BE NO SAFETY NETS----NO BAILOUTS-----NOTHING TO PROTECT AGAINST RECEIVERSHIP TO WORLD BANK AND IMF---THOSE PESKY GLOBAL 1%.




When folks get angry look to hold those 5% to the 1% CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA POLS AND PLAYERS ACCOUNTABLE!


ZERO HEDGE is right wing global Wall Street even as he gives good information---his spin on policy is corporate and wealth----my spin on policy is labor and justice....public interest.
TOO MANY REGULATIONS say far-right global Wall Street ---today's citizens have been able to see first hand the ROBBER BARON period of 1990s-2010s. We KNOW it was systemic fraud and corruption bringing our economy down again and again and this was allowed to occur because CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA were allowed to IGNORE ALL FEDERAL REGULATION, PUBLIC JUSTICE, AND US CONSTITUTIONAL LAWS. It was NOT too many regulations bringing down our US economy----it was the failure to enforce and provide oversight and accountability. The same thing occurred a century ago during the ROARING 20s and that massive Wall Street fraud and government corruption bringing the US to the GREAT DEPRESSION. The same failure to enforce any US Rule of Law, regulations et al brought the Great Depression.


THE ZERO HEDGE FOLKS ARE SPINNING THESE STORIES TO RIGHT WING NO REGULATIONS.

As national media come clean on the mechanics of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---remember, left social progressive Democrats have been shouting this since the 1990s and all media knew what this MASTER PLAN ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE attack on US economy led to. Please know these FARM TEAM CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS media are now painting as LIBERTARIAN MARXISTS.

Clinton's TECH BUBBLE was simply hundreds of billions of Federal funding to build global Wall Street online technology just to be able to pull these scams. Boom and bust----naked capitalism


Wall Street deregulation pushed by Clinton advisers, documents reveal

Previously restricted papers reveal attempts to rush president to support act, later blamed for deepening banking crisis


A Financial Services Modernization Act was passed by Congress in 1999. Photo: Steve Helber /AP

Dan Roberts in Washington


Saturday 19 April 2014 09.28 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 31 January 2017 11.27 EST


Wall Street deregulation, blamed for deepening the banking crisis, was aggressively pushed by advisers to Bill Clinton who have also been at the heart of current White House policy-making, according to newly disclosed documents from his presidential library.

The previously restricted papers reveal two separate attempts, in 1995 and 1997, to hurry Clinton into supporting a repeal of the Depression-era Glass Steagall Act and allow investment banks, insurers and retail banks to merge.


A Financial Services Modernization Act was passed by Congress in 1999, giving retrospective clearance to the 1998 merger of Citigroup and Travelers Group and unleashing a wave of Wall Street consolidation that was later blamed for forcing taxpayers to spend billions bailing out the enlarged banks after the sub-prime mortgage crisis.



The White House papers show only limited discussion of the risks of such deregulation, but include a private note which reveals that details of a deal with Citigroup to clear its merger in advance of the legislation were deleted from official documents, for fear of it leaking out.


“Please eat this paper after you have read this,” jokes the hand-written 1998 note addressed to Gene Sperling, then director of Clinton’s National Economic Council.


Earlier, in February 1995, newly-appointed Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, his deputy Bo Cutter and senior advisers including John Podesta gave the president three days to decide whether to back a repeal of Glass-Steagall.


In what Cutter described as “an action forcing event”, he wrote to Clinton on 21 February, telling him Rubin wanted to announce the policy before it was raised by the House banking committee on 1 March.


“In order to position Secretary Rubin – rather than any of the regulators – as the Administration’s chief spokesman on this issue, the Secretary intends to discuss the Administration’s position at a speech which will be covered by the press in New York on 27 February,” wrote Cutter on 21 February.


“It is therefore necessary to have an agreed-upon Administration position by the end of the day on Friday, 24 February.”

Podesta, who was then staff secretary but went on to become Clinton’s chief of staff, wrote a covering note telling the president that all his senior advisers backed the plan, although he noted the danger that “allowing banks to engage in riskier activities like securities or insurance could subject the deposit insurance fund to added risk”.

But Clinton’s advisers repeatedly reassured him that the decision to let Wall Street dismantle regulatory barriers designed to protect the public after the Great Depression simply represented inevitable modernisation.


“The argument for reform is that the separation between banking and other financial services mandated by Glass-Steagall is out of date in a world where banks, securities firms and insurance companies offer similar products and where firms outside the US do not face such restrictions,” wrote Podesta.


Podesta currently works at the White House as special adviser to President Barack Obama. Sperling stood down as director of Obama’s National Economic Council last month.


Along with Cutter, who worked on Obama’s transition committee, all three men were close allies of Rubin, who spearheaded the deregulation of Wall Street before joining the board of Citigroup in 1999. In 2007, he briefly became its chairman.


The closeness of Obama’s team to the deregulation policies of the late 1990s is well known and has been criticised by campaigners as a reason for the current administration’s reluctance to institute more aggressive Wall Street reforms after the banking crash.


But the new documents cast fresh light on the way the White House was first ushered toward deregulation by the tight group of Rubin allies.
A similar apparent attempt to rush president Clinton’s decision-making occurred later in the process, in 1997.
In a letter received by the president on 19 May, Clinton is again given just three days to decide whether to proceed with the deregulation agenda.


“The attached memorandum asks you to authorize Treasury to proceed to announce and submit their financial services modernization proposal,” writes Sperling.


“Secretary Rubin intends to introduce the proposal in a 21 May speech, and to testify before the House Banking Committee the first week of June.”

In his letter, Rubin reassures Clinton that the issue need not take up much of his attention.


“Should you approve our recommendation to move forward, the proposal would be a Treasury initiative, and would not require a significant time commitment from the White House,” writes the Treasury secretary.
“I and my staff will manage the process of advancing the proposal,” he adds.

The sense that the president need not concern himself with the detail is amplified by his own staff, who appear happy for him to be pushed along by the Treasury timetable.


In a covering note from staff secretary Todd Stern, Clinton is warned: “The attached memo is long, detailed and technical, but you can get the essentials by looking at the first four pages.”


Stern adds: “If you agree. Treasury will, tomorrow, put out some advance word on the Rubin speech.”

Throughout the documents, which are among 7,000 pages released by the Clinton library on Friday, there is little discussion of internal opposition to repealing Glass-Steagall, although some memos inadvertently touch on the risks that ultimately proved so expensive to the US taxpayer.


“Notwithstanding the pounding Treasury took today, there’s still much to their position on the regulatory structure (which really depends on the proposition that we’re not good at regulating complex financial (let alone non-financial) companies, but we’re pretty good at walling off the bank to protect the taxpayers),” concludes Clinton adviser Ellen Seidman in one 1997 memo.

___________________________________
While Republicans in Congress PRETEND to be anti-Trump they are MOVING FORWARD with complete bank deregulation as well----we need more of these last few decades in order to have FREE MARKETS AND CAPITAL MARKETS----oh, really?  I thought 99% ofr people knew none of this was FREE MARKET or capitalism ----it is all simply criminal.

MOVING FORWARD ONE GOVERNANCE seeks to take the global 99% out of the economy altogether so these global banking policies designed for Foreign Economic Zones will end badly for all global market 1% and their 2%.  Who is signing TPP?  All the small Asian, African, and Latin American nations with that bought and paid for global Wall Street 1% while the OLD WORLD MERCHANT OF VENICE TRADERS know these banking policies are bad.

This is why US left social progressives have been shouting that Trans Pacific Trade Pact is NOT ABOUT GLOBAL FREE TRADE----it is about restructuring US and Latin American governance structures.....

We see articles saying TPP is not a trade agreement from right wing and left wing---this is why TRUMP is pretending to stop TPP while he is really MOVING TPP FORWARD.



TPP Is Not A Trade Agreement

- PaulCraigRoberts.org
www.paulcraigroberts.org/.../15/tpp-is-not-a-trade-agreement TPP Is Not A Trade Agreement The sole purpose of TTP is to give global corporations immunity to the laws of ... we were promised a debate about TPP, but did not get ...

Did you know it was Goldman Sachs having committed SOVEREIGN DEBT FRAUD during Bush era aimed at bringing GREECE and SPAIN down with sovereign debt? They brought those same fraudulent bond policies to US these several years and did the same to US. IT'S ALL FRAUD and our US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES where these frauds are occurring have global Wall Street pols and players just letting the frauds stand. Yes, our local government does have the power to stop all this---

Trump thinks Wall Street regulations are killing America and only Goldman Sachs can save us
  • Pedro Nicolaci da Costa

  • Feb. 15, 2017, 10:15 AM
President Donald Trump at a meeting with Intel CEO Brian Krzanich in the Oval Office last Wednesday.

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts


Self-regulation is so 1990s.


But President Donald Trump wants to bring it back, betting that Americans have short enough memories that they will forget that the new rules were put in place to protect them, however imperfectly, from a repeat of the devastating 2008 financial crisis.


Given public views of Wall Street and the makeup of Congress, however, he may have some difficulty in removing those rules.


The latest reason he offered for the need to roll back postcrisis reform was, as Slate's Jordan Weissmann put it, "hilariously flimsy."


"We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank because, frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine, who have nice businesses who can't borrow money," Trump said at a meeting with CEOs last week. "They just can't get any money because the banks just won't let them borrow, because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank."



The legislation took several steps to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, including forcing big banks to raise more equity capital, developing a mechanism to wind down institutions considered too-big-to-fail and creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.


There is little evidence of a credit crunch in the US economy. But whatever Trump's motivations, we know, thanks to this handy breakdown from my colleague Frank Chaparro, what areas he and the Republican-controlled Congress intend to target. These include taking a more hands-off approach to banks considered "too big to fail" and a rollback of the Volcker Rule intended to prevent investment banks from gambling with customers' money.


But even though bank shareholders have salivated at the prospect of a return to the heyday of Wild West Wall Street, bidding stock prices higher, there are still more questions than answers.


Sean Tuffy, the head of regulatory intelligence at Brown Brothers Harriman, has gone through a useful mental exercise that helps shed some light on what might happen — and what might not. In particular, Tuffy is skeptical that deregulation will simply sail through Congress, given popular discontent with big banks and the fact that Trump himself ran for office on an anti-Wall Street platform.


Now that Trump is being advised by several former Goldman Sachs bankers, some have assumed the president will simply ax the existing legislation. But as Tuffy notes, it's not that easy.


"Clearly there will be an attempt to reform elements of Dodd-Frank," he says. "However, the Republicans don't have a supermajority. Any substantive change will require cooperation from the Democrats. We can expect any attempt to repeal key elements of Dodd-Frank to be met with stiff resistance."


In addition, Tuffy said: "The Trump administration needs to walk a tightrope on financial regulatory reform because anything seen as a giveaway to Wall Street could spark voter discontent. Given these two constraints, a bonfire of financial regulation still seems unlikely."

_______________________________________


ZERO HEDGE would like us to believe that those pesky FDR tax policies hit all Americans hard when in fact most of those tax laws were aimed at the rich and corporations.  That 70-90% tax bracket was installed as a way to bring back the wealth lost to massive frauds ---REDISTRIBUTION ----was simply justice.  The Robber Baron 1% of course exempted themselves from this justice but the NEW DEAL tax policy was exactly what an Obama and Clinton neo-liberals were elected in 2008 to install in 2009.......that is why Democrats won all chambers of Congress and the Presidency....a super-majority would have allowed all this to occur. 

ONLY TODAY UNLIKE LAST CENTURY OUR PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS CAPTURED WITH GLOBAL WALL STREET CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS WHO ARE THE FACE OF THESE FRAUDS AND EXTREME WEALTH.


'Taxes which apply to estates or to inheritance in the United States trace back to the 18th century'.

According to the IRS, a temporary stamp tax in 1797 applied a tax of varying size depending on the size of the bequest, ranging from 25 cents for a bequest between $50–$100, to 1 dollar for each $500. The tax was repealed in 1802. In the 19th century, the Revenue Act of 1862 and the War Revenue Act of 1898 also imposed rates, but were each repealed shortly thereafter. The modern estate tax was enacted in 1916.

The modern estate tax was temporarily phased out and repealed by tax legislation in 2001. This legislation gradually dropped the rates until they were eliminated in 2010. However, the law did not make these changes permanent and the estate tax returned in 2011

We need for our right wing voters and conservative Democrats to understand the importance in these progressive tax laws in creating REAL FREE MARKET COMPETITION.  We cannot have extreme wealth and corporate power and have a free market economy.  The tax rate for most Americans has not been that high historically----but global Wall Street taking the US back to being a colony will bring that same EAST INDIA COLONIAL TEA PARTY TAX BURDEN



TAXES

1930s
The income tax was new to the U.S. in 1913, and by 1929, although it took a maximum 23.1% bite, that was only at the $1 million level. The average family’s income then was $2,335, and that put average families in the 1/10th of 1 percent bracket. And there was still no Social Security tax, no state income tax, no sales tax, and no estate tax. Furthermore, most people in the country didn't even pay the income tax because they earned less than the legal minimum or they didn't bother filing. The government, therefore, had immense untapped sources of revenue to draw upon to fund its schemes to "cure" the depression. Roosevelt was able to raise the average income tax from 1.35% to 16.56% during his tenure—an increase of 1,100%.



Today
Everyone now pays an income tax in addition to all the other taxes. In most Western countries, the total of direct and indirect taxes is over 50%. For that reason, it seems unlikely that direct taxes will go much higher. But inflation is constantly driving everyone into higher brackets and will have the same effect. A person has had to increase his or her income faster than inflation to compensate for taxes. Whatever taxes a man does pay will reduce his standard of living by just that much, and it's reasonable to expect tax evasion and the underground economy to boom in response. That will cushion the severity of the depression somewhat while it serves to help change the philosophical orientation of society.


ZERO HEDGE did a good job these several years outing the US FED in manipulations of inflation and interest rates and why that was bad-----know what?  INFLATION  CAN AND FOUND A STABILITY IN MODERN HISTORY  BETWEEN 3-5%----and we need to return to that value.  Wall Street manipulations hid the fact that FED policies with global Wall STreet were taking REAL inflation to higher and higher levels creating exactly what ZERO HEDGE states above====soaring inflation with this coming economic crash only he makes that sound good---when it will kill WE THE PEOPLE.

Below we see an article about BRAZIL----remember, Latin America is controlled by the same OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE global 1% as US and what they are doing in US mirrors what is being done in South and Central America. 

THE US CONGRESS, MARYLAND ASSEMBLY, BALTIMORE CITY HALL----COULD STOP THESE WALL STREET US TREASURY AND STATE BOND FRAUDS AND STOP ALL THIS PLANNED, DELIBERATE, WILLFUL, AND DONE WITH MALICE COMING HYPER-INFLATION.

US FED is set with YELLEN ET AL to push inflation under the guise of having to do so to SAVE THE US ECONOMY.  Inflation is NEVER GOOD----even if someone says---WELL, WAGES WILL GO HIGHER---forget about that because cost of living will be UNBEARABLE for 99% of US citizens as with this article the 99% of Brazilian citizens.  IT IS ALL MANIPULATION BY GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS.


'Could you imagine living in an economy with a 181 percent inflation rate'?



The Economic Collapse Of South America Is Well Underway


March 7, 2016 6:22pm ETF BASIC NEWS


The 7th largest economy on the entire planet is completely imploding.  I have written previously about the economic depression that is plaguing Brazil, but since my last article it has gotten much, much worse. 

During 2015, Brazil’s economy shrank by 3.8 percent, but for the most recent quarter the decline was 5.89 percent on a year over year basis.
Unemployment is rising rapidly, the inflation rate is up over 10 percent, and Brazilian currency has lost 24 percent of its value compared to the U.S. dollar over the past 12 months.


At this point, Brazil is already experiencing its longest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and things are getting worse for ordinary Brazilians every single day.  The following comes from CNN…
But with Brazil plunging into its worst recession in over two decades — hopes for a brighter future are fading. The Brazilian economy shrank 3.8% in 2015, according to government data published Thursday. That’s the biggest annual drop since 1990 and the country is in its longest recession since the 1930s.



“I have never seen anything like this,” said Alves, 24, as he stood on his balcony overlooking Rocinha, a massive lower middle class neighborhood or favela in Rio de Janeiro where he grew up. “My parents would tell me about hard times, but today it is really tough. Prices are going up every day.”


So how did this happen?


Well, there are a couple of factors that are really hurting South American economies.
Number one, during the “boom years” governments and businesses in South America absolutely gorged on debt.  Unfortunately, many of those loans were denominated in U.S. dollars, and now that the U.S. dollar has appreciated greatly against local South American currencies it is taking far more of those local currencies to service and pay back those debts.


Number two, collapsing prices for oil and other commodities have been absolutely brutal for South American economies.  They rely very heavily on exporting commodities to the rest of the world, and so at the same time their debt problems are exploding they are getting a lot less money for the oil and industrial commodities that they are trying to sell to North America, Asia and Europe.


I want you to pay close attention to the following chart and analysis from Zero Hedge.  As you can see, the economic problems in Brazil appear to be greatly accelerating…
“The Brazilian economic downturn took a real turn for the worse in February,” according to Markit’s Composite PMI, which collapsed to record lows at 39.0. Despite a slightly less bad than expected GDP print this morning (still down a record 5.89% YoY), hope was quickly extinguished as PMIs showed economic activity continuing to contract at a record pace, job losses accelerating, and manufacturing’s collapse accelerating. As Market sums up, “With the global economy also showing signs of slowing, which will impact on external demand, it looks as if the downturn is set to continue to run its course in the coming months.”
GDP was a disaster (but better than expected)


And of course Brazil is not the only South American economy that is a basket case right now.  In fact, things in Venezuela are far worse.  In 2015, the Venezuelan economy shrunk by 10 percent, and the official rate of inflation was a staggering 181 percent.


Could you imagine living in an economy with a 181 percent inflation rate?


As prices have escalated out of control, citizens have attempted to hoard basic supplies in advance, and this has resulted in food shortages that are absolutely frightening…
Cardboard signs on the door warning of “No bread” have become increasingly common at Venezuelan bakeries.
Venezuela gets 96 percent of its foreign currency from oil exports, and as crude prices have plunged, so have the country’s imports — among them wheat.
The leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro has tightly controlled access to hard currency, and this has affected imports ranging from medicine to toilet paper. Now it is seriously affecting imports of wheat, which Venezuela does not grow.


Add to this the soaring inflation rate — 181 percent in 2015, the world’s highest — and you see why customers are mainly interested in buying basic food items such as bread.
Here in the United States, there are still people who doubt that an economic crisis is happening.


But in Venezuela and Brazil there is no debate.
Unfortunately, what is happening in Venezuela and Brazil is also slowly starting to happen to most of the rest of the planet as well.  It is just that they are a little farther down the road.  Economic and financial bubbles are bursting all over the world, and I like how author Vikram Mansharamani described this phenomenon during a recent interview with CNBC…


Deflationary tides are lapping the shores of countries across the world and financial bubbles are set to burst everywhere, Vikram Mansharamani, a lecturer at Yale University, told CNBC on Thursday.
“I think it all started with the China investment bubble that has burst and that brought with it commodities and that pushed deflation around the world and those ripples are landing on the shore of countries literally everywhere,” the high-profile author and academic said at the Global Financial Markets Forum in Abu Dhabi.


OH, REALLY??????




And of course the evidence of what Mansharamani was talking about is all around us.
Just this week we found out that Chinese state industries plan to lay off five to six million workers, U.S. factory orders have now fallen for 15 months in a row, and the corporate default rate in the United States has now risen above where it was at when Lehman Brothers collapsed.
There are some people that would like to point to the fact that stocks have bounced back a bit over the past couple of weeks as evidence that the crisis is over.
If they want to believe that, they should go ahead and believe that.


Unfortunately, the truth is that the hard economic numbers that are coming in from all over the world tell us very clearly that global economic activity is slowing down significantly.
A new global recession has already begun, and the pain that is already being felt all over the planet is just the beginning of what is coming.
____________________________________
The collapse of an Asia or Latin American nation's economy is not bringing our US economy down ---these global crises are caused by collapsing Western nations' economies---AKA EUROPE, UK, US----from this massive US Treasury junk bonding. The same global banking players who subprimed US mortgage loans during Bush era did the same with US Treasuries and that same global 1% and their 2% made a fortune killing their 99%.


 You will notice there was the same global recession/depression last century after that massive Wall Street ROBBER BARON global 1% FRAUD.



 WE THE PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE WITH THESE MANIPULATED INFLATIONS---WE CAN SIMPLY GET RID OF GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS.



Without going into complicated economic models from LAW'S, KEYNESIAN, SUPPLY SIDE most citizens understand that a business in a local community has to have these things----it has to have a product people want to buy and it has to have people with money to buy this product.  We know the failure of this dynamic is why our US cities have decaying and dying communities.  Kill employment ---kill consumption---kill local businesses. 

The only thing WE THE PEOPLE NEED IN RESPONSE TO ALL THESE GLOBAL WALL STREET ECONOMIC MANIPULATIONS IS GETTING BACK TO BASIC ECONOMICS----GROW LOCAL, COMMUNITY ECONOMIES.

Global Wall Street pols will do the opposite---it will continue to pretend US NEEDS GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUSES AND GLOBAL FACTORIES as our economies sit and are allowed to die this decade or so until they build US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUSES.



PRICES


1930s
Prices dropped radically because billions of dollars of inflationary currency were wiped out through the stock market crash, bond defaults, and bank failures. The government, however, somehow equated the high prices of the inflationary '20s with prosperity and attempted to prevent a fall in prices by such things as slaughtering livestock, dumping milk in the gutter, and enacting price supports. Since the collapse wiped out money faster than it could be created, the government felt the destruction of real wealth was a more effective way to raise prices. In other words, if you can't increase the supply of money, decrease the supply of goods.


Nonetheless, the 1930s depression was a deflationary collapse, a time when currency became worth more and prices dropped. This is probably the most confusing thing to most Americans since they assume—as a result of that experience—that "depression" means "deflation." It's also perhaps the biggest single difference between this depression and the last one.



Today


Prices could drop, as they did the last time, but the amount of power the government now has over the economy is far greater than what was the case 80 years ago. Instead of letting the economy cleanse itself by allowing the financial markets to collapse, governments will probably bail out insolvent banks, create mortgages wholesale to prop up real estate, and central banks will buy bonds to keep their prices from plummeting. All of these actions mean that the total money supply will grow enormously. Trillions will be created to avoid deflation. If you find men selling apples on street corners, it won't be for 5 cents apiece, but $5 apiece. But there won't be a lot of apple sellers because of welfare, nor will there be a lot of apples because of price controls.


Consumer prices will probably skyrocket as a result, and the country will have an inflationary depression. Unlike the 1930s, when people who held dollars were king, by the end of the Greater Depression, people with dollars will be wiped out.


WE THE PEOPLE must stop allowing global Wall STreet CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA create these ECONOMIC POLICIES having nothing to do with what 99% of citizens want. We must return to what worked in US for centuries BEFORE ROARING 20s. Note this article shows who controlled Congress and the economic policies of the roaring 20s-----the Republicans wealth and corporate power. Today our Democratic Party is the same---far-right wing Reagan/Clinton neo-liberalism. 

This paper takes a right wing stance favoring SUPPLY-SIDE ECONOMICS.




Keynesian Theory vs. Supply-Side Economics: The Ideology of the Political Parties throughout History


Political Parties Final Paper Presentation

byJohn Tolland on 12 April 2011


Transcript of Keynesian Theory vs. Supply-Side Economics: The Ideology of the Political Parties throughout History


Introduction


There have been many recesssions/depressions throughout history

Congress has played a crucial role in applying two different theories to promote economic recovery: (Keynesian Theory) and (Supply-Side Economics)


Democrats in Congress have used Keynesian Theory while Republicans have used Supply-Side Economics


Will examine different recessions and how different Congresses and parties have applied the different theories Keynesian Theory



Keynesian Theory has been used many times throughout history
Great Depression is a great example of the Keynesian Theory at work
Another example is present day in the form of stimulus packages to promote economic recovery


So what is Keynesian Theory?

Keynesian Theory deals with spending and the effect spending has on the economy.
Theory has been used through liberal democrats in Congress throughout history
This theory calls for government spending when the economy was bad



Believers in Keynesian Theory assume that the government shouldn't worry about deficits in an economc downturn because the government can recoup the money lost in the form of debt in fiscally good times.
Keynesians today are split on one decisive issue: some believe unemployment is more important than inflation in a bad economy, while others think the opposite.


Regardless of the small factions among believers of this theory, they all believe the government should play a large role in economic recovery.


Supply Side Economics

Used by most Conservative Republicans

Main component: In order to increase income levels and stimulate economy, output must be expanded
They believe that higher tax rates do not promote income or output but actually hinders them.
Policy is very important to supply-siders
If you control inflation, the more money will be in circulation in the economy
Supply side economic policy of cutting high marginal tax rates is a long run strategy to enhance growth rather than a short-run tool to end a recession, but it can be used to end a recession as well



Keynesian Criticism: Believe government should not cut taxes during a recession when inflation is high


Roaring 20's
This period was marked by the Republican Majorities in both the House and the Senate (68th, 69th, 70th Congresses)


They applied Supply Side Economics
Cut government spending and taxes and in turn provided mor money on the Supply Side
Result: the economy was thriving and inflation was kept in check


This theory was put into effect after a short depression following WWI


During the 1920's: increased earnings by 22% of employed wage earners


Despite Republican majorities in Congress and President Coolidge being a Republican President: Congress did not always see eye to eye (Indepedent in nature following WWI).

Congress did agree on fiscal policy and supply-side economics


New Deal Congress


Congress had democratic majorities in Both the House of Represenatatives and the Senate (73rd and 74th Congress)


Used Keynesian Theory to stimulate economy during Great Depression



First Hundred Days: 73rd Congress enacted the "New Deal"
Nationalized the banking industry and put more power in the hand of the government


Passed in Congress almost immediately (only took 8 hours)
Govenrment now played a role in everything from Emergency Farm Mortgage Act to reforestation in the Civilian Conservation Corps


National Debt would become an issue in the future with all of these new government programs
74th Congress contributed to what became known as the Second New Deal


Experts say that without Congress' campaigning, much of the second new deal woud not have standed a chance
The Second New Deal enacted the Wagner Act and the Social Security Act


The 73rd and 74th Congresses changed the makeup of the United States government and its role forever: I believe this to be the beginning of the welfare state we have today


80's


97th, 98th, 99th Congresses had Republican majorities in the House and Democrat Majorities in the Senate
100th Congress had Democrat Majorities in the House and Senate
split government still agreed on fiscal policy: this may be due to the support given to Reagan and his policies due to his popularity from his foreign policy


97th, 98th, and 99th congresses used supply-side econimcs


It wasn't until the Iran-Contra affair did democrats in Congress start bashing the fiscal policy passed during this period: probably due to Reagan's unpopularity


Cato Institute: on 8 of 10 key economic variables, the American Economy performed better during the Reagan years than during the pre and post Reagan years.

97th congress came together to pass the largest tax reduction in American History: highest tax brackets had the largest tax breaks
Stayed true to supply-side economics with the theory that people in the highest bracket would invest more money in the economy, which in turn would stimulate growth


National debt was increased during this period which is not consistent with Supply-Side Economics, but this was due to the Cold War and increases defense spending passed by Congress


Divided congress also passsed bills to cut spending in government beuracracies

Why did democrats in house go along with this theory?


After 1980 elections, Congress felt that people voted for change and wanted to reign in the spending
Democrats did fight Republicans in Congress on the cutting of different government agencies


111th Congress


Economy was in a deep recession

Both House and Senate had large democrat majorities
Used Keynesian Theory to help stimulate economy
First passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009


This bill spent government money to bail out banks and other businesses in the United States

Tactic was similar to the one the New Deal Congress used after the Great Depression
Cost on national debt was very large
Unemployment rate actually increased during this time period
They also passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: especially ambitious since many people were more concerned with the economy at the time and creating jobs
Bill reformed the Healthcare Industry


Although the Healthcare Industry needed attention, many believe this was not an appropriate time to tackle such anissue with the fiscal problems that were already present
Stayed true to the Keynesian Theory: the 111th Congress increased government spending while disregarding the increae in national debt, assuming the debt will be taken care of in a period of economic stability



Conclusion
Two parties have adopted different theories to stimulate the economy


Keynesian Theory used by demcrats in Congress
Supply-Side Economics used by republicans in Congress

Each party seems to have been successful when they put their theories in practice with the exception of the 11th Congress, as we do not yet know if their policies will pull us out of a recession or not bc/ not enough time has passed

What precedent does this set for the future?


