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July 30th, 2014

7/30/2014

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One more day on development takes us to all of the Wall Street money flowing into development that takes the US to third world status.  First the big picture and then a look locally.  I spoke a few years ago about being in a Baltimore Board of Estimates meeting when a developer from out of town spoke loudly to the Pikesville development people about how the money for development was flowing in......green tax credits galore funding building of huge office complexes.  All of that money is of course the money stolen by Wall Street from Maryland coming back to build a global structure that takes all control away from the citizens of Maryland.  A friend driving outside of Owings Mill said he saw a huge complex that had the opulence of Wall Street in the middle of nowhere filled with financial firms.  What investigative journalists are finding is that neo-liberals and neo-cons are no longer sending money off-shore-----the money-laundering is now happening out of these financial buildings being built right in our own country.  The US is being made the go-to place for wealth laundering.  Why go to the Cayman Islands when Rule of Law is suspended in the US?

Make no mistake------the fact that nothing is being done is not because these financial institutions are too large.  All Obama and neo-liberals had to do in 2009 was nationalize those banks, investigate and recover the fraud, and break them down to the regional banks they need to be.  DID YOU HEAR YOUR POLS SHOUTING THAT?  IF NOT, THEY ARE NEO-LIBERALS WORKING WITH THESE WALL STREET BANKS.

THAT IS WHAT RULE OF LAW DEMANDED.  OUR GOVERNMENT COFFERS WOULD BE FLUSH WITH MONEY NOW IF THAT HAPPENED.


Economists and financial analysts are all saying that the US economy would be better now if they had.  They didn't because Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons work for Wall Street
as we see in Maryland.
Bush and neo-cons allowed the massive corporate frauds to occur and Obama and neo-liberals are making sure justice is suspended.  Maryland is ranked at the bottom nationally for this fraud and corruption.  The epidemic exists because the US Justice Department is captured as are the state attorney's offices like the Maryland Attorney General's office.  Public justice is completely dismantled.  It's easy enough to fix-----simply vote out the neo-liberals and neo-cons controlling the party machines at local and state level and reinstate Rule of Law.  When the government suspends Rule of Law it suspends Statutes of Limitations.

Big banks take advantage of money laundering epidemic in US
Published time: April 01, 2013 15:13 RT

Banking, Crisis, Economy, USA The attorney general of the United States says the country’s largest banks may be too big to jail, but the former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund isn’t exactly convinced.

Simon Johnson, the former top IMF economist and a current professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, published a blistering editorial in Bloomberg News this week that makes an argument for imprisoning the banksters responsible for the nation’s last financial crisis — and possibly the next one — much to the chagrin of Attorney General Eric Holder.

Large international banks, writes Simon, are guilty of money laundering to the degree of epidemic proportions. If recent admissions from the biggest name in the American economy are any indication, though, they have nothing to fear.

“Governor Jerome Powell, on behalf of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, recently testified to Congress on the issue, and he sounded serious. But international criminals and terrorists needn’t worry. This is window dressing: Complicit bankers have nothing to fear from the U.S. justice system,” writes Simon.


Speaking to Congress last month, US Attorney General Eric Holder admitted, "I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.” Johnson, on the other hand, implores the US Justice Department in his latest op-ed to follow in the footsteps of other countries and to once and for all condemn the corrupt practices that banks have been given a mere slap on the wrist for — and now harsh prosecutions.

In the editorial published Sunday evening, Johnson attacks both the Department of Justice and the Federal Reserve for failing to take action against the big banks.

“There may be fines, but the largest financial companies are unlikely to face criminal actions or meaningful sanctions,” he writes. “The Department of Justice has decided that these banks are too big to prosecute to the full extent of the law, though why this also gets employees and executives off the hook remains a mystery. And the Federal Reserve refuses to rescind bank licenses, undermining the credibility, legitimacy and stability of the financial system.”

Last December, the US government demanded Standard Chartered Bank — the fifth largest bank in the UK—pay up $327 million in fines after being caught guilty of laundering a quarter of a trillion dollars. Bartlett Naylor, the financial policy reform advocate for Public Citizen's Congress Watch, writes for Huffington Post that the sum is “paltry” when put into perspective of what banks should be paying, but even the attorney general — the nation’s top prosecutor — cannot figure a way to pursue much more.

In that regard, writes Simon this week, there’s very little to worry about for banking that may be considering colossal laundering schemes. “[I]nternational criminals and terrorists needn’t worry,” he writes.

Is the US actually becoming a haven for international banks to commit massive money laundering operations?
The nations’ top economists seem to admit as much, but why, then, isn’t anything being done? “If you or I tried to launder money, even on a small scale, we would probably go to jail. But when the employees of a very big bank do so — on a grand scale and over many years — there are no meaningful consequences,” writes Johnson.

According to the attorney general, it might just not be possible. "I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large,” Holder said on Capitol Hill last month.
__________________________________________


The Baltimore Board of Estimates now has police on duty because citizens in Baltimore were so angry about money being lost to fraud and corruption and Jack Young makes it clear if anyone speaks out of turn they will be dismissed.  Of course the public has no turn and when these meetings are televised there is only a quick in-and-out of Mayor Rawlings-Blake, Jack Young, the Comptroller, and mayor appointees.  It seriously looks like something from China------ how corrupt and how silenced the public has been made in all city meetings.

The anger comes from revenue decisions and development decisions all made behind closed doors and with no public input.  This is the Wall Street and global corporate capture that has taken Maryland over a few decades.  Baltimore Development Corporation and Johns Hopkins is the face of it in the Baltimore region, but Maryland Assembly has been ground zero for this neo-con/neo-liberal takeover.
   They want people to believe this is the only way to develop but it is a lie.  These empire-building people deliberately create chaos and corruption to undermine healthy economies and societies.

Baltimore citizens have been shouting in the streets for years about the injustice and now other counties are seeing their rights usurped.  It is not only a class or race issue----it is a dismantling of our US Constitution, Rule of Law, and our status as citizens.
  Everywhere you go in Maryland citizens are made to write questions down or given a few minutes of time to speak in public meetings that happen too infrequently to allow voice.  No one can outline a policy stance in just a few minutes.  These pols also make sure there is no way dissent is heard as Maryland media will not allow any coverage outside of a sound bite to hit any media.  In the case below you see yet another public facility is being handed to private developers and people wanting local community centers and local services to stay are fighting just as in Baltimore City.  There is to be no public sector-----all is being handed to private non-profits controlled by these global corporations.

Police in Baltimore routinely harass and often jail activists for no reason to intimidate dissent......
people need to wake up to this growing usurpation of power.  It is not about local development----it is about changing US social and government structure.

The article suggests we need to solve our discontent through the political process-----but we see the election rigging and capture by these political machines make that difficult.



Dundalk activists question police scrutiny after public testimony


By Alison Knezevich, The Baltimore Sun 6:12 p.m. EDT, July 27, 2014

Two longtime Dundalk community activists say they are troubled that a Baltimore County police official called them at home after they testified against a development proposal at a County Council work session this month.

A police spokeswoman said the department did not mean to offend the people and that Chief Jim Johnson is reviewing the matter, which the two activists say they viewed as an attempt to intimidate them.

Karen Cruz, president of the Eastfield-Stanbrook Civic Association, and Bob Staab, a former county parks director and state legislator, say a police corporal called them at home a few days after they testified at a July 1 public meeting in Towson. Both had spoken against plans to redevelop the former North Point Government Center in Dundalk.

In the phone call, Cpl. Morgan Hassler talked about wanting to "keep peace" at council meetings, Staab said. Cruz said the corporal wanted to "go over the rules" for public meetings.

Hassler asked to meet with both of them at the local library; when they got to the July 7 meeting, both said, they were met by three police officials.

"I honestly felt like they were trying to intimidate me," Staab said.

Both Cruz and Staab belong to the group Dundalk United, a community organization formed to oppose the sale of the government center.

Police spokeswoman Elise Armacost responded to questions on behalf of the department and the officers. She said Hassler, of the special operations division, asked to meet with the two after plainclothes officers assigned to the work sessions witnessed "some behavior that was a little bit more boisterous than what they typically see at a work session."

Over the past year and a half, police officials have been meeting with advocacy groups — such as an anti-abortion group, animal-rights advocates and Wal-Mart protesters — to explain laws on demonstrations and protests, Armacost said.

"It appears that there was some misunderstanding here about what the purpose of the [library] meeting was," Armacost said. "The Police Department approached them in the same way that they've approached protest groups, which was in a polite and friendly way to discuss concerns about protocols."

The two plainclothes officers filed reports, dated July 8, describing their concerns about the work session. The reports are marked "highly confidential," but the department released them in response to a public-information request by The Baltimore Sun. The reports give a detailed description of the work session. They call the behavior of some attendees "disruptive" and "disrespectful," saying some people were "agitated" that they only had three minutes to speak or when they learned that they couldn't testify if they had not signed up before the work session.

Neither report mentions Staab, but one says Cruz talked longer than the allowed three minutes and later had a loud conversation with another person attending the work session.

One report says some people attending the session shouted questions from their seats, and it characterized the behavior of some at the meeting as showing "a complete lack of respect for the business procedures of the work session."

The reports say Council Chairwoman Cathy Bevins was disrupted because of people talking in the audience, and also detail how one attendee was filming the meeting with his cellphone.

Staab and Cruz said that at the library meeting, the police representatives wanted to talk about demonstrations.

"Nobody talked about any rules at all," Cruz said. "They talked about demonstrating."

The two said they were scratching their heads when they left the meeting, which lasted about 20 minutes.

Cruz said the whole situation "just didn't feel right."

"It felt like we were being targeted, and they were trying to intimidate us," she said.

Asked about the work session, Bevins said some residents were upset that they could not speak. She also said Cruz was disruptive because she kept speaking after her time was up.

"She just kept talking and talking, and then when she sat, she was still talking," said Bevins, a Middle River Democrat.

Councilman David Marks, who also attended the work session, said there was "passionate" testimony on the Dundalk proposal and from the opponents of a student-housing project in Towson, which is in his district. He said he did not witness anything threatening.

"I think they were passionate, but I have seen other witnesses who have also displayed that type of emotion," said Marks, a Perry Hall Republican. "I personally didn't feel threatened."

Armacost said police want to help strike a balance between people exercising their First Amendment rights and ensuring public safety. The department "encourages people to express their views through the democratic process," she said.

She added that one of the officials at the meeting, Maj. Woodland Wilson, felt comfortable discussing the officers' concerns with Cruz because he previously was the North Point captain and knew her as a community leader.

"We are sorry that they appear to have taken this the wrong way," Armacost said. "But this meeting was an extension of our ongoing efforts to reach out to groups to try to help them ensure that these types of opportunities to express their opinions goes smoothly."

I want to use this one case in Baltimore County because I often look at these same issues in Baltimore City.....we need to know these development deals filling space with large restaurant and hotel chains are happening all over the state.  It adds nothing to the economy and takes all of our public space.

Special zoning rules and of course Enterprise Zone status means no taxes for this area.  As the people said----why are you building businesses that are not succeeding in the downtown Baltimore Enterprise Zones.....restaurants and hotels.  The answer----neo-liberals are not interested in a successful economy----they want to control the real estate and job creation.  Keep in mind that long-time government researchers say that over 100,000 jobs have been lost in the downtown development and tens of thousands of small businesses displaced by these global corporations that offer nothing to the local economy.  That is not a plan for a healthy economy.....

Remember, in Spain and Greece developers did the same----they spent all of the public revenue on useless buildings just to spend it-----sending it to the developers.  Large tracts of real estate sit empty because the development had no reason.


In Baltimore, all of the Enterprise Zone restaurants and hotels are leaving, going bankrupt because there are so many that offer nothing people want that it is a musical chairs or forced taxpayer subsidy to keep these national chains afloat.  All these businesses create poverty jobs so people are getting poorer.  The percentage of people being brought into Baltimore to fill these global corporate jobs do not match the movement of the middle and working class out of Baltimore because of the hostile economic environment.  Remember, the economy will crash next year with all this development displacing the working and midde-class----IT IS DELIBERATE FOLKS.

The Middle Class Is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World.

By NELSON D. SCHWARTZFEB. 2, 2014  New York Times

Photo G.E. Appliances' fastest-growing brand is its Café line of refrigerators and other appliances, which is directed at the high end of the market.


In Manhattan, the upscale clothing retailer Barneys will replace the bankrupt discounter Loehmann’s, whose Chelsea store closes in a few weeks. Across the country, Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants are struggling, while fine-dining chains like Capital Grille are thriving. And at General Electric, the increase in demand for high-end dishwashers and refrigerators dwarfs sales growth of mass-market models.




Dundalk residents speak out on government center redevelopment

Critics say retail proposal will reduce recreation, green spaceApril 10, 2014|
By Alison Knezevich, The Baltimore Sun

Dundalk residents filled a high school auditorium Thursday night to speak out about the redevelopment of the North Point Government Center, many saying they fear they will lose out when restaurants and offices replace the community building.

Vanguard Commercial Development wants to build a retail center called Merritt Pavilion at the site on Merritt Boulevard. The firm hosted a community meeting at Dundalk High School that became heated at times, with some speakers shouting at each other.

For years, the community has used the government center for youth sports activities, performing arts events and other recreation activities.
Vanguard bought 15 acres of the 27-acre site from the county last year for about $2.1 million. Residents said concerns about the Baltimore developer's proposal involve traffic, the loss of green space and disruption to the adjacent neighborhood.

"I see a lot of empty stores," said resident David Wile, questioning why a new development would attract customers when other businesses in the area are failing.

Vanguard Principal Len Weinberg said his company wouldn't invest in the project if he didn't think it would succeed. The firm has received interest from national chain restaurants that want to locate there, he said.

He said the company plans to upgrade the center's ball fields and build a 21,000-square-foot arts and recreational facility for community use.

Plans call for more than 60,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, plus about 16,000 square feet of offices. A group called Dundalk United formed last year to oppose the sale of the center, but the Dundalk Renaissance Corp. supports the proposal, saying it could help revitalize the area.

The center was one of three public properties that County Executive Kevin Kamenetz's administration put up for sale in 2013 for private development. The others were the Towson firehouse and a police substation in Randallstown. Throughout the bidding process, some Dundalk residents complained that county officials were secretive about their plans.

The developers are asking that the project be considered a Planned Unit Development, which gives flexibility in zoning rules if the project provides a community benefit. The County Council has not yet decided whether to grant that status.

On Thursday, many said they were angry not with Vanguard but with county leaders and politicians they felt had not listened to their concerns before the land was sold.

"You are not the bad guy," Linwood Jackson, a retired Sparrows Point shipyard worker, told Weinberg. Jackson said he feared selling off parkland for private interest set a bad precedent for public policy.


Maggie Gregory told the crowd she was disappointed more residents had not spoken out when the County Council was considering the sale.




_________________________________________


LET'S LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE.  WHAT WE SEE ARE WALL STREET BANKS AND DEVELOPERS SENDING IN THIS MONEY AND CONTROLLING DEVELOPMENT HERE IN THE US AS THEY DID IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES.  ALL OF IT WAS DESIGNED TO SIMPLY MOVE THE NATION'S MONEY TO THESE BANKS.  THAT IS WHAT IS BEHIND THE DEVELOPMENT IN MARYLAND. 

