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June 30th, 2017

6/30/2017

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We will end this week's discussion of global economic policy and what it looks like locally talking again about the move by global Wall Street to take all banking online and closing brick and mortar banks----starting of course in CALIFORNIA.

We want to make two points from our posts yesterday---first, Elizabeth Warren is KNOWN to be a specialist in BANKRUPTCY LAW and indeed while in Texas and then at Harvard she was central in writing corporate bankruptcy law being BFF with Romney the corporate bankruptcy raider and Trump the corporate bankruptcy KING.   Global Wall Street and national media never mention this but make Warren the populist leader of the 99%.  Want to bet Warren was not tied to writing RING FENCING FOR CORPORATE BANKRUPTCY?

While Ring Fencing policy used by left social progressives to protect CITIZENS AND TAXPAYERS from losing their tax revenue and having fraud and corruption kill social programs and projects-----of course global Wall Street corrupt that term when applying it to corporate profit-making.....it is used to skirt corporate debt and worker's benefits.



What is Ring Fencing?


The phrase “ring fencing” refers to steps taken to make a subsidiary “bankruptcy-proof” or “bankruptcy remote.” Ring fencing is supposed to shield the assets of the subsidiary from the bankruptcy of its parent or affiliates and allow the subsidiary to obtain or maintain a “standalone” credit rating substantially higher than the lower credit rating of its parent.


Below we see an article by ROOSEVELT INSTITUTE---that is the global 1% ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE UNITED NATIONS group pretending to be left social progressive when they are representing the FDR side being that GLOBAL WALL STREET ROBBER BARON.  Here we see mention of Warren with the CFPB making it sound as if it will protect the 99% of citizens from bad financial practices.  Notice CFPB has not mentioned these several years of massive US Treasury bond fraud or the fact that private and public pensions have again been attached to these fraudulent bonds?  CFPB is built to protect one corporation's assets from fraud or trade violations by ANOTHER CORPORATION.

JUST AS IN 1990s ----this is how Clinton far-right Reagan neo-liberalism was made to sound left social progressive and it was all propaganda.  Again, GLOBAL IVY LEAGUE HARVARD does not hire as professors people creating populist laws.



'What Warren did with the CFPB'




Finance & WealthPolitics


How Elizabeth Warren Put Bankruptcy on the Progressive Map


By Roosevelt Institute | 09.15.11Share:
http://bit.ly/1Pb4AFDShe’s already had a knack for raising the profile of ignored but important issues, and the office of U.S. Senator can act as an even bigger megaphone.


Elizabeth Warren, who yesterday announced her candidacy for the Senate in Massachusetts, is best known as the inventor and rightful director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In that role, and in appearances on The Daily Show, her disarming charisma — made up of equal parts moral commitment, intellectual firepower, and a sense that she’s listening as intently as she’s talking — became familiar to millions.


But I still think of Warren at least as much for a role she played earlier in the decade: bringing the issue of bankruptcy into the public debate, most notably in the Warren Reports, which she and some of her students and protégés at Harvard Law School set up as a subsection of Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo blog in 2005. The Warren Reports set bankruptcy reform, which passed Congress that year, in the context of middle class families’ struggles to stay afloat in the economy. It showed us how bankruptcy — the chance to start over after a financial disaster — is as essential a part of the social safety net as unemployment insurance or savings.


What Warren did with the CFPB — put forward a specific policy idea and watch it pass into law — is rare enough, given the American political system’s resistance to good ideas. But what Warren did with bankruptcy is even more impressive. She took an entire issue that had no political salience whatsoever and helped make it matter. Bankruptcy was a classic example of an issue that had no constituency in the world of narrow interest groups except for the credit card companies and banks, all big political donors, that wanted to make it much harder for people to declare bankruptcy and start over with manageable debts. Unions didn’t think it was important (it would affect their members, but not the unions themselves); anti-poverty groups were more focused on federal programs and most bankruptcies affected the working middle class, not the very poor; health care advocates knew that health crises were a leading cause of bankruptcies, but it was not their issue. A handful of bankruptcy lawyers pushed back, but they were plainly self-interested and no match for the credit card behemoths. Members of Congress, including many Democrats (especially those from states that you might see on the return address of a credit card solicitation), voted to tighten bankruptcy laws year after year before the bill finally passed, and rarely did they hear a protest from a constituent or an activist.



But Warren, her TPM blog, and her other activism helped put the issue on the radar for the emerging “netroots.” The most useful contribution from the online activists of the netroots has been to break that single-issue interest group model of progressive politics and look more comprehensively at everything that matters for the middle class and working poor in America as a whole. They don’t say, “That’s not my issue” if it’s important. Key netroots blogs of that period, such as Daily Kos and Mydd.com, picked up Warren’s message and began to blast Democrats who had voted for bankruptcy reform, and it was a major issue in Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards’ successful 2008 primary challenge to Rep. Al Wynn. The bill had passed by then, unfortunately, but at last the issue mattered. Reversing the changes to bankruptcy law reform is now a major progressive priority.


I assume that lots of Warren’s friends have asked her why she would want to bother being a senator. Until they become committee chairs after three or four terms, or unless they can wedge themselves into the position where they are the critical 60th or 50th vote on key legislation like Ben Nelson of Nebraska (the most conservative Democrat), each senator has very little clout. Former governors, accustomed to the limitless power of the executive, often chafe at the endless talk and indecision. But a very few Senators are able to have an impact far greater than their institutional clout because they ignore institutional power and treat the Senate as a platform for ideas. That’s what Paul Wellstone did at the peak of his career (although it took him a while to figure it out), or the great liberal figures of the 1980s and earlier, Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio and William Proxmire of Wisconsin. On the right, Jesse Helms did much the same thing. Because any senator can introduce any amendment at any time, and with a subcommittee she can hold hearings on almost anything, she can force debates that the American political process doesn’t want to have. Combine that with a good use of all the external platforms that are available to a person with the words “U.S. Senator” before his or her name, and it can become an enormous megaphone for what Warren did with bankruptcy and the CFPB: putting an issue or an idea on the agenda. And if she’s elected, she might show some of her colleagues that if they want to make a difference, they have to do more than sit around and vote in committee meetings.


Mark Schmitt is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Fellows Program at the Roosevelt Institute.

_________________________________________

Here is Stiglitz----leader of ROOSEVELT INSTITUTE----at the WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM FOR THE GLOBAL 1% backing MONEY-LESS SOCIETY.

Roosevelt Institute and Aspen Institute---with CLINTON INITIATIVE are behind all the United Nations protests against Trump and silent about the tremendous repression by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA and those global human capital distribution systems enslaving global labor pool to Foreign Economic Zones around the world.

These institutions work for the global 1% and their 2%---if they are marching for women or Muslims it is for that global 1% and their 2% ----our Arabic 1% are as enslaving and abusive of their Muslim 99% as Asian nations have been to their 99%.

THIS DIGITAL CURRENCY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FIGHTING CORRUPTION FOR GOODNESS SAKE---GLOBAL WALL STREET IS THAT SOURCE.

Who controls global internet, the technology, and oversight? WORLD BANK, NSA/INTERPOL/GLOBAL CORPORATIONS. Who drove this Robber Baron fleecing of America and US citizens of their personal wealth these few decades? Global Wall Street, global corporations, and their 5% pols and players. Stiglitz is STILL WORLD BANK.



Joseph Stiglitz: US Should Dump Cash And Move To Digital Currency


Written By: Ross Chainey January 18, 2017


India was the ‘test case’ for gong cashless, and it was so successful that the United States is next in the crosshairs. This isn’t about staving off corruption, but rather implementing Technocray. ⁃ TN EditorIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already removed 86% of his country’s currency from circulation in an attempt to curb tax evasion, tackle corruption and shut down the shadow economy.


Should the US follow suit?


Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, thinks so. Phasing out currency and moving towards a digital economy would, over the long term, have “benefits that outweigh the cost,” the Columbia University professor said on day one of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos.



Stiglitz was speaking in the session Ending Corruption alongside Mark Pieth from the Basel Institute of Governance and APCO Worldwide Founder and Executive Chairman Margery Kraus. Stiglitz and Pieth co-authored a report, Overcoming the Shadow Economy, in November last year.


Quantifying the scale of the problem, Stiglitz said: “You can put it into the context of one of the big issues being discussed in Davos this year – the backlash against globalization, the darker side of globalization … The lack of transparency in global financial markets, the secrecy havens that the Panama Papers exposed, just reinforced what we already knew … There is a global framework for both corruption and tax evasion and tax avoidance.



“The fact that you can hide ill-gotten gains so easily in these secrecy havens really provides incentives for people to engage in this activity as they can get the economic returns and then enjoy the benefits of those returns. If there were not these secrecy havens then the benefits from engaging in these kinds of illicit activity would be much diminished.”


One of the countries that has not done enough to fight corruption is the US, Stiglitz went on to say, and one remedy could be to phase out cash and embrace digital currencies.

“I believe very strongly that countries like the United States could and should move to a digital currency,” he said, “so that you would have the ability to trace this kind of corruption. There are important issues of privacy, cyber-security, but it would certainly have big advantages.”


Stiglitz is not the only Davos economist to make the case for a “less-cash” society. Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff has argued for two decades that a society awash with cash contributes to the growth of the underground economy. Rogoff believes large-denomination bank notes, rarely used by ordinary people and businesses, should be phased out. “Cash facilitates crime because it is anonymous, and big bills are especially problematic because they are so easy to carry and conceal,” he says in this article.

_________________________________________
Here we have MODI----we spoke of India's Modi when we spoke of Gabbard and Haley as HINDI in US supporting MODI.  MODI makes no bones about being far-right wing global neo-liberal ----he is expanding Foreign Economic Zones inside India as fast as he can.  India is rebuilding its old CLASS SYSTEM with extreme wealth extreme poverty and these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA has seen those East Indian professionals some of the lowest paid in the world. 

India would not be a model for America.

India as China would be a good place for a money-less society because their population is so large and almost all of that population is poor----MONEY-LESS.

If we watch which US citizens tie themselves to DAVOS----to UNITED NATIONS----WORLD BANK ---we then know these people are global 1% and their 2%----or those pesky 5% players wanting to be MERCHANTS OF VENICE BUT NEVER WILL.


Modi is right------the global 1% and their 2% will have cash----will have gold and silver-----it will be the 99% in this money-less society.......

"It's correct that a 100 per cent cashless society is not possible. But why don't we make a beginning for a less-cash society in India?" Mr Modi added'.



India to become 'cashless society', PM Narendra Modi hints

'We can gradually move from a less-cash society to a cashless society'
  • Samuel Osborne
  • @SamuelOsborne93
  • Sunday 27 November 2016 14:46 GMT

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said his government understands how millions have been affected by the ban on 500 and 1,000 rupee notes, but used his monthly radio address to defend the policy Rob Stothard - WPA Pool/Getty Images



Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has called for the nation to become a cashless society.


Mr Modi urged his country's small traders and daily wage earners to embrace digital payments.
Speaking in his monthly address on national radio, Mr Modi said the government understands millions have been affected by the ban on 500 and 1,000 rupee notes, but defended the policy.


The move is an attempt to fill Mr Modi's election promise of curbing tax evasion and unaccounted wealth.


Indian people queue outside a bank as they wait to deposit and exchange 500 and 1000 rupee notes in Amritsar, India (Getty)"I want to tell my small merchant brothers and sisters, this is the chance for you to enter the digital world," Mr Modi said, according to a translation by Reuters.

He urged them to use mobile banking applications and credit-card swipe machines instead.
"It's correct that a 100 per cent cashless society is not possible. But why don't we make a beginning for a less-cash society in India?" Mr Modi added. 
"We can gradually move from a less-cash society to a cashless society."
________________________________________


WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% simply must know these MONEY-LESS policies are coming from WORLD BANK---DAVOS----and are global banking neo-liberal to understand any citizen or organization promoting them are ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE GLOBAL 1%.
We hope our friends in INDIA are already fighting this----we know there is strong movements against neo-liberalism in India---please don't allow the far-right pretend this is LEFT MARXISM as they did with MAO'S GREAT LEAP FORWARD.



Worst of All Worlds' as Neoliberal BJP Wins India Elections in Landslide
Critics say victory of Hindu nationalist party and ascendancy of Narendra Modi put nation on perilous course

by
Jon Queally, staff writer



TRS adopting Modi’s neo-liberal policies: Brinda Karat

THE HANS INDIA |   May 20,2017 , 04:43 AM IST
   




Ads by Kiosked
(File Image): CPI (M) politburo member Brinda Karat


​Hyderabad: CPI (M) politburo member Brinda Karat on Friday criticised the TRS-led State government in Telangana for its dismal record as far as distribution of lands to the tribal people under Forest Rights Act (FRA) are concerned. 


Speaking at the Meet-the-Press organised by the Telangana Working Journalists Forum (TWJF) here, Brinda Karat said the TRS government headed by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had been following the polices being pursued by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre. 


Expressing solidarity of her party with the farmers agitating for better price for chillies in Telangana, she said the apathy on the part of the State government in regard to release of pending wages to workers under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) reflected the attitude of the government. 


She said that restructuring the bank loans to the tune of Rs 72,000 crore to a single corporate house and providing additional loans was being encouraged by the Central government which was pursuing neoliberal 


liberal policies. “Waiving of farmers’ loans to the tune of Rs 75,000 crore was projected as sending a wrong message by the chairman of the NITI Ayog,” she said. 


Reiterating her party’s stand on the contentious triple talaq, Brinda Karat called it retrograde and obnoxious.

__________________________________________________

Here we have GABBARD----long-time far-right wing global Wall Street Clinton neo-liberal our national media allowed to simply pretend to FEEL THE LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE BERN-----she is indeed far-right wing and that is why she is on Trump's team.

When Bernie et al embrace Gabbard as part of OUR REVOLUTION---they are not talking about a revolution of WE THE PEOPLE----they are speaking to that 1960s bloodless revolution creating ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE GLOBAL 1% RULE.

It is HAWAII that is bringing these BASIC INCOME----we are sure we will see CASHLESS SOCIETY -----all the time calling it LEFT MARXISM.



'By now, Gabbard has left any ambiguity about her religious beliefs behind. She identifies as a member of the Gaudiya Vaishnavism Sect of the Hindu faith.

It’s a faith she shares with India’s leader, Narendra Modi. But they share more than that— they share a hard-right political philosophy that is at odds with Gabbard’s perceived role as a liberal touchstone in the Democratic Party'.


Our OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% FREEMASONS are NOT religious---they simply use religion against WE THE PEOPLE THE 99%. So, we see MERCHANTS OF VENICE FREEMASONS are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindi.....forgot Buddhist. The 99% wanting to protect their religions need to shake these global Wall Street players out of their leadership.


 This is how the 99% always gets into trouble---they look at a candidate and say----I'll vote for him/her because-----she's a woman----he's a Catholic----she's gay------he's a corporate executive-----NONE OF THAT tells us where they will stand on public policy---if they are tied to these global 1% groups they DO ANYTHING GLOBAL 1% TELL THEM.



Tulsi Gabbard Is Not Who You Think She Is

From homophobia to Islamophobia to cultism, she is no progressive's dream.By Eoin Higgins  |  November 22, 2016  |  9:12am


Photo by Thos Robinson/Getty Politics Features Tulsi Gabbard



To some progressives, the news Monday that Tulsi Gabbard was meeting with President-Elect Donald Trump for consideration of a position in his administration must have been confusing.


Gabbard’s February 2016 endorsement of Bernie Sanders’ quixotic run for the Democratic nomination for president involved publicly resigning her seat as DNC Vice Chair. Her name has been floated as a possible candidate for 2020. And at a glance, her positions seem in line with the liberal wing of her party.


But a deeper look at Gabbard’s political career shows that she is devoted to attaining power and to the perpetuation of extremist, fringe ideology. She adopts and sheds extremist positions at will, but one thing remains constant: her consistent embrace of hard-right politics.


The 35-year-old Congresswoman from Hawaii was raised in a politically powerful household. Her father, Mike Gabbard, is a well-known firebrand in Hawaiian politics— his most beloved issue is a virulent rejection of homosexuality and gay rights.


The younger Gabbard protested against a bill advocating civil unions during her tenure in the Hawaii Congress, holding up signs decrying the proposition. The bill eventually stalled.


Gabbard replied to a request for comment on her father’s connections with cult leader Chris Butler (more below) in 2004 with an oddly worded email accusing Honolulu Magazine of a homosexual conspiratorial attempt to discredit her father.


“I smell a skunk,” [Gabbard] wrote. “It’s clear to me that you’re acting as a conduit for The Honolulu Weekly and other homosexual extremist supporters of Ed Case.”


This political position held until 2012, when she made an about face and declared she supported gay rights— just in time for the election for Hawaii’s 2nd District. And that wasn’t the first time she had shed a piece of her past in order to make herself more palatable to voters.


Gabbard’s first marriage, to a man named Eduardo Tamayo, lasted from 2002 to 2006. Tamayo and Gabbard were both involved with a man named Chris Butler, the leader of a Hare Krishna spinoff called the Science of Identity Foundation that is located in Honolulu County.
The Hawaii Free Press notes that a number of Butler-connected Hawaiians have contributed to Gabbard and that her involvement with the cult is still an open question.


Gabbard has scrubbed all mention of her past with Butler’s cult, and with Tamayo, from the internet. The only evidence that is publicly available that Tamayo and Gabbard even know each other— excepting her Wikipedia page— is from anti-cult site Flashlight on Roaches. It’s grainy, but it does show the two together. It’s also the only known photo of Tamayo that is publicly available.



Today, Gabbard would prefer not to be known for her Butler-cult related past. The only way to find it is to dig deep into Hawaiian-centric newsletters and publications. But for those in Hawaii, it’s an omnipresent part of her political and social history. As the Honolulu Civil Beat reported on March 16, 2015:
The Gabbard family’s ties to Butler still hound her — in the hallways of the Hawaii State Capitol, on blogs of political observers, on pages of online discussion forums, and in commentary sections of various news sites, including Civil Beat’s.


Now, the mysterious world that’s been swirling around Gabbard all her life is coming under closer scrutiny as the 33-year-old congresswoman’s stature on the national stage steadily rises, and her views on national and international issues — whether she’s standing up for veterans or challenging President Barack Obama over his stance on the Islamic State — continue to draw the media spotlight.
By now, Gabbard has left any ambiguity about her religious beliefs behind. She identifies as a member of the Gaudiya Vaishnavism Sect of the Hindu faith.


It’s a faith she shares with India’s leader, Narendra Modi. But they share more than that— they share a hard-right political philosophy that is at odds with Gabbard’s perceived role as a liberal touchstone in the Democratic Party.


Modi, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, is well known in India for his hardline right wing politics. He was the governor of the state of Gujarat during riots in 2002 that killed over 2,000 Muslims. Modi has always skirted around his level of responsibility for the violence; on the one hand he can appeal to moderates by claiming ignorance, on the other his claims of ignorance are delivered with winks to the country’s more extremist right-wing elements.


Modi relies on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, for political backing. The BJP and RSS’s actions have been repressive and violent and involve a complete distortion of historical and material reality in order to maintain their control of the state.


The RSS-BJP alliance also uses the fears and prejudices of the majority Hindu Indian population against Muslims to ensure its hold on power. And those views are views that Gabbard shares with them— despite her framing of herself as a peaceful warrior.


A major part of Gabbard’s political story is her military service. Gabbard joined the Hawaiian National Guard in 2002 and served in Iraq in 2004. Since returning to the US, she has advocated for a less muscular and antagonistic US role in the world. As far as it goes, this is fine— she opposes US intervention in the Middle East, generally, and argues against the use of drone strikes and the NSA’s surveillance programs.


Gabbard’s relationship with Modi is well documented in Indian publications. Her admiration of the authoritarian leader is the subject of multiple interviews, where she consistently affirms her support of the Prime Minister and his hardline party. In a three-week visit to India on the invitation of Modi himself, she was treated as a state guest and held private meetings with the Prime Minister and members of his party.


And Gabbard has protected Modi’s interests in the US. She fought against a November, 2015, Congressional bill mentioning his role in the Gujarat massacres, decried the US’s refusal to issue a visa for the controversial leader before 2014, and supported efforts to rewrite Indian history from a Hindu-supremacist viewpoint in US textbooks.


She has worked to relax restrictions on Indian immigration to the US even as she joins with Trump’s rhetoric in attempts to refuse allowing Syrian refugees into the country. And her views on Islam mirror those of Modi’s— both insist that identifying the faith of Islamists is of paramount importance in fighting extremism (not of Hindu extremism, of course).


Gabbard quickly flipped on Donald Trump. When Trump appointed white nationalist Stephen Bannon as his Senior Strategist two weeks ago and 169 Congressional Democrats opposed the move, Gabbard’s name was notably missing.


Perhaps it’s because Gabbard is, once again, jettisoning political beliefs that are no longer useful in her quest for power. It could be that Sanders and the Democrats are no longer helpful to her career, like her father’s homophobia and her public cult-connected marriage. So they must go so Gabbard can continue her rise.

That’s a likely scenario. But it only works if you remember that the other constant in Gabbard’s career is an attraction to hard-right political positions. Even those positions she eventually leaves behind are replaced with more extreme positions—her anti-gay activism replaced with Islamophobia, her ties to a Hawai?i-based cult replaced with ties to Hindu extremism.


News media have reported that Gabbard is under consideration for a position with the Trump administration, that her meeting with the president-elect was more than a bipartisan discussion—it was a job interview.

Given what we know about Gabbard’s attraction to the extreme right and her thirst for power, a place in the Trump administration won’t come as a surprise. It’s par for the course.

________________________________________

Here we have ground zero for the subprime mortgage loan fraud ----all mortgage originator corporations and regional banks peddling subprime mortgage fraud were bundled into WELLS FARGO.

WELLS FARGO is that CA bank now leading the way to CASHLESS SOCIETY starting to close its brick and mortar banks while national media pretend they are closing those banks because politicians are being MEAN TO THEM.

If we know the history of WELLS FARGO----it is tied to the earliest banking in US and it was central in establishing the US FED at the time of last century's ROBBER BARON frauds....those ROARING 20s----that economic crash-----that GREAT DEPRESSION.

Our US media ---our captured political parties will not tell WE THE PEOPLE all this will lead to US looking like MAOIST CHINA---but it does.  MAO and his wealthy family continued to be those OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE global 1% while MAO played at being a revolutionary workers' leader.


Remember ZERO HEDGE is a right wing investment media outlet so they are not writing populist articles----but they do good economic policy discussion



Wells Fargo: Who Says Crime Doesn't Pay
by Tyler Durden
Sep 18, 2016 12:41 PM


Unless you’re one of the few people still watching CNN,  you may have missed what can only be one of the most scandalous in-house criminal activities to be uncovered at a bank. And not just any bank. It happened at none other than Wells Fargo, which, up until the scandal was revealed, was the number one bank (as measured via its market cap) in the U.S. The scandal? Here are just a few highlights as reported. To wit:


“On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo (WFC) employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts — without their customers knowing it — since 2011.


The phony accounts earned the bank unwarranted fees and allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales figures and make more money.


“Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses,” Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a statement.”
And to use CNN’s own words to describe it: “The scope of the scandal is shocking.”
How shocking you may ask? Fair enough, here’s a little more from their reporting…



“The way it worked was that employees moved funds from customers’ existing accounts into newly-created ones without their knowledge or consent, regulators say. The CFPB described this practice as “widespread.” Customers were being charged for insufficient funds or overdraft fees — because there wasn’t enough money in their original accounts.


Additionally, Wells Fargo employees also submitted applications for 565,443 credit card accounts without their customers’ knowledge or consent. Roughly 14,000 of those accounts incurred over $400,000 in fees, including annual fees, interest charges and overdraft-protection fees.”



As scandalous as all the above is, what is far more insidious, is the damage it inflicts (once again) upon the very fabric of free market capitalism, trust in laws, and last but not least: trust and belief in actual contrition. i.e., “No we’ve really changed, really!”

Something strange is going on in the financial system. And according to The Wall Street Journal, it’s causing some investors to move massive amounts of money out of the banking system.
As I implied, that “trust” has just been obliterated by the very people and institutions that created the last crisis in the first place. e.g., Banks, bankers, boards, and the very CEOs that run them.


Yes, I said it: i.e., Not some intimate object such as “bank.” But the very people who work there; from low-level staff, all the way up to the top as made evident in this latest banking scandal.
Again, as egregious as these revelations may be. What has been far worse (in my opinion) is the way the bank (Wells Fargo) handled this whole sordid affair both during, as well as after the fact.


As reported by the WSJ™, CEO John Stumpf defended his firm with this gem of damage control retort. To wit:
“There was no incentive to do bad things,” Mr. Stumpf said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. He called the conduct that led to last week’s settlement with federal and local authorities “not acceptable,” adding that the bank doesn’t “want one dime of income that’s not earned properly.”
Here’s a tip for Mr. Stumpf, (after all, it is what I do) if that’s the best you could come up with at that time, not only should your PR team be fired along with the 5300 others you’ve dispatched. But so should you. Immediately.



Not only did you not show a minuscule of righteous indignation – you seemed to bend-over-backwards as to defend the payment of (wait for it…) $125,000,000.00 as a parting gift to Carrie Tolstedt, who has been reported to have been the executive in charge of the unit where all this fraud took place. You know, the division where “sandbagging” customers continued long enough to have created its own internal moniker. Absolutely disgusting and shameful. Period.
It has been said that Ms. Tolstedt’s timing to exit was a result of “personal decision to retire after 27 years” with the bank. Geez, I wonder why. Yep, nothing to see here, move along. Just pathetic.



When asked about clawing it back? (Insert non-committal, illogical, double speak here) But if you need to hear what Mr. Stumpf thought about her back in July:
“Tolstedt’s team is a leader in building and deepening customer loyalty and team member engagement across the business, which today serves more than 20 million retail checking households and 3 million small business owners, and employs 94,000 team members.”
It would appear “sandbagging” pays, no?


I suppose everyone was rewarded, even those at the top by the “added shareholder value” produced by such a “team player.” Everyone that is – except the poor customers who trusted one of the largest banks in the U.S. to be watchful stewards of their money, and personal identities. No, it would appear they were preyed upon like minnows thrown into a shark pool. Glad we have all that Dodd-Frank type stuff enacted so people could once again “trust” the banks and their bankers. But I digress.



If the CEO (e.g., Mr. Stumpf) would have hit the news wires first in some form of scathing rebuke of not only the people involved, but the audacity that the people at the very top of this scandal (which, in my analysis, directly implicates him either by willful ignorance or just plain incompetence) could walk away veritably unscathed with $millions to-boot? There might, and I say “might” have been a chance for credibility of deniability. But now it looks far more like implicit, willful, ignorance more than anything else. i.e., “Hey, her numbers are good – don’t ask questions. By the way, have you seen our latest stock price?!”
Because of this, it is my sentiment, that both Wells Fargo, as well as its CEO, have added their images to be poster-child’s in the growing list of what crony capitalism produces.


What the CEO (i.e., a true CEO with an ethical backbone) should have done was to come out swing with something along the lines of the following:
“This scandal is not only repugnant, it is unconscionable that some of the employees, some that I personally trusted and regarded highly, have been found to have violated our customers trust, along with our own, with criminal activity.


I have recommended to the board, and our legal team, to do everything in our power to claw-back every single dime possible that we have paid out seemingly under false pretenses, whether they were in the form of salary or bonuses. And, I want every possible criminal charge brought forth against them that may be applicable. Yes, even those which may result with the need of time being served. Let me be clear: against everyone responsible.


This is a blatant urination upon the sacred trust that is supposed to be upheld when a customer, regardless of how large or small, deposits funds or opens credit terms at any bank. Not just Well Fargo. This is unacceptable and it must not go unpunished. And I won’t rest with anything less than the full repercussions that the law can provide.”
Did you hear, read, or see anything resembling 10% of what I just stated? Hint: Nope.


Read the above quotes I referenced earlier as a reminder. Makes you want to run out and open an account and dispense with any of that troubling, filthy vehicle known as cash that far too many so-called “smart crowd” intellectuals are touting you should do. Doesn’t it? i.e., Don’t trust cash – trust the bank. Only criminals care about cash.


The only problem that now appears with that logic? It seems those criminals are within the banks just waiting for one to “hand it over.”  That’s a reality which is now becoming downright frightening. Just imagine what Jesse James would think about all this. It’s down right laughable if it wasn’t so infuriating.


And, by-the-way, if you’re concerned about such things: you’re insulted or portrayed as some type of “alarmist” (or worse – you must be a criminal) if you dare argue against the idea of a cashless society and the inherent problems contained within the theory.
Take the latest insult to intellect as proposed by Ken Rogoff, a chaired economics professor at Harvard, and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.


In his case against cash, Mr Rogoff likes to build his case for a “cashless society” around all the boogeymen an Ivory Tower can muster. James Grant of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer™ wrote a cogent, scathing rebuke of Mr. Rogoff’s thesis. Here is just one line, yet, notice how perfectly it fits into this whole story. (The entire article is a must read) To wit:
“Terrorists traffic in cash, Mr. Rogoff observes. So do drug dealers and tax cheats. Good, compliant citizens rarely touch the $100 bills that constitute a sizable portion of the suspiciously immense volume of greenbacks outstanding—$4,200 per capita. Get rid of them is the author’s message.”


That’s right. Mr. Rogoff want’s you to deposit that filthy cash into a bank as to keep it out of the hands of criminals. The issue?


Well as of today it seems if you followed his advice and deposited at, oh let’s say, Wells Fargo? What you did in actuality was to hand it over to some greedy, dirty, disgusting criminal within where it was used to fuel criminal activity and self gain for themselves.

What’s the take away from all this? Hint: If there’s going to be criminal activity (as far as academia is concerned) might as well have it inside the bank rather than outside. After all: Criminals hate competing with each other. Whether in digitized currency or actual.


To people like Mr. Rogoff it would seem when it comes to criminality – banks are exempt. I wonder how Mr. Rogoff would feel if it was his “cash” that was suddenly misappropriated when it came time for him to use his ATM card only to find “insufficient funds” displayed when he knew he made a deposit days prior? I would wager he’d want his account closed – and paid in cash – as opposed to a “check” or “balance transfer” if he just found out “the bank” had been playing criminally with his hard-earned money. Bet on it.


Now Mr. Rogoff and his ilk could care less what a person like myself has to say about their ideas. After all, we’re nothing but a bunch on illiterate, economically challenged plebes that need to be herded into doing what “they” believe is “best for us.” Whether it’s in our best interest – or not.

So to that I would like to remind this Ivory Tower set of exactly what transpires when the banking system that issues all those digitized ones and zeros goes into free fall because of the reckless nature of those within that system created. e.g., The Great Financial Crisis of 2008. You know, the one that’s not even 10 years past and is requiring central banks around the world to continue “spinning plates” that would make a circus performer blush as to keep it all from crashing.


In, or about, 2008 during the heat of the crisis with the markets gyrating widely, none other than Mohamed El-Erian then at Pimco™ (someone I have great respect for) said in a televised interview on one of the financial shows I was watching (I’m paraphrasing): “My wife called me and asked me what she should do. I told her to go the nearest ATM and withdraw as much money as possible. For we both had no idea of just how bad things were going to get.”


I just wonder how well Mr. Rogoff’s argument about “cashless” would have stood had he needed to argue that position to Mr. El-Erian during that period? i.e., “Hey Mohamed, tell her not too worry, cash is for criminals and low lifes. She or you don’t need no stinkin’ cash! Have faith, faith in the system, faith in the banks!”
I don’t know what the response might have been, but I bet it could be summed up today in two words: Wells Fargo.
Yeah, I guess those other two words you were thinking of (e.g., FU) might be more appropriate. For I was thinking the same. Yet, on the other hand; don’t they mean the same thing as of today?

_____________________________________________


We would shout that the policies and laws are already MOVING FORWARD to MONEY-LESS SOCIETY so don't allow these small issues like systemic fraud already existing in these online systems make you think global Wall Street is worried about the 99% of citizens' bank accounts.  

Please watch as more and more corporations, utilities controlled by corporations, and even our transactions with government---for example paying taxes -----BECOMES DIRECT WITHDRAW FROM CHECKING ACCOUNTS.

We know VEOLA ENVIRONMENT is doing this with water bills---we know that ONE ENERGY GRID home energy corporations are doing it with electric, natural gas, solar----and in every case there are growing 99% of citizens shouting these bills are fraudulent and cannot get their money back since it was direct withdrawn . 
One goal of these policies----it gets rid of those pesky 5% players Robber Barons needed to advance all these frauds.


Of course it is our American poor citizens being tied most to these predatory direct debits especially for utilities---but this is just the start to full-blown money-less society.



America won't go cashless until consumers know their money is safe

A new YouGov report shows that 56% of US adults feel mobile payments increase the chances of fraud and theft


Follow @YouGovUS on twitter and stay up to date with the latest news and results



Whenever fierce rivals join forces, it's usually because they've found peace and reached equilibrium. That, or a new, scarier competitor with the potential to ruin everyone just entered the room.


The latter scenario seems to be playing out in the US financial industry, as several of the nation's largest banks — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Bancorp — have teamed up to launch a new payments network called Zelle, which allows millions of customers to instantly send money to each other via their smartphone. The idea, of course, is to challenge the increasingly popular mobile payments app Venmo.
As the race to capture the mobile payments market heats up, a future cashless society seems more likely every day. Indeed, a new YouGov report, titled "Cashing in: US," shows that 35% of US adults predict that America will become a cashless nation within 20 years.
The report, however, also highlights many barriers to reaching that cashless state. First, 72% of Americans still use cash when making in-store purchases. Six in 10 say they use cash at least once per week. Habits like that take time to change.


Fear of the unknown and concerns over security pose more obstacles. The report, for example, shows that the majority of US consumers (56%) feel using mobile payments makes them vulnerable to fraud and theft. Only 5% think mobile payments reduce the chance of fraud and theft, while 13% say it makes no difference.


Additional numbers find that about one in five US adults who aren't using mobile payment apps avoid them because they're concerned about malware steaing their personal information. A similar amount worry about the added consequences that come from losing their device or having it stolen.


At the same time, however, the report also notes that people 55 years old or older make up the bulk of those concerned about mobile payments increasing the chances of fraud or theft. The data suggests that younger generations are less concerned.

In Reuters, Bill Wallace, head of digital at JPMorgan Chase, is quoted as saying the following: "By coming together to offer Zelle, we are providing a large majority of Americans with a safe, fast and easy way to move money." If mobile payments providers hope to bring about the so-called cashless society sometime soon, the data indicates they'll have to put more emphasis on the word safe when addressing the public.

_______________________________________



As with any new policy global banking is putting as much LIPSTICK ON THIS PIG as it can----so it will make everything free---it will pay good interest ---it will give easy lending to move 99% of global citizens onto these VIRTUAL BANKING STRUCTURES.

If we watch our US credit card corporations -----just before our US economy is going to crash---they send out all kinds of zero interest deals sign on new consumers and then when that short time period is over they raise interest rates to 25% RIGHT AFTER THE ECONOMIC CRASH when lots of citizens are losing jobs and income just to strap people to DEBT.

Please don't think we are getting a deal with these global online banking corporations.  The goal is indeed MONEY-LESS SOCIETY and if we get any money into those accounts at some point global banking will simply TAKE IT.

PLEASE DO NOT SIGN UP FOR ZERO INTEREST CREDIT JUST AS THE ECONOMY IS GETTING READY TO CRASH!


What makes this advertisement twice as insulting to WE THE PEOPLE is it comes from ALLY BANK. Know who ALLEY BANK is? It is the finance arm of GENERAL MOTORS....GM. Global Wall Street pols wrote laws allowing what was to be only a loan for automobiles turn into a subprime mortgage loan fraud vender---imploded GM FINANCE and used this as an excuse to bring GM to bankruptcy just to shed labor union wages and benefits. GM FINANCE was one of the bank bailouts getting millions of taxpayer funding and it came back as this GLOBAL BANK----now trying to take global 99% to ONE WORLD ONE MONEY-LESS SOCIETY.





Five Great Internet Banks
  • By Eric Griffith
  • November 8, 2011
  • 24 Comments

Sick of paying fees to greedy banks? Check out these online-only direct banks where you can do your checking, savings, bill payment, and more--all for a lot less.

Bothersome bank fees can add up, which only encourages desperate financial institutions to try to collect even more of them. For example, Bank of America recently announced plans to charge a $5 monthly fee for debit card use. Thankfully, a customer revolt put a stop to that, and similar plans by Chase and Wells Fargo, to name but two.

The damage was already done, though, as fee-free Internet-based banks saw a huge uptick in customer sign-ups. Todd Sandler, head of product strategy at ING Direct, said the bank recently saw a 43 percent increase in Electric Orange checking account openings. As banks try other ways to raise more millions—such as new checking account fees, fees for excessive withdrawals from savings, and, of course, credit card interest hikes—the number of migrations to lower-cost Internet banks will only increase.

Another term for the so-called "Internet bank" is a direct bank. It doesn't have branches with tellers and drive-up windows, but customers can access money in a number of ways, including snail mail, mobile apps, telephone, Web page, and ATMs. By getting rid of the overhead of brick-and-mortar locations, the direct banks can provide better services, including higher interest rates and fewer or no fees. Customers just have to be comfortable knowing they can't walk up to a teller.

So how did we determine the best of the Internet banks? Though we didn't open up accounts everywhere, we scoured the best sources for online-banking info, sites like BankRate.com, CNNMoney, ConsumerSearch.com, and MyBankTracker, to see what they considered the best. Our list aggregates those Internet banks with multiple mentions and the best user ratings.

Let's face it, no bank is perfect. It's your money they're playing with over there, after all. But that said, we're confident you'll see the least risk picking one of these direct bank institutions for your funds. All five listed here are members of FDIC, except Connexion, which is member of NCUA.
Ally Bank
www.ally.com, 1-877-247-ALLY
Minimum needed to open account: None
Monthly Fees: None
ATM Fees: None – fees charged by other banks are automatically reimbursed at end of the month
Interest Checking: Yes – 0.50% interest on average monthly balance under $15,000; 0.80% interest on balance over $15,000
Online Savings: 0.85% variable APY
Other Fees: $9 for overdraft, $15 for stop payment




Free transfers with other banks, free use of the Popmoney service to transfer funds to friends and family via their email or phone number, free deposit of checks you scan in yourself. Sensing a pattern? Ally Bank offers lots of free services unimaginable with other banks. There's the usual litany of IRAs, money markets, CDs and of course, automobile loans, but the hallmark of Ally is a high-interest online savings account and interest checking. While the MasterCard debit card also has a cash back program with selected retailers, Ally puts the money right back in the account when you spend with the card.


_____________________________________________


AND HERE IS GLOBAL ONLINE BANKING IN MARYLAND OF COURSE!

WE THE PEOPLE should not be looking for a deal----we must stop these deregulating policies for banking leaving nothing protecting our money and no way to receive our earnings. The left social progressive policy is repeal all deregulation of US banking and bring brick and mortar community banking back to all US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones


Do we need Wall Street banks if we have global online banking? This is global multi-national banking----since the US is no longer a sovereign nation we lose terms like WALL STREET.




The Penny Hoarder
May 16 ·
Dang. This bank pays 100 times more interest than our existing checking account!



This Secret Bank Has No Fees and Pays up to 100 Times the Normal Interest Rate

Dana Sitar



December 7, 2015

Disclosure:
Some of the links in this post are from our sponsors. We’re letting you know because it’s what Honest Abe would do. After all, he is on our favorite coin.


I recently made a huge move — from Wisconsin to Florida — but it’s not my first. Before that, I had stints in Seattle, Salt Lake City and San Francisco.
Plus there was a period where I didn’t have any residence at all. I bounced from city to city for about eight months via hotel rooms, couches and lots of goodwill.



To say this lifestyle makes banking a challenge would be an understatement.

I need an easy way to access my cash and an account I can manage from anywhere — but beyond that, my banking needs are pretty simple.
Plenty of institutions offer online banking or brick and mortar branches around the country, but many also come with fees or requirements I don’t want to be bothered with.
I don’t need much from my bank. I’m not applying for loans, traveling internationally or even writing checks, so I don’t want to pay extra for services I won’t use.



That’s why I was happy to discover Aspiration.
Aspiration’s Summit Checking Account is an online-only bank account with no fees, no minimum balance and no minimum monthly deposit.
It yields up to 1.00% interest, which is 100 times more than my existing checking account!
That makes this checking account the perfect place for me to save extra money for things like holiday shopping and travel.
A debit card and free ATMs anywhere in the world make it more accessible than a typical savings account, and the high yield makes it far more lucrative.



I’m sold.
Why I Like This Checking Account

On top of the benefits of the Summit Account, I’m actually impressed with Aspiration as a company. This isn’t a traditional bank; it’s a California startup with a jovial personality that’s sorely lacking in the financial space.
The Summit Account is less than a year old and has been named a “Best Checking Account in America” by Money magazine.


The modern interface of the website makes banking intuitive (can you imagine?!). And the company is not only good at what it does; it’s also fun and socially responsible.
My favorite part of the sign-up process was the little extras that popped up as I navigated the website. I entered my March birth date, and instead of a plain confirmation, I was surprised by the message, “You’re a Pisces! Do you like the ocean?”



I do, in fact, love the ocean! I appreciated the personal touch, something you don’t find from many banks.
Plus, the company’s commitment to “do well and do good” means it donates 10% of its revenue to charity.
Where does that revenue come from if the services are free? All of Aspiration’s services work on a “pay what is fair” model. You choose your price and pay as a “tip.”


When you create an account, you’ll be prompted to choose your tip — a recurring payment up to $6 per month — and you can choose as little as $0.


How to Open a Summit Checking Account


f this sounds good to you, too, you can get started with Aspiration here.
Start by entering your email to secure your spot. Within seven to 14 days, you’ll get an invitation via email to set up your account.
Once you receive your invitation, the whole sign-up process takes about 20 minutes.


You’ll need your Social Security Number (you must be a U.S. citizen to open this account), a state-issued I.D. or passport, and your online login information for an existing bank account.
To open the account, you’ll need to make a one-time deposit of at least $10.
At the end of the sign-up process, you’ll e-sign and receive a PDF of the account agreement. I loved that I didn’t have to print or scan anything — I haven’t owned a printer in years.
You’ll answer some questions to verify your identity online, and if that works, you’ll be set. Based on my answers, the system was unable to verify my identity, so I had to complete an additional step.


I received an email the following day asking for primary and secondary I.D. I took a picture of my driver’s license and obtained a PDF of a check stub. I resubmitted the application, and my account was approved and open within three days.


Tips for Using an Online Checking Account


The Summit Account might not replace your existing bank account, but it can augment your financial benefits. Here are the cool ways I’ve found to use it:


Free ATMsMy favorite perk of the Summit Account is the free ATMs! Users who travel, especially abroad, can transfer money into the account, so it’s available when you need it at no extra charge.


Saving for Special Events

This seems like a great account to save for holiday shopping — but I prefer to use it as a travel fund.
I like to deposit payments from my freelance side gigs into my Summit Account. It’s helped me save for my flights home for the holidays, and now I’m planning a trip to Washington, D.C. for New Year’s Eve and meeting friends in Las Vegas later in January!


The Summit Account offers 1.00% APY on a full balance of $2,500 or more, or 0.25% on a balance below $2,500. Compare that to an average savings account with an interest rate of about 0.06%.


With no fees and no minimum, this is an attractive option for saving small amounts.


Emergency Fund


In addition to saving for special events, this account can be a good place to keep an emergency fund. You can make payments as needed with an Aspiration debit card, via Apple Pay or through Venmo.


Giving to Charity


Best of all, you can give to your favorite causes directly from your Summit Account. Just enter an amount you want to give, and select one or more causes — poverty, water, education, etc.
This should make it easy to start contributing to causes that fight poverty. It’s something I’ve been trying to get around to since college…
Plus, when you refer a friend who opens a Summit Account, Aspiration will donate $25 to your favorite charity and to your friend’s, too. That’s all on top of the 10% the company already donates!



Investing Through Aspiration


In addition to the free, high-yield checking account, Aspiration offers two investment funds for middle-class investors. They are:
  • Flagship Fund: This mutual fund has a goal of long-term growth with limited volatility.
  • Redwood Fund: This fund invests in companies with sustainable, environmental and socially responsible practices.
These funds require only a $500 minimum investment, which opens up financial services that were traditionally only available to elite investors.

0 Comments

June 29th, 2017

6/29/2017

0 Comments

 
Let's remind ourselves what goals of United Nations/World Health Organization controlled by global neo-liberal 1% have as goals to see where US will be taken to the same Greek experience.  The goal of global 1% is ending SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE SOCIETY---and return to social Darwinism---with 99% of global citizens fighting to get to being a global 2%.

This is CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA and this is OLD WORLD JEWISH, CATHOLIC, PROTESTANT MERCHANTS OF VENICE FREEMASONS AND GREEKS ---these groups are NOT RELIGIOUS.

The UN and World Bank use that term SUSTAINABLE to mean providing social benefit without ANY PUBLIC SUBSIDY while creating corporate profits....this is the Trans Pacific Trade Pact policy of ignoring all nations' laws that take from corporate profit.  So, the term universal does not mean all global citizens are covered by health insurance---it means ONE WORLD FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES all having the same policies.


Greece's strong public health system was allowed to decay by politicians PRETENDING TO BE SOCIALISTS---just as CLINTON/OBAMA pretend to be LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVES.


In 2008 when Greek citizens were thrown to the global banking rather than having leaders defaulting on fraudulent banking instruments we watched as all public funding disappeared---and Greek citizens---the poor and seniors no longer had what we in US call MEDICARE AND MEDICAID access.  That is why we in US knew in 2010 when Obama pushed the right wing health policy AFFORDABLE CARE ACT killing our public health structure global Wall Street was doing the same to WE THE PEOPLE THE 99%.  When Obama and his US FED and US Treasury committed the same sovereign debt fraud with US Treasury bonds and state municipal bonds clearly happening in 2013---we knew global Wall Street pols were taking US citizens to having NO ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE


GLOBAL WALL STREET CLINTON/OBAMA PRETENDED TO EXPAND MEDICAID NEVER INTENDING TO BECAUSE UNITED NATIONS/WORLD HEALTH UNIVERSAL HEALTH DOES NOT ALLOW PUBLIC SUBSIDY.

This brings the US health care to that same global preventative health access tied to containing COMMUNICABLE DISEASE VECTORS and maternity and infant care. This is what SINGLE-PAYER/UNIVERSAL CARE groups are shouting for in US when they pretend it is MEDICARE FOR ALL. Our grassroots citizens often do not know this---they think they are fighting for our quality US Medicare----but those pesky global Wall Street Baltimore Development 'LABOR AND JUSTICE' organization leaders KNOW THIS.



Universal health coverage
Health: essential for sustainable development

United Nations resolution on universal health coverage

Global support for universal health coverage is gathering momentum, with the unanimous adoption of a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly that emphasizes health as an essential element of international development.
The resolution, adopted on 12 December 2012, urges governments to move towards providing all people with access to affordable, quality health-care services.
It recognizes the role of health in achieving international development goals and calls for countries, civil society and international organizations to include universal health coverage in the international development agenda.
The resolution reaffirms WHO’s leading role in supporting countries to respond to the challenges of implementing universal health coverage.
This concept has been increasingly recognized in international fora since WHO published the World health report 2010, entitled Health systems financing: the path to universal coverage. These include the Mexico City Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage adopted in April 2012, the Bangkok Statement on Universal Health Coverage in January 2012, and the Tunis Declaration on Value for Money, Sustainability and Accountability in the Health Sector, adopted in July 2012.
Health is an important cross-cutting policy issue in the international agenda, as it is a precondition and an outcome and indicator of all three dimensions of sustainable development. The resolution calls on Member States to adopt a multisectoral approach and to work on the social, environmental and economic determinants of health to reduce inequities and enable sustainable development


_________________________________________




This article shows how RING FENCE policies help CORPORATION PROTECT THEIR INVESTMENTS----notice global Wall Street tears down these same protections for our PUBLIC FUNDING.

'How To Construct a “Ring Fence”
August 2003


Many distressed power and telecoms companies are looking for ways to protect their profitable businesses and projects from the reach of creditors of the other parts of the company that are in distress'.


When far-right wing global Wall Street CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA say we need SMALL GOVERNMENT --there are too many Federal agencies overlapping oversight and accountability for the same Federal programs they are saying they want to get rid of RING FENCE. RING FENCE is a left social progressive policy creating CHECKS AND BALANCES in our government agencies to assure no one agencies gained too much power leading to corruption---and to assure Federal funding actually GOT TO INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS and achieved the goal of funding. With health care RING FENCE had FDA----EPA----Veterans Admin----SS Disability---Dept of Education ---all working with HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES to assure all Federal funding tied to MEDICARE, MEDICAID, Veteran's Benefits got to the destination and created data showing positive results.

When we dismantle all those checks and balances and simply have one agency throwing out funds---we get a system that looks exactly like BALTIMORE CITY AND THIRD WORLD NATIONS. As we shout against this structure in Baltimore ---it is designed to assure most Federal funding DOES NOT GET TO INDIVIDUALS---it creates a network impossible to oversee--and one agency Wall Street Baltimore Development/global Johns Hopkins is moved to have all the power with no oversight and accountability.
WHEN POLICY BREAKS RING FENCE STRUCTURES----AS IS HAPPENING WITH UNITED NATIONS/WORLD BANK/WORLD HEALTH UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE----WE MOVE TO ASSURING FUNDS ARE NOT GOING TO GET TO THAT GLOBAL 99% OF CITIZENS.

RING FENCE hires more public employees for oversight and accountability and is LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE----dismantling this is right wing YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.
So, a Sri Lanka and Greece once having strong public health systems as US and UK are losing those----and our developing nations like South Africa, Rwanda, Cambodia, Thailand, Mexico will never see an developed nation quality of care being built only for those nations' rich.

How To Construct a “Ring Fence”
August 2003


Many distressed power and telecoms companies are looking for ways to protect their profitable businesses and projects from the reach of creditors of the other parts of the company that are in distress.