Keynesian theory can be successful at promoting economic growth as well as Supply-Side Economics

I believe Supply-Side Economics works at recovering economy at a greater pace than that of the Keynesian Theory: It took years for the New Deal Congress' legislation to work and help to promote economic growth. Economic growth stimulated by the Congress in the 20's seemed to come about faster from Supply-Side Economics


Keynesian Theory implented by the New Deal Congress changed the makeup and the role of the government forever
The 111th Congress without a doubt changed the makeup of the Health Care System and history may show they have changed even more than that
Keynesian Theory has increased the size of the Federal Government and increased the Welfare State of the United States


I beleive that Supply-Side Economics provides a responsible answer for recovery from a recession/depression and also growth for the future without changing the makeup of the government and its role in citizen's daily lives


Supply-Side Economics if used today would foster growth in the economy at a greater rate, cut back on government spending, and reign in the size of the government

Question


There have been many different depressions/recessions throughout the history of the United States. Political Scientists claim there are two main theories that have been used in practice for economic revitalization, these being the Keynesian Theory and the Supply Scale Economics Theory. Although called many different names, these two recovery tactics have been used and produced contrasting results. Explain each theory used by the different Parties in power while providing examples of the use and result in American history. After examining the varying results, determine which theory is more practical and should be used today. Keep in mind how each party has contributed to the use of each theory


_________________________________________

Citizens' Oversight Maryland is a left social progressive organization meaning we are social capitalists-----we believe government legislation must take the benefit of the public---the citizens----before the benefit of corporate profits.  We understand businesses need to profit to hire and prosper ====we also understand that US corporations were earning millions of dollars in profits before they were sent overseas to earn billions.  This is when public interest legislation went corporate profit and the economy went systemically corrupt and fraudulent----LAISSEZ-FAIRE NEO-LIBERALISM.

The problem for those wanting left social capitalism is this-----KEYNESIAN economics works if we have honest politicians.  What we saw these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA was a Congress that reverted a well-functioning Keynesian economy to LAISSEZ-FAIRE while using Federal agencies and spending to fuel massive corporate and Wall Street fraud.  It was likely staged that way by global empire-building pols.  Whenever there is massive frauds and movement to extreme wealth there is then that movement saying we need to be MARXIST----extreme wealth meets extreme poverty.  It is all one global 1% economic plan.


When the US was young and our towns and cities small we were able to have a successful blend of KEYNESIAN economics.  Our US government funded land grants giving US citizens opportunities to own land----it gave funding for small business startups from 18th century forward so government intervention is NOT BAD WHEN CITIZENS HOLD THEIR POLITICIANS ACCOUNTABLE.

WE THE PEOPLE MUST ENGAGE IN POLITICS----WE MUST HOLD POLITICIANS AND PLAYERS ACCOUNTABLE---GET RID OF THESE GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS.  BRING BACK OUR LOCAL ECONOMIES.




Five Positive Results of Keynesian Economics


by Angie Mohr


British economist, John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) wrote his seminal "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" in 1935. This book has been the cornerstone of economic practice for many countries, including the United States, for decades. Keynes believed that government should manage consumer demand through policy and taxation, thereby avoiding inflation and unemployment, the results of too much and too little demand, respectively. Keynesian economics has several positive outcomes.

Higher Employment Levels

In recessionary periods, employment drops off and unemployment rates soar as businesses cut back on the size of their workforce. Lack of employment then decreases consumer demand for products and services as families tighten their belt. Thus, a dangerous downward spiral is created. When the government steps in to financially stimulate businesses, those companies begin to hire once again. When the government invests in public works projects, they directly increase employment. With both methods, the downward spiral is halted.


Stabilization of the Banking Industry

As witnessed during the 2008 to 2009 recession, instability in the American economy led to banks and other lending institutions tightening up on lending. Without access to funding, small business start-up and growth halted, and the real estate industry suffered as mortgages were difficult to obtain. When the government steps in to guarantee loans, lenders are more confident in providing the capital needed in both the business and consumer markets.


Tighter Control on Government Spending

While Keynesian theory allows for increased government spending during recessionary times, it also calls for government restraint in a rapidly growing economy. This prevents the increase in demand that spurs inflation. It also forces the government to cut deficits and save for the next down cycle in the economy.


New Tools to Monitor a Country's Economic Output

One of Keynes' goals was to be able to monitor the total economic output of a country, an action that, at that time, had not yet been done in America or England. Keynes developed the precursor to the Gross National Product, in which the health of the economy can be measured by its production versus its capacity. By understanding and measuring these indicators, a government is better able to predict recessionary and inflationary cycles, and is thus better equipped to step in early to intervene in negative situations.
Moderation of Interest RatesIn an overly-stimulated economic cycle, the demand for loans to increase consumption and investment outstrips lenders' abilities to provide them. This causes increases in interest rates, fueling inflation. Under Keynesian theory, government spending in such a market is curtailed, lowering the overall demand for loans and cooling off interest rates and, ultimately, inflation.


________________________________________
This coming economic crash and collapse of the dollar is designed to kill our national sovereignty and create that colonial model of a North and South America as simply independent Foreign Economic Zones operating under a global corporate rule.  This brings back the GLOBAL 1% MERCHANTS OF VENICE---those super-rich creating FIEFDOMS.

Those waxing sentimental for the MEDIEVAL DARK AGES thinking it will be the same old world European 1%  trading with those Asian global 1% trading with those Near/Far East global 1%-----that is not to where ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE is going.  The hyper-securitization and surveillance tied to SMART CITIES SMART HOUSES will bring authoritarianism to new heights and the goal of population control for a global 1% will be devastating to all population groups. 

THESE ARE REALLY SOCIOPATHETIC CITIZENS----

Where WE THE PEOPLE want to maintain our mid-size US cities and simply rebuild a thriving economy-----the global 1% are selling this idea of COSMOPOLITAN as if it will look like WESTERN societal structures we have known for thousands of years-----that is what will be dismantled.  The UTOPIAN SMART CITY will be only sustainable for a global 1% and their 2%----to live outside these castle walls will be impossible.


THE SOCIETY


1930s

The world was largely rural or small-town. Communications were slow, but people tended to trust the media. The government exercised considerable moral suasion, and people tended to support it. The business of the country was business, as Calvin Coolidge said, and men who created wealth were esteemed. All told, if you were going to have a depression, it was a rather stable environment for it; despite that, however, there were still plenty of riots, marches, and general disorder.


Today

The country is now urban and suburban, and although communications are rapid, there's little interpersonal contact. The media are suspect. The government is seen more as an adversary or an imperial ruler than an arbitrator accepted by a consensus of concerned citizens. Businessmen are viewed as unscrupulous predators who take advantage of anyone weak enough to be exploited.

A major financial smashup in today's atmosphere could do a lot more than wipe out a few naives in the stock market and unemploy some workers, as occurred in the '30s; some sectors of society are now time bombs. It's hard to say, for instance, what third- and fourth-generation welfare recipients are going to do when the going gets really tough.


As we see ridiculous national media about Trump vs Deep State as if Trump were not simply CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA MOVING FORWARD-----most Americans whether right or left wing understand what DEEP STATE means---it is all that surveillance----mega-data----control of all our media and telecommunications.  

This is the top issue for WE THE PEOPLE as global Wall Street brings our US economic down and MOVES FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE US CITIES AS FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.  The US and our cities have PLENTY OF REVENUE ------we must do as in FDR and NEW DEAL and bring it back to our public sector and to our local economies.  Global Wall Street pols and their 5% to the 1%  will be working hard to see that does not happen.


This is the societal change we are fighting-----rolling protests for weeks and months in our US cities to GET RID OF GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS!


October 26, 2016
A Deep State of Mind: America’s Shadow Government and Its Silent Coup
by John W. Whitehead




Photo by Diego Torres Silvestre | CC BY 2.0




Today the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system … a well-organized political-action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party state…. The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology but its organization… It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government…. This group … is answerable neither to the President, the Congress, nor the courts. It is practically irremovable.”
— Senator William Jenner, 1954 speech


Unaffected by elections. Unaltered by populist movements. Beyond the reach of the law.
Say hello to America’s shadow government.



A corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country, this shadow government represents the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry.


No matter which candidate wins the presidential election, this shadow government is here to stay. Indeed, as recent documents by the FBI reveal, this shadow government--also referred to as “The 7th Floor Group”—may well have played a part in who will win the White House this year.


To be precise, however, the future president will actually inherit not one but two shadow governments.
The first shadow government, referred to as COG or Continuity of Government, is made up of unelected individuals who have been appointed to run the government in the event of a “catastrophe.” COG is a phantom menace waiting for the right circumstances—a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, an economic meltdown—to bring it out of the shadows, where it operates even now. When and if COG takes over, the police state will transition to martial law.


Yet it is the second shadow government—also referred to as the Deep State—that poses the greater threat to freedom right now. Comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes, this government within a government is the real reason “we the people” have no real control over our government.



The Deep State, which “operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power,” makes a mockery of elections and the entire concept of a representative government.


So who or what is the Deep State?


It’s the militarized police, which have joined forces with state and federal law enforcement agencies in order to establish themselves as a standing army. It’s the fusion centers and spy agencies that have created a surveillance state and turned all of us into suspects. It’s the courthouses and prisons that have allowed corporate profits to take precedence over due process and justice. It’s the military empire with its private contractors and defense industry that is bankrupting the nation. It’s the private sector with its 854,000 contract personnel with top-secret clearances, “a number greater than that of top-secret-cleared civilian employees of the government.” It’s what former congressional staffer Mike Lofgren refers to as “a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies”: the Department of Defense, the State Department, Homeland Security, the CIA, the Justice Department, the Treasury, the Executive Office of the President via the National Security Council, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a handful of vital federal trial courts, and members of the defense and intelligence committees.


It’s every facet of a government that is no longer friendly to freedom and is working overtime to trample the Constitution underfoot and render the citizenry powerless in the face of the government’s power grabs, corruption and abusive tactics.


These are the key players that drive the shadow government.
This is the hidden face of the American police state that will continue long past Election Day.


Just consider some of the key programs and policies advanced by the shadow government that will continue no matter who occupies the Oval Office.


Domestic surveillance.


No matter who wins the presidential popularity contest, the National Security Agency (NSA), with its $10.8 billion black ops annual budget, will continue to spy on every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone. Thus, on any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. Local police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Technology now makes it possible for the police to scan passersby in order to detect the contents of their pockets, purses, briefcases, etc. Full-body scanners, which perform virtual strip-searches of Americans traveling by plane, have gone mobile, with roving police vans that peer into vehicles and buildings alike—including homes. Coupled with the nation’s growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.


Global spying.


The NSA’s massive surveillance network, what the Washington Post refers to as a $500 billion “espionage empire,” will continue to span the globe and target every single person on the planet who uses a phone or a computer. The NSA’s Echelon program intercepts and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax and email message sent anywhere in the world. In addition to carrying out domestic surveillance on peaceful political groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several religious groups, Echelon has also been a keystone in the government’s attempts at political and corporate espionage.


Roving TSA searches.


The American taxpayer will continue to get ripped off by government agencies in the dubious name of national security. One of the greatest culprits when it comes to swindling taxpayers has been the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), with its questionable deployment of and complete mismanagement of millions of dollars’ worth of airport full-body X-ray scanners, punitive patdowns by TSA agents and thefts of travelers’ valuables. Considered essential to national security, TSA programs will continue in airports and at transportation hubs around the country.


USA Patriot Act, NDAA. 


America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, will continue to chip away at our freedoms, unravel our Constitution and transform our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws completely circumvent the rule of law and the rights of American citizens. In so doing, they re-orient our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the U.S. Constitution, is the map by which we navigate life in the United States. These laws will continue to be enforced no matter who gets elected.


Militarized police state. 


Thanks to federal grant programs allowing the Pentagon to transfer surplus military supplies and weapons to local law enforcement agencies without charge, police forces will continue to be transformed from peace officers into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, will continue to keep the masses corralled, controlled, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.


SWAT team raids.


With more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans by local police for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raids and related casualties will continue to rise. Nationwide, SWAT teams will continue to be employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession.


Domestic drones. The domestic use of drones will continue unabated. As mandated by Congress, there will be 30,000 drones crisscrossing the skies of America by 2020, all part of an industry that could be worth as much as $30 billion per year. These machines, which will be equipped with weapons, will be able to record all activities, using video feeds, heat sensors and radar. An Inspector General report revealed that the Dept. of Justice has already spent nearly $4 million on drones domestically, largely for use by the FBI, with grants for another $1.26 million so police departments and nonprofits can acquire their own drones.


School-to-prison pipeline. 


The paradigm of abject compliance to the state will continue to be taught by example in the schools, through school lockdowns where police and drug-sniffing dogs enter the classroom, and zero tolerance policies that punish all offenses equally and result in young people being expelled for childish behavior. School districts will continue to team up with law enforcement to create a “schoolhouse to jailhouse track” by imposing a “double dose” of punishment: suspension or expulsion from school, accompanied by an arrest by the police and a trip to juvenile court.


Overcriminalization. 


The government bureaucracy will continue to churn out laws, statutes, codes and regulations that reinforce its powers and value systems and those of the police state and its corporate allies, rendering the rest of us petty criminals. The average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to this overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal. Consequently, small farmers who dare to make unpasteurized goat cheese and share it with members of their community will continue to have their farms raided.


Privatized Prisons. 


States will continue to outsource prisons to private corporations, resulting in a cash cow whereby mega-corporations imprison Americans in private prisons in order to make a profit. In exchange for corporations buying and managing public prisons across the country at a supposed savings to the states, the states have to agree to maintain a 90% occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years.


Endless wars. 


America’s expanding military empire will continue to bleed the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour). The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. Yet what most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense.



Are you getting the message yet?


The next president, much like the current president and his predecessors, will be little more than a figurehead, a puppet to entertain and distract the populace from what’s really going on.


As Lofgren reveals, this state within a state, “concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue,” is a “hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose.”


The Deep State not only holds the nation’s capital in thrall, but it also controls Wall Street (“which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating as a diversionary marionette theater”) and Silicon Valley.


This is fascism in its most covert form, hiding behind public agencies and private companies to carry out its dirty deeds.
It is a marriage between government bureaucrats and corporate fat cats.



As Lofgren concludes:


[T]he Deep State is so heavily entrenched, so well protected by surveillance, firepower, money and its ability to co-opt resistance that it is almost impervious to change… If there is anything the Deep State requires it is silent, uninterrupted cash flow and the confidence that things will go on as they have in the past. It is even willing to tolerate a degree of gridlock: Partisan mud wrestling over cultural issues may be a useful distraction from its agenda.


In other words, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, as long as government officials—elected and unelected alike—are allowed to operate beyond the reach of the Constitution, the courts and the citizenry, the threat to our freedoms remains undiminished.


So the next time you find yourselves despondent over the 2016 presidential candidates, remember that it’s just a puppet show intended to distract you from the silent coup being carried out by America’s shadow government.

_________________________


'Booker’s language recalls the puffery of finance capital — the same group he vigorously defended in 2012 after the leader of his political party (Barack Obama) gently suggested the possibility of ending private equity tax loopholes'.


Below we see a discussion about what ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE will look like after this coming economic crash from massive US Treasury and municipal bond fraud and as WE THE PEOPLE are allowed to lose everything from last century's strong left social progressive economics-----here we see the next generation CLINTON/BUSH-----as cheerleaders---

OH, THIS IS ALL ABOUT JOBS AND CREATING BUSINESSES ----IT WILL BE GREAT SAYS 5% TO THE 1% GLOBAL WALL STREET PLAYERS.

They of course think they will be keeping those financial gains from ROBBER BARON YEARS!

Closing private equity loopholes says Corey Booker----not on MY LIFE!

As we fight in US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones police abuse and brutality ----over-militarization----these are the folks pushing as hard as possible for this coming economic crash to

MOVE FORWARD THIS FAR-RIGHT DEEP STATE AUTHORITARIANISM


'While there were occasional mentions of basic issues related to security and privacy, most of the concern stemmed from worries about “over regulation,” which meant anything more than a “light touch” approach. In his statement, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D–NJ) neatly encapsulated the political economic ideology on display in the hearing — and while he was more enthusiastic and explicit in tone than others, his remarks are representative and worth quoting at length':

THIS IS COREY BOOKER ON SMART CITIES AND LOSS OF PRIVACY AND HYPER-SECURITIZATION----HE SAYS---WE CANNOT DEREGULATE ENOUGH! CLINTON CLONE.



“This is a phenomenal opportunity for a bipartisan, profoundly patriotic approach to an issue that can explode our economy. I think that there are trillions of dollars, creating countless jobs, improving quality of life, [and] democratizing our society in ways that gives advantages to people who are being marginalized on the edges, breaking down barriers of race and class. We can’t even imagine the future that this portends of, and we should be embracing that ... And so a lot of my concerns are really what my Republican colleagues also echoed — which is, we should be doing everything possible to encourage this, and nothing to restrict it ... But for us to do anything to inhibit that leap in humanity to me seems unfortunate ... And I also believe that this should be a public-private partnership. We all have a role.”

This article is long but is great in showing to where MOVING FORWARD will go if left unchecked-----add BASIC INCOME to push 99% of citizens to third world wages ---that FAR-RIGHT LIBERTARIAN MARXISM---for that touch of enslavement.

Please GOOGLE for entire article!

***************************************************

The spectrum of control: A social theory of the smart city

by Jathan Sadowski and Frank Pasquale



Abstract
There is a certain allure to the idea that cities allow a person to both feel at home and like a stranger in the same place. That one can know the streets and shops, avenues and alleys, while also going days without being recognized. But as elites fill cities with “smart” technologies — turning them into platforms for the “Internet of Things” (IoT): sensors and computation embedded within physical objects that then connect, communicate, and/or transmit information with or between each other through the Internet — there is little escape from a seamless web of surveillance and power. This paper will outline a social theory of the “smart city” by developing our Deleuzian concept of the “spectrum of control.” We present two illustrative examples: biometric surveillance as a form of monitoring, and automated policing as a particularly brutal and exacting form of manipulation. We conclude by offering normative guidelines for governance of the pervasive surveillance and control mechanisms that constitute an emerging critical infrastructure of the “smart city.”

Contents

I. Introduction
II. What is a smart city?
III. The ideology of the smart city
IV. Smart cities in societies of control
V. The soft power of biometric surveillance
VI. The hard power of policing technologies
VII. Cyborg urbanization, blurred boundaries
VIII. Taking back control



I. Introduction

There is a certain allure to the idea that cities allow a person to both feel at home and like a stranger in the same place. That one can know the streets and shops, avenues and alleys, while also going days without being recognized. But as government and corporate actors, often in close partnership with each other, fill cities with “smart” [1] technologies — turning them into platforms for the “Internet of Things” (IoT): sensors and computation embedded within physical objects that then connect, communicate, and/or transmit information with or between each other through the Internet — there is little escape from a seamless web of surveillance (cf., Hollands, 2008; Townsend, 2014; Neirotti, et al., 2014). Soon, for example, shoppers and viewers will be as “known” by a store or gallery as they are able to know it (Arnsdorf, 2010). Facial recognition software, or smartphone emanations, can project your identity, likely spending habits, and reputation: shoplifter or big spender, “Mortgage Woes” or “Boomer Barons” (to use actual categories from marketers) (Castle Press, 2010).

“Big data” is the new currency of commerce, but like money, some have far better terms of access to it than others. In finance, the average borrower must turn over detailed, personal records to receive a loan; the bank is under no parallel obligation, though, to explain its own internal decision-making in nearly as much detail (Pasquale, 2015). The same dynamics are emerging in the IoT: powerful entities centripetally attracting more data from their users, but denying access to users and regulators, even when very troubling data uses and breaches occur. It no longer makes sense to think of “the Internet” as a thing that one accesses via a computer. Not when the city itself is reimagined and reconstructed as a platform for and node within networked information-communication technologies (ICT).

Wired’s flagship article on the IoT asks, “Have you ever lost an object in your house and dreamed that you could just type a search for it, as you would for a wayward document on your hard drive?” (Wasik, 2013). Well you can now, we are assured, thanks to a startup called StickNFind Technologies that sells cheap, small, “sticker” sensors. Lose a child at the mall? “Smart fashion” RFID tags will keep him or her plugged into the network and tracked at all times. And why stop with kids when making sensor-laden sartorial choices? Before long your car, house, appliances, and every other part of your environment will be engaging in a constant stream of networked communication with each other. Taken at the urban scale, the city becomes a cocoon of connectivity that engulfs us — or, alternatively, it becomes a web that ensnares us — as smart technologies are integrated into our everyday lives. These technologies are billed as modes of finding, of wayfaring. They are technologies of search (when we apply them) and technologies of reputation (when used to evaluate us) (Pasquale, 2015). They map, categorize, and classify — and what could be more innocuous than mere information?

Calculating the costs and benefits of the innovation is a Sisyphean, and deeply ideological, task. Who knows what sinister or spectacular applications may emerge? Scenario analysis and planning could be a valuable alternative to cost-benefit studies (Verchick, 2010): these methods acknowledge the incommensurability of the gains in convenience, and losses of privacy, portended by the IoT. But corporate and government discourse on IoT has tended to marginalize the most important negative scenario analyses, downplaying them as paranoid projections. Technocrats distort policy evaluations of pervasive surveillance and control in urban environments. Moreover, their normative tools of evaluation, focusing on consumer and citizen “consent” to surveillance, are manipulable enough to embrace even the most disturbing technologies of control — such as drone-driven crowd control directed at protesters, or automobile loan technology that disables cars mere minutes after a payment is late — as expressions of democratic will and market rationality.

Technocrats’ convenient blindness to the most worrisome aspects of the “smart city” invites a more balanced theoretical response. We propose one such response that lays out the characteristics and consequences of a dominant socio-political logic that courses throughout and ties together many of the various practices and ideologies related to “smart cities.” We begin by providing a contextual overview of the “smart city,” building from the burgeoning analytical work on the topic. This leads into a critical introduction to the ideology of the “smart city,” focusing on the stated aspirations of some of its most notable corporate, governmental, and academic exponents. We then offer a Deleuzian alternative, outlining a social theory of the “smart city” in service to capital as a form of control (rather than emancipation) of its subject-citizens. Next, we present two illustrative examples along the resulting spectrum of control: biometric surveillance as a form of monitoring, and automated policing as a particularly brutal and exacting form of manipulation. Our penultimate section makes explicit the stakes of the deep integration of person–machine — city in our “post-digital-dualist era” (Jurgenson, 2012). And we end by offering some normative guidelines for governance of the pervasive surveillance and control mechanisms that constitute the emerging critical infrastructure of the “smart city.”


0 Comments

May 20th, 2017

5/20/2017

0 Comments

 
Before we segue to next week's public policy discussion we want to bring back ZERO HEDGE and the talk about the coming economic crash.  As with the economic crash of 2008 national media allows all that fraudulent and corrupt behavior to occur with no reporting until the year or two before all that fraud brings the economy down.  This is done to trap MAIN STREET 99% in a stock and bond market for as long as possible so they will lose the maximum amount of wealth.

As we said, Zero Hedge and a few other financial analysts have outed the US FED and a criminal global Wall Street from the start of this sovereign debt fraud these several decades of Obama.  But most of these financial analysts are right wing global Wall Street-----not left public interest 99%.  These citizens are simply trying to get the fraud and crony 'naked' out of the stock market.  Left and right wing 99% want this and this is why both are fighting CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---now TRUMP.

Let's look at the article by ZERO HEDGE in parts and then look at a few articles in national media stating the same.  The global Wall Street players like ZERO HEDGE will be mostly truthful about what is coming----they simply spin the discussion towards right wing wealth and power.

NO, THE 99% DOES NOT WANT TO RELAX AND EXPECT TO LOOK FOR OPPORTUNITY AS ZERO HEDGE STATES----WE WANT TO GEAR UP FOR A FIGHT TO REVERSE THE DAMAGES TO BOTH OUR GOVERNANCE AND OUR PERSONAL AND PUBLIC ASSETS.



"The Greater Depression Has Started" - Comparing 1930s & Today

by Tyler Durden
Apr 9, 2016 7:35 PM

Submitted by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

You've heard the axiom "History repeats itself." It does, but never in exactly the same way. To apply the lessons of the past, we must understand the differences of the present.
During the American Revolution, the British came prepared to fight a successful war—but against a European army. Their formations, which gave them devastating firepower, and their red coats, which emphasized their numbers, proved the exact opposite of the tactics needed to fight a guerrilla war.


Before World War I, generals still saw the cavalry as the flower of their armies. Of course, the horse soldiers proved worse than useless in the trenches.


Before World War II, in anticipation of a German attack, the French built the "impenetrable" Maginot Line. History repeated itself and the attack came, but not in the way they expected. Their preparations were useless because the Germans didn't attempt to penetrate it; they simply went around it, and France was defeated.


The generals don't prepare for the last war out of perversity or stupidity, but rather because past experience is all they have to go by. Most of them simply don't know how to interpret that experience. They are correct in preparing for another war but wrong in relying upon what worked in the last one.


Investors, unfortunately, seem to make the same mistakes in marshaling their resources as do the generals. If the last 30 years have been prosperous, they base their actions on more prosperity. Talk of a depression isn't real to them because things are, in fact, so different from the 1930s. To most people, a depression means '30s-style conditions, and since they don't see that, they can't imagine a depression. That's because they know what the last depression was like, but they don't know what one is. It's hard to visualize something you don't understand.


Some of them who are a bit more clever might see an end to prosperity and the start of a depression but—al­though they're going to be a lot better off than most—they're probably looking for this depression to be like the last one.


Although nobody can predict with absolute certainty what this depression will be like, you can be fairly well-assured it won't be an instant replay of the last one. But just because things will be different doesn't mean you have to be taken by surprise.


To define the likely differences between this depres­sion and the last one, it's helpful to compare the situa­tion today to that in the early 1930s.
The results aren't very reassuring.






CORPORATE BANKRUPTCY

1930s
Banks, insurance companies, and big corporations went under on a major scale. Institutions suffered the consequences of past mistakes, and there was no financial safety net to catch them as they fell. Mistakes were liquidated and only the prepared and efficient survived.


Today
The world’s financial institutions are in even worse shape than the last time, but now business ethics have changed and everyone expects the government to "step in." Laws are already in place that not only allow but require government inter­vention in many instances. This time, mistakes will be compounded, and the strong, productive, and ef­ficient will be forced to subsidize the weak, unproductive, and inefficient. It's ironic that businesses were bankrupted in the last depression because the prices of their products fell too low; this time, it'll be because they went too high.


UNEMPLOYMENT

1930s
If a man lost his job, he had to find another one as quickly as possible simply to keep from going hungry. A lot of other men in the same position competed desperately for what work was available, and an employer could hire those same men for much lower wages and expect them to work harder than what was the case before the depression. As a result, the men could get jobs and the employer could stay in business.


Today
The average man first has months of unemployment insurance; after that, he can go on welfare if he can't find "suitable work." Instead of taking whatever work is available, especially if it means that a white collar worker has to get his hands dirty, many will go on welfare. This will decrease the production of new wealth and delay the recovery. The worker no longer has to worry about some entrepreneur exploiting (i.e., employing) him at what he considers an unfair wage because the minimum wage laws, among others, precludes that possibility today. As a result, men stay unemployed and employers will go out of business.




WELFARE


1930s
If hard times really put a man down and out, he had little recourse but to rely on his family, friends, or local social and church group. There was quite a bit of opprobrium attached to that, and it was only a last resort. The breadlines set up by various government bodies were largely cosmetic measures to soothe the more terror-prone among the voting populace. People made do because they had to, and that meant radically reducing their standards of living and taking any job available at any wage. There were very, very few people on welfare during the last depression.


Today
It's hard to say how those who are still working are going to support those who aren't in this depression. Even in the U.S., 50% of the country is already on some form of welfare. But food stamps, aid to fami­lies with dependent children, Social Security, and local programs are already collapsing in prosperous times. And when the tidal wave hits, they'll be totally overwhelmed. There aren't going to be any breadlines because people who would be standing in them are going to be shopping in local supermarkets just like people who earned their money. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of it is that people in general have come to think that these programs can just magically make wealth appear, and they expect them to be there, while a whole class of people have grown up never learning to survive without them. It's ironic, yet predictable, that the programs that were supposed to help those who "need" them will serve to devastate those very people.



REGULATIONS


1930s
Most economies have been fairly heavily regulated since the early 1900s, and those regulations caused distortions that added to the severity of the last depression. Rather than allow the economy to liquidate, in the case of the U.S., the Roosevelt regime added many, many more regulations—fixing prices, wages, and the manner of doing business in a static form. It was largely because of these regulations that the depression lingered on until the end of World War II, which "saved" the economy only through its massive reinflation of the currency. Had the government abolished most controls then in existence, instead of creating new ones, the depression would have been less severe and much shorter.



Today
The scores of new agencies set up since the last depression have created far more severe distortions in the ways people relate than those of 80 years ago; the potential adjustment needed is proportionately greater. Unless government restrictions and controls on wages, working conditions, energy consumption, safety, and such are removed, a dramatic economic turnaround during the Greater Depression will be impossible.


TAXES


1930s
The income tax was new to the U.S. in 1913, and by 1929, although it took a maximum 23.1% bite, that was only at the $1 million level. The average family’s income then was $2,335, and that put average families in the 1/10th of 1 percent bracket. And there was still no Social Security tax, no state income tax, no sales tax, and no estate tax. Furthermore, most people in the country didn't even pay the income tax because they earned less than the legal minimum or they didn't bother filing. The government, therefore, had immense untapped sources of revenue to draw upon to fund its schemes to "cure" the depression. Roosevelt was able to raise the average income tax from 1.35% to 16.56% during his tenure—an increase of 1,100%.