The next two articles speak how the fraud and corruption that US corporations committed in countries around the world is now coming back to the US as neo-liberals and neo-cons try to dismantle our democracy.  The American people are now feeling why 'death to America' sentiment is growing around the world.



Below you see what the Reagan/ Clinton and neo-liberals created when they broke the Glass Steagall wall and deregulated banks and they did it knowing these banks would become too big to control.  They were working towards global empires----the Trans Pacific Trade Pact handing a Global Corporate Tribunal control of all laws and enforcement. Hillary will of course be sold by media as the pol ready to save all of us from the very thing she and Bill created.  The tag-team Clinton/Bush


The bottom line is we get rid of global control by rebuilding domestic economies in all states-----push global corporations out of Maryland with oversight and accountability and high taxes and replace them with small and regional businesses......CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND'S PLATFORM.  See why my campaign was censured?  The next important issue in resolving this is strengthening the International Criminal Court that Bush and Obama have made sure the US is not a member.  The IMF is trying to dismantle it so the citizens cannot use it to recover wealth but International justice agencies are working just the same. 
 
As you see below, Citibank is ground zero for this breakdown and of course it was Clinton's top man---Robert Rubin ----that created Citibank.  All of Maryland pols are neo-liberals working for this and that is why Maryland citizens are being treated as if they no longer have a voice---these global corporate pols do not even recognize US Constitution and sovereignty.

Robert Edward Rubin (born August 29, 1938) is an American economist and banking executive. He served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration. 
His most prominent post-government role was as director and senior counselor of Citigroup

Take this seriously in your community, city, and state.

US Bank Money Laundering -
Enormous By Any Measure

By James Petras Professor of Sociology, Binghamton University 9-1-2

There is a consensus among U.S. Congressional Investigators, former bankers and international banking experts that U.S. and European banks launder between $500 billion and $1 trillion of dirty money each year, half of which is laundered by U.S. banks alone. As Senator Carl Levin summarizes the record: "Estimates are that $500 billion to $1 trillion of international criminal proceeds are moved internationally and deposited into bank accounts annually. It is estimated that half of that money comes to the United States".   Over a decade then, between $2.5 and $5 trillion criminal proceeds have been laundered by U.S. banks and circulated in the U.S. financial circuits. Senator Levin's statement however, only covers criminal proceeds, according to U.S. laws. It does not include illegal transfers and capital flows from corrupt political leaders, or tax evasion by overseas businesses. A leading U.S. scholar who is an expert on international finance associated with the prestigious Brookings Institute estimates "the flow of corrupt money out of developing (Third World) and transitional (ex-Communist) economies into Western coffers at $20 to $40 billion a year and the flow stemming from mis-priced trade at $80 billion a year or more. My lowest estimate is $100 billion per year by these two means by which we facilitated a trillion dollars in the decade, at least half to the United States. Including the other elements of illegal flight capital would produce much higher figures. The Brookings expert also did not include illegal shifts of real estate and securities titles, wire fraud, etc.   In other words, an incomplete figure of dirty money (laundered criminal and corrupt money) flowing into U.S. coffers during the 1990s amounted to $3-$5.5 trillion. This is not the complete picture but it gives us a basis to estimate the significance of the "dirty money factor" in evaluating the U.S. economy. In the first place, it is clear that the combined laundered and dirty money flows cover part of the U.S. deficit in its balance of merchandise trade which ranges in the hundreds of billions annually. As it stands, the U.S. trade deficit is close to $300 billion. Without the "dirty money" the U.S. economy external accounts would be totally unsustainable, living standards would plummet, the dollar would weaken, the available investment and loan capital would shrink and Washington would not be able to sustain its global empire. And the importance of laundered money is forecast to increase. Former private banker Antonio Geraldi, in testimony before the Senate Subcommittee projects significant growth in U.S. bank laundering. "The forecasters also predict the amounts laundered in the trillions of dollars and growing disproportionately to legitimate funds." The $500 billion of criminal and dirty money flowing into and through the major U.S. banks far exceeds the net revenues of all the IT companies in the U.S., not to speak of their profits. These yearly inflows surpass all the net transfers by the major U.S. oil producers, military industries and airplane manufacturers. The biggest U.S. banks, particularly Citibank, derive a high percentage of their banking profits from serving these criminal and dirty money accounts. The big U.S. banks and key institutions sustain U.S. global power via their money laundering and managing of illegally obtained overseas funds.       U.S. Banks and The Dirty Money Empire   Washington and the mass media have portrayed the U.S. as being in the forefront of the struggle against narco trafficking, drug laundering and political corruption: the image is of clean white hands fighting dirty money. The truth is exactly the opposite. U.S. banks have developed a highly elaborate set of policies for transferring illicit funds to the U.S., investing those funds in legitimate businesses or U.S. government bonds and legitimating them. The U.S. Congress has held numerous hearings, provided detailed exposés of the illicit practices of the banks, passed several laws and called for stiffer enforcement by any number of public regulators and private bankers. Yet the biggest banks continue their practices, the sum of dirty money grows exponentially, because both the State and the banks have neither the will nor the interest to put an end to the practices that provide high profits and buttress an otherwise fragile empire.   First thing to note about the money laundering business, whether criminal or corrupt, is that it is carried out by the most important banks in the USA. Secondly, the practices of bank officials involved in money laundering have the backing and encouragement of the highest levels of the banking institutions - these are not isolated cases by loose cannons. This is clear in the case of Citibank's laundering of Raul Salinas (brother of Mexico's ex-President) $200 million account. When Salinas was arrested and his large scale theft of government funds was exposed, his private bank manager at Citibank, Amy Elliott told her colleagues that "this goes in the very, very top of the corporation, this was known...on the very top. We are little pawns in this whole thing" (p.35).   Citibank, the biggest money launderer, is the biggest bank in the U.S., with 180,000 employees world-wide operating in 100 countries, with $700 billion in known assets and over $100 billion in client assets in private bank (secret accounts) operating private banking offices in 30 countries, which is the largest global presence of any U.S. private bank. It is important to clarify what is meant by "private bank."   Private Banking is a sector of a bank which caters to extremely wealthy clients ($1 million deposits and up). The big banks charge customers a fee for managing their assets and for providing the specialized services of the private banks. Private Bank services go beyond the routine banking services and include investment guidance, estate planning, tax assistance, off-shore accounts, and complicated schemes designed to secure the confidentiality of financial transactions. The attractiveness of the "Private Banks" (PB) for money laundering is that they sell secrecy to the dirty money clients. There are two methods that big Banks use to launder money: via private banks and via correspondent banking. PB routinely use code names for accounts, concentration accounts (concentration accounts co-mingles bank funds with client funds which cut off paper trails for billions of dollars of wire transfers) that disguise the movement of client funds, and offshore private investment corporations (PIC) located in countries with strict secrecy laws (Cayman Island, Bahamas, etc.)   For example, in the case of Raul Salinas, PB personnel at Citibank helped Salinas transfer $90 to $100 million out of Mexico in a manner that effectively disguised the funds' sources and destination thus breaking the funds' paper trail. In routine fashion, Citibank set up a dummy offshore corporation, provided Salinas with a secret code name, provided an alias for a third party intermediary who deposited the money in a Citibank account in Mexico and transferred the money in a concentration account to New York where it was then moved to Switzerland and London. The PICs are designed by the big banks for the purpose of holding and hiding a person's assets. The nominal officers, trustees and shareholder of these shell corporations are themselves shell corporations controlled by the PB. The PIC then becomes the holder of the various bank and investment accounts and the ownership of the private bank clients is buried in the records of so-called jurisdiction such as the Cayman Islands. Private bankers of the big banks like Citibank keep pre-packaged PICs on the shelf awaiting activation when a private bank client wants one. The system works like Russian Matryoshka dolls, shells within shells within shells, which in the end can be impenetrable to a legal process.   The complicity of the state in big bank money laundering is evident when one reviews the historic record. Big bank money laundering has been investigated, audited, criticized and subject to legislation; the banks have written procedures to comply. Yet banks like Citibank and the other big ten banks ignore the procedures and laws and the government ignores the non-compliance. Over the last 20 years, big bank laundering of criminal funds and looted funds has increased geometrically, dwarfing in size and rates of profit the activities in the formal economy. Estimates by experts place the rate of return in the PB market between 20-25% annually. Congressional investigations revealed that Citibank provided "services" for 4 political swindlers moving $380 million: Raul Salinas - $80-$100 million, Asif Ali Zardari (husband of former Prime Minister of Pakistan) in excess of $40 million, El Hadj Omar Bongo (dictator of Gabon since 1967) in excess of $130 million, the Abacha sons of General Abacha ex-dictator of Nigeria - in excess of $110 million. In all cases Citibank violated all of its own procedures and government guidelines: there was no client profile (review of client background), determination of the source of the funds, nor of any violations of country laws from which the money accrued. On the contrary, the bank facilitated the outflow in its prepackaged format: shell corporations were established, code names were provided, funds were moved through concentration accounts, the funds were invested in legitimate businesses or in U.S. bonds, etc. In none of these cases - or thousands of others - was due diligence practiced by the banks (under due diligence a private bank is obligated by law to take steps to ensure that it does not facilitate money laundering). In none of these cases were the top banking officials brought to court and tried. Even after arrest of their clients, Citibank continued to provide services, including the movement of funds to secret accounts and the provision of loans.       Correspondent Banks: The Second Track   The second and related route which the big banks use to launder hundreds of billions of dirty money is through "correspondent banking" (CB). CB is the provision of banking services by one bank to another bank. It is a highly profitable and significant sector of big banking. It enables overseas banks to conduct business and provide services for their customers - including drug dealers and others engaged in criminal activity - in jurisdictions like the U.S. where the banks have no physical presence. A bank that is licensed in a foreign country and has no office in the United States for its customers attracts and retains wealthy criminal clients interested in laundering money in the U.S. Instead of exposing itself to U.S. controls and incurring the high costs of locating in the U.S., the bank will open a correspondent account with an existing U.S. bank. By establishing such a relationship, the foreign bank (called a respondent) and through it, its criminal customers, receive many or all of the services offered by the U.S. big banks called the correspondent.   Today, all the big U.S. banks have established multiple correspondent relationships throughout the world so they may engage in international financial transactions for themselves and their clients in places where they do have a physical presence. Many of the largest U.S. and European banks located in the financial centers of the world serve as correspondents for thousands of other banks. Most of the offshore banks laundering billions for criminal clients have accounts in the U.S. All the big banks specializing in international fund transfer are called money center banks, some of the biggest process up to $1 trillion in wire transfers a day. For the billionaire criminals an important feature of correspondent relationships is that they provide access to international transfer systems - that facilitate the rapid transfer of funds across international boundaries and within countries. The most recent estimates (1998) are that 60 offshore jurisdictions around the world licensed about 4,000 offshore banks which control approximately $5 trillion in assets.   One of the major sources of impoverishment and crises in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Russia and the other countries of the ex-U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, is the pillage of the economy and the hundreds of billions of dollars which are transferred out of the country via the corresponding banking system and the Private Banking system linked to the biggest banks in the U.S. and Europe. Russia alone has seen over $200 billion illegally transferred in the course of the 1990s. The massive shift of capital from these countries to the U.S. and European banks has generated mass impoverishment and economic instability and crises. This in turn has created increased vulnerability to pressure from the IMF and World Bank to liberalize their banking and financial systems leading to further flight and deregulation which spawns greater corruption and overseas transfers via private banks as the Senate reports demonstrate.   The increasing polarization of the world is embedded in this organized system of criminal and corrupt financial transactions. While speculation and foreign debt payments play a role in undermining living standards in the crisis regions, the multi-trillion dollar money laundering and bank servicing of corrupt officials is a much more significant factor, sustaining Western prosperity, U.S. empire building and financial stability. The scale, scope and time frame of transfers and money laundering, the centrality of the biggest banking enterprises and the complicity of the governments, strongly suggests that the dynamics of growth and stagnation, empire and re-colonization are intimately related to a new form of capitalism built around pillage, criminality, corruption and complicity.   James Petras is a Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. He is the author of 57 books. His latest, Globalization Unmasked: Imperialism in the New Millenium

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July 29th, 2014

7/29/2014

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What you see with the Maryland and Baltimore Parking Authority issue is how broad the funneling of public revenue into these bond schemes is and its intent is to starve government coffers and any ability to use future public revenue in any other way than what these bond deals propose.  So, when the economy crashes and we again have a recession and no money in government coffers-----we will default on most of these bond deals and the money invested will be lost.  Neo-liberals are working with Wall Street to plan these situations----it is not a surprise or greed----it is public malfeasance and fraud.  Having all public money go into future developments that do not have to be done is what has created our crumbling infrastructure in Maryland.  Rather than spend the money collected on the needs of communities, revenue has been placed in these development deals for two decades that are simply building global corporate infrastructure with little value for you and me.  Then, O'Malley and neo-liberals-----and yes, Erhlich and neo-cons.......tell us we must pay for road and bridge construction with tolls and fees.  We have already paid for these public projects through decades of taxes - but we are going to do it again because all that money was placed in leveraged bond deals that did nothing for the Maryland economy.  Brown, Gansler, and Mizeur were all ready to double-down on this because the bond market crash is coming next year.








Bond Bills

Bond bills in Maryland are a convoluted subject.

From the Department of Legislative Services:

Legislative initiatives are used to fund individual bond bill requests.  They are bond authorization bills filed by members of the General Assembly to support specific local or non-State-owned capital projects.  These projects include, but are not limited to, health facilities, historic preservation projects, museums, and sports and recreational facilities.  Legislative initiatives are not submitted as part of the Governor’s Capital Budget.  However, as they have an impact on State finances, the Department of Legislative Services reviews them in accordance with procedures established by the Governor and the General Assembly.

There is no uniformity among county delegations in how they handle bond bills.  Some counties’ Delegates meet as a delegation and vote to give the, “thumbs up” for each bill.  More often than not, the delegation does not meet, leaving it to the sponsors.

Bond bills do not get a vote in the House or Senate.  Rather, they are included in the capital budget; the projects are funded through a pot of money set aside.  The pot of money doesn’t change, no matter how many projects are submitted.  You may read each year’s bond bill funding from 2008 – 2013.



I wanted to use this one bond deal as a local example but you need to check the millions of dollars tied each year to these deals and look who is behind them.  Mind you------floating bonds has been happening for decades-----the problem is that since the 2008 crash there is too much debt and a crash coming. ONLY PUBLIC MALFEASANCE ALLOWS FOR THIS POLICY OF FEEDING PUBLIC WEALTH TO WALL STREET.   Bill Ferguson and Baltimore's pols are one of the frequent flyers of these deals. Not surprisingly the Michelle Rhee Johns Hopkins led the connection of Baltimore Public Schools to these credit bonds------

  1. Bill Ferguson | LinkedInwww.linkedin.com/in/billfergusonBill Ferguson. Director, Reform Initiatives at Johns Hopkins University School of Education Location Baltimore, Maryland Area Industry Education Management  
I chose this bill not because I'm against a world-class Shakespeare replica of the Globe Theater....I love theater.....I just know that Hopkins could have gotten one of the Enterprise Zone tax-free friends to donate this money as they did when Maryland Live casino owner paid for Hopkins' Lacrosse Museum after a sweet gambling deal.