One method for doing this is called “ring fencing.” This article explains what ring fencing is, why it is done, how entities have been successfully ring fenced, and what risks and issues should be taken into account when considering whether a subsidiary can or should be ring fenced.

Ring-fencing structures sometimes attract bad press, but appear to be able to sustain judicial scrutiny. For example, a federal appeals court recently brushed aside objections from the state of California and upheld steps that PG&E Corp. — a holding company — took in early 2001 to isolate its regulated utility subsidiary, the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, in order to protect its other subsidiaries. The utility filed for bankruptcy three months after PG&E put the ring fence in place. Such financing structures have also met with some level of approval within the financial community. Standard & Poor’s confirmed the efficacy of one such ring-fencing structure in late 2002 when it reaffirmed a strong credit rating for Portland General Electric Co., notwithstanding that the utility’s parent — Enron Corp. — was in bankruptcy. The credit rating survived because Enron had set up a ring fence around Portland General, and there were powerful financial disincentives for the Enron creditors to force Portland General into bankruptcy.


What is Ring Fencing?


The phrase “ring fencing” refers to steps taken to make a subsidiary “bankruptcy-proof” or “bankruptcy remote.” Ring fencing is supposed to shield the assets of the subsidiary from the bankruptcy of its parent or affiliates and allow the subsidiary to obtain or maintain a “standalone” credit rating substantially higher than the lower credit rating of its parent.


Ring fencing is used in a variety of financing situations, including acquisition financing, monetizing a subsidiary’s dividend distributions, and corporate spin-offs. In the project finance context, ring fencing generally refers to implementation of two types of provisions: the requirement that an independent director or a separate class of stock be established for an entity to vote on voluntary bankruptcy filings, and the requirement that the entity observe “separateness covenants,” such as maintenance of separate bank accounts and no commingling of assets.


These types of provisions are implemented in order to guard against certain specific risks in the bankruptcy context, including the following:



The filing of a voluntary bankruptcy petition by the governing body of the subsidiary.
Substantive consolidation. Substantive consolidation is an equitable remedy that allows the bankruptcy court to pool the assets and liabilities of two separate but affiliated entities and to treat them as though they are the assets of a single bankrupt debtor. Courts will look at whether there is substantial identity between the entities to be consolidated, meaning whether the affairs of the parent and the subsidiary are so intertwined as to make the two entities essentially indistinguishable. They will also look at whether consolidation is necessary to avoid some harm or realize some benefit.


The filing of an involuntary bankruptcy petition against the subsidiary by creditors of the parent or its affiliates, by creditors of the subsidiary or by the parent or its affiliates.
Piercing the corporate veil. The “corporate veil” may be pierced if the subsidiary has acted as the “alter ego” of its parent, if the parent exerts more control over the subsidiary than would be expected of a normal investor, or if the actions of the parent directly caused the subsidiary to incur a liability. Piercing the corporate veil is a risk when the parent so disregards the separate identity of the subsidiary that their enterprises are seen as effectively commingled. Creditors could pursue a form of “reverse” corporate veil piercing when the parent is insolvent and the subsidiary is viewed as a source of funds.



How to Ring Fence


There is no one blueprint that will guarantee that an entity is successfully ring fenced. However, there are at least six factors at which courts and rating agencies look in order to determine whether an entity is sufficiently “standalone” to justify shielding its assets from creditors of its affiliates (or, in the case of rating agencies, to justify a “standalone”, investment grade, rating).


First, the new entity must be a single-purpose entity. Its objects and powers must be restricted as closely as possible to the core activities necessary to effect the structured transaction. This restriction reduces the entity’s risk of voluntary insolvency due to claims or risks associated with activities unrelated to the structured transaction. It also reduces the risk of third parties filing involuntary petitions against the entity. These restrictions should be drafted into the entity’s charter documents for two reasons: the charter documents are publicly available, and therefore serve as public notice of the restrictions, and the entity’s management is more likely to refer to these documents, and therefore be reminded of the restrictions, when conducting its affairs.


Second, the new entity should incur no additional debt beyond what is needed for its routine business purposes. In order to limit the likelihood of an involuntary filing, the entity should covenant not to incur debt except where such action is consistent with its business purpose. This will reduce the likelihood of holders of additional indebtedness pursuing involuntary petitions to gain access to the entity’s assets or cash. The entity’s charter documents may also contain limits on the entity’s ability to incur voluntary liens.


Third, the new entity should covenant not to merge or consolidate with a lower-rated entity. The bankruptcy-remote status of the subsidiary must not be undermined by any merger or consolidation with an entity not adequately protected from bankruptcy or by any reorganization, dissolution, liquidation or asset sale. The new entity should also covenant not to dissolve.


Fourth, the new entity should observe various “separateness covenants” in order to avoid being substantively consolidated with its parent. It should maintain separate offices from its parent, separate financial records and financial statements, its own corporate books and records, and separate bank accounts. There should be no commingling of assets with its parent or any of the parent’s affiliates. It should pay its own liabilities and expenses. It should have adequate capitalization, given the nature of its business. Entities may also want to consider implementing restrictions on asset transfers and dividend declarations.


Fifth, the company should obtain a “non-consolidation opinion” from its counsel. A non-consolidation opinion addresses the likelihood that a court will grant substantive consolidation based on the observance by a parent and its subsidiary of the various “separateness covenants” referenced above.


Finally, the new entity should in its charter documents provide for either an independent director or a special class of stock (or “golden share”). The independent director or the owner of such class of shares should be an independent entity with no tie or relationship to the parent, its affiliates or any lender to the parent or affiliates. The charter documents of the subsidiary should require the affirmative vote of the independent director or the holder of the golden share before any voluntary filing into bankruptcy. It should also require the independent director or the holder of the golden share consider the interest of the subsidiary’s creditors, in addition to the interests of the shareholding parent, when deciding whether to file. This factor is often viewed as critical by the rating agencies in order to insure that a standalone rating for the subsidiary is justified. Different entities have taken different approaches to this factor. For example, the California utilities have adopted the independent director approach. Under the corporate documents of these entities, a unanimous vote of the board of directors is required for certain major corporate actions, including the institution of bankruptcy proceedings, dissolution, liquidation, and the payment of dividends in excess of certain tests. Portland General instead established a special class of junior preferred stock that is held by an entity independent of Portland General and its affiliates and that requires the vote of the junior preferred holder before Portland General can voluntarily file for bankruptcy.


These factors are not in and of themselves bullet-proof. For example, courts will generally not compel compliance with the various covenant requirements. “Nonpetition” covenants — under which a parent agrees not to file a bankruptcy petition against the subsidiary — are typically not enforceable, as waivers or prohibitions on bankruptcy petitions are void as a matter of public policy. Non-consolidation opinions are fact specific, limited in scope and highly qualified; they also do not address the likelihood of the parent independently filing the subsidiary into bankruptcy. The “golden share” or independent director mechanism only addresses a voluntary bankruptcy situation. While the independent director or golden shareholder may prevent a voluntary petition, the risk that creditors will pursue an involuntary filing still exists. In addition, although it is accepted practice that once an entity is in the “vicinity of insolvency,” the director’s duties extend beyond the entity and its shareholders to include its creditors, the use of an independent director whose position is created specifically to look beyond the interests of the shareholders has seldom been tested in court. Some courts have indicated a willingness to ignore the independent director arrangement. At least one Delaware court permitted a corporation to file a voluntary petition in 1992 without the unanimous vote of the directors, contrary to the requirements of the charter documents. However, this holding appears to be the exception rather than the rule.



As a result, an entity should consider incorporating as many of the elements listed in this article as possible when contemplating a restructuring with the intent of ring fencing. (It should probably also opt for the golden share approach rather than the independent director approach.)


Other Issues to Consider


Although courts appear to be willing to uphold the ring-fencing structures established to date, and rating agencies have provided significantly higher ratings to ring-fenced entities than to their parent companies, because of the highly publicized nature of the Enron bankruptcy and other recent high-profile bankruptcies, ring fencing is subject to a high level of public scrutiny and is liable to be challenged again in the courts.
Because of this, there are a number of non-legal considerations to factor in to the decision of whether and when to ring fence.


Ring fencing is often perceived by the public as an attempt to hide assets that would otherwise be available to creditors. However, the companies doing the ring fencing suggest that they are restructuring their assets to maintain the viability of the company. The difference between hiding and restructuring may depend in part on timing — for example, whether the new entity was in place before or after the liabilities were incurred. PG&E Corp.’s timing was potentially more of a problem given that the restructuring occurred just three months prior to when its affiliate, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Although this element has not yet appeared as a factor in the court’s decision-making process, companies would be wise to begin the restructuring and ring-fencing process as soon as practicable, before their financial problems become dire.

The restructuring effort may also benefit from how one “spins” the restructuring. For example, Edison Mission Energy received FERC approval for the restructuring of subsidiaries of Edison International over the objections of Exelon and others, in part because it stressed that the restructuring was necessitated by its need to meet certain financial commitments to the state of California. In its approval, FERC indicated that it was relying on fulfillment by Edison International of financial commitments it had made to the California Department of Water Resources and that the additional financing to be obtained would serve the public good. Consequently, when contemplating a restructuring to effectuate a ring fencing, companies should consider not only the implementation of various legal factors and the timing of the transaction, but also how they will tell their stories to the public
__________________________________________

CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA spent these few decades IGNORING ALL FEDERAL HEALTH LAWS TIED TO MEDICARE AND MEDICAID---SS DISABILITY---VETERAN'S BENEFITS and allowed those Federal funds to be looted and moved to the 1% as they downsized our Federal agencies under SMALL GOVERNMENT.  What Trump is doing is exactly the same----only he is officially ELIMINATING THOSE FEDERAL AGENCIES tied to US public health.

THERE IS NO REVOLT IN CONGRESS---THEY ARE ALL GLOBAL WALL STREET ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE.

The national headlines now has that WARM AND FUZZY BILLIONAIRE WARREN BUFFETT coming our for UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE here in the US.  Buffett joined Bill Gates in building that global PHARMA AND MEDICAL DEVICE CORPORATION that is already bringing in billions of dollars as they create this global health tourism for the global 1% and their 2% and as they lead in Trans Pacific Trade Pact killing all PUBLIC SUBSIDY LIKE MEDICARE AND MEDICAID.

BUFFETT'S SUPPORT OF SINGLE-PAYER----UNIVERSAL CARE AS WRITTEN IS SUPPORTING THE END OF US MEDICARE AND MEDICAID MOVING FORWARD TO UNITED NATIONS THIRD WORLD HEALTH CARE FOR 99% OF US CITIZENS.


If you are an American protesting Trump and not this CLINTON/OBAMA global neo-liberal version of SINGLE-PAYER UNIVERSAL CARE---then you are fighting to END QUALITY HEALTH ACCESS MEDICARE MEDICAID AND ALL VETERANS' AND DISABILITY HEALTH ACCESS. If you are a developing nation citizen tying to this UNITED NATIONS universal care policy---you will never see the quality health care the Western nations had last century......it is not good for any global 99%.


This is all kabuki theater----both Bush neo-cons and Clinton neo-liberals are on team UNITED NATIONS----as is Trump and these 'Republicans and Democrats'. The global 1% know they need to contain communicable disease---they know they need maturity care to assure strong HUMAN CAPITAL ----they love using mental health instability as a reason for forced labor.



Politics | Wed Jun 28, 2017 | 9:25am EDT


Facing revolt on healthcare bill, U.S. Senate Republicans delay vote

By Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan | WASHINGTON

U.S. Senate Republican leaders postponed a vote on a healthcare overhaul on Tuesday after resistance from members of their own party, and President Donald Trump summoned Republican senators to the White House to urge them to break the impasse.



The delay put the future of a longtime top Republican priority in doubt amid concerns about the Senate bill from both moderate and conservative Republicans. With Democrats united in their opposition, Republicans can afford to lose only two votes among their own ranks in the Senate.


Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had been pushing for a vote ahead of the July 4 recess that starts at the end of the week. The legislation would repeal major elements of Obamacare and shrink the Medicaid government healthcare program for the poor.
"We're going to press on," McConnell said after announcing the delay, adding that leaders would keep working to make senators "comfortable" with the bill. "We're optimistic we're going to get to a result that is better than the status quo."


At the White House meeting with most of the 52 Republican senators, Trump said it was vital to reach agreement on the Senate healthcare measure because Obamacare was "melting down."

"So we're going to talk and we're going to see what we can do. We're getting very close," Trump told the senators. But he added, "If we don't get it done, it's just going to be something that we're not going to like, and that's okay."
McConnell, whose party has a razor-thin majority in the 100-member Senate, told reporters that Republican leaders would work through the week to win over the 50 senators needed to pass the bill, with a vote planned after the recess. Vice President Mike Pence could provide the crucial vote needed to break a tie.
"I think we can get 50 votes to yes by the end of the week," Republican Senator Roger Wicker said after the White House meeting.

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Senate Republicans about healthcare in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., June 27, 2017. Trump is flanked by Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

REPUBLICAN OPPOSITION GROWS


The House of Representatives last month passed its own version of a healthcare bill, but the Senate bill has been criticized from both the left and the right. Moderate Republicans worried millions of people would lose their insurance. Conservatives said the bill does not do enough to erase Obamacare.


The bill's prospects were not helped by a Congressional Budget Office analysis on Monday saying it would cause 22 million Americans to lose insurance over the next decade, although it would reduce the federal deficit by $321 billion over that period.


The report prompted Senator Susan Collins, a Republican moderate, to say she could not support the bill as it stands. At least four conservative Republican senators said they were still opposed after the CBO analysis.


Three more Republicans, Rob Portman of Ohio, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, said after the delay was announced that they oppose the current draft.
Portman and Capito cited the bill's Medicaid cutbacks and how that would hurt efforts to combat the opioid epidemic that has taken a heavy toll in their states. The Medicaid program was expanded under former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law.
"I think giving time to digest is a good thing," Republican Senator Bob Corker said after the delay was announced.


"UNCERTAINTY" ON WALL STREET


U.S. stock prices fell, as the decision to postpone the vote added to investor worries about Trump's ability to deliver on his promises of tax reform and deregulation, as well as changes to the health sector. Those expected changes have driven a rally in U.S. stocks this year.

The benchmark S&P 500 index closed down 0.8 percent, and the Dow Jones industrial average finished down 0.46 percent.
“The market likes certainty and now there’s uncertainty. What is this going to look like when this gets out of the next iteration?" said Peter Costa, president of trading firm Empire Executions Inc.


Passing the measure would be a win for Trump as he seeks to shift attention after weeks of questions over Russia's role in last year's U.S. presidential election.
McConnell has promised since 2010 that Republicans, who view Obamacare as a costly government intrusion, would destroy the law "root and branch" if they controlled Congress and the White House. Republicans worry a failure to deliver will cost them votes in next year's congressional elections.


If the Senate passes a healthcare bill, it will either have to be approved by the House or the two chambers would reconcile the differences in a conference committee. Otherwise, the House could pass a new version and send it back to the Senate.


Lawmakers are expected to leave town by Friday for their July 4 holiday break, which runs all next week. The Senate returns to work on July 10, the House on July 11. Lawmakers then have three weeks in session before their month-long August recess.
________________________________________
We keep reminding global citizens that the problems in US public health care for all citizens was not that it was UNAFFORDABLE---TOO EXPENSIVE---it was the massive and systemic frauds of our MEDICARE AND MEDICAID TRUSTS and those Veterans' and Disability funds.  It was incredible to watch as CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA opened the door to trillions of dollars from our public health system taken to expand these UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSAL CARE structures designed only to serve those global 1% in each nation.  Our developing nations already had billions coming to establish clinic care---preventative care for several decades.  This was our US left social progressive stance on world health.  Again, CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA came into office and THAT GLOBAL HEALTH FUNDING FOR DEVELOPING NATIONS WAS LOOTED.  So, even the developing nation public health structures built this past century were allowed to decay -----

We KNOW AMERICAN QUALITY CARE is affordable for all----our private health corporations were earning millions in profits all last century---they simply wanted to earn BILLIONS.  We encourage our global 99% of citizens to demand QUALITY PUBLIC HEALTH AND NOT THE UNITED NATIONS 'UNIVERSAL CARE'.


JUST GET RID OF PROFITEERING AND CORPORATE HEALTH INDUSTRY FRAUD.



Below you see a well-researched paper on health fraud.  Notice that the amount of fraud back in 1998 was $250 billion a year.....THAT WAS BEFORE CORPORATE FRAUD WENT ON STEROIDS


'It is clear to see why Americans consider this the biggest cause, when health care fraud was estimated to cost approximately $100 billion to $250 billion per year in 1998, or 10 percent to 25 percent of total health care spending'

An Undergraduate Honors Thesis by
Emily Fisher
V449
Professor Nicole C. Quon
April 2008

ABSTRACT
Health care fraud is an important and visible factor associated with increasing health care costs in the United States. Medicare and Medicaid contribute to a vast majority of those cost sand therefore must be heavily scrutinized. This thesis will investigate the types of fraud, who commits them, and why the health care system is more susceptible to fraud. More specifically, the problems and complications of current fraud investigation for Medicare and Medicaid are examined. This thesis will then evaluate how successful these initiatives were in reducing health care fraud and explore new suggestions for preventing health care fraud in the future.



The World Health Organization UNIVERSAL CARE structure is CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA and were accomplice to the massive, systemic movement of global health funding through fraud and corruption as happened in UK and US. These global 99% citizens are NOT GETTING what we are told these structures provide---but those global health system structures being built in developing nations WILL PROVIDE AMERICAN QUALITY CARE for those global 1% and their 2% able to afford PROFITEERING HEALTH RATES.


Malcolm K. Sparrow
Fraud in the U.S. Health-
Care System
:
Exposing
the Vulnerabilities of
Automated Payments
Systems
social research
Vol 75 : No 4 : Winter 2008
1151



in 1993, attorney general janet reno declared health-care
fraud
the
“number two crime problem in America” after violent crime—a
remarkable status for a category of white-collar crime. In 1995, FBI
Director Louis J. Freeh testified that cocaine-traffickers in Florida and
California were switching from drug dealing to health-care fraud. The
traffickers had discovered that health-care fraud was safer, easier, and
more lucrative than the drug trade, and carried a smaller risk of detec-
tion (Freeh, 1995: 2). In 1997 the
New York Times
reported that mafia
families in New York City and New Jersey were abandoning their tradi-
tional lines of business (extortion and bid-rigging rackets) in favor of
new criminal enterprises, including health insurance (Raab, 1997: A1,
B4). In 2003, Columbia HCA, America’s largest hospital chain, finalized
a $1.7 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, the largest
in history, following 10 years of investigation into an array of whistle-
blower allegations (Department of Justice, 2003). In July 2008, Abner
and Mabel Diaz, a couple in Miami Lakes, Florida, pleaded guilty to
fraud, admitting they had submitted to Medicare $420 million in false
claims for medical equipment (Weaver, 2008

____________________________________________

We said these European nations were hit harder than US because they felt both the subprime mortgage frauds AND the sovereign debt frauds ====UK left social progressive universal health care system is GONE-----they now are installing the United Nations World Health Organization UNIVERSAL SINGLE-PAYER----
UK 99% citizens are well on the way to being those Greek citizens in falling health outcomes and death----the US did not have the rate of US Treasury bond sovereign debt fraud during Bush era as Europe-----Obama brought that to US. Our US 99% of citizens will be facing these same conditions after this coming economic crash and US Treasury bond market fraud collapse.


UK healthcare on brink of collapse – NHS regulator

Published time: 9 May, 2013 11:05 Edited time: 9 May, 2013 13:03
Get short URL
A NHS sign is seen in the grounds of St Thomas' Hospital in London. (Reuters / Toby Melville) / Reuters

A UK health and social care watchdog has warned that the country’s healthcare system is on the brink of collapse, and that many patients – particularly the elderly – are going to hospital for emergencies when they should have been seen much earlier.
In his first major announcement since being appointed earlier this year, David Prior, head of the Care and Quality Commission (CQC) non-departmental public body, has called for an urgent investment in community care.


He also said that the number of emergency-care beds in hospitals should be scaled back in order to divert much-needed funds to other areas of the National Health Service (NHS). He voiced his concerns at a talk on Wednesday at the King's Fund, a think-tank that seeks to improve the health care system in England.
“If we don’t start closing acute beds, the system is going to fall over. Emergency admissions through Accident and Emergency (A&E) are out of control in large parts of the country. That is totally unsustainable,” Prior said.


He also slammed the decision to allow General Practitioners (GPs) – the name for family doctors in the UK – to opt out of out-of-hours care, advising that they should be on-call and available to patients around-the-clock. “Primary care is in bad shape. I think GPs ought to be responsible 24/7,” he said.


He also pointed out that there is no real market in the British healthcare system, especially in rural areas, leaving many patients at the mercy of their local hospital regardless of its quality.

“The patient or resident is the weakest voice in the system. It is classic market failure. We can talk about competition until the cows come home but if you live in Norwich there is one hospital,” said Prior, the former chairman of Norwich University Hospitals foundation trust.


His comments come amid a slew of scandals involving NHS care and worrying new research that revealed that 1 in 10 patients – about 1 million patients a year – suffers avoidable harm in NHS hospitals and care homes.


The Mid Staffordshire NHS trust is now in administration following reports of “appalling” care that led to the deaths of 400 patients between 2005 and 2008.
Prior said the CQC had identified 45 hospitals – about 20 percent of the total in the UK – which had serious problems dating back five years, and that regulators would not allow underperforming hospitals to carry on unchanged. He also named a further 20 percent of hospitals as “coasting along and not doing terribly well.”


“We cannot give the public a cast-iron guarantee that there will never be another Mid Staffs or another Maidstone & Tunbrdge Wells [ where hundreds died after an outbreak of Clostridium difficile]”, Prior said.


In another blow to the beleaguered NHS, it was reported last week that there have been at least 22 serious incidents and three deaths since the disaster-prone 111 non-emergency phone line was introduced, which is still not functioning in all areas of the country.


Healthcare minister Norman Lamb said that patients have lost faith in out-of-hours care, now that it is no longer provided by GPs. “We have out-of-hours care that too often falls down. People end up with the default option of A&E [accident and emergency] because there is nothing else they are confident in,” he told the Telegraph.


Next week, Lamp will announce a pilot for an integrated care system in a bid to stop the NHS and social services from fighting over who foots the bill for elderly patients stuck in hospital with non-life-threatening illnesses.


Both Prior and Lamb’s suggestions – that hospital beds should be eliminated in order to provide better overall care – was blasted by professor David Oliver, the former clinical director for the elderly. He pointed out that the UK has already lost one-third of its acute hospital beds in the last two decades, meaning that per head of the population it has fewer services than any comparable country.
____________________________________________


Think about the MAOIST GREAT LEAP FORWARD----this Chinese 1% rich man pretended to be that worker's leader while clawing all Chinese 99% real estate into the COMMUNAL hands of the Chinese 1%. That is what is happening today in Western nations. This is what global 1% call a BLOODLESS REVOLUTION. When we say #FIST-----#RESIST ----are all United Nations captured groups pretending to be revolutionaries---this is the BLOODLESS REVOLUTION---moving all real estate into the hands of the global 1%.

They are not leading a BLOODLESS REVOLUTION FOR THE 99%---they are leading a BLOODLESS REVOLUTION for the global 1%!

This worst depression is of course-----MOVING FORWARD ROBBER BARON AND GLOBAL BANKING FRAUD JUST AS IN 1920s and 30s.....

'The time is ripe. Greece is undergoing the worst depression in modern history, which has crushed every single asset, including once mighty real estate'.



Jun 24, 2017 @ 09:31 AM 13,115 2 FREE Issues of Forbes

Prime Real Estate On Fire Sale -- In Greece
Panos Mourdoukoutas ,  
Contributor


Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

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A deep and prolonged economic contraction has placed prime real estate on fire sale in Greece, creating good opportunities for bargain hunters. But they may not last too long. 


Buying prime real estate is all about good location and good timing. Good location is usually a place with a limited amount of land for development, like a city center or a waterfront. Good timing is a period when real estate in these places goes on fire sale due to catastrophic events or prolonged economic contractions.


That's what happened to prime real estate locations throughout Southeast Asia in the late 1990s, following the economic contraction caused by local currencies; and in Manhattan real estate, following the September 11 calamity.


Now, the prime location has shifted -- to the center of major Greek cities, where thousands of apartments are on sale, some overlooking centuries old monuments that are recognized worldwide, such as the Acropolis.


And it has also shifted to coastal areas in Greece, next to beautiful beaches, including some of the well-known Greek islands.


The time is ripe. Greece is undergoing the worst depression in modern history, which has crushed every single asset, including once mighty real estate.

Since 2009, real estate prices have gone south, with no end in sight. The Greek Home Price Index has dropped from 100 in 2009 to 59.6 in 2017. A popular asset has turned into liability even in the hottest property areas of the country. “The real estate market has been following a bad Greek economy,” says Athens based attorney, Kiriaki Perou.


But these bargains may not last for long time, for a number of reasons. First, the Greek economy shows signs of stabilizing, with GDP growing at 0.4 percent annual rate in the second quarter of 2017. Second, a strong demand for short-term vacation rentals to be listed in RBNB, Booking, Housli and the likes.


Third, as Athens Exchange begins to show signs of life, being among the best performers so far this year, foreign investors have been stepping in. Like Minneapolis-based Varde Partners, which invested $65 million in Greek shopping malls.


Then there are the democratic institutions and high levels of human development that will help Greece get out of the unprecedented depression it has slid into, and rise again, pulling real estate prices along with it.

_________________________________________
This article is why we feel AL JAZEERA Muslim media outlet is just as captured for global 1% as our US media outlet.  Remember, we have OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% from our Northern Africa and Middle-East and they are team GLOBAL 1% ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE.

Here is where REAL left social progressives are made to sound anti-immigrant.....when we are the voice for equity and justice for 99% of immigrant citizens.

The same global banking 1% created the SHIFTING POPULATIONS OF ARAB SPRING refugees as created the Greek economic bankruptcy killing 99% of Greek citizens.  Both groups in this article are VICTIMS OF ONE WORLD.  We talked earlier this week of MONEY-LESS SOCIETIES---we talk all the time against global corporate campuses and Foreign Economic Zones.  Well, that is what Greece has become---it looks like our Caribbean islands filled with enslaving global factories.

This is why Greek citizens are leaving to EX-PAT ---and it is why these refugees are being given harbor---they will be tied to MONEY-LESS SOCIETY AND FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS FACTORIES.


We see Al Jazeera KNOWS this as they report Greece is in an EMBRYONIC TRANSITION ----this is what American media calls TRANSFORMATIVE during OBAMA.


Now, if I really supported these refugees here in Greece as well as those being sent to Eastern Europe where Foreign Economic Zone global factories have been built last decade---I would be WARNING THESE IMMIGRANTS TO RUN.

'Shifting populations, desperate responses 
Greece's experience with migration reflects Europe's - but with extraordinary intensity.

But, he warns, Greece is in an "embryonic transition" which "cannot be taken for granted"'.


The policy is not WELCOMING IMMIGRANTS---it is the goal of Foreign Economic Zones and ONE WORLD as regards these global labor pool 99%.


Our Muslim global 99% know better than we ----many Middle-Eastern nations have been tied to global labor pool and Foreign Economic Zones these few decades sending their citizens into global slave trade distribution system---as we saw with Sri Lanka and Middle-East labor trade.





FeaturesPolitics9 December 2015


Greek immigration policy: A lesson for Eastern Europe?

Greece was notorious for its treatment of refugees, but its approach has evolved and could offer lessons to others.

Newly arrived refugees sleep in a secluded spot while tourists make their way through a residential area on the island of Lesbos [Anna Psaroudakis/Al Jazeera]

ByJohn Psaropoulos


John Psaropoulos is an independent journalist based in Athens and reports regularly for Al Jazeera. His blog is www.then


Athens, Greece - When Jessica Ben Anosike was 12, her sense of belonging in Greece as a second-generation migrant was shattered. The Nigerian-born student had come out on top of her class in track and field events and was looking forward to representing Greece in a European junior championship.


"I remember that I was in first place, and I asked my coach if I'm qualified to go," Anosike recalled, fighting back tears. "She said, 'Well, because you don't have the Greek passport, I don't think it's possible.'" The coach gave the spot to a Greek athlete who had taken second place.


Anosike, raised in Greece since she was four years old, is now 19 and finally eligible for that Greek passport. A law passed this year naturalises people of non-Greek origin if they have attended Greek schools for nine years.


Anosike is among 12,000 applicants, but her relationship with Greece is broken. Aside from her loyal Greek friends, she says, "I don't feel it's my home or that I have something here that belongs to me." In fact, the main reason she wants a passport is so she can leave.

Jessica Ben Anosike, a second-generation migrant, wears a selection of her medals won in track and field events at her home in Athens [Anna Psaroudakis/Al Jazeera]To some extent, Anosike's problems are those spurring much of Greece's youth to leave the country - a joblessness rate of  more than 50 percent and a sense that, despite European Union membership, decades of poor leadership have deprived them of a future.


Despite these shortcomings, Greece serves as an example of a homogenous European society implementing the rule of law and adapting to population shifts. The citizenship law is the pinnacle of that process.


"Those who have finished school here are thought to be integrated," says Vasilis Papadopoulos, the general secretary for migration at the interior ministry responsible for implementing the law. "We consider it self-evident that they participate in society sufficiently to be considered Greek citizens."




Even so, the bill encountered opposition: One MP, Adonis Georgiadis, now running for the conservative leadership, cited an ancient Athenian law introduced by Pericles in 451BC, which tightened the requirements for citizenship and declared that only children whose parents were both Athenian could receive this citizenship.


But Tasia Christodoulopoulou, the migration minister who passed the new law, ultimately prevailed. "We need to accept their will to be Greek citizens, which means that they will have rights as well as obligations," she said.

A group of Moroccan refugees protest against being denied passage into Macedonia. On December 3, a young Moroccan man was electrocuted trying to cross the newly erected fence along the Greece-Macedonia border [Anna Psaroudakis/Al Jazeera]Shifting populations, desperate responses 
Greece's experience with migration reflects Europe's - but with extraordinary intensity.

When the Iron Curtain collapsed in 1990, many Eastern Europeans headed west. 


Greece tried to develop a policy in an area where it had never previously needed one. Between 1998 and 2005, three amnesties legalised an estimated half-a-million people. The logic was that if the economy had absorbed them, the state should receive taxes and social security contributions.


After the second Gulf war, however, migration from newly destabilised countries in the Middle East and Central Asia swelled. This, coupled with Greece's economic collapse following the 2008 financial crisis, put both Greeks and immigrants out of work, creating a perfect social and economic storm.




"All racist attackers enjoyed a kind of immunity from prosecution," says Dimitris Zotos, one of the lawyers now prosecuting Golden Dawn, the far-right party known for repeated attacks on migrants.
"The then [conservative] government had invested in targeting migrants as one of the causes of the economic crisis and, therefore, wanted to turn people's attention towards seeing migrants as one of the sources of unhappiness."


The official crackdown, too, came in August 2012. The conservatives unleashed police patrols, arresting anyone without residence papers. Holding cells were filled to bursting; detention camps held the spillover.

Iranian refugees sewed their mouths shut at the Greek border in protest against being denied entry into Macedonia [Anna Psaroudakis/Al Jazeera]Migrants held there spoke of unsanitary conditions, beatings, poor nutrition and little or no access to healthcare or legal aid. Most troubling was the practice of detention beyond an 18-month pre-trial limit, for which the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, an NGO coalition, threatened to have Greece indicted at the European Court of Human Rights.


For years, police demonstrated similar behaviour in handling asylum applications. Lacking trained staff, they issued only token approvals.
In 2007, Greece received 20,684 asylum applications - police approved only 140. The next year, Greece turned EU asylum directives into national law. Even then, police only approved 358 asylum applications out of 29,573. With processing taking years, many began filing applications as a way of gaining temporary residence.

Greece improves conditions for refugees

The Greek process became so notorious that in January 2011, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Belgium had violated the rights of an Afghan asylum seeker by deporting him back to Greece.


Under EU rules, the Afghan man's asylum application should have been processed in the EU member state where he first alighted, which was Greece, but the court ruled that poor living conditions and the defective asylum procedures put both the applicant and his application in jeopardy.
Soon after, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees recommended that EU states refrain from returning applicants to Greece.

A police officer on the Greece-Macedonia border checks the documents of newly arrived refugees, early in the morning [Anna Psaroudakis/Al Jazeera]Course correction


Under EU and UN tutelage, Greece adapted again.
In July 2013, it set up a "First Reception Service" to greet refugees at the border, identify them, check their health and inform them of their legal rights. It also set up a dedicated asylum service staffed by lawyers. Last year, the service received more than 13,000 applications and approved almost 4,000.


When the left-wing Syriza party toppled the conservatives in January, it also put an end to the illegal practice of prolonged detention.

A young Iranian refugee, denied passage into Macedonia, warms up with a blanket while contemplating the situation in Idomeni, Greece [Anna Psaroudakis/Al Jazeera]Both Greece's mistakes and its progress since 1990 stand as an example to Eastern European states, says Dimitris Christopoulos of Panteion University, who wrote the citizenship law and chairs Greece's Human Rights Committee.
But, he warns, Greece is in an "embryonic transition" which "cannot be taken for granted".



The countries of Eastern Europe, which have only been democracies for a quarter-of-a-century and EU members for a decade, and who themselves generated Europe's last surge of immigration in the 1990s, now threaten that progress.


Macedonia has since built a fence along its border with Greece and several Eastern European countries have stepped back from their pledges to relocate refugees.
Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European migration commissioner, recently called this unravelling of the commitment to open borders "the beginning of the end of the European Union". 


"They are still where Greece was during the Cold War. The worst case scenario [for 2016] is introspection - trying to build new waiting zones in the European periphery as is happening now with Greece," says Christopoulos.


"In this case, the fence mentality will prevail, and the domino effect that started with the [political] right in Hungary and has caught on in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, etc, will continue. In such a case, the European political project is in danger."

But it may just be migrants themselves who alter Europe's debate about migration. Beata Pastor, who was born in Greece to Filipino parents, is a member of Melissa, a non-profit organisation established by migrant women, which helps new refugees.The 19-year-old believes that the citizenship she has applied for will change things.

"Whatever bad happens here in Greece, they blame us. We don't have the right to vote… Shouldn't the blame go to the Greek people who vote?" she asks rhetorically.

"The Greek people they think about their own selves. Us, we believe in voting for the future of everyone, not just the Greeks, but everyone who lives here, and for the future of the country."

____________________________________________
And here is where Greece's refugee population is steered----global corporate factories. Here is a Greek yogurt billionaire bringing these Arab Spring refugees to his global factory in US and Greece.
These global 1% billionaires are behind the wars----the displacement of global citizens---and moving them into global labor pools all while being called CHARITABLE. If we go to these global factories whether in Greece or US ----we will see conditions just as Asian sweat shop factories.
Those caught in Greece will be that EMBRYONIC SOCIETY tied to MONEY-LESS GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS TOTALITARIANISM.

This is why CNN MONEY and this global 1% are SMILING.

The Greek refugees are caught in Foreign Economic Zone global labor factories and Greek's citizen EX PATs no longer have that GIVEN pathway to MIDDLE-CLASS.


Greek yogurt billionaire fills his plants with refugees


by Kate Trafecante & Craig Waxman   @CNNMoney

This is what sparks the anti-Muslim rhetoric across the US------what have been Muslim nations tied to FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES AND GLOBAL FACTORIES and global slave trading distribution between Asia and Middle-East are now bringing them to US.

These are not CHARITABLE PEOPLE---they are the same global 1% and they intend to work these immigrants now in US as they do overseas in Asia and Middle-East----enslaving conditions.  We may not see this TODAY---but MOVING FORWARD IS BRINGING THIS to these immigrants and to US citizens----here comes MONEY-LESS SOCIETY AND BASIC INCOME.


When our US United Nations ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE groups like Black Lives Matter-----Occupy Wall Street-----the ROOSEVELT AND ASPEN INSTITUTION bunch are marching and shouting against a TRUMP anti-Muslim ----this is what they want to protect.  It has nothing to do with protecting those 99% of global labor pool displaced Muslim refugees---they are protecting that global 1% billionaire's right to bring global labor pool enslavement to US.

THIS IS MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE AND MONEY-LESS SOCIETIES TIED TO 99% LIVING, EATING, SCHOOLED, AND WORKING ON GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUSES....BECAUSE IT IS SUSTAINABLE FOR MAXIMIZING GLOBAL CORPORATE PROFITS.



This is right wing sensationalism ----but the goals of global labor pool and US Foreign Economic Zones as ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE is real and really bad for US 99% and global 99%.


In all honesty -----do we think placing this global factory in IDAHO---home of course to our RIGHT WING SOVEREIGN CITIZENS militias would cause UNREST AND CIVIL INSTABILITY? YOU BETCHA. Especially as US citizens are hired less and less and pay goes down to that of overseas Foreign Economic Zones.



Fact Check

Sneak Yogurt

A misleading image macro claimed Chobani's CEO vowed to "drown the United States in Muslims" and was "importing them to Idaho 300 at a time to work in his factory."


CLAIMChobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya vowed to "drown the United States in Muslims" and is "importing them to Idaho 300 at a time to work in his factory." See Example(s)
EXAMPLESCollected via e-mail and Twitter, March 2016RATING MOSTLY FALSEWHAT'S TRUE

Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya proposed big businesses step in and assist with a refugee crisis; Chobani has hired 600 refugees.


WHAT'S FALSE

Ulukaya did not vow to "drown" America in Muslim refugees; his proposal did not mention Muslims specifically; he has no legal ability to "import Muslims" at a rate of 300 per month.


ORIGINOn 20 January 2016, CNN Money published an opinion item written by Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder of the Chobani brand of strained yogurt. Ulukaya’s column posited that an ongoing refugee crisis could be ameliorated with the cooperation of businesses like his:


What would happen if they summoned the spirit of innovation and ingenuity to solve the greatest humanitarian crisis of our lives? What if — to borrow a word from Silicon Valley — we could “hack” the refugee crisis? That’s what I’m asking business leaders to do in Davos. As people of a free world, we have a moral obligation to the 60 million people who, like Nadia [a refugee from Kurdistan whose mother and brothers were massacred by ISIS], have been kidnapped or forced from their homes. People who need food, shelter, and opportunity, and have risked their lives to escape something that makes their childhood nightmares now seem like distant dreams. But it’s not just people who can help. Businesses — and the hundreds of thousands of people they represent — have a major role to play. At Chobani, the food company I founded in the United States, we have hired hundreds of refugees in the past five years, and they are some of the most talented, dedicated people I’ve ever met.



The column included a video segment during which Ulukaya discussed his proposition:


<br /> >
On 20 January 2016, the unreliable web site WND.com responded to the op-ed with an editorial titled “AMERICAN YOGURT BILLIONAIRE: ‘HIRE MORE MUSLIM REFUGEES’; Calls on biggest U.S. companies to join Islamic surge” (even though the original column never mentioned Muslims):


Ever wonder why the federal government would be sending hundreds of foreign refugees to a relatively small town in Idaho? Wonder no more. They’re sent there, many of them, to work in the world’s largest yogurt factory. As WND previously reported, Twin Falls is in line to receive about 300 refugees this year, many of them Muslims from Syria. And the state of Idaho, despite its reputation as a mostly white, conservative farm state, has been a popular destination for refugees in recent years. The U.S. State Department has shipped more than 11,000 refugees directly from the Third World to Idaho since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Just in the past year, 989 refugees have arrived in the rural state, most of them landing in either Boise or Twin Falls. Nearly half have come from some of the world’s nastiest jihadist hot zones, including 95 from Iraq, 94 from Somalia, 47 from Sudan, 39 from Afghanistan, 31 from Iran, 28 from Syria and 11 from Pakistan, according to the federal refugee database. But despite growing protests by local residents against the refugee arrivals, the Twin Falls area can count on being a prime spot for refugees for years to come, thanks to one man’s rising business enterprise … That man is Hamdi Ulukaya, a Kurdish Muslim and immigrant from Turkey who created the billion-dollar U.S.-based Chobani yogurt empire.


WND collated a confusing number of metrics and purported statistics in their response to Ulukaya’s article, stating that Twin Falls would receive 300 refugees in 2016 (but not all of them Muslim or involved with Chobani), that 11,000 refugees from “the Third World” had entered Idaho as a whole since September 2001, and that 989 refugees from unspecified nations had arrived in Boise or Twin Falls in “the last year.” None of that mish-mash of numbers appeared directly related in any way to Chobani’s founder, or to his company’s hiring practices (especially given that the company wasn’t even founded until four years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks).


On 31 March 2016, the author of the WND article contacted us with further information, substantiating that 961 refugees from all nations (including Iraq, Iran, Burma, Russia, and Ukraine) entered Idaho in the calendar year 2015.


 Breakdowns of the that information by state can be found here:



What was particularly notable within the Department of State’s refugee records for calendar year 2015 were demographics of people seeking asylum. While rumors claimed that refugees were primarily from Muslim countries (most typically Syria), the vast majority of people asking for asylum in Idaho were not from Muslim countries:




In 2015 a scant 28 Syrians (fewer than two percent of Idaho’s total) sought asylum in Idaho, despite intense focus on Syria’s refugees in the media. By contrast, 611 of the 961 refugees came from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Burundi, and the Central African Republic (64 percent of all people settled in Idaho in 2015). Christianity (not Islam) was the primary religion in all but Somalia. Another 137 (14 percent) came from Burma (98) and Bhutan (39), countries that are primarily Buddhist. Removing the 9.7 percent from Somalia, the sum total of refugees from primarily Christian or Buddhist countries alone settling in Idaho in 2015 was 654 (or nearly 70 percent). Another two percent came from non-Muslim countries like Colombia, Russia, and Ukraine; despite the title of the piece, more than two-thirds of the refugees logged in the source material did not come from primarily Muslim countries.
Not long after the WND item appeared in January 2016, Facebook users began sharing the above-reproduced image macro reading:


Boycott Chobani Yogurt, an American based yogurt manufacturing company in Idaho that is owned by a muslim who says he is going to drown the United States in Muslims and is importing them to Idaho 300 at a time to work in his factory. He is also giving them the jobs that should go to American families even though his American neighbors have protested his actions and oppose his behavior. Please do not buy Chobani Yogurt!


As with many rumors of its type, the Chobani rumor evolved to encompass multiple versions inaccurately describing Ulukaya’s proposition, intent, and practices, including completely fabricated claims that Ulukaya had vowed to “flood” the U.S. with Muslims or “drown” the country in refugees. Some versions of the rumor asserted the CEO “imported” 300 Muslims per month” to the U.S. specifically to work in his Idaho plant, a claim which was difficult to square with immigration math. Per the U.S. Department of State, roughly 21,000 work visas were granted nationwide in each of fiscal years 2013, 2014, and 2015 [PDF]. If the claims about “300 Muslims per month” were to be believed 17% of all work visas were going to persons employed by a single yogurt plant in Idaho, irrespective of the fact that business people don’t have the authority to grant work visas of any description in the first place.


WND appeared to have extrapolated some of their numbers from a 15 January 2016 Financial Times profile of Ulukaya and his efforts to help refugees, which noted that the entire Chobani global workforce was made up of only 600 refugees (of all nationalities and religions):


Ulukaya decided to act. Last year he established a foundation, Tent, to channel financial aid and innovation efforts into refugee work. He also declared that he would give half his fortune to refugee causes (he has made an eye-popping $1.4bn from his wildly popular Chobani yoghurts in recent years). And he has stepped up efforts to hire as many refugees as he can at his yoghurt plants, where they currently account for 30 per cent of the total workforce, or 600 people. “There are 11 or 12 languages spoken in our factories,” says Ulukaya. “We have translators 24 hours a day.”


However, initial reporting upon the Idaho yogurt-processing plants facility’s opening in 2012 indicated that the plant employed 300 people in total, further calling into question claims that Chobani was placing 300 Muslim refugees per month in that same Idaho plant. Either Chobani was experiencing credulity-testing and unchecked monthly expansion, or the numbers were way off:

Chobani, the yogurt company that grew from nothing five years ago to a roughly $1 billion powerhouse today, will formally open one of the world’s largest yogurt-processing plants in Twin Falls, Idaho. The $450 million, 1 million square-foot plant is the company’s second. It will employ 300 people, and Mr. Ulukaya said for every 10 jobs it creates directly, it is expected to create roughly 66 additional jobs in ancillary businesses.


The claim that Chobani was headquartered in Idaho was also inaccurate. While the brand operates processing facilities in that state, Chobani was founded, and remains headquartered in, New York.


It is true that Ulukaya proposed using business employment as a novel approach to a refugee crisis in January 2016. However, claims that he sought to assist only Muslim refugees and was personally “importing” 300 Muslims per month to work in his Idaho plant were fabrications.

_______________________________________


Below we see the global corporation and the global 1% tied to this NESTLE corporation known by everyone globally as the top BIG BAD MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATION---which with MONSANTO controls much of the world's food sources.


We know those pesky Greek FAKE SOCIALIST leaders loading the nation with global banking debt fraud were working for this Greek corporation.  We know as well these are the Greek wealth executives that took all their wealth off-shore to leave 99% of Greek citizens to have their personal wealth lost and stolen.  We know this Greek corporation is now using its labor organization to send Greek refugees to Foreign Economic Zones around the world.

We know this because that is what the CLINTON INITIATIVE has built these few decades.

If we look at this annual report from HELLAS NESTLE----we see the exact terminology in Baltimore City and its mountains of NGOs-----HEALTHY KIDS/WELLNESS/NGOs focusing on children-----this is what fills our US city school organizations----our US city social services organizations---our US city job training and employment----all once government agencies---local, state, Federal ----now global and controlled by a global corporate tribunal.


When Greek public health system was left in decay-----this is to where all those public funds went-----when Greece was loaded with sovereign bond debt---this is to where that bond revenue went----when Greek people lost their pensions and homes---this is to where that value went.

THIS SAME POLICY IS HAPPENING IN BALTIMORE BECAUSE ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY POLICY.


Creating SHARED VALUE---not for 99% WE THE PEOPLE!


 As BORING as these annual reports are----believe it or not WE READ THEM-----we must educate broadly to know what the rich and powerful have as goals---and know when our politicians and organizations are CAPTURED BY THEM. 
This will be ONE of the Greek global corporations installing that EMBRYONIC MONEY-LESS SOCIETY just as global Google in San Fran is leading the way in US...........




Nestlé Hellas Sustainability
and Creating Shared Value

Report
2011

Nestlé
Hellas Sustainability and Creating Shared Value Report 2011


Contents


1.
A message from the CEO________5


2.
The structure of the Report__________6


2.1
About our Sustainability and Creating Shared Value Report _________6


2.2
The content of the Report _________6


2.3
The methodology of the Report _____7



2.4
A few words on the structure of the Report ____7




2.5
Scope of the Report _________7




3.
Nestlé in Greece and the world___8


3.1
The history of Nestlé in Greece _____10


3.2
The structure of Nestlé in Greece __________11



3.3 Nestle Hellas: 2011 strategy and financial performance ___________12


3.4
The Nestlé facilities in Greece __________12


3.5 Nestlé products in Greece _________14


3.6 Nestlé Corporate Business Principles ____16



3.7
Our mission and values ______18


3.8
Corporate Governance ______18



3.9
Renumeration of managers _________18




3.10 Determination of qualifications and expertise for senior
management and senior staff _________19




3.11 Nestlé Code of Business Conduct ___19



3.12 Compliance Committee _________20


3.13 Issue Round Table __________20



3.14 Security Committee__________20


3.15 Safety Committee ___________20


3.16 Awards received in 2011 ___________21



3.17 Nestlé participation in organizations and business associations ____21


4.
Creating Shared Value at Nestlé



4.1
The way we work _________22


4.2
The three pillars of Creating Shared Value ______23



4.3 Nestlé Creating Shared Value in Greece ____24


4.4
Wellness Taskforce _________24


4.5
Mapping of stakeholders _______24


4
Contents


5.  Nestlé in the Greek market: Delighting consumers_28



5.1
The Nestlé Quality Assurance and Product Safety Policy __________30


5.2 Nestlé Quality Management System _______30



5.3
Consumer Services _______________31



5.4
Consumer communication with our Company in 2011 _31


5.5
Communication starts from the product label ____________________32


5.6
We develop food and beverage products for health and pleasure ___33


5.7 Nestlé Consumer Research Studies ____________________________35


5.8
Responsible Communication ________35



5.9
Supplier and customer relations: We develop responsible partners__36



5.10 The Nestlé sales network ________37


5.11 Our suppliers _____________38


5.12 Fair competition ___________39


6.
Human Resources____40


6.1
We care for our people ____________40



6.2
Our people in 2011 _____________41




6.3
Recruitment process______42


6.4
Employee turnover __________43


6.5
Employee progress and development ______44


6.6
Employee training __________44


6.7
Employee Health and Safety __________48


6.8 Nestlé Employee Council ________49



7.
Environment______50



7.1
The Nestlé Environmental Management System______52



7.2
Our performance in 2011 ___53


7.3
Management of Greenhouse Gas Emissions ____________________54



7.4
Water management _______55


7.5
Waste management_______56


7.6
Use of materials _____________57


7.7
Company fleet _________57




8.
Commitment to society______58


8.1
Healthy Kids Global Programme _______58



8.2
Healthy Kids in Greece __________59


8.3
Healthy Kids: Goals for 2012 _______63



8.4
2nd Water Care Festival at the Korpi factory _____________________64




8.5
Product donations_______66


8.6
Support of NGOs focusing on children _________________________66



8.7
Employee volunteerism ____________66


9.
Corporate Responsibility Report Quality Assurance__68


9.1 Introduction ________69


9.2
Assurance Statement ________69



9.3  Communication with Nestle__69


10. GRI Index_______70

11. Evaluation form__79


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June 28th, 2017

6/28/2017

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Let's return to yesterday's posts for a few points before looking again at Sri Lanka and Greece and how what is happening there is happening in the US----and remember, the UK is a decade or two ahead of US in MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE GLOBAL 1% ----this is why we are seeing that MONEY-LESS SOCIETY going main stream in UK while only being introduced in Silicon Valley----home of ONE WORLD GLOBAL CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA.