Today
Everyone now pays an income tax in addition to all the other taxes. In most Western countries, the total of direct and indirect taxes is over 50%. For that reason, it seems unlikely that direct taxes will go much higher. But inflation is constantly driving everyone into higher brackets and will have the same effect. A person has had to increase his or her income faster than inflation to compensate for taxes. Whatever taxes a man does pay will reduce his standard of living by just that much, and it's reasonable to expect tax evasion and the underground economy to boom in response. That will cushion the severity of the depression somewhat while it serves to help change the philosophical orientation of society.



PRICES


1930s
Prices dropped radically because billions of dollars of inflationary currency were wiped out through the stock market crash, bond defaults, and bank failures. The government, however, somehow equated the high prices of the inflationary '20s with prosperity and attempted to prevent a fall in prices by such things as slaughtering livestock, dumping milk in the gutter, and enacting price supports. Since the collapse wiped out money faster than it could be created, the government felt the destruction of real wealth was a more effective way to raise prices. In other words, if you can't increase the supply of money, decrease the supply of goods.



Nonetheless, the 1930s depression was a deflationary collapse, a time when currency became worth more and prices dropped. This is probably the most confusing thing to most Americans since they assume—as a result of that experience—that "depression" means "deflation." It's also perhaps the biggest single difference between this depression and the last one.


Today


Prices could drop, as they did the last time, but the amount of power the government now has over the economy is far greater than what was the case 80 years ago. Instead of letting the economy cleanse itself by allowing the nancial markets to collapse, governments will probably bail out insolvent banks, create mortgages wholesale to prop up real estate, and central banks will buy bonds to keep their prices from plummeting. All of these actions mean that the total money supply will grow enormously. Trillions will be created to avoid deflation. If you find men selling apples on street corners, it won't be for 5 cents apiece, but $5 apiece. But there won't be a lot of apple sellers because of welfare, nor will there be a lot of apples because of price controls.


Consumer prices will probably skyrocket as a result, and the country will have an inflationary depression. Unlike the 1930s, when people who held dollars were king, by the end of the Greater Depression, people with dollars will be wiped out.



THE SOCIETY


1930s
The world was largely rural or small-town. Communications were slow, but people tended to trust the media. The government exercised considerable moral suasion, and people tended to support it. The business of the country was business, as Calvin Coolidge said, and men who created wealth were esteemed. All told, if you were going to have a depression, it was a rather stable environment for it; despite that, however, there were still plenty of riots, marches, and general disorder.



Today


The country is now urban and suburban, and although communications are rapid, there's little interpersonal contact. The media are suspect. The government is seen more as an adversary or an imperial ruler than an arbitrator accepted by a consensus of concerned citizens. Businessmen are viewed as unscrupulous predators who take advantage of anyone weak enough to be exploited.


A major financial smashup in today's atmosphere could do a lot more than wipe out a few naives in the stock market and unemploy some workers, as occurred in the '30s; some sectors of society are now time bombs. It's hard to say, for instance, what third- and fourth-generation welfare recipients are going to do when the going gets really tough.



THE WAY PEOPLE WORK



1930s
Relatively slow transportation and communication localized economic conditions. The U.S. itself was somewhat insulated from the rest of the world, and parts of the U.S. were fairly self-contained. Workers were mostly involved in basic agriculture and industry, creating widgets and other tangible items. There wasn't a great deal of specialization, and that made it easier for someone to move laterally from one occupation into the next, without extensive retraining, since people were more able to produce the basics of life on their own. Most women never joined the workforce, and the wife in a marriage acted as a "backup" system should the husband lose his job.



Today
The whole world is interdependent, and a war in the Middle East or a revolution in Africa can have a direct and immediate effect on a barber in Chicago or Krakow. Since the whole economy is centrally controlled from Washington, a mistake there can be a national disaster. People generally aren’t in a position to roll with the punches as more than half the people in the country belong to what is known as the "service economy." That means, in most cases, they're better equipped to shuffle papers than make widgets. Even "necessary" services are often terminated when times get hard. Specialization is part of what an advanced industrial economy is all about, but if the economic order changes radically, it can prove a liability.



THE FINANCIAL MARKETS



1930s
The last depression is identified with the collapse of the stock market, which lost over 90% of its value from 1929 to 1933. A secure bond was the best possible investment as interest rates dropped radically. Commodities plummeted, reducing millions of farmers to near subsistence levels. Since most real estate was owned outright and taxes were low, a drop in price didn't make a lot of difference unless you had to sell. Land prices plummeted, but since people bought it to use, not unload to a greater fool, they didn't usually have to sell.



Today
This time, stocks—and especially commodities—are likely to explode on the upside as people panic into them to get out of depreciating dollars in general and bonds in particular. Real estate will be—next to bonds—the most devastated single area of the economy because no one will lend money long term. And real estate is built on the mortgage market, which will vanish.



Everybody who invests in this depression thinking that it will turn out like the last one will be very unhappy with the results. Being aware of the differences between the last depression and this one makes it a lot easier to position yourself to minimize losses and maximize profits.



*  *  *
So much for the differences. The crucial, obvious, and most important similarity, however, is that most people's standard of living will fall dramatically.



The Greater Depression has started.



Most people don't know it because they can neither confront the thought nor understand the differences between this one and the last.
As a climax approaches, many of the things that you've built your life around in the past are going to change and change radically. The ability to adjust to new conditions is the sign of a psychologically healthy person.


Look for the opportunity side of the crisis. The Chinese symbol for "crisis" is a combination of two other symbols - one for danger and one for opportunity.


The dangers that society will face in the years ahead are regrettable, but there's no point in allowing anxiety, frustration, or apathy to overcome you. Face the future with courage, curiosity, and optimism rather than fear. You can be a winner, and if you plan carefully, you will be. The great period of change will give you a chance to regain control of your destiny. And that in itself is the single most important thing in life.


This depression can give you that opportunity; it's one of the many ways the Greater Depression can be a very good thing for both you as an individual and society as a whole.



_____________________________________________



REAL NEWS has been the source of the worst of financial economic spin towards right wing global Wall Street because it is a global Wall Street neo-liberal outlet pretending to be left populist.

This video was made in 2012 ---and this PROPAGANDA of China and its instability as affecting our US economy was in full swing.  All national financial academics KNEW IN 2010 simply by watching the US FED, US Treasury, Obama, and Clinton global Wall Street led Congress passing laws that a massive US Treasury and state municipal bond subpriming and fraud was to occur mirrored on that which occurred in Europe during Bush era.  

WE KNEW AS DID THESE MEDIA PERSONALITY THAT CHINA WAS NOT GOING TO CRASH----THAT GLOBAL BANKING WAS CREATING MASSIVE SUBPRIMING AND JUNK BOND STATUS OF AMERICA'S US TREASURIES.

We also knew that China's exporting was slowing because of the END OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE AGREEMENTS WHERE GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND GLOBAL FACTORIES IN CHINESE FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES THESE SEVERAL DECADES WERE SLATED TO END ----WITH CHINA RETOOLING THESE ZONES FOR ITS OWN CORPORATIONS.

Do you hear any of these national financial media telling WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% all of this?  This is how we know who those pesky 5% to the 1% global Wall Street players are.


Real News: CHINA'S COLLAPSE

ThomasPaine3


Start at:
Published on Aug 24, 2012
Author Gordon Chang joins us to discuss the end of China's rapid economic growth.

GBTV - http://web.gbtv.com/index.jsp
  • Category
    • News & Politics
  • License
    • Standard YouTube License
 
    • ____________________________________

Global Wall Street and the right wing want desperately to end all NEW DEAL----ALL 99% GAINS FROM LAST CENTURY'S LEFT SOCIAL CAPITALISM----so they are making this economic crash and depression sound as if the crash and the negative effects on the 99% are all the fault of FDR and that pesky NEW DEAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVISM.

We have always been given the stat that the GREAT DEPRESSION hit an 80% the hardest----caused the stock market players newly rich to lose all their wealth---but that a 20% of citizens managed to stabilize and move forward.  This was probably true.  What ZERO HEDGE does nicely is identify the justice in allowing corporations and people to go bankrupt from being those fraudulent and corrupt players those few decades before the economic crash.  FDR as one of those ROBBER BARONS driving that roaring 20s Wall Street fraud and profiteering from it as today's 1%----made sure in passing laws to fix the economy that ethos OF BEING HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR FRAUDS AND CORRUPTION fell on the 99% and not the 1%.  Moving assets to real estate and precious minerals is always the hedge against these attacks to economy.  As ZERO HEDGE states---this economic crash is designed such that even real estate and cash will not protect WE THE PEOPLE.







CORPORATE BANKRUPTCY

1930s
Banks, insurance companies, and big corporations went under on a major scale. Institutions suffered the consequences of past mistakes, and there was no financial safety net to catch them as they fell. Mistakes were liquidated and only the prepared and efficient survived.




Whereas Bush era Congress allowed for corporate raiding bringing corporations to bankruptcy and allowed for Wall Street and banks to be BAILED OUT by Federal government----Obama era Congress passed laws saying there would be no Federal bail out of Wall Street banks or corporations at the same time passing laws saying global Wall Street could CONFISCATE CONSUMER BANK ACCOUNTS to stabilize----and Congress wrote these policies such that only the global Wall Street banks would get this bail out----our community and credit union banks would be allowed to go bankrupt.  The fix is in to make global Wall Street the only banking in town.

The fix is also in to have what are the only remaining US CORPORATIONS sent into bankruptcy as they were allowed to take on extreme corporate bond debt--this is illegal as shareholders are protected from deliberate corporate implosion.  This was done so these remaining US corporations would be enfolded into global corporations.




Today
The world’s financial institutions are in even worse shape than the last time, but now business ethics have changed and everyone expects the government to "step in." Laws are already in place that not only allow but require government inter­vention in many instances. This time, mistakes will be compounded, and the strong, productive, and ef­ficient will be forced to subsidize the weak, unproductive, and inefficient. It's ironic that businesses were bankrupted in the last depression because the prices of their products fell too low; this time, it'll be because they went too high.



'The decline of community banks actually began with a series of policy changes in the 1990s that untethered banks from their communities and allowed publicly insured commercial banks to engage in risky speculation. This shift in policy allowed big banks to become giant conglomerates, gobbling up market share and their smaller competitors'.



The Bail-In: How You and Your Money Will Be Parted During the Next Banking Crisis

January 6, 2015 by John Lawrence
By John Lawrence

There will be no more taxpayer bailouts for the Big Wall Street banks. That much has been established by the lobbied to death Dodd-Frank banking reform (yeah, right) bill.


However, instead of taking money from the government (taxpayers), the principal has been established that the next source of money for profligate banks will be your deposit accounts. Yeah, that’s right, the money to stabilize the banking sector during the next crisis will come out of your savings and checking accounts.


To add insult to injury – since the banks pay you zero percent on your savings account in the first place – the banks have the right to confiscate your funds if they crash the economy again as they did in 2008. Remember the Great Recession? It’s coming again to a bank near you.
How can they do this, you ask?
Simple. When you deposit money in a checking or savings account, that money no longer belongs to you. Technically and legally, it becomes the property of the bank, and the bank just issues you what amounts to an IOU. As far as the bank is concerned, it’s an unsecured debt.


The way Dodd-Frank has managed to screw things around, derivatives (bets banks have made in the Wall Street casino) have priority over your checking and savings accounts when it comes to paying off their debts. And don’t think that the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) will save your money. The assets of the FDIC are minuscule (in the billions) compared to the valuation of outstanding derivatives (in the trillions). Your deposits are protected only up to the $250,000 insurance limit, and also only to the extent that the FDIC has the money to cover deposit claims or can come up with it.


Ellen Brown asks, “What happens when Bank of America or JPMorganChase, which have commingled their massive derivatives casinos with their depositary arms, is propelled into bankruptcy by a major derivatives fiasco?  These two banks both have deposits exceeding $1 trillion, and they both have derivatives books with notional values exceeding the GDP of the world.”


The answer is a Cypress style bail-in.
You might recall that money was taken out of depositor’s accounts during the last banking crisis in Cypress. These depositors were mainly Russian oligarchs so what the heck. Now this principle has been extended to depositors in the big Wall Street banks and actually to depositors all over the world. Now is a good time to take your money out of banks such as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank and deposit it in smaller banks or credit unions. Otherwise, $1 trillion of depositors’ funds could go bye-bye, and that’s not small change.


Ellen Brown elucidates:

According to an International Monetary Fund paper titled “From Bail-out to Bail-in: Mandatory Debt Restructuring of Systemic Financial Institutions”:


[B]ail-in . . . is a statutory power of a resolution authority (as opposed to contractual arrangements, such as contingent capital requirements) to restructure the liabilities of a distressed financial institution by writing down its unsecured debt and/or converting it to equity. The statutory bail-in power is intended to achieve a prompt recapitalization and restructuring of the distressed institution.


The language is a bit obscure, but here are some points to note:

  • What was formerly called a “bankruptcy” is now a “resolution proceeding.” The bank’s insolvency is “resolved” by the neat trick of turning its liabilities into capital. Insolvent TBTF banks are to be “promptly recapitalized” with their “unsecured debt” so that they can go on with business as usual.
  • “Unsecured debt” includes deposits, the largest class of unsecured debt of any bank. The insolvent bank is to be made solvent by turning our money into their equity – bank stock that could become worthless on the market or be tied up for years in resolution proceedings.
  • The power is statutory. Cyprus-style confiscations are to become the law.
  • Rather than having their assets sold off and closing their doors, as happens to lesser bankrupt businesses in a capitalist economy, “zombie” banks are to be kept alive and open for business at all costs – and the costs are again to be borne by us.
So as far as you, the depositor, are concerned, your money in checking and savings accounts is the bank’s “unsecured debt.” You will have to stand in line behind trillions of dollars of derivative payouts before your checking and savings accounts will be made whole. Both the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 and the Dodd Frank Act provide special protections for derivative counterparties, giving them the legal right to demand collateral to cover losses in the event of insolvency.


They get first dibs, even before the secured deposits of state and local governments. Your chances of recovering your money are about as great as the chances of a snowball in hell.
Since most poor and middle class people have a major portion of their assets in checking and savings accounts while rich people have the major portion in real estate, stocks and bonds, who do you think will be most affected by bail-ins?


You guessed it: the poor and middle class will be hit the hardest. And don’t think your money will be safe in a bank’s safe deposit box. The banks have the right to go into your safe deposit box and take your money out of it.


Pension funds, which were the biggest suckers for Wall Street during the last banking crisis, will also be drained by Wall Street during the next one. Their funds will be subject to confiscation as bail-ins as well since many of the bonds they purchase are subject to being converted to bail-inable deposits if the banks really need the money which they no doubt will sooner or later when the derivatives bubble goes bust.

So taxpayers you can sleep soundly as taxpayer bail-outs have been taken off the table in the next banking crisis. Whew, that’s a relief.


But if your savings get taken over by the bank, ouch, that’ll hurt even more than a widely distributed taxpayer bail-out which might add a couple of dollars to your income tax. Be careful of what you wish for. It could be even worse than what you already had.
There is a better way. Let the zombie banks go bankrupt instead of confiscating depositor funds. A better way is to create public banks and transfer funds from Wall Street. Then the gambling casino with all the attendant risks for bail-outs and bail-ins comes to an abrupt halt. Profits go to the local community or to the state in the case of North Dakota, the nations’s first and oldest public bank..


On a personal note, a representative of my bank, Union Bank, called me a few weeks ago to inform me that I was only allowed five debits per month out of my savings account and that I had used up my five debits for December.


So I would have to wait until January before I was allowed to take any more money out of my savings account. I was furious. “It’s my money isn’t it, and besides you call it a savings account. It gets zero interest.” He kept repeating that I was only allowed five debits per month and said it was a Federal law.


Well, this means nothing because it’s well known that all Federal banking regulations are written by lobbyists for the banking industry in the interests of the banking industry. I asked him what was the rationale for this regulation. He said, “The government doesn’t want you to spend your money too fast.” Hmmm. Since when does Big Brother have an interest in making sure I don’t spend my money? I don’t think so.


It probably has more to do with keeping your money in the bank so that the bank can meet its currency reserve requirements or possibly slow down the exodus of money from worthless savings accounts which pay no interest or even perhaps to confiscate your money for bail-ins during the next banking crisis at which time there will be undoubtedly a run on the banks 1930s style.
Whoops, if you’ve already had your five debits, you won’t be able to get your hands on your money before it’s “bailed-in.”

___________________________________

Well, it was not really ironic ----it was deliberate, willful, and done with malice----the US FED manipulation of interest rates and inflation in ways that HARMED WE THE PEOPLE.  The mission of US FED is to protect stability and employment and these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA allowed the US FED to deliberately and illegally harm citizens and economic stability.  Last century's economic crash had the US FED installed for the ROBBER BARON roaring 20s-----but the US FED back then had not the time or ability to openly MANIPULATE IN NEGATIVE WAYS INFLATION AND INTEREST RATES.

Indeed, last century the economic crash created what is normal-----consumers were broke and could not purchase so businesses went bankrupt.  Today, we will see consumers go broke and on top of all that what has been a manipulated US FED interest rate and inflation will unleash soaring inflation----creating that scenario of an apple costing $5.   All of this was illegal and WE THE PEOPLE do not have to sit by and watch this FAKE INFLATION AND DEPRESSION TAKE HOLD.



'It's ironic that businesses were bankrupted in the last depression because the prices of their products fell too low; this time, it'll be because they went too high'.


'Think about this for a minute. Allegedly the US is experiencing economic recovery. Normally with rising economic activity interest rates rise as consumers and investors bid for credit. But not in this “recovery.” '

We have had to read national media telling us not only was this US FED manipulation good for the American economy -----but that it met the mission of keeping US economy stable and employment full----ergo the constant juking of FEDERAL UNEMPLOYMENT DATA.


Financial Market Manipulation Is The New Trend: Can It Continue?


December 17, 2014

Financial Market Manipulation Is The New Trend: Can It Continue?

Financial Imperialists Attack Russia

Paul Craig Roberts


A dangerous new trend is the successful manipulation of the financial markets by the Federal Reserve, other central banks, private banks, and the US Treasury. The Federal Reserve reduced real interest rates on US government debt obligations first to zero and then pushed real interest rates into negative territory. Today the government charges you for the privilege of purchasing its bonds.
People pay to park their money in Treasury debt obligations, because they do not trust the banks and they know that the government can print the money to pay off the bonds. Today Treasury bond investors pay a fee in order to guarantee that they will receive the nominal face value (minus the fee) of their investment in government debt instruments.
The fee is paid in a premium, which raises the cost of the debt instrument above its face value and is paid again in accepting a negative rate of return, as the interest rate is less than the inflation rate.
Think about this for a minute. Allegedly the US is experiencing economic recovery. Normally with rising economic activity interest rates rise as consumers and investors bid for credit. But not in this “recovery.”

Normally an economic recovery produces rising consumer spending, rising profits, and more investment. But what we experience is flat and declining consumer spending as jobs are offshored and retail stores close. Profits result from labor cost savings from employee layoffs.


The stock market is high because corporations are the biggest purchases of stock. Buying back their own stock supports or raises the share price, enabling executives and boards to sell their shares or cash in their options at a profitable price. The cash that Quantitative Easing has given to the mega-banks leaves ample room for speculating in stocks, thus pushing up the price despite the absence of fundamentals that would support a rising stock market.


In other words, in America today there are no free financial markets. The markets are rigged by the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing, by gold price manipulation, by the Treasury’s Plunge Protection Team and Exchange Stabilization Fund, and by the big private banks.


Allegedly, QE is over, but it is not. The Fed intends to roll over the interest and principle from its bloated $4.5 trillion bond portfolio into purchases of more bonds, and the banks intend to fill in the gaps by using the $2.6 trillion in their cash on deposit with the Fed to purchase bonds. QE has morphed, not ended. The money the Fed paid the banks for bonds will now be used by the banks to support the bond price by purchasing bonds.
Normally when massive amounts of debt and money are created the currency collapses, but the dollar has been strengthening. The dollar gains strength from the
rigging of the gold price in the futures market. The Federal Reserve’s agents, the bullion banks, print paper futures contracts representing many tonnes of gold and dump them them into the market during periods of light or nonexistent trading.
This drives down the gold price despite rising demand for the physical metal. This manipulation is done in order to counteract the effect of the expansion of money and debt on the dollar’s exchange value. A declining dollar price of gold makes the dollar look strong.




The dollar also gains the appearance of strength from debt monetization by the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank. The Bank of Japan’s Quantitative Easing program is even larger than the Fed’s. Even Switzerland is rigging the price of the Swiss franc. Since all currencies are inflating, the dollar does not decline in exchange value.
As Japan is Washington’s vassal, it is conceivable that some of the money being printed by the Bank of Japan will be used to purchase US Treasuries, thus taking the place along with purchases by the large US banks of the Fed’s QE.


The large private US and UK banks are also manipulating markets hand over fist. Remember the scandal over the banks fixing the LIBOR rate (the London Interbank Borrowing Rate) and the opening gold price on the London exchange. Now the banks have been caught rigging currency markets with algorithms developed to manipulate foreign exchange markets.
When the banks get caught in felonies, they avoid prosecution by paying a fine. You try doing that.


The government even manipulates economic statistics in order to paint a rosy economic picture that sustains economic confidence. GDP growth is exaggerated by understating inflation. High unemployment is swept under the table by not counting discouraged workers as unemployed. We are told we are enjoying economic recovery and have an improving housing market. Yet the facts are that almost half of 25 year old Americans have been forced to return to live with their parents, and 30% of 30 year olds are back with their parents. Since 2006 the home ownership rate of 30 year old Americans has collapsed.
.
The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act during the Clinton regime allowed the big banks to gamble with their depositors’ money. The Dodd-Frank Act tried to stop some of this by requiring the banks-turned-gambling-casinos to carry on their gambling in subsidiaries with no access to deposits in the depository institution. If the banks gamble with depositors money, the banks’ losses are covered by FDIC, and in the case of bank failure, bail-in provisions could give the banks access to depositors’ funds. With the banks still protected by being “too big to fail,” whether Dodd-Frank would succeed in protecting depositors when a subsidiary’s failure pulls down the entire bank is unclear.



The sharp practices in which banks engage today are risky. Why gamble with their own money if they can gamble with depositors’ money. The banks led by Citigroup have lobbied hard to overturn the provision in Dodd-Frank that puts depositors’ money out of their reach as backup for certain types of troubled financial instruments, with apparently only Senator Elizabeth Warren and a few others opposing them. Senator Warren is outgunned as Citigroup controls the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve.


The falling oil price has brought concern that oil derivatives are in jeopardy. Citigroup has a provision in the omnibus appropriations bill that shifts the liability for Citigroup’s credit default swaps to depositors and taxpayers. It was only six years ago that Citigroup was bailed out to the tune of a half trillion dollars. Already Citigroup is back for more while nothing whatsoever is done to bail the American people out of their hardships caused by Citigroup and the other financial gangsters.



What we are experiencing is not a repeat of the past. The ability or, rather, the audacity of the US government itself to manipulate the major financial markets is new. Can this new trend continue? The government is supposed to be the enforcer of laws against market manipulation but is itself manipulating the markets.


Governments and economists take their hats off to free markets. Yet, the markets are rigged, not free. How long can stocks stay up in a lackluster or declining economy? How long can bonds pay negative real interest rates when debt and money are rising. How long can bullion prices be manipulated down when the world’s demand for gold exceeds the annual production?
For as long as governments and banks can rig the markets.
The manipulations are dangerous. Manipulations blow a bigger bubble economy, and manipulations are now being used by Washington as an act of war by driving down the exchange value of the Russian ruble.


If every time the stock market tries to correct and adjust to the real economic situation, the plunge protection team or some government “stabilization” entity stops the correction by purchasing S&P futures, unrealistic values are perpetuated.


The price of gold is not determined in the physical market but in the futures market where contracts are settled in cash. If every time the demand for gold pushes up the price, the Federal Reserve or its bullion bank agents dump massive amounts of uncovered futures contracts in the futures market and drive down the price of gold, the result is to subsidize the gold purchases of Russia, China, and India. The artificially low gold price also artificially inflates the value of the US dollar.


The Federal Reserve’s manipulation of the bond market has driven bond prices so high that purchasers receive a zero or negative return on their investment. At the present time fear of the safety of bank deposits makes people willing to pay a fee in order to have the protection of the government’s ability to print money in order to redeem its bonds. A number of events could end the tolerance of zero or negative real interest rates. The Federal Reserve’s policy has the bond market positioned for collapse.


The US government, perhaps surprised at the ease at which all financial markets can be rigged, is now rigging, or permitting large hedge funds and perhaps George Soros, to drive down the exchange value of the Russian ruble by massive short-selling in the currency market. On December 15 the ruble was driven down 19%.


Just as there is no economic reason for the price of gold to decline in the futures market when the demand for physical gold is rising, there is no economic reason for the ruble to suddenly loose much of its exchange value. Unlike the US, which has a massive trade deficit, Russia has a trade surplus. Unlike the US economy, the Russian economy has not been offshored. Russia has just completed large energy and trade deals with China, Turkey, and India.



If economic forces were determining outcomes, it would be the dollar that is losing exchange value, not the ruble.
The illegal economic sanctions that Washington has decreed on Russia appear to be doing more harm to Europe and US energy companies than to Russia. The impact on
Russia of the American attack on the ruble is unclear, as the suppression of the ruble’s value is artificial.



There is a difference between economic factors causing foreign investors to withdraw their capital from a country, thereby causing the currency to lose value, and manipulation of a currency’s value by heavy short-selling in the currency market. The latter can cause the former also to occur. But the outcome for Russia can be positive.


No country dependent on foreign capital is sovereign. A country dependent on foreign capital, especially from enemies seeking to subvert the economy, is subject to destabilizing currency and economic swings. Russia should self-finance. If Russia needs foreign capital, Russia should turn to its ally China. China has a stake in Russia’s strength as part of China’s protection from US aggression, whether economic or military.


The American attack on the ruble is also teaching sovereign governments that are not US vassals the extreme cost of allowing their currencies to trade in currency markets dominated by the US. China should think twice before it allows full convertibility of its currency. Of course, the Chinese have a lot of dollar assets with which to defend their currency from attack, and the sale of the assets and use of the dollar proceeds to support the yuan could knock down the dollar’s exchange value and US bond prices and cause US interest rates and inflation to rise. Still, considering the gangster nature of financial markets in which the US is the heavy player, a country that permits free trading of its currency sets itself up for trouble.


The greatest harm that is being done to the Russian economy is not due to sanctions and the US attack on the ruble. The greatest harm is being done by Russia’s neoliberal economists.
Neoliberal economics is not merely incorrect. It is an ideology that fosters US economic imperialism. By following neoliberal prescriptions, Russian economists are helping Washington’s attack on the Russian economy.


Apparently, Putin has been sold, along with his internal enemies, the Atlanticist integrationists, on “free trade globalism.” Globalism destroys the sovereignty of every country except the world reserve currency country that controls the system.


As Michael Hudson has shown, neoliberal economics is “junk economics.” But it is also a tool of American financial imperialism, and this makes neoliberal Russian economists tools of American imperialism.


The remaining sovereign countries, which excludes all of Europe, are slowly learning that Western economic institutions are deceptive and that placing trust in them is a threat to national sovereignty.


Washington intends to subvert Russia and to turn Russia into a vassal state like Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Australia, the UK and Ukraine. If Russia is to survive, Putin must protect Russia from Western economic institutions and Western trained economists.

It is too risky for the US to take on Russia militarily. Instead, Washington is using its unique symbiotic relationship with Western financial institutions to attack an incautious Russia that foolishly opened herself to Western financial predation.
__________________________________

This myth propagated by the right wing that most people falling on unemployment do not look for jobs is just that.  Most people understand that the longer one is unemployed the harder it will be to get a job---especially one that pays as well as the old job.  Most people do not want to sit at home receiving poverty unemployment benefits instead of real income.  Indeed there are those that game the unemployment system----

ZERO HEDGE wants the dynamic of squeezing workers into lower wages by manipulating and creating stagnant hiring to benefit corporate profits rather than having a safety net for workers that let's the corporations know they don't have workers under their thumbs----as today with our US economy completely captured by global corporations and global Wall Street keeping our US economy stagnant for these few decades.  Yes, the 1930s economic crash had no NEW DEAL UNEMPLOYMENT SAFETY NET and people went to the POOR FARM----BREAD LINES---

Pushing the hardship of economic crash and corporate bankruptcy on WE THE PEOPLE when all this occurs because of systemic and massive frauds by Wall Street and the 1% is NOT A LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE STANCE.




UNEMPLOYMENT

1930s
If a man lost his job, he had to find another one as quickly as possible simply to keep from going hungry. A lot of other men in the same position competed desperately for what work was available, and an employer could hire those same men for much lower wages and expect them to work harder than what was the case before the depression. As a result, the men could get jobs and the employer could stay in business.

The model of forcing people to take whatever they can get is a false model----most people understand the idea of BEING OVER-QUALIFIED and told they cannot take that low-wage job.  These stances are designed to keep WE THE PEOPLE POOR as we lose over and over all the wealth we accumulate through no fault of our own.  Today, after these several years of OBAMA----all unemployment laws have been undermined by global corporations being allowed to shift to global labor pool not eligible for unemployment and by promoting the shift to part-time/temporary by Congressional policy and Obama's Federal funding. This coming economic crash is designed to knock out what is left of an upper and middle-class at the same time robotics and technology is gearing to end the need to replace these workers.