Look at the debt---this is just 2013-2014 bond bills for about a million and these 2014 bills are happening just as the bond market collapse comes.  Did the city need to be involved in this renovation now?  Of course not.....but the building will default into the hands of these private investors.  Think about O'Malley's and Baltimore City Hall's push for the city's partnership with the Hilton as everyone was shouting THE ECONOMY IS A HOUSE OF CARDS FROM A CRIMINAL HOUSING MARKET!  This is why you see Rawlings-Blake handing public assets off for no reason.



Purpose of Bill
10. Description and Purpose of Grantee Organization (Limit

Authorizing the creation of a State Debt not to exceed $500,000, the proceeds to be used as a grant
to the Board of Trustees of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company for the acquisition, planning,
design, construction, repair, renovation, reconstruction, and capital equipping of the Chesapeake
Shakespeare Company's Downtown Theatre.





. Senate Bill Sponsors
Bill Ferguson
. Jurisdiction (County or Baltimore City)
Baltimore City


1. Description and Purpose of Project (Limit Length to Visible area)
ur $5.7 million plan to transform the 15,000 square foot Mercantile building into a modern Globe
theater

Acquisition Design Construction Equipment/Total

Total
$1,337,443
$366,000
$3,845,033
$205,000
$5,753,476


13. Proposed Funding Sources – (List all funding sources and amounts.)
Source                                                                           Amount


2014 Maryland State Bond Bill

$500,000


Foundation Grants Secured
$3,645,000


Private Funding - secured

$875,000

Private Funding - pursuing
$408,476


2013 Maryland State Bond Bill

$125,000


2014 Baltimore City Bond Bill

$200,000



________________________________________


It's no coincidence that Obama and Congressional neo-liberals are preparing for a huge infrastructure bill that relies heavily on municipal bonds-----right before the bond market crash.  That is what they did in Greece and Spain-----loaded those countries up with sovereign/municipal debt just before the subprime mortgage crash.  The article below was written in 2009 and shows how right after the crash cities across the US started pumping their economies with bond debt.  This was deliberate.  As this author states-----all this debt will end with state and local government default.

Think as well what will happen when interest rates soar because the FED will no longer be able to manipulate interest rates......most of these state bonds are tied to offering interest rate payments with these bonds.  The people buying bonds that do not use credit default swaps to insure against bond losses with be wiped out......and that is the pension funds and small investors that are buying bonds like people were using subprime mortgage loans.  The big investors partnered to these bond deals on the other hand ARE insured by CDS for bonds and they will not only lose nothing in a bond collapse----but gain that part of the municipal default.

ALL STATE AND CONGRESSIONAL POLS KNOW THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN.  THEY WILL VOTE FOR THESE BOND DEALS AS THE MARKET GETS READY TO COLLAPSE KNOWING FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WILL BE SWAMPED WITH DEBT, PENSION FUNDS WIPED OUT, AND THEIR CONSTITUENTS AGAIN LOSE THEIR SAVINGS FROM THIS COLLAPSE.


All of Maryland's pols are neo-liberals and neo-cons and they are doing this because they want to.  This binge in bonds started in 2009 because Obama and neo-liberals passed laws that made bonds look as attractive as 0% credit cards----lure them in and then blow them up.  This is what your neo-liberal/neo-con leaders are doing to the American people.

BUILD AMERICA BONDS-----BLOW UP AMERICA BONDS.



Municipal Bond Yields Rise as Week’s Sales Reach 4-Month High

By Jeremy R. Cooke  Wall Street Pit  October 2009

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) — State and local governments led by California sold $11.8 billion of fixed-rate bonds this week, the most in more than four months, pushing 20-year benchmark tax- exempt yields to their highest level since late August.

The most populous U.S. state refinanced voter-approved debt to patch budget deficits with a $3.5 billion deal. Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri and New York City also raised money for infrastructure projects through the Build America Bonds program, which provides 35 percent interest rebates from the federal government for selling taxable debt in lieu of borrowing tax-free.

Municipal issuers sold $7.8 billion in tax-exempt issues and $4 billion in taxable debt, based on revised data compiled by Bloomberg. The Bond Buyer newspaper’s weekly yield index of general obligation bonds due in 20 years rose 8 basis points, or 0.08 percentage point, to 4.39 percent, the highest since 4.53 percent at the end of August.

Issuance in October exceeded $40 billion even as investors’ appetite for yields below 4 percent waned, forcing borrowers to pay more on new issues. The Merrill Lynch Municipal Master Index, which measures the total-return of state and local debt, fell almost 2.5 percent through yesterday, the biggest monthly decline since a 5.1 percent drop in September 2008.

This week’s sales sent the amount of Build America Bonds sold since the Obama administration’s economic stimulus created the program this year to $47.4 billion, Bloomberg figures show.


Municipal bonds advanced today, sending yields on 10-year general obligation debt lower by 1 basis point to 3.17 percent, according to a daily survey by Municipal Market Advisors of Concord, Massachusetts. The index is 21 basis points higher than at the end of September.

Weekly issuance was last this high in the period ended June 12, when governments sold $11.9 billion, according to Bloomberg data. The busiest week this year, the one ended April 24, produced $15.4 billion in sales, the figures show. (emphasis added)

Note that yields fell yesterday as money moved out of equities, but that in the past 4 months yields (rates) have been rising, thus sending the price lower.

If we’re beginning the C wave down in Equities, I think it’s likely that bonds will do okay as money flows out of stocks, but I think eventually that tide will turn. It may be 2 years, it may be 6 months, or it may be tomorrow, but at some point interest rates are going to go higher, and again, there is now a serious risk of default as municipalities spend far more than they are taking in. Yes, they do have the power of taxation (blood out of a turnip?) but they do not have the power of the press. That said, I can see the Federal Government stepping in with their printing press to rescue failing municipalities, but now we’re getting into playing favorites and politics, the area were revolts are bred.

I’m just saying, don’t wait until that market is gone, gone, gone…

_______________________________________________

I attended a Baltimore Development Corporation gathering that had a couple laughing about the LIBOR banking scandal of which Baltimore was of course in deep and taking hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.  LIBOR was happening at the same time as the subprime loan fraud and here in Baltimore it was O'Malley and Baltimore City Hall leading the way in using these Wall Street investment instruments.  Remember, we knew in 2005 the banking system was systemically criminal and here are the neo-liberals and neo-cons tying Maryland government and citizens to soaring amounts of this debt.

Fast-forward and now O'Malley and Maryland Assembly and now Rawlings Blake and Baltimore City Hall are doing the same.  With tens of trillions of dollars in unrecovered corporate fraud from last decade-----they are loading Maryland and Baltimore with bond debt as this market collapses.

This is not a Democrat/Republican issue as Republican states are doing the same----all are controlled by neo-liberals and neo-cons.


The wealthy think this is all too funny as they think the people cannot regain control of government----which is why Maryland had systemic election rigging in this race for Governor of Maryland.  They had to make sure a neo-liberal and neo-con were in the Maryland General Election to handle the coming bond collapse in Wall Street's favor!

'The banks had been accused by a diverse body of plaintiffs, as varied as bondholders and the City of Baltimore, of conspiring to manipulate Libor, a benchmark at the heart of more than $550 trillion in financial products'.

It's not a coincidence that Baltimore was first out of the gate in this lawsuit-----pols loaded Maryland and Baltimore with these financial instruments.

Baltimore city is among many suing big banks over allegations of rate-rigging

For small investors, this could be the scandal that finally breaks their trust

July 09, 2012|By Eileen Ambrose, The Baltimore Sun


You're likely part of the largest financial scandal in the world today if you have an adjustable-rate mortgage or a private student loan.

Or live in Baltimore.

The city is suing more than a dozen major banks, claiming the institutions conspired to manipulate the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor. This is a benchmark used to set interest rates on variable-rate credit cards and mortgages plus trillions of dollars' worth of financial instruments, including some purchased by the city of Baltimore.

Barclays is one of the banks being sued by Baltimore. Late last month, the bank agreed to pay more than $450 million to settle charges by American and British regulators that it attempted to rig Libor over several years. Its CEO and chief operating officer resigned. Now other big banks are under investigation by a who's who list of regulators and law enforcement agencies around the world.

Usually in financial scandals, consumers get burned. But if allegations in this one are true, the rate-rigging actually worked in their favor. That's because banks are being accused of manipulating Libor so it would be lower than it should have been, which means borrowers would end up paying less in interest.

But consumers may be hurt in other ways. If, say, Baltimore and other municipalities earned less on their investments than they should have, the cities might be forced to raise taxes or cut services to make up the difference.

And if this scandal turns out to be another case of banks behaving badly, it also could be enough to kill what little trust small investors still have in the markets.

"People are so cynical about financial markets," says Yuval Bar-Or, an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and author of "Play to Prosper: The Small Investor's Survival Guide." "There is yet another huge scandal that's rocking the highest echelons. … It only makes [investors] have less and less faith in the financial markets."

Bar-Or worries that if small investors conclude that the whole system is rigged, they might avoid the stock market. And if that happens, he says, their nest eggs won't be able to keep up with inflation.

Until now, most people likely never gave Libor a thought. According to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Libor is tied to more than $900 trillion worth of loans, swaps and futures contracts.

Amazingly, as critical as Libor is to the world markets, it's basically generated using the honor system. A panel of banks report daily to the British Bankers Association — a trade group, not a regulator — what rate they would expect to pay if they borrowed from another bank. Some of the highest and lowest rates are thrown out, and the rest are averaged. The resulting rate is published daily.

Baltimore's lawsuit involves the city's purchase of hundreds of millions of dollars in interest-rate swaps — an instrument used to protect the buyer from fluctuating rates — linked to Libor.

The city sued the banks last year in federal court in New York, and its lawsuit was consolidated with those filed by others, including pensions funds and Charles Schwab & Co. The banks named in the suit include such familiar names as Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, HSBC Bank, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse.




___________________________________________

Below you see Republicans in Maryland just as mad with their neo-cons as Democrats are with neo-liberals.  We both are trying to save the US and democracy while global corporate pols are simply working to hand all public wealth to the rich.

Conservative Republicans and Labor and Justice Democrats need to stand together in shaking these global corporate pols out of politics at all level.....then we can fight one another on domestic issues.

Little did this author know that credit bond debt would soar over the next few years.  Wait until they tie all that infrastructure work to these bond deals-----IT'S ALL ABOUT JOBS!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Saying One Thing Doing Another on Bond Bills


According to Delegate Michael Smigiel’s Facebook page, on January 18th the Maryland House Republican Caucus voted to send a letter to House leadership that they were not in favor of any bond bills.

However, several Republicans, including members of the caucus leadership Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, Adelaide Eckardt, along with their Senate colleague Richard Colburn have already filed over $3 million worth of bond bills.

Haddaway-Riccio is Minority Whip, and Eckardt is chair of the party caucus. Since 2007 the pair has proposed over $10 million in bond bills.

It’s not that these bond bills represent a huge chunk of the state’s structural deficit—they don’t—but like federal earmarks they are a gateway drug to the big ticket items that fuel Maryland’s tax and spend addiction.

This hypocrisy just reiterates to the legislature’s Democratic majority that Republicans are so dysfunctional they can’t even present a unified front. Until this keystone cops routine ends, Speaker of the House Michael Busch and President of the Senate, Thomas V. “Mike” Miller will continue pick off feckless Republicans with bond bills and other treats, like former Delegate Page Elmore, who in 2008, sold his votes on the tech tax and the budget in return for getting the Smith Island cake named Maryland’s official dessert.

Time for the Republicans to stop playing enabler and put up a real fight.
Here is a list of the Republican filed bond bills, the amount, the recipient, and their Republican sponsors. You can view a list of all filed bond bills here.

HB21/SB26: $300,000 for Construct Replica Choptank River Lighthouse. Sponsors: Adelaide Eckardt, Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, Richard Colburn

HB30/SB28: $250,000 for Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Bulkhead Replacement. Sponsors: Adelaide Eckardt, Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, Richard Colburn

HB56/SB29: $250,000 for Talbot Hospice Expansion. Sponsors: Adelaide Eckardt, Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, Richard Colburn

HB95/SB27: $75,000 for Dorchester Center for the Arts - Atrium Entrance. Sponsors: Adelaide Eckardt, Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, Richard Colburn

HB29: $125,000 for Construction/renovation of Carroll Field Puglise Stadium Field Lights. Sponsors: Tony McConkey

SB34/HB106: $500,000 for Blandair Regional Park. Sponsors: Allan Kittleman

SB35: $200,000 for Mount Pleasant Farm Buildings. Sponsors: Allan Kittleman

SB36/HB107: $144,000 for The Arc of Howard County, Graeloch Home Renovation. Sponsors: Allan Kittleman

SB37: $500,000 for Troy Regional Park. Sponsors: Allan Kittleman

SB38: $450,000 for Former Ellicott City Post Office. Sponsors: Allan Kittleman

SB106: $400,000 for Hospice of Queen Anne's. Sponsors: EJ Pipkin, Richard Colburn


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July 28th, 2014

7/28/2014

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THERE GOES ANOTHER PUBLIC ASSET-----PUBLIC PARKING.  RATHER THAN SERVE THE PUBLIC WITH AFFORDABLE PRICES BALTIMORE HANDS PARKING TO PREDATORY CORPORATIONS SO THEY CAN SOAK THE CITIZENS.



I was listening to people speak of how much money Johns Hopkins has and I ask myself-----does Hopkins really have that money or does most of it belong to the taxpayer and public?  The answer of course is that Hopkins is a publicly-owned entity with a small private college attached.  The reason Hopkins has the appearance of money is all of the fraud and corruption the last few decades that in the Baltimore and Maryland region moved to Baltimore Development and Johns Hopkins.  They are the local Visigoths who raided the US Treasury and US citizen's pockets.  Simply reinstating Rule of Law moves much of that money back.  Remember, the Ivy League schools and Wall Street did to the US what Gorbachev and Yelsin did to Russians-----PERESTROIKA moved all of the Russian people's wealth to connected families then called the Oligarchs.  All of those decades of hard work and investment by the Russian people was simply auctioned off and privatized.  This is what Wall Street and the Ivy League schools are doing in the US and it is why they have endowments in the billions of dollars with off-shore investments all over the world.  They are not universities----they are corporations that fleeced government coffers and people's pockets.  Baltimore City Hall has become so predatory on behalf of Johns Hopkins that they are sending out inflated water bills and passing laws to allow secure of people's homes simply because they owe a few hundred dollars in taxes and their cars for simply owing a few parking tickets.  Preying on the working class to take every last home owned is the goal.  These policies are now expanding to the middle-class who are struggling with this deliberate stagnation and high unemployment.

WHEN NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS ALLOW POLICY THAT HAS ALL PUBLIC REVENUE GO TO CORPORATE TAX BREAKS AND SUBSIDY AND ALLOW MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION----THEY ARE TAKING YOU TO A THIRD WORLD STATUS.  THIS IS MARYLAND TODAY.