Why is national and international media using two terms for this extreme wealth and extreme poverty----

CASHLESS SOCIETY VS MONEY-LESS SOCIETY.

When developed nation citizens as UK, US, Canada, Japan, think of CASHLESS SOCIETY they don't think all money is going to be taken out of circulation--they are thinking expanded credit card====plastic=====debt cards.  So what if our employer direct deposits our paychecks----the middle and affluent class have not had problems with this.  The money is always there.

The term MONEY-LESS is used more in third world societies where 99% of citizens never do handle paper money and rarely coins.  They are already living in a barter society----when our US or UK media start using the term MONEY-LESS----WE THE PEOPLE know we are heading to that third world bartering status.

Below we see the AMERICAN THINKER------this is a right wing media outlet that makes good policy discussion with a right wing bias.  The right wing pols would never use the term MONEY-LESS to their voters because that indicates MARXISM AND ENDING CAPITALISM. 

WHEN THE GLOBAL 1% ARE PUSHING THESE PUBLIC POLICIES ON GLOBAL ECONOMICS AND THEY ARE RAGING GLOBAL BANKING NEO-LIBERALS----WE ARE NOT GOING TO LEFT MARXISM ----WE ARE GOING TO FAR-RIGHT LIBERTARIAN MARXISM----


Again, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland once left social progressive have these few decades been pulled right wing and have been installing ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE structures so please don't think these nations are still controlled by left politicians. All western Europe nations are captured by neo-liberalism as well and their citizens are fighting hard against this.


Developing nations have been using that term MONEY-LESS for these few decades via the United Nations----our developed nations are being tied to CASHLESS---



February 8, 2016


Here Comes the ‘Cashless Society’

By Mike Konrad


A recent look at some headlines, all less than two months old, gives us a scary view as to what is coming:
  • Bring On the Cashless Future - Bloomberg
  • China buyers go virtually cashless  - The Star
  • Norway's Biggest Bank Calls For Country To Stop Using Cash - Int'l Business Times
  • Cashless future underway as Canadian consumers have more credit, debit and app options than ever - CBC
  • In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears - NY Times
  • Germany proposes new cash ban and capital controls as Europe rushes towards NIRP - Examiner
With the Western World and China in danger of going into deflation, major banks have already started to charge negative interest rates.
Denmark’s central bank was a pioneer when it first cut its deposit rate below zero in 2012, and the trend has now spread to the eurozone and Japan. The Danish deposit rate now stands at minus 0.65 per cent. - Financial Times


Sweden has followed suit.  The USA is set to follow.  Major Bankers are calling for an abolition of money.  It may the only fix left, now that quantitative easing is failing.  But no one is going to put their money in banks!  Not if it means negative interest rates.


Don't worry.  Governments will rise to the occasion and soon will be making cash illegal.  People will be forced to put their money in banks or the market, thus rescuing the central governments and the central banks that are incestuously intertwined with them.

Beyond that, cash is probably the last arena of personal autonomy left.  It can be spent anyway one pleases, with no one watching.   It can be hidden from the government to avoid taxes.  It can be used to engage in transactions of a semi-legal nature.  It has power that the government cannot control; and that is why it has to go.


Of course, governments will not tell us the real reasons.  Might provoke a reaction.  We will be told it is for our own "good," however one defines that.  It will be sold to us as a benefit.  Millions of smartphone users are being seduced to take advantage of the convenience of Apple Pay; and indeed it is convenient, until you lose your smartphone.


When that day comes -- and we may be only one more "market correction" away -- the call will go out to have all disposable cash surrendered in exchange for bank accounts or money funds.  A time period will be set up. Possibly two months, extended one or two times to make the bureaucrats appear merciful.  Fluff stories will appear in the press to ease the process.


There will be stories about a seventy-year-old granny who marches in with a mattress containing $100,000 of her life earnings.  She will smile, and tell the announcer, "I was always afraid of a fire; but now I feel safer."  It will look so cute on the Five O’clock Action Report News.


Kids will turn in their piggy banks at school -- does anybody still use piggy banks anymore? -- for prepaid money cards.  They won't be told the cards depreciate one or two percent a month, if they do not spend it immediately.  Remember, that in all of these transactions, the central government/bank wins.
Side stories will inform us that mugging is down. Crime is finally being defeated. What won't be reported will be that hacking will shoot up.  Bank fraud will skyrocket.


Poor people, often liberal voters, will be sold on increased personal safety.  A cashless society means less crime in their neighborhoods.  No cash puts muggers at a disadvantage.  More importantly, they will be told that the rich can no longer hide their money and will be "forced to pay their fair share."

Conservatives will be told that no cash puts a damper on drug transactions, and social crimes, such as prostitution.  Illegal aliens will not be able to get work. The media will be replete with tales of such wonder working miracles during the transition. 



Be assured, however, that criminals, ever innovative, will find a way around problem.  Escort Agencies now take credit cards.  Muggers will soon concentrate on jewelry and smartphones, especially those with Apple Pay accounts. 

Going cashless may ironically streamline drug smuggling since suitcases of money weigh too much. 

In spite of that, we will be told that criminal enterprises will have been hurt badly.  Their mountains of cash are irredeemable.  Don't you believe it.  Rather, there will be a spike in the price of Bitcoins during the conversion.  Bitcoin's anonymity has already spawned major illicit franchises on the darknet.  These will grow. Expect Craigslist to offer a plethora of conversion opportunities for college kids to make some spare ... well, credit by converting some cash.  The more efficient drug dealers will suffer some loss as they have to farm out their stash to small operators for conversion; but the surviving dealers will end up leaner, meaner, and in fighting shape when the dust settles.  Only the low-end relatively "honest" street pusher will suffer; but that street pusher was slated for an appointment with Five O'Clock News as a casualty of the drug wars, anyway.  Drugs will now arrive, elegantly delivered via shipping agencies.



The real purpose of a cashless society will be total control: Absolute Total Control.


The real victims will be the public who will be forced to put all their wealth in a centralized system backed up by the good faith and credit of their respective governments.  Their life savings will be eaten away yearly with negative rates.  John Q. Public will be forced to subsidize bankrupt banks, or invest in an overpriced manipulated market.


People would be foolish to think they can waltz through the problem if they have gold.  There is not enough gold on the planet to set up a serious competitive black market.  Those who have gold will be forced to pay a severe markup premium for going off-grid.  Eventually, even these will run out of gold; and bartering will soon prove tiresome.


The end result will be the loss of all autonomy.  This will be the darkest of all tyrannies.  From cradle to grave one will not only be tracked in location, but on purchases.  Liberty will be non-existent

However, it will be sold to us as expedient simplicity itself, freeing us from crime: Fascism with a friendly face.



Perhaps the scariest consequence of all is that an individual can be "terminated" by a bureaucrat erasing his identity.  Do not kid yourself, it will happen. Real "Mark of the Beast" stuff.

Rev 13:16-17 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark ... Rev 13:16-17
I do not know if we are there yet; but if recent headlines are a clue, we may be very close.

___________________________________________
Many Americans have already experienced signing on to direct utility or credit card deductions from our checking accounts----it started as voluntary and is moving to required.  With that comes the hardship of DISCONTINUING THAT DIRECT WITHDRAW FOR PAYMENTS when we want to stop using it or want to change payment methods.  As with all business transactions these days involving finance ----it has been corrupted and citizens/consumers are getting fleeced with fraud.

These policies are DELIBERATELY moving WE THE PEOPLE TO MONEY-LESS SOCIETY and each time a global corporation and global Wall Street introduces these policies our elected officials---first CONGRESS----then our STATE ASSEMBLIES----then our CITY COUNCILS ---have to pass laws to allow these predatory banking and corporate payment structures to MOVE FORWARD.  Baltimore City pols and players promote all these policies and pass these laws because THEY ARE ALL CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS.


'Millions of smartphone users are being seduced to take advantage of the convenience of Apple Pay; and indeed it is convenient, until you lose your smartphone'.

What did the corporation PAYPAL do?  It eliminated yet another pathway to cash and check exchange for CONVENIENCE.  Who did PAY PAL?  Global 1% told our global IVY LEAGUEs to develop it and they put the 99% of students and staff to work and VOILA----a patented PAYPAL via ELON MUSK is released.

Citizens in Western nations used to convenience need to WAKE UP to think what a MONEY-LESS SOCIETY looks like and it is the opposite of a CASHLESS SOCIETY-----MONEY-LESS SOCIETIES don't have money to spend via PLASTIC.

Even the United Nations, alongside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, wants societies to forego cash for more virtual transacting.

OH, NO! Is that the OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE CATHOLIC FREEMASON SYMBOL ON THAT CASHLESS REGISTER? Why it is! World Bank has talked these few decades of eliminating the sovereign nations of Denmark and Sweden to merge into what they are trying to make ONE WORLD ONE EUROZONE.


This could be the first country to go cashless
by Virginia Harrison   @vharrisoncnn June 2, 2015: 11:18 AM ET


Your video will play in 00:15
A plan to cut cash out of shopping could see Denmark become the first country to ditch notes and coins altogether.


The Danish government has proposed that most stores could dump their cash registers from January 2016.


Essential services, such as hospitals, pharmacies and post offices, would still have to accept cash under the plan, which is some way from becoming law.
Denmark, with its Scandinavian neighbors Norway and Sweden, is leading the global trend towards electronic money.

Business groups point to benefits such as reduced handling and transport costs, increased security and a drop in attempts to steal cash.



A cashless society is "no longer an illusion but a vision that can be fulfilled within a reasonable time frame," said Michael Busk-Jepsen, executive director of the Danish Bankers Association.
Right now all retailers in Denmark must take cash. But that hasn't stopped huge numbers of Danes embracing digital options.


Nearly 40% of the population use Danske Bank (DNSKY)'s MobilePay, which allows money transfers between people, as well as purchases in stores or online.
Norway and Sweden tell a similar story.
Scandinavians rely on cash for less than 6% of all payments made. By contrast, around 47% of U.S. payments are still made with cash, according to the Norwegian central bank.


In Sweden, you can even use a card to buy street newspapers sold by homeless people. Card reader maker iZettle said sales of Situation Stockholm have jumped following the introduction of mobile payments.
And one of the country's most famous names, Abba's Björn Ulvaeus, has been a vocal supporter of a cashless society.



The trend toward digital money is accelerating elsewhere in Europe.
Non-cash payments rose 6% in 2013, according to data from the European Central Bank. Cashless payments overtook those made with notes and coins in the U.K. for the first time last year.


Even the United Nations, alongside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, wants societies to forego cash for more virtual transacting. It wants to cut costs and improve transparency, and is working with governments and the private sector to encourage more use of electronic payments.
Still, a cashless society isn't great news for everyone. Digital transacting carries growing fraud and security risks, while the elderly and marginalized groups have limited access to electronic payment options.


The most recent figures from the ECB show fraudulent use of bank cards is racking up billions in costs for unlucky consumers.
Total card fraud in Europe hit €1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) in 2012, a near 15% jump on the year earlier.

____________________________________________
We are all being told it is capitalism-----money ---that created these ROBBER BARON massive corporate and Wall Street frauds and government corruptions and not simply those 5% TO THE 1% GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS.  Capitalism has been the economic policy for THOUSANDS OF YEARS and this construct of MAOIST/STALINIST MARXISM came from far-right wing extreme wealth extreme poverty -----global banking.

Again, left social progressive think communal living is great-----it has never worked and will not work in an INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY.  That is why left social capitalism is the best economic policy for 99% of WE THE PEOPLE---making sure equal protection for all IS ENFORCED.


ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE BY A GLOBAL 1% TRIBUNAL has been working at these money-less society structures since 1950s---60s.  Left academics knew back then this was global banking 1% and not a people's movement.  This is why when REAGAN/CLINTON went global empire on WE THE PEOPLE ---we knew the goals----while national media and Clinton neo-liberal outlets called this CONSPIRACY THEORY.  Here we are today with the 99% WAKING UP----please don't allow FAKE REVOLUTIONARIES working for ONE WORLD make that REVOLUTION THE UNITED NATIONS TRANSFORMATION.

Below we see a United Nations GLOBAL 1% ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE organization----and its tied to the GLOBAL GREEN CORPORATION PARTY---JILL STEIN.



© 2013 - It's Our Economy, a project of PopularResistance.org

We have Jill Stein---Bernie Sanders----Ellison-----AND our right wing LIBERTARIANS all pushing these MOVING FORWARD policies----this is how we know who those pesky 5% to the 1% are as Clinton/Obama morph to far-right LIBERTARIAN MARXISM.





LANKACLEAR
Corporate Profile

A World Beyond Cash
Incorporated in February 2002 as the "National Cheque Clearing House", today, LankaClear has expanded its service offering to be the "National Payment Infrastructure Provider" for the country. Owned by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) and all Licensed Commercial Banks operating in Sri Lanka, the company boasts of multiple solution offerings not only for the banking sector but also across all industries that are ready and willing to adopt/ integrate to the latest digital technology driving Sri Lanka toward an efficient, green, and paperless nation.

In an era where electronic payment modes are gaining popularity worldwide, we at LankaClear have set the foundation & platforms in moving Sri Lanka to a cashless society with paperless offices. As the catalyst of change in the Sri Lankan Payment Industry, the company has continuously strived to maintain the highest standards of efficiency and security in catering to this emerging market needs. The LankaSign Certification Service Provider (CSP) implemented by LankaClear provides the much needed security for the electronic payment systems and is currently the only commercially operated CSP in the country.

LankaClear has introduced many ground breaking products, some of which have been first in the South Asian Region. Our committed & dynamic team of in- house professionals, with global exposure brings in the expertise in driving the technology foot print and the service delivery at LankaClear.



All Foreign Economic Zones are installing this MONEY-LESS/CASHLESS SOCIETY -----including now US cities deemed FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.  Where does this lead?  Global corporate campus plantations where that corporation houses, feeds, clothes, and teaches its human capital without them having to leave that global corporate campus. 

NO MONEY NEEDED IN A TOTALITARIAN EXTREME WEALTH CAPTURE
.


Imagine For a Moment a Moneyless Society
By Tony DeLorger 


Imagine for a moment a society without money. When you think about it, money, the lack of it, the pursuit of it, and what to do with it, takes up much of our waking consciousness. Even in our dreams we dream about winning the lottery, paying off the mortgage or being able to afford every whim and want. In short we are slaves to money. But in reality it is just an idea. These little pieces of paper are meaningless in themselves, rather a means by which our society is maintained, kept in some semblance of balance and order.


However from another perspective, money and the pursuit of it reveals a far more negative aspect of humanity, greed. Because money can expand life choices and gain power over those with less of it, it is by nature the corruptor. Our monetary system, devised to be a means for fair economy and balances has become the controlling force of all human endeavour. It has become a sole purpose and the false God of a race of beings immersed in self-involvement.


The world is filled with inequity, most of which revolves around money. Those born into poverty have no choice in the matter, as is our good fortune born into wealth. The success or failure of political and economic systems comes from individual circumstance for which all associated populations endure the result. Most of us have little influence on what happens beyond trying to ensure we protect and care for our own love ones. Of course, no-one wants to give up what they have, or lesson the lifestyle and freedom that we enjoy.


Here’s the clincher. Technology, energy and world resources can sustain our world populations: rid the world of hunger, drastically lessen disease and care for all its inhabitants. The only obstacle is greed and what the monetary system has created.


Imagine a world without money, without the pressure of bills, striving to amass, budgeting and all that goes with our present system. And what’s even better, without money, without power there would be far less conflict. Perhaps we would learn to live in peace and not contend with or try to better our fellow man. The benefits would be many.


There are people that have been working on this possibility for some years, working out how such a society would work. The intent is not to recreate any political system or philosophy but to imagine a new working world order whereby a governing body would oversee the maintenance and procurement of all the resources needed to sustain a balanced, healthy world. Perhaps we would all be required to work certain hours per week in our chosen fields, having been educated and nurtured to achieve our potential. The reward for participation would be housing, food and recreational choices, living in the knowledge that our future and our children’s future is assured.


It all sounds impossible to achieve but dreams can come true and a world of peace and prosperity is worth consideration. Think about it.
________________________________________
Most US citizens will without even researching this policy stance think MONEY-LESS SOCIETIES are not good.  Our poor struggle every day because they don't have money-----our third world immigrants come to US because their nation leaves them with no money.

Global Wall Street 1% are trying to sell WE THE GLOBAL 99% that global corporations want to take care of its human capital.  They plan to place workers in campus dormitories----with corporate campus schools---with preventative care only health care -----serving 3 institutional meals a day to its workers working 15-18 hours a day.  They will give workers CORPORATE UNIFORMS for clothing----this is what we call TOTALITARIANISM.

Our US military citizens will say----well, that's how we live on military bases-----know what is different?  Our US military were PAID SOLID WAGES AND BENEFITS---they could sign up for a 4 or 8 year term and then head to a free, democratic, civilian life.  What is being built by global Wall Street is 24/7------LIFETIME MILITARY BASE structures with no PAY.

Here we are again in 1972 with our INTERNATIONAL LABOR UNION talking about a BLOODLESS REVOLUTION.  We have been shouting for a decade in our organization that a VISIGOTH RAPE AND PILLAGE LOOTING of our US government and personal assets was happening CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA----now, do we really thing global banking and global 1% are our BLOODLESS REVOLUTIONARIES?  Of course not---they are the same OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE RICH from a thousand years ago.



Are a moneyless society and a bloodless revolution possible?; Right to Challenge; People and Power in the Steelworkers Union.

By John Herling. 415 pp. New York: Harper & Row. $12.50


Here we see Greek leaders these few decades being the same CLINTON/OBAMA only pretending to be LEFT SOCIALISTS tying the nation to so much global banking debt to sink the nations' economy but these FAKE SOCIALIST LEADERS are blaming the EU chiefs.  It is the same as CLINTON/OBAMA shaking their fists at TRUMP.

What we are not hearing in our national media is part of this AUSTERITY IN GREECE required an end to that nations' quality health coverage and senior health care programs and tying Greece to UNITED NATIONS global labor pool preventative care only ----SINGLE-PAYER/UNIVERSAL CARE ---and the mortality rate for seniors in Greece is SOARING.



EU chiefs SLASH Greece's aid because Tsipras wanted to give pensioners a Christmas bonus

HEARTLESS European Union finance ministers have suspended much needed debt relief for Greece because the country’s prime minister wanted to give a Christmas bonus to pensioners.By Patrick Christys

PUBLISHED: 00:00, Thu, Dec 15, 2016 | UPDATED: 03:53, Thu, Dec 15, 2016
2K89GETTY


Alexis Tsipras wanted to give old people a Christmas bonus but the EU said no

Greek premier Alexis Tsipras said £520million would be distributed as Christmas bonuses to 1.6million pensioners who live on £700 or less a month – the same pensioners who had their life savings claimed by the government during the recent banking crisis.


But Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said it would be postponing aid to the Mediterranean nation because bringing Christmas cheer to the elderly "appears to not be in line with our agreements”.

The Germans are the main opposition force to Greece’s bailout and ministers from Europe’s economic powerhouse clearly believe bringing festive cheer to old people who have felt the full force of the failing Eurozone.


In a Twitter statement, Mr Dijsselbloem said: “Some member states see it this way also and thus no unanimity now for implementing the short-term debt measures.”
The Eurogroup believes Mr Tsipras is “disrespecting” their generosity.

Alexis Tsipras's country could now face a lean Christmas and uncertain future


Greece's pensioners suffered badly in the financial crash


The debt relief measures agreed on December 6 to include more time for Greece to repay ESM loans and brakes on interest rates.
This Christmas bonus dispute could complicate efforts by Athens and its creditors to complete the review of the second Greek bailout programme.


It will also make the situation between Greece and the International Monetary Fund more difficult, with the IMF acting as one of the country’s largest lenders now sceptical as to whether it will see a return on its loans.
The IMF has already said it will bail out of the bailout if Greece’s debt is not sustainable.


But the Washington-based lender has been quick to defend itself, saying it has no desire to demand more austerity in Greece, the demands enforced upon the country by the EU are “very high” and budget surpluses are “simply not credible”.

_____________________________________________
The WORLD BANK AND IMF have these few decades forced developing nations into these UNITED NATIONS GLOBAL LABOR POOL preventative care only structures assuring these nations will never have the quality of health care our developed nations do-------same happened for Greece when its FAKE SOCIALIST LEADERS tied Greece to WORLD BANK/IMF----and all those pensioners ---baby boomers just as in the US-----were immediately denied access to those SOVEREIGN GREEK PROGRAMS AND HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS.

Mortality rates in Greece are soaring because of this.  This is why we see Greek citizens protesting en masse----

This is what OBAMA AND CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS teamed with Bush neo-cons did to the US these several years-----they created the same sovereign debt fraud----they broke down all our Federal public health structures to assure only PRIVATE STATE HEALTH SYSTEMS exist just as the economic crash and US Treasury and state municipal bond market collapse occurs so that same WORLD BANK IMF will tell Trump----Larry Hogan -----Catherine PUGH----to install that UNITED NATIONS SINGLE PAYER UNIVERSAL CARE just as in all third world nations.

OUR US SENIORS WILL BECOME THOSE GREEK SENIORS----IF YOU THINK THIS IS ONLY HAPPENING TO POOR CITIZENS--WAKE UP TO BECOMING THAT POOR CITIZEN.


Volunteers and patronage replacing a developed nation's public health system.

Global 1% will throw some millions to make everyone volunteers but not pay taxes to hire public employees to do civil services.

Maryland and Baltimore pols have staged citizens for just these events. Our Maryland Assembly APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CHAIR Maggie McIntosh -----running for Governor as a Democrat-----made sure we had a strong PRIVATE STATE HEALTH SYSTEM and made sure all Maryland State funding from Health and Human Services goes to only global corporate campus medical systems and not to our local city/county coffers. This is what captures all tax revenue and its control when the economy crashes. It was our same MARYLAND BARBARA MIKULSKI as Congressional Appropriations doing the same ----Maryland and especially Baltimore will look the same as Greece.





Greek Healthcare System Now Relies on Volunteers and Donations
Posted by Harry Merritt on July 16, 2013


As austerity has imposed budget cuts on healthcare systems across Europe and North America, the effect has been diminished coverage, staff layoffs, shortages of medicines, and increases in preventable illness and deaths. This has been especially true in Greece, with multiple punishing rounds of austerity measures over the past several years effectively ending universal health care in the country. Though the statistics reveal a growing health crisis among the Greek people, a complete collapse of the system has only been avoided through the efforts of dedicated volunteers.


Greece had a health care system that was until recently much like the rest of Europe's—a social insurance scheme paid into by the employed supplemented by government budgetary appropriation to provide universal coverage to the population. Four years of austerity have changed that, with budget cuts taking funds from hospitals and clinics, a massive unemployment rate diminishing revenues, and stipulations of the austerity measures mandating that those unemployed for a year or more are ineligible to receive benefits.


Last year, the New York Times reported on an underground network of doctors and nurses who serve those unemployed patients who are no longer covered. "In Greece right now, to be unemployed means death," said Dr. Syrigos, a member of this network. But for the unemployed, the work he and others like him have done means the preservation of life and well-being. Cancer patients who otherwise would have to pay out of pocket were spared crippling payments they could not possibly afford. As the social and health crisis has grown in Greece, the need for networks like this has only increased.


The BBC has done an in depth profile, looking in particular at the Metropolitan Community Clinic run by Dr. Giorgos Vichas.


Dr Vichas says his clinic is the only place in the city where cancer patients can get free chemotherapy. They are also providing 200 families with milk formula for their babies.


The municipality provides the premises for the clinic, on a disused American military base, and pays the overheads. But the medical professionals - which include paediatricians, gynaecologists and cardiologists - work there for nothing.


All the drugs are donated by individuals and pharmaceutical companies. They enter the clinic by the plastic bagful, higgledy piggledy, to be processed by a team of volunteers led by pharmacists. They sort them, date them, label them and store them.


As the state has withdrawn, networks of volunteers—within the medical profession or without—and pharmaceutical companies have worked on these clinics, in this case on land donated by the municipality. Doctors in hospitals bend the rules by giving tests and treatment without asking for proof of insurance: "'Every day I break the law,' [Dr. Ilias Sioras of Evangelismos General Hospital in Athens] says. 'I never ask for insurance for any patient.'"


For those like Dr. Panos Eustathiou of the Greek Ministry of Health, these efforts consitute a measure of success under conditions of austerity. But pretending that an ersatz volunteer-based effort can meet the needs of millions of Greeks is disingenuous and dangerous. Dr. Vichas freely acknowledges that "his team cannot continue firefighting the city's health problems forever" and worries about growing lapses in basic preventative care like childhood vaccinations.

Indeed, the Greek medical volunteers should challenge the beliefs of neoliberal supporters of austerity policies; in contrast to marketized "private-sector solutions" the volunteers are motivated by altruism and solidarity, donating their time and money without financial returns or tax benefits. The holes they patched in the system are admirable, but cannot compare to the permanence or universality of a modern universal health care system. Though these volunteers struggle resolutely to help their fellow Greeks, so long as austerity continues to gut the national health care system, they can only fail to stem the growing health crisis in the end, as in a classic Greek tragedy.


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June 27th, 2017

6/27/2017

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Let's get back to how Greece and Sri Lanka are the same MOVING FORWARD as in US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones.

We talked about the United Nations global neo-liberal policy of OPEN BORDERS and how these far-right wing global Wall Street sell this policy as PRO-IMMIGRANT when it is simply a global slave trade system built by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA and the global 1%.


Greece was deliberately hit hardest so it could be used as that platform for installing ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE policies like ----MONEY-LESS SOCIETAL STRUCTURES.

First the WORLD BANK/IMF needed to get rid of Greek sovereign citizens and that is what 2008 austerity had as a goal.  These several years have seen almost all of Greek young citizens and professional class become EX-PATS.  At the same time the Arab Spring---revolutions sparked by WORLD BANK PLAYERS----filled Greece with refugees from those northern African/Middle-East nations.  So, today Greece is mostly IMMIGRANT CITIZENS and they will be the ones facing MONEY-LESS BASIC INCOME POLICIES.  The Greek citizens who are seniors are dying at a fast rate.  Meanwhile, Greece's 1% and their 2% having created this mess with tons of fraud and government corruption have been overseas waiting for these societal transitions to finish.



Where did the money go? How Greece fumbled the refugee crisis
Two years ago, 57,000 refugees were stranded when Europe’s southern borders closed. What followed has been called the most expensive humanitarian response in historyby Daniel Howden and Apostolis Fotiadis












  • Thursday 9 March 2017 01.00 EST Last modified on Thursday 11 May 2017 07.29 EDT

Widad Madrati remembers the first snowfall at Oreokastro in the way most children would, as a thing of wonder. It threw a brilliant white cover over the squalor of a refugee camp pitched in the grounds of a disused warehouse in the hills above Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki. The 17-year-old Syrian did not mind that the water pipe to the outdoor sinks had frozen. She took photographs of the icicles.

The pictures on her phone show nothing of the broken chemical toilets or the discarded, inedible food; nor of the flimsy tents pitched on freezing ground by refugees, such as her family, who arrived too late to find a spot inside the concrete shell of the old warehouse. Instead, the images show children playing in the snow.
Stranded outside the Oreokastro buildings, in a tent dusted with white flakes, the other members of the Madrati family were more realistic about survival and begged the authorities and volunteers for a way out of the camp. A family of four when they left Aleppo, they became five along the way – Widad’s sister Maria was born in Turkey – and had endured worse indignities in Greece than pleading.

The family was among the last to leave their previous temporary home at Idomeni, close to the border with Macedonia, on the overland western Balkan route to northern Europe. They held on in the chaotic encampment for 10 weeks after Greece’s northern border closed in March 2016, in the hope that it would reopen. It did not. The settlement was evacuated and its residents moved to former industrial sites such as Oreokastro and disused army barracks. “I was crying when we left Idomeni,” says Widad. “I felt I was losing hope after so many people had crossed the border and we could not.”
She tells her story in the English she learned from volunteers at Idomeni and then taught to other refugee children at Oreokastro. Her family, who qualify by almost any criteria as refugees, have witnessed much of what has gone wrong in Greece since the country became the gateway to Europe for record numbers of refugees and migrants.
From their arrival at Moria on Lesbos, to Idomeni and Oreokastro, the Madratis’ route since arriving in the EU has been a tour of previously obscure places in Greece that have gained international notoriety for the misery of their conditions. Their ordeal stands in stark contrast to the international funding and energy expended to help people like them.


A sequence of events beginning with the record number of people who flowed into Greece in June 2015 and culminating in the photograph of drowned Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi woke the world to the refugee crisis. The effect of that awakening was to tip the entire humanitarian complex toward Greece, sending resources tumbling out of the developing world into the European Union. It prompted an unprecedented number of international volunteers to descend on the country, the UN refugee agency to declare an emergency inside the European Union, and the EU to deploy its own humanitarian response unit inside Europe for the first time. In the process, it became the most expensive humanitarian response in history, according to several aid experts, when measured by the cost per beneficiary.


Exactly how much money has been spent in Greece by the European Union is much reported but little understood. The online media project Refugees Deeply has calculated that $803m has come into Greece since 2015, which includes all the funds actually allocated or spent, all significant bilateral funding and major private donations.


The biggest pots of money are controlled by the European Commission (EC), the EU’s executive body, which oversees the Asylum Migration Integration Fund (AMIF) and the Internal Security Fund (ISF) which collectively dedicated $541m to fund Greece’s costs related to border control, asylum and refugee protection. However, since it did not complete the extensive strategic planning required, the Greek government did not receive significant amounts of these funds, necessitating emergency assistance from the commission, channelled through other means. Confusion over the true extent of European spending has been exacerbated by inflated statements from the European commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, who has regularly cited figures in excess of €1bn, although this amount apparently refers to all available and theoretical funds, not what has actually been allocated or spent.

One senior aid official estimated that as much as $70 out of every $100 spent had been wasted

Nevertheless, the $803m total represents the most expensive humanitarian response in history.
On the basis that the money was spent on responding to the needs of all 1.03 million people who have entered Greece since 2015, the cost per beneficiary would be $780 per refugee. However, the bulk of these funds was used to address the needs of at least 57,000 people stranded in Greece after the closure of the borders on 9 March 2016, and on this basis the cost per beneficiary is $14,088.



Officials from the EU’s humanitarian operations directorate, Echo, believe the payout per beneficiary was higher than any of their previous operations. One senior aid official estimated that as much as $70 out of every $100 spent had been wasted.

The haunting image of Alan Kurdi, lying drowned on a Turkish beach on 2 September 2015, was shared more than 20 million times on social media. It prompted an immediate spike in Google searches related to Syria and an avalanche of private donations to charities working on behalf of refugees.


The Swedish Red Cross saw its daily donations leap 55-fold in the week after the image circulated, according to a study led by Paul Slovic at the University of Oregon. At the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a New York-based relief group, response to the photograph crashed its website and drove a surge of public donations. Slovic says that Kurdi’s death “woke the world for a brief time”. It also made it imperative for international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) to show they were responding to events in the eastern Mediterranean.


For the established groups already working in Greece, the sudden influx of funds was both welcome and destabilising. Metadrasi, a Greek organisation known for training interpreters and caring for unaccompanied minors, had experienced staff poached by bigger new arrivals on the scene that could afford far higher salaries.
The head of Metadrasi, Lora Pappa, believes the tide of money transformed refugees into “commodities” and encouraged short-term responses. “They [international organisations] were looking at how to show a presence in Greece. This led to some wasting the chance to spend constructively.”
Her rueful conclusion is that “sometimes money can do more harm than good”.


Among the cautionary tales to emerge from this period was the Apanemo transit centre on Lesbos. A million-dollar facility built by the IRC on the steep hillside close to the main landing beaches during the busiest months in 2015, it was designed to receive 2,000 refugee arrivals per day. Funded by private donations, British aid money and the charitable Radcliffe Foundation, it was hailed by the IRC as a “much-needed reception centre [that] provides crucial services to refugees”.




_________________________________________


Here we see that smiling face of a great big global Wall Street 5% pol and player introducing policy with goals just as in GREECE. In this money-less society an individual ID is tied to ONLINE BANKING ----you swipe it for every purchase---you swipe it for every action---as buses, entry into buildings-----and VOILA US citizens have absolutely no control over any transactions happening in their own US cities---same happening to GREECE-----


Below we see it was CLINTON ERA that global Wall Street started MOVING FORWARD this MONEYLESS SOCIETY----and as always it is to help the poor-----This Baltimore City Council person is just trying to help the poor----and bringing city pride.




'2000

EBT cards were introduced in the late 1990s, a significant change in the way benefits were distributed in the food stamps program.

Significant changes were made to the Food Stamp Program in the early 2000s. Food stamp participation increased dramatically, and eligibility was extended to qualified immigrants and children who were 18 years old and younger. Also during this time period, the stamps used for food purchases were replaced with an Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card. The EBT cards, modeled after credit or debit cards, transfer government benefits from a federal account to the SNAP retailer. The cards were instituted to reduce program fraud, ensure ease of use of food benefits by program participants, and to reduce the stigma associated with using food stamps for purchases'.



Obama added to this MONEYLESS SOCIETY by pushing veterans, senior Social Security, and SS Disability to direct deposit. So, at this point the poor---the old -----the disabled-----the government employees----and now we are hearing corporations will only direct deposit working citizens' pay checks----THIS IS ALL ABOUT BEING GREEN---ENVIRONMENTAL .

THIS IS THE SAME POLICY UNFOLDING HERE IN US AS IS NOW BEING FORCED ON GREECE. SINCE THE US IS A FAR-LARGER AND MORE COMPLEX ECONOMY AND SOCIETY IT TOOK CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA WHAT IS HAPPENING IN GREECE THIS PAST DECADE.

Each US Foreign Economic Zone having its own MONEY-LESS ID CARD we see immigrants now being required to have their wages direct deposited already..........

'Fernanda Durand, a spokeswoman for the pro-immigration group CASA, said ID cards have helped new immigrants in Montgomery County'.


Baltimore close to creating municipal ID cards for city residents

Luke BroadwaterContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun

Coming soon to Baltimore: official government ID cards for people who live in the city.
The City Council is moving ahead with a bill that would require the city to issue a municipal identification card to any resident who asks for one.
The bill's chief sponsor, Councilman Brandon Scott, said the idea is to make it easier for homeless people, immigrants and others who lack a driver's license to obtain services from the city.
It would cut down on unnecessary arrests, Scott said, and bolster a sense of civic pride. Baltimore businesses and cultural institutions could offer discounts to cardholders.

"It's optional, but we're going to encourage people to get one," Scott said. "I hope to be the first to get one."
Scott's legislation grew out of an effort he pushed last year on behalf of Baltimore students. Seeing that they needed four different ID cards to access schools, libraries, recreation centers and buses, Scott introduced legislation to combine those functions into one card.

Now he's trying to expand the program to adults.
"These IDs will be available to homeless people, to immigrants and refugees, to women who are the victims of domestic abuse who can't get their documents in order to get another ID," Scott said.
The legislation hasn't sparked much debate in heavily Democratic Baltimore. It's been praised by groups including the Police Department and the House of Ruth, a shelter of women and children who have suffered domestic abuse.


But elsewhere, such proposals have been fought by those who oppose allowing immigrants in the country without legal documentation, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which says such cards encourage lawbreaking.
When New York City instituted municipal ID cards in 2014, the group argued the cards would "draw illegal aliens to New York City by making life more practicable" for them.


The new Baltimore ID would have the same effect, a FAIR spokesman said.
"The reason we have so many illegal immigrants living in his country is because we make it easy for them," said Ira Mehlman, the spokesman. "We provide all sorts of benefits for breaking the laws.


"A number of these local governments have lost sight of the reason why we have immigration laws."
Scott disagrees.
He said making life easier for immigrants — those who are here with or without legal documentation — is a strength of the legislation. He said immigrants often carry cash because they don't have proper identification to open bank accounts, making them targets for street robberies.
Municipal ID cards are used in New York and Los Angeles. It's believed that the first city to issue municipal ID cards was New Haven, Conn., followed by San Francisco.
The cities have taken different approaches. In Oakland, Calif., for example, the municipal ID cards can function as debit cards. Scott said he would like to explore that option for Baltimore because young people often cash their paychecks at check-cashing businesses that take a significant cut.
Cardholders in New York receive a 25 percent discount at some basketball and hockey games, and free admission to some museums.
Fernanda Durand, a spokeswoman for the pro-immigration group CASA, said ID cards have helped new immigrants in Montgomery County.
"We think it will do the same in Baltimore City," she said. "People who have no IDs are living in the shadows. This is a small way to help them to get out of the shadows. They are hardworking members of the community who contribute to the economy."
The legislation calls for applicants' personal information to be promptly destroyed once they receive an ID.


"We are a sovereign city and a safe city," Scott said. "If someone comes calling about information about our immigrants, we won't have it because we're going to be destroying it."

Durand said the victory of President-elect Donald J. Trump, who pledged during the campaign to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country without legal documentation, has crated fear.
"We wouldn't want the city to be an unwilling participant in their deportation," she said.
The bill has advanced with unanimous support in the City Council. It will receive a final vote Dec. 5.
City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young backs the measure, as does Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Signing the bill is expected to be one of her last acts in office.


The Baltimore Police Department has also endorsed the bill.
Andrew G. Vetter, the department's chief of staff, said officers often face an unenviable situation when confronting low-level offenses on the streets.
If the suspect can show identification, the officer is allowed to issue a citation instead of making an arrest. The officer can't do so if the person has no ID.
An arrest can make it more difficult for that person to get a job, and more likely they will be arrested in the future, Vetter said.


David Rocah, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Maryland, said Scott's legislation has avoided the problems that other ID plans present, such as infringing on civil liberties. It creates no database and the personal information is destroyed, Rocah said.
"This proposal seems aimed at avoiding all of those problems," he said.


The Baltimore Finance Department has yet to determine a cost of issuing the cards. City officials said they are studying it.
Scott said he anticipates the ID cards would be available next year.

__________________________________________

When we shout global 1% are taking WE THE PEOPLE back to DARK AGES----this is what 99% of serfs and slaves did ---they bartered with each other because they had no money.  This takes Western nations back two thousand years----to what developing nations' economies.

Here in Baltimore we have global Johns Hopkins pushing the SHARING ECONOMY---THE BNOTES----as part of MOVING FORWARD to 99% of citizens having no access to money.  We are led to believe that only the low-income citizens will need this---no, we are sure when our US middle-class is gone---when global labor pool fills US cities with workers coming from developing nations-----this will be EVERYONE IN AND NO ONE OUT---BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN CITIZEN.


Marketwatch makes this seem just what those Greek citizens wanted----no what? There have been massive protests for years by Greek citizens who do not want this---it is MOVING FORWARD by a FAKE MARXIST leader pretending this is all left social progressive.


The folks trying to build these structures are those same global 2% and I see these global 2% getting TIRED OF MOVING FORWARD.

Why Greeks are ditching the euro for digital barter systems

Published: Apr 11, 2016 3:20 p.m. ET



By
EllieIsmailidou
Markets reporter
When Makis Gounaris, a financial consultant based in Athens, decided to hire Spartan Security Ltd. to protect his apartment in September, he was told to choose from three payment options: cash, credit, or barter.
Gounaris paid his entire bill in “TradePoints” using Greek barter network TradeNow.


“It was a good deal,” said Gounaris, who was general secretary for public property at the Greek Ministry of Finance between 2012 and 2015. “I had already gathered quite a few TradePoints by bartering my old glasses, a digital piano and an electric razor.”


Such deals are increasingly common in Greece. As the country has moved into the latest chapter of its economic redevelopment, a barter economy that grew in popularity amid last summer’s strict capital controls has matured into what proponents say could be framework for a cashless economy.


Ellie Ismailidou/MarketWatch
Makis Gounaris, right, hired Spartan Security using “TradePoints.”
The controls have gradually lifted over the past few months, returning some normalcy to Greek economic life. And so while Greeks used barter networks to trade goods and services at times when few had ready cash at the peak of the controls, they use them now with resources scarce and the country battling a bailout impasse that requires further austerity.


It is the perfect time for barter to evolve from a form of crisis therapy to a sustainable alternative for the economy, advocates and enthusiasts say. But for that to happen, they argue, they must organize the more than 200 networks currently operating in Greece into a functioning system of cashless commerce, attracting business participants to build scale and reach.


A first step in that direction took place in October after a committee of barter supporters based in Athens put out a call for a nationwide meeting of collaborative-economy networks. Around 2,000 representatives showed up for what became a “national solidarity and shared-economy conference.”


Ellie Ismailidou/MarketWatch
Representatives from Greek barter and solidarity networks met last year in Athens.
They will meet again in May in a bid to organize groups by industry — health, food, energy and technology — and lay the foundation of a broad cashless economic system.


“It is no longer about saving a few euros toward next month’s rent,” said Christina Papadopoulou, a founding member of the 3,500-member Athens Time Bank, in which professionals exchange services using an hour of their time as the currency.


A shift to a cashless society


Barter systems often emerge from monetary societies after unforeseen events make money scarce, historians say: After Rome fell, for example Europeans used barter as a substitute for Roman currency.

Variants exist around the world, from Qatar to New York state, and the Athens Time Bank is modeled after one in the San Francisco Bay Area. In Greece, its growth sprang out of necessity in the early days of the country’s financial crisis, spiking in popularity last summer when daily ATM withdrawals were capped at 60 euros, or about $65.


Over 200 groups have been created since the financial crisis began in 2010, according to antallaktiki.gr, a Greek barter group aggregator. They include local-trade cooperatives; grass-roots solidarity groups, such as a hospital in Athens that serves more than 100 people a day on donated supplies and time; online-barter auctions that resemble eBay; and time banks.
Some networks practice pure barter, or a direct exchange of goods. Most have adopted some type of unit that approximates the value of goods or services. The networks operate across the country, reaching into some of its more remote islands, and span all areas of commerce.


Tradenow is for electronic devices, books and CDs; time banks boast doctors, electricians, yoga teachers and psychotherapists, among others; and farmers use the agricultural union of Lamia to trade produce and agricultural machinery.

Barter networks have proven essential as Greece continues to battle through an economic crisis that is far from over. The country averted an exit from the eurozone in July by passing sweeping austerity measures in exchange for bailout funding, but its economy hasn't recovered.


One in five Greeks remains unemployed, while Greek banks are incurring billions of euros in losses, cutting back on credit for business and households. Meanwhile, 52% of all small businesses are threatened with shutdown — more than during last summer’s capital controls — according to a recent survey by the Greek Chamber of Commerce.


Antallaktiki.gr
There are around 250 bartering and cooperative-economy networks operating across Greece, including remote islands.
In the background, a humanitarian crisis looms over the country: More than 50,000 refugees are stranded in Greece after fleeing the Syrian conflict.


Stumbling blocks to wider adoption

While the number of trading networks and participants in Greece has jumped in the past year, they still need more size and activity to become a large-scale driver of economic activity, according to economists and barter experts.


“Barter networks have not yet reached the large-scale participation that would present a viable alternative for the economy,” said Gounaris in a February interview.
A few bartering services have managed to attract Greeks through appeals to solidarity. Alexandros Bellos, who recently used TradeNow to exchange an electric vacuum cleaner for a pound of homemade chocolate truffles, said he appreciated the opportunity to connect with others at a time when many are struggling.


Ellie Ismailidou/MarketWatch
Alexandros Bellos exchanges his vacuum cleaner for chocolate truffles baked by Stefania Tekou.
“It’s not like I can’t afford to buy truffles,” Bellos said. “It is about making use of what I no longer need while making a new friend.”


But to become essential, barter networks must offer more than fun, according to Rachel Botsman, a researcher and writer who has taught a course on the collaborative economy at Oxford University.


“When systems that involve bartering, sharing and swapping emerge, they can be perceived as what people need to do because of lack of choice,” Botsman said. “They must shift from being seen as things people use out of necessity to things people use for broader reasons — such as convenience, efficiency and quality.”


She pointed to companies like Airbnb and Uber, which began as cheap alternatives to hotels and taxis but eventually revolutionized consumer perception of those industries.
Some network organizers have sought to jump-start activity on their platforms, bidding to attract more business participation in much the same fashion that eBay EBAY, +0.16%  and Amazon AMZN, +0.26%  managed to attract thousands of businesses to sell their products on their platform.


That has led to both growth and challenges. “Private corporations love the idea — but when it comes to the actual implementation, they are reluctant to let go of their euros,” said Tradenow founder Yiannis Deligiannis.


Tradenow

Tradenow founder, Yiannis Deligiannis, says getting businesses to join a barter marketplace is key to scaling it.
To make it easier for companies to join, Tradenow, which features 29,000 registered members, introduced a hybrid system — in which businesses can offer their product or service priced in TradePoints, euros or a combination — in early 2015. About 400 companies use Tradenow, according to Deligiannis.


One is Spartan Security, which joined in 2014, as Greece had lost 25% of its gross domestic product after four years of economic crisis. Spartan’s hope, according to marketing manager Matina Karabatsou, was to “tap new demographics and grow its client base to counter the negative effects of the financial crisis.”


Tradenow has helped Spartan grow its client base by about 2%, according to Karabatsou. Meanwhile, the company uses TradePoints to buy cleaning services and online advertisements.

But the hybrid system has also led to complications for Tradenow: The company has honored a one-to-one exchange rate between points and euros, meaning that one point is theoretically supposed to “buy” products and services sold on the platform for one euro.


That could hurt the company, as the unofficial point-to-euro exchange rate has fallen by about 75% since it launched in late 2012. That, combined with laws that require companies to pay a 23% value-added tax, or VAT, on all revenue in euros, means companies may lose money by using points.


That makes barter a tough sell for some businesses as the economic crisis has continued to ravage business investment and loans. While optimistic, barter network representatives have been hit with a harsh reality check as the companies whose adoption is crucial to the growth of their services have moved cautiously.


“The real problem never really was the capital controls,” Deligiannis said. “Capital controls can get lifted — but if people have no capital, that makes no difference.”
This story was first published on March 29, 2016.

_______________________

Silicon Valley CA of course is leading the way as is NYC----here we have ONE WORLD UK-----we see SOUTH KOREA going money-less---all the most hyper global neo-liberal nations. It is not a coincidence that the regions tied to pushing these massive global Wall Street frauds are now indeed leading towards this MONEY-LESS SOCIETY.

There are global shouts from 99% educating as to why this is very, very, very bad ---the extreme of far-right wing authoritarian ---and it will lead to extreme wealth extreme poverty of 99% .



UK moves towards cashless society

Some of us have already done away with cash
  • Hazel Sheffield
  • Thursday 21 May 2015 13:30 BST

Globally, countries that almost exclusively use cash most often do so because they don’t have the infrastructure in place to support electronic payments GettyThe tooth fairy’s days are numbered.


Pocket change may soon be completely replaced by electronic payments in the UK after reports that last year, for the first time, the majority of payments were made without cash – either on the internet or phone, or through electronic payments and cheques.


The proportion of cash payments was less than half the total number of payments made last year, falling from 52 per cent in 2013 to 48 per cent in 2014 for consumers, businesses and financial organisations combined, according to the Payments Council.


Non-cash payments are expected to overtake cash payments by consumers for the first time next year. The idea of a completely cashless society is not so far off.
Some of us already cashless. Dave Birch, author of 'Identity Is The New Money' said that young, middle class women are most likely to have made the transition to electronic payments.


He said poorer people are more likely to use cash – meaning they get caught with cash machine charges and are unable to get the best deals online.
Cash is also used for money laundering and tax evasion. "Cash is bad for society in that respect," said Birch.



"In countries that are already mostly cashless such as Denmark, Finland and Sweden, the total cost to the economy of the payment system is less," said Birch.
Birch said that for the UK to become entirely cashless, the government would have to get behind the idea with policy changes.


Countries that almost exclusively use cash most often do so because they don’t have the infrastructure in place to support electronic payments. Some, like Italy and Greece, still prefer to use cash for cultural reasons.

_______________________________________________

WOW----it's all about global 1% and global banking wanting to show its 99% human capital LOVE

Know what? It would seem REALLY SPIRITUAL if those pesky global 1% and their 2% were the ones giving up the money----seems LYING, CHEATING, AND STEALING TO GET ALL THE WORLD'S MONEY----isn't having the VENUS PROJECT showing those global 1% LOVE.


The Moneyless Society – Love As The New Currency
  • November 20, 2010
  • Harald Sandø

  • Love, Money, Ownership, Society, Spirituality, Transition

How can it be? The moneyless society. It is very difficult to imagine, but I have been trying to do just that for the last couple of years. Basically, since I heard of The Venus Project and a resource based economy.
No money would really simplify a lot of things. My whole life, basically. Well, not only mine, but everyone’s. No need to set a price on anything. No need to pay for anything.



If there were no money. I could
  • Give my full concentration to what I love doing.
  • Go out and help anyone who needs help without thinking about making any money.
  • Travel anywhere.
  • Live anywhere.
  • Share whatever I want to share, with no regards to if I can ‘afford’ it or not.
  • Cooperate with people wanting to make this world a better place.
  • Working together with anyone who have the same interests as me.
  • Creating music.
  • Making films.
In a moneyless society another currency is demanded, though. And I think we can call this currency ‘Love’. It sounds like a cliche, but that depends on how you define ‘Love’. I define it as ‘the sum of all positive feelings’.


In other words, instead of money, one would get ‘Love’ in return for what one does. This love can be the joy one feels from doing it, the feelings of gratitude one gets from others, the feeling of completion when one finishes a task well done, or the feeling of happiness from being among the plants one has tended and now grows abundantly.


People need something in return from doing anything. And this something can be nothing less than Love in a moneyless society. Of course, one could give each other gifts and such, but what we are all after is that ultimate feeling of fulfillment, joy, happiness, bliss, excitement, or in one word: Love.


The ultimate feeling of Love (fulfillment, joy, happiness, bliss, excitement, etc) is actually what we all seek in money. We think that when we get unlimited access to money, we will feel the bliss we are missing in our lives. So, with a moneyless society it is important to be aware that what we are seeking is Love, and this love is found in all the tasks we are doing and things we are producing and sharing.