Today
The average man first has months of unemployment insurance; after that, he can go on welfare if he can't find "suitable work." Instead of taking whatever work is available, especially if it means that a white collar worker has to get his hands dirty, many will go on welfare. This will decrease the production of new wealth and delay the recovery. The worker no longer has to worry about some entrepreneur exploiting (i.e., employing) him at what he considers an unfair wage because the minimum wage laws, among others, precludes that possibility today. As a result, men stay unemployed and employers will go out of business.



BLAMING LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYMENT ON LAZY WORKERS JUST WANTING AN UNEMPLOYMENT CHECK RATHER THAN ON GLOBAL WALL STREET'S DELIBERATE ATTACK ON OUR STABLE US ECONOMY----IS WHAT RIGHT WING WALL STREET PLAYERS DO.


ZERO HEDGE is playing that LAZY WORKER routine wanting an end to unemployment benefits. Yes, this coming economic crash having Obama's $20 trillion in US Treasury bond debt is designed to have today's victims of economic crash without those NEW DEAL UNEMPLOYMENT CHECKS. In comes WORLD BANK/IMF and global FEED THE US CITIES NGOs----sure---that's much better.

The problem is our global Wall Street pols are conspiring to leave 60---70----80---90% and over of US citizens unemployed.


Jan 15, 2014 @ 08:00 AM 29,860 The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets

U.S. Unemployment: Retirees Are Not The Labor Exodus Problem
Capital Flows ,  

Contributor
Guest commentary curated by Forbes Opinion. Avik Roy, Opinion Editor.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
By Robert Romano



Retirees playing shuffleboard in Sarasota, Florida (Photo credit: State Library and Archives of Florida)

Since 2008, the civilian non-institutional population has jumped by 11.9 million, yet the civilian labor force has only increased by 1.1 million, according to annual figures published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The above numbers speak to a pronounced drop in labor force participation—that is, those working or looking for work—with the participation rate dropping from almost 66 percent throughout 2008 to its current level of 62.8 percent, the lowest it’s been since 1978.
If the labor force participation rate had held steady at its 2008 level, unemployment would be 11.2 percent instead of the current reported rate of 6.7 percent.
That labor force participation has been dropping is undisputed. The question is why.


Is the decline in labor force participation a result of older people retiring en masse, younger people failing to enter the work force, or both?
If it is the former, then Americans can take confidence in the reported unemployment rate of 6.7 percent, that its steady drop is very real and means labor market conditions are in fact improving.


If, however, younger Americans are not entering the labor force and/or middle-aged people are dropping out, quite the opposite. The reported unemployment rate then understates the reality of current labor market conditions. Then, individuals are not looking for work conceivably because there is little work to be found and so they are giving up — in short, an economic calamity.



On one side are those who take the view that what is being observed are actually Baby Boomers leaving the workforce and retiring, such as minnpost.com’s Erik Hare, writing in a piece, “Decline in labor force driven by retirement, not discouragement.”



Hare calls it a “lie” that “this is the result of people giving up looking for work, a sign that the ‘recovery’ is weak.” Instead, Hare points to a Philadelphia Federal Reserve study on the topic that takes a narrow look at Bureau nonparticipation data, concluding that retirements beginning in 2010 began to play a role in driving down the participation rate.



The trouble with the study is that labor participation has been declining a lot longer than since 2010. In fact, it peaked in 1997 at 67.1 percent, and has dropped annually ever since. As the study notes, “retirement had not played much of a role until around 2010.” By then, the rate had already dropped 2.4 percent.
Meaning, retirement cannot be thought to have played much of a role in the participation rates up until that point, and may only be tangentially affecting it now.


On the other side are those such as senior fellow and director of Economics21 at the Manhattan Institute, Diana Furchtgott-Roth who, in a Jan. 14 piece for RealcCearMarkets.com noted that “since 2000 the labor force participation rates of workers 55 and over have been rising steadily, and the labor force participation rates of workers between 16 and 54 have been declining.”


Which is absolutely true. Since 2003, those 65 years and older have seen their labor force participation rate rise from 13.99 percent to 18.7 percent. Those aged 55-64 saw their rate rise from 62.44 percent to 64.36 percent, a recent Americans for Limited Government (ALG) study of Bureau data from 2003-2013 shows.


Meanwhile, participation by those aged 16-24 dropped from 61.56 percent in 2003 to 55.05 percent in 2013, and for those aged 25-54, it dropped from 82.98 percent to 82.01 percent.


_____________________________________________

ZERO HEDGE likes to believe that those 99% who will be victims in this coming economic crash are being GREEDY for thinking that decades of paying taxes would provide help in times of crisis especially when the Wall Street market was allowed to be criminal and corrupt.  So, don't blame the corporations and banks creating these conditions of high employment---blame the workers for not wanting to do ANYTHING.  What is ANYTHING?  Being that agricultural worker----

FDR's response in 1930 was indeed different from the response coming today.  Because the US was not yet EMPIRE-BUILDING the Robber Barron FDR had to rebuild our economy with what revenue was on hand and that meant CLAWING BACK THE WEALTH OF THOSE MADE RICH---INDIVIDUALS AND CORPORATIONS.  This is how we got those pesky 90% taxation brackets on corporations and rich.  Know what?  That is holding bad people accountable instead of making good people beg for food and housing.  ZERO HEDGE does not see this.

What will occur with this coming economic crash-----the global labor pool that did not exist in 1930s was rebuilt by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA-----global slave trading will push all US citizens unable to survive this crash into the global labor pool.  They want us to believe this will only be those long-term unemployed----wait a decade after this long-term depression to see over 90% of Americans at this threshold.

SURE-----FEED THE US CITIES GLOBAL HEDGE FUNDS WILL TREAT US CITIZENS AS ANY DESPERATE THIRD WORLD REFUGEE----BUT THAT WILL BE A TEMPORARY SOLUTION.


Top 10 Non-Profits Fighting Poverty | TakePartwww.takepart.com/article/2009/02/17/top-10-non-profits-fighting-poverty Feb 17, 2009 ... In honor of World Day of Social Justice, we'd like to share with you the top 10 ... 1) Feeding America: Feeding America is the nation's largest ...

WE THE PEOPLE do not need a growing presence of FEED THE CITY ----we need a 99% of citizens protesting against massive Wall Street frauds, corporate and government corruption to bring our personal and public assets back to citizens. Do you know a government watchdog group calculated the amount of fraud and damages owed WE THE PEOPLE to be over $200,000 for each US man, women, and child---this coming US Treasury bond fraud will make that amount grow. That is over a million dollars for a family of 4----enough to buy a house, a car, send children to college AND have some retirement----WE THE PEOPLE ARE NOT POOR---WE HAVE BEEN LOOTED. We won't need charity if these FAKE GLOBAL WALL STREET 'LABOR AND JUSTICE' ORGANIZATIONS would fight for justice not more patronage. The American people are now on global media being sold as charity cases to global 1% donation.

WELFARE


1930s
If hard times really put a man down and out, he had little recourse but to rely on his family, friends, or local social and church group. There was quite a bit of opprobrium attached to that, and it was only a last resort. The breadlines set up by various government bodies were largely cosmetic measures to soothe the more terror-prone among the voting populace. People made do because they had to, and that meant radically reducing their standards of living and taking any job available at any wage. There were very, very few people on welfare during the last depression.


Today
It's hard to say how those who are still working are going to support those who aren't in this depression. Even in the U.S., 50% of the country is already on some form of welfare. But food stamps, aid to fami­lies with dependent children, Social Security, and local programs are already collapsing in prosperous times. And when the tidal wave hits, they'll be totally overwhelmed. There aren't going to be any breadlines because people who would be standing in them are going to be shopping in local supermarkets just like people who earned their money. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of it is that people in general have come to think that these programs can just magically make wealth appear, and they expect them to be there, while a whole class of people have grown up never learning to survive without them. It's ironic, yet predictable, that the programs that were supposed to help those who "need" them will serve to devastate those very people.

********************************************************************



Dec 14, 2016 @ 09:44 AM 92,509 The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets

The Largest U.S. Charities For 2016

William P. Barrett ,  
Contributor
I cover personal finance, taxes, retirement, nonprofits & scandals
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

(Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images)

United Way Worldwide, which takes in much of its contributions through workplace paycheck deductions authorized by employees, received $3.71 billion in the fiscal year ending December 31, 2015, a 4% drop from the $3.87 billion received in the previous period. The organization, which is headquartered in Alexandria, Va., consists of more than 1,000 legally independent local units, each of which determines its own charitable spending priorities in addition to handling donor-specific designations.


Despite the decline in giving to United Way, it still outstripped the second largest charity by a half billion. That's even more impressive, when you consider that No. 2 and No. 3 on the Forbes list receive much of their support not as cash, but as "in-kind" donations of medicine and food.


No. 2: Task Force For Global Health. The Decatur, Ga.-based nonprofit, which sends donated medicines abroad, reported gifts received for its latest fiscal period of $3.15 billion. That's nearly double the $1.61 billion of a year earlier thanks to increased gifts from some large drug companies. Donated goods, known as gift-in-kind, or GIK, are a legitimate form of charity, although they can be subject to inflated value issues.


Remaining No. 3 is Feeding America, the Chicago-rooted umbrella for hundreds of food banks around the country. It reported gifts--mainly donated food--of $2.15 billion, up 6% in a year.


Dropping from No. 2 to No. 4 is Salvation Army, the venerable social service agency that is also a church with its own doctrine. Also based in Alexandria, the Salvation Army reported donations received of $1.90 billion, a 10% year-to-year drop from $2.12 billion.


Moving up a notch to No. 5 is YMCA of the USA. Headquartered in Chicago, the Y with its network of youth facilities and health clubs said it got $1.20 billion in donations, up 29% from $930 million a year earlier. The Y's sharp growth in donations edged out St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, pushing it to No. 6. The stand-alone Memphis facility reported incoming donations of $1.18 billion, a 9% increase from $1.08 billion.


Again, to see the full list of 100, scroll to the bottom of this post. Click on the name of a given charity for more information. For a fuller description of the list methodology, and advice on how to use the information in making contributions, click here.


It's the amount of private donations, as opposed to government grants or revenue from the sale of goods or services, that determines rankings on the Forbes list, which was expanded to 100 from 50 charities in 2015.  Collectively, they received $45 billion in donations. The total is about one-eighth the estimated $350 billion received by the country’s 1 million-plus nonprofits. The cutoff for this year’s list–No. 100–is $140 million in donations. That position belongs to the American Diabetes Association.


Significantly, we exclude from our list donor advised funds, or DAF. These organizations, some affiliated with financial service companies such as Fidelity, Schwab and Vanguard, are essentially tax-favored holding pens for future charitable gifts from individual donors. A taxpayer can claim a charitable itemized deduction in the year money is put into a DAF and then parcel the funds out to favorite charities (including, perhaps, some on our list) over many years.



 Contributions to DAFs rose to $22.6 billion in 2015.


The largest DAF, Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, took in $4.6 billion, which actually is more than United Way collected. We choose not to include the larger DAFs because each is an administrative umbrella for thousands of individual donors in effect running their own quasi-foundations.


Some nonprofits on the Forbes list have substantial revenue other than donations. For instance, No. 18 on the list, Lutheran Services in America, the umbrella organization for several hundred Lutheran social service agencies, received $723 million in gifts but collected nearly $20 billion in fees. The Mayo Clinic brought in more than $9 billion in fees for services rendered.


Of the 100 charities, 18 reported paying some employee more than $1 million. The highest compensated chief executives were Delos M. Cosgrove, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, $4,195,251. He was followed by Steven J. Corwin of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, $4,591,728; Craig B. Thompson, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, $2.844,637; and Emily K. Rafferty. Metropolitan Museum of Art, $2,555,131. These figures can include benefits, deferred compensation and one-time bonuses, and might be for a different fiscal year than that on the list.
Forbes also calculates financial efficiencies for each charity and changes in those ratios from the prior period. For that detail, plus more information on each charity, including top pay, click on a name below.


Largest U.S. Charities for 2016, with private donations received

(Click on a name for more information)
  1. United Way Worldwide, $3.708 billion.
  2. Task Force for Global Health, $3.154 billion.
  3. Feeding America, $2.150 billion.
  4. Salvation Army, $1,904 billion.
  5. YMCA of the USA, $1.202 billion.
  6. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, $1.181 billion
  7. Food for the Poor, $1.156 billion.
  8. Boys & Girls Club of America, $923 million.
  9. Catholic Charities USA, $921 million.
  10. Goodwill Industries International, $902 million.
  11. Habitat for Humanity International, $829 million.
  12. World Vision, $825 million.
  13. American Cancer Society, $810 million.
  14. Patient Access Network Foundation, $801 million.
  15. Compassion International, $799 million.
  16. Direct Relief, $775 million.
  17. Americares Foundation, $740 million.
  18. Lutheran Services in America, $723 million.
  19. Nature Conservancy, $646 million.
  20. American Heart Association, $634 million.
  21. American National Red Cross, $624 million.
  22. Samaritan's Purse, $565 million.
  23. MAP International, $545 million.
  24. Step Up for Students, $#521 million.
  25. Cru, $514 million.
  26. United States Fund for UNICEF, $509 million.
  27. Wounded Warrior Project, $473 million.
  28. Feed the Children, $446 million.
  29. Mount Sinai Health Systems, $439 million.
  30. Save the Children Federation, $379 million.
  31. CARE USA, $378 million.
  32. Good 360, $377 million.
  33. Catholic Relief Services, $372 million.
  34. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, $354 million.
  35. Doctors Without Borders USA, $338 million.
  36. Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, $331 million.
  37. Make-a-Wish Foundation of America, $305 million.
  38. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, $298 million.
  39. Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, $298 million.
  40. Boy Scouts of America, $296 million.
  41. Cross International, $291 million.
  42. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, $285 million.
  43. Catholic Medical Mission Board, $281 million.
  44. Alzheimer's Association, $278 million.
  45. Population Services International, $271 million.
  46. Mayo Clinic, $271 million.
  47. Rotary Foundation of Rotary International, $269 million.
  48. Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, $268 million
  49. American Kidney Fund, $265 million.
  50. Operation Blessing International Relief & Dev., $256 million.
  51. American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, $255 million.
  52. Entertainment Industry Foundation, $255 million.
  53. Shriners Hospitals for Children, $248 million.
  54. Susan G. Komen, $242 million.
  55. Project HOPE, $240 million.
  56. Brother's Brother Foundation, $237 million.
  57. American Civil Liberties Union and Foundation, $233 million.
  58. ChildFund International, $230 million.
  59. International Rescue Committee, $228 million.
  60. Young Life, $224 million.
  61. World Wildlife Fund, $222 million.
  62. Easterseals, $221 million.
  63. National Multiple Sclerosis Society, $215 million.
  64. Public Broadcasting Service, $212 million.
  65. Metropolitan Museum of Art, $209 million.
  66. Helen Keller International, $207 million.
  67. Foothill Land Conservancy, $206 million.
  68. JDRF, $199 million.
  69. Smithsonian Institution, 198 million.
  70. UJA/Federation of New York, $195 million.
  71. Teach for America, $194 million.
  72. Scholarship America, $192 million.
  73. Paralyzed Veterans of America, $191 million.
  74. Children International, $188 million.
  75. Matthews 25: Ministries, $185 million.
  76. Harlem Children's Zone, $184 million.
  77. Medical Teams International, $184 million.
  78. ClimateWorks Foundation, $184 million.
  79. Robin Hood Foundation, $183 million.
  80. Wycliffe Bible Translators, $182 million.
  81. March of Dimes Foundation, $181 million.
  82. Humane Society of the United States, $180 million.
  83. United Service Organizations, $179 million.
  84. New York-Presbyterian Hospital,$178 million.
  85. Metropolitan Opera Association, $176 million.
  86. American SPCA, $173 million.
  87. Christian Broadcasting Network, $173 million.
  88. United Negro College Fund, $171 million.
  89. Houston Food Bank, $169 million.
  90. Educational Media Foundation, $162 million.
  91. Project Orbis International, $160 million.
  92. PATH, $158 million.
  93. Museum of the Bible, $156 million.
  94. The Arc, $153 million.
  95. Junior Achievement USA, $150 million.
  96. Smile Train, $150 million.
  97. Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, $149 million.
  98. Cleveland Clinic Foundation, $148 million.
  99. American Museum of Natural History, $140 million.
  100. American Diabetes Association, $140 million.


______________________________________

'Is there a way to prevent collapse? Berwick is concerned we are past the point of no return. Regardless of who runs the U.S., an economic crisis is coming, he says. Stay tuned to hear Berwick’s perspective on how gold, silver, and bitcoin may perform in the coming crisis'.


WE THE PEOPLE are now being made to believe it is China's fault-----it will be Trump's fault-----but it is CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA'S fault as these attacks on the wealth of America has been these few decades long. Here is just one of what is FAKE NEWS investment propaganda----now, call me SUSPICIOUS---but who buys precious metals like gold and silver in a criminal stock market? Do people really think having stock in gold is the same as having a gold brick in our hands? People rushing from a collapsing bond market into gold are being FLEECED OVER AND OVER. We read these few decades that the global 1% have been stock piling all gold and silver -----stashing them in off-shore accounts---in SWISS BANK VAULTS ET AL----our US Fort Knox has been emptied of gold bars. So, the goal of the coming crash IS INDEED the elimination of actual paper cash. Global Wall Street is making money totally VIRTUAL.
Now, the global 1% have all that actual precious metal stock-piled and will indeed continue to have the same global neo-liberal economy now with designer products just for that global 1% and their 2% having REAL MONEY----while the global 99% are pushed to alternative economies like B NOTES--BITCOINS----BARTERING none of which will take because a global labor pool with no sovereignty or rights as citizens will be stable long enough to build alternate economies.
PLEASE STOP ALLOWING THAT 5% TO THE 1% PRETEND MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE will include a 99% of people. We need rolling protests of all 99% for weeks and months in US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones to stop and reverse all these ILLEGAL POLICIES.

Banning Cash & THE GREAT CRASH OF 2017
It's becoming increasingly clear that the move to ban cash is going global. What started with Modi in India is now moving to Australia and Spain, and if peop...
youtube.com



Trump to Collapse the Dollar in 2017? Analyst Sees “Economic Crisis Coming”


Posted on December 31, 2016 by The Doc


 Trump to Collapse the Dollar in 2017? Analyst Sees “Economic Crisis Coming”
The demise of the dollar and the collapse of the economy could impact us in a big way during 2017, or in the near future.


For better or worse, the age of Trump could soon become synonymous with financial crisis on a scale that has never before been seen.
The system is looking for a scapegoat, for someone to blame, as a massive debt bubble – across several industries – threatens to burst, and a host of other systemic financial problems threaten to collapse down upon us.



From Mac Slavo:
via the Silver Doctors:


Jeff Berwick from Dollar Vigilante joins Silver Doctors with a word of warning. A Trump presidency will bring with it an economic crisis and collapse of the U.S. dollar, Berwick says.


Is there a way to prevent collapse? Berwick is concerned we are past the point of no return. Regardless of who runs the U.S., an economic crisis is coming, he says. Stay tuned to hear Berwick’s perspective on how gold, silver, and bitcoin may perform in the coming crisis.


Trump to Collapse the Dollar?: Jeff Berwick


Subscribe for free to the SD YouTube channel
As SGT Report notes, the heavy-handed controls on cash are part of this game, and a very strong indicator that the powers that be are clamping down, and won’t be satisfied until there is total control over individuals who will be forced onto the digital, cashless grid that will bring surveillance, fees and limits into every transaction.

via SGT Report:
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the move to ban cash is going global. What started with Modi in India is now moving to Australia and Spain, and if people don’t revolt en masse and soon, the passivity of these populations with embolden the Federal Reserve and bankers to ban cash in the United States. And while the tyranny against cash only grows, the global bond bubble is beginning to pop – with many experts predicting total systemic collapse in 2017, and possibly as soon as January.

0 Comments

May 19th, 2017

5/19/2017

0 Comments

 
The BRIC nations---Brazil, Russia, India, China all have that global 1% who became extremely rich these few decades of global neo-liberal empire-building.  These were the nations buying and selling all that global Wall Street fraud such as subprime mortgage loan fraud---sovereign debt fraud---and whose banking soared in profits from doing the same to their sovereign citizens.  No one knows better the ROBBER BARON criminality in US, UK global banking so after that 2008 economic crash these BRIC nations took the money and ran---creating a separate global economy free from Western criminal markets.  Indeed, their criminality didn't stop---they are still fleecing their 99% trying to keep all new wealth to themselves.  These families are often tied to the same OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE and in Asia that was the SPICE/SILK TRADE ROUTES two thousand years old.  When we see leaders in BRAZIL, RUSSIA, INDIA, CHINA we see as in US and UK leaders tied to the OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE.

THE NEW WORLD ORDER is simply returning to those societal structures existing two thousand years ago---that is why we call it MOVING FORWARD BACK TO THE DARK AGES.  These Asian leaders were happy to help US/UK leaders bring the American people and their wealth down to achieve MOVING FORWARD because they want to return to that same GLOBAL 1% AND THEIR 2% BEING EXTREMELY WEALTHY AND 99% BEING EXTREMELY IMPOVERISHED AND ENSLAVED.  The global 99% are that ENEMY OF MY ENEMY for the global 1%--

JOINING TO KEEP THE GLOBAL 99% UNSTABLE AND POOR---THESE GLOBAL 1% WILL CONTINUE TO FIGHT TO KEEP AND GAIN THE OTHER'S  WEALTH



'It’s also important to keep in mind that since China holds such a large position in U.S. debt, the nation has a vested interest in maintaining the health of the Treasury market. Naturally, this provides ample motivation for China to avoid any action that would cause Treasury prices to plunge'.


'The bottom line: the soaring level of U.S. debt is problematic, and to many citizens, the high percentage of Treasuries now owned by a rising economic rival is even more troublesome'.

No one knows better than the global investors in US Treasury bonds that the goal is imploding the US economy and killing the US DOLLAR.



Bonds

How Much U.S. Debt Does China Own?
By Thomas Kenny
Updated November 06, 2016




China's Large Position in U.S. Treasuries

The United States’ debt load has risen substantially since the start of the millennium raising concerns about the country’s long-term financial health. But who owns all of this debt? A nation’s debt is, after all, the total of bonds that the country has issued. Given the size of the U.S. debt – $17.6 trillion as of June 30, 2014 - it should come as no surprise that the largest investors in U.S. Treasuries are other governments and central banks.


China, which owned an estimated $1.268 trillion in U.S. Treasuries, is the number-one investor among foreign governments, according to the June 2014 figures released by the U.S. Treasury. This amounts to over 21% of the U.S. debt held overseas and about 7.2% of the United States’ total debt load.

Why These Big Numbers Aren't Necessarily a Problem


There are two reasons why China’s huge investment in U.S. government bonds has stirred controversy in recent years.


First, if the country stops buying or elects to sell even a small portion of its position, Treasury prices would fall and yields would rise. The result of higher rates, in turn, would likely be slower economic growth and higher borrowing costs for the U.S. government.


Second, China’s huge Treasury position is seen as leaving the United States economically vulnerable to the decisions of a foreign government.
That may seem like a potential danger until you consider why China is buying so much U.S. debt. The reason is highly technical in nature, but the short answer is that China is buying Treasuries to help depress the value of its currency (the yuan). A cheaper yuan makes the country's exports less expensive for foreign buyers, thereby keeping the country’s export-based economy chugging along.


Consequently, the Chinese economy would suffer as much, if not more than, that of the United States if China were to suddenly stop buying U.S. debt.


It’s also important to keep in mind that since China holds such a large position in U.S. debt, the nation has a vested interest in maintaining the health of the Treasury market. Naturally, this provides ample motivation for China to avoid any action that would cause Treasury prices to plunge.


Having said that, China did utilize its large position in Japanese government bonds to influence discussions surrounding Japan's purchase of disputed islands during September 2012. In addition, the Chinese government felt compelled to comment on the U.S. debt ceiling debate in October 2013. With under two weeks to go until the United States would have exceeded the limit, thus raising the possibility of a default, China's Vice Foreign Minister, Zhu Guangyao, warned U.S. politicians that "the clock is ticking" and said, “We ask that the United States earnestly takes steps to resolve in a timely way the political issues around the debt ceiling and prevent a U.S. debt default to ensure the safety of Chinese investments in the United States.” This helps demonstrate that China may indeed try to influence the course of events in the United States when it feels its interests are threatened.


What if China is Forced to Stop Buying U.S. Treasuries?


One aspect of China's economy argues against its being able to invest as much in Treasuries as it did in the 1990s and 2000s. For years, China generated a massive amount of dollar earnings by virtue of its trade surplus with the United States. These dollars need to be invested somewhere, and the U.S. Treasury market – due to its enormous size – was one of the few places that China could recycle its surplus greenbacks without disrupting the market. Today, however, China's trade surplus is shrinking – and that means fewer dollars to invest in Treasuries.


Don't Overemphasize Global Trends
The bottom line: the soaring level of U.S. debt is problematic, and to many citizens, the high percentage of Treasuries now owned by a rising economic rival is even more troublesome.


While  there is little reason to expect that China will engage in any actions that would amount to economic warfare, it may nonetheless be compelled to buy fewer Treasuries due to its decreasing trade surplus.
That said, individual investors are always better served by constructing their bond portfolios based on their own specific situation rather than news headlines or broader global trends.

_______________________________________


TPP designed by far-right wing global Wall Street is controlled by BUSH neo-conservatives and continued by Clinton neo-liberals-----OBAMA AS BUSH CHAMPIONED TPP. What TPP tries to do is bring Asian nations tied to several decades of Foreign Economic development to these ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE structures isolating the large economies like Russia, China, India, and Brazil----see why BRICS was created! The leaders in smaller nations like Brunei, Chile, Peru, Singapor, Vietnam are only billionaires because global Wall Street made them extremely rich. If a China, India, Brazil, Russia takes over these small nations these leaders would simply be that 99%. As Western nations are taken down to third world ancient regime structures with MOVING FORWARD FAR-RIGHT LIBERTARIAN MARXISM----these nations will sit back and watch trying to secure its trade routes and empire.
Canada, New Zealand, US, UK, and Europe are all captured by OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE as too Chile, Brazil, and Peru-----remember, the North and South America's are simply the same OLD WORLD COLONIES to those OLD WORLD GLOBAL 1%!

While China supported the global 1% Wall Street in keeping its 99% impoverished and enslaved----it will be maneuvering to bring the Koreas, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, AND Japan into as ASIAN TRADE ECONOMY and likely will. Does global Wall Street know this?
OF COURSE---THEY WERE JUST USING THESE ASIAN NATIONS TO EXPAND EMPIRE AND WEALTH.


'The countries currently party to the agreement — currently including Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, most critically Japan and potentially Korea '


The global 1% are simply rebuilding that OLD WORLD TRADE ROUTE structure with North and South America being made colonial city states tied to global corporate tribunal rule.

 Is Trump throwing those small Asian and Latin American nations having been reliable Foreign Economic Zones these several decades UNDER THE BUS? We can be sure CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA were tied to that OLD WORLD MERCHANT GLOBAL 1%-----




Wonkblog
Everything you need to know about the Trans Pacific Partnership

By Lydia DePillis December 11, 2013
Play Video 1:18
 Brockell/Photo: ERIK S. LESSER/The Washington Post)




If you're just now hearing about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, don't worry: It's not too late to get up to speed. Negotiations over the huge trade agreement — which, when finished, will govern 40 percent of U.S.' imports and exports — were supposed to wrap up this past weekend in Singapore, but, well, they didn't quite make that deadline, which means meetings will likely continue into the new year.


You'd also be forgiven for not hearing about it: The talks, as with all trade agreements, have been conducted largely in secret. Global health advocates, environmentalists, Internet activists and trade unions have deep concerns about what the deal might contain, and are making as much noise as possible in order to influence negotiations before a final version becomes public. Here's what you need to know.


1. What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership? 


Basically, it's a giant free trade deal between the U.S., Canada, and 10 countries in the Asia-Pacific region that's been under negotiation for nearly a decade now (it began as an agreement between Singapore, Chile, New Zealand and Brunei before the U.S. took the lead in 2009). It's expected to eliminate tariffs on goods and services, tear down a host of non-tariff barriers and harmonize all sorts of regulations when it's finished early next year.



2. Giant, huh? How giant? 


The countries currently party to the agreement — currently including Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, most critically Japan and potentially Korea — are some of the U.S.' biggest and fastest-growing commercial partners, accounting for $1.5 trillion worth of trade in goods in 2012 and $242 billion worth of services in 2011. They're responsible for 40 percent of the world's GDP and 26 percent of the world's trade. That makes it roughly the same size as the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, another huge trade agreement that got rolling this past summer. The hope is that more countries in the region will join down the line.
__________________________________

As we read national media describe US-China relations in South China Sea we can see where these Asian alliances are falling back to a consolidated Asian trade economy. All those small Asian nations used by global Wall Street as Foreign Economic Zones creating a super-rich global 1% in Asia are now folding back into centralized control and their own ASIAN TRADE ROUTES.
While OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE/ROMAN EMPIRE make economic colonies of North and South America-----the OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF ASIAN EMPIRE are consolidating what are Asian nations into colonies. Each US CITY AS FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE will be an independent economic colony ruled by that global corporate tribunal. The boundaries between South America, Central America, US, and Canada are slated to disappear as the Foreign Economic Zones in these regions also fall under that same global corporate tribunal rule.
WE THE PEOPLE will return to being OLD WORLD COLONISTS as too the global citizens in nations surrounding China.