The latest move towards PERESTOIKA comes with Baltimore City Parking.  The city agency was handed to global corporations in a public private partnership a few decades ago and is now ranked as one of the agencies with the most fraud and corruption.  THE BALTIMORE PARKING AUTHORITY is simply a corporation that pays no taxes and allows the taxpayers to pay all operations and maintenance as with all public private partnerships. There is not one community in city center that is not metered or permitted so if you want to do business in these areas you have to park in one of these city lots which as privatized have become increasingly expensive.  Around the Inner Harbor and Enterprise Zone areas you can pay $25 to $40 a day to come and enjoy the waterfront.  When parking facilities are public-----the idea is to give people a convenient and affordable place to park that brings the city revenue to fill its coffers.  See the difference?


MAYOR RAWLINGS BLAKE PLANS TO SELL 4 PARKING DECKS IN DOWNTOWN FOR $40 MILLION SAY THE HEADLINES.

There is almost no publicly owned space in downtown Baltimore and these properties are in high value development zones so $40 million is a steal.  So, instead of that money coming into our government coffers it will now go to private global corporate profit and you can bet that $8-10 a day parking will soar.  Less affordable parking in downtown Baltimore.  At the same time the downtown area businesses are getting no consumer traffic and are struggling to stay in business----don't worry, City Hall will give more public money to keep you in business.  It couldn't be that no one wants to pay so much to come down town and the threats of parking employees standing at the wait to ticket you the minute that meter expires?

PEOPLE ARE NOT COMING DOWNTOWN BECAUSE THE ENTIRE ENVIRONMENT IS PREDATORY.

Oh, it's those roaming bands of youth they say.  NO, IT'S THE PREDATORY PUBLIC POLICY THAT FINES, FEES, AND TAXES THE PUBLIC TO DEATH BECAUSE ALL PUBLIC REVENUE IS BEING redirected to global corporations.



Mayor Rawlings-Blake Wants To Sell Garages For Revenue


July 27, 2014 8:04 AM BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake plans to announce a proposal to sell four city-owned parking garages to generate cash for urgent priorities and infrastructure.

The mayor’s office says Rawlings-Blake will announce her plans Monday to introduce new legislation to sell the parking garages to generate $40 million to $60 million. The proceeds would be used for urgent priorities, such as eliminating blight, without adding to the city’s debt.

Also on Monday, Rawlings-Blake and members of the City Council will help open the city’s first new recreation center built in 10 years. The Morrell Park Community Center features a gymnasium, fitness room and outdoor green space.

It’s the first recreation center to be built from the ground since a 2010 taskforce recommended a transformation of the city’s aging recreation centers.

(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)


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Now, for what will $40 million pay?  Well, it would take $40 million to partially pay for the $100 million in Exelon Corporation tax break that was given for no reason at all------a pay-to-play.  Then, there is the few hundred million each year of taxpayer money subsidizing the Hilton that was never needed and will never turn a profit especially since we are heading towards a bond market crash and recession for years.  So, Rawlings-Blake is handing public assets for dirt cheap to pay for bad policy and fraud and corruption.  It's revenue  neutral to empty government coffers with corporate tax breaks and subsidy while handing all that is public to these same entities.  Let's look at the history of the Baltimore Parking Authority:

Meet the Parking Authority------BOOTED FOR FAILING TO PAY 3 PARKING TICKETS----FORGET YOU ARE HAVING TO GO TO COURT TO CONTEST MANY OF THOSE TICKETS OR SIMPLY GETTING THEM TOO FAST TO PAY.


Neo-liberals will try hard to make it sound as if these partnerships are with a local or regional corporation but as you see below all of the ones tied to Baltimore Parking Authority are national and global corporations.  Why do we want our local economy tied with corporations that take the profits out of the city and state?  This is why our government coffers are starved and it is deliberate global market policy.  If a French corporation comes to the US ---then a US corporation goes to France----both undermining labor and justice.  Partnered with the city they pay no taxes.


LAZ Parking’s success was founded on childhood friendships that grew into a nationwide customer oriented parking service.

Republic Parking System is a privately owned professional parking management company based in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The company operates over 690 parking facilities in 87 US cities.[1]


PMS
PMS - Parking Management Services SA Votre spécialiste dans la conception, réalisation et gestion de parkings !
  • Markets Served Atlanta • Charlotte • Chattanooga • Dallas/Fort Worth • Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood • Houston Indianapolis • Jacksonville • Kansas City • Miami New Orleans • New York • Orlando/Walt Disney World • Richmond • Scottsdale • Tampa

Inside City Hall: Parking garage operators get no-bid extensions A range of management fees charged to the Parking Authority.

Mark Reutter June 29, 2012 at 4:12 pm

In a little-noticed item approved without comment on Wednesday, the Board of Estimates signed off on no-bid extensions of management contracts to run some of the city’s main parking garages.

The deal, requested by the Parking Authority for Baltimore City, obliges the quasi-public agency to pay $3.57 million in management fees to four operators, led by the ubiquitous PMS Parking group headed by Amsale Geletu, a certified woman-owned business.

PMS, Landmark Parking, LAZ Parking Mid-Atlantic and Republic Parking Systems were awarded the management contracts some 15 months ago.

The contracts were set to expire tomorrow (June 30), but the parking agency blew the deadline for writing up new agreements. Hence, the old contracts will stay in effect until December 31, 2013.

The Penn Station Garage boasts the highest management fee per space under a contract approved by the Board of Estimates. (Photo by Mark Reutter)

All this was explained in the unique nomenclature of the Board of Estimates agenda: “. . . efforts [to write the new agreements] have been delayed due to the Parking Authority experiencing significant disruption in the personnel charged with oversight and administration of this and other management agreements, and the procurement of new management agreements.”

As a result, “This amendment to the original agreement provides additional funding to pay for anticipated operating expenses and compensates the organization during the extended term upon the original compensation structure.”

Costs Vary Among Garages


The breakdowns of the individual parking contracts provide some interesting reading. Take the cost of security over the 18-month extension period.

Republic Parking will be paid $211,000 for providing security at the Lexington Market parking garage. (Photo by Mark Reutter)

It ranges from a low of $4,000 for the Fleet and Eden Garage in Fells Point to a high of $211,000 for the Market Center Garage serving Lexington Market.

The charges for maintenance also vary widely.

PMS will maintain and repair the 376-space Franklin Street Garage for $275,888 under the extended agreement.

Landmark, on the other hand, is authorized to bill the city 2½ times that amount ($670,000) for the somewhat larger (525 space) Penn Station Garage.

Even with its high security costs, Market Center is not the costliest municipal garage under private management.

That honor goes to the Penn Station Garage used chiefly by Amtrak and MARC customers. The management fee over the next 18 months amounts to $1,533 per parking space.

Quasi-Public

The Parking Authority is one of those quasi-public governmental entities – others include the Baltimore Development Corp. and Baltimore Hotel Corp., owner of Hilton Baltimore – whose stated mission is “to enhance Baltimore City’s position in planning, development, management and operations of its parking institution.”

Its budget is not part of the annual city budget approved by the City Council. Its five-member board consists of four people appointed by the mayor and one by the City Council president. The direct link to the mayor is through Director of Finance Harry E. Black, who sits on the board.

In addition to administering 17 municipal garages and 23 surface lots, the Parking Authority operates the residential parking permit program.
_______________________________

Here is a breakdown of the fees to be charged for the extended contracts:

Caroline St. Garage, 325 spaces, operator PMS, management fee: $350,027, or $1,077 per space.

Little Italy Garage, 399 spaces, operator PMS, management fee: $387,363, or $971 per space.

St. Paul Place Garage, 500 spaces, operator PMS and LAZ Parking Mid-Atlantic, management fee: $533,668, or $1,067 per space.

Franklin St. Garage, 376 spaces, operators PMS and LAZ Parking Mid-Atlantic, management fee: $331,888, or $883 per space.

Market Center Garage, 606 spaces, operator Republic Parking Systems, management fee: $651,791, or $1,076 per space.

Penn Station Garage, 525 spaces, operator Landmark Parking,  management fee: $804,933, or $1,533 per space.

Fleet and Eden Garage, 815 spaces, operator, Landmark Parking, management fee: $507,273, or $622 per space.

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contesting baltimore city parking tickets?

09/17/07 at 1:36pm   after leaving my apartment this morning i found a $52 dollar parking ticket on my car, for apparently "parking in an unmarked crosswalk".  this is totally bullshit, imo, as there is no signage, crosswalk, or handicap accessible curb where my car was parked.  i'm planning to write a letter to contest the ticket, and was wondering if anyone out there has done this ... and to what effect.  did it get your ticket dropped?  did you still have to go to court to contest the ticket after submitting the letter?

There was an article a few years ago that had the City of Baltimore doing national searches to find people owing the city parking tickets.  As you see below, a $25 fine can become thousands of dollars in fees and your car can be impounded and sold.  Now, people should simply pay a parking ticket but to have a system in place that creates such a financial burden on citizens for minor offenses is predatory.  Towing fees of $400 on cars booted for 3 outstanding parking tickets has the City Impound flush with cars and they are making profits from working class citizens not able to pay.  Meanwhile, a corporation leaves Baltimore owing millions of dollars in water bills......probably never paid.

Combine the high parking meter fees, the ever higher parking garage fees, and the parking employees being right there when your meter time ends-----and you have a reason for not going downtown in Baltimore.


Four parking tickets on state vehicles cost taxpayers $2,263 Tickets go unpaid, and penalties grow


By Scott Calvert, The Baltimore Sun 9:33 a.m. EDT, June 8, 2012

Five years ago, a Ford Windstar assigned to the state Department of Juvenile Services got a $42 parking ticket in downtown Baltimore. The ticket was not paid on time. And in the weeks, months and years that followed, the penalties grew and grew and grew.

A week after The Baltimore Sun inquired to state budget officials on April 20, the agency finally ponied up. The tab: $970.

It was one of four unpaid Baltimore City parking citations the agency belatedly paid. Due to the delays, tickets amounting to $178 wound up costing state taxpayers a cool $2,263.



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Baltimore City is so starved of money from all of the corporate tax breaks, tax evasion, and fraud that it simply must take away free parking for the disabled.  Dismantling the public sector support for the disabled and creating tiered funding with special needs at the lowest level-----  can you imagine denying the disabled the pleasure of being soaked with parking fines, fees, and taxes to support corporate profit!  We are doing it to stop the theft of placards they say-----can the police not run a license check to see if a car is registered for disability?  Easy Peasy.  People are being pushed to use these tactics because it is too expense for many people to park.  If your business is with City Hall ----you will be there for hours; phone resolutions are deliberately hard to get.-----no, Baltimore and Johns Hopkins uses public policy to push the disabled out of Baltimore.  DEMOCRATS DO NOT DO THAT----NEO-CONS DO!  Why are Baltimore pols running as Democrats when they are neo-conservatives?

Take public transit you say-----sorry, it has been so defunded and funds diverted from public transit that the quality equals that of Central American bus service.  If you are not downtown-----it takes you hours to travel the shortest distance.  Can you imagine being disabled trying to wait for a dysfunctional public transit.


DISABILITY ACT AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY------NOT IN MARYLAND THEY SAY!  WE ARE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS WORKING TO SEND ALL MONEY TO THE RICH AFTER ALL!



Mayor Rawlings-Blake Announces Changes to City Parking to Address Misuse of Disability


Tags Wednesday Jul 9th, 2014

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

Mayor,

Baltimore City

250 City Hall - Baltimore Maryland 21202

(410) 396-3835 - Fax: (410) 576-9425

Better Schools. Safer Streets. Stronger Neighborhoods.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT

Caron A. Brace

(443) 853-0957

caron.brace@baltimorecity.gov

Project SPACE Improves Access for Drivers with Disabilities; Aims to Increase Available Parking, Stop Theft, Abuse of Disability Placards BALTIMORE, Md. (July 9, 2014)—Today, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was joined by the Parking Authority of Baltimore City, the Mayor's Commission on Disabilities, the Downtown Partnership, and members of the disability community to announce Project SPACE, an initiative that aims to eliminate the abuse of disability placards, create more accessible parking for people with disabilities, and increase the general availability of on-street parking Downtown.

Project SPACE will require all drivers who utilize on-street parking in the downtown business district to pay the parking meter—even if a disability placard or tag is displayed. The cost and time limitations for on-street parking will be the same regardless of whether the driver is displaying a disability placard/tags.

"As we near the 24th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities (ADA) Act, we want to offer greater freedom of access for those with disabilities and their families," said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. "Baltimore should be accessible for everyone who wishes to enjoy the many attractions that are part of what makes our city a great place to live, work, and play. In addition to combatting the abuse of disability placards, Project SPACE, will ultimately create more parking spaces for everyone."

As part of Project SPACE, approximately 200 on-street parking spaces with highly accessible, ADA compliant single-space meters have been reserved for vehicles displaying a disability placard or tags. Additionally, all EZ Park meters throughout the Central Business District have been retrofitted to meet new ADA standards, making them even more accessible for people with disabilities. To meet state requirements, the time limit for all on-street parking spaces within areas affected by Project SPACE will increase to four hours.

Project SPACE is part of the solution to a major, ongoing parking problem in Baltimore City. Current policy allows individuals displaying a disability placard or license plates to park in metered on-street parking spaces free of charge. This often results in illegal use by motorists parking for long periods of time, and promotes theft of disability placards—which are now the number one item stolen out of vehicles. By removing the financial incentive to abuse a disability placard and requiring all drivers to pay for parking, Project SPACE aims to prevent placard theft and increase the number of available parking spaces for all drivers.

"We have performed a number of parking studies that have shown that, in certain city blocks, vehicles displaying disability placards often take up 100 percent of on-street spaces and remain parked there all day," said Peter Little, executive director of the Parking Authority of Baltimore City. "Stricter enforcement will create more parking turnover and increase the number of available parking spaces as abusers seek less expensive parking options off street."

While Project SPACE is launching in the Central Business District—an area defined as the streets bounded by Franklin Street on the north, President Street on the east, Key Highway on the south, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard on the west—the program will eventually expand to Fells Point, Harbor East, Federal Hill, Mount Vernon, and beyond.

"We work to promote equal rights and opportunities for people with disabilities, including making sure people with disabilities have adequate access to accessible parking options in Baltimore City," said Dr. Nollie Wood, Jr., executive director of the Mayor's Commission on Disabilities. "The Mayor's Commission on Disabilities supports Project SPACE, because it helps accomplish our overall goal. We're looking for equal opportunity—not cheaper services."

For more information on Project SPACE, please visit www.MoreSpace4All.com. Project SPACE is also on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MoreSpace4All and on Twitter and Instagram at @MoreSpace4All.

About the Parking Authority of Baltimore City Parking Authority of Baltimore City (PABC) is a "quasi" governmental agency of Baltimore City and a registered 501(c)(3) organization with a mission to find, or create, and implement parking solutions for Baltimore City and to be the resource on all things "parking" in Baltimore. PABC oversees the management of 17 parking garages, numerous lots, over 800 EZ Park Meters, over 1,500 reserved residential handicap parking spaces, and 46 residential permit parking areas.

About the Mayor's Commission on Disabilities The Mayor's Commission on Disabilities was created by City of Baltimore Ordinance #93-237 to promote equal rights and opportunities for people with disabilities. The Commission assists the City in assessing the accessibility of City facilities, programs, and services for citizens with disabilities; providing information and education programs to city government, businesses, and industries concerning issues relevant to citizens with disabilities; and complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).