For a resource based economy to work we need to have a new currency, and this currency might just as well be Love, since this is the ultimate currency. With Love as the currency we can actually start today already. We don’t need to wait for technology to develop, or leaders to decide.


Of course, for Love to work as a currency we have to snap out of the value system we have in place today. We have to snap out of our egos, that never gives anything for free, but only asks ‘what’s in it for me?’. Well, actually, the ego can still ask ‘what’s in it for me?’ in a Love Based Society, because when one gives and shares with Love, Love will be given in return in abundance. THAT’S what’s in it for you.


Update:
When I talk about getting Love in the article, I do not mean that one gets Love back directly from the person one is giving to. One will get Love (meaning fulfillment, joy, etc…) from the act of doing itself  (giving is also an act of doing), as long as it is something one has a desire to do. And then, where does that Love come from? It can only come from the Creator. And, beware, the Creator in this case, is you, or your ‘higher self’. In other words, you are giving to yourself.


So, doing something one loves doing, something that gives fulfillment and joy, is the same as ‘receiving for the sake of bestowing’. Because when one does something only for the Love of it, what else can be the reason for doing it? One is receiving fulfillment, joy, Love…for what? Of course, for the desire to be fulfilled, for the desire to fulfill the Creator, which is you. And everyone has a conscious or unconscious drive towards this, because this is the basic meaning of Life.


So, everyone is doing this all the time, because this is what brings the most fulfillment to people. But it might also be done unconsciously most of the time. And one thing that stops people from truly being conscious about this is the mindset that the monetary system has created. The mindset that say’s that ‘I have to get something back to give something to you’. It is not only the monetary system that has created this, but also the ‘survival instinct’ we all seem to have. This instinct is produced by forgetting that we are not really our human bodies, but rather eternal consciousness(es) experiencing human life.


When everyone becomes conscious about this, it will be the end of money, because no money would have to change hands anymore. Nothing would be demanded in return for anything, since the Love would be an intrinsic reward in everything. And being conscious about this and ending the monetary system goes hand in hand.

__________________________________________


This is why we shout-----watch those international labor union leaders------this scheme of money-less society and taking the Western nations down to third world level as a ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL RULE came about in earnest in 1960s---1970s.  This is when our labor unions went global as US corporations moved overseas.  

Indeed, back in the DARK AGES trade guilds did barter because their members were so poor.  This is NOT THE POPULIST REVOLUTION FOR THE 99% FOLKS----this is MOVING FORWARD global 1% --------

From Clinton era forward when US corporations went overseas en force---our labor unions went global as well----they started working for the INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION ---the United Nations branch of global corporate labor management.

WE WILL HEAR OUR INTERNATIONAL LABOR UNIONS CHAMPION BASIC INCOME----WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION HEALTH POLICY-----GLOBAL COMMONER CORE------AND THESE FAR-RIGHT WING LIBERTARIAN MARXIST LEADERS WILL PRETEND MONEYLESS BARTERING SOCIETIES ARE LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE.



Are a moneyless society and a bloodless revolution possible?; Right to Challenge;

People and Power in the Steelworkers Union.

By John Herling. 415 pp. New York: Harper & Row. $12.50

By A. H. RASKINFEB. 20, 1972


February 20, 1972, Page 6 The New York Times Archives


Behind the fraternal facade of a movement in which every carrier of a union card is automatically “brother” often rage intrigues of such malevolence that Machiavelli would be hard pressed to make business agent and Benedict Arnold, shop steward. In this fascinating book John Herling, who has devoted a lifetime to affectionate observation of labor's rise (or descent) from penury to power, provides a close‐up view of two decades of infighting in one of the country's strongest unions, the 1.2million‐member United Steelworkers of America.

The steel union was a child of the early New Deal, V.rith its accent on better break for “the forgotten man” — an accent translated in the feudal bastions of the mass‐production industries into the slogan, “President Roosevelt wants you to join a union.” But the steel union had another progenitor, the United Mine Workers, most monolithic of labor organizations, with absolute rule concentrated in its majestic president, John L. Lewis.

__________________________________________

'There have been test runs of this Rogoff-Buiter Economic Totalitarianism to see if the idea works'.


Here we see where these MONEY-LESS policies come----it is global 1% ----so if any labor and justice organization sells this as a left populist movement-----SEND THE LEADERS OF THAT ORGANIZATION PACKING.
MOVING FORWARD has the goal of pushing 99% of US citizens to unemployment------robotics---et al----and this is what global 1% want to see as a societal structure. Know what? It is easier to throw these 5% and their 1% IN JAIL------and return to being a free democratic capitalistic society-----GO LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE AND NOT FAR-RIGHT WING LIBERTARIAN MARXIST EXTREME WEALTH EXTREME POVERTY.

You can bet the global 1% and their 2% are not going money-less----remember, SMART CITIES SMART ENERGY GRID----GLOBAL BIG AG ----combined with CLIMATE CHANGE and depleted contaminated fresh water does not bode well for building any long term NEW SOCIETAL STRUCTURE especially one that shakes the foundations of several centuries of ENLIGHTENMENT-----AGE OF REASON----ANY AGE BUT THE DARK AGES.




Why The Powers That Be Are Pushing A Cashless Society


Posted on May 4, 2015 by WashingtonsBlog


We Can’t Rein In the Banks If We Can’t Pull Our Money Out of Them


Martin Armstrong summarizes the headway being made to ban cash,  and argues that the goal of those pushing a cashless society is to prevent bank runs … and increase their control:


The central banks are … planning drastic restrictions on cash itself. They see moving to electronic money will first eliminate the underground economy, but secondly, they believe it will even prevent a banking crisis. This idea of eliminating cash was first floated as the normal trial balloon to see how the people take it. It was first launched by Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University and Willem Buiter, the chief economist at Citigroup. Their claims have been widely hailed and their papers are now the foundation for the new age of Economic Totalitarianism that confronts us. Rogoff and Buiter have laid the ground work for the end of much of our freedom and will one day will be considered the new Marx with hindsight. They sit in their lofty offices but do not have real world practical experience beyond theory. Considerations of their arguments have shown how governments can seize all economic power are destroy cash in the process eliminating all rights. Physical paper money provides the check against negative interest rates for if they become too great, people will simply withdraw their funds and hoard cash. Furthermore, paper currency allows for bank runs. Eliminate paper currency and what you end up with is the elimination of the ability to demand to withdraw funds from a bank.
***
In many nations, specific measures have already been taken demonstrating that the Rogoff-Buiter world of Economic Totalitarianism is indeed upon us. This is the death of Capitalism. Of course the socialists hate Capitalism and see other people’s money should be theirs. What they cannot see is that Capitalism is freedom from government totalitarianism. The freedom to pursue the field you desire without filling the state needs that supersede your own.


There have been test runs of this Rogoff-Buiter Economic Totalitarianism to see if the idea works. I reported on June 21, 2014 that Britain was doing a test run. A shopping street in Manchester banned cash as part of an experiment to see if Brits would accept a cashless society. London buses ended accepting cash payments from July 2014. Meanwhile, Currency Exchange dealers began offering debt cards instead of cash that they market as being safer to travel with. The Chorlton, South Manchester experiment was touted to test customers and business reaction to the idea for physical currency will disappear inside 20 years.


France passed another Draconian new law that from the police parissummer of 2015 it will now impose cash requirements dramatically trying to eliminate cash by force. French citizens and tourists will then only be allowed a limited amount of physical money. They have financial police searching people on trains just passing through France to see if they are transporting cash, which they will now seize. Meanwhile, the new French Elite are moving in this very same direction. Piketty wants to just take everyone’s money who has more than he does. Nobody stands on the side of freedom or on restraining the corruption within government. The problem always turns against the people for we are the cause of the fiscal mismanagement of government that never has enough for themselves.

In Greece a drastic reduction in cash is also being discussed in light of the economic crisis. Now any bill over €70 should be payable only by check or credit card – it will be illegal to pay in cash. The German Baader Bank founded in Munich expects formally to abolish the cash to enforce negative interest rates on accounts that is really taxation on whatever money you still have left after taxes.


***
Complete abolition of cash threatens our very freedom and rights of citizens in so many areas.
***
Paper currency is indeed the check against negative interest rates. We need only look to Switzerland to prove that theory. Any attempt to impose say a 5% negative interest rates (tax) would lead to an unimaginably massive flight into cash. This was already demonstrated recently by the example of Swiss pension funds, which withdrew their money from the bank in a big way and now store it in vaults in cash in order to escape the financial repression. People will act in their own self-interest and negative interest rates are likely to reduce the sales of government bonds and set off a bank run as long as paper money exists.


Obviously, government and bankers are not stupid. The only way to prevent such a global bank run would be the total prohibition of paper money. This is unlikely, both in Switzerland and in the United States because the economies are dominated there by a certain “liberalism” to some extent but also because their currencies also circulate outside their domestic economies. The fact that but the question of the cash ban in the context of a global conference with the participation of the major central banks of the US and the ECB will be discussed, demonstrates by itself that the problem is not a regional problem.


Nevertheless, there is a growing assumption that the negative interest rate world (tax on cash) is likely to increase dramatically in Europe in particular since it is socialism that is collapsing. Government in Brussels is unlikely to yield power and their line of thinking cannot lead to any solution. The negative interest rate concept is making its way into the United States at J.P. Morgan where they will charge a fee on excess cash on deposit starting May 1st, 2015. Asset holdings of cash with a tax or a fee in the amount of the negative interest rate seems to be underway even in Switzerland.
***
The movement toward electronic money is moving at high speed and this says a lot about the state of the financial system. The track record of the major financial institutions is nearly perfect – they are always caught on the wrong side when a crisis breaks, which requires their bailouts. The fact that we have already seen test runs with theory-balloons flying, the major financial institutions are in no shape to withstand another economic decline.


For depositors, this means they really need to grasp what is going on here for unless they are vigilant, there is a serious risk of losing everything. We must understand that these measures will be implemented overnight in the middle of a banking crisis after 2015.75. The balloons have taken off and the discussions are underway. The trend in taxation and reduction of cash seems to be unstoppable. Government is not prepared to reform for that would require a new way of thinking and a loss of power. That is not a consideration. They only see one direction and that is to take us into the new promised-land of economic totalitarianism.


People can’t pull cash out of their bank accounts – for political reasons, because they’ve lost confidence in the bank, or because “bail-ins” are enacted – if cash is banned.
The Financial Times argued last year that central banks would be the real winners from a cashless society:
Central bankers, after all, have had an explicit interest in introducing e-money from the moment the global financial crisis began…
***
The introduction of a cashless society empowers central banks greatly. A cashless society, after all, not only makes things like negative interest rates possible, it transfers absolute control of the money supply to the central bank, mostly by turning it into a universal banker that competes directly with private banks for public deposits. All digital deposits become base money.


The Government Can Manipulate Digital Accounts More Easily than Cash


Moreover, an official White House panel on spying has implied that the government is manipulating the amount in people’s financial accounts.
If all money becomes digital, it would be much easier for the government to manipulate our accounts.


Indeed, numerous high-level NSA whistleblowers say that NSA spying is about crushing dissent and blackmailing opponents … not stopping terrorism.
This may sound over-the-top … but remember, the government sometimes labels its critics as “terrorists“.  If the government claims the power to indefinitely detain – or even assassinate – American citizens at the whim of the executive, don’t you think that government people would be willing to shut down, or withdraw a stiff “penalty” from a dissenter’s bank account?


If society becomes cashless, dissenters can’t hide cash.  All of their financial holdings would be vulnerable to an attack by the government.
This would be the ultimate form of control. Because – without access to money – people couldn’t resist, couldn’t hide and couldn’t escape.

__________________________________________
We are not going to discuss the economic collapse in detail as we have ---we will remind folks of the goal of deliberately sending community banks and credit unions into bankruptcy---yes, those labor union credit unions too.
This plan moves all US citizens to only global Wall Street banks while global Wall Street banks are MOVING FORWARD to closing their brick and mortar community banks and going to ONLINE ONLY. We saw that happening with Wells Fargo as usual in CALIFORNIA. So, CA is leading in introducing BASIC INCOME---COMMONER CORE-----WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SINGLE-PAYER---ONLINE BANKING ONLY---THE MONEY-LESS SOCIETY---
When we shout at our Baltimore media to be JOURNALISTS and discuss these goals --we are told by 5% to the 1% THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE DOING IN CALIFORNIA. TRUMP didn't bring this coming economic crash it will bring strong austerity with an installed far-right wing Trump and Congress.
ALL PLANNED MOVING FORWARD---ask your CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA pol or those pesky global Wall Street Baltimore Development 'labor and justice' organizations.

The 5% and their 1% think all this is very funny-----

OH, REALLY?????


FAKE FEELING THE BERNERS-----capturing our REAL left FDR social progressive revolution. We knew Bernie may flip as an establishment candidate---don't fall for more POSERS-----let's get busy locally to stop MOVING FORWARD IN US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.



With Dow 20K passed, $20 trillion on the national debt is next


Jeff Cox | @JeffCoxCNBCcom
Wednesday, 25 Jan 2017 | 12:39 PM ETCNBC.com


Mnuchin: Honoring U.S. debt most important thing  

Thursday, 19 Jan 2017 | 12:27 PM ET | 04:27

While Wall Street celebrates the Dow hitting 20,000, there is another "20" looming that could carry significantly darker overtones.
The U.S. is just weeks away from passing the $20 trillion mark in total public debt outstanding — the "national debt," as it is more widely known.


Though general concern about containing debt and deficits has waned as the nation has looked for ways to stimulate the sluggish, post-recession economy, that $20 trillion milestone could grab at least some attention.


"While the party hats are out for 20K on the Dow, that $20 trillion in debt is really salient," said economist and debt hawk Michael Pento of Pento Portfolio Strategies. Pento has been predicting a bond market crash that would come with a collapse in demand and the weight of eventually rising rates that will push up the cost to finance American debt.


Debt nearly doubled under former President Barack Obama, who presided over it mushrooming from $10.6 trillion to $19.9 trillion by the time he left office last week. Though he's only been in office for less than a week, President Donald Trump has seen the debt rise another $2 billion.

"It has become all too commonplace to borrow not for productive investments or for wherever we are in the business cycle ... but because people don't want to pay the bills and have found it politically expedient not to do so." -Maya MacGuineas, president, Committee for a Responsible Federal BudgetThe current total as of Monday, in exact numbers, is $19,949,687,366,998, according to the Treasury Department. With the U.S. expected to run a budget deficit in 2017 of $559 billion, the $50.3 billion or so needed to break $20 trillion should happen relatively soon.


"The massive debt is really a reflection of the unwillingness of our political leaders to make any tough decisions or deal with trade-offs," Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a phone interview. "It has become all too commonplace to borrow not for productive investments or for wherever we are in the business cycle ... but because people don't want to pay the bills and have found it politically expedient not to do so."

There are two numbers at play when talking about the national debt — debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings. The latter debt includes money the government essentially owes itself, like when the Treasury borrows from other funds to make entitlement payments. That total is about $5.5 trillion, while the public debt, which includes all other government debt, is $14.4 trillion.
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June 26th, 2017

6/26/2017

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We will take a few days to see what in the world is happening and see how that is what MOVING FORWARD in US will be.  If we educate broadly on public policy we know the goals of the global 1%---and those 5% followers supporting them.

I have a friend from Sri Lanka now in NY who makes no bones about being that global 1% KOCH BROTHER/CLINTON INTIATIVE/SOROS ----ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE pushing the idea that OPEN BORDERS is good for immigrants when in fact it is simply expanding a human capital distribution system that is enslaving.

My FB friend is no doubt a global banking player----2% maybe----or wannabe.  Sri Lanka is that Asian Foreign Economic Zone nation like China for several decades being host to Foreign Economic Zone global factories providing the slave labor.  Where China was heavy on technology global factories---Sri Lanka was heavily garment industry.  As with all our US 1% thinking they need to be MERCHANTS OF VENICE with their new wealth instead of building local small business economies-----so too does Sri Lanka have that same new wealth 1% and 2%.  Remember, those new rich are the ones going under the bus because---OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE do not need any new rich.


  1. Beyoncé’s sportswear line reportedly made in Sri Lankan ...pagesix.com/2016/05/...made-in-sri-lankan-sweatshop-report Beyoncé’s sportswear line reportedly made in Sri Lankan sweatshop. By Michael Hechtman. View author archive; Get author ... Mansion Global; New York Post; The ..

    We will pick on a few nations overseas to see where MOVING FORWARD in US is going as well.  Below we see an article that says Sri Lanka is now going to a global labor pool ---because its sovereign citizens have become tired of being sweat shop slave labor.  So now citizens from Africa, South Pacific, Middle East, Latin America and yes OUR US CITIZENS ON THEIR WAY TO BEING THROWN INTO GLOBAL LABOR.  My FB friend of KOCH Brothers et al global 1% says the same thing----

    YOU ARE AGAINST GIVING JOBS TO THESE DEVELOPING NATIONS BY BRINGING THEM TO SRI LANKA? YOU DON'T LIKE IMMIGRANTS.

    This is of course the same thing the far-right wing CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA are saying in the US trying to install OPEN BORDERS so they can bring Sri Lankans, Chinese, Malaysian, African citizens to US Foreign Economic Zones and global factories to enslave them here in US.


Also, notice United Nations International Labor Organization coordinating all this global human capital distribution system ---and who is now partnered with ILO---------our US labor union leaders. We must get rid of 5% to the 1% labor union leaders working to throw US citizens into this global labor pool.

Sri Lanka – Job Factory moving into global recruitment market
08 October 2013

Sri Lanka-based recruitment and outsourcing firm Job Factory, announced at a press conference that it is planning to launch into the overseas market as JobFactory-Global, reports prlog.org. JobFactory has already,been successful in obtaining an overseas recruitment license from the Foreign Employment Bureau in Sri Lanka.


Madhushan Raigamage, Chief Executive Officer of Job Factory (Private) Limited, said: “We are very positive about our move for foreign employment business. We do not have any idea of supplying unskilled labour to foreign clients, as we are very strong on the local market for skilled talents; especially in Information Technology, Accounting/Finance and also HR. Sri Lanka is popular for Accounting/Finance talents and also we know the fact that there is an excess supply of Accounts/Finance and also HR professionals. In these circumstances JobFactory-Global is geared to get in to overseas market with a highly positive mind set.”


“JobFactory-Global will mainly focus on Qatar, which is one of the fastest growing economies in the Middle East region. Few companies operating in Qatar have invited us to get in to their territory too. We are considering that request positively. Opening up a branch in Qatar is costly, but we may consider opening a virtual branch initially in Qatar, in fact we have reserved the web domain for Qatar already,” Mr Raigamage said.


Also speaking at the press conference, Ms Nirmala Dassanayaka, Head of Recruitment, said: “We understand the sensitivity of the process and therefore we don’t want to compromise our quality, which we have maintained in the local market. We have a fair number of top level contacts in Middle East companies. Undoubtedly JobFactory is capable of getting established in the overseas market without a much effort.”


She continued: “As a principle, we do not charge a single rupee from the candidate. That we maintain in the local market too. JobFactory will be partnering only with the clients who are in line with our values and norms.” 
______________________________________________

Remember, our Asian nations have had for these few decades the same movement to extreme wealth extreme poverty with that 1% as here in US.  They had a strong public education, public services, public agencies to government and they are now privatizing all that away just as CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---THE KOCH BROS.

So, if Sri Lanka has a strong public school system why are these medical school students protesting?  Well, they know the Sri Lankan 1% are MOVING FORWARD to eliminating pathways to higher education and indeed K-12 as is happening in US.

All of America's medical schools used to be public.  That was so health care could be afforded by all.  Where are most of our public and non-profit medical schools located?  On campuses now global IVY LEAGUE which are no longer public---no longer non-profit ---and working hard to become predatory profit-driven health systems only accessible by those global 1% and their 2%.

These Sri Lankan medical students know this and that is why they are protesting.  We have medical students and doctors here in US protesting Affordable Care Act and the private health systems leading to global profit-driven health systems-----

THAT IS WHY THESE MEDICAL STUDENTS IN SRI LANKA ARE PROTESTING.




'They are against the privatization of education and claim that opening private universities will drastically affect children from poor families’ access to education opportunities'.

These same medical students also know the move by Sri Lanka to GLOBAL LABOR POOL will take their future income earning away as well.


As this article indicates---Sri Lanka as India have not signed the Trans Pacific Trade Pact because they know it will kill their sovereignty----but as the we see Sri Lanka has a hefty export business to US that will be lost if it does not sign.  These other Asian nations like Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea which signed on to TPP early thinking it would protect them from China's domination are seeing that is not going to happen.  Sri Lanka moving to that UNITED NATIONS GLOBAL LABOR POOL system undermining their own citizens trying to get higher wages looks to be a move towards signing Trans Pacific Trade Pact......

THIS IS WHY SRI LANKAN STUDENTS ARE PROTESTING----AS WE SHOUT HERE IN US---THIS IS NOT ONLY ABOUT UNSKILLED WORKERS---IT TAKES PROFESSIONAL WORKERS LIKE DOCTORS DOWN WITH IT.

As left social progressives fight to get more people employed and to get that LIVING WAGE----ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE FAR-RIGHT 1% is fighting for that ONE WORLD WAGE----

Here is the difference in political philosophy stances.  Left social capitalism is NOT SOCIALIST.  IT IS NOT COMMUNIST.  Fighting for citizens to climb income ladder IS WHAT CAPITALISM is about.  What far-right wing global 1% call COMMUNIST-----is the rich trying to keep 99% of workers extremely poor.  This is to where Sri Lankan 1% are moving and those medical students know this.  Why are American medical students not protesting?  They are now being recruited from the global 1% and their 2%.


It is not this ONE PRIVATE MEDICAL SCHOOL these protesters are shouting against---they KNOW MOVING FORWARD when they see it!


Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Implications for Sri Lanka
Research Team Nov 18, 2015

Twelve Pacific Rim countries including USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Peru, and Vietnam finally saw light at the end of a long tunnel, last month. After five years of intense negotiations, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was completed on 4th October in Atlanta, USA.  TPP is the first of the ‘mega- regional’ agreements to be concluded, and is the most ambitious free trade agreement signed to date. It intends to ‘unlock opportunities’, ‘set high-standard trade rules’, and ‘addresses vital 21st century issues within the global economy’.


TPP covers 40% of the world trade and the 12 countries have a collective population of about 800 million. The Agreement includes a wide range of areas such as trade in goods, services, investment, labour, environment, E-commerce, intellectual property rights. However, the lawmakers in each of the countries are yet to ratify the agreement.   It faces difficulties getting through a hostile US Congress and it has become a controversial issue in primary presidential campaigns.


A Cloud on the Horizon?


Supporters of TPP expect to reap significant benefits, and boost economic growth through tariff cuts and a common set of standards.  The trade gains for participating countries seem sizable considering the concentration of trade among TPP members especially with the USA (Figure 1).






In addition to the economic benefits, the conclusion of the negotiations was seen as triumph for the US foreign policy, and Obama’s pivot to Asia which is an attempt to keep China in its place.  However, the implications of TPP have been widely debated across the 12 countries. It is viewed as a cloud on the horizon given that not all industries and sectors will benefit. In fact Donald Trump, who is seeking the nomination of the Republican Party to run for US presidential election 2016, called ‘TPP a terrible deal’.


The Agreement has been criticized for lack of transparency, as the five year talks were shrouded in secrecy, and allegedly favoured large corporations. It was viewed to be trading away public health by granting of longer protection to pharmaceutical corporations for their drugs via patents. This will have serious implications on public welfare and affect the price of medicine, making them more expensive.


Those against the TPP also are skeptical about its economic benefits. They worry that governments could be sued by investors under controversial investor-state dispute settlement provisions. There is also the fear that the Agreement could result in job losses. Some in the US are worried that jobs will go to countries with lower wages and less strict labour laws. As such, the Agreement is perceived as a threat to an array of other interest groups ranging from Mexican auto workers to Canadian dairy farmers, and faces domestic resistances in all of the TPP countries.


Implications for Sri Lanka


So, what does the TPP mean for developing countries like Sri Lanka, excluded from the Arrangement?


The trade effects on excluded countries will depend on three factors. First, the geographical distribution of the country’s exports to TPP countries. Second, the similarity of export structures between the excluded and those included in the Agreement. Third, the tariff and non-tariff barriers currently applied amongst the TPP countries.


In 2014, TPP accounted for almost one-third of Sri Lanka’s exports (Figure 2). USA is Sri Lanka’s largest trading partner among these countries and the world; with a quarter of its total exports going to the USA (Figure 2). The country will be significantly be affected by the participation of its largest export market in the TPP. This problem is compounded by Sri Lanka competing with some TPP countries in the US market for similar products. For example, apparels (HS 61 & HS 62) are Sri Lanka’s major export to the world and the US; accounting for 44 and 73 per cent of Sri Lanka’s total exports to the world and the US, respectively. Sri Lanka competes with TPP partners like Vietnam, Mexico, Peru in these products in the US market. However, Mexico and Peru already enjoy duty free access to the US market under existing trade agreements. Thus, the main impact of the Agreement on Sri Lanka will come from increased competition from Vietnam, as tariffs are phased out under Agreement. Currently US applies a tariff rate of 10.8 and 14.4 per cent on HS 61 and 62, respectively from Sri Lanka and Vietnam. With the phase-out of tariffs under TPP, Sri Lankan apparel exports to the US might be forced out of the market or reduce the prices to remain competitive vis-à-vis Vietnam, which will enjoy a duty advantage equivalent to the MFN rate. There is also likely to be trade diversion to Vietnam and to a lesser extent to other TPP partner in other products (Figure 3).  However, the extent to which Vietnam can make use of the duty reductions under the Agreement will depend on fulfilling certain rules and the tariff liberalization programme.


TPP also plans to liberalize trade in services and investment flows. For services, the impact on countries outside the TPP will depend on whether such liberalization is preferential or erga omnes. As in the case of services, the potential for investment diverting away from countries excluded from the Agreement depends on how the way will be implemented. Still, there might be some investment diversions to take advantage of a larger market under the Agreement. Vietnam is considered amongst the biggest winners of the Agreement, closely followed by Malaysia. For example, analysts predict the deal would boost Vietnam’s growth and exports by 11 per cent and 28 per cent, respectively, in the next 10 years.




To avoid exclusion from an agreement involving their competitors, some developing countries have indicated that they want to join the TPP.  Countries such as Colombia, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Laos and Indonesia are among the countries that have already expressed an interest.


Sri Lanka’s Options


In the Economic Policy Statement, which was released on 5th November 2015, the need to address TPP was mentioned but short of suggesting how the government intends to do this. There have been calls by some academics for Sri Lanka to join the TPP, which would also trigger much needed but difficult reforms in the country. Others have suggested Sri Lanka to review its prevailing trade negotiations strategy and engage in bilateral deals with the US, and the EU to mitigate the negative effects of TPP. However, it is important to note that the TPP was designed primarily by developed countries with their own concerns in mind. While poorer countries may feel pressured to join to avoid being excluded from an agreement involving their competitors, we may not be ready to adopt many of the provisions in agreement.  One may recall Sri Lanka’s own experience with negotiating a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with India sometime back, which only covered trade in goods, services and investment. In the event the TPP becomes a reality, Sri Lanka must carefully assess the costs and benefits of joining the Agreement with due stakeholder consultations. Meanwhile, it is best that Sri Lanka urgently improves its export competitiveness by addressing constraints on multiple fronts, including supply side capacities and weaknesses in the business environment.

_________________________________________
If we follow here in the US the fight of Latino agricultural workers out west----we KNOW why our Latino immigrants are leaving---GLOBAL BIG AG in US has lowered the already slave wage of agriculture EVEN LOWER.  So, our Latino citizens are saying----that's it.  Since the current global labor pool workers are being directed to main stream employment to take down our US middle-class ----they are not bringing global labor pool from Asia to do US agriculture at that $1 a day----

The reason our CALIFORNIA global BIG AG dropped already enslaving wages even lower?  THEY ARE GETTING READY TO ROBOTIZE AGRICULTURE----INCLUDING HARVESTING.  California global Wall Street Clinton/Obama want Latino agricultural workers to leave to make room for robotic harvesting----THAT GLOBAL GREEN TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY-----


Of course all this is played in national media as a PLOT AGAINST IMMIGRANTS---THAT MEAN TRUMP VS THAT OPEN BORDER OBAMA-----and none of that is the REAL POLICY GOAL.

ROBOTIC HARVESTING COMBINED WITH GLOBAL BIG AG AND MONSANTO COMPLETELY REMOVES 99% OF CITIZENS FROM ALL FOOD PRODUCTION AND THAT IS VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY BAD.


Labor Shortage Leaves $13 Million in Crops to Rot in Fields


More Mexican Immigrants are Leaving the U.S. Than Arriving

Thursday, June 22, 2017
By Kelsey Brugger (Contact)


Last year marked the fifth consecutive year Santa Barbara County’s agriculture industry has struggled with labor shortages, which have ranged from 15 to 26 percent. Farmers, therefore, must leave crops to rot in the fields. An estimated $13 million of strawberries, broccoli, leafy greens, and other unharvested produce were plowed under last year, up from five years ago when losses amounted to an estimated $4.4 million, according to the region’s Grower-Shipper Association.
Central Coast growers do not receive government subsidies for mowing unpicked berries and veggies as Midwestern farmers do for destroying wheat or barley. Some area growers have insurance for losses from heat waves or pests but not for lack of workforce.



Five years ago, when Santa Ynez Valley grower Cindy Douglas put a call out for farmworkers on Spanish radio, she got flooded. Not anymore. Now, farmers might have a crew of five one day, and a crew of 20 the next.
Total, there are anywhere from 15,000 to 23,000 ag workers in Santa Barbara County, most of whom are from Mexico. The number fluctuates as most crops are picked multiple times a year. A field of strawberries can be harvested two to three times per week for roughly six months. The strawberry crop has grown by 20 percent in acreage in five years, and now it is the county’s number one commodity, according to the agriculture report released this week.

Strawberries are just one small piece of the labor shortage. In the last decade, according to the Pew Research Center, more Mexican immigrants have been leaving the United States than have been arriving. As Mexico’s economy improves and becomes less reliant on agriculture, Mexicans are having fewer children and “feeling less the push to migrate north,” said Lucas Zucker of CAUSE (Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy).


Security has also tightened along the southern border. The Obama administration deported about three million undocumented immigrants between 2009 and 2016, according to Pew, many more than the two million the Bush administration deported during the eight years prior.
“Part of that was his administration felt that to get Republicans to vote for immigration reform, they needed to show they were tough on immigration,” he said, adding Obama also advocated for deferred action for childhood arrivals (better known as the DACA program) and comprehensive reform.



Under the Trump administration, immigration arrests have surged by nearly 40 percent in three months compared to the same time frame last year, Homeland Security recently reported.

As a broader demographic shift, Mexican immigrants who have worked in the fields for decades are getting older, and their children, born in Mexico or the United States, are not as likely to go work in the fields. Ninety percent of the mothers and fathers who were part of the Bracero Program, which brought millions of Mexican guest workers to the U.S. in the mid-20th century, now have back problems, said Mike Stoker, Santa Barbara Republican and longtime spokesperson for the agriculture industry. Even though they earn on average $2 an hour more than minimum wage, which is $10.50 per hour, immigrants tend to move to other low-wage jobs such as the hotel or restaurant industries within about a decade, Zucker said. “In some ways, the most vulnerable immigrants” ​— ​who are from indigenous villages and speak little Spanish or English ​— ​“tend to work in the fields,” Zucker said.


Making up some of the labor shortage for about three years in Santa Barbara County is foreign guest workers coming in under the H2A program. In 2015, the most recent available data, 1,300 guest workers came to Santa Barbara County, which has the largest number in all of California. Many growers call for expanding the program, but they also complain it is expensive and cumbersome. The Trump administration appears poised to ramp up some kind of a guest worker program. Wilja Happé, a cut-flower grower in Carpinteria, lamented this is not an option in South County, as there is no available housing, a requirement of the program. To that end, major farmers are pumping money into automation, Stoker said, “as a potential option they wouldn’t have looked at 10 years ago.”
__________________________________________
Here is what the Sri Lankan 1% are now doing to those global factory workers daring to protest for wages higher than $3-6 a day-----they are now being shipped off as global labor pool and Sri Lanka will bring Middle-East global labor pool to their Foreign Economic Zone global factories.  The Middle-East 1% trading slave labor.

This was last decade during BUSH ERA----what is happening with those medical school students is the same as is happening in US-----Sri Lanka will now push those white collar professional workers into this global labor pool and bring medical professionals from Middle East et al.


If we notice it is the global 99% of women suffering in these global human capital distribution systems as well as the children.  It is the Hillary nasty corporate feminists working for that global 1% who could care less about those global 99% of women.  Same thing now MOVING FORWARD for US women----thrown into the global labor pool to become those same enslaved workers. 

THIS IS WHAT EQUITY MEANS TO UNITED NATIONS REGARDING WOMEN---THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO HIT THE ROAD INTO GLOBAL LABOR POOL JUST AS GLOBAL MEN.




Also, notice United Nations International Labor Organization coordinating all this global human capital distribution system ---and who is now partnered with ILO---------our US labor union leaders. We must get rid of 5% to the 1% labor union leaders working to throw US citizens into this global labor pool.


This is why we are shouting loudly that these two decades will be HORRIBLE FOR US WOMEN-----this is why global Wall Street CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA are putting women faces in all political races-----especially that FAKE FEELING THE BERN FAR-RIGHT LIBERTARIAN MARXIST AND GLOBAL GREEN CORPORATION PARTY groups.


Sri Lankan Migration to the Gulf: Female Breadwinners - Domestic Workers

By Michele Ruth Gamburd | Professor of Anthropology - Portland State University | Feb 2, 2010



International Labour Organization-Maiilard J

Several waves of Sri Lankan migration have taken place since the country gained independence in 1948. Beginning in the mid-1950s, wealthy, educated, English-speaking elites have migrated to Commonwealth countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom. In addition, since the upsurge in ethnic hostilities in the early 1980s, Tamil-speaking Hindu migrants have left the country, with many settling in Canada. In contrast with these permanent migrants, since 1976 a growing number of Sri Lankans have become migrant workers. The leading destination for this migrant labor force — the majority of whom are women — has been the Gulf.
The Scale and Composition of Sri Lankan Labor MigrantsIn 2003, the Sri Lankan Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), the main administrative body regulating labor migration, estimated that 1,003,600 Sri Lankans worked abroad.
[1]By 2008, this number had increased to 1,792,368, or 9% of the island’s 20 million people. From the late 1980s until as recently as 2007, women made up the majority of these labor migrants. They accounted for 75% of the migrant flow in the mid-1990s, and by 2008 declined to a little under 50%. Of the migrant women, 88% went to work as housemaids.[2]In much of the global North, such migrant transnational domestic workers meet the needs of the global “care deficit,” reflecting a global trend in outsourcing domestic labor to women from less developed countries. In contrast, transnational domestic servants in the Middle East free their sponsors for leisure, supporting a socially significant lifestyle.


In recent years, Sri Lankan officials have actively encouraged male migration. The male guest workers fill more diverse roles, with skilled and unskilled laborers making up roughly equal percentages of the male migrants (42% and 41% respectively in 2008).



Main Destination Countries


Most Sri Lankan migrants (92%), both male and female, journey to the Gulf, with four countries (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar) absorbing over 80% of Sri Lanka’s workers. In the Gulf, Sri Lankan women share the market for migrant domestic workers with women from Indonesia, the Philippines, and several other countries. Racial, ethnic, religious, and national stereotypes predetermine wages. For example, in the UAE in 2004, housemaids from the Philippines were paid more than those from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh, in that order.[3]


[L]abor laws cover male laborers but do not protect household workers.
Most Sri Lankan housemaids go abroad on two-year contracts and live in their employers’ residences. Live-in housemaids have less autonomy and lower salaries than women with part-time or live-out arrangements. The isolation of the work situation can lead to abuse and exploitation.


Domestic workers’ legal protections vary from country to country. In many Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, labor laws cover male laborers but do not protect household workers.[4]Labor regulations do apply to foreign domestic servants working in other areas in Asia, the European Union, and the United States, but may not be enforced against middle- and upper-class employers.[5]


Sri Lankan Sojourners as Temporary Migrants in the GulfGuest workers form a crucial aspect of local economies in the Gulf. Overall, foreigners make up an estimated 37-43% of the population of the GCC countries and constitute 70% of the workforce, with workforce numbers rising significantly higher in the UAE (90%), Kuwait (82%), and Qatar (90%).[6]Most GCC countries have a de facto dual economy, with well paid, non-strenuous public-sector jobs created for “nationals” and poorly paid, difficult, low-status, private sector jobs performed by foreigners.


The high percentage of guest workers worries government officials. Accordingly, governments have legislated to minimize the perceived threat. Restrictions on length of stay, strict regulations about changing jobs, hurdles imposed by the sponsorship system, difficult-to-meet criteria for bringing in family members, the inability to own land and businesses, the near-impossibility of obtaining citizenship, and the absence of legal rights all work to keep guest workers’ stays short, temporary, or informal.[7]Although Sri Lankans migrate to Australia, Canada, and the UK with plans to settle there, most sojourners in the Gulf do not hope to assimilate permanently into the host country.



Incentives for Sri Lankan Transnational Domestic MigrantsThere are both national-level and family-level incentives for Sri Lankans to migrate. On the national level, migrant laborers’ remittances contribute significantly to Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange earnings. In 2008, total remittances stood at SLR 316,118 million, or roughly $2.87 billion (converted at $1 = SLR 110). Nearly 60% of this total, SLR 189,039 million or $1.72 billion, came from the Gulf. In generating foreign earnings, private remittances (36%) come second after Sri Lanka’s large garment industry (40%). Clearly the country has a great financial stake in the remittances generated by migrant laborers, particularly those working in the Gulf.



Migration alleviates unemployment among the poorer segments of Sri Lanka’s population. Locally available jobs are mostly poorly paid and temporary, particularly for women. Although transnational domestic workers earn only an average of $100 a month while abroad, this is between two and five times what women could earn working in Sri Lanka, and equals or exceeds the wages earned by most village men. Migrant women consistently assert that families cannot make ends meet on their husbands’ salaries, and say that migration to the Middle East is their only available economic alternative. Family motives for migration usually include getting out of debt, buying land, and building a house. Women also state that they would like to support their family’s daily consumption needs, educate their children, and provide dowries for themselves or their daughters. Participants in the decision-making process (undergone repeatedly for migrants who return several times to the Gulf) weigh financial necessity and household improvements against separation, incursion of loans, and alternate arrangements for childcare.



Migrant women often become the sole or most significant breadwinners for their families. Several studies suggest that each migrant woman supports four to five members of her family; figures for migrant men are likely similar.[8]In 2003, the SLBFE estimated that migrant laborers made up 14% of the total number of employed Sri Lankans. By 2008, this figure had jumped to 25%. A significant and growing percentage of Sri Lankan families are thus directly dependent on Gulf remittances.

___________________________________________

Here we see global Wall Street selling Sri Lanka as hard as it can-----this only advances Sri Lanka's 1% ---it kills Sri Lanka's 99% of citizens.  Global Wall Street is doing this sales job for Sri Lanka in order to capture all its economy to ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE----TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT.  While that dastardly Sri Lankan 1% PLAYERS SHOW ME THE MONEY AND WE WILL DO ANYTHING WE ARE TOLD are taken from millionaire to billionaire ---they are selling our all Sri Lankan sovereign citizens.

At the same time global Wall Street is expanding Foreign Economic Zones in Sri Lanka they must make those 1% and their 2% of Sri Lankan citizens feel like MERCHANTS OF VENICE-----allowing them to bring Sri Lankan corporations to US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES and with those Sri Lankan businesses----that global 1% will bring that global labor pool----NO NEW JOBS FOR AMERICANS---MORE GLOBAL 99% NOW BEING BROUGHT TO US AS GLOBAL SLAVE LABOR.

What would be the next step in this SRI LANKAN/US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE trade deal?  Sending US citizens to be EX-PAT GLOBAL LABOR POOL workers to Sri Lanka---

THESE GLOBAL 2% AND DEVELOPING NATION 1% THINK THEY ARE REALLY BEING MERCHANTS OF VENICE WHEN INDEED THEY ARE BEING PLAYED JUST AS OUR US 5% TO THE 1%----THEY WILL BE UNDER THE BUS IN JUST A FEW DECADES.


Bringing Foreign Investment to Sri Lanka

10:48 PM EDT
July 29, 2015 Wall Street Journal



Sri Lanka Board of Investment Chairman Upul Jayasuriya discusses foreign investment in Sri Lanka, where the money is coming from and his outlook for FDI. He speaks to Bloomberg's Rishaad Salamat on "Trending Business." (Source: Bloomberg)



This is why we are sure Sri Lanka will indeed end up tied to the Asian trade pact and not Trans Pacific Trade Pact with US.  What global Wall Street is doing today IS USING SRI LANKA as US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zone players to create societal disruptions in our US cities------what may be Sri Lankan 1% and their 2% in US cities these few decades will see those Sri Lankan business assets disappear -----this is why we call these MERCHANTS OF VENICE whether from US or other nations HEADING UNDER THE BUS---these are not real global businesses----

The new rich being made of these developing nations and our US 5% to the 1% are PLAYERS.  They do not care if all these business transactions are temporary---they are living for today.  This is why it is so critical to get rid of those pesky 5% to the 1% -----PLEDGED TO DO ANYTHING THEY ARE TOLD.  When my FB friend from Sri Lanka thinks these stances are ANTI-IMMIGRANT----we are hoping he WAKES UP ---and kicks global corporations out of Sri Lanka to build a local economy and bring his Sri Lankan global slave trade citizens HOME TO BE SOVEREIGN CITIZENS.  WE THE PEOPLE do not want more citizens with the values of global Wall Street---we will take all immigrants wanting to fight to keep AMERICA A STRONG AND FREE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.



China to build vast, controversial 'port city' in Sri Lanka



The $1.4bn plan had been suspended by president Maithripala Sirisena but is back on the table despite erosion fears


A container ship sails towards Colombo harbour, which would be redeveloped under the controversial Chinese plan. Photograph: Dinuka Liyanawatte/REUTERS
Agence France-Presse
Thursday 10 March 2016 19.42 EST Last modified on Thursday 17 March 2016 08.23 EDT



Sri Lanka has granted permission for China to build a vast “port city” in the island’s capital, despite concerns the ambitious project could be an environmental disaster.
President Maithripala Sirisena had suspended the contentious $1.4bn plan to build on reclaimed land next to Colombo’s main harbour shortly after taking power in January last year.
But the port city, initiated by Chinese president Xi Jinping in September 2014 and expected to include housing, a marina and a Formula One racetrack, was again given the green light on Thursday.
“The cabinet committee on economic management has recommended allowing resumption of the project subject to limitations and conditions stipulated in the EIA (environmental impact assessment),” the government said in a statement.


Sri Lanka's missing thousands: one woman's six-year fight to find her husband

It did not say what the conditions were, but official sources told AFP that Chinese investors were given permission to resume work on the project without any major modifications.



Prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has said reclaiming land next to the harbour could trigger erosion along the island’s western coastline and threaten its vital tourist industry.
The project, funded by Chinese state-owned company China Communications Construction, represents the biggest single foreign investment ever received by Sri Lanka.


It will add 233 hectares (575 acres) of new real estate in the congested capital.
Sirisena’s government had ordered a review of all big-ticket construction projects signed by his predecessor Mahinda Rajapakse, who is under investigation over allegations of corruption during his decade in power.



Rajapakse relied heavily on China to rebuild the country’s infrastructure after the end of the island’s decades-long ethnic war in May 2009.
China, the largest single lender to Sri Lanka, secured contracts to build roads, railways and ports under the Rajapakse regime.
Sri Lanka to set up a South Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission

However, the present administration has accused the previous government of agreeing to unfavourable terms for the Chinese loans.
Sirisena’s government is seeking an International Monetary Fund bail out of an unspecified amount of money to bolster the island’s foreign reserves.
Beijing has been accused of seeking to develop facilities around the Indian Ocean in a “string of pearls” strategy to counter the rise of rival India and secure its own economic interests.


__________________________________________

Here is of course to where ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE GLOBAL 1% ARE MOVING FORWARD and indeed Sri Lankan 1% will be under the bus with 99% of WE THE PEOPLE.

Greece has literally been bought and tied in ribbons handed to global banking.  No doubt Greece's 1% are those ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE FREEMASONS.

We will take a day or two to remind our US citizens where MOVING FORWARD takes the US after this coming SOVEREIGN DEBT FRAUD AND ECONOMIC CRASH.  Remember, the #1 policy issue in US HISTORY ----is that $20 trillion in national debt from US Treasury and state municipal bond fraud!

Here is Greece---a big-time victim of global banking fraud done while having a SOCIALIST LEADER in office----he was not really a socialist----Greece's 1% and their 2% of course off-shored all their wealth back in 2008-9 as Greece fell into bankruptcy from all the debt from those very 1%.  Much of Greek public real estate is being handed to global 1% in a PERESTROIKA of Western nations.  Greek citizens have lost everything=====pensions, middle-class assets, and they are now 99% indigent.  This article tells us---

THERE IS NO MONEY TO BE FOUND IN GREECE.

Remember we have shouted these same conditions are MOVING FORWARD in US -----as that US national debt ---state and local debt from US Treasury and state municipal bond fraud puts the US in same position as Greece.


They are now telling us that since global Wall Street is so criminal taking tens of trillions of dollars from our government and personal assets that we really need to move away from MONEY----HARD CASH BILLS and trust everything to VIRTUAL BANKING-----


How Greece Became A Guinea Pig For A Cashless And Controlled Society

As Greece moves closer to becoming a cashless society, it is clear that the country’s attitude towards cash is reckless and dangerous. The supposed convenience of switching to a cash-free system comes with a great deal of risk, including needless overreach by the state.


By Michael Nevradakis @dialogosmedia | June 21, 2017
  • GReece
A man makes a transaction at an automated teller machine (ATM) of a Piraeus Bank branch in Athens, Greece. (AP/Yorgos Karahalis)




ATHENS (Analysis)– Day by day, we’re moving towards a brave new world where every transaction is tracked, every purchase is recorded, the habits and preferences of everyone noted and analyzed. What I am describing is the “cashless society,” where plastic and electronic money are king, while banknotes and coins are abolished.



“Progress” is, after all, deemed to be a great thing. In a recent discussion, I observed on an online message board regarding gentrification in my former neighborhood of residence in Queens, New York, the closure of yet another longtime local business was met by one user with a virtual shrug: “Who needs stores when you have Amazon?”



This last quote is, of course, indicative of the brick-and-mortar store, at least in its familiar form. In December 2016, Amazon launched a checkout-free convenience store in Seattle—largely free of employees, but also free of cash transactions, as purchases are automatically charged to one’s Amazon account.
“Progress” is therefore cast as the abolition of currency, and the elimination of even more jobs, all in the name of technological progress and the “convenience” of saving a few minutes of waiting at the checkout counter.




Still insist on being old-fashioned and stuck behind the times, preferring to visit brick-and-mortar stores and paying in cash? You may very well be a terrorist! Pay for your coffee or your visit to an internet cafe with cash? Potential terrorist, according to the FBI. Indeed, insisting on paying with cash is, according to the United States Department of Homeland Security, “suspicious and weird.”



The European Union, ever a force for positive change and progress, also seems to agree. The non-elected European Commission’s “Inception Impact Assessment” warns that the anonymity of cash transactions facilitates “money laundering” and “terrorist financing activities.” This point of view is shared by such economists as the thoroughly discredited proponent of austerity Kenneth Rogoff, Lawrence Summer (a famed deregulator, as well as eulogizer of the “godfather” of austerity Milton Friedman), and supposed anti-austerity crusader Joseph Stiglitz, who told fawning participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year that the United States should do away with all currency.


Logically, of course, the next step is to punish law-abiding citizens for the actions of a very small criminal population and for the failures of law enforcement to curb such activities. The EU plans to accomplish this through the exploration of upper limits on cash payments, while it has already taken the step of abolishing the 500-euro banknote.


The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which day after day is busy “saving” economically suffering countries such as Greece, also happens to agree with this brave new worldview. In a working paper titled “The Macroeconomics of De-Cashing,” which the IMF claims does not necessarily represent its official views, the fund nevertheless provides a blueprint with which governments around the world could begin to phase out cash. This process would commence with “initial and largely uncontested steps” (such as the phasing out of large-denomination bills or the placement of upper limits on cash transactions). This process would then be furthered largely by the private sector, providing cashless payment options for people’s “convenience,” rather than risk popular objections to policy-led decashing. The IMF, which certainly has a sterling track record of sticking up for the poor and vulnerable in society, comforts us by saying that these policies should be implemented in ways that would augment “economic and social benefits.”


The IMF’s Greek experiment in austerity


These suggestions, which of course the IMF does not necessarily officially agree with, have already begun to be implemented to a significant extent in the IMF debt colony known officially as Greece, where the IMF has been implementing “socially fair and just” austerity policies since 2010, which have resulted, during this period, in a GDP decline of over 25 percent, unemployment levels exceeding 28 percent, repeated cuts to what are now poverty-level salaries and pensions, and a “brain drain” of over 500,000 people—largely young and university-educated—migrating out of Greece.



Protesters against new austerity measures hold a placard depicting Labour Minister George Katrougalos as the movie character Edward Scissorhands during a protest outside Zappeion Hall in Athens, Friday, Sept. 16, 2016. The placard reads in Greek”Katrougalos Scissorhands”.



Indeed, it could be said that Greece is being used as a guinea pig not just for a grand neoliberal experiment in both austerity, but de-cashing as well. The examples are many, and they have found fertile ground in a country whose populace remains shell-shocked by eight years of economic depression. A new law that came into effect on January 1 incentivizes going cashless by setting a minimum threshold of spending at least 10 percent of one’s income via credit, debit, or prepaid card in order to attain a somewhat higher tax-free threshold.


Beginning July 27, dozens of categories of businesses in Greece will be required to install aptly-acronymized “POS” (point-of-sale) card readers and to accept payments by card. Businesses are also required to post a notice, typically by the entrance or point of sale, stating whether card payments are accepted or not. Another new piece of legislation, in effect as of June 1, requires salaries to be paid via direct electronic transfers to bank accounts. Furthermore, cash transactions of over 500 euros have been outlawed.