Why Did China's Navy Gain Use of a Malaysia Port Near the South China Sea?

The recent move needs to be put in proper perspective.

By Prashanth Parameswaran
November 24, 2015
 


Over the past few days, some alarmist reports have surfaced about Chinese navy receiving access to a Malaysian port near the South China Sea. As is the case with much sensationalist reporting, caution is warranted and perspective is needed.

The brouhaha can be traced back to an agreement reached on November 10 between Admiral Wu Shengli, the commander of the People’s Liberation Army – Navy (PLAN), and Admiral Abdul Aziz Jaafar who until last week was the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) chief. Wu was leading a goodwill visit by a 12-member Chinese military delegation to Malaysia as part of a broader three-nation visit which also included Indonesia and the Maldives. The trip itself was significant: as Abdul Aziz noted, it was the first ever-visit by a PLAN commander to Malaysia.

Few specifics have been made publicly available about the pact itself. But Malaysian media reports indicate that an agreement was made by the two sides to give China stopover access to the port of Kota Kinabalu to strengthen defense ties between both countries.


First, it is important to stress that this kind of port access is a pretty routine affair. In general, allowing a ship to dock at a port for a break to load or unload, obtain supplies, or undergo repairs is a fairly standard process. The idea of Chinese ships at Kota Kinabalu is also not new. Back in August 2013, the Zhenghe, a PLAN training vessel, had already docked at the harbor in Kota Kinabalu to begin a five-day goodwill visit to the country. So, if anything, the agreement represents the formalization of access rather than some sort of groundbreaking entry.


Second, such port access is not equivalent to basing rights, contrary to what some reports have suggested. An access agreement would allow the Chinese navy to dock for a break in Kota Kinabalu for the various reasons cited above – nothing more. Equating this as part of some Chinese ‘basing strategy’ is rather dubious. In addition to being out of step with Malaysian foreign policy which avoids too close of an alignment with any major power, it would also be a tad bit strange to allow a foreign country who has outstanding disputes with Malaysia to have a base there since Kota Kinabalu also houses Malaysia’s regional naval headquarters and the country’s submarine base (See: “Malaysia Eyes Submarine Base Expansion Near South China Sea”).



Third, this port access is not something that has only been given to China. As Abdul Aziz, the then-Malaysian naval chief, emphasized to Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama, a number of other countries including the United States and France have already previously docked in the Malaysian port. In fact, before conducting the recent U.S. freedom of navigation operation within 12 nautical miles of one of China’s controversial man-made islands in the South China Sea on October 27, the USS Lassen had docked in Kota Kinabalu for a regular port visit on October 19 after a routine South China Sea patrol.


How, then, should we read Malaysia’s granting of port access to China? According to Abdul Aziz himself, the move was part of a broader effort to enhance defense relations between the two countries’ navies to “overcome problems and issues relating to overlapping border claims.” He was no doubt referring to the South China Sea disputes, in which both China and Malaysia are claimants.


His comments are consistent with Malaysia’s broader approach to China and the South China Sea, which I have explored in detail previously (See: “Malaysia’s South China Sea Approach: Playing it Safe”). Despite bolder and more frequent Chinese incursions into its waters and some adjustments, Malaysia is determined to manage the South China Sea dispute while keeping its overall relationship with China intact, including in the defense realm (See: “How is Malaysia Responding to China’s South China Sea Intrusion?”). Just last year, Malaysia and China carried out their first ever joint military exercise (See: “Malaysia, China Begin First Joint Military Exercise”). That was expanded significantly this year (See: “China, Malaysia to Hold First Ever Joint Live Troop Exercise”).



In that vein, the aim of granting port access to countries including China, a Malaysian official familiar with the matter told The Diplomat, is meant to function more as a confidence-building measure amid outstanding disputes. Abdul Aziz himself spelled out how this might work, noting that allowing Beijing such access would also provide an opportunity to learn from Chinese methods of operation and about Chinese submarines that could be docking there. This, he said, was in line with the government’s aspiration to adopt the best solution to secure peace and security in the South China Sea. While one might not be convinced about the wisdom of such an approach, it is nonetheless one Malaysia has chosen to adopt.


What’s in it for China?


First, there is no doubt that having access to more ports in strategic locations is good for any nation because they can serve as supply stops along the way. Second, the Malaysian official also noted that for Beijing, symbolically such an agreement does put it on par with Washington in terms of the access to the port and its strategic presence in those waters more generally.


Third, it could also provide Beijing with an opportunity to shore up its image, consistent with the confidence-building motive on Malaysia’s end. In addition to serving as breaks for ships and sailors, port visits have long functioned as a confidence-building measure to boost familiarity. For instance, when the USS Lassen recently docked in Kota Kinabalu, sailors participated in cultural tours around the area while local dignitaries were given guided tours of the ship.

China already sees its naval presence as a ‘soft power’ instrument, which is why it is misleading to only focus on the military aspects of Beijing’s moves. It is no coincidence that these two Chinese naval goodwill visits in 2013 and 2015 occurred prior to Chinese leaders’ visits to Malaysia, or that Beijing has emphasized Zheng He’s voyages in the 15th century during the Ming Dynasty in both cases (Zhenghe, the PLA training vessel, docking in Kota Kinabalu in 2013 before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit, and Chinese premier Li Keqiang visiting the Zheng He Museum in Malacca during his recent visit).


For China, Zheng’s legendary seven voyages of trade and discovery are testaments to Beijing’s benign intentions toward its neighbors, and Malaysia – where he is believed to have visited at least five times – is a perfect place to illustrate this. “Today, when we look back at that past episode in China-Malaysia exchanges, we also admire Zheng He for what he had not done,” Li wrote in an op-ed published November 20 in major Malaysian newspapers ahead of his visit, noting that Zheng He had not plundered or colonized despite commanding what was then the most powerful fleet in the world.


There is substance behind that symbolism too. Among the deliverables that Li’s visit produced were the establishment of a port alliance between China and Malaysia. The two countries have already seen several of their ports ink cooperation agreements with each other as well as the appointment of a special envoy for Malaysian ports to China in recognition of the promise of the Maritime Silk Road. All this is to emphasize that for Beijing as well as Kuala Lumpur, ports hold much more than just military significance.


For now, Abdul Aziz told The Straits Times that with respect to the port access agreement, the PLA Navy “has noted the offer, but no indication yet” has been given on when it may begin to dock at Kota Kinabalu. When it begins to do so, it will be important to keep its significance in perspective.

______________________________________
Global Wall Street being far-right extreme wealth and extreme poverty see Singapore and China as the societal structure a colonial US  re-industrialization would take.  Global Wall Street is moving out of ASIAN FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES and MOVING FORWARD to colonizing Africa and US with what used to be global corporate campuses and global factories in these ASIAN NATIONS.  Global Wall Street and the global 1% of Asian nations are not fighting over these transitions----it was designed several decades ago when Asian Foreign Economic Zone policies were developed.  This is why US cities having US manufacturing moving overseas were allowed to simply DECAY AND REMAIN STAGNANT instead of rebuilding US city local economies.  There is no tension between US, UK, European global 1% and these Asian global 1% MOVING FORWARD NEW WORLD ORDER.

Now, are the 1% inside each of these small Asian nations feeling tension?  You betcha---just as in US that pesky 5% to the 1% are getting ready to be thrown under the bus.


THE SOCIETAL TENSIONS OCCURRING IN THE NEXT DECADE OR TWO WILL BE INTERNAL AS THAT PESKY 5% AND THAT 2% ARE THROWN UNDER THE BUS.





12/02/2016

China wants to turn Singapore into its mouthpiece

Bloomberg News reported on 1 Dec some comments by Bilahari Kausikan on the recent spat between China and Singapore.

“This is not the first time Singapore ships equipment from Taiwan through Hong Kong,” said Bilahari Kausikan, an ambassador-at-large for Singapore. The fact this particular consignment was picked up shows China wants to “send a signal


not only to us, but to all” Southeast Asian nations. China’s long-term strategy is to turn Singapore into an ally and “mouthpiece” for its positions, he said.



I am not sure whether Bilahari said the above in the capacity of an ambassador or as an ordinary citizen. The comments are likely to irk China again and may draw some flakes. At this point in time, with the heat still on, Singapore officials especially diplomats and ambassadors should be more careful in what they said. Maybe there is already an official position to take.
There are two schools of thought on this. The more garang and brave group that could not understand the meaning of ‘牛存不示虎’, literary translated as little calf did not know what is a tiger, would be egging the govt to be strong, to stand up, look China into the eyes, to tell China we cannot be bullied. The more mature and sensible group would recommend not to aggravate the situation by talking cock, oops, I mean talking tough. Talk reasons in a reasonable and respectful manner and try to resolve the issue as amicably as possible. But looking at the tense situation, this is unlikely.


If Bilahari is speaking in his capacity as an ambassador, it is likely that this is an official position and his choice of words was precise and intended. If he is speaking in his private capacity, then he can talk all the cock he wants and Vivian would just say in Parliament when questioned that he need not have to waste his time discussing about what a private citizen said.

Would China send a note to the MFA demanding an explanation and would Vivian said, stuff it? Whichever, these comments are not helpful except to prove that Singapore got balls to stand up to China, to punch above its weight. The consequences for such bravado would be for the people to bear.

There is a time and place to be tough and principled. There are times when talking cock would look silly and incur strong reactions. Without good men in charge, the lack of wisdom is glaring.

____________________________________________


Modern India has thousands of years of being occupied by more powerful neighbors ------while that Indian 1% are closely tied to the OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE BRITISH OCCUPATION which direction it takes in this NEW WORLD ORDER must have our East Indian 99% concerned. This is why India did not sign onto Trans Pacific Trade Pact and is visibly angry at seeing all those Foreign Economic Zone connections with US fading as in other Asian nations -------
AS TRUMP SHOUTS 'NO' TO TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT EVERYTHING IS MOVING FORWARD IN US CITIES AS FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES AND COLONIAL RE-STRUCTURING OF NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA.


How big a role did ancient India play on the Silk Road?

A BBC documentary depicts that raw silk from China was put to wonderful fabric in India, and it was these fabric that made silk in high demand in the West. Can anyone elaborate on this?


Balaji Viswanathan
Balaji Viswanathan, Indian by Birth. Indian by Thought.
Answered 3 Apr 2015




India, Persia and central Asian empires all played key intermediaries in the Silk Road as China and Rome didn't have a direct relationship during the Classical age [Sino-Roman relations]. Rome knew China only through its products and China abstractly knew Rome as a major power rivaling China in size. However, key direct contacts failed due to the great distance.


Silk Road was not a road per se, but a collection of routes through central, south, south east and west Asia. It includes the Ancient tea route (between Sichuan, Yunnan, Burma and Bengal), Incense Route, Spice route, maritime silk road through the Indian ocean and the land route through Kashgar in central Asia. Other than the land route through the central Asia, India was a part of other routes.


Some key ways India contributed:



Buddhist link: One key commonality with most of the silk routes is the spread of Buddhism. While the silk road is a little older than Buddhism, trade was at its peak at the height of Buddhism. In all the key routes, India was able to spread its culture through the route. In fact, some historians believe the key contribution of Silk Road was not silk, but the cultural connections. Silk Road transmission of Buddhism


Roman relationships: As mentioned earlier, the distance & geography meant that China and Rome never was in direct contact. However, India maintained a strong relationship with both. With Rome, there was a variety of trade links [ Indo-Roman trade relations] and with China there was a deep cultural link in the Buddhist golden age. Thus, India was able to understand the consumer tastes of both.


Central Asia-Indian links: Under the Kushan empire of Kanishka and the Parthians who ruled some parts of northwest India, north India and many parts of central Asia were under a common union as the Kushans rode into the post-Mauryan India. Kushans played a key connector in the ancient silk route.

_________________________________________
What made Western nations different than OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF ASIA AND NEAR/FAR EAST was the revolutions of Russia, Europe, and Americas. We discussed at length these policies as the declining MERCHANTS OF VENICE angry over the KINGS AND QUEENS shifting that ancient SPICE/SILK TRADE ROUTE to trade routes to COLONIAL AMERICAS stirred the 99% into revolutions to bring down those royalty taking all that royal wealth for themselves. These are the OLD WORLD JEWISH AND CATHOLIC MERCHANTS OF VENICE---not religious but tied to ANCIENT FREEMASONRY and secret societies. While citizens in these nations gained in wealth and freedom over 300 years----those ANCIENT OLD WORLD OF VENICE FREEMASONS now see themselves as those KINGS AND QUEENS. This is behind the fall of Europe, the American nations---into a ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE COLONIZATION. Same thing as KINGS AND QUEENS----only OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE as the colonizers.
Now, when the European KINGS AND QUEENS flipped trading routes to the AMERICAS----the declining OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE were not the only global 1% and their 2% killed---those ASIAN SPICE AND SILK ROUTE empires and 1% were thrown into decline as well. Their trade and economy died these several centuries now being rebuilt by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA----when folks ask---why would CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA want to bring down a thriving, strong first world quality of life US----this is the answer----these OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% RELATE TO THE OLD WORLD RICH and not WE THE PEOPLE.

The OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE tied to these ANCIENT FREEMASONRY groups see themselves as global 1% trading with global 1% as in old times----with extreme wealth extreme poverty and a 99% as slaves and serfs----that is where MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE US CITIES AS FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES leads.


All of those societal shifts outlined in this article is what MOVING FORWARD back to the DARK AGES will try it erase


What triggered the chain of revolutions circa the 1700s?
e.g. The French revolution, the American revolution, the Glorious Revolution, the Haitian revolution...



Promoted by The Great Courses Plus
Learn about American History from those that teach it.

Michael Cardinal
Michael Cardinal, Man for All Seasons
Answered Jul 12, 2011


A single trigger does not really exist for all the revolutions, rather several larger factors contributed to the chain of revolutions:


Protestant Reformation (1500's-1600's): Fundamental shift in religion that had long term ramifications and led ultimately to the English Civil War (1640's) which in turn led to the Glorious Revolution of 1688



Social Shift (1600's): Related to the shift in religion, a general resurgence of conservative values emerged following the openness of the Renaissance (this cycle has repeated itself throughout history). This would also help to end the slave trade which factored in the Haitian Revolution. This factored into the Witch Hunts of the 1600's as well.


Intellectual Shift (1500's-1700's): The printing of the Gutenberg Bible opened the floodgates for mass publication, increasing the availability and profusion of knowledge. Again the English Civil War, Glorious Revolution and Americana and French Revolutions came into play here.


Economic Shift (1400's-1700's): Beginning with the advent of paper based credit (money) for the trade of goods during the Renaissance, the general level of distributed wealth increased and lead to economic bubbles that impacted colonial trade (e.g. the Boston Tea Party resulted from the economic bubble that hit the East India Company).


Balance of Power Shift (1400's-1600's): The arrival into Europe of large amounts of gold and trade goods from the New World caused a power shift initially towards Spain, then France and England. This allowed for the emergence of new power families like the Hapsburgs. The increase in wealth and power caused discontent and dissatisfaction and new jealousies among the poor. This played into the French Revolution.


Geographic Shift (1400's-1700's):
The Age of Exploration and the Age of Colonization followed by the Age of Imperialism all added to the global presence of new peoples and powers. The Seven Year's War and the American Revolution were both part of this larger set of movements that caused countries to vie for power.


_____________________________________________


Here is the Hillary connected Foreign Economic Zone installation in Myanmar----these several years have seen that global labor pool brought into these global sweat shop factories----as global corporations are brought back to US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones----US workers will be these Mynamar 99% along with the flooding of US cities with global labor pool by the tens of millions----


Workers strike over wage demands

By Noe Noe Aung   |   Wednesday, 30 November -0001



More than 12,000 striking workers from 30 Yangon factories gathered in Hlaing Tharyar township on June 9 to protest against their wages and working conditions, and to reiterate their strike demands. Among their complaints was employers’ defiance of decisions made by the Dispute Settlement Arbitration Council.


Factory workers protesting in Hlaing Tharyar township on June 9.. (Boothee/The Myanmar Times)




Other demands included a basic daily wage of K3000 per day, and an end to dismissals without cause and to compulsory overtime.


“When the factory owner fired six of us, the Dispute Settlement Arbitration Council decided we should be rehired and paid compensation for the days lost. But when we tried to go back to work, the factory owner said he couldn’t accept the decision,” Ma Khin Htay Yee, a worker at Htaik Tan Myanmar garment factory, told The Myanmar Times.


She added that in January workers protested because the owner had not raised wages as promised, but then they went back to work anyway. “Only six of us stayed out, and the owner then fired us for protesting.”
Ko Zaw Zaw Tun, a worker at Bo San pipe factory, said he and his colleagues were upset at being forced to work overtime.


“Workers don’t want to work overtime every day. We have to work day and night, and have no time for our personal lives. But without overtime we don’t earn enough to live on,” he said.




“Negotiations went on for months without a solution. ... Last month labour ministry officials got involved but they couldn’t solve the problem either. They told us to go to the Dispute Settlement Arbitration Council but the council referred us to the township-level dispute settlement board.”


Activists say basic factory wages are too low, and have to be supplemented by bonuses and overtime. Some workers also demand action against owners who defy decisions of the Dispute Settlement Arbitration Council by refusing to allow successful claimants back to work.


“The council decided in my favour after I was fired. Workers from our factory are now demanding a wage increase,” said Ma Hla Hla, who works in the Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone.


Ma Hla Hla, who has been working at the factory for four years, said her take-home salary is K50,000. She pays K30,000 a month in rent and can barely support her family.



But U Myat Thin Aung, president of Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone’s management committee, said in a meeting in May that factory owners could not pay more wages because they were facing electricity shortages and increases in the prices of materials and imported goods.

U Aye Tun, managing director of Aung Thein Than and secretary of the Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone management committee, said that while salaries are low the Dispute Settlement Arbitration Council’s decisions were too favourable for workers.


“Officials from the council always talk to the owner when they negotiate a dispute but they make the owner fulfil the workers’ demands as much as possible. I think the council should use a standard payment system to resolve the disputes,” he said.
He said both sides needed to show “understanding and transparency”.


“Workers should understand the conditions and difficulties of the owners and owners should understand the lives of the workers as well,” he said. “I think most of the protests occur because of lack of transparency between owners and workers.”


But U Win Shein, director of the Department of Factories and General Labour Laws Inspection Department, said government bodies were doing their best to resolve the disputes fairly.


“We are trying to resolve the situation between workers and owners by negotiating in the factory or at the township-level dispute settlement boards. If the dispute is not solved at these levels, we can go to the Dispute Settlement Arbitration Council and even to the district-level dispute resolution office in accordance with the new Settlement of Labour Disputes law,” U Win Shein said.


“Government officials from the relevant department are trying to resolve disputes between workers and owners. They solve problems fairly.”

___________________________________________

Global UnderArmour et al the global garment corporations will be leaving these Asian Foreign Economic Zone and building just the same in US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones as Baltimore. These same conditions will exist for US workers and again our US cities will be flooded with tens of millions of global labor pool. If you don't like it LEAVE we already hear----when global corporations kill all local economies as CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA made sure to do----if massive global Wall Street frauds fleece US citizens of wealth and assets while imploding the US dollar in massive debt just so only the global 1% will have access to money---

WHERE IN THE WORLD DOES A 99% OF US CITIZENS GO?


In Wage Protest, Hundreds of Garment Workers Block Road


by Buth Kimsay | May 18, 2017 | អានជាភាសាខ្មែរ


More than 1,000 garment workers from a factory in Kandal province’s Takhmao City blocked a public road on Wednesday in protest over unpaid wages that have left them struggling to afford food and pay their rents, a union official said.


Employees of the Gawon Apparel factory had not received their wages on May 10, the traditional monthly payday, and gathered on nearby Road 21 in Takhmao commune, said factory worker Ran Bora, a representative of the Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union.


Some workers complained of being unable to make payments on loans taken out from microfinance institutions—renowned for high interest rates and late payment charges—and others had problems affording basic necessities and accommodations, Mr. Bora said.
“Workers need money to pay their rent bill and food. That’s why they came out to block the road to demand the factory owner pay their wages,” he said.

Mr. Bora said that workers blocked the road starting at about 7:30 a.m. to alert authorities to their plight, who could then pressure the factory’s owner, South Korean national Cha Kyeong-hee, to pay their wages.


The protest ended at about 2:30 p.m. after Ms. Kyeong-hee came to negotiate with the workers, offering each $50 and promising to pay the remainder of their wages by Saturday evening, an offer the workers accepted, Mr. Bora said.


Kris Chan Tha, a factory supervisor, said that Ms. Kyeong-hee had already offered $20 to each worker on May 12, which had been flatly rejected and led to a small protest that night, which was called off after darkness fell.


“On the 12th, our workers blocked the road for a short time because the company failed to pay April’s salary,” Mr. Chan Tha said.

May Nimith, the factory’s administration director, said on Wednesday that the late payments were due to a cash flow problem and a lack of orders.

“The factory hasn’t shipped the products to the new buyer that recently ordered them yet. That’s why the factory hasn’t received the payment yet,” Mr. Nimith said.


According to the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, Gawon registered with the government in 2005 and has 1,400 employees in Takhmao.
_______________________________________


Global UnderArmour et al the global garment corporations will be leaving these Asian Foreign Economic Zone and building just the same in US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones as Baltimore. These same conditions will exist for US workers and again our US cities will be flooded with tens of millions of global labor pool. If you don't like it LEAVE we already hear----when global corporations kill all local economies as CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA made sure to do----if massive global Wall Street frauds fleece US citizens of wealth and assets while imploding the US dollar in massive debt just so only the global 1% will have access to money---WHERE IN THE WORLD DOES A 99% OF US CITIZENS GO?



What builds density in US cities of global labor pool ---pretending there will be $15 an hour.



California Moves Toward $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage

Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed to state Legislature increasing pay floor to that level by 2022

Fast-food workers and their supporters demonstrate in favor of higher wages at a McDonald’s in Los Angeles in November. Photo: lucy nicholson/Reuters


By
Alejandro Lazo and
Eliot Brown

March 27, 2016 5:54 p.m. ET


California appears poised to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has told leaders in the Democratic-controlled state Legislature he supports boosting the state’s minimum wage to $15 by 2022, a person familiar with the matter said. The approach would give the governor some control over an issue that looked set to be decided directly by voters in November.

Moving ahead with the plan would give the most populous U.S. state the nation’s highest minimum pay floor. The minimum wage in California is now $10 an hour, already one of the highest of any state, though some cities have set higher minimum levels.

The deal proposed to California lawmakers by the Democratic governor, reported earlier by the Los Angeles Times, comes after one of two labor-sponsored initiatives to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour qualified for the November 2016 ballot.


A wage of $15 an hour—about $30,000 a year for full-time workers—has become a rallying cry by many on the left in recent years, with intensity rising amid concerns about economic inequality.

Fast-food workers and unions have pushed for wage hikes to that level in numerous states, and Sen. Bernie Sanders has made a $15 an hour federal minimum wage a plank of his presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination, has endorsed a $12-an-hour federal minimum wage. The federal level is $7.25 an hour, unchanged since 2009.


Mr. Brown signed a minimum-wage hike in 2013, though he has recently cautioned against further increases. In his January budget proposal, the governor said raising the minimum wage to $15 too quickly would return the state to annual deficits and could exacerbate economic woes by raising costs for businesses.


But labor unions in the state pressed ahead with signature-gathering efforts to place competing measures on the November 2016 ballot. A poll by Field Research Corp. in August 2015 showed 68% of Californians were in favor of raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2021.


Last week, one of the labor-sponsored measures, circulated by the Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers West, qualified for the ballot. That proposal would have raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2021.


“If a California minimum wage bill passes and is signed into law by the governor, we will take a careful look at it and our executive board will decide what to do with our ballot initiative,” said Steve Trossman, the union’s public-affairs director.


Until now, efforts had largely been focused on the local level. Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco have all opted to phase in $15-an-hour minimum wages in coming years.


States appear to be the next battleground. Lawmakers in New York are in advanced discussions to bring that state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, from $9 now. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, is trying to include a vote in the Legislature on the measure as part of the state’s budget, due April 1, although details are still under negotiation.


The proposed increases have met resistance from business groups and Republicans—including presidential front-runner Donald Trump —who say they will lead to fewer jobs for low-skilled Americans. Critics say they are an inefficient way to help the poor, as many minimum-wage earners are high-school students or others without dependents.


Of particular concern is the magnitude of the proposed increase. Previous hikes have generally been more gradual, and large swaths of big states like California have a low cost of living and fragile economies.


“I think there’s going to be job loss everywhere,” said David Neumark, an economist at the University of California, Irvine. “You get out of the big cities and California is not a rich place at all.”


The plan, which was outlined to legislative leaders by Mr. Brown’s office last week, would raise the wage from $10 an hour to $10.50 on Jan. 1, 2017, followed by a 50-cent increase in 2018, the person familiar with the proposal said. Yearly $1 increases would continue through 2022, the person said.


Businesses with fewer than 25 employees would be given an extra year to comply with the increases, the person said. Starting in 2024, any further increases would be based on the federal consumer-price index. The proposed legislation would give the governor the power to block some of the initial increases in the event of a recession, this person said.
If the California increase moves forward, it would represent the second time this year that labor leaders have pressured a Western governor to raise minimum pay by using the initiative process.


In March, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, signed a landmark minimum-wage law that makes that state the first in the nation to mandate higher pay in cities than rural areas. The law, which enacts a series of minimum-wage increases through 2022—with the level set to reach $14.75 an hour in Portland—was proposed by the governor after labor officials and activists in that state also proposed minimum-wage ballot initiatives.


Gabe Horwitz, economic program vice president at Third Way, a left-center Think Tank in Washington, said California’s approach is “blunt” compared with the tiered increases Oregon passed.


“Fifteen dollars an hour may work in places like San Francisco or Los Angeles, but it could have very different economic effects in some of the very rural areas in the state,” Mr. Horwitz said. “Oregon took that into effect and adjusted their wage to address fears that a big-city minimum wage would destroy jobs in low-cost small towns.”
_______________________________________________
Whereas we do not agree with every economic stance of ZERO HEDGE----they have these several years of Obama and Clinton neo-liberal economic policy been the most honest and true to reality.
Ben Bernanke and the US FED came to office in 2009 to bring this coming SOVEREIGN DEBT COLLAPSE---it was deliberate. As this article states it was designed to take US to colonial status---it will not look like last century's GREAT DEPRESSION. The global 1% will be the only winners. As much as national media sold the idea of AN ECONOMIC RECOVERY during these several years of Obama---there never was---we have been in recession heading for depression. The only economic gains of any lasting value went to the global 1%.
WE THE PEOPLE must stop allowing global Wall Street 5% to the 1% players pretend to be our populist leaders. Get engaged in politics---educate on REAL left social progressive policy AND GET RID OF ALL GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS. There will be NO $15 AN HOUR in this coming economic collapse.

Zero Hedge is a global Wall Street player----this is why he does not give a left progressive stance of fighting and reversing these ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE policies----we should definitely not be depressed or overwhelmed but we do not want MOVING FORWARD because there is no opportunity for 99% of WE THE PEOPLE........


'Look for the opportunity side of the crisis. The Chinese symbol for "crisis" is a combination of two other symbols - one for danger and one for opportunity'.


 The OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE global 1% already have all those 2% they need and they will be throwing those 2% under the bus if SMART CITIES technology creates a DEEP STATE.

"The Greater Depression Has Started" - Comparing 1930s & Today
by Tyler Durden
Apr 9, 2016 7:35 PM


Submitted by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,


You've heard the axiom "History repeats itself." It does, but never in exactly the same way. To apply the lessons of the past, we must understand the differences of the present.


During the American Revolution, the British came prepared to fight a successful war—but against a European army. Their formations, which gave them devastating firepower, and their red coats, which emphasized their numbers, proved the exact opposite of the tactics needed to fight a guerrilla war.


Before World War I, generals still saw the cavalry as the flower of their armies. Of course, the horse soldiers proved worse than useless in the trenches.

Before World War II, in anticipation of a German attack, the French built the "impenetrable" Maginot Line. History repeated itself and the attack came, but not in the way they expected. Their preparations were useless because the Germans didn't attempt to penetrate it; they simply went around it, and France was defeated.


The generals don't prepare for the last war out of perversity or stupidity, but rather because past experience is all they have to go by. Most of them simply don't know how to interpret that experience. They are correct in preparing for another war but wrong in relying upon what worked in the last one.

Investors, unfortunately, seem to make the same mistakes in marshaling their resources as do the generals. If the last 30 years have been prosperous, they base their actions on more prosperity. Talk of a depression isn't real to them because things are, in fact, so different from the 1930s. To most people, a depression means '30s-style conditions, and since they don't see that, they can't imagine a depression. That's because they know what the last depression was like, but they don't know what one is. It's hard to visualize something you don't understand.


Some of them who are a bit more clever might see an end to prosperity and the start of a depression but—al­though they're going to be a lot better off than most—they're probably looking for this depression to be like the last one.