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Speed cameras as predator as the entire system is a failure ticketing massive numbers of people for no reason----sound familiar.  It took constant media shaming and wide-spread citizen outcry to stop the fraud and theft of public money.  So, you never know when you come to Baltimore if you are going to be fleeced by parking meters or speed cameras and then save a lot of time to fight it. 

PAY THE FINE THEY SAY----WE HAVE CORPORATE FRAUD, TAX EVASION, AND TAX BREAKS TO PAY FOR.


Add to that public policy that deliberately keeps unemployment in Baltimore high and you have no working economy.  Remember, the global corporations like Johns Hopkins do not want a thriving domestic economy----all the money is being made overseas.  It is deliberate policy meant to keep domestic citizens impoverished while all the revenue generated maximizes profits.  If you are not impoverished now---you and/or your children or grandchildren will be.  Think how these policies will get worse over time.

WE SIMPLY NEED A PUBLIC SECTOR PROVIDING OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY.  PUBLIC ASSETS DO NOT COST THE TAXPAYER----THEY BRING REVENUE TO GOVERNMENT COFFERS.




Maryland Speed Camera Fraud

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Tony McConkey

It is a violation of the public trust to continue to collect revenue from speed cameras that are inaccurate.  Baltimore City and other local governments should immediately issues refunds when a citation is false, and government has a duty to be proactive and to verify all cameras are working correctly.




Citation Payment Information
  • If your vehicle is currently booted or immobilized do NOT pay here. Instead, please call the Boot Release Line at 1-877-810-7907 to speak to an operator 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. (Call this number only for booted or immobilized cars.) If you pay on this website for a booted or immobilized vehicle, your car’s release will be delayed and it may be towed
  • Citations for most parking, red light, and speed camera violations are available for payment on this website the next business day. (Hand-written citations may take more than 1 month.)
  • Payments may not appear on this website for 3 business days. Payments take 1 to 3 business days to post, and this website reflects only posted payments. Unposted payments are not reflected on this website, which also may not reflect the $25 registration flag fee. Please call 410-396-4080 Monday–Friday (except holidays) 8:00am–4:30pm to verify your payment or confirm the amount due.
  • If you have 3 or more unpaid tickets more than 30 days old, your car may be immobilized or impounded.
  • Red Light and Speed Camera Citations with a violation date on or before December 31, 2012 are available at www.public.cite-web.com(External Link) (External Link). Enter your citation’s violation code and PIN number.
  • Red Light and Speed Camera Citations with a violation date on or after January 1, 2013 are available at www.ip360BaltCity.com (External Link). Enter your citation’s violation code and PIN number.
  • The CIty of Baltimore no longer faxes VR119 release forms to the Department of Motor Vehicles. All requests will be mailed within 2 to 3 business days.
Baltimore City provides online access to the public information maintained in its records. While the city has confidence in the accuracy of these records, Baltimore City makes no warranties, expressed or implied, regarding the information.

_____________________________________________
SEE WHAT O'MALLEY AND MARYLAND ASSEMBLY AND RAWLINGS-BLAKE AND BALTIMORE CITY HALL ARE UP TO! 

THIS IS WHY MARYLAND AND BALTIMORE PARKING AUTHORITY IS SO PREDATORY AND INCREASINGLY PROFITEERING----THE MORE MONEY GENERATED THE MORE MONEY MOVED TO WALL STREET THROUGH BONDS PURCHASE.  TAKES THAT MONEY RIGHT OUT OF GENERAL FUNDS TO BE USED BY EVERYONE AND DIRECTS IT TO INVESTMENT FIRMS AND DEVELOPERS.

This is what I mean about hiding Maryland debt. Maryland looks like it has less debt because of these credit leverages.  Don't think only neo-liberals are doing this----this is actually a Republican policy that has gone neo-con/neo-liberal as global corporations are getting all the money.   There is not a public revenue maker in Maryland that is not leveraged to credit bonds and here we have our parking agencies tied to Moody's.  This speaks of the Maryland Parking Authority but Baltimore Parking Authority is doing the same.  When every revenue source in a state is mortgage with credit bonds as is Maryland, when these economics crashes happen defaults occur and taxpayers lose hundreds of millions of dollars----which is the plan.  There deals not only feed Wall Street----the private corporations partnered with public parking are stealing right and left and profiteering on the backs of Maryland citizens......and this is super-sized in Baltimore.


Please think about what these neo-liberals and neo-cons are building with this money------restaurants, retail stores, financial businesses.  None of this builds a strong, healthy economy.  It is what exists in third world countries....tourism economy.  Think how many small businesses could be started with the money tied up in these bonds.  Remember, a bond market crash is coming very soon.  Even the Maryland and Baltimore Parking Authority is mortgaged.

Related Issuers
Maryland Transportation Authority


  Rating Action: Moody's affirms the A2 on Maryland Transportation Authority's Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport Parking Revenue Refunding Bonds Series 2012A and B; The outlook is stable Global Credit Research - 25 Mar 2014 Approximately $182.02 million of debt outstanding affected New York, March 25, 2014 -- Moody's Investors Service has affirmed the A2 rating on the Maryland Transportation Authority's (MDTA) Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) Parking Revenue Refunding Bonds Series 2012A and B. The outlook is stable.



RATINGS RATIONALE

The A2 rating on the parking revenue bonds reflects the strong coverage provided by a pledge of the net parking revenues of all parking facilities operated by the Maryland Aviation Administration (MAA), notwithstanding downturns in passenger enplanements at BWI in the last couple of years. While the pledge of only parking revenues presents a relatively narrow revenue stream, the parking facilities are essential to the airport operations, given the lack of convenient alternatives to reach BWI and the long established customer trends for parking at the airport. The A2 rating also reflects the strong demand for passenger travel in a large, affluent service area, and strong debt service coverage levels.



The parking revenue bonds were issued by the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) on behalf of the MAA which operates BWI. The MDTA has entered into leases with the MAA, which obligates the MAA to remit parking revenues for the repayment of the debt.




STRENGTHS

* Service area contains some of the wealthiest counties in the US as well as a premium tourist destination in Washington, D.C.

*BWI remains a strong origination & destination (O&D) market which drives parking revenues; Southwest Airlines is the largest carrier at the airport with 71.4% of enplanements as of FY 2013

*Total enplanements have been on a mostly positive trajectory since FY 2010

* Airport operates efficiently, with airline costs per enplanement lower than regional competitors Reagan National Airport and Washington-Dulles International Airport (Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, A1/Stable). Low cost per enplanement is helped by the airport's absence of general aviation debt.

*Debt service coverage ratios (DSCR) have remained stable and are estimated to be maintained at similar levels in the next year

*There is no additional debt expected to be supported by parking revenues.



CHALLENGES

*Market strength could be challenged by possible cuts in federal government spending given the concentration of federal jobs in the immediate region.

* Significant regional competition from other Washington area airports.

* Highly concentrated airline market share, with the combined Southwest/AirTran airline accounting for over 70% of enplanements in FY 2013

*Off-airport parking lots could pose a competitive threat to transaction growth at certain MAA parking facilities, such as the express and long-term parking lots.

* Reliance on dedicated and more restricted parking revenue streams which tend to decline more steeply than airport enplanements and lag in recovery

*Declining O&D passenger base as a result of Southwest increasing use of BWI as a connector negatively affects highly sensitive and narrow dedicated streams of parking revenues



Outlook

The stable outlook is based on expectations that enplanement and O&D passenger base will remain around current levels, supporting DSCRs at similar levels. The outlook also anticipates the successful renewal of the parking agreement for another 5-year term.



What could change the rating--UP

The rating is well placed in its category given the narrow nature of the revenue flow to cover debt service payments. Nonetheless, a marked improvement in revenues due to a sustainable positive change in the fundamental strength of the O&D enplanement base at BWI Marshall could exert positive ratings pressure.



What could change the rating--DOWN

Strong DSCR is key to the current rating level. Hence, a weakening of revenues over more than one year period that reduces financial margins could place some negative pressure on the rating.




The principal methodology used in this rating was Generic Project Finance Methodology published in December 2010. Please see the Credit Policy page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.



REGULATORY DISCLOSURES



For ratings issued on a program, series or category/class of debt, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series or category/class of debt or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.



Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.



Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.

Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.

Jennifer Meihuy Chang
Analyst
Public Finance Group
Moody's Investors Service, Inc.
250 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10007
U.S.A.
JOURNALISTS: 212-553-0376
SUBSCRIBERS: 212-553-1653


Chee Mee Hu
MD - Project Finance
Public Finance Group
JOURNALISTS: 212-553-0376
SUBSCRIBERS: 212-553-1653


Releasing Office:
Moody's Investors Service, Inc.
250 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10007
U.S.A.
JOURNALISTS: 212-553-0376
SUBSCRIBERS: 212-553-1653

0 Comments

July 26th, 2014

7/26/2014

0 Comments

 
TO ALL THOSE 72% OF REGISTERED DEMOCRATIC VOTERS WHO STAYED HOME FOR THE PRIMARY AND THE OTHER 10% WHO HAVE BECOME UNAFFILIATED WITH THE PARTY------BECOME ENGAGED IN THE ORGANIZATIONS THAT SHOULD BE EDUCATING ON POLICY OR ELSE YOU WILL BE A PEASANT AND NOT A CITIZEN.

THERE IS NOT ONE ISSUE ON CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND'S PLATFORM MADE HUSH HUSH BY THE DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL GROUPS BELOW-----IT IS HUSH HUSH BECAUSE THESE GROUPS ARE LED BY NEO-LIBERALS AND NOT DEMOCRATS!

Speaking of elections on the weekend I would like to remind people that the reason I am placing my challenge to the Democratic Primary for Governor results on my website is first, to show people how elections should and are legally required to work.  Maryland has dismantled much of the history and civics instruction in K-12 so many people are graduating not knowing how to participate in the election process as a candidate and/or voter.  The 'dumbing' down of public education in the last few decades since neo-liberals took hold of the Democratic Party has been breath-taking and deliberate.  Do not get mad at public schools because it is the same politicians you allow to be elected year after year doing it. 

SIMPLY BECOME ENGAGED IN POLITICS OR YOU WILL LOSE YOUR STATUS AS CITIZEN AND BE A PEASANT SIMPLY TOLD WHAT TO DO.

You must take control of these Democratic Party committees across the state and send these neo-liberals leading these committees packing.  You must join the Maryland League of Women Voters so as to have leadership that does not seek to censure political voice and hide the fact that citizens rights are being dismantled with the likes of Trans Pacific Trade Pact.  The League should be at the forefront of activism against this!  Make your hobby rebuilding community avenues for discussing public policy with newsletters delivered by hand by membership. 

WE CAN REVERSE ALL OF THIS IF WE BECOME ENGAGED.  REMEMBER, THE US CONSTITUTION CANNOT BE OPENLY ATTACKED AS IT IS RIGHT NOW ======ALL OF THIS IS ILLEGAL AND CAN BE REVERSED SIMPLY BY HAVING POLITICIANS IN OFFICE THAT APPLY RULE OF LAW.


Nancy Pelosi led a legislative effort to pass a law that makes members of Congress immune from insider trading crimes because she and Ben Cardin were identified as being involved and profiting from insider trading......this is just one of many laws hitting the books that are not Constitutional and it is because we have Maryland State Attorney General offices that do not challenge these laws that they sit there.  It matters for whom you vote!   A Governor of Maryland could do this with a special task force.  Remember, the Supreme Court ruling that corporations are people was not an interpretation of the US Constitution -----it was a re-write and it was an attack on the Constitution itself and the US citizens and their rights under the Constitution.  None of that would have happened if we had Democrats in Congress that shouted IMPEACH ROBERTS as should happen.  You hear nothing because we do not have Democrats in Congress----we have neo-liberals working for wealth and profit----the global corporations being called people.  If we currently have leadership that is ignoring the Constitution will Amend the Constitution make a difference?  Here in Maryland we have the very pols who voted with Clinton for NAFTA and breaking the Glass Steagall Wall knowing it would create corporate rule and lost democracy we have today pretending to be fighting for Amend the Constitution.

WE HAVE EQUAL PROTECTION AND RULE OF LAW THAT DOES NOT ALLOW SPECIAL EXEMPTION FROM LAW SO THAT IS ILLEGAL AND SIMPLY NEEDS TO BE TAKEN OFF THE BOOKS.  WE HAVE A CONSTITUTION THAT GUARANTEES OUR RIGHTS AS CITIZENS TO ELECT PEOPLE WE CHOOSE TO MAKE LAWS WE WANT----WE SIMPLY NEED TO IMPEACH A SUPREME COURT THAT PRETENDS IT HAS THE RIGHT TO RE-WRITE THE CONSTITUTION.

All of this is why it is so important for neo-liberals to remain in control and executive positions like Governor of Maryland and Mayor of Baltimore are the positions that can challenge all of this......ergo the systemic irregularities and censuring of any candidate running to reverse this.  It would all fall like dominoes because it is all illegal.
  You have the right as a voter to challenge in court the irregularities that keep selected candidates from participating in elections......you can be filing the same complaints against election irregularities that I am.

CARDIN, CUMMINGS, SARBANES (SR), HOYER ALL VOTED WITH CLINTON TO BREAK GLASS STEAGALL AND FOR NAFTA. MIKULSKI WAS NEW AT THAT TIME BUT HAS MADE UP FOR THAT MISSED VOTE.   IT IS THESE POLITICAL MACHINES IN MARYLAND THAT HAVE CAPTURED THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY FOR NEO-LIBERALS. 

They are the ones being given the campaign funds at a national level that they then move into the state to control the elections at the lower level to maintain the status quo.  This is why the Maryland Democratic Party committees are led by neo-liberals and in Baltimore's case----neo-conservatives running as Democrats.  These are not warm and fuzzy pols and the progressive bones they throw they know mean nothing when pushing neo-liberalism.

Since neo-liberalism dismantles all Equal Protection, Rule of Law, and rights of citizens to legislate and be part of public policy -------IT IS WOMEN AND PEOPLE OF COLOR HURT MOST WITH NEO-LIBERALISM, but everyone is hurt.  So, below you see the two strongest protectors of women and people of color-----AND THE LEADERSHIP IN THESE GROUPS SUPPORT NEO-LIBERALS.  This is the breakdown in power for the Democratic Party....the capture of these two groups by neo-liberals. 

WOMEN'S AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS SHOULD BE THE ONES SHOUTING LOUDEST TO GET RID OF NE0-LIBERALS AND IF THEY ARE NOT-----THEY HAVE NEO-LIBERAL LEADERSHIP.



Statewide Caucuses


Maryland House Democratic Committee Slate
Maryland Legislative Black Caucus
6 Bladen Street, Room 300
Annapolis, MD 21401
Derbice Bennette

Women Legislators of Maryland

84 College Ave.
Lowe House Office Building, Room 200 
Annapolis, Maryland 21401
410-841-3013
womens.caucus@house.state.md.us

A women's caucus of the General Assembly organized as the Maryland Order of Women Legislators in 1969 (Constitution and By-Laws, Feb. 17, 1969). It was the first women's legislative caucus founded in the United States. As the Maryland Chapter of the National Order of Women Legislators it was recognized in 1972. Today, the women's caucus is known as the Women Legislators of Maryland.