In Greece, where in the eyes of the state citizens are guilty even if proven innocent, capital controls have been implemented preventing ATM cash withdrawals of over 840 euros every two weeks. These capital controls, in varying forms, have been in place for two years with no end in sight, choking small businesses that are already suffering.



Citizens have, at various times, been asked to collect every last receipt of their expenditures, in order to prove their income and expenses—otherwise, tax evasion is assumed, just as ownership of a car (even if purchased a decade or two ago) or an apartment (even if inherited) is considered proof of wealth and a “hidden income” that is not being declared. The “heroic” former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis had previously proposed a cap of cash transactions at 50 or 70 euros on Greek islands that are popular tourist destinations, while also putting forth an asinine plan to hire tourists to work as “tax snitches,” reporting businesses that “evade taxes” by not providing receipts even for the smallest transactions.



All of these measures, of course, are for the Greeks’ own good and are in the best interest of the country and its economy, combating supposedly rampant “tax evasion” (while letting the biggest tax evaders off the hook), fighting the “black market” (over selling cheese pies without issuing a receipt, apparently), and of course, nipping “terrorism” in the bud.


As with the previous discussion I observed about Amazon being a satisfactory replacement for the endangered brick-and-mortar business, one learns a lot from observing everyday conversations amongst ordinary citizens. A recent conversation I personally overheard while paying a bill at a public utility revealed just how successful the initial and largely uncontested steps enacted in Greece have been.


In the line ahead of me, an elderly man announced that he was paying his water bill by debit card, “in order to build towards the tax-free threshold.” When it was suggested to him that the true purpose of encouraging cashless payments was to track every transaction, even for a stick of gum, and to transfer all money into the banking system, he and one other elderly gentleman threw a fit, claiming “there is no other way to combat tax evasion.”


The irony that they were paying by card to avoid taxation themselves was lost on them—as is the fact that the otherwise fiscally responsible Germany, whose government never misses an opportunity to lecture the “spendthrift” and “irresponsible” Greeks, has the largest black market in Europe (exceeding 100 billion euros annually), ranks first in Europe in financial fraud, is the eighth-largest tax haven worldwide, and one of the top tax-evading countries in Europe.


Also lost on these otherwise elderly gentlemen was a fact not included in the official propaganda campaign: Germans happen to love their cash, as evidenced by the fierce opposition that met a government plan to outlaw cash payments of 5,000 euros or more. In addition, about 80 percent of transactions in Germany are still conducted in cash. The German tabloid Bild went as far as to publish an op-ed titled “Hands off our cash” in response to the proposed measure.


Global powers jumping on cashless bandwagon

Nevertheless, a host of other countries across Europe and worldwide have shunned Germany’s example, instead siding with the IMF and Stiglitz. India, one of the most cash-reliant countries on earth, recently eliminated 86 percent
of its currency practically overnight, with the claimed goal, of course, of targeting terrorism and the “black market.” The real objective of this secretly planned measure, however, was to starve the economy of cash and to drive citizens to electronic payments by default.


Indians stand in line to deposit discontinued notes in a bank in Jammu and Kashmir, India,, Dec. 30, 2016. India yanked most of its currency bills from circulation without warning on Nov. 8, delivering a jolt to the country’s high-performing economy and leaving countless citizens scrambling for cash. (AP/Channi Anand)


Iceland, a country that stands as an admirable example of standing up to the IMF-global banking cartel in terms of its response to the country’s financial meltdown of 2008, nevertheless has long embraced cashlessness. Practically all transactions, even the most minute, are conducted electronically, while “progressive” tourists extol the benefits of not being inconvenienced by the many seconds it would take to withdraw funds from an ATM or exchange currency upon arrival. Oddly enough, Iceland was already largely cashless prior to its financial collapse in 2008—proving that this move towards “progress” did nothing to prevent an economic meltdown or to stop its perpetrators: the very same banks being entrusted with nearly all of the money supply.


Other examples of cashlessness

abound in Europe. Cash transactions in Sweden represent just 3 percent of the national economy, and most banks no longer hold banknotes. Similarly, many Norwegian banks no longer issue cash, while the country’s largest bank, DNB, has called upon the public to cease using cash. Denmark has announced a goal of eliminating banknotes by 2030. Belgium has introduced a 3,000-euro limit on cash transactions and 93 percent of transactions are cashless. In France, the respective percentage is 92 percent, and cash transactions have been limited to 1,000 euros, just as in Spain. Outside of Europe, cash is being eliminated even in countries such as Somalia and Kenya, while South Korea—itself no stranger to IMF intervention in its economy—has, similarly to Greece, implemented preferential tax policies for consumers who make payments using cards.




Aside from policy changes, practical everyday examples also exist in abundance. Just try to purchase an airline ticket with cash, for instance. It remains possible—but is also said to raise red flags. In many cases, renting an automobile or booking a hotel room with cash is simply not possible. The aforementioned Department of Homeland Security manual considers any payment with cash to be “suspicious behavior”—as one clearly has something to hide if they do not wish to be tracked via electronic payment methods. Ownership of gold makes the list of suspicious activities as well.



Just as the irony of Germany being a largely cash-based society while pushing cashless policies in its Greek protectorate is lost on many Greeks, what is lost on seemingly almost everyone is this: something that is new doesn’t necessarily represent progress, nor does something different. Something that is seemingly easier, or more convenient, is not necessarily progress either. But for many, “technological progress,” just like “scientific innovation” in all its forms and without exception, has attained an aura of infallibility, revered with religious-like fervor.


People queue in front of a bank for an ATM as a man lies on the ground begging for change, in Athens. (AP/Thanassis Stavrakis)


Combating purported tax evasion is also treated with a religious-like fervor, even while ordinary citizens—such as the two aforementioned gentlemen in Greece—typically seek to minimize their outlays to the tax offices. Moreover, while such measures essentially enact a collective punishment regardless of guilt or innocence, corporations and oligarchs who utilize tax loopholes and offshore havens go unpunished and are wholly unaffected by a switch to a cashless economy in the supposed battle against tax evasion.


This is evident, for instance, in the case of “LuxLeaks,” which revealed the names of dozens of corporations benefiting from favorable tax rulings and tax avoidance schemes in Luxembourg, one of the original founding members of the EU. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, formerly the prime minister of Luxembourg, has faced repeated accusations of impeding EU investigations into corporate tax avoidance scandals during his 18-year term as prime minister. Juncker has defended Luxembourg’s tax arrangements as legal.



At the same time, Juncker has shown no qualms in criticizing Apple’s tax avoidance deal in Ireland as “illegal,” while having been accused himself of helping large multinationals such as Amazon and Pepsi avoid taxes. Moreover, he has openly claimed that Greece’s Ottoman roots are responsible for modern-day tax evasion in the country. He has not hesitated to unabashedly intervene in Greek electoral contests, calling on Greeks to avoid the “wrong outcome” in the January 2015 elections (where the supposedly anti-austerity SYRIZA, which has since proven to be boldly pro-austerity, were elected).


He also urged the Greek electorate to vote “yes” (in favor of more EU-proposed austerity) in the July 2015 referendum—where the overwhelming result in favor of “no” was itself overturned by SYRIZA within a matter of days. In the European Union today, if there’s something that can be counted on, it’s the blatant hypocrisy of its leaders. Nevertheless, proving that old habits of collaborationism die hard in Greece, the rector of the law school of the state-owned Aristotle University in Thessaloniki awarded Juncker with an honorary doctorate for his contribution to European political and legal values.


Cashless policies bode poorly for the future

Where does all this lead though? What does a cashless economy actually mean and why are global elites pushing so fervently for it? Consider the following: in a cashless economy without coins or banknotes, every transaction is tracked. Buying and spending habits are monitored, and it is not unheard of for credit card companies to cancel an individual’s credit or to lower their credit rating based on real or perceived risks ranging from shopping at discount stores to purchasing alcoholic beverages. Indeed, this is understood to be common practice. Other players are entering the game too: in late May, Google announced plans to track credit and debit card transactions.


More to the point though, a cashless economy doesn’t just mean that financial institutions, large corporations, or the state itself can monitor all transactions that are occurring. It also means that the entirety of the money supply—itself now existing only in “virtual” form—will belong to the banking system. Not one cent will exist outside of the banking system, as physical currency will simply not be in circulation. The banking system—and others—will be aware not just of every transaction, but will be in possession of all of our society’s money supply, and will even have the ability to receive a percentage of every transaction that is taking place.


So what happens if your spending habits or your choice of travel destinations raises “red flags”? What happens if you run into hard times economically and miss a few payments? What happens if you are deemed to be a political dissident or liability – perhaps an “enemy of the state”? Freezing a bank account or confiscating funds from accounts can take place almost instantaneously. Users of eBay and PayPal, for instance, are quite aware of the ease with which PayPal can confiscate funds from a user’s account based simply on a claim filed against that individual.


Simply forgetting one’s password to an online account can set off an aggravating flurry of calls in order to prove that your money is your own—and that’s without considering the risks of phishing and of online databases being compromised. Many responsible credit card holders found that their credit cards were suddenly canceled in the aftermath of the “Great Recession” simply due to perceived risk. And if you happen to be an individual deemed to be “dangerous,” you can be effectively and easily frozen out of the economy.


Those thinking that the “cashless revolution” will also herald the return of old-style bartering and other communal economic schemes might also wish to reconsider that line of thinking. In the United States, for instance, bartering transactions are considered taxable by the Internal Revenue Service. As more and more economic activity of all sorts takes place online, the tax collector will have an easier time detecting such activity. Thinking of teaching your child to be responsible with finances? That too will have a cost, as even lemonade stands have been targeted for “operating without a permit.” It’s not far-fetched to imagine that particularly overzealous government authorities could also target such activity for “tax evasion.”


In Greece, while oligarchs get to shift their money to offshore tax havens without repercussion and former Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis has been acquitted for failure to submit a declaration of assets, where major television and radio stations operate with impunity without a valid license while no new players can enter the marketplace and where ordinary households and small businesses are literally being taxed to death, police in August 2016 arrested a father of three with an unemployed spouse for selling donuts without a license and fined him 5,000 euros. In another incident, an elderly man selling roasted chestnuts in Thessaloniki was surrounded by 15 police officers and arrested for operating without a license.


Amidst this blatant hypocrisy, governments and financial institutions love electronic money for another reason, aside from the sheer control that it affords them. Studies, including one conducted by the American Psychological Association, have shown that paying with plastic (or, by extension, other non-physical forms of payment) encourage greater spending, as the psychological sensation of a loss when making a payment is disconnected from the actual act of purchasing or conducting a transaction.



But ultimately, the elephant in the room is whether the banking system even should be entrusted with the entirety of the monetary supply. The past decade has seen the financial collapse of 2008, the crumbling of financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers in the United States and a continent-wide banking crisis in Europe, which was the true objective behind the “bailouts” of countries such as Greece—saving European and American banks exposed to “toxic” bonds from these nations. Italy’s banking system is currently teetering on dangerous ground, while the Greek banking system, already recapitalized three times since the onset of the country’s economic crisis, may need yet another taxpayer-funded recapitalization. Even the virtual elimination of cash in Iceland did not prevent the country’s banking meltdown in 2008.


Should we entrust the entirety of the money supply to these institutions? What happens if the banking system experiences another systemic failure? Who do you trust more: yourself or institutions that have proven to be wholly irresponsible and unaccountable in their actions? The answer to that question should help guide the debate as to whether society should go cashless.


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June 24th, 2017

6/24/2017

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We have on several occasions written to expose what are called VANITIES------you know, that BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES. 

When we allow the US to be brought back to colonization and 99% of citizens having no rights, impoverished, and enslaved as with MOVING FORWARD we are returning to those DARK AGES days where incompetent 1% enriched through brute force create images of themselves to justify that position in SOCIETY.  America is a MERITOCRACY---one would say---know, America has always been controlled by those same global 1%----but it felt as though the 99% were free to determine their destiny.  Of course we never attained this freedom for all US citizens----we were on the way.

The American people were indeed free---we were indeed growing our own wealth and economic stability---THAT IS NOT FICTION.  Meritocracy simply means people climb a ladder----whether social or income because they can compete and advance in an economic race WITH A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD.

Laissez faire economics were installed by REAGAN/CLINTON at this point in US history to end that level playing field.  That global 1% were ready to come in and by force and FICTION take all the wealth of our growing nation and our families.

THIS DID NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN---SO INDEED---WE WERE FREE AND ABLE TO DETERMINE OUR DESTINY.  WE ARE SIMPLY ALLOWING MOVING FORWARD TO END THIS FREEDOM AND STATUS AS CITIZEN.

Because a small group of 5% to the 1% having no particular talent----having no morals, ethics, or VIRTUE----were installed to power the global 1% must create FICTIONS as to why that 1% continue to garner all avenues to wealth and power.  It is the same as the legends written 4 thousand years ago making HEROES----GODS AND GODDESSES----with the global 1% seeing themselves reflected in those images.

WHEN THE LEAST CAPABLE AND THE LEAST WORTHY RISE TO THE TOP BY BRUTE FORCE---THEY MUST CREATE FICTIONS TO SEEM EXCEPTIONAL.



Vanity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


"Vainglory" redirects here. For the Old English poem, see Vainglory (Old English poem). For the video game, see Vainglory (video game). For the style of artwork, see Vanitas. For other uses, see Vanity (disambiguation).

This painting represents the Dutch "Vanitas" (Latin for vanity) by Adam Bernaert,[1] The Walters Art Museum.
Vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others. Prior to the 14th century it did not have such narcissistic undertones, and merely meant futility.[2] The related term vainglory is now often seen as an archaic synonym for vanity, but originally meant boasting in vain, i.e. unjustified boasting;[3] although glory is now seen as having an exclusively positive meaning, the Latin term gloria (from which it derives) roughly means boasting, and was often used as a negative criticism.[4]

If we have read WAR AND PEACE then we easily saw the FICTIONS created by our OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% and their 5% to the 1% freemason/Greeks.  When we refer MOVING FORWARD as back to the DARK AGES it is because these global Wall Street players are so attached to the mythology of KINGS AND QUEENS and that period of extreme wealth. If you haven't read it you should to know that mentality of extreme wealth and the FAKE SENSE OF VIRTUE AND HONOR.

What War and Peace did well is show how all that pomp and circumstance of royalty---of freemason VIRTUE was SMOKE AND MIRRORS. That is what today's CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA now Trump are trying so hard to paint for themselves-----THEY ARE EXCEPTIONAL when in fact they are not even as capable as you and I.





LEO TOLSTOY and FREEMASONRY

COUNT LYEV NIKOLAYEVICH TOLSTOY (1828-1910).


Russian novelist and moral philosopher comes from
a Russian landed gentry dating back 300 years.
His parents died by the time he was 9 yrs old.
Raised by female relatives, and educated by French tutors.
He lived a middle-gentry life of the last of the old serfdom period.
His "War and Peace" appeared in parts in 1865 and 1869.
He was 37 yrs old.



Freemasonry's presence in Tolstoy's War and Peace, which many consider Russia's greatest novel, is a reflection of the long existence (since 1771) of the Craft in Russia. Masonry was banned by Czar Alexander in 1821, a ban continued by the Communists in 1922. Masonry was only revived in 1993. There are now some 10 lodges meeting in Russia under Russia's Grand Lodge.
                   MoscowLotus
Alexander Pushkin
Harmony
Quatuor Coronati
Northern Lights (Armenian-speaking)
St.PetersburgNovaya Astra
VoronezhGamaioun
ArkhangelskPolar Star
ZvenigorodAurora (English-speaking)
VladivostokPacific Rim
Fraternal Love    a Lodge meeting in Turkey, France, Lebanon and Russia

Such a renewal is not surprising when the long-time cultural influence of Masonry in Russia is considered. While Freemasonry's consideration in Count Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace is the most famous example, the masonic fraternity figures in "The Possessed" by Dostoevsky, and in the works of other master authors such as; V.I.Likin, N.M.Karamzin, M.M.Kheraskov, V.I.Maikov, A.N.Radishchev, A.A.Rzhevskii, A.P.Sumarokov, and M.M.Shcherbatov.

This literature compares with the works of Scotland's Robert Burns & Sir Walter Scott, England's Rudyard Kipling & Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, alongwith Germany's Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and America's Edgar Allan Poe.


War and Peace is widely accepted as being autobiographical, and the figure of Pierre Bezukhov is as consumed as was Tolstoy with the great questions of life. There is no evidence that Tolstoy joined a Lodge, but he spent considerable time investigating masonic activities.
The masonic initiation scene in War and Peace is justly celebrated:
                                                                       'Pierre gradually began to recover himself and looked about at the room and at the people in it. Round a long table covered with black sat some twelve brethren in garments like those he has already seen. Several of them Pierre had met in St. Petersburg society. In the president's chair sat a young man he did not know, with a peculiar cross hanging from his neck. On his right sat the Italian abbe whom Pierre had seen at Anna Pavlovna's two years before. There was also present a very distinguished dignitary, and a Swiss tutor who had formerly been tutor at the Kuragins. All maintained a solemn silence, listening to the words of the president, who held a mallet in his hand. Let into the wall was a star-shaped light. At one side of the table was a small carpet was various figures worked upon it; on the other was something resembling an altar on which by a (New) Testament and a skull."

Pierre seeks initiation as part of his quest for self-knowledge, a major theme in the book. He hopes that the secrets of the Masons will prove the Golden Fleece or Holy Grail. He is representative of a whole generation of Russian intellectuals who were trying to reconcile the Slavic East with the bewildering bonanza of ideas from the West. Of course, he expects too much. In Book Six, Chapter Seven, it is now 1808, and Pierre is busily arranging dining and funeral Lodges, donating for the erection of temples, helping with charities - and becoming disillusioned.
                                When he had joined the Freemasons he had experienced the feeling of one who confidently steps onto the smooth surface of a bog. When he put his foot down, it sank in. …. All the members of the Lodges were men Pierre knew in ordinary life, and it was difficult for him to regard them merely as Brothers in Freemasonry. … Under the Masonic aprons and insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at which they aimed in ordinary life.

In questioning the purity of Masonry and the motives of its members, and in suggesting its misuse by its members for pedestrian old-boy networking, Tolstoy anticipates the sceptical observations about the Craft of another famous Russian, Leon Trotsky, who writes in Chapter Nine of his autobiography, "My Life":
                "In the early years of this century, Russia was a vast laboratory of social thinking. My work on the history of freemasonry had fortified me in a realization of the subordinate place of ideas in the historical process. 'Ideas do not drop from the sky'.."

Pierre is an embodiment of a disillusioned Tolstoy who found Freemasonry to be far less than what he had expected. Pierre describes those like himself as one who are 'seeking and vacillating, who had not yet found in Freemasonry a straight and comprehensible path, but hoped to do so'. He decides that the fault is his own and that he needs to deepen his understanding of Masonry by further study. So he goes abroad to seek masonic knowledge in other countries. Upon returning to his Lodge a special meeting is called to hear of his travels. Pierre in desperation asks his Grand Master if what he has found will be implemented, and is told NO. He leaves his lodge.
In a letter of Tolstoy to his wife in 1866, he wrote:
               "After drinking coffee I went to the Rumyantsev Museum and sat there till three o'clock read very interesting Masonic manuscripts. I can't describe to you why the reading produced on me a depression I have not been able to get rid of all day. What is distressing is that all those Masons were fools."

Hard words but maybe Pierre/Tolstoy had found that while Masons talk of problems and express such good deeds, they fail to study What is Freemasonry!!



______________________________________

We posted a year or so ago a lecture from a southern university with a professor whose job it was to CREATE THAT IMAGE OF VIRTUE ---that SMOKE AND MIRROR ----when talking about the history of ROBBER BARONS during the late 1800s early 1900s ROARING 20s-----that was a corporate university where professors are hired only if they create that IMAGE OF VIRTUE of those 1%.  So, ROBBER BARONS like Rockefeller and Carnegie had all kinds of myths created to make them INEVITABLE ECONOMIC HEROES.  They simply had family money from the OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE and they HIJACKED the talents of real inventors and genius.

IF WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% KEEP ALLOWING OLD ---REALLY, REALLY OLD MONEY COME IN AND FLEECE OUR ASSETS OVER AND OVER ----WE CANNOT BE FREE---WE CANNOT BE CITIZENS---STOP ALLOWING THESE POSERS TO BE LEADERS.

This is why we spend so much time breaking down these images of EXCEPTIONALISM being painted for those dastardly 5% AND THOSE 1%. 

We shout over and again-----the 5% are not LEADERS----THEY ARE FOLLOWERS----simply doing anything they are told.  AND THEY ARE.  We make clear the stories in media created for a BILL GATES-----AN APPLE'S JOB------A FACEBOOK'S  ZUCKERBERG ---------AN UNDERARMOUR'S PLANK----A SPACE X'S MUSK----are all FICTIONS.



THEIR FAMILIES SIMPLY HAD OLD WORLD WEALTH AND BOUGHT PATENTS FOR PRODUCTS AND SYSTEMS DEVELOPED AND DESIGNED BY REAL TALENTED AND INTELLIGENT 99% OF WE THE PEOPLE.


'Elon Musk's heralded biography is dripping wet with being extraordinary and a visionary. If this is truly not the case, it will still be hard to convince others, so you may loose more in the audience, and thus thwart your own passions and desires in this war'.



Our response:
---that is a great description of these supposed EXCEPTIONAL 1%-----they are creating a FICTION to make themselves VIRTUOUS---HERALDED---it mirrors the DARK AGES----this is why we say the ideals of OLD WORLD FREEMASONRY are long gone and today we have LYING, CHEATING, AND STEALING held as virtuous. I have no fear of a disappearing audience----know what? If one is pushed to FICTION in order to attain attention -----THAT IS VANITY'.



A Lot Of People Think Elon Musk Is Already Greater Than Steve Jobs Ever Was
  • Alyson Shontell

  • Aug. 28, 2013, 3:02 PM
Elon Musk is just that good.AP

Steve Jobs was a marketing master who turned a near-bankrupt Apple into the most valuable company in the world. 
But many people are starting to believe Elon Musk is better than Steve Jobs ever was. 


There's an insatiable thirst for tech innovation right now, and Musk seems to be one of few people taking moonshots. He is the founder of SpaceX and electric car company Tesla. Musk is also the brains behind the Hyperloop, a hypothetical transportation system that could get people from New York to California in 30 minutes.


OH, REALLY????



Musk, like Jobs, has already had a massive consumer hit too. He co-founded PayPal in 1999, which completely transformed online transactions.

Tesla's soaring stock is just one example of Musk's wild popularity. Although it's only expected to deliver 20,000 cars in 2013, the stock has risen more than 400% in the past year to a $20 billion market cap. 
Tesla's valuation is sky-high and its stock is up 400% since last year.CNBC


Another example can be found on question and answer site, Quora, where thousands of people are expressing their pro-Muskness.


The most upvoted answers are unanimous: Elon Musk isn't the next Steve Jobs. He's better. 


Dolly Singh has worked with Musk for years. She joined him as Head of Talent Acquisition at SpaceX and calls Musk "brilliant, dynamic, charismatic" and "an exceptional freak of nature."


She also says this:
"In my humble opinion, Mr. Jobs in all his greatness has nothing on Elon. Elon is Wernher von Braun, Howard Hughes, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and every other badass all rolled into one."


Her reasoning: Musk has taught himself everything from design to building rocket ships. He's read tons of literature plus he's an engineer. He's not just imaginative like Jobs was, but he also has the ability to build everything himself.


Currently, 1,200 people have upvoted her response. 
Another answer with more than 3,000 up votes lists all the ways Musk is not Steve Jobs (such as, "Steve Jobs patented everything; Musk hates patents") and concludes: 


"Elon Musk isn't the next Steve Jobs. He is far beyond and better than Steve Jobs ever was."

__________________________________________

Elon Musk is a spoiled child of a OLD WORLD MERCHANT OF VENICE MINING CORPORATION FAMILY----  below we see the same spoiled child of an OLD WORLD MERCHANT OF VENICE REAL ESTATE FAMILY.

 All of the development of computer technology was done by Department of Defense-----by public and private universities using their STUDENTS AND FACILITY to design products that were then sold as patents.  A meeting of DAVOS SWITZERLAND GLOBAL 1% says----WE NEED TO MINE PLANETS FOR MINERALS-----then the Department of Defense and our universities suddenly get funded for research and development-----NASA----source of all the space engineering used by SPACE X----was designed by WE THE PEOPLE--THE 99% -----so, all the R and D is done----all the plans and stages are developed BY WE THE PEOPLE THE 99%----and in walks MUSK and his money to buy patents making his family the one made extremely rich.  MUSK had nothing to do with the idea of space mining---that came from the global 1%---MUSK was not tied to any research or development in TESLA--in SPACE X ----he probably does not even know space mechanics---he hires talented people to do everything.


Below we see the same done for PLANK AND UNDERARMOUR-----PLANK is simply that same son of an old wealth familty buying the PATENT for a new kind of fabric for sportswear.  All the R and D was done by the 99% of WE THE PEOPLE in university----in Department of Defense et al ---and then that patent is sold to PLANK.  If we believe the myth of a PLANK working his way up the ladder from selling out of his trunk to building third world global factories in Asia WE ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE SERFS----NOT CITIZENS AND LEADERS.

PLEASE DON'T ALLOW THESE MYTHS ---TIED TO VIRTUE AND HONOR AND LIFTING ONESELF UP BY BOOTSTRAPS----BECAUSE NONE OF THIS IS TRUE FOR THOSE PESKY 5% AND THAT 1%.


As Tolstoy made clear in War and Peace----the royals could not manage their way out of a closet-----the people sent in as officers to become generals could not manage a war if their lives depended on it----as Tolstoy made clear wars just happen--they unroll with these so-called generals never having a hand on the cause of winning. At the same time----those Freemasons with that VIRTUOUS goal of honor and justice---are shown to be a group filled with all kinds of people having all kinds of goals for being in these groups----almost none of which is being VIRTUOUS OR JUST.


Under Armour Startup Story


Introduction


This startup story features Kevin Plank, a former Fork Union Military Academy Football player who turned sweat into a billion dollar business.

Under Armour Stats
  • Founder: Kevin Plank
  • Age at Founding: 24
  • Started In: 1996
  • Industry: Sports Apparel
  • Annual Revenue: $1.83BB in Retail Sales
  • # of Employees:  5,900
  • Famous For: Creating a revolutionary new T-shirt built from microfibers that wicked moisture and kept athletes cool, dry, and light.
How Under Armour Got Started

As a 23 year old former captain of the University of Maryland Football team, Plank had noticed that compression shorts stayed dry during practice. He decided to take that same material to create moisture wicking gear. Under Armour’s original funding came from Planks personal savings and credit card debt. During college, Plank had saved about $20,000 by selling t-shirts at concerts. He ended up going about $40,000 in credit card debt spread across five cards.  By 1997 (one year after founding the company), he was broke.


Then, he made his first sale to Georgia Tech for about $17,000.  Two dozen NFL teams soon followed suit. At the end of his second year, he had sold $100,000 in product. Then, the product took off and major teams and retailers began carrying the product, creating a multi-million dollar business that now does nearly $2BB in sales and has over 5,900 employees.


Under Armour’s Funding

While Under Armour’s initial funding came from Plank himself, the company went public less than 10  years after it’s founding to raise $115 Million for expansion capital. The stock doubled in its first day of trading. The company has since sold additional shares of the company to help fuel it’s continued growth. Below, is a chart of the companies trailing five year growth rate compared to it’s competitors.


Important Under Armour Milestones:1995: Plank comes up with the idea for Under Armour while playing football at the University of Maryland.

1996: Plank uses $20k of his personal savings and $40k of credit card debt to launch the company. At the end of the year, he has sales totaling $17,000.

1997: Plank sells $100,000 worth of product to twelve NFL football teams.

1998: Under Armour is asked to create uniforms for Any Given Sunday.

2000: UA takes off with National advertising campaigns.

2002: The company becomes carried in 2,500 retail stores. 

2013: Under Armour acquires MapMyFitness for $150 Million.
Kevin Plank Startup Advice: “You need to put your hands around the throat of your business, and you need to run it. There’s no other way.”


_____________________________________


The global 1% are creating MYTHS and our captured media and corporate universities teach myth and not fact ----this is the value of REAL PUBLIC EDUCATION----we had public schools over last century that held power accountable to these lies. This is why CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA work so hard to KILL OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS ---to install a COMMONER CORE----to assure 99% of WE THE PEOPLE will not know it is all myth and they are being USED FOR THEIR TALENT AND GETTING NOTHING.

Below we see just that progression.   Here is global IVY LEAGUE STANFORD which like global IVY LEAGUE JOHNS HOPKINS attract the smartest of our citizens ----literally use their ideas and creations developed during 4 years-----or graduate positions---and patents them----that patent brings Stanford and Hopkins lots of wealth and power---those students ---not so much.

The Department of Defense is filled with WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% and all R and D is done by those talented people.  Look at who is headlined as head of departments? 

THEY ARE NOT THE ONES DOING THE WORK---THEY ARE THE ONES SIMPLY TIED TO GLOBAL 1% TAKING ALL THE GLORY.

This structure was super-sized during Obama as Clinton neo-liberals made global corporate R and D of all our public and private universities ----expanding from just a few global IVY LEAGUES. 

NOW THE BEST OF THE BEST ARE BROUGHT TO GLOBAL IVY LEAGUES THAT PATENT ALL THEIR GREAT IDEAS TO MAKE THAT SAME OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% EXTREMELY RICH.



Who controls the internet today? Global Google----and a few search engine corporations. We watch as we do SEARCHES for words or terms -----used to be we would see those searches getting the most action from 99% of citizens---today we searched the word VANITY to get to the history of its use----and we got 20 search pages of corporations selling the product BATHROOM VANITIES. This is all WE THE PEOPLE will access on our internet if we keep allowing MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL RULE.



Who invented the Internet?
Updated: 06/16/2017 by Computer Hope


A single person did not create the Internet that we know and use today. Below is a listing of different people who have helped contribute to and develop the Internet.


The idea

The initial idea of the Internet is credited to Leonard Kleinrock after he published his first paper entitled "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets" on May 31, 1961.


In 1962, J.C.R. Licklider became the first Director of IPTO and gave his vision of a galactic network. Also, with ideas from Licklider and Kleinrock, Robert Taylor helped create the idea of the network that later became ARPANET.


Initial creation


The Internet as we know it today first started being developed in the late 1960's in California in the United States.


In the summer of 1968, the Network Working Group (NWG) held its first meeting, chaired by Elmer Shapiro, at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Other attendees included Steve Carr, Steve Crocker, Jeff Rulifson, and Ron Stoughton. In the meeting, the group discussed solving issues related to getting hosts to communicate with each other.


In December 1968, Elmer Shapiro with SRI released a report "A Study of Computer Network Design Parameters." Based on this and earlier work by Paul Baran, Thomas Marill and others, Lawrence Roberts and Barry Wessler created the Interface Message Processor (IMP) specifications. Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) was later awarded the contract to design and build the IMP subnetwork.


General public learns about Internet


The UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) put out a press release introducing the public to the Internet on July 3, 1969.


First network equipment

On August 29, 1969, the first network switch and the first piece of network equipment called "IMP" (Interface Message Processor) is sent to UCLA.



On September 2, 1969, the first data moves from the UCLA host to the switch. The picture to the right is Leonard Kleinrock next to the IMP.


The first message and network crash

On Friday October 29, 1969 at 10:30 p.m., the first Internet message was sent from computer science Professor Leonard KleinRock's laboratory at UCLA, after the second piece of network equipment was installed at SRI. The connection not only enabled the first transmission to be made, but is also considered the first Internet backbone.


The first message to be distributed was "LO", which was an attempt at "LOGIN" by Charley S. Kline to log into the SRI computer from UCLA. However, the message was unable to be completed because the SRI system crashed. Shortly after the crash, the issue was resolved, and he was able to log into the computer.


E-mail is developed

Ray Tomlinson sends the first network e-mail in 1971. It's the first messaging system to send messages across a network to other users.



TCP is developed


Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn design TCP during 1973 and later publish it with the help of Yogen Dalal and Carl Sunshine in December of 1974 in RFC 675. Most people consider these two people the inventors of the Internet.



First commercial network

A commercial version of ARPANET, known as Telenet, is introduced in 1974 and considered to be the first Internet Service Provider (ISP).


Ethernet is conceivedBob Metcalfe develops the idea of Ethernet in 1973.


The Modem is introduced

Dennis Hayes and Dale Heatherington released the 80-103A Modem in 1977. The Modem and their subsequent modems become a popular choice for home users to connect to the Internet and get online.


TCP/IP is created


In 1978, TCP splits into TCP/IP, driven by Danny Cohen, David Reed, and John Shoch to support real-time traffic. The creation of TCP/IP help create UDP and is later standardized into ARPANET on January 1, 1983. Today, TCP/IP is still the primary protocol used on the Internet.


DNS is introduced

Paul Mockapetris and Jon Postel introduce DNS in 1984, which also introduces the domain name system. The first Internet domain name, symbolics.com, is registered on March 15, 1985 by Symbolics, a Massachusetts computer company.


First commercial dial-up ISPThe first commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the US, known as "The World", is introduced in 1989. The World was the first ISP to be used on what we now consider to be the Internet.



HTMLIn 1990, Tim Berners-Lee develops HTML, which made a huge contribution to how we navigate and view the Internet today.


WWWTim Berners-Lee introduces WWW to the public on August 6, 1991 and becomes available for everyone August 23, 1991. The World Wide Web (WWW) is what most people today consider the "Internet" or a series of sites and pages that are connected with links. The Internet had hundreds of people who helped develop the standards and technologies used today, but without the WWW, the Internet would not be as popular as it is today.



First graphical Internet browser

Mosaic is the first widely used graphical World Wide Web browser developed and first released on April 22, 1993 by the NCSA with the help of Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. A big competitor to Mosaic was Netscape, which was released a year later. Today's Internet browsers we use today, e.g. Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, etc., got their inspiration from the Mosaic browser.

Java and JavaScript
Originally known as oak, Java is a programming language developed by James Gosling and others at Sun Microsystems in 1995. Today, Java is still used to create Internet applications and other software programs.


JavaScript was developed by Brendan Eich in 1995 and originally known as LiveScript. LiveScript was released with Netscape Navigator 2.0 and renamed to JavaScript with Netscape Navigator 2.0B3. JavaScript is an interpreted client-side scripting language that allows a web designer the ability to insert code into their web page.


Related Questions

That is a great overview, but who are the key inventors of the Internet?
If you had to isolate the key inventors of the Internet, it would have to be two people: Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn. The WWW, which is different from the Internet, but what most people think of as the "Internet", was invented later by Tim Berners-Lee.
But I thought Al Gore invented the Internet.


______________________________________



We posted an article this past week that told us our once strong academic IVY LEAGUES were now simply product factories and being admitted was tied more to who you know---is your family rich----can you be used as a DO ANYTHING WE ARE TOLD PLAYER?

When national media tells us that a CLINTON---BUSH---OBAMA---NOW TRUMP are exceptional----whether exception students with high academic achievement----or whether a successful business person---none of the above have any exceptional qualities----they are staged in positions to create MYTH---Clinton as a RHODES SCHOLAR we are told is quite the genius----OH, REALLY?  Absolutely no one who talks with Clinton would ever say that.  Obama was quite the constitutional scholar being placed as head of HARVARD LAW REVIEW----know what?  That is simply a position ----and Obama is no more intelligent or capable than 99% of WE THE PEOPLE.  He was identified as a TYPE---A PLAYER---HAD THE CONNECTIONS---

Trump as a great business man -----WOW WHAT A MYTH!  

America did indeed have two centuries of great people as leaders-----the early founding fathers were indeed genius----our communities and public schools created real leaders----identified by MERITOCRACY the best and allowed them to excel.  Today----if one of our citizens from a poor community is that gifted student---they are hustled to a global IVY LEAGUE where the are USED TO CREATE PATENTS AND PRODUCTS.

Please stop sending our truly gifted and exceptional citizens to work for GLORY AND HONOR for a FAKE GLOBAL 1% -----stealing our talent and intelligence for THEIR WEALTH at the expense of 99% of WE THE PEOPLE. The top priority to reverse MOVING FORWARD is rebuilding our local community economies and we need all EXCEPTIONAL 99% WE TEAM WE THE PEOPLE. Send those 5% to the 1% players to the benches!


Is the Ivy League’s Admission Bias a ‘Trade Secret’?

Princeton sues to block the government’s release of documents that could show discrimination.

By
Jason L. Riley

March 28, 2017 6:39 p.m. ET Shortly after the Supreme Court’s dispiriting decision last year in Fisher v. University of Texas, which upheld the use of racial preferences in college admissions, Gallup released some encouraging poll results. More than 6 out of 10 white, black and Hispanic respondents said they disagreed with the ruling. And 7 in 10 people—including 76% of ...............



Below we see just this----HOPKINS has a motto---there is no bad idea and they have everyone patenting ideas from citizens in Baltimore to students at all Baltimore university campuses-----we talked a few years ago about the SOARING PURCHASES OF PATENTS by the global 1%-----this is what HOPKINS AND MARYLAND IS DOING. 

The people with the ideas are the 99% of WE THE PEOPLE patenting with those global 1% having absolutely NO ABILITY--TALENT---INTELLIGENCE simply buying those patented ideas.  Keep in mind----patents of products cover broadly an inventor's intentions with his/her product to the point that NO ONE ELSE CAN PATENT ANYTHING LOOKING LIKE IT.

This is COMPLETE CAPTURE OF IDEAS FOREVER -----AND YES, MARYLAND AND HOPKINS LEADS IN THIS GOAL AND THE GLOBAL 1% TIED TO THESE INSTITUTIONS WILL TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN.



And again with that MYTH------the myth of IVY LEAGUEs being better than our once STRONG PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES-----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA killed our public universities BECAUSE they graduated REAL talented leaders.


Hopkins, Maryland among top universities granted patents


By: Tim Curtis Daily Record Business Reporter June 8, 2017
The Hopkins dome. (File)


Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland rank among the top universities in the world at being granted utility patents, according to a list compiled by the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association.

For the third straight year, Hopkins notched a top ten finish. The university finished seventh on the list, its highest finish ever on the list. Hopkins was granted 167 patents in 2016.
Maryland ranked 27th on the list for the second straight year, tying its highest appearance on the list. The university was granted 72 patents last year.

Both universities have been on the list every year in its five-year history.
The list compiles the top 100 universities worldwide who have been granted utility patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

________________________________

The global 1%----people with NO ABILITY-----are rounding up all ideas and patents so in the future NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO CREATE A PRODUCT not tied to them.

At the same time---the patenting process in place for 3 centuries----and several centuries over in old Europe is BEING CORRUPTED---SURPRISE!  CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA have changed the concept of what patenting is-----where legal protections lie----creating conditions for those global 1% to keep control of all ideas FOREVER.

Now, the Robber Baron period of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA was completely ILLEGAL ---completely UNCONSTITUTIONAL and all that was done whether laws, programs, societal structure changes can be VOIDED ---EASY PEASY.  This will be one we need to VOID----and undue all the consolidation of patenting and products into the hands of a TALENTLESS GLOBAL 1%.

Please understand this process because it basically will make it illegal for anyone to manufacture any ordinary product----from shoes to brooms----from disability wheelchairs to can openers.


The global 1% trying to assure that the global 1% have absolutely no avenue towards patenting and manufacturing a product and this will be used to throw those NEWLY RICH thinking they were really MERCHANTS OF VENICE.

What is a Utility Patent?

By Gene Quinn
April 22, 2017



Black’s Law dictionary defines “utility patent” as “the customary type of patent issued to any novel, non-obvious, and useful machine, article of manufacture, composition of matter or process.” A utility patent is one of three separate types of patents that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) can award inventors, with the other two types of patent being: (1) a design patent, which protects only the way a tangible product looks (see also Design Patents 101); and (2) a plant patent, which protects a new variety of asexually reproducible plant.

A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent Office. The right granted by the Patent Office, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, is “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the U.S. or “importing” the invention into the U.S. When the patent obtained is a utility patent the rights obtained cover the way the invention is structured and functions, with exclusive rights being owned by the inventor even if the allegedly infringing product looks different.

Generally speaking, a utility patent will have a term that begins on the date the patent issues and ends on the date that is twenty years from the date the application for the utility patent was filed in the United States. If the patent application that ultimately issues contains a specific reference to an earlier filed U.S. or international application, the term ends twenty years from the filing date of that earlier patent application. This patent term for utility patents is referred to as the “twenty-year term.”



It is, however, possible that a utility patent will last longer than this twenty years. For example, if Patent Office interjects delay into the patent examination process the patent owner will receive additional patent term added. Further discussion of the topic of additional patent term, whether by patent term extension or patent term adjustment, is complex and goes beyond the scope of this article. See MPEP 2710 and MPEP 2733.

To obtain a utility patent a utility patent application must be filed at the U.S. Patent Office. Many inventors will choose to start the process toward obtaining a utility patent by filing a provisional patent application first and then within 12 months filing a non-provisional utility patent application. Whenever you hear the term “provisional patent application” you should generally be thinking about a utility patent application because you cannot file a provisional patent application for a design. In other words, design patent applications and provisional patent applications are unrelated. More specifically, you cannot claim priority to a provisional patent application when you file a design patent application.

In the previous paragraph the term “non-provisional utility patent application” is used. This may seem unnecessarily redundant, and through common usage it may be. Generally speaking when most inventors talk about a non-provisional patent application they are referring to a utility patent application. Technically, however, design patent applications could also be characterized as being non-provisional patent applications, and so too could plant patent applications. Most inventors are not inventing asexually reproduced plants, and in fact last week there were only 31 plant patents issued and since the 1930s there have been fewer than 28,000 plant patents issued all total. Because you cannot file a design provisional application, almost universally when a distinction is being made between provisional patent applications and non-provisional patent applications the conversation is about utility patents.

There is much more to learn about patents and the patent application process, from basic information about whether you need a patent, to patent drafting techniques. In addition to beginning with Invention to Patent 101 – Everything You Need to Know to Get Started, I specifically recommend starting with these tutorial articles:


_________________________________________


'The agreement has a chapter on intellectual property (IP) rights, touching on everything from copyright to trademarks, patents, confidential information, pharmaceutical intellectual property, cyber-squatting of domain names, and internet service provider (ISP) liability'.


As global IVY LEAGUE universities which are now essentially hedge fund global corporate R and D -----spent these several years of Obama buying and cornering from students all ideas on products and gained patent-control----these same global IVY LEAGUES working for global 1% were the drivers from BUSH---TO OBAMA----of writing Trans Pacific Trade Pact. As everyone says---this is not about trade---it is about capturing all government structures to a global corporate tribunal and tribunal court.
What the global 1% are doing as they buy all patents ever registered for several centuries----is write new INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS laws-----redefining concepts such as patents----making sure global 1% control almost any PATENTABLE IDEA.
WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% CAME UP WITH THESE IDEAS---WE DEVELOPED AND DESIGNED THESE IDEAS----THE GLOBAL 1% BUY AND OWN ALL THOSE PATENTS. THEN THEY CREATE MYTHS ABOUT HOW THEY WERE THE EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE BEHIND THESE IDEAS.

As we are shouting REBUILD LOCAL ECONOMIES those global 1% are trying to assure we have no way to manufacture ANYTHING.


The 5% and that 1% are really pretty pathetic human capital
As we are shouting REBUILD LOCAL ECONOMIES those global 1% are trying to assure we have no way to manufacture ANYTHING.

 The reason ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE sounds so appealing to those leaders of developing nations is this----they are assuring leadership in those nations forever along with any route to economic markets from their nation. The problem for those developing nation leaders is of course that global 1% will fight and throw each other under the bus for more and more power and wealth.......there is no winners other than that original OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE----now tied to OLD WORLD FREEMASONRY GROUPS.




December 1 2015

ACCC airs concerns over intellectual property provisions in Trans-Pacific Partnership
  • Gareth Hutchens

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has warned the intellectual property provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership may "tilt the balance" in favour of IP rights holders to the detriment of competition and consumers.


It also warns the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in the agreement risk making it harder for the Turnbull government to pursue domestic reforms in Australia's interest.



The ACCC warns the TPP may burden Australia with IP obligations to other countries that have consequences for competition. Photo: Penny Stephens


The ACCC is one of the most high-profile government bodies to raise such concerns.


The final text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a historic trade pact between 12 countries, including Australia and the United States – was released last month after more than five years of negotiations.
Experts have had four weeks to assess it.



The agreement has a chapter on intellectual property (IP) rights, touching on everything from copyright to trademarks, patents, confidential information, pharmaceutical intellectual property, cyber-squatting of domain names, and internet service provider (ISP) liability.


However, the ACCC has warned – in its submission to the Productivity Commission's inquiry into intellectual property arrangements in Australia – that its IP provisions must be submitted to "robust analysis" to see what their impacts will be on competition and consumers.


It says the TPP may burden Australia with IP obligations to other countries that have significant consequences for competition "over decades".
It does not explain what those consequences could be.
"The ACCC is concerned that the agreement appears to impose IP restrictions beyond existing international treaties, and this may tilt the balance in favour of IP rights holders to the detriment of competition and consumers," its submission says.


It has also warned that the TPP's investor-state dispute settlement provisions need to be analysed properly before the government enacts the agreement.
ISDS provisions give foreign companies the right to sue Australian governments for introducing laws they say have harmed their interests.


"The ACCC agrees with the Productivity Commission's view expressed in its 2013-14 Trade and Assistance Review that such [ISDS] provisions risk impeding domestic reforms in the public interest," the ACCC has warned.


Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says the TPP will be a "gigantic foundation stone" for the economy which will deliver jobs and growth.
Trade Minister Andrew Robb says it will deliver "substantial benefits for Australia" in the rapidly growing Asia-Pacific region.


Australia's legal and academic communities do not agree about the benefits or consequences of ISDS provisions in modern trade agreements.
Many experts say fears about ISDS provisions are overblown.


However, critics have said Australia risks losing billions of dollars in court battles with foreign companies.
TPP partners such as Japan, Vietnam and New Zealand are generally more comfortable with ISDS provisions than Australia.


__________________________________________


This video shows two things----it shows the talent and skill our our 99% of citizens ---we know how to create new products!  It shows as well how broad this global 1% patenting scheme will become.  Remember, the global 1% are from all nations ---not only US---not only UK ------so to meet the terms of ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE----all members must gain wealth and power and this includes PATENTING PRODUCTS.

This is what a global corporate tribunal court will do and know what?  WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% ARE NOWHERE TO BE FOUND.

So, this US citizen who no doubt is probably telling the truth will have NO SUPPORT from our state attorney generals----no support from our US Justice in protecting HIS PATENT----these attorneys will be geared to protect that JAPANESE GLOBAL 1%-----so there will be NO WAY for any global 99% to patent their own inventions.



US Patent Office Fraud

Wisco Kidd


Start at:
Published on Apr 25, 2009
  YOU TUBE VIDEO

The patent examiner assigned to my application is a straight up bold face liar. I called her on her lies then two more agents and a commissioner backed up the whore for a Japanese corporation. So if four public servants lie, it becomes the truth! My application number is 11/647,104 and it is publication number is 2008-0156564-A1. The patent that the government sanctioned criminals say anticipates mine and was "disclosed" by is Miyazawa et al patent # 5,845,727. Mine is called "The Electric Horse(tm): battery powered electric motor bicycle drive train" and pedaling is an option, it self propels! Theirs is called a "driving force auxiliary device"; their drawings and specifications show that you must pedal first before the motor kicks in. Theirs is a geriatric dead weight piece of junk where mine will take a person down the road 10 miles without pedaling. Evidently the Patent Office is filled with narcissistic individuals that lie for foreign corporations and screw American inventors out of their work on a regular basis. The US Marshals, the FBI and the Department of Justice better arrest these soulless corporate shills or they are complacent accomplices to crime themselves. If you are interested in any more information about the crime USPTO is perpetrating against me I'll be glad to supply you with information. So don't even try for a Patent until the system is purged of greedy liars who bow to corporate greed. Thanks for watching.

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Again, it is not our rank and file 99% of citizens as workers being corrupted---it is the process of breaking down our once strong Federal, state, and local government agencies----outsourcing them-----creating many different employment status ---as this one talks of telecommuting from home with no oversight and accountability.
It does not take a corrupt public employee to game and corrupt our US patent system----those employees could have no idea someone high-ranking is doing this fraud----as with all our government corruption.
This is not new---our patent system was strong and protected BEFORE CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---what will happen as TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT MOVES FORWARD is the entire US patent system will disappear----and WE THE PEOPLE will no longer have access to what will now revert to DARK AGES only the global 1% controlling patents/manufacturing/and trade sales.


Clash over patent-office fraud a sign of what’s to come for federal workers

By Lisa Rein December 8, 2016

Patent documents for the Wright brothers’ “flying machine.” (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
House Republicans on Wednesday dressed down a top U.S. Patent and Trademark Office official and a union leader for what they called a weak response to reports of time and attendance fraud by patent examiners.


The rebukes, in response to an inspector-general investigation released this summer, may foreshadow things to come with President Donald Trump in the White House and Republicans controlling Congress.


Trump and conservatives on Capitol Hill have vowed to target the federal bureaucracy, holding civil servants accountable when they perform poorly or break the rules — behavior they say has been tolerated by the Obama administration across the government with few repercussions.


The patent office has struggled in recent years with reports that some of its employees are chronically gaming the system, a practice made easier by the large number who work from home with little oversight by managers.


The agency’s watchdog has found plenty of fodder. In 2014, the inspector general for the Commerce Department, the patent office’s parent, reported that paralegals at the small office that handles patent appeals were told by their supervisors to fudge their timecards because they had so little work to do.


Also that year, The Washington Post reported on the findings of an internal investigation by patent officials after whistleblowers complained that their colleagues and examiners they supervise repeatedly lied about their hours and got overtime pay and bonuses for work they didn’t do.