Although nobody can predict with absolute certainty what this depression will be like, you can be fairly well-assured it won't be an instant replay of the last one. But just because things will be different doesn't mean you have to be taken by surprise.


To define the likely differences between this depres­sion and the last one, it's helpful to compare the situa­tion today to that in the early 1930s. The results aren't very reassuring.


CORPORATE BANKRUPTCY
1930s
Banks, insurance companies, and big corporations went under on a major scale. Institutions suffered the consequences of past mistakes, and there was no financial safety net to catch them as they fell. Mistakes were liquidated and only the prepared and efficient survived.


Today
The world’s financial institutions are in even worse shape than the last time, but now business ethics have changed and everyone expects the government to "step in." Laws are already in place that not only allow but require government inter­vention in many instances. This time, mistakes will be compounded, and the strong, productive, and ef­ficient will be forced to subsidize the weak, unproductive, and inefficient. It's ironic that businesses were bankrupted in the last depression because the prices of their products fell too low; this time, it'll be because they went too high.


UNEMPLOYMENT
1930s
If a man lost his job, he had to find another one as quickly as possible simply to keep from going hungry. A lot of other men in the same position competed desperately for what work was available, and an employer could hire those same men for much lower wages and expect them to work harder than what was the case before the depression. As a result, the men could get jobs and the employer could stay in business.


Today
The average man first has months of unemployment insurance; after that, he can go on welfare if he can't find "suitable work." Instead of taking whatever work is available, especially if it means that a white collar worker has to get his hands dirty, many will go on welfare. This will decrease the production of new wealth and delay the recovery. The worker no longer has to worry about some entrepreneur exploiting (i.e., employing) him at what he considers an unfair wage because the minimum wage laws, among others, precludes that possibility today. As a result, men stay unemployed and employers will go out of business.


OH, REALLY???  AND WHAT ABOUT GLOBAL LABOR POOL?



WELFARE
1930s
If hard times really put a man down and out, he had little recourse but to rely on his family, friends, or local social and church group. There was quite a bit of opprobrium attached to that, and it was only a last resort. The breadlines set up by various government bodies were largely cosmetic measures to soothe the more terror-prone among the voting populace. People made do because they had to, and that meant radically reducing their standards of living and taking any job available at any wage. There were very, very few people on welfare during the last depression.


Today
It's hard to say how those who are still working are going to support those who aren't in this depression. Even in the U.S., 50% of the country is already on some form of welfare. But food stamps, aid to fami­lies with dependent children, Social Security, and local programs are already collapsing in prosperous times. And when the tidal wave hits, they'll be totally overwhelmed. There aren't going to be any breadlines because people who would be standing in them are going to be shopping in local supermarkets just like people who earned their money. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of it is that people in general have come to think that these programs can just magically make wealth appear, and they expect them to be there, while a whole class of people have grown up never learning to survive without them. It's ironic, yet predictable, that the programs that were supposed to help those who "need" them will serve to devastate those very people.

ZERO HEDGE HAS A BIT OF RIGHT WING GLOBAL WALL STREET IN HIM---OF COURSE ALL FEDERAL PUBLIC PROGRAMS WILL BE IMPLODED BY DEBT.



REGULATIONS
1930s
Most economies have been fairly heavily regulated since the early 1900s, and those regulations caused distortions that added to the severity of the last depression. Rather than allow the economy to liquidate, in the case of the U.S., the Roosevelt regime added many, many more regulations—fixing prices, wages, and the manner of doing business in a static form. It was largely because of these regulations that the depression lingered on until the end of World War II, which "saved" the economy only through its massive reinflation of the currency. Had the government abolished most controls then in existence, instead of creating new ones, the depression would have been less severe and much shorter.


Today
The scores of new agencies set up since the last depression have created far more severe distortions in the ways people relate than those of 80 years ago; the potential adjustment needed is proportionately greater. Unless government restrictions and controls on wages, working conditions, energy consumption, safety, and such are removed, a dramatic economic turnaround during the Greater Depression will be impossible.

SO THE PROBLEM IS NOT MASSIVE US TREASURY BOND AND MUNICIPAL BOND SOVEREIGN DEBT FRAUD----IT IS ALL THOSE PESKY NEW DEAL PUBLIC PROTECTIONS.



TAXES
1930s
The income tax was new to the U.S. in 1913, and by 1929, although it took a maximum 23.1% bite, that was only at the $1 million level. The average family’s income then was $2,335, and that put average families in the 1/10th of 1 percent bracket. And there was still no Social Security tax, no state income tax, no sales tax, and no estate tax. Furthermore, most people in the country didn't even pay the income tax because they earned less than the legal minimum or they didn't bother filing. The government, therefore, had immense untapped sources of revenue to draw upon to fund its schemes to "cure" the depression. Roosevelt was able to raise the average income tax from 1.35% to 16.56% during his tenure—an increase of 1,100%.



Today
Everyone now pays an income tax in addition to all the other taxes. In most Western countries, the total of direct and indirect taxes is over 50%. For that reason, it seems unlikely that direct taxes will go much higher. But inflation is constantly driving everyone into higher brackets and will have the same effect. A person has had to increase his or her income faster than inflation to compensate for taxes. Whatever taxes a man does pay will reduce his standard of living by just that much, and it's reasonable to expect tax evasion and the underground economy to boom in response. That will cushion the severity of the depression somewhat while it serves to help change the philosophical orientation of society.

THINK OF THE BALTIMORE MUNICIPAL BOND DEBT AND HOW IT WILL CREATE SOARING TAXES ON CITIZENS---THIS WE ARE TOLD IS GOOD BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL HATE TAXES AND CALL FOR REFORMS----




PRICES
1930s
Prices dropped radically because billions of dollars of inflationary currency were wiped out through the stock market crash, bond defaults, and bank failures. The government, however, somehow equated the high prices of the inflationary '20s with prosperity and attempted to prevent a fall in prices by such things as slaughtering livestock, dumping milk in the gutter, and enacting price supports. Since the collapse wiped out money faster than it could be created, the government felt the destruction of real wealth was a more effective way to raise prices. In other words, if you can't increase the supply of money, decrease the supply of goods.


Nonetheless, the 1930s depression was a deflationary collapse, a time when currency became worth more and prices dropped. This is probably the most confusing thing to most Americans since they assume—as a result of that experience—that "depression" means "deflation." It's also perhaps the biggest single difference between this depression and the last one.


Today
Prices could drop, as they did the last time, but the amount of power the government now has over the economy is far greater than what was the case 80 years ago. Instead of letting the economy cleanse itself by allowing the financial markets to collapse, governments will probably bail out insolvent banks, create mortgages wholesale to prop up real estate, and central banks will buy bonds to keep their prices from plummeting. All of these actions mean that the total money supply will grow enormously. Trillions will be created to avoid deflation. If you find men selling apples on street corners, it won't be for 5 cents apiece, but $5 apiece. But there won't be a lot of apple sellers because of welfare, nor will there be a lot of apples because of price controls.


ZERO HEDGE KNOWS CONGRESS PASSED LAWS TO ALLOW WALL STREET BANKS TO CONFISCATE CITIZENS' ACCOUNTS BECAUSE THERE WILL BE NO FEDERAL BAILOUT-----


Consumer prices will probably skyrocket as a result, and the country will have an inflationary depression. Unlike the 1930s, when people who held dollars were king, by the end of the Greater Depression, people with dollars will be wiped out.


THE SOCIETY
1930s
The world was largely rural or small-town. Communications were slow, but people tended to trust the media. The government exercised considerable moral suasion, and people tended to support it. The business of the country was business, as Calvin Coolidge said, and men who created wealth were esteemed. All told, if you were going to have a depression, it was a rather stable environment for it; despite that, however, there were still plenty of riots, marches, and general disorder.



Today
The country is now urban and suburban, and although communications are rapid, there's little interpersonal contact. The media are suspect. The government is seen more as an adversary or an imperial ruler than an arbitrator accepted by a consensus of concerned citizens. Businessmen are viewed as unscrupulous predators who take advantage of anyone weak enough to be exploited.


A major financial smashup in today's atmosphere could do a lot more than wipe out a few naives in the stock market and unemploy some workers, as occurred in the '30s; some sectors of society are now time bombs. It's hard to say, for instance, what third- and fourth-generation welfare recipients are going to do when the going gets really tough.



THE WAY PEOPLE WORK
1930s
Relatively slow transportation and communication localized economic conditions. The U.S. itself was somewhat insulated from the rest of the world, and parts of the U.S. were fairly self-contained. Workers were mostly involved in basic agriculture and industry, creating widgets and other tangible items. There wasn't a great deal of specialization, and that made it easier for someone to move laterally from one occupation into the next, without extensive retraining, since people were more able to produce the basics of life on their own. Most women never joined the workforce, and the wife in a marriage acted as a "backup" system should the husband lose his job.


Today
The whole world is interdependent, and a war in the Middle East or a revolution in Africa can have a direct and immediate effect on a barber in Chicago or Krakow. Since the whole economy is centrally controlled from Washington, a mistake there can be a national disaster. People generally aren’t in a position to roll with the punches as more than half the people in the country belong to what is known as the "service economy." That means, in most cases, they're better equipped to shuffle papers than make widgets. Even "necessary" services are often terminated when times get hard. Specialization is part of what an advanced industrial economy is all about, but if the economic order changes radically, it can prove a liability.


THE FINANCIAL MARKETS
1930s
The last depression is identified with the collapse of the stock market, which lost over 90% of its value from 1929 to 1933. A secure bond was the best possible investment as interest rates dropped radically. Commodities plummeted, reducing millions of farmers to near subsistence levels. Since most real estate was owned outright and taxes were low, a drop in price didn't make a lot of difference unless you had to sell. Land prices plummeted, but since people bought it to use, not unload to a greater fool, they didn't usually have to sell.



Today
This time, stocks—and especially commodities—are likely to explode on the upside as people panic into them to get out of depreciating dollars in general and bonds in particular. Real estate will be—next to bonds—the most devastated single area of the economy because no one will lend money long term. And real estate is built on the mortgage market, which will vanish.

Everybody who invests in this depression thinking that it will turn out like the last one will be very unhappy with the results. Being aware of the differences between the last depression and this one makes it a lot easier to position yourself to minimize losses and maximize profits.
*  *  *
So much for the differences. The crucial, obvious, and most important similarity, however, is that most people's standard of living will fall dramatically.


The Greater Depression has started. Most people don't know it because they can neither confront the thought nor understand the differences between this one and the last.

As a climax approaches, many of the things that you've built your life around in the past are going to change and change radically. The ability to adjust to new conditions is the sign of a psychologically healthy person.


Look for the opportunity side of the crisis. The Chinese symbol for "crisis" is a combination of two other symbols - one for danger and one for opportunity.


The dangers that society will face in the years ahead are regrettable, but there's no point in allowing anxiety, frustration, or apathy to overcome you. Face the future with courage, curiosity, and optimism rather than fear. You can be a winner, and if you plan carefully, you will be. The great period of change will give you a chance to regain control of your destiny. And that in itself is the single most important thing in life.



0 Comments

May 18th, 2017

5/18/2017

0 Comments

 
Geo-politics has for thousands of years pit those pesky BARBARIAN TRIBES against what was called the CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION----Greece and Rome. The ATTILA THE HUNS-----the GHENGIS KHANS beating up on Western 'democracy'. What is today Russia----was earlier USSR ---was earlier a KINGDOM ruled by TSARS. The Tsars were sent packing during the same revolutions in western Europe and America bringing on those OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1%. After several decades of INDUSTRIALIZATION what was Tsarist real estate and wealth was taken collective by that global 1% who then took all that was USSR collective and privatized it into the hands of those pesky RUSSIAN OLIGARCH GLOBAL 1%.

During all this time what was called Tsarist---then USSR---then Russian satellite nations serving as a buffer from those pesky civilized Romans and Greek global 1%----have citizens with a thousand years of being targets of social and civil unrest. It is no fun being that buffer zone----ask those nations surrounding China. The battle of global 1% lies in controlling what is real estate filled with natural resources, fresh water, and lots of room. A Putin is simply the face of one group of global 1% vs a Trump representing another group of global 1%.


These USSR buffer-zone nations went capitalist during Russian PERESTROIKA with their 1% stealing those nations' national communal assets. After these few decades of being in the EURO----those buffer-zone 1% have watched as massive banking frauds by UK and US banks stole all that wealth and now THAT 1% IS REALLY ANGRY. Citizens' in buffer-zone Russia don't want MARXISM----they don't want NAKED CAPITALISM---they want to control their own local economies just as WE THE PEOPLE in the US.

The global 1% target Ukraine because it is the most powerful of these Russian satellites--controlling Ukraine makes controlling the rest of satellites more easy. Folks thinking any of these global 1% is better than another do not understand the goal of MOVING FORWARD US CITIES AS FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE colonization of America.



Ukraine Crisis in Maps
A visual guide to the continuing conflict.


Protests in Kiev Turn Deadly as Tensions Persist in Eastern Ukraine

Published September 1


At least three police officers have been killed and dozens of police officers and protesters wounded in clashes in Kiev after a vote to give greater powers to separatist regions in eastern Ukraine. Separatist control of these regions, including the border with Russia, has remained unchanged for months. Violence between the two sides has waned in recent weeks and the number of cease-fire violations has decreased, but the situation remains tense.

Cease-Fire Brings Lull, But Clashes Persist In Some Areas
Published March 10


The latest cease-fire in Ukraine, brokered by Germany and France and put into effect on Feb. 15, has been more effective than the previous two negotiated truces, which collapsed quickly. Both Ukraine and the Russia-supported separatists claim they removed all heavy weaponry from the buffer zone by the March 7 deadline. But fighting has continued in some areas, including Donetsk, Horlivka and Mariupol.

Ukrainian Forces Withdraw From Strategic Town
Published February 18


Ukrainian soldiers retreated from Debaltseve, a strategic railroad hub, where intense fighting raged in recent days despite the cease-fire agreement. As many as 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers were trapped, surrounded by Russian-backed militants who had taken control of the main road. It was unclear how many of the soldiers survived and avoided capture.


Rebels Advance on Last Major City in Eastern Ukraine
Published February 12


Pro-Russian rebels began capturing villages in eastern Ukraine last summer. As they gained momentum, they pushed the Ukrainian military out of the region’s largest cities, Luhansk and Donetsk. Now with most of eastern Ukraine’s population centers under their control, the rebels are pushing toward Mariupol.

Fighting Near Mariupol
Published February 10


The focus of the conflict in eastern Ukraine has shifted to the industrial port city of Mariupol. Ukrainian military officials reported that national guard units have begun an offensive against the pro-Russian rebels, who have been massing their forces near the city. If the rebels take control of Mariupol, they could open a land route between Russia and Crimea, which would ensure Russian control of the Sea of Azov.


Refugees in Ukraine
Published February 6


Nearly one million people have fled their homes and have registered as internally displaced, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy. Fighting continues in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where many civilians are still unable to leave because of travel restrictions and indiscriminate shelling. The majority of the internally displaced people are elderly.


Donetsk Airport in Shambles
Published January 23


After weeks of fierce fighting, the Donetsk airport is in ruins. In recent days, the site had been claimed by both sides. On Jan. 22, Ukrainian troops finally retreated, abandoning their last toehold in the city.

Ukrainian Troops Retreat from Donetsk
Published January 23


Fighting between government troops and pro-Russian rebels has continued despite a September cease-fire. Last week, an attack on a bus near Volnovakha, which the government attributed to rocket fire from separatists, fatally injured 13 people. Intense fighting for control of the Donetsk airport in recent weeks appeared to have ended Thursday with a Ukrainian retreat.

Cluster Bomb Attacks in Donetsk Region
Updated October 21, 2014


An October report revealed that cluster munitions, which blanket a target area with bomblets filled with deadly shrapnel, have been used by government troops and possibly pro-Russian rebels against civilian population centers during the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Evidence strongly indicates that Ukrainian troops stationed about 30 kilometers, or 19 miles, southwest of the city launched attacks on Donetsk earlier this month, including an attack that killed a Swiss employee of the International Red Cross.

Minsk Peace Talks Create Buffer Zone
Updated September 27, 2014


In an effort to strengthen the existing cease-fire, negotiators in peace talks on Saturday agreed to create a buffer zone separating Ukrainian forces from pro-Russian rebels and to withdraw heavy weapons. While the buffer zone has been in effect this week, fighting has continued throughout the region.


Cease-Fire Takes Effect
Updated September 5, 2014


The Donetsk and Luhansk regions are densely populated, heavily industrial areas in eastern Ukraine where a majority of people speak Russian and a sizable minority of the population is ethnically Russian. The regions share hundreds of miles of border with Russia, much of which is currently controlled by rebel forces. Some analysts have suggested that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may want the area as a buffer between Russia and a hostile Ukraine, or as a gray zone where Russia can foment unrest to influence Ukrainian policy.


Ukrainian Military Loses Ground
Updated September 3, 2014


In recent days, the Ukrainian military has lost ground in eastern Ukraine. Last month the military had cut both Donetsk and Luhansk off from their supply chains, but now the cities are reconnected to the larger area of rebel-controlled territory. Ukrainian officials said that the lost ground and the opening of a third front at Novoazovsk are a result of direct intervention from Russia. Russia denies sending weapons and fighters across the border.


NATO Releases Images Showing Russian Forces in Ukraine
Updated August 29, 2014


President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia hailed on Friday the success of a recent rebel offensive and asked that a humanitarian corridor be opened to allow encircled Ukrainian fighters to retreat. Ukrainian officials said Russian forces and separatists continued fighting near Novoazovsk, a town along the southern land route from Russia to Crimea, which emerged as a new front on Wednesday. On Thursday, NATO released satellite images it said showed Russian artillery units operating in eastern Ukraine.


Rocket Fire in Donetsk
Updated August 19, 2014


Intense violence continues in Donetsk, the largest city under the control of pro-Russian separatists. Ukranian forces have cut the city off from the rest of the rebel-held territory, and government officials said they had destroyed three rebel checkpoints near the city of one million people. The Donetsk city council released locations of more than 130 sites in the city that have been hit by rocket fire over the last month.

Military Base Buildup at the Russian Border
Published July 22, 2014


Two satellite images of the Russian military base near Rostov were released on Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. American intelligence officials said that the image on the right, taken approximately a month after the image on the left, shows how much buildup there has been at the base. American officials said Tuesday that there has been a stream of military support to rebels in Ukraine.

Fierce Battles Continue in Region During Crash Recovery
Published July 21, 2014


As international experts began the investigation of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, heavy fighting between the Ukrainian military and pro-Russian separatists continued. After Ukrainian soldiers retook Slovyansk earlier in July, insurgents dug into the urban centers of Donetsk and Luhansk. Reports emerged that Russia was building up forces along border areas, and several Ukrainian military aircraft were shot down near the Russian border before Malaysia Flight 17.


Cease-Fire Collapses After Talks Fail
Published July 1, 2014


After a 10-day cease-fire, President Petro O. Poroshenko ordered government forces to resume fighting the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Conference calls between leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany had failed to bring tangible results, like rebels' relinquishing border crossings at Izvarino, Dolzhansky and Chervonopartyzansk. There were fierce battles throughout the region on Tuesday, including in the cities of Donetsk, Slovyansk and Kramatorsk


After Relative Calm, Presidential Election Is Bookended by Violence
Published May 28, 2014


Violence escalated in the Donetsk region in the days before and after the May 25 presidential election. Pro-Russian rebels ambushed a military checkpoint in Blahodatne on May 22, killing as many as 15 Ukrainian soldiers. A firefight between a Ukrainian militia group and pro-Russian rebels in Karlovka the following day left at least seven people dead. And one day after Petro O. Poroshenko was elected president, dozens of pro-Russian separatists were killed in an offensive by the Ukrainian military to retake the airport.


Across Ukraine, Rebels and Loyalists Vie for Control
Published May 10, 2014


A close look at the day-to-day action in Ukraine from reports by international observers reveals a mixed picture of the rebellion. While increasing rebel activity by pro-Russian militants in Ukraine can leave the impression that Kiev has lost its hold on the east, support for a united Ukraine is strong in some key cities. Militants in parts of the east vowed on Thursday to press ahead with a referendum on Sunday seeking autonomy.


______________________________________
We remind the American people that the ROARING 20s and economic collapse giving the Great Depression early last century was the same ROBBER BARON frauds occurring these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA----the US and UK global 1% used our newly installed US FED to corrupt  banking globally.  Americans always think only of how this effects Americans but the same conditions here in US occurred in nations around the world and especially in Eastern Europe and Near-Far East.  WW1 and WW2 was sparked largely by a Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini because of the anger at global banking frauds stealing the 99% of citizens' wealth.  The 1% in those Eastern European and Near/Middle Eastern nations were mad as well.  Fast forward to CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---US and UK banking did the same thing on larger scale because US and Europe over last century gained much wealth.  So, again all global 99% of people were fleeced by banking frauds but those 1% in Eastern Europe and Near/Far Middle Eastern nations are really mad at losing their wealth.

The leaders of Russian satellite nations are as brutal and corrupt as our CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---so too those leaders of NEAR-FAR-EAST nations.  They are that global 1% and their 2% SOCIOPATHS after all.

The 2008 saw global Wall Street frauds---from subprime mortgage frauds sold globally----to sovereign debt frauds sold globally---to this LIBOR fraud----tens of trillions of dollars were moved from American government coffers and citizens' pockets alone.  Trillions more of course were looted from our Eastern Europe/Near-Far Eastern nations as well.

SO, AS WITH WW1 AND WW2 ----LOT'S OF GLOBAL CITIZENS ARE ANGRY AT LOOTING BY GLOBAL BANKING WORKING FOR GLOBAL 1%.



Because our government was stacked with global Wall Street players none of these global Wall Street frauds were recovered. The American people know how it effects their lives---they often don't think the same conditions are happening to global citizens--as in Russian satellite nations like Ukraine.


LIBOR Fraud May Be the Mother of All Bank Scandals


An estimated $1.5 trillion was stolen from customers in the LIBOR scandal.


By James Rickards, Contributor | July 23, 2012, at 4:30 p.m.



LIBOR Fraud May Be the Mother of All Bank Scandal

A view of Barclay's headquarter at London's Canary Wharf financial district, Thursday, June 28, 2012. Barclays PLC and its subsidiaries will pay about 453 million US dollars to settle charges that they tried to manipulate interest rates that can affect how much people pay for loans to attend college or buy a house. Britain's Barclays is one of several major banks reportedly under investigation for such violations. Lefteris Pitarakis/AP Photo

James Rickards is a hedge fund manager in New York City and the author of “Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis” from Portfolio/Penguin. Follow him on Twitter at @JamesGRickards.


Investors have by now heard of the LIBOR scandal engulfing the banking industry. LIBOR stands for the London Interbank Offered Rate. To some it may be just the latest entry on a list of bank frauds and blunders in recent years, from mortgage scams to MF Global and the London Whale.

In fact, this may be the mother of all scandals—the one that finally leads to criminal charges and the insolvency of major banks. The fraud is breathtakingly easy to understand once past a small amount of jargon. Indeed, the simplicity of the fraud is the greatest threat to the perpetrators because here at last is a fraud that is easy for juries to understand and for prosecutors to prove.

LIBOR is the interest rate at which top-tier banks in London offer to lend to each other on an unsecured basis. The loans are usually short term, typically a day, a week, or several months. Historically the banks in the LIBOR market were among the strongest credits in the world and this type of lending was considered extremely low risk. As a result, LIBOR was among the lowest interest rates available in the market. Other interest rates including corporate loans were benchmarked to LIBOR and expressed as a spread, such as LIBOR plus 1 percent. LIBOR became the base rate used in calculating a vast number of other products and transactions.


LIBOR is set by a committee of banks sending their estimates of the rate at which they could borrow to a trade association. The banks on the committee are among the largest in the world including J.P. Morgan, Citibank, and Bank of America. The trade association would discard the highest and lowest rates and average the rest to arrive at the official LIBOR. This would then be published on financial news services. Payments due under LIBOR transactions would be calculated using that published rate.


We now know that some of the banks on the committee lied about the rates for a period of six years from 2005 to 2010, perhaps longer. The lies had two purposes. The first was to make money for the bank by lowering what it had to pay on LIBOR-based contracts. This is a kind of direct theft from customers. The second reason involved hiding the fact that some banks were being asked to pay high rates during the Panic of 2008. This is considered a sign of distress. By lowering the reported rate, the banks were made to appear healthier than they were and committed a fraud on the market as a whole.


We also know that regulators acted as aiders and abettors of the fraud by ignoring clear signs, including admissions by the banks themselves, that the rates were rigged. Regulators passed vague proposals back and forth about the need to improve practices instead of calling law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute the crimes.



One might expect that the scandal will follow the familiar pattern of bogus bank contrition, slaps on the wrist, large but not life-threatening fines, and pious promises not to do it again soon to be ignored. In short, it's just another scandal.


But this time it's different and here's why: The sheer volume of contracts based on LIBOR defies the imagination. Estimates vary, but $500 trillion seems reasonable. Even if the banks lied by as little as one-tenth of 1 percent, that percentage applied to $500 trillion multiplied by the six years of the fraud comes to $3 trillion stolen from customers. Cutting that amount in half to allow for the fact that some customers benefited from the fraud while others lost still gives implied damages of $1.5 trillion, greater than the combined capital of all of the too-big-too-fail banks in the United States. Taken to the full extent of the law, these damages are enough to render a large segment of the global banking system insolvent. These damages will be pursued not by regulators, but in private lawsuits by class action lawyers.


Bank defendants in cases like this typically ask a judge to dismiss the case because the claims are too vague. However, the facts in this case have already been made plain by Barclays, which is the one large bank to settle its case with the regulators. Once the plaintiffs get past the motion to dismiss, they begin discovery, which gives the class action lawyers access to internal E-mails, tape recordings, depositions, and other books and records of the perpetrator banks. Based on small glimpses of the doings at Barclays, the communications of the other major bank LIBOR trading desks could be shocking.



This kind of private legal process takes years to play out. In the meantime, some arrests and criminal charges by the government seem likely. In the end, legislatures may have to intervene to limit total damages to avoid the destruction of the too-big-too-fail banks. In this sense, the LIBOR litigation may come to resemble the tobacco litigation where the big tobacco companies embraced a government-backed deal with damages of over $200 billion to avoid eventual bankruptcy in the face of state and private lawsuits.

Of course, the insolvency of a major bank in the face of LIBOR rate rigging charges cannot be ruled out. In that case, good riddance. The big banks have perpetrated a crime wave longer than that of Bonnie and Clyde. If it has taken the law this long to catch up with them, it's better late than never.


____________________________________________



'Protests that involve “ordinary” citizens are rare and confusing events, in particular if they last for a long time like the Ukrainian protests that began in November'.

Here we have GLOBAL AMAZON.COM OWNER BEZOS telling us as always these mass protests are about citizens wanting to be joined to the EURO---or American capitalism.  If one reads local media with REAL citizen content---as with the Egyptian protests---you will hear the 99% saying they want no part of NAKED, CRONY, CORRUPT EURO/UK/US capitalism---they want to build local capitalist economies the people control.

Articles like this pit Ukraine leaders as either being RUSSIAN PUPPETS----or EURO PUPPETS---which they have been since USSR broke apart.  None of these leaders have been POPULIST LEADERS.  This is for what all these Ukraine citizens are out en masse for weeks and months protesting---as in Egypt.

Our national media always makes the PUPPET LEADERS tied to EURO a populist leader when they are not wanted by their own people----as today in the US.


You can bet these Ukraine citizens do not want WW 3 any more than WE THE PEOPLE in US.



What does Ukraine’s #Euromaidan teach us about protest?

By Olga Onuch and Gwendolyn Sasse February 27, 2014

Ukrainians attended a mass meeting on Independence Square in Kiev on Wednesday.

(EPA/Maxim Shipenkov)
Joshua Tucker: The following is a guest post by Oxford University political scientists Olga Onuch and Gwendolyn Sasse. They provide a very thorough overview of of the evolution of the #Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, as well as what these events can teach us about political protest more generally. A full list of guest posts from The Monkey Cage’s coverage of ongoing events in Ukraine can be found at the end of this post. 
*****
Last week the Ukrainian protest movement known as EuroMaidan spiraled out of control and descended into violence. On Feb. 18, Berkut (riot police) used severe tactics to repress protesters. The violent storming of the Maidan protest camp in Kiev, left about 90 dead (many under the age of 25) and over 600 injured (from both sides of the barricades, but mostly protesters). Analysts and journalists have struggled to understand the protest cycle as it turned to violence and the rapid succession of events since.


Protests that involve “ordinary” citizens are rare and confusing events, in particular if they last for a long time like the Ukrainian protests that began in November. Protests evolve all the time, and one stage in the process critically shapes the next stage. The issues and events that trigger a protest may not be the same as the ones that sustain a protest movement or make it tip into violence. The Ukrainian protest cycle since November provides us with important insights into the often misunderstood dynamics of popular mobilization. It follows a number of patterns known from other cases of mobilization, but it also highlights some underexplored aspects and provides important correctives, not least to accounts of protests given by journalists and analysts “in the heat of the moment.” It also breaks with the model of “electoral revolutions” centered on rigged elections in “competitive authoritarian” regimes. Triggered by now-ousted Ukraine leader Viktor Yanukovych’s decision not to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, the current protests started with a more intangible conglomerate of popular aspirations rather than a concrete event like an election that can be re-run. As a result, the nature of the demands stayed in flux and coalesced around the dismissal of the president without, however, fusing into a clear political alternative with majority support among the protesters and the political opposition.