____________________________________________________

Below is a long list that will be boring to read but please take the time to look at each of these Democratic grassroots organizations.  These are the local committees that work in your community that should be educating all voters on the issues from a Democratic perspective.  They should have extended outreach in these communities----schools, senior centers, social services agencies, community events----all educating the public on the issues I speak in this website and my campaign platform because this is the Democratic Platform.  When I traveled across Maryland I heard from the leaders of these committees in each of these counties a need to be silent on most of the issues in my platform.  So, we do not have leaders in these communities for the  Democratic Party and we need those 80% of registered Democratic voters and those unaffiliated to BECOME ENGAGED AND TAKE BACK THESE LOCAL DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEES.  This is where the breakdown of public policy discussion occurs.  We need people to flood these committees and build the public policy education system that has been dismantled by the Democratic leadership in Maryland.

Every one of these local Democratic Party committees did not list Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland on their websites-----which is illegal since they are non-profits needing to abide by IRS election laws.

PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW RACE AND CLASS TO KILL DEMOCRACY FOR ALL BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE NEO-LIBERALS ARE TAKING THIS.  YOU WILL HAVE NO VOICE IS YOU ALLOW THE COALITION OF LABOR AND JUSTICE TO BE DISMANTLED.

If the citizens of Maryland are not coming out to vote it is because these grassroots organizations are not providing the reasons for doing so.  If my platform is HUSH HUSH for the leadership of these committees -----that is why there is apathy but this exists because those not voting are not ENGAGED IN THESE ORGANIZATIONS.   Folks----do not believe all these policies cannot be reversed-----it will be easy peasy if you take back the Democratic Party for the people and send global corporate pols into retirement.

WE MUST HAVE DEMOCRATIC VOTERS WHO ARE SITTING ON THE SIDELINE FRONT AND CENTER IN THESE POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS!


Garrett County Democratic Party
Democratic Central Committee of Garrett County
Zelma Neary, Vice Chair
kegley22@verizon.net

Garrett County Democratic Club
Stephan Moylan, President 
PO Box 31
Oakland, Maryland  21550
stephanmoylan@yahoo.com 301-616-6970

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


Allegany County Democratic Party
Democratic Central Committee of Allegany
Chair: Bill Duvall, Chair
14905 Old Hencock Road NE
Cumberland, Maryland  21502
301-722-5326 (main)
billd1024@yahoo.com

Democratic Women's Club of Allegany County
Contact: Jody Oliver
152 North Mechanic Street
Cumberland, Maryland  21502
301-787-1885 (main)

Cumberland Democratic ClubPresident: Robert Mace Jr.240-580-7077201 Valley StreetCumberland, MD 21502
******************************************************************




Washington County Democratic Party
Democratic Central Committee of Washington County
Peter Perini Sr., Chair
P.O. Box 1136
Hagerstown, MD 21740
240-452-2690
  peter.perini@msn.com





Democratic Club of Washington CountyContact: Peter Perini Sr., President 
P.O. 2947
Hagerstown, MD 21741 info@democraticclubofwashingtoncounty.org



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


Frederick County Democratic Party
Frederick County Democratic Central Committee
Myrna Whitworth, Chair
myrnawhit@verizon.net



Young Democrats of Frederick  County
Contact: Jamie Shopland
301-305-7640
president@ydfrederick.org United Democrats of Frederick County
Russ Currey, President  
russcurrey@verizon.net
301-788-5801

Women's Democratic League for Frederick County
Lara Roholt Westdorp, President
womendemsleaguefc@gmail.com
301-371-8556 PO Box 104, Monrovia, MD 21770 Monocacy Plowman & Fisherman's Club
P.O. Box 689
Frederick, Maryland 21705Frederick County Democratic Central Committee

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




Carroll County Democratic Party
Carroll County Democratic Central Committee
Jackie Jones, Chair
jsdljones@aol.com
ccdems@ccdems.com

Carroll County Democratic Club

President: Jason Officer
400 Mathias CtWestminster, MD 21157
410-861-0602
j asonofficer@gmail.com The Carroll County Democratic Club holds monthly meetings on the first Monday of every month at 7 p.m. at Frisco’s Pub (EXCEPT for June, July, and August) in Westminster. For more information, please call 410-530-1833 before 9:00PM or e-mail at carrollcountydems@yahoo.com .

Northwest Democratic Club Carroll County (New Windsor, Taneytown and Union Bridge)
Contact: George Hanold gvhanold@hotmail.com or
Jackie Jones at jsdljones@aol.com

South Carroll County Democratic Club
6906 Stratford Dr
Sykesville, MD 21784 President: Mary Ellis 410-795-6024 maryellis1945@gmail.com


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


Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee
Gabe Albornoz, Chair
3720 Farragut Avenue, 3rd Floor
Kensington, Maryland  20895
301-946-1000 (phone)
301-946-1002 (fax)
montgomerydems@msn.com

African American Democratic Club of Montgomery County
President: Saschane Stephenson
PO Box 10854, Silver Spring  Maryland  20914
301-761-4481 (main)
president@aadcmc.org

Asbury Democratic Club
President: Keith Steele
Montgomery County
419 Russell Avenue #404
Gaithersburg, Maryland  20877
301-987-6628 Bethesa-Chevy Chase Democratic Breakfast Club
Contact: Jim Mercurio
Montgomery County
3707 Woodbine Street
Chevy Chase, Maryland  20815
301.986.5321
jpm4612@gmail.com

Coalition of Asian Pacific American Democrats of Maryland
Contact: Partha Pillai and George Dang
phuocdang@aol.com
ppillai1@aol.com

Democratic Club of Leisure World
Contact: Shirley Henderson
Montgomery County
shenderson9744@comcast.net
Betsy Starks - Contact
donkeydispatcheditor@gmail.com

District 14 Democratic Club
Contact: Neeta Datt, President
240-839-1350
datt.neeta@gmail.com District 15 Democratic Caucus
Contact: Jeffrey Williams, Chair
jwilliams@w3group.us
301-793-7008
9904 Barstow Ct
Potomac, MD 20854



District 16 Democratic Club
Contact: Eliot Greenwald, Chair
Eliot.greenwald@verizon.net
301-320-5750Membership Information:Gene Grabif 301-229-0762 granof@verizon.net
District 17 Democratic Club
Contact: Dolly Kildee, Chair
301-670-5543 dollykildee@hotmail.com District 18 Democratic Caucus
Contact: Gabe Albornoz
galborno1976@yahoo.com

District 19 Democratic Club
Contact: Elliot Chabot, President
echabot@usa.net

District 20 Democratic Caucus
Darian Unger, Chair
Darianunger@yahoo.com

District 20 Breakfast Club aide.delegatehixson@gmail.com District 39 Democratic Caucus
19729 Framingham Drive
Gaithersburg, Maryland  20879
301-963-4989
juan_miguel@verizon.net
Contact: Juan Cardenas

District 39 Democratic Club
Contact: Mumin Barre
240-498-4102
somaali@netzero.com

Greater Silver Spring Democratic Club
9907 Merwood Lane
Silver Spring, Maryland  20901
markwoodard@comcast.net Contact: Mark Woodard, President
High School Demoratic ClubsMarie Wallace Secretary13817 Bethpage LnSilver Spring, MD 20906 emmabel01@verizon.net 301-460-4320 Hispanic Democratic Club
President: Isaac Salazar
Post Office Box 30760
Bethesda, MD 20824
(301) 801-9816
isaac.salazar@gmail.com

Montgomery County Green Democrats
Contact: Joan Jacobs, President
PO Box 7268, Silver Spring, MD 20907
240-475-3000, abogada_98@yahoo.com
greendemocrats@gmail.com

Northern Montgomery Co. Women's Democratic Club
Contact: Jane Hatch, President
20448 Aspenwood Lane
Montgomery Village, Maryland  20886
301-869-0103
nmwdc1@gmail.com

Rockville/Mid-County Democratic Breakfast Club
Contact: Susan Magazine
Montgomery County
4804 Moorland Lane
Bethesda, MD 20814
301-986-0200
smagazine@sfelaw.com

Seneca Potomac Democratic Club
Contact: Sheloy Gigliotti, President
Montgomery County
10306 Lloyd Rd
Potomac, Maryland  20854
301-762-4523

Woman's Democratic Club Of Montgomery County
President: Jane Merkin, President
Montgomery County
4620 North Park Ave #409 E
Chevy Chase, Maryland  20815
http://www.womansdemocraticclub.org/
jpmerkin@verizon.net 301-656-4345 Montgomery County Young Democrats
Contact: Nik Sushka, President
nik.sushka@mcyd.org

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



Howard County Democratic Party
www.howardcountydems.com
Democratic Central Committee of Howard County
Abby Hendrix, Chair
7050 Oakland Mills Road Suite 120 , Columbia  Maryland  21046
410 290-9791 (main)
410-740-4595 (cell) Howardcountydems@gmail.com

Columbia Democratic Club
Club Meets the 2nd Wednesday of the month, at the Jeffers Hill Neighborhood Center, 6030 Tamar Drive, Columbia, at 7pm.
Al Liebeskind , President 
410-530-0064
liebeskind@comcast.net


Western Howard County Democratic Club
Will meet on the Third Tuesday at the month.
Rich Corkran, President   
410-461-3210
r corkran@aol.com

Young Democrats of Howard County
President: Greg Jennings410-934-7659
jenningsforhowardcounty@gmail.com
Thurgood Marshall Democratic Club
President: Ethel Hill
410-730-4122
ethelbhill@aol.com


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



Democratic Central Committee of Baltimore County
Margie Brassil, Chair HQ: 301 Alleghany Ave. Towson, MD 21204
mbrassil@baltcodems.org

Battle Grove Democratic Club of Baltimore County
Contact: Garry Mongan
4095 St. Augustine Lane , Baltimore  Maryland  21222 meets monthly
410-450-0330
gmongan@comcast.net

Central Baltimore County Democratic Club
Contact Person: Anne Neal
Meets 2nd Tuesday of each month at BCDCC HQ 
410-913-3344
anneneal88@gmail.com
http://www.cvcdc.org/

New 7th Democratic Civic Club
Contact: Bud Staigerwald
Meets 2nd Wed of each month at the Key Yacht Club
410-477-6144 budstaigerwald@gmail.com


Northeast Democratic Club
Contact: Francis Craig, President
443-362-0246 fcraig0003@aol.com

Northwest Baltimore County Democratic Club
Contact: Alan Elkin
PO Box 121
Reisterstown, Maryland  21136
president@northwestdems.org


Eastern Baltimore County Democratic ClubContact: Kitty Blythe410-574-1866

Southwest Baltimore County Democratic Club
We represent south of I-70 Baltimore County
Contact: Presidents: Mark Weaver 
p resident@sbcdems.org
http://www.sbcdems.org


Tenth District Democratic Club
Contact: Linda Forsyth 
Baltimore County
PO Box 21514
Baltimore, Maryland  21282
d istrict10democrats@verizon.net

Riverside Democratic Club of Essex
Contact Anna Pearce, Scretary   she007@verizon.net

Young Dems of Baltimore County
Contact: Dennis Teegardin, President
Meets on 2nd Wed of each month at BCDCC HQ 
president@bcyd.org
http://www.bcyd.org/


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


Baltimore City Democratic Party
Democratic Central Committee of Baltimore City
Scherod Barnes, Chair
chair@baltimorecitydems.com

Baltimore City Young Democrats

President: Terrell Boston Smith
443-540-3807
t bostonsmi@aol.com

B.E.S.T. Democratic Club
President: George Hendricks 
info@bestdemocraticclub.org


United Democratic Club (Baltimore City)
Contact: Bob Murray
3125 Fleet Street
Baltimore, Maryland  21224
bobmurrayedd@gmail.com

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

Democratic Central Committee of Anne Arundel County

http://www.annearundeldems.com/
Chair: Ashley Heffernan
ash.heff@gmail.com
410-266-6380


Annapolis Democratic Central Committee

Kitty Higgins,, Chair
e-mail: kitty@thehigginscompany.com
410-263-2871
www.annapolisdems.org 
Meets 2nd Tuesday at 7:00 pm at Eastport Democratic CLub, Eastport, Annapolis


Anne Arundel County Young Democrats
President Patricia Swanson
443-254-5626
aacydsecretary@gmail.com
Meets 3rd Thursday of each month.

District 30 Democratic Club (AA County)
Lyn Farrow Collins, President
Meets 4th Wed of each month at the Wild Orchid 7 pm meeting
www.md30dems.org
P.O. Box 3164 , Annapolis  Maryland  21403

District 32 Democratic Club 
Anne Arundel County - meets 3rd Thursday if the month at the Ferndale Fire Dept. 8pm meeting
Contact: Tom Dixon , Ferndale  Maryland  
President (main)
tom.dixon@email.com



33rd District Democratic Club
Anne Arundel County
www.33dems.org
President: Stephen Thibodeau
D33Dems@gmail.com
Meets 3rd Thursday of each month at Perry's Restaurant, Odenton 7 pm meeting


Almost 7:30 Friday Democratic Breakfast Club
Contact: Edie Segree 410-353-0790
Meets every Friday morning at Eastport Democratic Club
easegree@comcast.net

Democratic Women of Anne Arundel County
President: Christine Davenport
Meets the last Friday of the month, contact Christine for location
410-761-5763 (main)
csdavenport08@hotmail.com

Roland Terrace Democratic Club
President: Judy Faulker
Anne Arundel County - meets 1st and 3rd Monday of each month 7pm meeting
103 West 16th Ave , Brooklyn Park  Maryland  21225
410-789-7730 (main)
jufran103@aol.com

South County Democratic Club (AA Co)
President: Ann Wolfe 
Meets 1st Wednesday of the month at Pirates Cove Restaurant, Galesville, 7 PM
Phone: 301-261-5329
www.southcountydemclub.org



Stoney Creek Democratic Club
Contact: Don Bevans
Anne Arundel County, Meets every Wed at 8pm
8123 Ft. Smallwood Road , Baltimore  Maryland  
410-255-7739 (main)
stoneycreek25@gmail.com


Almost 7:30 Friday Democratic Breakfast Club
Contact: Edie Segree 410-353-0790
Meets every Friday morning at Eastport Democratic Club
easegree@comcast.net




West County Democratic Club (Anne Arundel)
President Otis Duffie
Meet 4th Monday Each Month , Perry's Restaurant, Odenton  Maryland  
410-674-4000
wcdcboard@comcast.net

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

Prince George's Democratic Party
Prince George's County Democratic Central Committee
Terry Speigner, Chair
terry@ngen.com
202-550-2782

Prince George's Young Dems
Lawrence Stafford
lstaffordjr@gmail.com 202-907-9597

24th District Democratic Club
12814 Water Fowl Way
Upper Marlboro, Maryland  20774
301-350-3259 President: Norma Lindsay

African American Democratic Club of Prince George's County
PO Box 44053
Fort Washington, Maryland  20749
301-599-2227
shaihi.mwalimu@verizon.net

Brandywine Democratic Club
President: George Hinnant
11113 Old Marlboro Pike
Upper Marlboro, Maryland  20772
301-627-1235
College Park Democratic ClubPresident: Cory SandersPO Box 582College Park, MD 20740Phone 301-335-1393email: info@collegeparkdems.com