A 32-page internal report revealed a culture of time and attendance abuse and scant oversight of the patent office’s award-winning telework program. But top patent officials removed the most damaging revelations from the findings, providing the inspector general’s office with an account half the length and with many potentially embarrassing findings removed.
Last year, investigators found that a single patent examiner racked up more than 18 weeks of pay for work he did not do, while his teleworking manager never noticed.


And a 15-month analysis, released in August by Deputy Inspector General David Smith, of thousands of patent examiners’ turnstile badge swipes, computer log-ins and remote computer connections to federal systems showed consistent discrepancies between the time employees reported working and the hours they actually put in.



This time and attendance abuse cost the government as much as $18.3 million, with employees who review patent applications billing the agency for almost 300,000 hours they never worked, investigators found. They said the full scale of the fraud is probably double what the numbers show, because they gave employees the benefit of the doubt: If they badged in once at the agency’s Alexandria headquarters or logged in at home, they got credit for a day of work.


“What is most troubling is that the numbers . . . are a conservative estimate,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee’s subcommittee on government operations, said at a hearing Wednesday.


Meadows called the August report “alarming” and told a top patent official that “internal controls are lacking” to monitor fraud. “I want an accountable workforce going forward,” he said.
Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), the subcommittee’s top Democrat, said the inspector general had not made the case that fraud was widespread, noting the bogus hours accounted for only 1.6 percent of the hours investigators tracked.


The hearing focused on 415 employees who investigators said lied about working at least one day every other week — and 56 employees whose time could not be accounted for an average of three days a pay period.


Russell Slifer, the patent office’s deputy director, told lawmakers that “any abuse of time and attendance . . . is unacceptable.” He said the agency has taken steps to give managers more tools to monitor when their employees are working.


But Slifer defended the agency’s roughly 8,000 patent examiners, saying the vast majority are honest, hard workers, many of whom do not have enough time to review each application on their docket. He also said that many examiners do their research offline, so if they are not logged onto their computers for a day or even two, that does not mean they are playing hooky.
Meadows was furious. “You’ve got over 8,000 employees and 400 or so who are taking advantage of the system,” he told Slifer. “Are you suggesting it’s okay to not log into your computer for two days? Do you think you can actually do your work for 48 hours without logging in?”


“Yes,” Slifer answered.
“Is that the best practice?” Meadows asked. Slifer acknowledged that it was not.
Patent officials have not been able to identify or interview or pursue disciplinary action against the 415 employees they think gamed the system; privacy laws prevent them from matching computer data gathered in the inspector general’s investigation with personnel records.


Slifer said that 30 patent examiners the agency was investigating separately for time and attendance fraud have been disciplined or fired. He did not say over what period or how serious the fraud was.
After the hearing, patent office spokesman Patrick Ross said in an email that officials would not provide further information. Cause of Action Institute, a watchdog group, said it filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the patent office in November seeking detailed records on disciplinary action.


Republicans also criticized the union representing patent examiners, which has an unusually close relationship with management. Pamela Schwartz, president of the Patent Office Professional Association, was first grilled by Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) on her full-time work for the union while on the federal payroll — a legal, widespread practice known as official time. Republicans have vowed to weaken or eliminate it.
Meadows then called Schwartz to account for her advice to the patent examiner known as “Examiner A,” who bilked the government out of tens of thousands of dollars. The union had urged him to resign, which he did, before patent officials could fire him.

Meadows asked the union leader: “So you advised the employee to resign” rather than face the consequences of his actions?


“We advised the employee their record would have less on it if they resigned,” Schwartz said.
Meadows asked her for a commitment that she would negotiate new language in the union contract that would allow managers to see their employees’ work schedules and make it easier to fire employees who commit fraud.

“If they falsify records, are you willing to support their termination?” the congressman asked. Schwartz hedged and would not commit.


“I would need clarification on that,” she said. “It’s possible you could falsify some records and the appropriate level of discipline would not be termination.”

______________________________________



Let's return to that original comment that started our discussion today-----
'Elon Musk's heralded biography is dripping wet with being extraordinary and a visionary. If this is truly not the case, it will still be hard to convince others, so you may loose more in the audience, and thus thwart your own passions and desires in this war'.
If WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% keep allowing only the MYTH as source of information ---will that comment above really be true?
IT WILL BE HARD TO CONVINCE OTHERS SO YOU MAY LOOSE MORE IN THE AUDIENCE THUS THWART YOUR OWN PASSIONS-----
That statement is indeed TRUE-----we do lose some people committed to believing what corporate media---corporate universities----corporate pols and players tell them----
KNOW WHAT? WE ARE SEEING FEWER AND FEWER OF THOSE KINDS OF CITIZENS----WE ARE WAKING UP ----PLEASE CREATE REAL TALKING POINTS FOR LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATIC POLICY!

Our response:
---that is a great description of these supposed EXCEPTIONAL 1%-----they are creating a FICTION to make themselves VIRTUOUS---HERALDED---it mirrors the DARK AGES----this is why we say the ideals of OLD WORLD FREEMASONRY are long gone and today we have LYING, CHEATING, AND STEALING held as virtuous. I have no fear of a disappearing audience----know what? If one is pushed to FICTION in order to attain attention -----THAT IS VANITY'.



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June 23rd, 2017

6/23/2017

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We will finish this week's discussion on education policy as always with a positive spin on how we fix this mess.

Going back to the last ROBBER BARON ERA ----1890s---1920s----we probably saw the same subpriming of our IVY LEAGUES to create the same capture of government that allowed all this systemic Wall Street fraud and political corruption.  Please watch those IVY LEAGUES----they are global 1% and only geared to expanding corporate wealth and making the rich progressively richer----that has been true for a thousand years.

Because those pesky industrialist 1% worked with Wall Street to suck all US and personal wealth back in the ROARING 20S----Robber Baron FDR had to create social policy to bring back wealth from the richest to build an economy for the future----mind you---this was not a LOAN FROM THE RICH----it was clawing back MASSIVE FRAUD just as these few decades---same corporate frauds ----same government corruption on part of pols and players.

This is to where 99% of citizens need to set goals.  We must build structures to claw back that stolen wealth as FDR did.  What WE THE PEOPLE failed to do was EDUCATE, BE INVOLVED IN POLITICS, AND KNOW OUR LEADERS.

So, FDR used that 90% taxation rate on rich and corporations to build our PUBLIC GOVERNMENT STRUCTURES of health care----education K-12 and university----transportation----and global Wall Street CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA simply allowed all that to decay moving all that Federal and state funding geared to maintain these public structures to expanding global 1% and their corporations. 

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR PUBLIC K-12 AND PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES.  WE CAN REBUILD THESE PUBLIC STRUCTURES EASY PEASY.


The 99% do not need that recovered fraud right away----we have plenty of taxation in place right now that simply needs to be REDIRECTED.  Here in Baltimore we could rebuild all public K-12 with that billion dollars each year lost to corporate fraud and government corruption.


The Impact of Relief and Public Works Programs on Socioeconomic Welfare During the 1930s


            Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was famous for its emergency relief and public works programs. How successful were they? As part of a large-scale project, Price Fishback and Shawn Kantor, in conjunction with William Horrace, Michael Haines, and Ryan Johnson, have examined the impact of the various work relief and public works programs on a variety of measures of economic and social welfare. This section briefly describes the main public works and relief projects and then summarizes some of the results of the studies.

The New Deal Relief and Public Works Programs

            As unemployment rates surged past 20 percent, Roosevelt argued that the Great Depression was a national peacetime emergency. For the first time, the federal government became heavily involved in providing the type of relief traditionally provided by state and local governments. During the First Hundred Days the Roosevelt Administration established the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). The FERA distributed federal monies to the states to be used to provide work relief or direct relief to households. The amounts distributed to each family were meant to help them reach a minimum standard of living. The actual payments often fell short of the maximum when relief officials, faced with large case loads and limited funds, cut payments to provide relief for more families. Between November 1933 and March 1933, the administration ran the Civil Works Administration, which immediately put up to 4 million people to work. When it ended, many people were transferred back to the FERA work relief jobs.

            In mid-1935 the Roosevelt administration redesigned the federal government’s role in providing relief. The federal government continued to provide work relief for the unemployed who were “employable” through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), but returned much of the responsibility for direct relief of “unemployables” to state and local governments. Meanwhile, under the Social Security Act of 1935 the federal government established a series of matching grants for the states to help them in providing aid to dependent children, aid to the blind, and old-age assistance of the elderly poor. The Social Security Act also provided funds for states to administer Unemployment Insurance programs. The old-age pension system that we commonly call Social Security began collecting taxes in 1938 and the first pension payments were made in 1940.

            The work relief projects were traditional government projects: building and maintaining public buildings, schools, parks, roads, sanitation facilities, etc. They were not meant to replace private production and work relief pay was designed to be below market wage rates to encourage workers to seek private employment.

            There are another set of programs that have not received as much historical attention. The Public Works Administration (PWA) was an emergency agency established in 1933, while the Public Buildings Administration (PBA) and the Public Roads Administration (PRA) rearranged prior federal agencies that had offered grants to states and cities to build roads and federal buildings outside Washington, D.C. These grants were also used largely to employ workers, but the focus was less on hiring the unemployed and more on building large-scale projects like dams, roads, schools, sanitation facilities, and other forms of civil infrastructure. Public works projects paid substantially better wages than the relief projects, were freer to hire a broader class of skilled workers, and were required to hire only a proportion of people from the relief rolls. By the end of the 1930s, the PWA, WPA, PRA, and PBA had been rolled into the Federal Works Agency (FWA). In 1942, the PWA and WPA emergency programs had been terminated and the PBA and PRA duties were distributed to new agencies.



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Keep in mind the public infrastructure plans under CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA NOW TRUMP are the opposite of FDR----they are calling REBUILDING PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE IN US----handing all that funding to global corporations and their control of these structures---rather than be public schools, public health, public transportation----they will be PRIVATIZED WITH OUTSOURCING.

This is what Baltimore's public school $1 billion bond debt has as a goal----handing these public school buildings to private global investment firms that then give them to global corporations. WE THE PEOPLE must stop this MOVING FORWARD----get that tax revenue back to our communities by getting corporations out of our city hall agencies.


We will not be able to turn this around on a dime---but we must have goals to move in the right direction----back to a strong, broad 20th CENTURY education.  Anyone or any group using the term 21ST CENTURY are tied to global Wall Street.  We do NOT want 21st century economy----we do not want 21st century education----that leads to 99% of US citizens being UNEMPLOYED AND IMPOVERISHED.


Here is how global Wall Street is trying to confuse WE THE PEOPLE yet again in this move to rebuild our public infrastructure -----LAND GRANT VS LAND TRUST.

In Baltimore global Wall Street 5% players and organizations are selling this idea of LAND TRUSTS as being the same as PUBLIC LAND GRANTS.  Instead of designating that land as owned by the PUBLIC-----they are tying CORPORATE NON-PROFITS to these LAND TRUSTS.  We must have PUBLIC LAND TRUSTS in order to rebuild public structures like schools, health care, and other municipal services and works.

For now we are speaking to education-----our public K-12----and our public universities.


Land-grant university


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



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A land-grant university (also called land-grant college or land-grant institution) is an institution of higher education in the United States designated by a state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890.

The Morrill Acts funded educational institutions by granting federally controlled land to the states for them to sell, to raise funds, to establish and endow "land-grant" colleges. The mission of these institutions as set forth in the 1862 Act is to focus on the teaching of practical agriculture, science, military science and engineering (though "without excluding ... classical studies"), as a response to the industrial revolution and changing social class.[1][2] This mission was in contrast to the historic practice of higher education to focus on an abstract liberal arts curriculum. A 1994 expansion gave land grant status to several tribal colleges and universities.
Ultimately, most land-grant colleges became large public universities that today offer a full spectrum of educational opportunities. However, some land-grant colleges are private schools, including Cornell University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


Global Wall Street pols have these few decades been turning our land granted public universities into corporate R and D just as our US IVY LEAGUE universities were----we cannot stop private universities from taking that stance----we can control their influence on our local communities and governance----but we can control how our public land grant universities operate---LET'S JUST DO IT!


In the current economy the terms INNOVATIVE----BEING LEFT BEHIND-----are truly meaningless in a society that builds local economies, small business free market community structures because----we simply need businesses that provide products WE NEED----please think about these public school structures from early in our US public education as resources that are affordable---can operate effectively and efficiently---and can be controlled by our community citizens.  We have in Baltimore nothing but empty buildings ----let's turn them into PUBLIC AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS and use them during the day as OLD-SCHOOL AMERICAN PUBLIC K-12.

Global Wall Street knows this would be the direction WE THE PEOPLE would go in this ONE WORLD ONE COMMONER CORE corporate education so they passed laws REQUIRING TESTS AND EVALUATIONS using corporate tools.  This is the first fight to return control of information and education lessons to our parents, students, and teachers.  

WE ALREADY HAVE ACHIEVEMENT GOALS IN PLACE FOR CENTURIES.

We are not trying to get folks to leave en masse a corporate K-12 structure----but let's look at what those truly being left behind need and expand to all 99% of citizens!


Global Wall Street and that 1% have always been in competition with the world's global 1%------they can have that as WE THE PEOPLE rebuild our local sovereign economies for the 99%----we are not as workers competing with the global labor pool for jobs if we rebuild our local community economies--central of which is our community public K-12 schools.




One-Room Schoolhouses in America

2:17 / 3:06
One-Room Schoolhouses in America

Dave Webb


Start at:
Published on Dec 10, 2012
This video is a short history of one-room schoolhouses, which were common in the United States from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. The schools housed students from grades 1-8 and had only one teacher to handle all of the instruction. By the early 1970s, the one-room school had all but disappeared and was replaced by more consolidated schools that relied on motorized buses to transport students to school.


Remember, those early school houses served multiple public functions----town hall meetings----civic events-----today global Wall Street is handing all that to CORPORATE NON-PROFITS----we need these civic affairs PUBLIC.

WE THE PEOPLE---THE 99% are simply sitting by and watching as these 5% global Wall Street players and pols tell us sorry these are going to close and functions handled by corporate non-profits as was done recently to our PUBLIC COMMUNITY CENTERS.  These municipal buildings used to be our public K-12 schools-----we can rebuild easy peasy ----just return to our roots!


We are allowing all this HYPE about being tied to the WORLD ECONOMY----ALL THIS TECHNOLOGY when we don't even need it. Please as more and more families are pushed out of these education systems ---as the quality deliberately becomes abusive and negligent----let's go back to our US public education roots.

News RoomHome » News Room » News Stories » 2016 News »

Saying Farewell to Middlebury's Municipal Building [video]

With the new Middlebury Town Office up and running, the old municipal building (above) is being removed to create a park.

Media Contact
Ray, Sarah C.
ray@middlebury.edu


Saying Farewell to Middlebury's Municipal Building [video]July 18, 2016





MIDDLEBURY, Vt. -- This summer, a major excavation project is underway at the corner of South Main Street and College Street in Middlebury. The old municipal building, a familiar part of the town landscape since its completion as a high school in 1911, is being demolished and trucked away. The result of this work opens up a new vista of campus that today's residents would only have seen in historic photos or drawings. Replacing the building will be a new park with an estimated completion date of fall, 2016.


In a new video, Professor Emeritus of History of Art and Architecture Glenn Andres tells the story of the building and its interesting role in Middlebury town history.


Removal of the former municipal building and construction of the park are the final steps in a major cooperative effort between the College and town to improve downtown Middlebury. The construction phase of the voter-approved project began in October, 2014, when a College-owned home – Osborne House – was moved from Main Street across the Cross Street Bridge to open up space for a new Town Office on the roundabout in Middlebury. Shortly afterward, construction began on a new town recreation center on Creek Road in Middlebury and on the new town offices. Both buildings are now completed.
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As this article states this one example of early public education started with a GRAMMAR CORPORATION. What was a PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP with a wealthy donor joining in with taxpayers to build a municipal structure. Then for two centuries local taxpayers maintained, supported and used this building. At what point did this building become PUBLIC? We see this kind of corporate structure in our MUSEUMS for example DONATED by wealthy donors to be supported by public taxpayers----now being handed back to private corporations and the rich.
Please look at the legal implications of these early land grant schools. As the video before states many of these land grant schools were converted to public municipalities over time. Today, cities like Baltimore are handing the land on which our public schools are now built BACK TO INVESTMENT FIRMS with these bond deals-----it is deliberate and eliminates centuries of WE THE PEOPLE paying taxes to build---upgrade these public education and municipal grounds.
DO NOT ALLOW THE DEFINITION OF MUNICIPAL----EDUCATIONAL----RECREATIONAL TURN TO GLOBAL CORPORATE PARTNERSHIP CONTROL.
Some schools are indeed PRIVATE----many have long become public.


'So why does the Addison County Grammar School board continue to meet every year? Aren’t its duties done? Not really. The board has the responsibility of ensuring that this plot of land is used “only for municipal, educational and recreational purposes.” Any violations of these injunctions would cause all titles to revert to the Addison County Grammar School Corporation. They still collect certain small rents from parcels of land in the Green Mountains and have given grants to Mary Hogan School'.



This is what today's LAND TRUSTS tied to non--profit foundations are trying to do with all new construction---tie early on land to the rich built with public funds.


Baltimore's history of LAND RENT is tied to this perpetual control of real estate to the same 1% rich----we must not allow this to expand.

We would shout allowing GLOBAL INVESTMENT FIRMS and global 1% control these land grants FAIL TO MEET ORIGINAL TERMS.
  This is why Baltimore's $1 billion school construction bonds were not allowed to be reviewed by the public----we were told all this was proprietary-------and we bet it is not LEGAL.

Past Times: Stories from the Sheldon's Past



The Little-Known Story of a Central Spot in Middlebury


By Jan AlbersThis article appeared in the Addison Independent in September 2007 and is published here with permission.


The Grammar School in 1868. From the Collection of the Henry Sheldon Museum


Why are there children’s swings on the grounds of stately Twilight Hall on College Street? We all know Middlebury College students look younger every year, but surely not young enough for swinging.


Landscapes are full of ghosts, the remnants of uses that have long been supplanted. As our older generation knows, the little story of the College St. swings is tied to the larger history of education in Middlebury. Twilight Hall’s history as a College building only goes back to 1984; but it sits on ground earmarked for education for over two centuries.


The Sheldon Museum staff was reminded of this recently when the board of the Addison County Grammar School asked whether they could donate their records to the Museum. After years spent safely tucked in the vault at the National Bank of Middlebury, Bank President Ken Perine suggested that the Sheldon could better preserve them and make them available to the community. We were honored to oblige. The two leather-bound record books, covering board notes and finances, and a few files, have a lot to tell us about that green and its role in the life of the town.


The Addison County Grammar School is one of the oldest corporations in Vermont, established in 1797 by an act of the new state’s legislature. The bill’s sponsors were the big wigs of the settler generation: town founder Gamaliel Painter, physician Darius Matthews, and three lawyers: Seth Storrs, Samuel Miller and Daniel Chipman. A plot of ground was designated as the site, the strip that now runs from Storrs Avenue to the point on South Main where the Municipal Building stands, bounded on either side by College and Franklin Streets. It was to be “free and forever exempt from taxes.”


The founders had a year to raise $1000 to build the new Grammar School. The account book records the results of the capital campaign: 89 men contributed, most giving $25. A few high rollers chipped in more. Seth Storrs took the lead with $350, Samuel Miller gave $300 and Painter was in for $200. In a few months, the little settlement had raised four times its goal: $4150. (In the same era they would give like amounts towards the Congregational Church, the Court House and the College—staggering amounts in a frontier town where money was in short supply).


The Addison County Grammar School building quickly went up on a site at the western end of the property, between Old Stone Row and Twilight Hall. The Academy, as the new school was called, was a stark white Federal structure, 40 feet by 80 feet and three stories tall.


Why was it so big? Its backers had a larger plan. A year later, in 1798, the same group met with visiting Yale President Timothy Dwight at Samuel Miller’s house on North Pleasant Street. What if they also started a College, sharing the building with the Grammar School’s college preparatory students? Dwight was encouraging, and said he would send one of his best pupils, Jeremiah Atwater, to oversee both institutions. He was as good as his word, and Atwater was soon installed as first head of both ventures.


The Addison County Grammar School board was intimately involved in the running of the school. They oversaw the Grammar School endowments, which included rents from a number of lease lots, many of them in mountain communities like Goshen, Granville and Ripton. They also laid down the rules that ran the place. The trustee book contains a list of regulations for 1828. Boys had to be at least 9 years old. Tuition was $3/quarter for “common English studies” and $4 for “those who are preparing for College” by doing higher math and science. The boys were to study at least six hours a day, and were required to attend public worship on Sunday. By law, any instructor or student was “exempt from taxes and military services”—an early educational deferment.


The new College quickly pushed the Grammar School out of the Academy building. By 1805, the school had moved to the other side of town, sharing space with Emma Willard’s Female Seminary. With a decline in its undergraduate enrollments, the College allowed the school back into the Academy building in 1844.


In 1866, Middlebury School District #4 was created, and it struck a deal to share the town’s educational administration with the Grammar School Board. The following year they tore down the Academy and built the brick school building that stands on the green today. Joint town/board oversight of the Grammar School continued for most of the next century.
Many locals today retain fond memories of their years in the bright classrooms of the ‘graded school.’ The floors were oiled to keep the dust down, a hockey rink was created in the park every winter and the swings went up on the playground.



Middlebury High School was built on the eastern end of the lot. When its second storey burned in a terrible fire in 1954, the High School was rebuilt on Court St. and the remaining ground floor became the Municipal Building. The graded school building was largely supplanted after the building of Mary Hogan School in 1955, although fifth and sixth graders continued to be educated there until the late 1970s. The College bought the old school in 1984 and renovated it, naming it Twilight Hall after Alexander Twilight, the first African American graduate of an American college (Middlebury Class of 1823).


So why does the Addison County Grammar School board continue to meet every year? Aren’t its duties done? Not really. The board has the responsibility of ensuring that this plot of land is used “only for municipal, educational and recreational purposes.” Any violations of these injunctions would cause all titles to revert to the Addison County Grammar School Corporation. They still collect certain small rents from parcels of land in the Green Mountains and have given grants to Mary Hogan School.


The lovely green on College St. is legally entailed as a “public park or playground.” It takes its name—Storrs Park—from the civic-minded Seth Storrs, who had the vision to donate the land to a good cause. (A Storrs Park sign would be a nice addition.) It is maintained by the caring trustees of the Addison County Grammar School. Call them if you have any trouble with the swing sets. And if you want to learn more about the early history of Middlebury’s schools, come to the Sheldon Museum.

___________________________________________


Who is IDEALIST.COM?

This is only one of hundreds of corporate non-profit AFTER SCHOOL programs funded with money slated for our public K-12.  All of this funding should have gone to our local individual public school for them to build whatever after-school program they wanted.

This is the patronage economy and it is killing our public education structure.  So, ONE PERSON---MAYBE TWO are paid a salary while everyone else volunteers instead of allowing our public school staffing hire people as staff for programs developed on site.  This programs and all the time spent to develop it will disappear as soon as that corporate sponsor leaves---as soon as that DIRECTOR/creator of this non-profit leaves---and this is the history of BALTIMORE'S PRIVATIZED PUBLIC PROGRAMS AND SERVICES now including our public K-12.

It is EASY PEASY for our citizens in all communities----even our low-income communities ---to create a space---to create simple educational programs in arts and humanities.  Build a space that is designated PUBLIC-----so it stays in the community. 



BUGS After-School Program
  • Baltimore
  • Nonprofit





Websitehttp://bugsprogram.blogspot.com
Address802 S. Caroline St.
Baltimore
MD
21231
United States

Location


About Us

The BUGS After-School Program is an education program that services 60 students. It is 5 component (Art, Dance, Cooking, Gardening and STEM) focus program that service students from Commodore John Rodgers Elementary/Middle School. Our main campus is located at 802 S. Caroline St.

The ACLU and NAACP are tied right to these UNITED NATIONS CORPORATE EDUCATION structures---they are the leaders of BALTIMORE EDUCATION COALITION -----and they do this because---they are now controlled by far-right wing global Wall Street 5% to the 1%---they are no longer protecting EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESS EDUCATION ----it's WHO CAN GET THAT PATRONAGE BUSINESS.


This is to where all our Federal funding for K-12----for social services now go----this is of course one of hundreds of global NGOs we see working in Washington DC and Baltimore======
It's only about enough education to get a job---

'Job
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EDUCATE FOR EMPLOYMENT
Founded in 2002
Mission
Our vision is to empower youth with the skills and opportunities they need to build careers that create a better future for themselves, their communities and the world.

Our mission is to create job opportunities for unemployed youth in the Middle East and North Africa by providing world-class professional and technical training that leads directly to career-building jobs.


_____________________________________________
Here we have our MARYLAND LAND GRANT university having these several decades slowly been privatized to being that global education corporation.  First, it was made quasi-governmental meaning it was supposedly free from government agency oversight and then was handed to a NATIONAL REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT CORPORATION for operations. Then we saw global online UMUC with presence overseas and not so much in Maryland.  Then of course our Maryland Agriculture went global BIG AG----below we see our University of Maryland LAND GRANT expanded to all 50 states, and internationally.

NONE OF THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE ORIGINAL LAND GRANT. U OF M IS MOVING FORWARD TO BEING THAT GLOBAL IVY LEAGUE PUBLIC UNIVERSITY --- creating tiered educational structures for citizens of Maryland---

with Maryland's aquifers empty from GLOBAL BIG AG we do not have LEADERS in our public university systems ---WE HAVE GLOBAL ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE 1% FOLLOWERS.




“The University of Maryland is proud to serve as the land-grant university for our great state and informing the public about our efforts in research, education and extension is a top priority,” said Cheng-i Wei, Dean and Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station & University of Maryland Extension. “The launch of this website will help us communicate our commitment to providing solutions in communities throughout Maryland.”

The University of Maryland is one of the 238 public research universities, land-grant institutions, state university systems, and affiliated organizations represented by The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. The land-grant university system has affiliations in all 50 states, the four U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, Mexico, and Canada'.




If we look at the expansion of University of Maryland Medical System in Baltimore there is a WALL full of donors to this construction. We KNOW Maryland could have funded this expansion but instead created public private partnerships no doubt with a board controlling land and building. Not the citizens of Maryland---not the citizens of Baltimore---but yet another board. These are our LAND GRANT public universities we have shouted----staff have fought----what we feel is illegal designations. IT IS VITAL WE FIGHT FOR THESE STRUCTURES citizens have supported for over two hundred years with their tax dollars.



WE THE PEOPLE do not want to forget these LAND GRANT UNIVERSITIES were created by Federal funding----supported by Federal and state funding------THEY BELONG TO WE THE PEOPLE--THE 99%. As this article states the Morrill Act was specifically designed to bring education to all citizens----away from only the rich. What is happening during CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA? They have created a tiered educational system moving more and more and more to the rich----and indeed the global 1% and their 2%!


'Thus, the Morrill Act was not a singular initiative, bu
t was an integral plank in a broad strategy for assuring a bright and prosperous future for the United States. As our nation’s Congressional leaders and President envisioned a bright economic future, several points were integral in their founding of Land Grant colleges:


1.
Congress understood that having a food, feed, and fiber system which reliably and perpetually
met the needs of the nation’s population was
essential before progress in other economic
enterprises could be made. They recognized that
the agricultural systems would have to become
efficient enough to “free up” people to become i
nvolved in development of new industries, and
that a significant way to accomplish this was through higher education.


2.
The “mechanic arts” included what we now recognize as engineering, along with strong emphasis
in the sciences including mathematics, chemistry,
physics, etc. These were the core disciplines
for preparing people to become successful in ma
nufacturing and other enterprises as the nation’s
economy diversified. Today, most Land Grants
have outstanding programs in engineering and
sciences.


3.
Additionally, Congress called on Land Grants to prep
are students to be effective and contributing
citizens throughout their lives. They expressed this
in the Morrill Act by saying that the curricula
at Land Grant colleges were to include classical and scientific studies to assure the
liberal
(providing students with a broad background about the many disciplines of human
understanding), as well as
practical
(those things which people do to make a living), education of
students.


4.
Prior to the Morrill Act, higher education throughout
the world’s history had,
in most cases, been
the exclusive province of the wealthy and socially
elite. Congress, through passage of the Morrill
Act, recognized that the nation would benefit fro
m and prosper by having a broad cross section of
society –
the industrial classes
– become well educated through participation in higher education.


The Morrill Act is cited as being the seminal event
that gave rise to broad participation in higher
education in the United States and now throughout the world'.




UMD Announces Land-Grant University System Online Resource

March 9, 2015

Contacts: 
Sara Gavin 301-405-9235
New website provides access to research and extension impact statements
across state and university lines



COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Last week, the University of Maryland announced the official launch of and participation in the National Land-Grant Impacts website, a centralized online resource that highlights the teaching, research, and extension efforts by land-grant universities. Specifically, the website provides access to university or regional-specific impact stories, which document the research and extension programming planned, performed, and implemented by the University of Maryland and other land-grant universities. The website, as a cooperative effort of the land-grant universities, represents a single voice for the Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension arms of the land-grant universities.  



“The Land-Grant Impacts website is a new tool that will better inform the American people and the international community of the significant agricultural research, education and extension impacts taking place at land-grant universities across our nation, which offer practical solutions to today’s critical societal challenges. This website will help policy makers and the public learn more about this work that is partially supported with NIFA funding,” said Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy, director, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture.



Impact statements relay the results and impact of research and extension education programming.  Information lists include contact information for university research and extension project leads and updates on funding, project implementation, or extension education impact.  Impact statements are categorized according to six focus areas: Food Security; Nutrition and Health; Youth, Family, and Communities; Environmental Stewardship; Agricultural Systems; and Energy and Bioproducts. 


“Articulating positive changes as a result of the Agriculture Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension research and education is critical today. The Board on Agriculture Assembly (BAA) celebrates the launch of this web site,” said Barbara Allen-Diaz, vice president, University of California, and chair, BAA Policy Board of Directors. “Having a searchable source for outcomes of our work will help to communicate the value of our research and extension programs in our land-grant universities.”


The website also informs users about the history of the land-grant university system and how its mission has evolved since the systems’ founding.  The University of Maryland, like all land-grant universities, is committed to a three-fold mission of teaching, research and extension. The website fully demonstrates why teaching, research, and extension are interrelated and how they better University of Maryland students, improve communities in Maryland, and benefit the nation. 


“The University of Maryland is proud to serve as the land-grant university for our great state and informing the public about our efforts in research, education and extension is a top priority,” said Cheng-i Wei, Dean and Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station & University of Maryland Extension. “The launch of this website will help us communicate our commitment to providing solutions in communities throughout Maryland.” 


The University of Maryland is one of the 238 public research universities, land-grant institutions, state university systems, and affiliated organizations represented by The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. The land-grant university system has affiliations in all 50 states, the four U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, Mexico, and Canada. 
0 Comments

June 22nd, 2017

6/22/2017

0 Comments

 
As we saw in articles yesterday what RACE TO THE TOP does as a far-right wing global Wall Street corporate education policy is break down equal opportunity---equal access-----goals of giving all US citizens as much education as will benefit them---and brings public education to the LOWEST DENOMINATOR---CHEAPEST PLATFORM.  So now global Wall Street Clinton/Obama 5% players are touting more high school graduates----poor citizens with more degrees as these pathways to achieving these common goals have been lowered and assure students graduating with those certificates will remain in that global labor pool lowest wage employment.  These young citizens tracked to online lessons sitting in front of computers all day are as well DE-SOCIALIZED.  We are not helping to bring these children to better socialization and main streaming----we are pushing them to the margins. 

We said back in 2010 when RACE TO THE TOP was in national news that these online and virtual courses and schools would be THE MAIN STREAM PUBLIC SCHOOL STRUCTURE FOR 99% OF CITIZENS-----BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN CITIZENS.  Why do we see over and over news media and academic research highlighting ONLY BLACK AND BROWN STUDENTS in these structures? 

BECAUSE WHITE CITIZENS NEED TO THINK ----THIS IS NOT HAPPENING TO MY CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN----JUST GLOBAL LABOR POOL POOR.

Global Wall Street would really be in trouble if white middle-class parents realized their children are going to go to these corporate schools being built for today's poor ------
 
We have made clear years ago that in Baltimore---city center public schools K-12 are already being tiered to accept only EXCEPTIONAL STUDENTS.  Today they are filled with our low-income students still living in city center----then they move those families out and we see a middle-class student ----then it will be the BEST OF THE BEST GLOBAL PRE-K -CAREER STUDENT.  What we see in city center today are average middle-class families ----they will be those moved to NW AND NE BALTIMORE AND THOSE ONLINE CORPORATE CAMPUS SCHOOLS.


Office of Specialized Services-Department of Multiple Pathways

The Re-engagement Center



Learn more about the 
Re-engagement Center



The Re-engagement Center (REC) is a new service available to Baltimore City residents. The REC serves as the outreach vehicle to bring students, who have previously dropped out of Baltimore City Public Schools , are at high-risk of dropping out, or have been previously incarcerated, back to the school system and also support students who are in acute crisis. The priority of the center is to help students identify the most appropriate support and educational environment in order to minimize the likelihood of dropping out, as well as, decrease multiple transfers due to significant lack of progress towards high school graduation.
The Re-engagement Center provides students and young and adults with information and placement services in a consolidated location ultimately leading to the attainment of a high school diploma or equivalent. It also links students to variety of school based and community resources.


Re-engagement Center Intake Path
Sample Intake Process

 





If you're interested in receiving a High School Diploma or equivalent, then the Re-engagement Center is the place to start. Please feel free to call or visit the Re-engagement Center during business hours, Monday through Friday; an appointment is not necessary, however, you can always call to make sure they have staff awaiting your arrival. Baltimore City Public Schools
Re-engagement Center 
200 E. North Ave 
Baltimore, MD 21202
(443) 642-4220

__________________________________________


If we look at news media of all kinds----we see BALTIMORE IS IN CRISIS-----across the board in every aspect-----Baltimore is becoming that third world city.  It started during SCHMOKE ----grew during O'Malley----soared during Rawlings-Blake ----and PUGH will be the one taking this US CITY DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE to WORLD BANK/IMF bailout.

The crisis is ECONOMIC STAGNATION deliberately  created to create THIS CRISIS.  The economics of Baltimore controlled by Wall Street Baltimore Development and Johns Hopkins during SCHMOKE -----became the economic crisis caused by GLOBAL WALL STREET BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT AND GREATER BALTIMORE AND GLOBAL JOHNS HOPKINS.

See the transition?  What was a local Baltimore Development and a local Johns Hopkins grew to GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND GLOBAL WALL STREET all from steering any Federal funding meant for low-income communities to growing these few institutions globally.

THIS INCLUDED ALL FEDERAL FUNDING FOR K-12----ERGO OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN DECAY.  THIS IS THE CRISIS IN BLACK EDUCATION ----THE 5% TO THE 1% POLS AND PLAYERS CREATED POLICY THAT ALLOWED THIS TO OCCUR.

If we look to our rural areas----if we look to our poor white urban communities----THAT EDUCATION CRISIS is there as well---yet we call this a BLACK EDUCATION CRISIS IN OUR US CITIES.  

What black citizens in low-income communities will tell us----we have to get rid of parents and children that have no discipline-----that do not care about education.  KNOW WHAT?  This coming economic crash and deepening and broad Depression will take 99% of citizens to this state of poverty and parental fights just to survive and keep their children alive and safe.


IF WE ARE BUILDING A STRUCTURE THAT REMOVES THOSE STRUGGLING TODAY----WE CREATE A STRUCTURE HAVING ONLY THAT FOR 99% OF CITIZENS.

Because our urban poor are vulnerable to global Wall Street players-----we see this privatization of K-12 soaring with black-owned education businesses----whether a MAGIC JOHNSON/CONGRESS WOMAN WATERS national charter chains or local small business education structures like these SPECIALTY DESIGNER INSTRUCTION STRUCTURES. Global Wall Street is pushing all this-----these corporate education structures fill Foreign Economic Zones in Asia---as in South Korea and China-----and all of what looks like local professionals building education structures for our low-income students will be taken by those global education corporations.


Life in Baltimore: A look at the Crisis in Black Education, Part I
Brenda Bowe Johnson | 6/16/2017, 6 a.m.

Mary Chavis Radcliffe, retired Baltimore City Public School System administrator, and president of the Julian Chapter of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History addresses the current crisis in black education, which is the organization’s theme for 2017. Courtesy Photo


BALTIMORE — This is Part 1 of three part series about the current crisis in black education.


The 2017 theme for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) is The Crisis In Black Education." Guided by a vision to study and acknowledge the significance of the historical and cultural experiences of people of African descent, the founder, Dr. Carter G. Woodson crafted a plan of action that not only remains relevant in today's challenging environment but essential to our successful continuation and growth.


With the current political environment and the tainted vision of the secretary of education, it is imperative that we address the education of our children.
Across the nation school districts are under siege, especially in urban districts with limited resources, high dropout rates and low graduation outcomes. We have the capabilities to ensure that all students succeed.


This discussion is to provide commentary, which should lead to an immediate call to action.
In the coming months, educators will be interviewed for their perspective on the state of black education. At the conclusion of the series, a community panel discussion will take place addressing these issues.

The first educator to address the questions is Mary Chavis Radcliffe, retired administrator, Baltimore City Public School System and president of the Julian Chapter of ASALH.


BBJ: Do you think that there is a crisis in black education? If so or if not, why?


MCR: Yes, there is a crisis in black education that has its roots in the rationale that was used by Europeans asserting that one’s skin color reduced him to a position of being less than a human being. This notion led to the abduction and inhumane treatment of Africans as they were transported across the Atlantic and forced into involuntary servitude.


Once in America, the founding father of this nation used every vehicle available to keep Africans in slavery. One such strategy was creating laws making it illegal for slaves to learn to read and write. The denial of literacy to slaves set the groundwork for centuries of inequality in this nation that still exist today.


Even after the end of slavery, the establishment of schools for African Americans, the repealing of Jim Crow Laws via Supreme Court Decisions, and the passage of the Civil Right Legislation of the 60s and 70s, there is [still] a disparity between the education available to the majority of African American children and their caucasian counterparts that must be classified as a “crisis.” In this nation, every child has the right to a free, equal education. There is an inequity in the funding of schools across the nation. The monies appropriated for the funding of urban schools are not adequate to meet the needs of the student populations, while rural and suburban schools have sufficient resources to meet the students needs. The quality of the education provided for children should not be based on the socio-economic background or the zip code in which a family lives.


BBJ: What are the main issues facing the education system especially in urban areas?

_____________________________________

Baltimore totally ignored EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESS education AMENDMENTS TO US CONSTITUTION and pretended that because the Maryland Assembly played fast and loose with getting state and Federal funds to our US city schools----that BALTIMORE CITY did not have that revenue source---when Baltimore has always had a revenue source enough to fund public schools.

Now we see that crisis in violence coming from several years of continuous lay-offs of local employees replaced by global corporations bringing workers from other states---our from global labor pools.  The few remaining middle-class jobs held by black citizens often tied to public sector are gutted----all public teachers have been laid off-----and replaced by PRIVATE TEACH FOR AMERICA-----VISTAS----ANYONE UNEMPLOYED WITH A PULSE----as long as it is not the current public school teachers and their unions.

Meanwhile, black contractors removed from Baltimore Board of Estimates going to Asian and Latino immigrant contractors----means more and more of our US city black citizens have lost not only businesses and jobs----but those once middle-class black citizens who used to support extended families no longer can. 

ALL THESE POLICIES WERE IMPLEMENTED BY BALTIMORE CITY COUNCIL----AND MAYOR----BALTIMORE MARYLAND ASSEMBLY POLS----ECONOMIC POLICY WRITTEN BY GLOBAL WALL STREET BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT AND GLOBAL JOHNS HOPKINS.


Yes, Baltimore Education Coalition-----Baltimore URBAN LEAGUE-----Baltimore NAACP-----our Historically Black Colleges have been tied to ROBBER BARON FEW DECADES OF Clinton/Bush/Obama and now these very, very, very bad corporate education policies.



This is to where 99% OF WE THE PEOPLE need to look as to why US cities are so violent.



Chicago's homicide crisis gets national attention, but Baltimore's is much worse

Chicago's homicide crisis gets national attention, but Baltimore's is much worse






Chicago saw 762 murders in 2016, according to police there, the highest total in 20 years and enough to spark national outrage. President-elect Donald Trump tweeted on Monday that "If Mayor can't do it he must ask for Federal help!" The TV news program 60 Minutes aired a segment on Sunday titled "Crisis in Chicago," calling conditions there like a "war zone" and noting "a drop in the kind of police work that law enforcement says is critical to preventing crime." The report found that morale in the department had plummeted after the killing of Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old who was shot 16 times by a police officer while moving away from him, and activity like arrests and citizen stops had dropped drastically. Mayor Rahm Emanuel this fall outlined a plan to address the problem by filling vacancies and adding new officers in patrol and supervisory positions to expand the force to 13,500, a costly step at a time when the city is facing severe budget problems but one he says is necessary to protect public safety.


But if the violence in Chicago is a crisis demanding an all-hands-on-deck approach, what would you call the situation in Baltimore?


We ended 2016 with 318 killings. Extrapolate that to a population the size of Chicago's, and you'd get 1,390 — nearly double the number that has sparked national outrage. Meanwhile, the police force in Chicago that Mayor Emanuel and others believe is stretched unconscionably thin is, proportionally, larger than Baltimore's is today. Before Mr. Emanuel's hiring surge, Chicago had about 45 officers per 10,000 people; if he succeeds in bringing the force to 13,500, the ratio will be about 50 per 10,000. In Baltimore, the sworn staff now stands at 2,528, or about 41 per 10,000 residents.



The size of the police force isn't everything. The quality of the officers in terms of training and experience matters. So do deployment strategies and efforts to engage the community. But consider this: According to the Department of Justice, Baltimore had substantially more officers — 2,861 — in 1990, and more than 3,000 by 2000, numbers that increased even further during the O'Malley era. The number of officers now is historically low at a time when rates of murder and other violence are historically high. We doubt this is a coincidence.


The Sun's Kevin Rector reported Monday on the department's annual community policing report, which the legislature required it to compile after the rioting following Freddie Gray's death shone a spotlight on the poor relations between officers and those they are sworn to protect. It showed not only a drop in the overall size of the force in the last year — from 2,646 to 2,528 — but also in the number of officers working "sector patrol" or neighborhood beats. Fewer than 1,000 officers were doing those jobs, down from 1,102 a year before, despite what the report describes as the department's renewed commitment to such patrols as a key component to efforts at improving police-community relations.


Meanwhile, homicide detectives are swamped with unsolved murders from 2016 and 2015. They cleared less than 40 percent of cases last year, a slight improvement over the year before but calamitous by historical standards; city police used to clear in excess of 80 percent of cases. Clearance rates in the United States have been in decline for years, but the national average is still better than 20 points higher than Baltimore's rate. Johns Hopkins gun violence expert Daniel Webster says there isn't much good data on the relationship between unsolved homicide and non-fatal shooting cases and additional violence, but it stands to reason that there would be one. Cases that aren't cleared by police are too often cleared by the streets, leading to the type of reciprocal killings that plague Baltimore.


The city has deliberately reduced the size of the police force in the last two years as a budget cutting measure, both by eliminating positions and holding vacancies open. Mayor Catherine Pugh clearly needs to rethink that policy, but it may take more than that. The decline in the department's staffing comes at a time when officials are redoubling their recruitment efforts, particularly with an aim to get more city residents on the force. The department held 29 recruiting events in the city in 2016, up from 12 in 2015, though less than 20 percent of the force currently lives in Baltimore, down slightly from the previous year. Mayor Pugh has suggested added incentives to get people to join the force and live in the city, and we certainly support those efforts. But the department also needs to consider its advancement and retention policies so it doesn't continually serve as a training ground for officers who decamp for the suburbs when they gain some experience.



And there's a lot more to the department's staffing than just the raw numbers. How many officers are on light duty, medical leave or military leave? How many officers are nearing retirement? Has the department been able to staff its new patrol schedule effectively, given the declines in the sworn force? The City Council needs to dig into the details. Baltimore is in the midst of a homicide crisis. It should start acting like it.


_________________________________________
These few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA ROBBER BARON FRAUD and government corruptions tied to that 5% to the 1% -----stem from these same few decades of our US IVY LEAGUE admittance becoming crony-----rather than admitting the BEST OF THE BEST----these Ivy Leagues wanted the BEST CONNECTED and that included our political players.  As politics became crony so too did the pathway to entering an IVY LEAGUE.  This is why we shout all the time----Ivy League campuses do not KNOW BEST----THEY ARE NOT MORE INTELLIGENT----the US did these few centuries have our IVY LEAGUES interested in the best----but admissions during ROBBER BARON DECADES brought PLAYERS.

This is how our IVY LEAGUES are capturing government at local, state, and Federal level with 5% to the 1% players often tied to GREEKS AND FREEMASONS doing ANYTHING THEY ARE TOLD.

This is of course from where RACE TO THE TOP corporate education policy comes------taking GLOBAL IVY LEAGUE CAMPUSES out of US city government-----as Stanford, Berkeley----as Johns Hopkins---as Princeton, Columbia----as Harvard, Yale----University of Chicago, Northwestern ====

These are the sources of the 5% FOR THE MOST PART----let's get rid of these global Wall Street players to rebuild our strongest in the world PUBLIC EDUCATION K-UNIVERSITY with equal opportunity and access for all!!

The revolution of 1960s-70s for civil rights and civil liberties was not only women and black citizens----it was all labor----it was veterans---it was disabled---EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL was that 99% ----rather than the old 1% landed gentry ESPECIALLY AS REGARDS EDUCATION POLICY!


This article written in 2004---Bush era simply recognizes what soared during Clinton era 1990s-----this is the swing from strong capable leadership coming from our Ivy Leagues---to simply



LYING, CHEATING, STEALING, NO MORALS, NO ETHICS, NO US RULE OF LAW, NO GOD'S NATURAL LAW----PRAGMATIC NIHILISM----GLOBAL WALL STREET NEO-LIBERALS.




Lexington

The curse of nepotism


A helping hand for those who least need it

Jan 8th 2004



AMERICA likes to think of itself as the very embodiment of the spirit of meritocracy: a country where all people are judged on their individual abilities rather than their family connections. The American Revolution swept away the flummery of feudal titles. Thomas Jefferson dreamed of creating a “natural aristocracy”. Benjamin Franklin sniped that “a man who makes boast of his ancestors doth but advertise his own insignificance.”


The Founding Fathers had a rather narrow view of who should be admitted to their meritocratic republic, to be sure. But today most Americans believe that their country has done a reasonable job of getting rid of the most blatant forms of discrimination towards blacks and women and building a ladder of educational opportunity. Americans are far more confident than Europeans that people deserve what they get in life.

REALLY????



But are they right? The more you look at modern America, the more you are struck by how frequently it departs from the meritocratic ideal. George Bush's Washington is a study in family influence: look at the Powells, the Chao/McConnells, the Scalias and the Cheneys, not to mention the Shrub himself.

The biggest insult to meritocracy, however, is found in the country's top universities. These institutions, which control access to the country's most impressive jobs, consider themselves far above Washington and its grubby spoils system. Yet they continue to operate a system of “legacy preferences”—affirmative action for the children of alumni.



These preferences are surprisingly widespread. In most Ivy League institutions, “legacies” make up between 10% and 15% of every freshman class. At Notre Dame they make up 23%. They are also common in good public universities such as the University of Virginia. Legatees are two to four times more likely to be admitted to the best universities than non-legatees.


America's universities are probably the most politically correct places on the planet. So what are they doing pandering to the (overwhelmingly white) children of the overclass? University administrators offer two justifications. The first may be crudely characterised as fund-raising. Universities are always asking their alumni for a helping hand and for money. The least the alumni can expect in return is that the universities will take a careful look at their college-age offspring.

But is it reasonable for universities to use their admissions systems as tools of alumni management—let alone fund-raising? Universities are supposed to be guardians of objective standards. They are also the recipients of huge amounts of public money as well as private donations. In short, there is no need to.


The second justification is that alumni preferences aren't really preferences at all. William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard College, considers them simply an “ever so slight tip”. He admits that 40% of the children of alumni get into Harvard compared with only 11% of ordinary applicants, but says that is mainly because of self-selection. Successful legatees have almost the same test scores as successful non-legatees.


Given the secrecy of the admissions process, this argument is hard to verify. It is worrying that a Department of Education report in 1990 concluded that the average Harvard legacy student is “significantly less qualified” than the average non-legacy student in every area except sports. But even if you give Harvard the benefit of the doubt, the system is still a disgrace. This is a university that has to turn down more than 2,000 high-school valedictorians every year. If you are going to offer a “slight tip” to anyone, why offer it to people who are already on the inside track—who not only come from privileged homes, but also have an insider's knowledge of how the admissions system works?


There are signs that patience with this practice is wearing thin. John Edwards has made it a theme of his presidential campaign, denouncing it as “a birthright out of 18th-century British aristocracy, not 21st-century American democracy”. Teddy Kennedy has drafted a bill that will force universities to publish data on the racial and socio-economic make-up of their legatees.


Political inbreeding


But there are two big obstacles to the Democrats rallying around the banner of meritocracy. The first is that the left overwhelmingly supports affirmative action for minorities, a policy far more acceptable than affirmative action for the rich, but which rests on the same belief that people should be judged on something other than their individual abilities. If the Supreme Court had ruled against affirmative action earlier this year, the legacy system would have been next in the firing line; but in reprieving affirmative action, the court also reprieved the legacy system.



The second reason is that much of the Democratic establishment is also riddled with nepotism. Howard Dean was a legatee at Yale University, just like George Bush. The front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 is Hillary Clinton. Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats' leader in the House, is the daughter of a five-term Maryland congressman turned Baltimore mayor—and one of her chief challengers for the job was Harold Ford, who succeeded his father in a Tennessee seat.


Perhaps Teddy Kennedy's name-and-shame strategy will have the desired effect. Perhaps an infusion of new blood will make American politics a little less inbred. Perhaps an improvement in inner-city schools will mean that affirmative action can be allowed to wither on the vine. But none of this seems very likely. For most of its life, America has usually been marching towards the meritocratic ideal. Now it is getting harder to ignore the accusation that it is slouching in the opposite direction.