Four aspects in particular make the Ukrainian protests interesting for the wider study of protest:


1) The profile of the protesters at different stages of the protest cycle (different types of protesters drifting in and out of the protests and the formation of a hard core sustaining the protest but remaining divided in itself with right-wing extremists involved in the violent incidents but not controlling the protests)


2) The prolonged disconnect between the protesters and the regime on the one hand and between the protesters and the political opposition in parliament on the other hand


3) The occurrence of (small-scale) protests in favor of the EuroMaidan in the most unlikely places for opposition mobilization in eastern cities of Ukraine


4) The important but ultimately subsidiary role of external actors in framing and catalyzing events


Political scientist Sidney Tarrow’s work on protest cycles (also known as cycles of contention or waves of collective action) provides a useful framework for understanding the political dynamics surrounding the EuroMaidan. According to Tarrow, the cycle begins with a rapid diffusion of mobilization as existing social movement organizations (SMOs) create political opportunities for “ordinary citizens to join in. This is followed by innovation and expansion in the forms of contention, as well as shifts in the collective action frames and the protest discourse. A further phase sees a coexistence of organized and unorganized civic engagement leading up to a period of heightened interaction between the party in power and the party in opposition. At each stage, the use of violent repertoires by activists or the party in power shifts the rules of the game.


Breaking down the EuroMaidan protest cycle into phases of mobilization and referencing who participated when and how (based on on-site surveys and rapid interviews collected as part of the Ukrainian Protest Project at the University of Oxford and NaUkMa, which was described in this Monkey Cage post in January) allows us to better contextualize the turn to violence.


The EuroMaidan Protest Cycle


Nov. 21-30: creating political opportunities for “ordinary” citizens to join in: Mobilization started on Nov. 21, after Yanukovych announced that he would not sign the Association Agreement with the EU. Between Nov. 21-23 local journalists, activists and students coordinated small protest events in Kiev’s Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosty). Journalists and activists used online social media to inform and motivate citizens, and the #EuroMaidan was created. Yet it was not until political opposition leaders Vitali Klitchko, Arseniy Yatseniuk and Oleh Tiahnybok jointly coordinated a pro-EU march on Nov. 24 in Kiev (on the anniversary of the Great Famine and the Orange Revolution) that “ordinary” citizens joined the protests, which quickly grew to 100,000 to 250,000 people.  By now the central demands were “a better way of life” associated with “a European future for Ukraine.” “Ukraine is Europe” became the main slogan. The protesters split into two groups, one led by nonpartisan SMOs convening in the Maidan and the other led by political opposition groups in Evropeiska Ploshcha (European Square). Smaller but substantial protests took place in regional city centers across central and western Ukraine. The following week the protests shrank in size (2,000 to 35,000 in Kiev). As we see from our survey of protest participants, they were maintained by activists (with experience and networks from 2001 and 2004) and students, with some participation by other groups, such as middle-aged young professionals. The protests remained peaceful, included live concerts, and activists continued to reject partisan attempts at “co-optation.”


Nov. 30 – Jan. 16: shift in collective action frames and protest language:


On Nov. 30, a small group of protesters (mostly students and journalists) were brutally beaten in a first raid by Berkut. This assault on unarmed peaceful protesters (including foreign journalists and women), went viral on social media outlets and galvanized the protesters. In rapid interviews protesters said that the protests were “not about Europe anymore,” but about “saving Ukrainian democracy” (Data: Ukrainian Protest Project). On Dec. 1, after a coordinated effort by opposition parties and the Civic Sector SMO, 500,000 to 800,000 people joined the protests in Kiev. Our surveys show that protesters were now made up of a cross-cleavage coalition of citizens. They represented three age groups (under 30, 30 to 55, and 55-plus), at least two religious cleavages (Catholic and Orthodox), and they included large numbers of Russophones (30 percent) and participants who had previously voted for Yanukovych (19 percent) and the Party of Regions (15 to 19 percent) (Data: Ukrainian Protest Project). Large protests were held in all western and central regional city centers, and hundreds of protesters (up to 2,000) gathered in Crimea, Odessa, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya and Poltava. Regime repression had provided activists with new frames and mobilization tools that facilitated mass mobilization.



From Nov. 30 onwards, activists explained in interviews that they were struggling to control (young male) protesters escalating violent and nationalist rhetoric.  Several key leaders of the Civic Sector expressed their concerns about having to collaborate with the extremist Pravyi Sektor (Right Sector) and the right-wing party Svoboda (authors’ interviews with Civic Sector members). These groups began coordinating teams of 100 to 200 armed individuals who walked around the city center wearing hard hats, holding bats and chanting nationalist slogans. Protests continued throughout the next month, with nightly gatherings in city centers. As our survey shows, each violent encounter between protesters and militia made the protests shrink in size, with women dropping out at a faster rate than men (data: Ukrainian Protest Project). In rapid interviews conducted at the end of December, protesters complained that the opposition was unable to achieve anything, and described a sense of growing desperation.


Jan. 16-27: innovation and expansion in the forms of contention:

 
On Jan. 16, the regime and its Party of Regions parliamentarians voted in anti-protest laws that made all protest illegal. Protesters reacted by building barricades in the Maidan. On Jan. 19, the Berkut attacked the protesters at night. Between Jan. 19 and Jan. 24, at least three people died as a direct result of police action, and many were injured. This second wave of repression changed the composition of protest participants: They now included a strong majority of young males, and right-wing groups gained a foothold (authors’ interview with unnamed activist). The expansion to extreme violent repertoires, such as Molotov cocktails and the increasing use of nationalist symbols, marked a sharp break in Ukraine’s protest history from the Soviet dissidents through the transition period. The new forms of contention polarized Ukrainian citizens and encouraged the regime to employ so-called anti-terrorist measures. Radicalized protesters occupied government buildings in Kiev and other cities, including in some eastern regions. Facing increasing internal pressures from Party of Regions financiers, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov stepped down and offered the post to opposition leader Yatseniuk. The opposition declined the offer and demanded that Yanukovych resign. In an attempt to quell the diffusion of protests, the wave of repression subsided. The protests, continued; by this time Pravyi Sektor, the Svoboda Samo Oborona (Self-Defense) and retired Afghanistan veterans controlled most of the  front lines, leading to a further radicalization in the protest repertoires.



Jan. 27 -Feb. 20: coexistence of organized and unorganized civic engagement:




Unhappy with what protesters described as the “opposition leaders’ inability and ineffectiveness to achieve the EuroMaidan’s aims,” the official opposition protest events were combined with autonomous citizen initiatives (see below for a list of Kiev-based Self-Defense Patrol Groups). Throughout the country (mostly in the center-west), citizens coordinated their own peaceful and direct-action protest events (such as defending medical clinics and donating items). Activists complained in interviews that they or the opposition could not control the protest movement. Hard-core protesters explained that they had “nothing left to lose,” and members of the Pravyi Sektor stated that they were “prepared to die as heroes for their country.” The baseline claim uniting all protesters was the removal of Yanukovych from power. When on Feb. 18 Berkut and special operations Alpha militia started another raid on protesters, this time using live ammunition, grenades and snipers, the worst-case scenario of a large-scale “civil war” (pitting the regime against the protesters) seemed inevitable to the activists and protest participants interviewed. The protesters felt that now they were “fighting for the fate [dolya] of their country.”

_________________________________________
Every time we read about this banking raid by hackers or that banking raid by hackers---whether Russian---Chinese---North Korean----Turkish----the amounts stolen are pennies compared to the amounts stolen by global banking.  These are almost always tied to government leaders trying to get back money looted by Western banking.

THE SOLUTION IS OF COURSE DISMANTLE GLOBAL INTERNET BANKING CONNECTIONS---OF COURSE ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE ONE CENTRAL BANK WON'T HEAR OF THAT.


American citizens don't hear about justice for WE THE PEOPLE from our global Wall Street--but we hear about all those pesky BAD GUYS IN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA.

During this 2016 Presidential election the starting of WW3 was a big issue on both right and left wing and this is why.  The coming economic crash from what will be the largest global banking fraud in WORLD HISTORY-----the sovereign debt frauds of US Treasury and state municipal bonds with Europe banking doing the same to their nations and citizens---will bring that same GREAT DEPRESSION to US, Europe,and yes to Russian satellite nations like UKRAINE---and the same tensions that existed in early 20th century exist today in early 21st century for the same reasons.



Remember, the RUSSIAN OLIGARCHS live in NYC and London so none of this has to do with the Russian 1%----they were enriched from global Wall Street/UK frauds. All this is simply destabilization of regions to create civil unrest and war.

Hackers steal £650 million in world's biggest bank raid



Investigators uncover what is thought to be the biggest ever cybercrime with more than £650 million going missing from banks around the world

By Martin Evans, Crime Correspondent
4:09PM GMT 15 Feb 2015


British banks are thought to have lost tens of millions of pounds after a gang of Russian based hackers spent the last two years orchestrating the largest cybercrime ever uncovered.


As much as £650 million is thought to have gone missing after the gang used computer viruses to infect networks in more than 100 financial institutions worldwide.


The hackers managed to infiltrate the bank’s internal computer systems using malware, which lurked in the networks for months, gathering information and feeding it back to the gang.
The illegal software was so sophisticated that it allowed the criminals to view video feeds from within supposedly secure offices as they gathered the data they needed to steal.
Once they were ready to strike, they were able to impersonate bank staff online in order to transfer millions of pounds into dummy accounts.

They were even able to instruct cash machines to dispense money at random times of the day even without a bank card.
While the criminals behind the audacious electronic raid are thought to be based in Russia, the scale of their crime was truly global with banks in Japan, China, the United States and throughout Europe having been hit.


The scale of the losses by UK based financial institutions has not yet been disclosed, but is thought to run into tens of millions of pounds.


The scam was uncovered by the Russian cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky Lab, which was called in to investigate after a cash machine in Ukraine was found to have been spitting out money at random times.
As investigators began to look into the problem they were staggered by the scale of the crime they uncovered.
A spokesman for Kaspersky Lab said: “The plot marks the beginning of a new stage in the evolution of cybercriminal activity, where malicious users steal money directly from banks, and avoid targeting end users.”

Despite the fact the plot has been uncovered, it is feared that banks may still find themselves falling victim as once installed the malware can operate almost independently and is extremely difficult to identify.


The cybercriminals would gain entry to an employee’s system through a process called spear phishing, where they would send an email which appeared to come from a trusted source.
Once the email was opened, the malware would infect their system allowing the hacker to jump into the bank’s network.
They would then gain access to an administrator’s computer providing video surveillance of everything on in the office.


They were able to monitor the screens of staff that serviced the cash transfer systems and after watching how they operated were able to mimic the process needed to move money around.
It is thought the largest sums stolen were taken in bold electronic raids, where hackers would break into computer system and transfer tens of millions of pounds in one go.


On average, each bank robbery took between two and four months, from infecting the first computer at the bank’s corporate network to making off with the stolen money.
Another method used was where the criminals would gain access to someone’s account and inflate the balance many times over.


They would then withdraw the amount they had increased it by and the person would never suspect because their original balance remained the same.


Sergey Golovanov of Kaspersky Lab said: “These bank heists were surprising because it made no difference to the criminals what software the banks were using.
“So even if its software is unique, a bank cannot get complacent. The attackers didn’t even need to hack into the banks’ services. Once they got into the network, they learned how to hide their malicious plot behind legitimate actions. It was a very slick and professional cyber-robbery.”

_____________________________________



We spoke about this North/South Korean vs Trump policy---our US 2016 election was filled with shouts against starting WW 3----all of the candidates promoted by national media from Hillary----to Obama ----to Trump are global Wall Street far-right, militaristic HAWKS ----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA MOVING FORWARD towards just that----WW3.
This is the mechanism for realigning for ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE---as WW 2 was used to do the same.


Fears of ‘World War 3’ as U.S. Takes on North Korea
By Nate |  Foreign Policy, Politics |  April 12, 2017


We’ve entered a strange portion of President Trump’s first 100 days. The U.S. missile strike in Syria and the current posturing toward North Korea’s threats of nuclear war are a departure from how the Obama administration handled these issues for the past eight years. As a result, many Americans are scared as to how this entire ordeal with North Korea will end as China and Russia continue to be key players.


Report from the Washington Post:


The United States and North Korea are engaging in high-tension brinkmanship, with North Korea warning Tuesday that it will “hit the U.S. first” with nuclear weapons, but the prospects that this could escalate into an actual clash of arms are slim.


The stakes remain too high for both countries, analysts say, today as they were yesterday, as they were last year. But the temperature in the region has become decidedly hotter in recent days. And there’s always the chance that one side or the other could miscalculate.


Expectations are mounting that North Korea will unleash some kind of provocation this week, and the U.S. Navy rerouted an aircraft carrier strike group, capable of both firing missiles and shooting missiles down, to the Korean Peninsula over the weekend.


On Tuesday President Trump issued his latest tweet taking aim at Pyongyang. “North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A.” he tweeted.


North Korea has posed a threat for years to surrounding nations, including U.S. allies such as Japan, and of course South Korea. President Obama, just like his predecessor President Bush, have dealt with the threat of a nuclear-armed North Korea during his presidency and it seems that President Trump wants to be the one to end the talk, and get on with the action.


According to Google Search Trends, the keyword of “World War 3” has recently seen the highest level of use since the trend has been recorded starting in 2004:
Clearly the prospects of involvement with Syria, which hinges on Russia, and North Korea, which is coupled with China, is sparking fears of global discord, perhaps to levels that we haven’t seen in recent times.


According to the UK Guardian, Japan is also getting involved and joining as a partner of the United States:

Japan is preparing to send several warships to join a US aircraft carrier strike group heading for the Korean peninsula, in a show of force designed to deter North Korea from conducting further missile and nuclear tests.
Citing two well-placed sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, Reuters and the Kyodo news agency said several destroyers from Japan’s maritime self-defence forces would join the USS Carl Vinson and its battle group as it enters the East China Sea.


China is calling for calm and has reiterated a stated goal for denuclearizing North Korea:


The move comes as the Chinese president called for calm in the region in a phone conversation with Donald Trump.

China “is committed to the goal of denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula, safeguarding peace and stability on the peninsula, and advocates resolving problems through peaceful means,” Xi Jinping said, according to CCTV, the state broadcaster.
…
China is the North’s only key diplomatic ally and its largest trading partner, providing a lifeline to the reclusive state.
There are signs China is taking steps to squeeze North Korea and its erratic leader, Kim Jong-un. Chinese authorities have ordered trading companies to return North Korean coal shipments and banned all imports in late February. [Emphasis added]



As most analysts have said for years, North Korea is basically under China’s control economically. Therefore, it’s incumbent upon China to exert that influence if it truly desires to avoid military conflict in the region. We may be seeing signs of that starting to play out.


Either way, Americans are weary of war, though this projection of strength is something that Donald Trump campaigned on. However, it can also be argued he campaigned on avoiding international conflicts as well. As in most cases, Trump can be on both sides of an issue and probably have past conflicting statements that support either policy position.

_______________________________________

So our US 2016 Presidential election was filled with the voices of pols tied to MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE and without coincidence----WW 3.

This coming economic crash will be so deep and long that all global citizens will be angry---especially WE THE PEOPLE. Global 1% always meet domestic anger with civil unrest and war----it keeps the 99% busy while the global 1% are remodeling each nations' societal structures.

Don't worry-----the START TREATY between Obama and Putin was not about nuclear disarmament as national media sold----it was always about retooling nuclear arsenals to the NEW NEUTRON NUCLEAR WARHEADS. Whereas these warheads if big enough will bring down buildings and destroy infrastructure----our global military is of course designing weapons to kill the most people while leaving infrastructure with minimum damage----those global Wall Street 5% to the 1% always wanting to take care of their human capital.



Neutron bombs are far more damaging to human tissue and pass right through buildings---if used in local bombings in small packages they will be deadly to WE THE PEOPLE around the world.

 Make no mistake the global 1% are sociopaths no matter where in the world they locate----just get rid of global Wall Street pols and players!





Fact Check: Trump Is Right that Clinton Might Cause WW3

by George Washington
Oct 26, 2016 4:23 PM


Trump claims that Clinton’s policy on Syria would lead to World War 3.


Let’s fact check …


The Washington Post points out that a vote for Clinton is a vote for escalating military confrontation in Syria and elsewhere:


In the rarefied world of the Washington foreign policy establishment, President Obama’s departure from the White House — and the possible return of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton — is being met with quiet relief.


The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American foreign policy, via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House.


***


The studies, which reflect Clinton’s stated views, break most forcefully with Obama on Syria .... call[ing] for stepped-up military action to deter President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and Russian forces in ­Syria.


***


Most of the studies propose limited American airstrikes with cruise missiles to punish Assad ....


***


Last year, Obama dismissed calls for a no-fly zone in northwestern Syria — a position advocated by Clinton — as “half-baked.”


***


Even pinprick cruise-missile strikes designed to hobble the ­Syrian air force or punish Assad would risk a direct confrontation with Russian forces, which are scattered throughout the key ­Syrian military bases that would be targeted.


“You can’t pretend you can go to war against Assad and not go to war against the Russians,” said a senior administration official who is involved in Middle East policy and was granted anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.


The most liberal presidential candidate still running – Green Party candidate Jill Stein – says:


"It should clear to everyone that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for war."
and
"Under Hillary Clinton, we could very quickly slide into NUCLEAR WAR with her declared policy in Syria."


She explains:
Hillary Clinton wants to start an air war with Russia. Let’s be clear: That’s what a no-fly zone means. It is tantamount to a declaration of war against Russia.



***


Clearly the Democrats are incredibly embarrassed about the nature of these [email] revelations, and they’ve created a smokescreen here to try and distract from that. But that smokescreen is pushing us to the brink of warfare with Russia now, where you have the U.S. head of defense, Ashton Carter, talking about nuclear war. We just did a dry run dropping fake nuclear bombs over Nevada. This is really dangerous stuff; this is not pretend. So we need to take a deep breath here, we need to step back and stop beating the war drums. In this context, Hillary Clinton is talking about starting an air war with Russia. Which could slide—you know, we’re on the verge of nuclear war right now.


***


The most likely nuclear threat right now is with Russia. There’s no doubt about that. When you have Mikhail Gorbachev, who was the prime minister of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, saying that the threat of nuclear war is hotter now than it has ever been in all of history, you’ve got to take that pretty seriously. And when you have Hillary Clinton then beating the war drums against Russia, and essentially saying that if she’s elected that we will declare war on Russia—because that’s what a no-fly zone over Syria amounts to. Shooting down Russian warplanes.


***


Hillary Clinton is a disastrous nuclear threat right now in a context where we’re already off-the-charts in the risk of nuclear war. She has stated in this context that she’s essentially opening up a battlefront with Russia. So to my mind, this emerges as the clearest and most present danger.


Prominent liberal economist Jeffrey Sachs writes in the Huffington Post, in an essay bannered “Hillary Is the Candidate of the War Machine“:


It is often believed that the Republicans are the neocons and the Democrats act as restraints on the warmongering. This is not correct. Both parties are divided between neocon hawks and cautious realists who don’t want the US in unending war.  Hillary is a staunch neocon whose record of favoring American war adventures explains much of our current security danger.


Just as the last Clinton presidency set the stage for financial collapse, it also set the stage for unending war. On October 31, 1998 President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support “regime change” in Iraq.


It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.

Thus were laid the foundations for the Iraq War in 2003.


Of course, by 2003, Hillary was a Senator and a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, which has cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and done more to create ISIS and Middle East instability than any other single decision of modern foreign policy. In defending her vote, Hillary parroted the phony propaganda of the CIA:


“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members… “


After the Iraq Liberation Act came the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing another decade of unrest in the Balkans. Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: “I urged him to bomb,” she told reporter Lucinda Frank.


Hillary’s record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern US history. Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches from Mali to Afghanistan. Two disasters loom largest: Libya and Syria.


Hillary has been much attacked for the deaths of US diplomats in Benghazi, but her tireless promotion of the overthrow Muammar Qaddafi by NATO bombing is the far graver disaster. Hillary strongly promoted NATO-led regime change in Libya, not only in violation of international law but counter to the most basic good judgment. After the NATO bombing, Libya descended into civil war while the paramilitaries and unsecured arms stashes in Libya quickly spread west across the African Sahel and east to Syria. The Libyan disaster has spawned war in Mali, fed weapons to Boko Haram in Nigeria, and fueled ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the meantime, Hillary found it hilarious to declare of Qaddafi: “We came, we saw, he died.”


Perhaps the crowning disaster of this long list of disasters has been Hillary’s relentless promotion of CIA-led regime change in Syria. Once again Hillary bought into the CIA propaganda that regime change to remove Bashir al-Assad would be quick, costless, and surely successful. In August 2011, Hillary led the US into disaster with her declaration Assad must “get out of the way,” backed by secret CIA operations.


Five years later, no place on the planet is more ravaged by unending war, and no place poses a great threat to US security. More than 10 million Syrians are displaced, and the refugees are drowning in the Mediterranean or undermining the political stability of Greece, Turkey, and the European Union. Into the chaos created by the secret CIA-Saudi operations to overthrow Assad, ISIS has filled the vacuum, and has used Syria as the base for worldwide terrorist attacks.



The list of her incompetence and warmongering goes on. Hillary’s support at every turn for NATO expansion, including even into Ukraine and Georgia against all common sense, was a trip wire that violated the post-Cold War settlement in Europe in 1991 and that led to Russia’s violent counter-reactions in both Georgia and Ukraine. As Senator in 2008, Hilary co-sponsored 2008-SR439, to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. As Secretary of State, she then presided over the restart of the Cold War with Russia.


It is hard to know the roots of this record of disaster. Is it chronically bad judgment? Is it her preternatural faith in the lying machine of the CIA?


Is it a repeated attempt to show that as a Democrat she would be more hawkish than the Republicans? Is it to satisfy her hardline campaign financiers? Who knows? Maybe it’s all of the above. But whatever the reasons, hers is a record of disaster. Perhaps more than any other person, Hillary can lay claim to having stoked the violence that stretches from West Africa to Central Asia and that threatens US security.



Jakob Augstein notes in Der Spiegel:


Trump would probably be the better choice in the question of war and peace than Clinton.


Clinton has expressly expressed the wish to establish a flight ban on Syria, or parts of it. *** In truth, it would be an act of war. The risks are unpredictable. Above all, the risk of a military conflict with Russia.



***
The highest soldier of the United States of America, General Joseph Dunford, President of the United States General Staff of the United States Forces, is certain. To control the entire airspace over Syria would mean war with Syria and Russia. Dunford’s predecessor in office estimated a few years ago that an effective flight bomb over Syria would involve the use of 70,000 soldiers and a monthly cost of $ 1 billion.

But the bottom line is Clinton’s proven historical track record … she’s at least partly responsible for war after catastrophic war and coup after disastrous coup in Libya, Syria, Kosovo, Haiti, Honduras and other countries around the world.
And it's interesting, indeed, that the Neocons who got us into the Iraq war have endorsed  Clinton instead of Trump.

Trump might speak in a crude, knee-jerk manner … but Clinton is probably more likely to actually get us into war.

_________________________________________


As Americans protest their 2016 elections as rigged and filled with fraud giving us that far-right, authoritarian, militaristic, dictator-like TRUMP---Turkey is doing the same.  Turkey was part of the OTTOMAN EMPIRE----divided after WW2 with a leader who for several decades was SOCIALLY AND ECONOMICALLY LIBERAL.  Now Turkey is moving back to that same far-right, authoritarian, militaristic, dictatorship.  Turkey as the Russian satellite nations like Ukraine were victim to global Wall Street frauds and losses and they are angry-----


Turkey's citizens don't want to MOVE FORWARD back to the DARK AGES----but they don't want EURO/AMERICAN naked capitalism either---as in Egypt.  All over the world global 99% citizens simply want

LOCAL ECONOMIES, STABLE AND FREE FROM FRAUD AND CORRUPTION, CONTROLLED BY COMMUNITIES AND CITIES/COUNTIES.


The global 1% have been fighting over these regions for thousands of years. ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE is a movement by SOME of these global 1% while other global 1% KNOW an alliance will have wars between that alliance........this is not a movement towards a peaceful ONE WORLD---for ANY global 99% especially WE THE PEOPLE in America...


Protests in Turkey turn violent - CNN.com


Cnn › 2016/11/05/europe/turkey-protests/index.html Nov 04, 2016 · Istanbul (CNN)Clashes erupted Saturday in Istanbul between police and protesters demonstrating against the arrests of opposition politicians and ...



Turkey Arrests Dozens Over Referendum Protests


By PATRICK KINGSLEYAPRIL 19, 2017

Protesters marched in Istanbul on Tuesday in support of a petition seeking annulment of a referendum that approved an expansion of powers for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Credit Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


ISTANBUL — Dozens of members of Turkey’s political opposition were arrested in dawn raids on Wednesday, as a crackdown began on those questioning the legitimacy of a referendum on Sunday to expand the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.


Mr. Erdogan has claimed a narrow 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent victory in the vote, but protesters in pockets of the country have marched in the streets every night since then to demonstrate against what they assert was a rigged election.

After warnings from Mr. Erdogan, at least 38 people accused of participating in the protests were rounded up Wednesday morning or issued arrest warrants, according to lawyers and relatives of the detained.
Despite the arrests hundreds of people gathered in several cities across Turkey on Wednesday evening in a show of defiance.

“For the past five years they have been trying to turn Turkey into an empire of fear,” said Serhat, a 27-year-old attending a protest in Istanbul, who asked that his surname not be published, for fear of being arrested.

“But there will always be people who won’t bow to them,” Serhat, a TV producer, added.
Though tens of thousands of people have been detained for political reasons in Turkey in recent months, these were the first political arrests reported since the referendum.


“These people are mainly those who attended the protests after the referendum and raised their voice against the referendum result on social media,” said Deniz Demirdogen, a lawyer for one of the detainees, Mesut Gecgel.


“The police told the detainees that they were accused of trying to agitate people against the ‘yes’ vote,” Mr. Demirdogen said by telephone from the police station in Istanbul where his client had been taken.


Abdurrahman Atalay, a prominent political activist who filed an appeal on Tuesday against the referendum result, was also detained. His nephew, Can Atalay, said by telephone that the police had told Mr. Atalay that he was being charged for “inciting hatred among people by claiming the referendum result is dubious.”


Several of the detainees are from the United June Movement, a group formed after the mass protests in June 2013 against Mr. Erdogan’s government.


The arrests will add to fears that Sunday’s referendum has accelerated Turkey’s descent toward authoritarianism. Mr. Erdogan and his allies say their victory will help bring stability and prosperity to the country, while their critics argue that it will give the president too much power, insulate the post from judicial scrutiny and, as a result, contribute to greater instability.


Two international observer missions said the referendum campaign had been conducted in an unfair environment in which opposition voices were suppressed.

Observers also criticized the government for holding the vote during a state of emergency that was imposed after the failed coup in July against Mr. Erdogan.


Since then, roughly 45,000 people suspected of being dissidents and of plotting the coup have been arrested, more than 150 media groups and 1,500 civil society organizations have been closed, and about 130,000 people have been purged from their jobs. Anti-Erdogan campaigners faced physical intimidation and restrictions on their ability to hold rallies and to appear in the news media.


An Interior Ministry official said that no one was available to comment by telephone on the arrests, and asked that requests for comment be submitted by email.


In a separate development on Wednesday, Turkey’s electoral commission rejected an appeal by the opposition to annul the entire referendum. The opposition had based the appeal on the commission’s controversial decision — made while voting was still in progress on Sunday — to raise the burden needed to prove allegations of ballot-box stuffing.


International observers and legal experts said that this decision, made at the request of a member of Mr. Erdogan’s party, broke electoral law and contradicted the commission’s previous decisions. But the commission rejected the argument early on Wednesday evening.


Thousands of individual appeals of individual ballot boxes nevertheless remain in play, keeping open the possibility that the final vote tallies might yet change.
Bulent Tezcan, the deputy head of the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, or C.H.P., criticized the appeal’s rejection. “We call it organized election fraud, organized stealing of votes,” Mr. Tezcan said.


The rejection of the appeal came as more allegations of electoral fraud emerged. The secretary of the C.H.P. in Istanbul, Dr. Hakki Saglam, suggested that as many as 200,000 ballot papers in Istanbul alone may have been added to ballot boxes illegally, since they had not been validated with an official stamp.

__________________________________________


Trump is OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE ANCIENT SCOTTISH RITE TEMPLE----ergo he is NOT a Putin-lover. The national media has Trump ranting that he will ATTACK ANYONE AND EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT SUPPORT US INTERESTS. He is that same BUSH/CHENEY whose only talent is LYING, CHEATING, AND STEALING. These folks can only win with bullying----threatening. They are those childhood school ground bullies who kicked young boy's shins and pulled young girl's hair and stole their lunch money----only they grew up and were allowed to gain power.

This is why Trump was installed in 2016 Presidential election---the Clintons are global Wall Street and banking fraud and technology----the Bush neo-conservatives are military and energy----ergo TRUMP THUMPING HIS CHEST. MOVING FORWARD needs war-----that is what all this kabuki theater in media means.