Eleanor & Franklin Roosevelt Democratic Club
President: Emmett Jordan
Prince George's County
PO Box 1035
Greenbelt, Maryland  20768
301-220-1025
p resident@rooseveltclub.com


Greater Bowie Democratic Club
President: Todd Turner
turner4240@yahoo.com
301-785-0487
Mailing Address: P.O.  Box 2253, Bowie, MD  20718 Greater Laurel Beltsville Democratic Club
President: Franklin Jackson 
329 Prince George Street
Laurel, Maryland  20707
s jackson4x@aol.com

Greater Marlboro Democratic Club
Contact: Mel Franklin
PO Box 2144
Upper Marlboro, Maryland  20772
301-325-4642
melfranklin@greatermarlboro.org

Hispanic Democratic Club of Prince George’s County
Contact: Blanca Kling
Prince George's County
301-937-4715

Prince George's County Council of Democratic Clubs
President: Bill Hunt
8 Olivewood Court
Greenbelt, Maryland  20770
301-982-0111
wmhunt@starpower.net


Prince George's Democratic Club
President: Jeff Gray
Prince George's County
3036 Morris Court
Owings, Maryland  20736
301-782-7184

Sasscer Democratic Club
President: Christine Edes
Prince George's County
1364 Moyer Court
Annapolis, Maryland  21403
410-268-0614

Southern Maryland United Democratic Women's Club
President: Ann Chab
Prince George's County
100 Captain Brendt Avenue
Accokeek, Maryland  20607
301-292-5581

Suitland Democratic Club
President: Yvonne Hefley
Prince George's County
7810 Elroy Place
Oxon Hill  Maryland  20745
301-839-4171

Surratts-Clinton Democratic Club
Contact: Tamara Davis Brown
Prince George's County
9544 Victoria Drive
Upper Marlboro, Maryland  20772
301-704-0930
tybrownesq@comcast.net

UMD College Dems
President: Ben Kramer
301-509-1084, bkramer1@terpmail.umd.edu


Young Men's Democratic Club of Prince George's County
President: Jim Henderson
PO Box 294
Hyattsville, MD 20781
savant@financier.com

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


Charles County Democratic Central Committee
Albert Coleman, Chair
coleab@hotmail.com
301-233-3176
P.O. Box 2710
La Plata, MD 20646

4th & 5th Democratic Club of Charles County
President: Karen Andreas
301-259-2411
karenandreas@msn.com

Western Charles County Democratic Club
Jewell Bragunier
301-934-7058
jewellb1@verizon.net  

Northern Democratic Club of Charles County
Lauretta Miles
301-674-9565
charlescountyndc@yahoo.com

African American Democratic Club
Gaylord Hogue
301-643-5095
glord@att.net

Young Democrat Charles County
301-659-2284
scott.moore.3194@facebook.com Scott Moore
Veterans Democratic Club of Charles CountyContact: Edward Holland III301-848-3476 hollandnmd@aol.com  


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

St. Mary's County Democratic PartySt. Mary's County Democratic Central CommitteeKathleen O'Brien , Chair  kathyoobrien@gmail.com Phone: 301-475-8242





Democratic Club of St. Mary's County
President: Karl Pence karlkirbypence@aol.com
PO Box 631
Leonardtown, MD 20650
********************************************************

Calvert County Democratic Central Committee
calvertdems@gmail.com
Clifton Savoy, Chair
Headquarters:   
250 Merrimac Court
Prince Frederick, MD 20678
410-414-3660 Office
301-655-7800 Cell
cliffsavoydems@gmail.com


Calvert County Democratic Club
Duwane Rager, President
Huntingtown, Maryland  
443-624-2963
duwane.rager@gmail.com Calvert County Democratic Women's Club
Chesapeake Beach, MD
gogranny1@verizon.net Barbara Stinnett



Calvert County Young Democrats 
Duwane Rager, President 
duwane.rager@gmail.com 443-624-2963


Riverside Democratic Club
Asbury-Solomons Retirement Community
Solomons, Maryland  
Russ Horton, President
(410) 394-3216
jrhortonsr@comcast.net

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

Harford County Democratic Party
Democratic Central Committee of Harford County
Russ Kovach, Chair  443-360-5322
PO Box 1056
Edgewood, Maryland 21040
russell.kovach@gmail.com




New Harford Democratic Club
President: Ann C Helton
3 S. Rodgers St
Aberdeen, Maryland  21001
410-808-7847 
annchelton@aol.com

Main Street Democratic Club
President: Mike Eaves
PO Box 5867
Bel Air, MD 21014
info@mainstreetdemocrats.com


Young Democrats of Harford County 
President: Tom Meyers 
P.O. Box 106
Bel Air, Maryland  21014
443-722-1641 
tom.ydhc@gmail.com

African American Democratic Club
Cornelius Scott, President
443-622-2356
c ornelius.scott@farmers.com
**************************************************************

Cecil County Democratic Party
Democratic Central Committee of Cecil County
John Ulrich, Chair
ulrich_john@msn.com

Cecil County Democratic Club
President: Garrett Billmire
PO Box 1326
Elkton, Maryland  21921
410-642-3028
info@cecildemocrats.org

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

Kent County Democratic Party
Democratic Central Committee of Kent County
Thomas Martin, Chair
bookplate@verizon.net 202-494-5344

Democratic Club of Kent County
Tom Timberman, President 
P.O. Box 776
Chestertown, Maryland  21620
info@kentdems.org

Dinah DeMoss
Webmaster
web@kentdems.org
410-810-3982

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

Queen Anne Democratic Party
Queen Anne's County Democratic Central Committee
Elaine McNeil, Chair 410-758-2850
e lainemcneil101@gmail.com




Democratic Club of Queen Anne's County
Stephen Z. Meehan, President 
410-708-5521 
smeehan@szmattorney.com

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

Talbot County Democratic Party
Talbot County Democratic Central Committee
Ryan Ewing, Chair
PO Box 81
Easton, MD 21601
ryan@ryanewing.com    410-690-8892


Talbot County Democratic Forum
President: Richard Calkins
PO Box 66
Easton, Maryland  21601
410-886-2745
richardlcalkins@gmail.com

United Democratic Women's Club of Talbot County
Joyce Scharch, President
601 Goldsborough Street
Easton, Maryland  21601
410-822-8289
joyce202@verizon.net

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

Caroline County Democratic Party
Caroline County Democratic Central Committee
James Brown, Chair
irlanda2002@univision.com



Democratic Club of Caroline County

Vice President: John Terebey
P.O. Box 155
Denton, Maryland  21629-0155
info@democratsofcaroline.org

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

Dorchester County Democratic Party
Dorchester County Democratic Central Committee
Cheryl Everman, Chair
ceverman@comcast.net

Dorchester Democratic Club
President: Cheryl Everman
410-829-2365
ceverman@comcast.net

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


Wicomico County Democratic Central Committee
Ernest Davis, Chair
ernest.davis8500@comcast.net


Democratic Club of Wicomico
President: Sarah Meyers s arahmeyers3564@gmail.com
Wicomico County
PO Box 1486
Salisbury, Maryland  21802

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

Democratic Central Committee of Worcester County (DCCWC)
Worcester County Democratic Central Committee
Howard Sribnick, Chair
PO Box 34
Berlin, MD 21811
hsribnick@starpower.net
Democratic Club of Worcester County
President: Tom Sandusky
P.O. Box 1664
Berlin, Maryland  21811
410-208-3232
t sand56@hotmail.com

Democratic Women's Club
President: Dell Purnell
PO Box 1242
Ocean Pines, MD 21811
410-641-6683    dellp100@yahoo.com


Democratic Club of Ocean City/Berlin
President: Lanny Hickman
P.O. Box 3196
Ocean City, Maryland  21843
410-600-0552
soonerlanny@gmail.com

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

Somerset County Democratic Party
Somerset County Democratic Central Committee
Kirkland Hall, Chair
410-651-4546
kjhall@umes.edu



______________________________________________
Below you see the people allowed power in the Maryland Democratic Party to effect which candidates in the Democratic Party advance in local, state, and national elections.  This is an important group and yet I bet almost all Maryland voters know nothing about it and do not know for whom they are voting....they may not even cast a vote for these people.

If you have 80% of registered voters or voters becoming unaffiliated with the Democratic Party not participating in primary or general elections THIS IS THE GROUP OF PEOPLE FAILING IN DOING THEIR JOBS.  These groups should be educating all citizens in Maryland on the same issues my website educates and yet not one of these issues are spoken of in these Democratic Committees.  This is where democratic education is stalled and stagnant.  Not coincidentally-----Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland was not mentioned on any Democratic Central Committee website-----which is illegal as they too are non-profits needing to abide by IRS election laws.


THINK ABOUT THE ISSUES I DISCUSS ON MY WEBSITE AND THE ISSUES CENTRAL TO MY PLATFORM AND ASK----WHY WOULD THIS DEMOCRATIC CENTRAL COMMITTEE NOT ONLY EXCLUDE ME BUT NEVER SPEAK TO MOST OF THE ISSUES ON MY PLATFORM?  MY PLATFORM IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM.


It is these people allowing Maryland Democratic Party be captured by neo-liberals.  Every Democratic voter who sat out these primary and general elections should be flooding these Democratic organizations to take back the Democratic Party from neo-liberals.

STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Chosen by State Central Committee in Dec., 4-year terms:
Yvette Lewis, Chair
Oscar T. Ramirez, Vice-Chair
Maggie McIntosh, 2nd Vice-Chair
Beth Swoap, Secretary
Duane A. (Tony) Baysmore, Deputy Secretary
Robert J. Kresslein, Treasurer
Victoria Jackson Stanley, Deputy Treasurer
Terms expire 2014.


National Committee members: Glenard S. Middleton, Sr.; Heather R. Mizeur; L. Gregory Pecoraro; Karren Pope-Onwukwee. Terms expire 2016.

Chairs of local central committees & additional local members

Erin Schurmann, Young Democrats of Maryland
Katie Castello, United Democratic Women's Clubs of Maryland

Bruce L. Marcus, Esq., General Counsel

Robert Fenity, Executive Director

33 West St., Suite 220, Annapolis, MD 21401
(410) 269-8818, (301) 858-8818; fax: (410) 280-8882
e-mail:
webdem@mddems.org
web: www.mddems.org

The governing body of the Maryland Democratic Party is the Democratic State Central Committee. Committee members are elected from their respective county or legislative district or are honorary (nonvoting) members designated by the Committee. Honorary members may include elected Democratic officials such as the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller of the Treasury, U.S. Senator, or U.S. Representative. Honorary memberships also may be extended to former Democratic governors and representatives of the Young Democrats of Maryland, the United Democratic Women's Clubs of Maryland, Maryland members of the Democratic National Committee, and any others designated by the State Central Committee.

In each gubernatorial primary election, Democratic central committees are elected locally by voters in each county and Baltimore City. Members serve four-year terms. A member of a local Democratic central committee must be a registered Democratic voter and a bona fide resident of the county or legislative district represented. Any qualified person may run for the office by filing a candidacy with the local board of of elections.






__________________________________________________


Every one of these Democratic Party leaders are neo-liberals.  Van Hollen seems like a nice guy but he is in the House leadership with Hoyer under Pelosi-----A GREAT BIG NEO-LIBERAL so we know these two are as well.  I know Maryland is a southern state that has issues with race and class------this leads to conservative politics.  Republican voters know that neo-cons are not Republicans for the same reason we know neo-liberals are not Democrats.  So, we need to put aside race and class issues as we protect our US Constitution and rights for all citizens or we will lose both.  Global corporations and their pols do not recognize the US Constitution and that is why neo-cons and neo-liberals are allowing it to be ignored.  So, if the citizens of Maryland do not recognize that deregulation simply means dismantling our public justice and Rule of Law for everyone-------if they do not learn that lower taxation simply means lower taxes for the rich and corporations with higher taxes on the working/middle class no matter whether Republican or neo-liberal.....we will become a third world society.  THAT IS WHERE THESE NEO-LIBRERALS AND NEO-CONS ARE LEADING.

THESE ARE THE MARYLAND POLITICAL MACHINES KEEPING MARYLAND DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEO-LIBERAL AND NOT DEMOCRATIC.  SHAKE THE BUGS OUT OF THE RUG BY JOINING THESE ORGANIZATIONS AND TAKING THEM BACK TO THE PEOPLE.



Party Leaders Team Maryland: Representing Your Priorities and Values State Elected Officials Federal Elected Officials Local Elected Officials Governor Martin O'Malley


Governor Martin O'Malley was one of only two Democratic incumbent governors in the country to be reelected in 2010. Prior to his service as Governor, Gov. O'Malley served 7 years as Mayor of Baltimore. During his two terms as mayor, Baltimore became a national model for improvement in public safety, government efficiency, education and economic development. During his first term, Gov. O’Malley established StateStat, modeled after the CitiStat program that he developed as Mayor of Baltimore City. Gov. O'Malley is using this data-based management approach to make Maryland's government work again for the people of our State. Gov. O’Malley also serves as Chairman as the Democratic Governors Association

Lt. Governor Anthony Brown



Lt. Governor Anthony Brown was elected to his first statewide office on November 7, 2006 after serving his native Prince George’s County as a Delegate in the Maryland House for two terms where he rose to the position of Majority Whip. Lt. Gov. Brown continues to serve his country as a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. In 2005, Lt. Gov. Brown again proudly answered his country’s call to duty, and was deployed as a reservist to Iraq as a part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In Fallujah, Kirkuk and Basra, Lt. Gov. Brown worked with local and military officials to deliver humanitarian assistance and rebuild a war-torn Iraq. In recognition of his distinguished service Lt. Gov. Brown has earned the Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters and Iraq Campaign Medal. He also holds the distinction of being the highest ranking elected official in the United States to have served a tour of duty in Iraq.

Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler



Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler was elected on November 7, 2006 to succeed the retiring J. Joseph Curran, Jr. as Maryland’s Attorney General. For eight years prior to becoming Maryland Attorney General, Mr. Gansler was Montgomery County’s chief prosecutor, where he launched innovative and successful programs to fight gangs, punish criminals, and protect the public. He has an unparalleled record of experience as a State’s Attorney, former Assistant United States Attorney and private litigator. As Attorney General, Mr. Gansler has focused on environmental, public safety and consumer issues

Comptroller Peter Franchot



Comptroller Peter Franchot was elected to serve as Maryland's 33rd State Comptroller on November 7, 2006. Prior to his election to statewide office, Peter served as a Delegate from Montgomery County for 20 years. During his time in the House of Delegates, he was a member of the Appropriations Committee, and served as the Chair of its Transportation & the Environment Subcommittee. Using this experience and expertise, Peter has pledged as Comptroller to be a strong fiscal watchdog for Maryland taxpayers and an independent voice on the Board of Public Works. Comptroller Franchot’s dedication to Maryland was recognized in 2010 when he was overwhelmingly reelected to a second term

Maryland General Assembly Of the 188 members of the Maryland General Assembly, 133 are Democrats.

Under the leadership of Senate President Thomas V. "Mike" Miller, Democrats hold 35 of 47 seats in the Maryland State Senate. Senator Miller is the longest serving Senate President in the history of Maryland and is currently the longest serving State Senate President in the nation. Among his duties in the State House, Senator Miller serves as Co-chair of the Legislative Policy Committee, Chair of the Investigation Committee, and is a member of the Rules Committee.