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Here is that right wing think tank writing RACE TO THE TOP with global Wall Street------HERITAGE/CATO-----the Federalist ---are all behind this global corporate vocational pre-K to career global labor pool replacing our strong US public school education.  They are COMMONER CORE-----

Here we see that SCHOOL CHOICE policy that is simply THAT CORPORATE SCHOOL CHOOSES YOU-----and no one will be more exposed to ONLINE LESSONS----VIRTUAL SCHOOLS---as in our US cities---than our rural citizens.  Yes, many white communities.

The same corporate charter pre-K - career education policies being installed in US cities low-income schools is being installed in our rural communities----as Maryland Eastern Shore----Maryland western counties.  This links our rural students into the same GLOBAL LABOR POOL VOCATIONAL TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT tied to INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION tied to United Nations tied to global Foreign Economic Zones.


ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE ON COMMONER CORE FOR 99% OF GLOBAL CITIZENS INCLUDING WE THE PEOPLE BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN US CITIZENS.


  • Education
Kids In Rural Areas Need School Choice, Too
Particularly in America’s rural areas and small towns, student performance is often as bad as it is in urban centers.
By Collin Roth and Will Flanders
May 31, 2017



When someone mentions the phrase “failing school,” what image comes to mind? For most, it will be an urban school with a significant population of disadvantaged, minority kids. While this image is no doubt reasonable—many of the worst school districts in the country are urban—the problems of poor schools in other areas are too often forgotten. Particularly in America’s rural areas and small towns, performance doesn’t look all that different from central cities.



For instance, the lowest-performing school district in the state of Wisconsin is not Milwaukee. It’s tiny Cambria-Friesland, population 767. Nevertheless, the story of education reform in the state of Wisconsin, like most areas around the country, has overwhelmingly focused on the challenges of urban education.


The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the nation’s first private school voucher program, was started 25 years ago with the goal of providing low-income, mostly minority students with options other than a public school system that was failing them. And with good reason. Thousands of poor, mostly black students were desperate for options.


But an unintended byproduct of this urban focus has been an education reform movement that has largely ignored the plight of rural communities. While charter schools and voucher programs marched ahead in city after city, rural areas were left behind. These communities are smaller, less concentrated, and often out of view. In other words, they are easier to ignore.


Many Rural Kids Are Being Shortchanged


The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) conducted a recent study of education in rural Wisconsin. We found that, once factors like economic status are taken into account, rural schools are some of the worst performers in the Badger State. Relative to their peers at urban and suburban schools, students in rural school districts have the lowest ACT scores, are more likely to need remedial classes if they attend college, and perform equally poorly on statewide tests as urban schools.



This is a crisis. It deserves a response as serious and urgent as the response to the crisis in urban education. But it hasn’t. Despite challenges like declining enrollment, high poverty, and poor student outcomes, the preferred response from lawmakers is tired and familiar: increased spending on K-12 public schools. This, despite studies and experience that have shown no correlation between increases in per-pupil spending and student outcomes.



So why is it that with a crisis in urban education, reformers have recognized that the key to improving student outcomes is expanding education options, often in the form of charter schools and private school choice, but for rural and small-town communities they give a collective shoulder shrug?



Study after study has shown a boost in education outcomes for students who are given the option of attending a school that fits their needs. Whether it is increased test scores, increased graduation rates, or lower incarceration rates, school choice has a proven track record that gets results. In addition, it’s popular. In Milwaukee, more than 27,000 students have elected to attend a private school through the voucher program.



Nevertheless, expanding options to our rural communities has met excessive regulation, arbitrary enrollment and income caps, and a disappointing amount of skepticism. In Texas, rural legislators have consistently torpedoed school choice legislation, yet another time just last week, failing to see the benefits of expanding options to their communities. In Wisconsin, lawmakers placed severe limitations on the nascent statewide voucher program that hinder growth.



Three Ways to Boost Rural School Choice

Rural school choice deserves a chance to succeed. Here’s how.
Reduce Red Tape


Of the 800 private schools in Wisconsin, 1 out of 5 have addresses in rural counties. But of that group, just 1 out of 7 private rural schools are participating in Wisconsin’s parental choice program. That’s because the statewide voucher program is significantly more restrictive than those available in urban areas like Milwaukee and Racine.


Currently, only 1 percent of students in a particular school district are allowed to enroll, and income caps cut out families who would qualify in the state’s urban programs. This has created waitlists of more than 500 in the last year due to enrollment caps. School leaders see the excessive regulation and hamstrung growth as a reason to pass up participation or expansion.


Trust Parents


Wherever it has been tried, school choice is popular. Even with a lower population density, rural parents have been willing to commute longer distances to provide their children with a better educational opportunity. For example, Notre Dame La Baie is a private school in the choice program located in Green Bay. While Green Bay is a larger city (at least by Wisconsin standards!), many small-town and rural areas are within driving distance.


More than 40 percent of the students enrolled in Notre Dame La Baie travel more than eight miles to school each day. When an opportunity for a better education exists, many rural parents are willing to make the effort to provide it to their child.


Rural School Choice Can Look Different


Expanding school choice to rural and small-town communities won’t necessarily look the same as it does in urban centers. But it doesn’t make the task any less urgent. While it would be naïve to expect a sudden explosion of new schools in rural America, long-established parochial schools are mainstays in many communities. Supply does exist.


In addition, school choice can come in the form of course choice, whereby a local private school and a local public school can provide students in a given community new options in the form of different courses. This will benefit students with different interests, ambitions, and needs. A robust voucher program can open these doors.


It’s increasingly urgent to change the perception of school choice away from something that is only reserved for the disadvantaged kids in downtown Milwaukee or Washington DC to something that will provide new opportunities for students wherever they might live.


Wisconsin legislators can make a difference by lifting the impediments to growth by eliminating stifling enrollment and income caps. Around the country, policymakers and the education reform movement ought to apply their principles consistently, recognizing that education choice can work for all families. School choice has been found to increase test scores and graduation rates, and even to reduce the risk that children will become involved in the criminal justice system.


Fighting for more and better education options should be a goal for all of our communities.

__________________________________________

'Education for Sustainable Development
With a world population of 7 billion people and limited natural resources, we, as individuals and societies need to learn to live together sustainably'.




Having a global 1% and their 2% teaching a global 99% what SUSTAINABILITY will look like as an Earth spins to LEVEL 5 CLIMATE CHANGE is not what WE THE PEOPLE want as leadership. All the NGOs in our US cities are tied to UNITED NATIONS---controlled by global banking 1% neo-liberals. They are NOT MAKING GOOD DECISIONS FOR GLOBAL 99%.


What we are seeing built is that INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION----ILO----installing GLOBAL COMMONER CORE and these same testing and evaluation structures as in US -----in all developing nation schools. The goal is to identify the BEST OF THE BEST IN THE WORLD----that global 1-3% of children ----with a mad rush of global corporations to recruit them to their Foreign Economic Zones campuses. As we see in US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones----already that next tier---those global children above average tracked into white collar professional training -----sent into the global labor pool where Foreign Economic Zone campuses will bring these workers----then those average and below average students will be tracked into global factory and computer coding. This is what we have been seeing these several years as global labor pool expansion in US cities begins to FLOOD.
Remember, global technology is killing most employment platforms so what happens to those 90% of global citizens being average or below---or those not able to navigate these COMMONER CORE structures at all? THEY ARE THE SUSTAINABILITY LOSERS. These United Nations websites and videos make it seem GLOBAL BANKING WANTS TO HELP ALL GLOBAL CITIZENS -----that is BUNK.
Please fight for local control of education-----building local economies keeping global corporate campuses at bay----this is what REAL sustainability and REAL full free market business and employment will look like for 99% of WE THE PEOPLE.



Global Wall Street has built a stock market platform for all these global education corporations able to market their wares to these developing nations in profiteering----nothing to do with what is good for our children.

World Bank this past decade funded the drilling of the deepest connection to an African water aquifer all done with a goal of providing water for a Foreign Economic Zone global corporate campus and factory-----this aquifer is one of the last remaining fresh water aquifers in Africa and global 1% say----OH, IT WILL LAST MAYBE 40 years ---the life of that newly built global factory. This is SUSTAINABILITY to United Nations and these African citizens will be taught to be frugal with water ----will be told water is becoming scarce---will tell these children WATER IS GONE.

 This is exactly what far-right global Wall Street GLOBAL GREEN CORPORATION is teaching US citizens----


Leading Education 2030

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is an ambitious, aspirational and universal agenda to wipe out poverty through sustainable development by 2030.


When it adopted the new Agenda in September 2015, the international community recognized that education was essential for the success of all 17 of its goals.  Ambitions for education are essentially captured in Sustainable Development Goal 4 which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.

Through the Incheon Declaration adopted at the World Education Forum in May 2015, UNESCO, as the United Nations’ specialized agency for education, was entrusted to lead and coordinate the Education 2030 agenda with its partners. The roadmap to achieve the ten targets of the education goal is the  Education 2030 Framework for Action, adopted in November 2015, which provides guidance to governments and partners on how to turn commitments into action.


Education 2030 goes beyond past attempts to ensure access to basic education, as set out in the Education For All goals and the education-related Millennium Development Goal 2 of 2000-2015.



The Global Education 2030 Agenda new expanded scope:
  • reaches from early childhood learning to youth and adult education and training;
  • emphasises the acquisition of skills for work;
  • underlines the importance of citizenship education in a plural and interdependent world;
  • focuses on inclusion, equity and gender equality;
  • and aims to ensure quality learning outcomes for all, throughout their lives.
The main responsibility for implementing the agenda lies with governments, with UNESCO and partners providing support through coordinated policy advice, technical assistance, capacity development and monitoring of progress at global, regional and national levels.
_____________________________________
We shouted several years ago to our AFRICAN friends that a WORLD BANK/IMF---BILL GATES is not investing millions of dollars to secure the deepest of fresh water for citizens of Africa---they are attaining the water needed for AFRICAN FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES filled with global factories building BILL GATES' TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS.
If we had leaders who were not SOCIOPATHS----they would be accessing that water and building SMALL BUSINESS LOCAL ECONOMIES that would REALLY be sustainable. That fresh water aquifer system would last African citizens living simply for CENTURIES-----but UNITED NATIONS SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION will teach African citizens ----these global corporations are GREEN TECHNOLOGY saving your fresh water ----while 99% of African citizens are told to use water sparingly and then ---in a few decades---VOILA---UNITED NATIONS SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATIONS SAYS----FRESH WATER IN AFRICA IS GONE.
'Money on its own, however, will not solve drinking-water problems. About 30 percent of Africa’s water wells are no longer operational, so donors like the World Bank, the Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development need to get serious about maintenance and sustainability of services'.
This is what GLOBAL COMMONER CORE and allowing all our public schools and education taken by global Wall Street does---it hands all power of information to SOCIOPATHS not working in the interest of WE THE PEOPLE THE 99%. Same thing with fresh water policy happening in US----

 It is not helping to lift citizens out of poverty---it will employ them in global sweat shop enslavement for a few decades and then BYE BYE SAY GLOBAL CORPORATIONS SORRY THERE IS NO FRESH WATER.



Africa’s Hidden Water Wealth
By ALAN MacDONALDJUNE 17, 2012

Edinburgh
FOR a continent where more than 300 million people lack access to safe drinking water, Africa is sitting on a lot of it.


The journal Environmental Research Letters recently published a set of maps of groundwater resources in Africa, the results of two years of research led by the British Geological Survey and financed by the British Department for International Development. The research showed that in Africa the volume of water naturally stored underground within the cracks and pores of rocks is much larger (possibly 20 times more) than the 8,000 cubic miles of water visible in lakes and rivers. This water holds enormous potential to help people and nations move out of poverty, produce more food and better adapt to climate change. But it also could lead to tensions between neighboring countries.


At least 45 transboundary aquifers have been identified in Africa so far, and competition sometimes leads to serious tensions. However, since groundwater moves very slowly (usually less than three feet per day), shared aquifers should be seen as vehicles for cooperation, rather than competition, and identifying and characterizing the aquifers is the first step.


Recognizing this, in December 2011 the United Nations General Assembly called upon its members to begin working toward a common goal: the effective management of their shared groundwater resources.

At the moment, the main constraint on supplying safe drinking water is lack of money. If there is sufficient investment in investigating groundwater, and water wells are carefully sited, it is usually possible to drill a well that can provide enough safe water for communities at a reasonable cost. Groundwater responds slowly to droughts and floods and, as a result, is much more resilient to climate variability than water supplies drawn from rivers or ponds. Therefore, serious and sustained investment in water wells and pumps will help provide a reliable and secure water supply to a significant number of those without safe drinking water.



Money on its own, however, will not solve drinking-water problems. About 30 percent of Africa’s water wells are no longer operational, so donors like the World Bank, the Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development need to get serious about maintenance and sustainability of services. New water supplies tend to gravitate to the better off, so investment in new services should be aimed at more remote areas where many of the poorest live; and with increased groundwater use comes the need for more qualified and experienced people to develop and manage the resource.


A major concern is that people may use the groundwater for whatever seems like a good idea at the time in a way that is unsustainable. There is much discussion about food insecurity in Africa, and at first glance irrigation based on groundwater seems like the perfect answer. However, it is not that simple. Our maps show that away from the large aquifers under the Sahara there are not many places where you can drill a water well and expect to pump out enough water to sustain center pivot irrigators like those in Nebraska. A potential compromise may be to encourage small-scale irrigation using lower yielding water wells. This approach will also require significant investment in expertise within Africa in groundwater development and governance and in reducing the costs of drilling and pumps.



And what about all that water under the Sahara? As inviting as it is, unfortunately this fossil water is not that easy to get at, requiring expensive, deep water wells and large pipelines to move the water to where people need it. Libya is the one country to have invested heavily in using Saharan groundwater, having spent some $20 billion to supply water to the coastal cities and for irrigation.



We should not be distracted by the large aquifers below the Sahara and dreams of cross-continental pipelines. The priority must be to serve those who still have to take unsafe drinking water from ponds and holes in dry riverbeds — and to do this sensibly and sustainably. We should get on with the job of getting drilling costs down and construction standards up and supporting and developing groundwater professionals in Africa. Then we can concentrate on helping communities, small towns and whole nations to sustainably develop and protect the groundwater under their feet.


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June 21st, 2017

6/21/2017

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We are looking to Silicon Valley these few weeks of discussions because this is from where the model of development is MOVING FORWARD IN ALL US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES---like Baltimore.  If one watched Silicon Valley's development these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA we would have seen these corporate K-12 charters moving first the poor out of San Fran taking them to what would be Baltimore's NW and NE communities---then the middle and merely rich were push out of city center into those NE and NW communities tied the these same corporate K-12 charters.  The poor were pushed all the way to Oakland where they are now being tied to BASIC INCOME. The middle class in Silicon Valley are the loudest fighters against corporate charters ---but know what?  They were silent when only the poor were being pushed out of San Fran.  This is why we shout FIGHT NOW-----for strong public education.  Don't allow our public schools be used as development tools---IT IS ILLEGAL ----UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND ACLU KNOWS THIS.

As we see below just as we knew when RACE TO THE TOP was being discussed in Congress----the lowest cost for educating 99% of citizens is online lessons and virtual schools.  Now online universities come to K-12.



This is what Baltimore Education Coalition supports----you don't hear a word against this. So, now we hear working middle-class say---oh, those virtual lessons and schools are only for the poor----WAKE UP---this is global corporate campus pre-K -career corporate education.


What started in Silicon Valley---virtual schools is in Chicago heading for Baltimore. Much of lessons in Baltimore's low-income corporate charter schools are online and we all know that is the WORST OF EDUCATION STRATEGIES.





Take These Students, Please

Schools across the country are pursuing an extreme form of online learning: It’s all their struggling students do.By Francesca BerardiKellan Jett


This article is part of the Big Shortcut, an eight-part series exploring the exponential rise in online learning for high school students who have failed traditional classes.


CHICAGO—On a Tuesday afternoon in mid-November, Keith Daniel sat in the main office of Sullivan High School on Chicago’s Far North Side scrutinizing a flier for the cap, gown, and school ring he hoped to buy for his graduation this coming June. “This is my second home,” he said. Yet Daniel, who is 19, has not attended a single class at Sullivan for almost two years. In the spring of 2015, a guidance counselor—noting how far behind Daniel had fallen academically—advised him to transfer to a school where most of the classes would be self-paced and online and where he could make up credits more quickly. The choice wasn’t subtle: Go or fail. So Daniel transferred to Magic Johnson Bridgescape, a for-profit school named after the basketball star who funded it in a joint venture with the company Edison Learning. “Ten more credits and I’m out,” Daniel said.


Daniel has had a lonely high school experience for the past two years. He spends four hours a day at Bridgescape, usually four days a week, and he seldom interacts with peers and teachers. When he struggles with an online test, his “best friend” is Google—something he is not discouraged to use—while teachers are a last resort. His main companions are his smartphone (for listening to music) and his Galaxy smartwatch (which helps him kill the time and stay in touch with his friends). “I can spend an entire day at school and not talk with anyone,” Daniel told me. Sometimes, he returns to visit his old teachers and classmates solely because he misses the warmth and bustle of a traditional high school.


You might call Daniel’s experience online credit recovery on steroids: what happens when a student falls so far behind that he must take all of his remaining high school courses online, not just a few. Programs like Bridgescape’s have been popping up across the country, in Illinois, California, Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, and elsewhere. They vary considerably in quality (some have a significant interpersonal component, while others expect students to work almost exclusively on their own), and they vary considerably in structure (some are for-profit and run by companies that operate in several states, others are nonprofit).


Virtual schools have existed for years, but alternative programs like Bridgescape, where students at risk of dropping out come to brick-and-mortar schools or centers to complete a mostly online curriculum, represent a newer phenomenon.


Nationally, the major for-profit providers include Ombudsman, which runs more than 100 programs in 14 states, including three sites in Chicago; Catapult Academy (a division of the New Jersey–based Catapult Learning), which runs more than 20 alternative high school programs in Georgia and Florida; and AdvancePath, which runs 10 programs (located inside traditional schools) in five states. In Chicago, the main providers are Magic Johnson Bridgescape and Ombudsman, both for-profit, and Pathways, a nonprofit. Last school year more than 3,000 young Chicagoans were enrolled in one of these new programs.




The risk for these students is that rather than experiencing school as a social institution, they “end up living in their own heads,” said Chicago-based activist and educator Michael Klonsky, who teaches at DePaul University. “The sense of community has been lost.”



The new programs have transformed the nature of high school education for thousands of the nation’s most vulnerable teenagers, turning it into a far more individual enterprise, one where socialization isn’t even a secondary goal. More high schoolers are graduating, but the experience in Chicago shows that the country is at risk of creating two separate high school tracks: the traditional one, with all of its variety, strengths, and pitfalls; and a new, mostly virtual track for those students too many high schools have given up on—the very students who most need an engaging educational experience to prepare them for jobs and adult life.
* * *

Bridgescape operates five programs across Chicago, including the one pictured above.Francesca Berardi
There’s one group that is certainly benefiting from schools like Bridgescape: administrators tasked with raising Chicago’s woeful graduation rate.



Under the leadership of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and former Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, who was recently sentenced to four and a half years in prison for a bribery scandal, the district started contracting in 2013 with private companies like Magic Johnson Bridgescape to address a shockingly high drop-out rate. One of the main arguments was a report released by the school district the year before, when the city counted 56,000 youth who were out of school or off track for graduation.



During Emanuel’s administration, Magic Johnson has become a major player in Chicago’s education world: Bridgescape operates five programs across the city, serving more than 850 students, and as the Chicago Tribune reported, in March 2015 another of Johnson’s companies, SodexoMAGIC, received an $80 million contract to take over janitorial services for several Chicago Public School buildings. Following the contract, Johnson donated $250,000 to Emanuel’s campaign for re-election.


Until four years ago, Chicago had about 30 alternative schools, the majority of them locally operated under the umbrella of the nonprofit Youth Connection Charter School. They have been using online credit recovery courses for years, although according to YCCS administrators, “tutoring and peer-to-peer interaction remain main values.” Now there are more than 50 alternative schools in the city, with at least 15 of the new programs run by private companies that offer an overwhelmingly online curriculum inside centers that look more like co-working spaces than classrooms.
Nationwide, the marriage between online and alternative education has created a cheap and convenient way for districts to push out low-performing students.


“The district is giving high school diplomas for programs that are nowhere near comparable to regular high schools.”


Troy LaRaviere, president of the Chicago Principals & Administrators Association


In Chicago, students who attend the new alternative schools earn diplomas bearing the names of the schools they left or their neighborhood schools, even if they have never set foot in them. This is possible because the district labels these schools as “programs” rather than actual schools, so they can’t issue diplomas. School district officials did not respond to multiple requests for interviews about how the system works, including whether students can be forcibly transferred to the online programs. This school year, the district budgeted about $36 million for its alternative programs. But a recent audit has shown that a significant chunk of this money may be going to waste: One survey found that only 52 percent of students attend the alternative programs on a regular basis, meaning the district could save between $12 million and $15 million if it based payment on attendance rather than enrollment.


Not surprisingly, last September, Emanuel announced that in just five years the high school graduation rate had jumped from roughly 50 percent to 73.5 percent.
Supporters of the trend argue that the new programs are helping scores of students earn crucial high school diplomas, something they will need to move into post-secondary education or the workforce. “Getting a diploma is a golden opportunity for these kids,” said Sullivan principal Chad Adams, who previously taught in a juvenile facility.


But critics say the proliferation of these schools demeans the value of a diploma. “The district is giving high school diplomas for programs that are nowhere near comparable to regular high schools,” said Troy LaRaviere, president of the Chicago Principals & Administrators Association and a fierce critic of Emanuel’s administration. “In some cases, principals now have less incentive to keep students in their school and try to get them caught up with their credits, and more incentive to say to them: ‘Look, you can go to this online school and get your diploma.’ ”
* * *




Daniel’s Bridgescape school offers its students two shifts: 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. or noon to 4 p.m. Daniel prefers the morning so that he has the rest of the day to himself. At his new school, he spends most of his time sitting quietly in the computer lab with his headphones on, working online, although every other day he is pulled away for a 30-minute check-in with a teacher. When he isn’t on site, he rarely does schoolwork.



Daniel, who has a big smile framed by two fake diamond earrings, mostly demurs when asked what he does in his free time, apart from noting that he likes reading horror books and cooking. At night, he sometimes works as a busboy in a downtown restaurant. He has not made friends in the new school, but he still gets together with students from Sullivan.
The Bridgescape site looks like a storefront business. It is located on the ground floor of a brick building sandwiched between a parking lot and a taqueria, in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side. From the outside, visitors and students can glimpse a security checkpoint at the front door. Inside, there is a single classroom with desks and computers. Natural light comes from a row of tiny windows. In the back, there are a few small rooms for group activities and administration offices. Most of the teachers appear to be in their 20s. On the day I visited with Daniel, officials at Bridgescape declined to be interviewed or provide any information about their program.



Daniel’s Bridgescape school is located on the ground floor of a brick building sandwiched between a parking lot and a taqueria.
Daniel stays out of trouble. But Klonsky, who has served on the academic advisory council for the National Campaign Against Youth Violence, worries that the proliferation of online programs may do little to curb youth violence if students wind up alienated and build their social lives on the streets rather than in school.
“Students with headphones on, sitting in front of a screen all day, need to find their social life in other ways,” he says. “Sometimes they find it in anti-social environments like street gangs, and they engage in anti-social activities like crime,” Klonsky says, adding that while he supports smaller high school settings, the loneliness of computer-based instruction can foster isolation and rage. (Gun violence in Chicago is way up, although experts and law enforcement point out that the reasons are myriad and complex.)



Ray Salazar, who teaches at a high school on Chicago’s Southwest Side, said he’s concerned that the students steered to online alternative schools are those who most need more in-person guidance and instruction, not less. He knows two students who were recently transferred from his high school to alternative schools. They struggled with a lack of direction—including a sense of where to go next—after they earned their diplomas.

“We need to be careful in sitting struggling students in front of a computer for a long time,” he said. “A consistent human element is still necessary to help teach them to think critically and to expand their ideas. My worry is that success is becoming more about completion—getting a diploma—than about growth.”



* * *
For scores of students, the flexibility and independence of the mostly online curriculum is invaluable. Some of them need to work jobs part of the day or are already parents with unpredictable schedules. Others felt so bullied and alienated in traditional school environments that they view these socially siloed schools as a sort of oasis. But for the new programs to work well, students need to be incredibly self-motivated and mature. The shift puts control over education largely in their hands—a risk for teenagers who’ve struggled so hard and so long in more regular settings. In a sense, the new programs lower the accountability for these students since they don’t have to show up as often, have far less interaction with peers and adults alike, and demonstrate their proficiency on online tests that are highly gameable.


Amber Linn Ellis left her previous school, Benito Juarez High School, after developing an eating disorder that made her socially anxious. In her first eight days at Ombudsman, she earned an entire course credit. She likes the program but still struggles to stay motivated.
One November morning, Ellis started getting ready for school at 11 a.m. She typically attends the afternoon shift, which runs from noon to 4 p.m., and she knew that she was going to be late. Ellis sipped a lemon soda and played with her smartphone while her mother fried sausages in the kitchen, her grandfather watched television in his bedroom, and her uncle drifted in and out the living room. Eight people, plus a cat and two goldfish, share the one-bathroom apartment on the city’s Lower West Side (since Christmas, a dog has joined the family). After straightening her purple hair, Ellis tried unsuccessfully to log onto one of her online courses from a tablet she shares with her mother. “I’m computer-dumb, and I’m doing my studies online,” she joked.




Like Daniel, Ellis does not pack books and notebooks. Her purse and a folder with record sheets of her work are all that she needs. But unlike him, she is required to wear a uniform: khaki pants and a white shirt. When she arrived at school more than 30 minutes late, a dozen students were working quietly on their computers on the first floor of the building, a former Catholic church. Ellis’ mother, Shonna Linkowski Hernandez, says it’s “like a library setting, except that there are no books.” Hernandez picks Ellis up every afternoon; she worries that the nearby train station is too dangerous, noting that there have been recent shootings there.


It’s “like a library setting, except that there are no books.”
Shonna Linkowski Hernandez, parentDuring school hours, Ellis can’t use her smartphone, and interaction between peers is discouraged. On one occasion, a teacher reprimanded her and sent her to the principal for talking with a schoolmate who was struggling with an online test.



Although she works mostly alone and online, Ellis takes one English class in a group setting—classes that are known at Ombudsman as “teacher-led instruction,” or a TLI period. Like at Bridgescape, teachers at Ombudsman are young and, although they must be certified, regularly assist students in subjects outside their fields of expertise.
Maureen O’Donnell, a 25-year-old first-time teacher at Ombudsman who serves as Ellis’ adviser, majored in history but helps students with subjects ranging from algebra to French. “I don’t speak French, and we don’t have a French teacher,” she says. “This is probably the most challenging part for me.” O’Donnell adds that she was “shocked” to see how many online alternative programs exist in Chicago, although she supports the model as an option for students who can’t thrive in other settings.


Ellis and Daniel turned to online programs because they felt they wouldn’t get diplomas otherwise. But Ombudsman administrators and students report that a growing number of kids are bypassing traditional schools altogether, enrolling in their schools as freshmen. “Some students who have never been to high school before come straight from eighth grade to this school because they have a sibling enrolled here,” says Ombudsman vice principal Katherine Holzer, a former science teacher from Chicago’s suburbs. She says the school discourages students from spending more than two years at Ombudsman. But due to the lack of clear and transparent regulation of these programs by the district, students increasingly ignore that advice.


That’s a bad idea, according to Ellis. As she describes it, the new model leaves everything “up to you” and does not work for everyone: “There are kids that just hear about Ombudsman, hear how it’s easy to get through it, and they just want to get their credits.” In her view, “Ombudsman is not for them.”


The great majority of the students at the schools Daniel and Ellis attend are low-income and minorities. And their satisfaction with an online program that can be superficial and isolating shows just how little they’ve come to expect from the public schools.
Yet both Daniel and Ellis do want something better—if not for themselves, at least for future generations.

The risk for these students is that rather than experiencing school as a social institution, they “end up living in their own heads,” said Chicago-based activist and educator Michael Klonsky, who teaches at DePaul University.


Despite Ellis’ initial appreciation for Ombudsman, she ended up dropping out over the winter—with just two credits left. She didn’t receive enough help from her teacher, who always seemed to be busy or absent, she said: “I think if I would have been in another school closer to my location with a teacher who is actually about hands-on learning, then I would have graduated.” For the time being, she works for a company that provides maintenance, cleaning, and janitorial services. Ellis’ dream is to open a child care center or work for the police in the child protection department.


Daniel remains enrolled at Bridgescape and still plans to graduate in June. He wants to become a chef and open his own restaurant, maybe in Mississippi, where his family comes from. His specialty is baked goods, but he says he has also created a personal version of Alfredo sauce. Both teenagers say that online schools can serve an important purpose for disengaged youth. But when asked what kind of education they would want for their own children, they had no doubts: the traditional high schools they left.

______________________________________

Where SCHOOL CHOICE was used in Silicon Valley to give corporate K-12 charters the right to CHOOSE their students breaking down several decades of equal opportunity and access education in our public schools------it is the privatization of public transportation in US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES that works hand in hand with school choice to force largely low-income families out to NW AND NE Baltimore----BECAUSE the new bus systems no longer cover transportation needs effectively.  As in Silicon Valley where poor children were forced to bus across town----the public transportation privatization eliminated the ability to make that transit trip----so families were forced to move out of city center.  This is NOT AN UNFORESEEN PROBLEM ---IT IS THE MASTER PLAN of city councils, state assemblies -----which pass all these transportation laws.  Yes, Baltimore City council/BAltimore Maryland Assembly pols create this corporate K-12 charter mess-----they create this MTA busing mess saying they were only listening to global Wall Street 'labor and justice' organizations---those pesky 5% TO THE 1% GLOBAL WALL STREET PLAYERS.

What we are seeing in San Fran as coming now to Baltimore is a CONTAINED SYSTEM of global corporate campus private bus services----paid for with public MTA funds.  Global GOOGLE did this in San Fran as citizens and public transit protested.  What happens for middle-class workers still in the city is-----you must work on a global campus to get these buses and then if you want to use public transportation after hours for pleasure or visiting friends and family-----the core of this system does not work for public benefit.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED IN SILICON VALLEY----AND IT IS NOW HAPPENING WITH BALTIMORE'S LINK SYSTEM.



Global Wall Street is now telling us all the breakdown and deregulation and privatization of our US city public transit IS GIVING US CHOICES.

 So, as in Silicon Valley---all those 5% to the 1% CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA players being thrown a few million for small business schools---small business transportation ---small business toxic waste removal businesses are telling their 99% COME MOVE OUT HERE!


Transportation Challenges Complicate School Choice for S.F. Students
 144 67Google +4 2 3
By 
Rebecca Robinson
San Francisco Public Press


 — Jan 29 2015 - 2:05pm
Distance, funding cuts and travel costs make it hard for students from low-income families seeking city’s best schools


Eight-year-old Karishma Sears started her trek to school with her father in the family car one Thursday in December. It took only 15 minutes to drive from their home near Mount Davidson 4.6 miles to Starr King Elementary in Potrero Hill, where she participates in a highly regarded Mandarin immersion program her parents chose for her. Their jobs are on the Peninsula but both can work from home and help shuttle Karishma to school.


If she had to take mass transit? It would be an hour-long commute each way, even if Karishma were old enough to do that on her own.
While San Francisco’s school assignment system has benefited families with the means to transport their children to schools with the most desirable programs, it creates dilemmas for more disadvantaged students who must travel long distances to school, often without the help of their parents.


Many lower-income students must choose between long commutes on unreliable public transit and attending lower-performing schools closer to home. This may help explain why San Francisco public schools, like those in many cities nationwide, are increasingly resegregating as decades of court-ordered diversity measures recede into history.


At the same time, San Francisco Unified School District data show that most families of all socioeconomic backgrounds travel outside of their neighborhoods for school. There are numerous potential reasons: Their children got into a school they preferred to the one in their neighborhood, or they did not get assigned their neighborhood school because there were too few seats to accommodate nearby residents. But the district lacks solid information about exactly who is trekking across town and why, making it difficult to understand transportation’s effect on school choice.
In a district that lacks robust school bus service, even students who do not get a top-choice school are caught up in public transit headaches when the system assigns them across town.


Chris Collier leaves his home in the Richmond District each morning long before sunrise — nearly two hours before school starts. The ninth-grader first takes a bus on Muni’s busiest line, the 38, more than four miles east to Van Ness Avenue and O’Farrell Street. There, he transfers to the 49 for the final two miles to John O’Connell High School in the Mission District.


Chris, 14, had hoped to attend Washington High School, just half a mile from his home. But he did not get his top choice, or any of his choices in the district’s school-assignment system. And he has no one to drive him across town. So his commute takes 75 minutes, at best. When the 38 is overcrowded and he cannot squeeze in, he risks being late for his first-period English class.


San Francisco Unified School District in 2010 adopted a student assignment system intended to increase diversity and give all families access to the best schools. The policy lets parents select schools they like the most, creating competition. It is a contest that not everyone wins.


Equity challenges

Daniel Sears, Karishma’s father, knows his daughter is lucky. A group of recent Chinese immigrant families in Visitacion Valley who wanted to send their children to Starr King could not, because they had no way to get them there. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency — aka Muni — does not offer direct service, and no school bus runs that route.


The district prioritizes bus service for its most disadvantaged students, including those who live in census tracts with the lowest test scores: Treasure Island, parts of the Tenderloin, the Western Addition and most of the southeastern neighborhoods.
But the district does not transport elementary-age students from more affluent areas to schools in low-performing neighborhoods, while the buses that serve most lower-performing schools pick up kids who live in nearby neighborhoods.


So the Visitacion Valley families lose out two times over: their schools perform below average, but not at the bottom, and the school they wanted to attend is in a neighborhood to which the district will not bus their children. Thus, isolation and inequity persist, bus or no bus, for all kinds of students.
“What we’ve heard from families, especially in the southeast neighborhoods, is that while we have choices as to where to send students, getting them there is a barrier that’s too high to overcome,” said Masharika Maddison, executive director of the nonprofit Parents for Public Schools, which advocates on policy for families throughout the school district.

Joel Ramos, regional planning director for the mass transit advocacy nonprofit TransForm and a board member of Muni, said many families simply cannot use public transit to get their children to school.
“Even if you can get into a school that’s performing much better but is on the other side of the city, a trip on Muni might require one, two, even three transfers,” Ramos said. “A lot of people aren’t going to feel comfortable letting their kids do that.”


District data, collected by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, show that few students have changed their commute patterns since 2010–2011, the year before the current assignment system took effect.


At eight of the 25 district elementary schools with below-average statewide academic rankings, the number of students who live within a mile of school has increased over the last four years. With few exceptions, a significantly higher percentage of these students live closer to school than do students at the highest-performing and most-requested schools.
While a number of factors are at play, lack of mobility looms large. Even though families of all socioeconomic backgrounds are traveling long distances, many schools in the most economically disadvantaged parts of town draw the bulk of their students from the surrounding neighborhoods.


Student populations at some of these schools are so imbalanced that the district considers them “racially isolated,” meaning that more than 60 percent of the school’s students are of a single race.


Public transit poor substitute


Rosario Bolos walks her daughter, Jessica, three blocks from their house to Cesar Chavez Elementary in the Mission. She knows it is one of the city’s lowest-performing schools. But she likes its feeling of community, and her top priority when choosing a school for Jessica was, by necessity, its proximity to home.
“We can’t afford a car, and my husband works full time, so this is the only choice we have,” she said. She does not let Jessica, 6, ride Muni alone. “That’s for older kids.”
As part of its effort to align its transportation services with the new student assignment policy, the district cut its fleet to 25 buses last school year, down from 44 buses in 2011–2012. As a result, 20 schools lost all bus service, and service to many others shrank or changed. The district does not plan more cuts or additions, according to school district spokeswoman Heidi Anderson.


As school board member Rachel Norton sees it, every dollar spent on busing is a dollar taken out of the classroom. One bus costs $100,000 to operate and maintain for a year. The money comes out of the district’s general fund, which also covers teacher salaries and operating essentials.


“We don’t have a lot of money, and we have to be careful to invest in the highest-impact strategy,” said Norton, who was first elected in 2009 and now chairs the Ad-Hoc Committee on Student Assignment. “You can pay for a literacy coach and a half with the money it costs to run a bus. Is a bus that carries students to a school without literacy coaches the best strategy?”


Norton said that while the district knows the demographics of students who request transportation, it does not have stop-by-stop data, nor the expertise to design routes that would optimally serve the most students. “We as a district could use some planning assistance,” she said.


Charity buys bus passesMuni in 2013 started offering free passes to low- and moderate-income San Franciscans ages 5 to 18 through a pilot program funded by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Last February, Google donated $6.8 million to continue the program for two more years. So far, 26,000 kids have signed up.


Chris Collier said it saves his family about $30 per month, and many families praise the program for making the commute to school more affordable.
For families with younger children, who need to be accompanied on public transit, the cost of travel is even more significant because caregivers must pay $2.25 per trip, even if a student qualifies for a free pass. The crowded and delay-plagued Muni system, which gets fewer than 60 percent of buses and trolleys to arrive on time, will bring in millions in new funding to upgrade infrastructure and add service starting this year, thanks to propositions A and B, approved by voters in November. But Muni is not a transit system designed to transport large numbers of students.


As for what families really want, some certainly prioritize community, family history and convenience over test scores when choosing a school. But the district found in a 2012 survey of more than 10,000 families that academic reputation usually trumped proximity to home as a factor. Fewer than half the families responding to the survey included nearby schools in their choices.



And yet, a number of families interviewed for this story chose otherwise. This contradiction demonstrates the difficulty of drawing conclusions about what drives choice patterns in the district.
Data from the 2014 application process shows that half of the 22 schools least requested by families living in their attendance areas are located in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, and eight of them have student populations dominated by a single race.


Further, reports produced by the district show that a higher percentage of African-Americans and Latinos submit school choice applications late than do their Asian and white peers, and by doing so are placed at the bottom of the heap during student-assignment season. This limits their access to the district’s best schools, and can result in assignment to the least-requested schools, which are often in their neighborhoods.


A 2014 report produced by the Denver transit advocacy organization Mile High Connects and U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Cities + Schools, notes that reforming student transportation can be complicated by the sharing of responsibility for busing by local, regional and federal agencies. It can get very political as a result.



Julia Ehrman, a sustainable transportation fellow with San Francisco public schools and a fellow at the Center for Cities + Schools, spent last summer investigating the district’s transportation landscape. She found that there was very little data about how transportation affects families’ ability to take advantage of school choice. But she cautioned against the view that programs intended to promote walking and biking as part of the district’s sustainability goals can replace school bus and transit service for public school students.
“If we only promote walking and biking, then we sort of contradict the premise of school choice: that mobility is a good way to pursue educational equity,” Ehrman said.
Maddison said the biggest problem actually is not transportation. It is the vast disparities among San Francisco schools.
“School choice can never be a replacement for ensuring that all our schools are excellent.”

___________________________________________


We already know many US cities deemed FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES are soaked in municipal bond debt ----here is Obama/Rahm in Chicago----and Baltimore is super-sized to this debt. Of course there is no shortage of city revenue---it simply all goes right to global corporate campuses and their development.

Here is Chicago making sure there is absolutely NO FUNDING for public schools and of course public pensions. This assures all those 'PUBLIC' CORPORATE CHARTERS are handed off to private global education corporations which then partner with global corporate campuses like Johns Hopkins, UnderArmour, Amazon.com.

THIS IS WHAT BALTIMORE EDUCATION COALITION AND ALL BALTIMORE CITY COUNCIL AND BALTIMORE MARYLAND ASSEMBLY POLS WORK TOWARD----as did San Fran/Oakland a few decades ago



Chicago Public Schools borrow $275 million at sky-high interest rate

Chicago 06/19/2017, 08:38pm


The Chicago Public Schools will pay 6.39 percent to borrow $275 million it needs to make a mandatory payment for retiree pensions before a June 30 deadline. | File photo

Lauren FitzPatrick and Fran Spielman


The Chicago Public Schools will pay 6.39 percent — an extraordinary interest rate by short-term lending standards — to borrow $275 million it needs to make a mandatory payment for retiree pensions before a June 30 deadline.
That’s more than four times the interest rate a typical government would pay on the same borrowing deal, financial experts say.


It’s yet another sign of the dire financial condition of the nation’s third-largest public school system, which for months has had a “junk” credit rating from Wall Street financial institutions.


CPS officials secured the $275 million on Monday from J.P. Morgan. It’s the final chunk of cash needed to make the $721 million payment for teacher pensions that’s due at the end of the month, senior vice president of finance Ron DeNard said in a statement.
An additional $112 million that’s needed to fund district operations will be borrowed separately.


After fielding three competing bids, CPS chose J.P. Morgan to provide the so-called “grant anticipation notes,” which will be backed by state block grant money CPS is entitled to — but has yet to receive — in the ongoing budget stalemate. The interest rate will fluctuate monthly.


Matt Fabian, a partner at Municipal Market Analytics, said the 6.39 percent interest rate is about 4.5 percentage points “more than a ‘regular’ issuer would pay, but CPS left ‘regular’ two years ago.
“CPS has no regular market access so the price they pay to borrow is always the product of negotiation,” he added.



Mayor Rahm Emanuel has argued that CPS has no choice but to borrow its way out of the financial mess in Springfield that’s affecting school districts statewide.


“You have a situation . . . created by the state of Illinois to create a maximum amount of pressure on the public schools, specifically Chicago,” Emanuel has said. “It’s a short-term solution to a short-term problem created consciously, woefully by the governor to create political pressure.”


“We are saddened that the Chicago Public School district is trading its future financial health for another short term easy fix. It has no one to blame high interest rates on other than the decades of mismanagement that created this crisis. ​The Governor is hopeful that the General Assembly will spend the next week focused on passing a truly balanced budget that will help school children across our state, including those in CPS,” Gov. Bruce Rauner’s spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis said in an emailed statement.


Fabian has suggested that CPS is already the “main risk to the city from a triage perspective” and, therefore, the city would have been better off “giving” the district the money it needs to get through the school year and make the pension payment.
The city, he’s said, either could borrow the money for CPS or raid the tax-increment financing surplus yet again. “That’s a better option than paying [exorbitant] interest and taking more risk,” Fabian said last month.


The mayor is considering taxing high net-worth individuals, downtown businesses or both to put CPS on more solid financial ground. But the mayor is determined to wait until the end of a special Legislative session next week before determining how large a hole he needs to fill — especially if a larger school-funding solution for Chicago and other school districts can be reached.



_________________________________________

Big Education Ape is a good source of REAL PUBLIC SCHOOL education blogging.....San Diego is of course in the same CA school system as Oakland only they are a far-right, global Wall Street BUSH NEO-CONSERVATIVE city. Moving all several hundred billion dollars in public K-12 to global technology corporations and their global labor and education support corporations will push public schools out of business and all 99% of citizens tied to online lessons----virtual schools.

This further alienates WE THE PEOPLE----total isolation except for working 15-18 hours a day-----from pre-K to career.


San Diego Schools Embrace Untested “Depersonalized”

Learning | tultican

Public schools, Education, edubloggers, privatization, daily posts from people who know
bigeducationape.blogspot.com




 “The district is struggling with a projected $124 million shortfall to its $1.4 billion budget, and have issued in the neighborhood of 1,500 layoff notices to full and part-time employees” reports the San Diego Union'.



'Behavior badging in China is explained in this video about gamifying good citizenship. It gives me the creeps; however, behavior modification is already part of digital badging'.

tultican
  • Thomas Ultican
San Diego Schools Embrace Untested “Depersonalized” Learning

21 Jun San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) is spending lavishly on technology despite their budgets being decimated by California’s unaccountable charter school industry. During the 2016-17 school year, SDUSD bought digital badging and 16,000 new Chromebooks.

“The district is struggling with a projected $124 million shortfall to its $1.4 billion budget, and have issued in the neighborhood of 1,500 layoff notices to full and part-time employees” reports the San Diego Union.


This kind of insanity seems to be a national movement. There is almost no evidence supporting these new theories of technology driven education. Yet, the leaders of financially strapped SDUSD are spending to have their students become experimental subjects for learning products produced by technology companies.

A recent article in the NY Times by Natasha Singer describes how DreamBox (a widely distributed math learning program) is popular with children but not for doing the math but for doing things like spending points to customize their avatar. Singer writes,


“So far there is little proof that such technologies significantly improve achievement. Adaptive learning courseware, for instance, generally did not improve college students’ grades or their likelihood of completing a course, according to a 2016 report on some of these programs by the S.R.I. Education research group.”


“Badges, We Don’t Need No Stinking Badges”



My friend, Tim, graduated for University City High School this year and invited me to attend his ceremony. I went to the school’s website for parking instructions, where I saw this:


The badge image contained a hotlink to the SDUSD website which notifies the reader:


“Starting winter 2016, San Diego Unified will begin awarding achievement by issuing digital badges. Digital badges are virtual tokens issued as recognition of a skill, or behavior demonstrated, or an achievement a student has earned.”


Much of this informational page is little more than a corporate advertisement with a video claiming how wonderful and popular digital badging is. The instructions for getting started say SDUSD offers ninety-five high school badges and 20 elementary and middle school badges. Students and parents are informed:


“Students will be notified of badges through their Gmail email account accessible through their Google apps for education.”


SDUSD also informs us that they won’t just be Cub Scout style merit badges. Soon, students will receive “micro-credentials” that will be recorded in their records kept by University of California San Diego extension.


This all looks harmless enough but it is not! Behind the digital badging scheme is a toxic combination of corporate greed and hubris. As digital badging grows, classical teacher led education will be undermined in all but exclusive high end private schools. It is yet another path to education on-the-cheap driven by profit motives instead of pedagogic expertise.


Additionally, badging is a data mining corporations dream come true. Students will lose all semblance of privacy.
Behavior badging in China is explained in this video about gamifying good citizenship. It gives me the creeps; however, behavior modification is already part of digital badging.


Emily Talmage teaches public school in Maine, where badging started a couple years ago. She describes what she’s learned:
‘“By collecting skill-based badges, the record of achievement begun in secondary school becomes the foundation upon which workers build their capabilities and tell their stories to employers,’ explains the infamous testing-behemoth, Pearson Education.



“Knowledgeworks recently described the new learning system as an ‘ecosystem,’ in which the role of the traditional teacher will soon be obsolete.
“With major investments from Wall Street, leaders in the online learning, ed-tech, and student loan industries, and even celebrity billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Reed Hastings of Netflix, the transformation has recently been picking up speed.



Meanwhile, political groups on both the left and right are moving the system forward by lobbying for ‘personalized,’ competency-based policies and ‘innovative’ assessment systems.” [Note: Reed Hastings of Netflix is also owner of DreamBox Learning, Founder of Rocketship charter schools and a board member of California Charter Schools Association.]



“Personalized learning” is the Orwellian name given to computer delivered education. It is isolating and devoid of human interaction. There is nothing personal about it. It truthfully should be labeled de-personalized learning.



Adults Engaged with Students are Key to Intellectual Growth


America’s public education system was wildly successful right up to the advent of modern education reform. There were problems but the creativity of America’s students led to cultural, scientific and economic leadership in the world. No other country comes close to matching the US in either Nobel Prizes awarded or new industries created. The non-coercive (no high stakes testing) learning environment of our public schools allowed students to create wonderful respectful relationships with many adults and develop according to their own personality.



Daisaku Ikeda, the founder of the Soka Schools, discusses the importance of teachers in his book Soka Education, “Recognizing each student as a unique personality and transmitting something through contacts between that personality and the personality of the instructor is more than a way of implanting knowledge: it is the essence of education.” Ikeda also mentions that Socrates likened this to being “kindled by a leaping spark” between teacher and student.



This May, Fredrik DeBoer posted results from a January study by Jens Dietrichson, Martin Bøg and Trine Filges. In his post, DeBoer explains the science behind the study and praises its methodology. He also shares some of the results that are behind a pay wall. The abstract for the report called “Academic Interventions for Elementary and Middle School Students With Low Socioeconomic Status.” states,


“This systematic review and meta-analysis seeks to identify effective academic interventions for elementary and middle school students with low socioeconomic status. Included studies have used a treatment-control group design, were performed in OECD and EU countries, and measured achievement by standardized tests in mathematics or reading. The analysis included 101 studies performed during 2000 to 2014, 76% of which were randomized controlled trials.


This graphic from DeBoer’s post is a comparative graph of the weighted average effect size. The impact of each intervention component is shown in terms of standard deviations on the horizontal axis. The five most effective interventions all require human interaction. If we are led by evidence, then we must admit that the human component in education is crucial.



There are Reasons Education Technology is More Popular than Effective




In 2013, SDUSD created the i21now committee and gave it ninety days to prepare a report on education technology going forward. The committee made up of 104 individuals included Cindy Martin SDUSD Superintendent, several other district executives, seven classroom teachers and thirty-five representatives of corporations and foundations promoting digital learning.



Corporations/FoundationsCount



Apex Learning2
Apple3
At&t4
Cisco2
Cox3
Dell1
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt1
iEngage Mobility1
Intel Foundation1
Lenovo2
Microsoft3
Partnership for Children1
Project Tomorrow1
Promethean1
Qualcomm3
Reality Changers1
SENTRE Partners1
Time=Warner2
ViaSat1
XO1



Total35



In general, the teachers and IT professionals who volunteer to be on a technology committees are themselves technophiles likely to be biased. Of course, the representatives of the network, software and hardware corporations who comprise an outsized share of the committee membership are there to promote their products.



Project Tomorrow has a representative on the i21now committee. I have written previously about the influence Project Tomorrow had on the school district where I worked (Sweetwater Union High School District). One of the teacher members of our technology committee sent us all data and brochures from Speak Up praising computer based education and de-personalized learning. Project Tomorrow and Speak Up are both part of tomorrow.org.




More than 90 corporations and non-profits are referenced as financial supporters of tomorrow.org. Included amongst the contributors are both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.