WE THE PEOPLE DO NOT WANT WAR----WE MUST GET RID OF THESE GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS---ROLLING PEACEFUL PROTESTS IN US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES---LIKE BALTIMORE.



Donald Trump will 'attack everyone and anyone' but Vladimir Putin is 'immune'

Jim Himes made the claim while questioning FBI Director James Comey for the House Intelligence Committee

  • Shehab Khan
  • @shehabkhan
  • Monday 20 March 2017 23:41 GMT

Donald Trump will “attack anyone and everyone” but Vladimir Putin is “immune” from criticism, a member of the House of Representatives has said. 
Jim Himes made the claim while questioning FBI Director James Comey for the House Intelligence Committee. 

The member from Connecticut’s fourth district noted that Mr Trump had defended Mr Putin but had focused a range of attacks on US allies.

“Our new president will attack everyone and anyone. He will attack the cast of Hamilton, he will attack Chuck Schumer, he will attack our allies, Mexico, Australia, Germany, he will attack the intelligence community,” Mr Himes said.

“…There is one person and one country which is immune. Which is inoculated from any form of presidential attack no matter what the behaviour.

“No matter if there is a violation of the INF nuclear treaty, no matter if Vladimir Putin kills political opponents. The new President defends, obfuscates and does not attack,” he added.


REALLY?????????????

Mr Himes also said many of those who were close to Mr Trump had “lied” and “misled” about their relationship with Russia. 


“The people around the president, Micahel Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Carter Paige and Paul Manaford, have an odd connection to Russia. A series of odd connections,” he said. 


_____________________________________________



'The hope for a Prussian rebirth is strong among those Germans who remember the greatness of the country’s 19th-century history. The idea of a Prussian state is but further evidence of a resurrected Holy Roman Empire with Germany at its head (Rev. 13:3-4).
Whoever leads this resurrected Holy Roman Empire will need people to wholeheartedly exhibit one specific Prussian virtue, that of blind obedience'.


This comment is OVERLY SIMPLISTIC-----

The global banking frauds by UK and US in early 20th century hit European nations hard as they did these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA----Germany's 1% had empire-building in mind in recapturing the OTTOMAN EMPIRE----along with the ideals of A ROMAN EMPIRE----ergo the taking of all of Europe and marching into Far - Near Middle-East. Meanwhile STALIN in Russia thinking empire-building used this provocation to expand its satellite nations. Each one used the global 99% anger at losses of personal wealth from global banking frauds by global 1% and their own leaders.
WHETHER STALIN, HITLER, MUSSOLINI-----OR PUTIN, ERDOGAN, TRUMP----all of these global 1% and going to war only think of the advantages of AFTER-WAR TREATIES. THE NEW WORLD ORDER. They love losing millions of citizens to death in war time.

Greater Russia meets Greater Roman Empire meets Greater Ottoman Empire. REALLY?????? 'Erdogan: Sultan of an Illusionary Ottoman Empire

Turkey has no chance to become as powerful and influential as the Ottoman Empire was during its heyday. And it’s all Erdogan’s fault'.


 Remember, North and South America are still those AMERICAN COLONIES to these global 1%! They think WE THE PEOPLE are already captured and colonized.


Germany’s Prussian Ambition

What does Germany’s desire to bring back the state of Prussia say about its future?By William Ghannam
From the June 2002

Trumpet Print Edition


After World War II, Winston Churchill condemned the German state of Prussia as “the root of all evil.”


So why is there a heartfelt effort in Germany today to bring back Prussia? Prussia directly connects Germany with its imperial past of power and conquest!
The victorious Allies, by means of the “Potsdam Declaration,” agreed on the removal of the German population from a part of the area known as Prussia. Much of this land was to be given to Poland and the Soviet Union. Two years later, in 1947, the Allies passed a law that permanently banned Prussia from ever existing, branding it the warmongering heart of Germany.


Still, a dream of a resurgent Prussian state has captured the hearts and minds of some in Germany today. This dream found a voice in the words of Alwin Ziel, Brandenburg’s social affairs minister, when he suggested in February that the proposed merger of the city-state of Berlin and the state of Brandenburg be called Prussia.


Germans still proudly remember and admire their past. This includes a growing number of liberal intellectuals, aristocrats and royalty who have joined forces in support of Prussia’s rebirth (Guardian, Feb. 23).


But given the law passed in 1947, can Prussia legally be reestablished? “The fact that the Allies dissolved the state of Prussia does not mean that one of Germany’s present-day states cannot bear the same name,” said Detlef Merten, professor of public law at the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Feb. 17; emphasis mine throughout). He added, “Germany is indeed sovereign in the matter since only those states that are part of the Federal Republic of Germany are being dealt with here” (ibid.).


“Prussia is a project, not a historical relic or even a joke,” said Tilman Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Bonn, adding that “only fatalists will argue that Prussia is history” (ibid., Feb. 28).

Revitalization of great Prussian cities, palaces and buildings continue to rekindle the dream of the rebirth of past Prussian glory in a modern Germany. Many Germans are looking to the greatness of their past to lead their future!


Virtues of the Imperial Past

Germans increasingly refuse to feel continuing shame over their history. This fact was brought to prominence last year, when the German government officially named it Prussian Year 2001.


German President Johannes Rau defended all that was good with Prussia during the celebrations: “We should use this opportunity and then we can recognize that there are traditions and attitudes that are worth highlighting and rediscovering: tolerance, reform, selflessness and modesty, the nation-state and law and order” (Independent, Jan. 14, 2001).


Prussian Year 2001 was formally celebrated throughout Germany with a series of exhibitions and events commemorating Prussia’s influence upon Germany and the world. Over 100 museums and cultural organizations throughout the former Prussian region took part.


These celebrations confirmed one truism: “[T]he Germans are at least no longer afraid of Prussia” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Feb. 20).


Eberhard Diepgen, former mayor of Berlin, expressed amazement at how the Prussian state was ever permitted to descend into disregard. “I am happy that Prussian Year 2001 will remind us of these fruitful traditions in our history,” he said. He added that the knowledge of those traditions “can be taken as a basis for the future of Europe” (Telegraph, Dec. 31, 2000).


Mr. Mayer said, “We need Prussia to unite Germany. We need Prussia as a shining name to inspire great achievements in Germany. We need Prussia as a provocation to trigger action” (op. cit.). One might ask, what action will be triggered if Prussian idealism takes over?


Looking to Frederick

The city of Potsdam was known as the “pearl of Prussia.” Devastated by World War ii and left inert by the forced seclusion of the Cold War, it has recently undergone great change, swiftly acquiring a reputation as one of Germany’s most attractive cities. After German reunification in 1990, Potsdam became the capital of the state of Brandenburg. A stunning reminder of its great imperial past is reflected in two elegant palaces which reside there, both built in the late 1700s by Prussia’s most recognized king, Frederick the Great.


Frederick, who reigned from 1740 to 1786, is remembered in Germany to this day. Adolf Hitler paid his respects to Frederick at his grave in Potsdam in 1933, and there declared the beginning of the Third Reich. When the collapse of the Reich was hastened by the advancing Russian army, the Nazi government protected Frederick’s remains by exhuming his body and moving it to western Germany.


Nazis and other right-wing extremists hail Frederick “as a cult figure because of his martial accomplishments” (Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens, pp. 282-283). This “fierce Prussian warrior” was known as a frequent invader of foreign lands.


In 1991, only one year after Germany reunited East and West, Frederick was honored by a reburial at his beloved Sans Souci Palace near Potsdam—with over 80,000 in attendance, including then Chancellor Helmut Kohl.


Several newspapers acknowledged the immediate reaction in Europe: fear. Troubled hearts saw this national reverence as an inner-stirring for Germany to return to its roots of military greatness.


Remember the Good

Most Germans only want to remember the good that the Prussians are responsible for: They emancipated the local Jewish population in 1812; serfdom was eliminated; immigration was encouraged; the arts and sciences and the introduction of compulsory education were sponsored and administered by the Prussian state.


Warmly evoked by countless Germans is the belief in Prussian virtues: modesty, discipline, self-control, punctuality, thriftiness, state service and a hard-working attitude. These virtues are seen as the catalyst of Prussia’s economic power.


However, to most Europeans, Prussia is generally remembered for its militarism, arrogance and, especially, its expansionism.


“The anti-Prussian sentiment that survives in western and southern Germany is of no consequence and is declining by the decade,” wrote Wolf Jobst Siedler, a distinguished German journalist (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Feb. 17). Siedler added, “European irritation can be ignored, too, just as European unease was ignored when the two German states—East and West Germany—were reunited” (ibid.).


Alexandra Richie, Oxford historian, points out in her book Faust’s Metropolis that European irritation should not be so easily ignored. “The fact that German unification was achieved without violence was a political miracle, but experience shows that disruption often emerges later and in unexpected ways.”


How Did Prussia Rule?

In 1862, Count Otto von Bismarck became both prime minister and foreign minister of Prussia. He realized that to lead the German unification effort and attain world leadership status for Germany, Prussia would need both a potent army and effective diplomatic skills. In this he had the willing support of King Wilhelm i.


In 1866, the Prussian army crushed Austria in only seven weeks, thus forming the North German Union. A few years later, Prussia swiftly defeated the incompetent emperor of France, Napoleon iii, setting the stage for the highly anticipated unification of Germany in 1871. The German Empire, or Second Reich, was formed.


The newly crowned kaiser (emperor of Germany)--Wilhelm i—made Otto von Bismarck, his longtime champion advocate, Germany’s first chancellor.
During a constitutional crisis over army reforms, Bismarck was resolute regarding Prussia’s authority: “The position of Prussia in Germany will be decided not by its liberalism but by its power. … [N]ot through speeches and majority decisions are the great questions of the day decided … but by iron and blood” (Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, vol. 1). Bismarck insisted that the German Empire have a dominant role in European affairs and unhindered ability to colonize throughout the world.


Wilhelm i’s grandson—known to be vociferous and uncaring—attempted to persuade his dying grandfather to abdicate and give him the throne instead of giving it to his son Friederich. Wilhelm i refused. But after Wilhelm i’s death in 1888, Friederich ruled only 99 days before dying of throat cancer.


Thus Wilhelm i’s grandson, Wilhelm ii, ascended to the throne that same year. By 1890 he had forced Bismarck out of office; the new kaiser wanted to establish his own ultimate authority.


Kaiser Wilhelm ii was also determined to extend the German Empire’s power and influence throughout the world. So strong was his motivation, he even considered attacking the United States in a daring naval assault on New York, Boston and other U.S. ports 20 years before World War i began, because he wanted the Pacific Ocean clear for German colonial conquest.
Most do not realize this fact concerning the German Empire: Several kings, princes and other possessors of royal seats ruled under the kaiser’s seat of Prussian rule in this German alliance.


In November 1918, after the Great War had ended, all ruling monarchies in Germany lost their thrones and were officially abolished.


Count Carl-Eduard von Bismarck, descendant of Prince Otto von Bismarck, is one reminder of Germany’s once-great past living in today’s Germany. A wealthy banker, Bismarck is currently seeking political office and views Prussia just as his ancestor: “Prussia is a name that is known internationally and stands for something special” (Sunday Times, London, March 24).
Bismarck went on to declare, “It is back to the roots of Germany.” Yet, when history is closely examined, these deep Prussian roots reveal the true character of Germany as a militaristic-minded nation.


Days of Prussian Glory Revisited

After the destruction of Nazi Germany, cities were left in ruin by Allied bombs, and many historical buildings were lost or damaged beyond repair; Hitler’s plans were burned to ashes.


“Yet it has remained mysteriously unknown to this day that immediately after conquering Poland, Hitler charged his architect [Albert] Speer in October 1939 with expanding a residence in the East—a palace built by Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm ii between 1905-1910—in what was then the Prussian province of Posen” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Feb. 19).


Hitler looked to the past with pride. Even today, Germans continue to visit cities and territories of their once-extensive empire, such as the Russian city of Kaliningrad (formally Königsberg, Prussia). “For Germans, Kaliningrad is still important from an emotional standpoint. German cash has been raised to reconstruct the ruined Königsberg cathedral, and thousands of Germans make pilgrimages to the city each summer in an attempt to rediscover their lost roots” (Telegraph, Jan. 21, 2001).


Königsberg was the first capital of Prussia, where Frederick the Great’s grandfather proclaimed himself Prussia’s first king in 1701.


Do the Russians remember the history of the former Königsberg? Germany doesn’t seem to think so. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kaliningrad has become an island unto itself—trapped between Poland and Lithuania—essentially deserted by Russia.


The Germans remember why. As they look to rediscover their lost roots, Königsberg will continue to weigh heavy in the hearts of Germans who long for the imperial past and the old borders that made up Prussia. When both Poland and Lithuania become members of the European Union as slated in 2003, Kaliningrad will be surrounded by the EU, leaving Russia disconnected from Kaliningrad.


Vladimir Yegorov, governor of the Kaliningrad region, has expressed his fears of an uprising by the people. He made it clear to the Kremlin that if living conditions continue to worsen, it could lead to a separation from Russia. He said the people of Kaliningrad might take matters into their own hands if they no longer had anything to lose.


Dreams of Regaining Königsberg


Britain’s Telegraph reported early last year that Germany and Russia were in secret talks to return Königsberg to Germany. But can Germany really hope to have Königsberg back?


Berlin had given billions of dollars to Russia that they knew could not be paid back. This begs the question: Will Russia trade land to offset the money it owes to Germany? Will a deal be struck in secret—just as they agreed to partition Poland right before World War ii?


Russia’s economic partnership with Germany is beginning to resemble the one they had just before World Wars i and ii. Once again, Russia sees Germany as one of its most important and stable trade partners. The roots for this partnership run deep, as Prussia, the center of the German nation-state, traditionally looked to Russia as an ally.


Yet, as history proves, the roots of German-Russian loyalty are not deep enough to endure. The non-aggression pact formed between the two nations in 1939 was completely ignored when, two years later, Germany attacked Russia.


The Power of PrussiaEberhard Straub of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung recently said that if a new Prussia incorporated the areas of Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Western Pomerania and Mecklenburg, the German mindset could be changed: “Such a northern German federation in the form of a rejuvenated Prussia might after all arouse the energies that the weak need to grow strong—when united” (Feb. 20).


Straub undoubtedly speaks for many Germans. He challenged the people of Brandenburg and Berlin to persuade their fellowcitizens throughout the nation to the sensible benefits of restoring Prussia, “and thereby the whole of Germany, thus shaking it out of its lethargy” (ibid.).


In 1993, many Germans viewed a temporary life-sized replica of the former Prussian palace—home for the Prussian monarchy until 1918—in Berlin, creating huge momentum for its reconstruction. Then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder agreed with the traditionalists who believe that only by rebuilding the once-magnificent palace can all that was good about Prussia be fully understood.


To further embrace Germany’s glorious past, Schröder set up a panel to debate how to revive Berlin’s historic center—including the former Prussian palace, despite critics who argued that the palace could create nostalgia for a militaristic state.

“The wound must be healed—and in the architectural form of what was destroyed,” said panel chairman Hannes Swoboda at a news conference concerning the Prussian palace’s future (Associated Press, Jan. 18).


The hope for a Prussian rebirth is strong among those Germans who remember the greatness of the country’s 19th-century history. The idea of a Prussian state is but further evidence of a resurrected Holy Roman Empire with Germany at its head (Rev. 13:3-4).
Whoever leads this resurrected Holy Roman Empire will need people to wholeheartedly exhibit one specific Prussian virtue, that of blind obedience.


Professor Mayer reflected on a German proverb that says Prussians are slow to draw, and warned that when some well-known Bavarians start claiming that they are the better Prussians, “Prussia should watch out [before the] Bavarians storm Berlin” (op. cit.).

Adolf Hitler was closely associated with Bavaria, having been born in the neighboring city of Braunau am Inn and served in the Bavarian army in World War i. He used the Prussian military machine for his evil purpose, and millions followed him with blind obedience to make his idealism come alive, catapulting humanity into the Second World War.


Prussian power ruled by a Bavarian leader can be a lethal combination. Hitler has proven that. And now that Germany is unified and leading the European Union—and with the Bavarian Edmund Stoiber running in the German elections this year—could such a lethal combination of political rule happen again?

_____________________________________________



We will end this week' discussion on geo-political public policy by looking to where China fits into all these NEW WORLD ORDER ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE mechanisms.

One thing is for sure----Chinese politburo are billionaires because they are BFF with global Wall Street.  Global Wall Street is deliberately killing the US dollar to kill the American status as a sovereign nation with the likelihood of the Chinese YEN taking over.  Whatever is planned as the new global currency---it does not look like China's 1% are enemies of Western 1%---they look more like partners.

This partnership is driven by the desire of the OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE----the old ASIAN SPICE TRADING ROUTES making those merchants the global 1%.  So the Asian OLD WORLD 1% partnered in rebuilding that extreme wealth extreme poverty model in Western nations with the goal of only dealing with trade geared towards that global 1% and their 2% as consumers.


Asian nations like China will sit back and watch a WW 3 between Western nations-----they simply want to get back to OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE---the extremely rich trading with one another.


 The economic alliance of BRIC NATIONS--- Brazil, Russia, India, China is not a NEW WORLD ORDER---it is simply a balance to the power of US, UK, Europe.



China's new world order: Xi, Putin and others meet for Belt and Road Forum


By James Griffiths, CNN


Updated 6:17 PM ET, Sun May 14, 2017




Belt and Road Forum, Beijing (CNN)China's leaders are ringing in what they hope is a new world order at a major international conference in Beijing Sunday.

The Belt and Road Forum is China's answer to Davos or the G20, centered around the colossal One Belt, One Road (OBOR) trade initiative, which takes its inspiration from the ancient Silk Road trading route.


Speaking at the opening ceremony, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized OBOR's international credentials in the face of criticism that the project will be dominated by Beijing.



"What we hope to create is a big family of harmonious co-existence," Xi said, adding that all countries were welcome to take part in the project.



Xi announced an additional $124 billion in funding for the OBOR initiative, including loans, grants and $8.7 billion in assistance to developing countries. According to Chinese state media, some $1 trillion has already been invested in OBOR, with another several trillion due to be invested over the next decade.


Addressing the forum after Xi, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to take aim at the US, which is not involved in the OBOR initiative.

"Protectionism is becoming the new normal," Putin warned, adding that the "ideas of openness and free trade are increasingly often being rejected (even) by those who until very recently expounded them."

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned against "protectionism" at the Belt and Road Forum.


OBOR, which has been in the works for four years, spans more than 68 countries and up to 40% of global GDP. It is China's push to put it in a position of world leadership as the US under President Donald Trump takes a more protectionist approach and gives up the mantle of globalization.


Sunday's forum is being held near Beijing's Olympic Park -- the site of the 2008 games -- as the city enjoys the type of splendid weather China's leaders have shown themselves adept at creating on demand when needed for political events. Roads around the venue have been closed down amid a heavy security operation.
Political push


In attendance Sunday were Chinese President Xi Jinping -- whose personal project the OBOR initiative is -- Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, alongside a host of other world leaders and top ranking officials.


Joining them was a small delegation from North Korea, despite recent strained ties between Beijing and Pyongyang over the latter's nuclear program.


Early Sunday, North Korea launched a ballistic missile, emphasizing how high tensions in the region are at the moment and stealing focus from the OBOR forum in what could be seen as a deliberate insult to Xi.


The leaders of the US and most European economies were notably absent Sunday. While the US sent Matt Pottinger, special assistant to the President, no cabinet or elected officials were in attendance.
Attendees at the Belt and Road Forum include representatives of dozens of countries around the world, but the US and most European countries have not sent senior officials.


In a communique announcing a new trade deal with China Thursday, the US said it "recognizes the importance of China's One Belt and One Road initiative," but Washington is largely uninvolved in OBOR or connected projects like the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).


Speaking to CNN Saturday, AIIB President Jin Liqun was positive that the US could still play a role in China's projects, saying that "regardless of the membership of the US ... we can work together."
"The door is open, any member is welcome to join," he added.
While OBOR has been hailed within China as something that can benefit the whole world and lift millions out of poverty, further afield its reception has been more mixed.


Jörg Wuttke, outgoing president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, warned last week that the initiative has increasingly "been hijacked by Chinese companies, which have used it as an excuse to evade capital controls, smuggling money out of the country by disguising it as international investments and partnerships."


He and other critics have pointed to restrictions on and obstacles to foreign firms doing business in China as evident of the hypocrisy behind Beijing's grand unifying vision.


Even neighboring India has been skeptical. The country's finance and defense minister Arun Jaitley told reporters this month Delhi has "serious reservations" about the project, particularly regarding China-funded development in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.



While many countries may have gone into OBOR with a "more rosy tinted view of what China's intent was," the scales are increasingly falling from their eyes, said Christopher Balding, a professor of economics at Peking University.


Of particular concern for many is what happens if Chinese-funded projects fail. In the past, this has meant Chinese firms or banks "essentially taking over," Balding said, giving them complete control over very strategic projects in foreign countries. Some have also warned of projects becoming expensive white elephants with little payoff for backers or locals.


Jin said such warnings are "necessary," adding that in the past "there were white elephants, there were mistakes."
"It's very important that the resources put into (OBOR) projects must be producing tangible results for the people" of the countries they are in, he told CNN.

Max Baucus, a former US ambassador to China, said OBOR has "if not frightened, then at least concerned, a lot of countries along the way."



Prior to Donald Trump's election as US President, it could be expected that Washington's Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- a free-trade alliance of 12 Asian and Pacific economies -- would act as something of a counterbalance to rising Chinese power.


Trump however, pulled the US out of the deal a day after taking office. While it still includes Australia and Japan, both major economies, without Washington's backing the TPP will be far smaller if it manages to nevertheless go ahead.


The US has also reduced activity in the hotly contested South China Sea, in what has been seen as another concession to China by the new US president who hopes for a solution in North Korea.


Baucus said the country's withdrawal from the region risked creating "a vacuum."
"(TPP was) an economic complement to military planning in the South China Sea," he said, while OBOR puts China "in the driving seat."


0 Comments
<<Previous

    Author

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

    Archives

    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012

    Categories

    All
    2014 Economic Crash
    21st Century Economy
    Affordable Care Act
    Affordable Care Act
    Alec
    Americorp/VISTA
    Anthony Brown
    Anthony Brown
    Anti Incumbant
    Anti-incumbant
    Anti Incumbent
    Anti Incumbent
    Attacking The Post Office Union
    Baltimore And Cronyism
    Baltimore Board Of Estimates
    Baltimore Board Of Estimates
    Baltimore Development Corp
    Baltimore Development Corp
    Baltimore Recall/Retroactive Term Limits
    Bank Fraud
    Bank Fraud
    Bank Of America
    Bank Settlement
    Bank-settlement
    B Corporations
    Bgeexelon Mergerf59060c411
    Brookings Institution
    Business Tax Credits
    California Charter Expansion
    Cardin
    Career Colleges
    Career Colleges Replacing Union Apprenticeships
    Charters
    Charter School
    Collection Agencies
    Common Core
    Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
    Consumer-financial-protection-bureau
    Corporate Media
    Corporate-media
    Corporate Oversight
    Corporate-oversight
    Corporate Politicians
    Corporate-politicians
    Corporate Rule
    Corporate-rule
    Corporate Taxes
    Corporate-taxes
    Corporate Tax Reform
    Corporatizing Us Universities
    Cost-benefit-analysis
    Credit Crisis
    Credit-crisis
    Cummings
    Department Of Education
    Department Of Justice
    Department-of-justice
    Derivatives Reform
    Development
    Dismantling Public Justice
    Dodd Frank
    Doddfrankbba4ff090a
    Doug Gansler
    Doug-gansler
    Ebdi
    Education Funding
    Education Reform
    Edwards
    Election Reform
    Election-reform
    Elections
    Emigration
    Energy-sector-consolidation-in-maryland
    Enterprise Zones
    Equal Access
    Estate Taxes
    European Crisis
    Expanded And Improved Medicare For All
    Expanded-and-improved-medicare-for-all
    Failure To Prosecute
    Failure-to-prosecute
    Fair
    Fair And Balanced Elections
    Fair-and-balanced-elections
    Farm Bill
    Federal Election Commissionelection Violationsmaryland
    Federal Election Commissionelection Violationsmarylandd20a348918
    Federal-emergency-management-agency-fema
    Federal Reserve
    Financial Reform Bill
    Food Safety Not In Tpp
    For Profit Education
    Forprofit-education
    Fracking
    Fraud
    Freedom Of Press And Speech
    Frosh
    Gambling In Marylandbaltimore8dbce1f7d2
    Granting Agencies
    Greening Fraud
    Gun Control Policy
    Healthcare For All
    Healthcare-for-all
    Health Enterprise Zones
    High Speed Rail
    Hoyer
    Imf
    Immigration
    Incarceration Bubble
    Incumbent
    Incumbents
    Innovation Centers
    Insurance Industry Leverage And Fraud
    International Criminal Court
    International Trade Deals
    International-trade-deals
    Jack Young
    Jack-young
    Johns Hopkins
    Johns-hopkins
    Johns Hopkins Medical Systems
    Johns-hopkins-medical-systems
    Kaliope Parthemos
    Labor And Justice Law Under Attack
    Labor And Wages
    Lehmann Brothers
    Living Wageunionspolitical Action0e39f5c885
    Maggie McIntosh
    Maggie-mcintosh
    Martin O'Malley
    Martin O'Malley
    Martin-omalley
    Martin-omalley8ecd6b6eb0
    Maryland Health Co Ops
    Maryland-health-co-ops
    Maryland-health-co-ops1f77692967
    Maryland Health Coopsccd73554da
    Maryland Judiciary
    Marylandnonprofits
    Maryland Non Profits
    Maryland Nonprofits2509c2ca2c
    Maryland Public Service Commission
    Maryland State Bar Association
    Md Credit Bondleverage Debt441d7f3605
    Media
    Media Bias
    Media-bias
    Medicaremedicaid
    Medicaremedicaid8416fd8754
    Mental Health Issues
    Mental-health-issues
    Mers Fraud
    Mikulski
    Military Privatization
    Minority Unemploymentunion And Labor Wagebaltimore Board Of Estimates4acb15e7fa
    Municipal Debt Fraud
    Ndaa-indefinite-detention
    Ndaaindefinite Detentiond65cc4283d
    Net Neutrality
    New Economy
    New-economy
    Ngo
    Non Profit To Profit
    Nonprofit To Profitb2d6cb4b41
    Nsa
    O'Malley
    Odette Ramos
    Omalley
    O'Malley
    Open Meetings
    Osha
    Patronage
    Pension-benefit-guaranty-corp
    Pension Funds
    Pension-funds
    Police Abuse
    Private-and-public-pension-fraud
    Private Health Systemsentitlementsprofits Over People
    Private Health Systemsentitlementsprofits Over People6541f468ae
    Private Non Profits
    Private-non-profits
    Private Nonprofits50b33fd8c2
    Privatizing Education
    Privatizing Government Assets
    Privatizing-the-veterans-admin-va
    Privitizing Public Education
    Progressive Policy
    Progressive Taxes Replace Regressive Policy
    Protections Of The People
    Protections-of-the-people
    Public Education
    Public Funding Of Private Universities
    Public Housing Privatization
    Public-libraries-privatized-or-closed
    Public Private Partnerships
    Public-private-partnerships
    Public Transportation Privatization
    Public Utilities
    Rapid Bus Network
    Rawlings Blake
    Rawlings-blake
    Rawlingsblake1640055471
    Real Progressives
    Reit-real-estate-investment-trusts
    Reitreal Estate Investment Trustsa1a18ad402
    Repatriation Taxes
    Rule Of Law
    Rule-of-law
    Ruppersberger
    SAIC AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
    Sarbanes
    S Corp Taxes
    Selling Public Datapersonal Privacy
    Smart Meters
    Snowden
    Social Security
    Sovereign Debt Fraudsubprime Mortgage Fraudmortgage Fraud Settlement
    Sovereign Debt Fraudsubprime Mortgage Fraudmortgage Fraud Settlement0d62c56e69
    Statistics As Spin
    Statistics-as-spin
    Student-corps
    Subprime Mortgage Fraud
    Subprime-mortgage-fraud
    Surveillance And Security
    Sustainability
    Teachers
    Teachers Unions2bc448afc8
    Teach For America
    Teach For America
    Technology Parks
    Third Way Democrats/new Economy/public Union Employees/public Private Patnerships/government Fraud And Corruption
    Third Way Democratsnew Economypublic Union Employeespublic Private Patnershipsgovernment Fraud And Corruption
    Third-way-democratsnew-economypublic-union-employeespublic-private-patnershipsgovernment-fraud-and-corruptionc10a007aee
    Third Way/neo Liberals
    Third-wayneo-liberals
    Third-wayneo-liberals5e1e6d4716
    Third Wayneoliberals7286dda6aa
    Tifcorporate Tax Breaks2d87bba974
    Tpp
    Transportation Inequity In Maryland
    Union Busting
    Unionbusting0858fddb8b
    Unions
    Unionsthird Waypost Officealec3c887e7815
    Universities
    Unreliable Polling
    Unreliable-polling
    Van Hollen
    Van-hollen
    VEOLA Environment -privatization Of Public Water
    Veterans
    War Against Women And Children
    War-against-women-and-children
    Youth Works

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.