It is not surprising that the i21now committee mapped a technology path forward that is nearly identical to the positions promoted by large technology corporations and tomorrow.org. The executive summary of their report has 21 bullet point. Here are a few that caught my eye.



“Pursue new funding sources and repurposing current funding by moving expenditures away from textbooks and structured classrooms toward virtual learning, digital content and personalized learning.”
“Provide students with mobile access to broadband connectivity anytime/anyplace, while leveraging resources and partnerships to drive down costs.”



“Ensure sustainable funding to provide access at home and beyond for all students.”
“Support upgraded wireless, wired, and 1:1 environments, plus building systems and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), while ensuring accessibility with digital dashboards and portals.”
“Incorporate reputable online resources and real-time data to differentiate instruction and engage students with real-world content.”



“Implement competency-based learning and problem-solving-based assessment, aligned with Common Core standards.”
The last bullet point calls for competency-based learning. This is not a new idea and it has failed miserably in both the 1970’s and the 1990’s. The theory is that education can be chunked down into discrete learning standards or competencies.



In the 1970’s this theory was called mastery learning. Soon educators were derisively calling it “sheets and seats.” It failed so miserably as a pedagogical practice that it was renamed. In the 1990’s it was called outcome based education. The new name did not help because the theory was still bogus.


Badging and competency-based learning are yet another incarnation of this behaviorist theory of education. Just because it is being done on a computer does not mitigate the fact that it is based on a bad theory of human behavior.



I do not say that education technology and learning programs have no value, but I have never seen an exemplary learning program. At their core, they all eventually become computer based drill and skill. Teachers have known for a long time that this is a bad pedagogical method widely denigrated as “drill and kill.”


The implementation of technology in the classroom will never reach its potential until that implementation and design is led by educators. Some of my friends believe that the badging and competency-based education are an existential threat to public education. I don’t. It is a bad product and parents do not want their children sitting at computer terminals. They expect them to be in authentic learning environments with competent experienced teachers.
Rich people will never accept this enervated method of education for their children.

________________________________________



If you are not understanding how FAR-RIGHT, AUTHORITARIAN, DICTATORSHIP CORPORATE FASCIST all this is----please educate knowing that MAOIST COMMUNISM is far-right LIBERTARIAN MARXISM----- Here we see this in California public schools with HOMELAND SECURITY NAPOLITANO-----as state superintendent thanks to FAR-RIGHT GLOBAL WALL STREET CLINTON NEO-LIBERAL JERRY BROWN. ONE WORLD ONE FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE SMART CITY.


San Diego-----that military Foreign Economic Zone first to expose K-12 to these programs.
Propaganda Games: Sesame Credit - The True Danger of Gamification - Extra Credits



Published on Dec 16, 2015

China has gamified being an obedient citizen with the creation of Sesame Credit. It creates a social score that pushes people to behave the way the government wants. Though currently opt-in, it will become mandatory in 2020.
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China has gamified being an obedient citizen with the creation of Sesame Credit. The game links to your social network and gives you a score for doing things that the government approves of, but it also reduces that score for doing things the government disapproves of. Even your friends' scores affect your own, and being friends with people who have a low score will drag your score down as well. This insidious system applies social pressure on people to ostracize their friends with lower scores, either forcing those friends to change their ways or effectively quarantining their rebellious ideas. While many sci-fi visions of a dystopian future have centered around a bleak government that controls through fear, Sesame Credit shows us that a government can use gamification and positive reinforcement to be just as controlling. And it's real. While currently the system is opt-in, the government plans to make it mandatory in 2020. Once mandatory, it may give rewards for good scores or penalties for bad ones. And in the meantime, making it opt-in has already set the tone for the game: people participate willingly, so they find it fun, and they set a very high standard for what the "average" score should be. Already people have begun sharing their scores on social media.


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June 20th, 2017

6/20/2017

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Let's look at Oakland CA to see where global neo-liberal corporate education reform is taking K-12.  Silicon Valley with global Stanford hedge fund university was ground zero for for-profit higher education fraud and is well on its way to leading in for profit K-career charter school fraud -----WOW ---all this fraud from Silicon Valley home of global subprime mortgage origination corporation fraud---is getting hard to follow.  Baltimore is that sister city in fraud as global Johns Hopkins hedge fund university designed the same ROBBER BARON setup here in Baltimore.  This is why we know what comes to Oakland CA is coming to Baltimore.

Yesterday we saw two things.  First, we saw ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE UNITED NATIONS WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION POLICY look just like California's SINGLE PAYER PLAN.  We saw global corporations tied to vocational pre-K to career staging what we see in Baltimore----

EVERYONE VOLUNTEERS DOING WHAT USED TO BE SOLID WAGES IN PUBLIC CITY AND STATE JOBS.

Indeed, global United Nations EDUCATION uses corporate schools to build developing nation public services and public works and is tying corporate employment to being that community volunteer doing public sector employee work.  This is why unemployment in our US cities are SOARING----the few people having jobs are doing all US city jobs while city citizens are fired and left long-term unemployed.

THIS PRE-K -CAREER VOLUNTEERISM STARTS IN ELEMENTARY TO GET US CITIZENS READY TO HIT THE WORKFORCE IN 6TH GRADE.


'we have connected Convergys with innovative volunteer organizations that are pioneering new ways to grow the number of volunteers and the impact of the work they do,”'

Global Wall Street brought our US cities to decay and sucked every asset from them using that 5% to the 1% global Wall Street pol and player---CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA and is now replacing what was our public K-12 with vocational training and language tied to the Foreign Economic Zone overseas to which they will be sent.  LIGHTHOUSE charter is of course a FREEMASON GROUP----French for those heading to a French-speaking colony and of course Chinese for those heading to a Chinese Foreign Economic Zone.  All these K-career corporate charters are filled with only that course instruction needed to do a job for which pre-K testing indicated a child's strength.



  1.  
  2. Lighthouse Community Charter School
    lighthousecharter.org At Lighthouse Community Public Schools we are deeply committed to transforming the landscape of education for historically underserved students in Oakland.
  3. Oakland Charter Academies
    oaklandcharter.net/index2.html
    Oakland Charter Academy was granted the Hart Vision Charter School of the Year Award for 2009 by the California Charter Schools ... city students in Oakland, CA.
  4. Oakland, CA Public Charter school rankings & ratings
    www.schoolsk-12.com/California/Oakland/Charter-schools.php
    Oakland Public Charter school rankings and ratings. our customized Oakland school reports help you choose the best Public Charter school in Oakland for your child.
  5. Oakland charter school battle rages - SFGate
    www.sfgate.com/education/article/Oakland-charter-school...
    Oakland is the charter school capital of California. And that might be a problem. This year, more than a quarter of the city's 49,000 students are attending one of ...


  6. Francophone Charter School of Oakland
    francophoneschool.org
    OUR MISSION The mission of the Francophone Charter School of Oakland is to provide a dual-immersion curriculum to a diverse community of students.
  7. Yu Ming Charter School - K-8 Mandarin immersion education
    www.yumingschool.org
    Students at Yu Ming Charter School once again performed well in statewide standardized exams in English Language Arts and Literacy and Mathematics.
     


Of course OAKLAND CA ----has raging corporate pre-K- career corporate charters because global far-right Wall Street Stanford and Berkeley funded by global GOOGLE are using these US city schools for global labor pool training.

Just as the Silicon Valley moved a trillion dollars in frauds against our higher education Federal Student Loan program to grow global for-profit higher education schools overseas in Foreign Economic Zones so too these corporate charter are already soaking our K-12 public school funding with another round of a trillion dollars of fraud to grow global K-career schools. BYE-BYE HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING---IT WILL BE LOST TO THE SAME GLOBAL WALL STREET FRAUDS.


Oakland charter school battle rages


Campuses fill a need, but costs to district have an official balking at approving more

By Jill Tucker
Updated 8:15 am, Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Students break for recess at Lazear Charter Academy in Oakland. Lazear, a public school that was closed by the school board last year, reopened as a charter campus after an appeal to the Alameda County Board of ... more
Oakland is the charter school capital of California. And that might be a problem.


This year, more than a quarter of the city's 49,000 students are attending one of its nearly 40 alternative public schools, far more per capita than anywhere else in the state.


There is a military charter school, an arts charter, a Montessori charter, one created for American Indians that doesn't serve any, one for singers and a few dozen centered on sending students to college.


Depending on who's talking, they're filling the demands of parents for educational options or devastating an already cash-strapped school district.





In reality, both are true. And that reality is setting up a battle between those wanting to open up even more charters and local critics, first among them school board member Jody London, who say the city doesn't need and can't support any more charters.


The high number of charters has left Oakland Unified School District struggling financially to serve the students whose families don't choose charters. And a disproportionate number of those students are at-risk or disabled and, therefore, more expensive to educate, London said.


Enough is enough


With five more charter applications in front of the school board this fall, London said she has had enough.


Supporters of charter schools are "looking out for their families, for their kids," she said. But that support doesn't necessarily extend to the neighbors' children, perhaps a child with severe disabilities or one most at risk of failing.


"At some point, we have a collective responsibility in this society, in this community to look out for each other," she added.
Last month, she vowed to vote against any new charters.


Technically, her position is illegal.


By law, school board members can't vote against a prospective charter based on a negative financial impact to the district. And while other school board members agree with her in theory, they said they feel compelled to comply with the law.


Greater independence

Charter schools, part of California's public school system for the past 20 years, operate mostly free from the academic, staffing and other restrictions outlined in the state's Education Code. That flexibility means charter schools, for the most part, can teach what they want how they want. And because few charters are unionized, administrators can more easily hire and fire teachers.



In Oakland, the number of charter schools has surged over the past 10 years - from 14 in 2002 to 38 this year - with 20 charters opening from 2003 to 2009, when the state took over the district after a financial bailout. In Oakland, there are 13,000 students in the more than three dozen charters and an additional 2,500 kids on waiting lists.


More than $75 million in annual state funding has followed city students to the charter schools, a large chunk given that the district's annual general fund budget is about $400 million.
San Francisco, by comparison, has nearly 58,000 students and 12 charter schools serving about 3,500 students. Across California, 519,000 students are enrolled in 1,130 charter schools.


More in the pipeline


Back in Oakland, parents and charter operators want to open five more of the alternative schools next year.

"As long as there is demand, it's incumbent on charter schools to fill that demand," said Ricardo Soto, senior vice president of the California Charter Schools Association. "If you look at the purposes of the charter school act, it was to improve pupil learning and provide vigorous competition with the public school system."
While state law has restricted the growth of charter schools statewide, with a current maximum of 1,650 schools, there is no limit at the local level.



District officials in Oakland point out that efforts to absorb the financial loss of students to charter schools have been difficult. The enrollment loss is spread across the city's 90 traditional schools, meaning it's difficult to cut staff or programs at any one school.


The school board voted to close five district schools last year. But in one case, the cost-saving closure backfired: Parents at Lazear Elementary petitioned to reopen it as a charter school, a request ultimately granted by the Alameda County Board of Education on appeal after the Oakland school board rejected the idea.


Financial strain

More charter schools, London said, would only increase the financial strain on the district, requiring more cuts, more school closures and more concessions to quality as art, music and other programs are eliminated or left to PTAs to fund.

"I have an obligation to the financial health of this district," she said. "I have voted for a lot of charters. I just cannot in good conscience vote for them anymore."


A study on the impact of charter schools on the financial health of districts supported her fear.
"Charter schools tend to proliferate in urban areas where local school districts already manifest a degree of underlying economic and financial stress stemming from population and tax base losses," according to the Moody's Investor Services October report. "Rapidly declining enrollments coupled with increasing expenditures pose serious operational challenges for traditional public schools, as they can trigger a cycle of financial stress - even in cases where management responds meaningfully to these challenges."


The takeaway: Charter schools pose a greater credit risk to urban school districts like Oakland's.


Mixed results

Still, charter schools are often seen as a smaller and safer version of public schools - and they're also free.



Studies of academic performance have shown mixed results, with Oakland charters generally outperforming traditional schools.
On Oct. 23, parents swarmed the Oakland school board meeting, urging the board to vote for two new charters.



One, the East Bay Innovation Academy, was endorsed by parents from a few schools in the more-affluent Oakland hills, including Crocker Highlands and Montclair elementary schools.

The parents said they wanted a middle-high school that would "nurture creative confidence" in their children.
A few school board members questioned the school's commitment to diversity, but otherwise expressed support.



'No' votes

In what she called an act of civil disobedience, London voted against the East Bay Innovation Academy that night as well as against Epic Charter Middle School in the Fruitvale neighborhood.


She stood alone in the vote against Epic and was joined by one other board member - who questioned aspects of the application not related to financial concerns - in the Innovation Academy vote.



"While we understand this is hurting us as a whole financially ... my role as a trustee is to follow the law," said board member Chris Dobbins.


Earlier this month London again voted no, on an application by Unity Middle School, and this time the board majority sided with her, although not for financial reasons. Rather, following a staff recommendation, they rejected it based on the quality of the proposed academic program.


London also vowed to vote no on two more charter applications up for a vote on Wednesday, including Downtown Charter School and the Conservatory for Vocal and Instrumental Arts High School.


Meeting demand

Yet even charter supporters acknowledged that Oakland has too many schools, but given demand, not enough charter schools.


"We prefer to look at it through a lens of quality versus quantity," said David Castillo, regional director for the California Charter School Association. "We know charter schools are one mechanism we can use and leverage to rapidly increase quality seats across the city."


London emphasized in her public stand that she's not against charters; she's against too many charters.
She's hoping she can draw attention to Oakland's case and persuade state lawmakers to rethink the law and allow local districts more flexibility in saying no to more schools.


"I can see a scenario where Jerry Brown, given his support of local control, will say this district does need the ability to say there are too many charter schools here," London said. "A part of me is wishfully thinking that could be true."

___________________________________________

As this statement says------tons of money thrown at corporate charters and our low-income/working class are struggling to have a school to send their children----this is because all that funding is lost to fraud and the goal is to eliminate K-12 access for most US citizens.  Only those that test average will be sent to global corporate factory school----only those testing exceptional will go to global corporate sweat shop professional school.  The rest of children will be pushed further and further out of these CITY CENTER STATE FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE STRUCTURES.

'The high number of charters has left Oakland Unified School District struggling financially to serve the students whose families don't choose charters. And a disproportionate number of those students are at-risk or disabled and, therefore, more expensive to educate, London said'

As with Baltimore our Baltimore Mayor PUGH who like Oakland's Mayor spent these few decades working this global Wall Street scheme and Baltimore citizens are now being organized right out of the city limits by those pesky 5% to the 1%.  We have corporate charters called FREEDOM----LIBERTY---JUSTICE-----PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS while the goal totally dismantles American values, quality of life, citizens' rights and public justice protections.   Who votes all this in?  Oakland City Council and California Assembly pols from Oakland.  Who votes these policies in Baltimore?  Baltimore City Council and Baltimore Maryland Assembly pols.  Who constantly PRETENDS TO BE WORKING FOR THE POOR AND WORKING CLASS COMMUNITIES----these same far-right wing global Wall Street pols and 5% players.

As unemployment soars in OAKLAND and SACRAMENTO-----here in Maryland it is Baltimore City and Prince George's County------so too is the cost of living---we already talked of manipulated rent increases ----here are those SMART METER BGE----PGE home energy rates and water rates soaring.  CALIFORNIA is the land of fracking----the land of all that is GREEN NATURAL GAS-----they are now drilling oil offshore and yet these energy prices are soaring right now.

Remember, it was 'LEFTY BROWN' who deregulated CA energy grid to allow Texas private energy corporations come in and SOAK CALIFORNIA small businesses and citizens with high energy costs back in the 1980s-90s. This resulted in killing CA small and regional businesses to allow only global energy corporations take the state. This is what is now happening in energy as ONE WORLD ONE GRID is installed. Where are public schools as budgets are cut and energy prices soar? They are closed----only a corporate school would be able to pay these high prices.

What is left of a PUBLIC K-12 will be told to close and all those temporary small business K-career businesses will be pushed out of business so only global corporate K-career structures survive.


Bay Area inflation soars, worst since 2001
Gary Reyes/Bay Area News Group

Bay Area consumer prices, including the cost of gasoline, housing, natural gas and electricity, soared during April, a jump that triggered the worst inflation since 2001, the year of the dot-com collapse and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.


By George Avalos | gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group


PUBLISHED: June 14, 2017 at 11:22 am | UPDATED: June 15, 2017 at 7:43 am


Bay Area consumer prices soared in April, triggering the worst bout of inflation since 2001, the year of the dot-com collapse and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to a government report issued Wednesday.
What are the culprits behind the rise in inflation? Prices have skyrocketed for natural gas and electricity service, and for gasoline.


PG&E is the primary provider of natural gas and electricity services for residential customers in the Bay Area.

Housing costs also were a factor. The cost of renting jumped 6.2 percent, while the cost of owning a home rose 6.5 percent.
“The April increase was influenced by higher prices for shelter,” the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in San Francisco said in a statement.



But energy prices were the big driver of the increasingly burdensome cost of living in the Bay Area.
During April, compared to the same month of the prior year, the price of natural gas piped into the home rocketed 19.3 percent higher, the cost of electricity use at home jumped 7.5 percent and the price of motor fuel zoomed 10.8 percent higher.


Food prices, though, weren’t an inflation burden in April compared to the prior year, but consumers would have been better off preparing meals at home rather than dining out. The cost of food at home fell 0.6 percent, but the cost of food away from home rose 3.2 percent, the federal agency reported.

During the winter, numerous PG&E customers complained about sharp increases in their monthly energy bills, especially their gas fees. Some consumers said their monthly PG&E bills doubled, tripled and even topped $500.



In addition, median home prices in April spiked to record levels in the Bay Area and reached the $800,000 mark for the first time for a previously owned residence in the nine-county region. That eclipsed the prior record of $752,000 set in June 2016, the CoreLogic real estate information service said.


The price for the typical previously owned home was $1,050,500 in Santa Clara County, which is steadily holding above the $1 million level; $805,000 in Alameda County; $590,000 in Contra Costa County; and $1.4 million in San Mateo County.


As for gasoline prices, people can still find some relatively cheap places to fill the gas tank.
Gas Buddy reported Wednesday that the cheapest price for gasoline in the Bay Area was $2.50 a gallon for unleaded at a station in San Jose, at the corner of McKee Road and North 33rd Street.


The cheapest gasoline in the East Bay was in Oakland at $2.79 a gallon offered by two stations: one at the corner of Coliseum Way and High Street and the other at Coliseum Way and Hegenberger Road.
____________________________________________


These are the conditions that have 50----60---70% of citizens in Oakland as in Baltimore unemployed/under-employed----being pushed to NW or NE Baltimore to find a corporate charter school with not enough school space for all students. Of course as energy prices soar----gas to transport a child across town as our MTA bus system is privatized and downsized to just city center-----leaves parents unable to transport their children to K-career schools AND it leaves no alternative public transportation to get there either..

Baltimore is privatizing its MTA with O'MALLEY/HOGAN'S LINK COMMUTER BUS SYSTEM. They are installing it right now because school is out------parents will find their children can no longer take buses to reach the shrinking number of schools in Baltimore and of course that has already happened in Oakland. The only school buses allowed are tied to global corporate campus universities being merged into global IVY LEAGUE hedge fund universities like Johns Hopkins and Stanford in CA.


We can bet MLK did not have a dream of bring slavery back to US cities for black, brown, and white US citizens and that is what Basic Income does---tie this Basic Income to eliminating all Federal safety net programs as Obama and Clinton neo-liberals staged these several years-----and we see US citizens as third world impoverished REFUGEES-----with no access to education just as most developing nation citizens.  Those US citizens having public schools wherever they needed them in all communities are now being pushed to COMPETE FOR FOR-PROFIT SCHOOLS ----THIS IS ASIAN GLOBAL CORPORATE NEO-LIBERAL EDUCATION STRUCTURES.


So, as Baltimore's MTA privatization kills route coverage all across the city -----parents of K-career corporate charter students will be forced to move to NW and NE Baltimore where corporate campus charter 5% to the 1% are calling them. No MTA buses means these citizens will be trapped on global corporate campuses with no way to move outside that campus. This is Baltimore's reform in schools, transportation, and housing---and it looks just like Oakland CA-----global Wall Street ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE US CITIES AS FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE.

Basic Income in California: 100 Oakland Residents Will Get a Salary Just for Being Alive
2 min read
Published May 31, 2016
by Jack Smith IV


Basic income is a simple, futuristic idea: give everyone a salary, no matter if they have a job or not, and people will do meaningful, impactful work and poverty will be abolished.


Sound utopian? It's about to get a test run, right here in the US of A.

Y Combinator, a tech hub for young companies, is launching a pilot program that will grant a basic income to 100 Oakland residents for between six months to a year. Elizabeth Rhodes, the project's newly appointed research director for the project, told Motherboard that the tentative plan is to give participants between $1,000 and $2,000 a month.
The goal is simply to see what will happen — if they'll be happier, better off and more financially stable.

"In our pilot, the income will be unconditional; we're going to give it to participants for the duration of the study, no matter what," Y Combinator wrote on its company blog on Tuesday. "People will be able to volunteer, work, not work, move to another country — anything. We hope basic income promotes freedom, and we want to see how people experience that freedom."

Though basic income is popular among Silicon Valley futurists lately, the idea is hundreds of years old, and has been championed throughout history by people like Bertrand Russell and Martin Luther King Jr., who saw it as an ultimate solution to poverty.
Martin Luther King Jr. saw basic income as an ultimate solution to poverty.


Modern techies have a particular interest in basic income, because they're part of the reason we're going to need it. Robot automation of the American workforce is projected to cause massive unemployment: Most estimates say that about 45% of all jobs are at risk in the next two decades.


"Although basic income seems fiscally challenging today, in a world where technology replaces existing jobs and basic income becomes necessary, technological improvements should generate an abundance of resources and the cost of living should fall dramatically," the blog post by Y Combinator read.
So why do they want to run a small program for just a hundred people? Because no one knows what basic income will do to us. 


Revolution, or destruction?

 While basic income advocates day that a universal salary would bring about a creative renaissance and free the people of the world from wage slavery, some argue that if you take away the profit motive, people will simply stop working.


It's an identical thesis to the age-old argument that welfare makes people lazy. The issue is, there's no respectable research that proves the thesis one way or the other. And YC isn't the only group that wants to test the hypothesis.
_______________________________________________
Below we see just one such pre-K - career corporate charter school and this one is tied to HEALTH CARE TRAINING----AND CODING FOR MEDICAL RECORDS.  This will be a Johns Hopkins elementary school but right now it looks like a small education business pushed by Baltimore's 5% to the 1%.

There are LIBERTY CHARTERS around the south----it is global Wall Street----it indeed trains the children to be volunteers doing public sector work for free while these schools morph into serving three meals a day to these children BECAUSE THESE ARE TRAINING FOR APPRENTICESHIP IN 6TH GRADE SCHOOLS.


'we have connected Convergys with innovative volunteer organizations that are pioneering new ways to grow the number of volunteers and the impact of the work they do,”'


It is really crazy stuff and to watch as US citizens bring these policies to our communities just because THE 5% TO THE 1% DO WHATEVER THEY ARE TOLD-----we are well on our way to MAOIST FAR-RIGHT AUTHORITARIANISM.  All global Wall Street ----nothing LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE.  All the REAL left social progressive policies in education are being dismantled.

Here is our NE corporate charter moving Baltimore citizens to this future global corporate factory campus----


If you work to promote these private education structures you are in line to GET A JOB----this is corporate plantation patronage zone after all. If you protest and fight these policies your child may not be accepted into ever-lower number of schools and you may not get a job on that global corporate campus----ergo, Johns Hopkins/UnderArmour/Amazon.com



NPI Number: 1407092968


Health Care Provider/Practitioner:


LIBERTY CHARTER SCHOOL


Additionally, you can get information about “1407092968” NPI (LIBERTY CHARTER SCHOOL)
in 1407092968 in HTML format HTML | 1407092968 in plain Text format TXT | 1407092968 in PDF (Portable Document Format) PDF | 1407092968 in an XML format XML formats.
HIPAASpace NPI–JSON Data

LIBERTY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Go back
3901 MAINE AVE
GWYNN OAK, MD 21207



and here is that same corporate charter called 'PROGRESSIVE'---meaning making the rich progressively richer economic progressive corporate school.  None of this is LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION----it is all far-right wing global Wall Street and it will look just as OAKLAND CA does now in just a decade or so as MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE policies are allowed to continue.  These K-career schools are being built for a global labor pool worker and their children ----our US citizens will be EX-PATS in same conditions overseas.


These are the BALTIMORE EDUCATION COALITION/Johns Hopkins corporate NGO education structures advancing ONE WORLD ONE COMMONER CORE in Baltimore.
While today it is our low-income and poor largely black and brown citizens tied to what is TOTAL CAPTURE AND NO FREEDOM----is now moving into white communities and these structures left behind will be permanent for future generations....

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Here is that MAYOR OF OAKLAND----she is a private school grad------Catholic university grad----ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE ONE INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION SCHOOLING-----and yes, lots of US citizens are now being told they have A COLLEGE DEGREE. This is the OBAMA community college as vocational certificate degree----it totally eliminates 99% of WE THE PEOPLE from having access to REAL higher education universities. As we said here in Baltimore citizens are throwing a dozen job training certificates on the ground saying---I STILL DON'T HAVE A JOB.

I spoke with a citizens fresh from San Diego stating he had lots and lots of DEGREES and would not have trouble finding a job in Baltimore. When WE THE PEOPLE are racking up tons of DEGREES being called UNIVERSITY DEGREES ---we can bet what we have is lower-tiered certificates that will assure we never get anything other then that global labor pool wage.

THIS IS THE MAYOR BRINGING NOT ONLY SOARING K-CAREER CHARTER SCHOOL FRAUDS----BUT BRINGING BASIC INCOME AND WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION PREVENTATIVE CARE ONLY SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH PLAN.

These are really, really Hillary nasty global corporate feminists====that 5% trying to get to the global 2% doing anything they are told.

For our 99% of immigrant citizens all these Foreign Economic Zone Asian neo-liberal corporate education policies are called  DREAM-----for our black  and white US city citizens they are called PROMISE ZONES and as Clinton era ENTERPRISE ZONES are building nothing but global education corporations to fleece WE THE PEOPLE of wealth and our once strong DEMOCRATIC PUBLIC EDUCATION.



Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf unveils plan to triple the number of college graduates


Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf addresses members of the media during a press conference about the Oakland Raiders at the City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2015. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)


By Joyce Tsai | jtsai@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group


PUBLISHED: January 28, 2016 at 5:46 pm | UPDATED: August 15, 2016 at 9:30 am


OAKLAND — City and school leaders unveiled an ambitious plan Thursday to triple the number of low-income students who graduate college by providing support through college savings accounts, scholarships and pacts with colleges to provide free or partial tuition.


The pep-rally-like launch of the Oakland Promise initiative — held under a big white tent on the Oakland High School football field — drew a who’s who of Oakland civic and education leaders, as well as U.S. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and University of California President Janet Napolitano.


“We are making this promise today, the Oakland Promise,” said Mayor Libby Schaaf, surrounded by an arch of colorful balloons. “It’s time to end the tyranny of low expectations. It’s time we break down the barriers to hope that have been keeping down our kids for too long.”

____________________________________

Of course NOW-----that US Federal funding for college has been dismantled and being sent to vocational tracking community college 'degrees'----the global IVY LEAGUEs will now open enrollment for free because they are now controlling all access to corporate education.
With tired education allowing a corporate university to decide how you will be tracked----private global Wall Street universities CONTROLLING ALL EDUCATION CONTENT----CONTROLLING ALL STUDENT INITIATIVES----it won't be free-----what is our trillion dollar K-university Federal spending will simply be sent to GLOBAL IVY LEAGUE HEDGE FUND UNIVERSITIES which will then create subsidiary schools throughout that Foreign Economic Zone.
We watched these few decades as CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA opened Ivy Leagues to what became THE ME GENERATION---THOSE PESKY 5% TO THE 1% ROBBER BARON PLAYERS----now WE THE PEOPLE will have absolutely NO CHOICE in where we go or send our children and grandchildren----it will all be global WALL STREET.

What happens to our public universities---especially those liberal arts and humanities colleges and universities when global IVY LEAGUES are open and free-----IT KILLS AND CLOSES THE REMAINING PUBLIC SCHOOLS. What does Stanford do after this happens? STOPS THIS FREE TUITION POLICY. This will no doubt come to US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zone cities across the nation ----IF WE DO NOT FIGHT THIS MOVEMENT OF CITIZENS OUT OF CITY CENTER COMMUNITIES----IF WE DON'T FIGHT THESE GLOBAL WALL STREET K-COLLEGE STRUCTURES---the next stage will be total ONLINE K-CAREER VOCATION LESSONS given on global corporate campuses and in global factory dormitories.

The very global corporate universities that fueled the student loan fraud leaving a trillion dollars of student loan debt on these generations' young adults---making university tuition soar----are now giving free university to kill all other local and state college structures.


All of the tens of trillions of dollars in global Wall Street and corporate frauds against personal wealth and our public trusts now running through these endowments as any other hedge fund.

Stanford offers free tuition for families making less than $125,000

by Emily Jane Fox   @emilyjanefox April 3, 2015: 11:04 AM ET
Your video will play in 00:26
Last week, 2,144 teenagers got the news they'd long dreamed of: They got accepted to Stanford University.


The cherry on top is that Stanford also announced it was expanding financial aid. The university said that no parents with an annual income and typical assets of less than $125,000 will have to pay a single cent toward tuition. The threshold for this aid was previously $100,000.


Stanford also said it will offer free room and board -- in addition to free tuition -- for those making less than $65,000, raised from the previous $60,000 threshold.
Without financial aid, annual costs for a typical Stanford student run about $65,000, including yearly tuition at more than $45,000.



"Our highest priority is that Stanford remain affordable and accessible to the most talented students, regardless of their financial circumstances," Stanford provost John Etchemendy said in a statement.
As it stands, the school said that 77% of its undergraduate students graduate with no student debt.


Stanford, which came in fourth place in U.S. News and World Report's national university rankings, admitted just about 5% of applicants. A record 42,487 students applied. About 16% of the admitted class are the first in their families to go to college.
 
Stanford isn't the only elite school to offer such financial aid packages. At Harvard, parents making less than $65,000 are not expected to contribute. Families making between $65,000 and $150,000 contribute from 0-10% of their income.

College 'can't just be for rich folks'Like Harvard and Stanford, Yale parents making less than $65,000 do not have to contribute to tuition. Beyond that, Yale subtracts a family contribution from the cost of tuition, room and board, books and personal expenses, and will meet 100% of demonstrated financial need.


At Princeton, parents making less than $140,000 do not pay tuition. Those making less than $60,000 are covered for tuition, room and board. Those making between $60,000 and $120,000 only pay a percentage of room and board. Princeton covers more for families with lower incomes.

_________________________________________________

We want to be clear-----the goal of RACE TO THE TOP is to have these global IVY LEAGUES as free corporate R and D and as pre-K to career job training structures.  Johns Hopkins controls many Pre-K -12 corporate charters building this same cradle to grave control of HUMAN CAPITAL ----and so too is STANFORD.  We are very weary of a corporate  K-12 school board closing a STANFORD K-12 CHARTER SCHOOL and would look closely to rebranding -------

Here we see OBAMA'S TIES TO FAR-RIGHT WING BUSH NEO-CONSERVATIVE STANFORD----Obama was quite the Bush 3rd term President.




'Stanford's heavy hitters -- including the high-profile Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who headed President Obama's education transition team -- were kept waiting for hours and not asked to speak'.

As with all privatization of all that is public-----the 5% to the 1% have the duty of hiding goals of complete control by a few global corporations in Foreign Economic Zones across all industries including these school systems.  No small business charters----no regional or state public schools or liberal arts colleges......WHAT?  HISTORICALLY BLACK COLLEGES?  REALLY?


Uploaded: Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 9:51 am

Ravenswood to close Stanford charter school

Trustees cite poor academics, but other factors may come into playby Chris Kenrick / Palo Alto Online


In a stunning rebuke to Stanford University, the Ravenswood City School District Board of Trustees Thursday voted to shut down a Stanford-run charter elementary school at the end of the school year, citing poor academic performance.

The 3.5-year-old East Palo Alto Academy Elementary School will close its doors to more than 200 students in June.
Stanford had argued the decision was made on skimpy data -- barely more than two years worth of test scores.

Stanford officials said if given another year or two the school's results would begin to match or exceed those of two older high-performing charter schools in the Ravenswood district, or the district's own schools, which recently have shown improvement.

But Ravenswood trustees -- who oversee seven schools serving children in East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park -- weren't having it.

They opted instead to accept the closure recommendation of Superintendent Maria De La Vega.
De La Vega cited poor results on state tests, and said visitors to the school site had observed serious problems with classroom behavior management. She said the school's current program was inadequate and that Stanford was unlikely to be able to improve it sufficiently.

Thursday's 11 p.m. vote to accept De La Vega's recommendation was conducted in less than five minutes, with no discussion by board members.
Stanford's heavy hitters -- including the high-profile Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who headed President Obama's education transition team -- were kept waiting for hours and not asked to speak.

The vote was 3-1, with trustees Marcelino Lopez, Larry Moody and Sharifa Wilson supporting closure and trustee Saree Mading opposing the motion. A fifth member who previously had supported Stanford, John Bostic, was absent.

Trustees did offer some reprieve to a Stanford-run charter high school, the 8.5-year-old East Palo Alto Academy High School.

They agreed to extend the school's charter until 2012 or until Stanford finds another sponsoring agency for the high school -- whichever comes sooner.


Fifth-graders from the to-be-closed elementary school will be educated on the high-school campus next year -- apparently to maintain the continued jurisdiction of Ravenswood, a K-8 district, over the 9-12 high school.
Stanford officials have said the Sequoia Union High School District -- the most logical sponsoring agency for a high school in East Palo Alto -- will not sponsor them and they will have to look elsewhere.


Ever since the closure of East Palo Alto's Ravenswood High School in 1976, students from the community have had to travel to other Sequoia district high schools, including Menlo-Atherton, Woodside and Carlmont.


Dropout rates of those students are estimated at about 70 percent. The Stanford-sponsored high school in East Palo Alto has achieved better results, with a roughly 84 percent graduation rate. Nearly all graduates have gone on to two- or four-year colleges.
Privately, Stanford officials appeared stunned by Ravenswood's decision to close the elementary school.


Publicly, they said Stanford faculty will continue to "work closely" with the teachers of the elementary children, who will be transferred to other Ravenswood district elementary schools.
"We are very pleased that we will continue to be involved with students in the East Palo Alto community, which has been so enthusiastic and supportive of our presence," Stanford Education School Dean Deborah Stipek said.


"Stanford has a long-term commitment to the students of East Palo Alto. We are pleased that we will continue our partnership with the Ravenswood school district, and that the board is supportive of our successful high school program."


Other than the test data, Ravenswood's decision to close the Stanford elementary school appeared to reflect the institutional imperatives of a declining-enrollment school district that is fighting for financial survival.


An immediate state cash infusion to the district will accompany any former Stanford student who returns to his or her neighborhood school this fall.
Indeed, just prior to the vote Thursday night, trustees heard from their Chief Business Official Megan Curtis about a looming deficit, due in part to declining enrollment.


Curtis said staff members have identified many potential cuts but the district may have to consider more drastic measures, including school closures and furloughs, to close the budget gap.
Another policy trustees might consider is a "district-wide campaign to increase enrollment," Curtis said.
"If we could pull back 200 or 300 kids to our district, that could offset the entire deficit," Curtis said, without making any reference to the Stanford situation.

Ravenswood trustees have expressed frustration that district schools continue to lose enrollment -- and accompanying state revenue -- despite their improving test scores and the district's stated motto, "Journey to Excellence."


The 3,000-student district loses about 40 percent of its potential enrollment each year to charter schools or to the Tinsley desegregation program, a 23-year-old court settlement that allows 160 of Ravenswood's non-white kindergartners each year to enroll in neighboring Palo Alto, Menlo Park and other area school districts as far north as Belmont.

"We're all working toward the same end, but oftentimes it becomes competitive," De La Vega said in an interview with the Weekly last December.
"I know it's not (the charters') intent, but when you take (students) away it makes it more difficult to work through those challenges.
"My role as superintendent is to protect the district and make sure we're left with the ability to provide a quality education."
Related story:
■ Stanford loses bid to renew EPA charter schools

 _____________________________

We are watching today as global Wall Street Baltimore Development and Johns Hopkins take all Federal funding for public K-12 and universities and throws a few million to those 5% to the 1% so they can pretend to have a small education business that will disappear as all this trillion in public school funding goes only to global IVY LEAGUE corporate pre-K-career vocational schools tied to INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION ---ILO-----GLOBAL CORPORATE 'labor and education' platforms in all Foreign Economic Zones.



"I can see a scenario where Jerry Brown, given his support of local control, will say this district does need the ability to say there are too many charter schools here," London said. "A part of me is wishfully thinking that could be true."

When Jerry Brown shouts he is now for local control after a strongest in the world public K-university system has been gutted and privatized-----he is now sounding left keeping school board control local---

BUT ALL US CITY SCHOOL BOARDS HAVE BEEN MADE CORPORATE AND ARE WORKING FOR CORPORATIONS INSIDE THESE US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.

They are no longer our local community school boards filled with teachers and parents working for their children's community public school.  Watch as national media and far-right wing global Wall Street make thius LOCAL CONTROL WHICH IS NOW US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE CITY STATE CONTROL----sound LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE.

EDUCATION FOR ALL---GLOBAL WALL STREET JUST WANTS TO TAKE CARE OF ITS HUMAN CAPITAL! THE GLOBAL 1% REALLY REALLY LOVE THE POOR. We see Gov Brown of CA basically MOVING FORWARD as Clinton/Bush/Obama was about ignoring all FEDERAL LAWS AND US CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS----NOW global Wall Street pols are ending all ties to STATE SOVEREIGNTY and rights----this is what GOING LOCAL with school boards inside US Foreign Economic Zones like Silicon Valley----Greater Los Angeles----Greater San Diego means. This ends all connection to our Federal 3 branches of government----our US Constitution and all its AMENDMENTS giving WE THE PEOPLE rights as citizens. It ends 300 years of Federal court precedence and COMMON LAW tied to MAGNA CARTA and anyone other than the rich and corporations having RIGHTS AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE.


Of course none of THAT history will be taught in GLOBAL COMMONER CORE.


 Ed Source is of course a global Wall Street NEO-LIBERAL Bill Gates corporate education outlet.

 US cities operating as INDEPENDENT FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES----


Gov. Brown reemphasizes local control of state's public schools
CommentaryJanuary 22, 2014
Louis Freedberg


Louis Freedberg
In his State of the State speech on Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown made it clear again where he thinks the action should be when it comes to school reform – at the local level.


Instead of “prescriptive commands issued from headquarters here in Sacramento,” he said, the school funding reforms he and the Legislature have put in place “set more general goals” that “put responsibility where it should be” – in the classroom and school. “There is no way the state can micromanage teaching and learning in all the schools from El Centro to Eureka and we shouldn’t even try,” he said.


By  stressing local control, Brown continues to try to move California away from the fundamental top-down dynamic of school reform over the past decade and half – in which schools were required to implement sweeping reforms mandated by Washington (the 2002 No Child Left Behind law), and before that by Sacramento (the 1999 Public Schools Accountability Act).


He referred to the more than 300 people who showed up at the State Board of Education meeting last week to testify before the board adopted emergency regulations implementing the Local Control Funding Formula. “That shows interest and real commitment,” he said. But he said, “their work is just beginning.”


“Each local district now has to put into practice what the local funding formula has made possible,” he said.  That, together with the new Common Core standards for math and English will be a major challenge for teachers and local administrators, but they are the ones that can make it work, and I have every confidence that they will.”


Drawing on the Oxford English Dictionary, Brown also put forward his clearest definition of subsidiarity to date — that “central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level.”


With greater decison-making power over state funds, It will now be up to local school districts to demonstrate just how effective they will be.


Louis Freedberg is the executive director of EdSource. Contact him and follow him on Twitter @louisfr. Sign up here for a no-cost online subscription to EdSource Today for reports from the largest education reporting team in California.
__________________________________________________
As we have shouted these several years all this Baltimore City global Wall Street corporate pre-K to career education structure being built in Baltimore is simply that platform to export across Maryland. Remember, Baltimore County----having quality public schools will be GREATER BALTIMORE and as such folded into global corporate campuses global factories and their schools.

We are sure OAKLAND CA had their version of our BALTIMORE EDUCATION COALITION----these are the global Wall Street Baltimore Development 'labor and justice' organizations this one tied to education and public school policies. They simply push whatever global Johns Hopkins writes as policy and each shouts they are fighting for the poor.

I know many of these citizens personally and almost all of them are tied to PRIVATE SCHOOLS---PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES---being that 5% to the 1%. Know what? I KNOW for sure their children and grandchildren will be caught up in this same global labor pool vocational training K-career just as today's poor community children are.......WHY DO THESE 5% PLAYERS DO THIS? We can only assume sociopathy.

Most of these groups are extensions of GLOBAL UNITED NATIONS EDUCATION ORGANIZATIONS----and then there are the Greater Baltimore and Baltimore Development local NGOS.

ALL ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE ONE COMMONER CORE UNITED NATIONS INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION CRADLE TO GRAVE JOB TRAINING.


Maryland Out of School Time


Home > Resources > Baltimore Education Coalition



The Baltimore Education Coalition (BEC) is a partnership of more than 20 schools, organizations and religious institutions united by a mission and vision for public education in Baltimore City. The coalition organizes and mobilizes the Baltimore community, including organizations, parents, teachers, and students, and advocates for effective education reform policies and practices.


FOR INFORMATION ABOUT BEC's UPCOMING RALLY & ACTIONS PLEASE VISIT & LIKE THE BEC FACEBOOK PAGE.

BEC Partners:


ACLU of Maryland
Advocactes for Children and Youth
Baltimore Curriculum Project
BUILD
The Cathedral of the Incarnation
Child First Authority
City Neighbors Foundation Council
The Coalition of Baltimore Charter Schools
Downtown Baltimore Family Alliance
Elev8 Baltimore
KIPP Baltimore
League of Women Voters
Maryland Education Coalition
Maryland Out of School Time (MOST)
PTA Council of Baltimore
Reservoir Hill Improvement Council
Roland Park Elem/Middle
School Social Workers in Maryland
Strong City Baltimore
Supporting Public Schools of Choice

Get Involved


Are you interested in joining our efforts to advocate for Baltimore City youth and schools? Contact BEC and learn how you and/or your organization can make a difference!
The Baltimore Education Coalition is the leading voice for Baltimore City’s public schools.


The BEC’s mission is to ensure that all children in Baltimore City receive an excellent education. The BEC organizes and mobilizes the Baltimore community to advocate for adequate funding and effective education reform policies. Founded in 2009 to prevent cuts to state education funding for Baltimore City’s students, the BEC prevented a total of $23 million in cuts that year. The first and only coalition of its kind in the city, BEC brings together strong organizations with proven track records on education issues who work together to advocate for effective education reform policies and practices.


Each year the BEC continues to mobilize larger numbers of community members and cultivate new leaders through trainings, district nights and other events. In the 2009, 2010, and 2011 State Legislative Sessions, the BEC successfully pushed back tens of millions of dollars in proposed cuts to funding for Baltimore City Schools. In 2011, Governor O’Malley submitted a budget to the General Assembly that proposed to “flat” fund education through changes to the Thornton formula, the landmark funding formula adopted by the state in 2002 to ensure that every child, regardless of where they live, could receive an adequately funded education. The Governor’s proposal would have cut $15 million from the budget for City Schools, and millions more in future years. Through a strategic advocacy effort by the BEC, and an intensive campaign to educate and mobilize school communities to protest these proposed cuts, the legislative session ended with not a cut, but rather a $3 million increase in funding for City Schools.


In 2013, the BEC and its members united more than 3,500 parents, teachers, principals, and students with corporate and foundation leaders; the Mayor, City Council, and State Delegation; the school system, gubernatorial prospects, the Governor, and House Speaker to win approval of the single greatest investment in children in Baltimore’s history. House Bill 860 provides approximately $1 billion for the replacement or total renovation of 50 schools over the next five to six years. The measure came after years of hard work by BEC members and leaders in partnership with stakeholders across the state – including passage of the city bottle tax, BUILD’s campaign to engage corporate leaders in support of the plan, a summer study commissioned by the Maryland General Assembly and shaped by the ACLU, and the creation of Baltimore City Schools 10-Year Facilities Plan.




Primary Issues

Adequate Funding for Rebuilding and Repairing School Facilities


Monitor and Support the 21st Century Building for our Kids Program

This program, funded by HB860, is estimated to generate approximately $1 billion in bonds to rebuild and fully renovate up to 28 school buildings – Phase I. Ensuring that this program is well managed and implemented, with robust community engagement, is critical to achieve the best outcomes for students. BEC is committed to securing funding for the 100+ school buildings that will not be touched by this first phase of funding – Phase II.


State School Construction Funding for Private Schools

In 2013, the state approved $3.5 million in funding for private and parochial schools. BEC believes that public funds must be spent on public schools, especially given the high need for infrastructure improvements statewide.


Protect Annual State School Construction Funding

The State Capital Improvement Program (CIP) is indispensible for making critical repairs and improvements to the 100+ city school facilities that are not covered by Phase I of the 21st Century Buildings program. Each year, City Schools submits dozens of systematic projects – repairs and replacements of old roofs, broken boilers, faulty fire alarm and sprinkler systems – to the state for CIP funding. BEC advocates for City Schools to get its fair share of funding – 11-12% of the total state capital budget for school construction (average of $38 million annually over the past 9 years).
Protecting State Education Operating Funding


School funding is the foundation for the success of our students and Baltimore City’s schools depend on state funding for 70% of their budget. There is a looming threat to education funding: the General Assembly is facing a $300 million gap in FY 2015 and a $525 million gap in FY 2016 between state revenue and state spending. BEC opposes any cuts to state education funding as means for balancing the state budget. We are committed to ensuring that the state education operating budget is fully funded, including the inflationary factor and Geographic Cost of Education Index (GCEI).

Adequacy Review of Education Funding in Maryland


The state education formula was established in 2002 to give school districts enough funding to fulfill the mandate of an adequate education for all public school students in Maryland. The Maryland State Department of Education is conducting a review of the existing formula to ensure it still meets that mandate. BEC will ensure that the needs of Baltimore City’s students are considered in the review of the statewide education funding formula.

_______________________________________________
When all citizens' education activities are tied to the very global Wall Street IVY LEAGUE hedge fund JOHNS HOPKINS and global Wall STreet Baltimore Development----we are MOVING FORWARD to OAKLAND CA.

GHCC is JOHNS HOPKINS DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION and yes, all K-12 schools in city center receiving that $1 billion school building funding will be controlled by global Johns Hopkins.  It is all under the GREAT SCHOOLS WALL STREET STOCK MARKET RATINGS corporation.

This is the problem for 99% of citizens living in Baltimore ----if you do not VOLUNTEER to support these global Wall Street Johns Hopkins policies then finding a job in Baltimore will be hard.  Many citizens tied to BEC are graduates of Hopkins or those campuses tied to Hopkins.

Since the problem in US education policy is RACE TO THE TOP----tiered public education funding------dumbing down of not only classroom lessons but what defines a 'COLLEGE DEGREE'----since LOCAL CONTROL VIA GOVERNOR BROWN kills state sovereignty as CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA killed Federal sovereignty----why do actions always go to Maryland Assembly when the institutions behind all this injustice are GLOBAL WALL STREET BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT---JOHNS HOPKINS----AND GREATER BALTIMORE---and the policies killing our public schools are UNITED NATIONS EDUCATION AND INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION Foreign Economic Zone policies.


When I hear---WE HAVE TO GET THOSE POOR CHILDREN OUT OF OUR SCHOOL to build a successful school for our middle-class children I am looking for any middle-class family in SAN FRAN. They have all been pushed out to GREATER BALTIMORE where our poor children are being used as an excuse to build schools out there. THIS EFFECTS 99% OF CITIZENS----

GHCC and Baltimore Education Coalition Bring it to Annapolis
  • Published March 8, 2012





“Guilford first received a portable for our middle school, which was supposed to be a temporary facility, in 1971. We’re here, 41 years later, and things are the same.”


Guilford teacher Ted Smith testified to the poor conditions of his school in Annapolis on Monday, March 5, 2012, where  136 participants from the 43rd District on behalf of the Baltimore Education Coalition (BEC) to protect Baltimore City public school funding. Greater Homewood Community Corporation worked with Child First Authority and Waverly School activist Joan Stanne to organize this empowering BEC District 43 Night.


Students, teachers and community members traveled from Baltimore City to Annapolis to urge lawmakers to support bills vital for school funding. City College student N’della Seck, Barclay 8th grader Devon Edwards, and Northwood grandparent Benjamin Dubose also described dilapidated school buildings with crumbling ceilings and toxic water pipes.
“If you want to provide an education that produces scholars that can compete, then why not give us facilities that are conducive to that level of scholarship?” Smith said. “More funding needs to be on the front end rather than the back end.”
 
BEC advocates for Transform Baltimore, a campaign to renovate and modernize all Baltimore City public schools in poor conditions. To address the $2.8 billion need for school construction, the BEC is fighting to pass HB304/SB533, which would allow flexible use of existing school construction dollars to be leveraged in a way to enable large scale school renovations to solve the desperate facilities need.



Delegate Mary Washington publicly pledged to preserve the 1% Inflation Factor for school funding in the state budget, and wealth-equalize the proposed teacher pension shift to the City of Baltimore. She is also a sponsor of HB 304.


Students and leaders from Child First Authority, GHCC, Abbottson Elementary, Baltimore City College, Barclay School, Guilford Elementary-Middle School, Northwood Elementary, 901 Arts, Wide Angle Youth Media, Tunbridge Public Charter, Waverly Elementary-Middle, the League of Women Voters, and the Cathedral of the Incarnation mobilized in support of the BEC’s agenda for City Schools.




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

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