In the House of Delegates, Democrats occupy 98 of the 141 seats. In 2003, Speaker Michael E. Busch from Anne Arundel County was elected to lead the House of Delegates where he has been a member since 1987. The former teacher quickly established himself as a strong, progressive leader. Maryland's Democratic legislators are as diverse as the districts they represent and by working together they achieve remarkable results for citizens in every corner of the state. Speaker Busch led the charge to increase school funding across the state, resulting in Maryland being ranked as the top school system in the country.

Federal Elected Officials: U.S. Senate Maryland's Democratic United States Senators work very hard to promote the interests of Maryland and its citizens in Washington and around the State of Maryland. Under their leadership, legislation has been enacted to expand Maryland's economy and provide new jobs, clean up our environment, expand assistance for education, housing and public safety, and improve our transportation infrastructure.

U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)

Senator Barbara Mikulski was elected to the United States Senate in 1986. Maryland's Senior Senator serves as Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, and is also the Ranking Democrat on the Retirement Security and Aging Subcommittee of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Senator Mikulski also serves on subcommittees on Defense; State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs; Transportation, Housing and Urban Development; Homeland Security; and Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. Senator Mikulski was the first Democratic woman to hold a Senate seat not previously held by her husband; the first Democratic woman to serve in both houses of Congress; the first woman to win a statewide election in Maryland; and is the longest serving female Senator. Senator Mikulski's pioneering efforts and her advocacy on behalf of women candidates has helped elect nine Democratic women to the United States Senate during her tenure, and has made her the unofficial "Dean of the Senate Women."

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD)

Senator Benjamin L. Cardin was elected to the United States Senate in 2006. Senator Cardin serves on five critical senate committees: Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works, Finance, and Small Business. He also is Ranking Member on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the U.S. Helsinki Commission). In addition, he is Chair of one of the three international committees of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly that deals with economics and the environment. In 2001, he was named by Worth Magazine as among the top "100 people who have influenced the way Americans think about money." In 2004, he was named to Treasury and Risk Management’s list of "100 Most Influential People in Finance." Previously, Sen. Cardin represented Maryland's Third Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1987 to 2006 and served as Speaker of the House in Maryland's General Assembly.

Federal Elected Officials: U.S. House of Representatives Democrats currently hold sixof Maryland's eight seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer is the senior member of the Maryland Democratic House Delegation and has represented Maryland’s Fifth Congressional District since 1981. Hoyer served as the House Majority Leader from 2007-2011. As House Democratic Whip for the 112th Congress, Congressman Hoyer is the second-ranking member of the House Democratic Leadership. He is charged with mobilizing the party vote on important legislation, acting as a liaison between Members and the Democratic Leadership, and coordinating strategy within the Caucus. He also plays a key role in shaping House Democrats’ legislative priorities and in delivering the Democratic message

Congressman Elijah Cummings Congressman Cummings is a senior member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, where he sits on the Subcommittees on Highways and Transit and on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials and serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation. In his role as Chairman, Congressman Cummings oversees the implementation of the U.S. Coast Guard's FY2007 $8 billion budget. Congressman Cummings is also ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and a member of the Joint Economic Committee. He began his career of public service in the Maryland House of Delegates, where he served for sixteen years and became the first African-American in Maryland history to be named Speaker Pro Tem. First sworn in as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996, Congressman Cummings has proudly represented Maryland's 7th District for seven terms. born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, where he still resides today.

Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger has represented Maryland’s Second Congressional District since being elected in 2002. Congressman Ruppersberger was the first Democratic freshman ever to be appointed to the powerful House Select Committee on Intelligence. The committee oversees the collection and analysis of intelligence information from all around the world to ensure our national security and prevent potential crisis situations - especially terrorist activity. He also serves on the Armed Services Committee. Congressman Ruppersberger was hand-picked by the Democratic Leadership and named an Assistant Whip. In this prestigious position he meets regularly with the House leadership to help set legislative priorities and to ensure the passage of key measures. Congressman Ruppersberger serves on the Government Reform Committee, the investigative arm of Congress, where he works to prevent government fraud and waste and to craft reforms to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government programs. The Congressman was also elected by his freshman Democratic peers to represent them on the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee

Congressman Chris Van Hollen has represented Maryland’s Eighth Congressional District since being elected in 2002. Rep. Van Hollen is the ranking member of the Budget Committee. He also serves on the House Committee on Ways and Means as well as the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He is the Vice Chairman of the bipartisan Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus, Co-Chairman of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Task Force and Vice Chairman of the Democratic Task Force on Budget and Tax Policy. Rep. Van Hollen has been recognized for his efforts and leadership in a range of areas of including education, foreign policy, environmental protection, protecting the rights of federal employees and civil rights. Roll Call newspaper named him one of the “rising stars” in Congress and the Washington Post noted that Van Hollen “has distinguished himself as a shrewd legislative player.”

Congressman John Sarbanes was elected on November 7, 2006 succeeding Senator Ben Cardin as the representative from Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District. Rep. Sarbanes serves on the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Natural Resources. Rep. Sarbanes has nearly two decades of experience in health care and education from the private, public and non-profit sectors. He served as Chair of the Health Care Practice at Venable, one of the nation's leading law firms, where he represented non-profit hospitals and senior living providers in their mission to deliver high quality care to the people of Maryland. For nearly twenty years, Rep. Sarbanes has worked to improve public education having recently completed a seven-year tenure as special assistant to the State Superintendent of Schools, serving as liaison to the Baltimore City Public Schools under the City-State Partnership.

Congresswoman Donna Edwards was elected to the House in a Special Election on June 17, 2008. She became the first African American woman to represent Maryland in the US Congress and won a full term in November 2008. She serves on three vital committees, including the Committees on Ethics; Science, Space, and Technology; and Transportation and Infrastructure. Donna served as Vice Chair of the Progressive Caucus in the House. Prior to her election to the House, Donna co-founded the National Network to End Domestic Violence

Local Elected Officials Democrats hold leadership positions in many of Maryland’s counties and municipalities:

County Executive Isiah "Ike" Leggett of Montgomery County. In November 2006, Isiah Leggett was elected to a four-year term as Montgomery County Executive. He is the first African American to be elected to this public office. In November 2010 he was reelected by County voters with over 65% of the ballots cast. He served as a Professor of Law at the Howard University Law School from 1975 - 2006. He ran the day-to-day operations of the Law School as its Assistant Dean from 1979 – 1986.

County Executive Rushern Baker of Prince George’s County. Baker was elected in November 2010 to a four year term as Prince Georges County Executive. Baker represented legislative district 22B in the Maryland House of Delegates from 1994 to 2003, where he served on various subcommittees and task forces. He also served as Executive Director for the Community Teacher's Institute, located in Lanham, Maryland

County Executive Kevin Kamenetz of Baltimore County. Kevin was elected in November 2010 to a four year term as Baltimore County Executive. Before his current position Kevin served with distinction on the Baltimore County Council for 15 years, representing the Second District. Kevin was first elected in 1994 and has been re-elected by overwhelming majorities in each subsequent election

County Executive Ken Ulman of Howard County. On December 4, 2006, at the age of 32, Ken Ulman was sworn in as Howard County Executive. Before being elected County Executive, Ulman served four years on the County Council and ran his own law firm in Columbia. Ulman is also a member of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council and the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board.

County Executive Rick Pollitt of Wicomico County. Rick was elected Wicomico County Executive in 2006 and again in 2010. He serves in several civic organizations. He is a director and three-time past president of the Allen Lions Club, vice-chairman of the Citizens Advisory Board of Deer's Head State Hospital, member of the Board of Directors of Salisbury-Wicomico Economic Development and is a member of the Citizens Advisory Board for the Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Salisbury University


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July 24th, 2014

7/24/2014

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Just a few more days on education policy------let's continue to look at higher education and Maryland is ground zero for the dismantling of our public education system at all levels.

Yesterday I showed that Economic students are demanding universities stop teaching only neo-liberal economics-----they said the field had become so narrow as to block all other thought.  Think how that translates to Common Core in our K-12.  They intend to do the same thing in our grade schools as they have done in universities.......narrowed the curricula to corporate policy.  'Competition' replaces personal best......'Getting the edge' becomes bullying........'Taking out the competition' becomes rape.  The level of aggression in our schools and universities is growing because of this corporate mentality.  Attacks on women are soaring even at universities because Chancellor Kirwan does not see himself as a public servant upholding public justice and Rule of Law-----


WE WILL SELECT WHOMEVER WE WANT TO BE HEARD IN ELECTION FORUMS AND THERE WILL BE NO DISCUSSION ON ANY UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND CAMPUS THAT IS ANTI-NEO-LIBERALISM!

We heard recently that UMUC----the online college structure that O'Malley spent hundreds of millions if not a billion dollars to create is failing miserably.  No one wants online education yet neo-liberals funded by Bill Gates and Wall Street are going to push this until we have no choice they say.  O'Malley even went overseas to push our active military to use their GI Bill education benefits on these online degree programs----IT IS A DISGRACE.  As you will see below there is absolutely no research that shows these online education programs are providing any quality or creating higher achievement.  The data is not there.  The only reason they are creating these online venues for 90% of Americans is that it is cheap and only prepares for a job.

FORGET THE WELL-BALANCED EDUCATION THAT IS BROAD AND ALLOWS GRADUATES TO APPLY THEMSELVES TO MANY FIELDS.

First UMUC was going to be made a non-profit so the public could not see how it operates.....now University of Maryland is keeping a failed structure alive but wants to deregulate.  Bill Gates requires online instruction and neo-liberals are going to give it to him!
  The amount of education funding wasted on these global corporate policies mirrors O'Malley's tying the public to Hilton and Hyatt hotels in order to keep them from losing money.  Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are lost every year in all categories of industry in what is clearly public malfeasance and fraud against the citizens of Maryland.  Why do we need a UMUC Asia/Europe?

Meanwhile financial aid and grants are being cut and that aid given is being tied to these cheaper structures as WE THE PEOPLE see our strong public education dismantled by neo-liberals. 

DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN TO CHANGE THIS----THIS IS REPUBLICAN POLICY-----NEO-CONS ARE JUST AS BAD.



UMUC’s Mission in Asia


The mission of University of Maryland University College (UMUC) in Asia is to offer academic programs to United States military communities throughout Asia and the Pacific. While serving overseas, students can take a single course or many courses leading to a certificate, an Associate of Arts degree, a Bachelor of Arts degree, or a Bachelor of Science degree. Since University of Maryland University College is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, students can take courses with the intention of transferring their credits to other colleges or universities in the United States. Students may also continue their studies with UMUC online. Additional information is available at www.umuc.edu.

Although the educational setting is overseas, UMUC’s programs in Asia are in all respects comparable to those offered at public institutions of higher learning in the United States. Courses are taught by faculty whose credentials meet standards set by appropriate University of Maryland University College academic departments in Adelphi, Maryland. All UMUC courses taught in Asia carry University of Maryland University College resident credit. UMUC is committed to maintaining standards of academic excellence. The past 50-plus years demonstrate that those standards can be maintained in overseas settings.



UMUC Europe offers thousands of courses for students interested in associate's and bachelor's degrees and undergraduate certificates. UMUC also offers graduate-level certificates and several master's degrees in Europe. With UMUC's 150 locations worldwide, and extensive online offerings, students can begin and finish a degree with us regardless of where they are located.


I bet the citizens of Maryland did not even know UMUC was a global corporation.  Meanwhile fewer Maryland citizens are going to 4 year universities.


I don't hold any credence to these online workplace comment programs because they work like American Idol.  It is good to see a consistent referral to 'people needing to be treated with respect'. ' Low pay with no opportunity to grow'.  THIS IS NOT AN ENVIRONMENT WE WOULD WANT IN A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY.  THAT IS WHAT A CORPORATE STRUCTURE LOOKS LIKE.  That is because it IS  a corporate structure.  Under neo-liberals labor is treated as badly as if a Republican were in office yet every election Maryland labor unions get behind these neo-liberal pols.  We need the citizens of Maryland taking back the Democratic Party to reverse this failed neo-liberal/neo-con policy!



“Failing company, horrible management” Academic Advisor (Current Employee) Pros – Great vacation/time off. Get to become a state employee after 3 years.

Cons – Moral is so low! Micromanaged beyond belief, constant layoffs, not worth you time.

Advice to Senior Management – Treat us like the educated adults that we are. Learn to value your employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Add Employer Response
  1. Apr 8, 2014
    • Culture & Values
    • Work/Life Balance
    • Senior Management
    • Comp & Benefits
    • Career Opportunities
     

    “Not good. Too many secrets and financial problems” Administrative Assistant (Current Employee) Largo, MD I have been working at UMUC full-time for more than 8 years


    Pros: Convenient location and great benefits Cons: Low pay and minimal advancement Advice to Senior Management: Treat the regular people like people No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company… More

                    

Below you see what the deregulation issues discussed by Mikulski and Kirwan will include----as you see again everyone in the system is in the dark as to what these discussions look like.  WE DON'T ALLOW CITIZENS IN MARYLAND KNOW WHAT WE ARE DOING SAY NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS.


UMUC considering plan to become independent nonprofit with ties to university system
Under proposal, it would no longer be a state entity; president seeks input from university community




By Nayana Davis, The Baltimore Sun

7:54 p.m. CDT, July 10, 2014

The University of Maryland University College, which has been struggling with declining enrollment, is considering severing some ties with the state university system to avoid burdensome regulations and work more closely with the private sector.

Under the proposal, the university would become an independent nonprofit organization that retains an affiliation with the state system. The school's president, Javier Miyares, said during a Thursday town hall meeting in Largo that the idea came from a task force of experts organized by the university as a response to a shrinking student body.

UMUC, a mainly online institution, has struggled with a competitive online education market and a smaller military. Members of the military or their families make up about half of the college's students.



The main objective of the proposal is to more readily secure partnerships with the private sector, including working with companies to make courses more employer-friendly and building relationships to help students secure jobs. Miyares said such partnerships can be challenging to forge as a state agency.

"This way we would not be bound by all the regulations and statutes that apply to a public state agency," Miyares said.

University officials also hope the move would help it attract more students outside the United States, though it would retain the University of Maryland name. Based in Adelphi, UMUC offers courses to students in 24 countries.

The plan would allow the university to keep ties with the 12-institution University System of Maryland, but the details have not been worked out. "The validity and credibility you get by being part of the University of Maryland system is huge," Miyares said.

No immediate action will be taken on the task force recommendation, as the school begins a process of soliciting feedback from the college community. University officials said there are few concrete ideas on how the effort would be implemented at this stage; Miyares said he wanted to get input first.

UMUC has the support of the University System of Maryland to look into alternate business models.

"The university is facing some significant challenges," said William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the system. "They are appropriately addressing those challenges."

Kirwan said a more concrete proposal would need approval from the system's Board of Regents before implementation, and possibly the governor and General Assembly. The governor's office declined to comment on the plan.

But some higher education experts expressed concern about the university putting out such a proposal with few details.


Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said it's not uncommon for public universities to form private-sector relationships to outsource certain functions, but it's unclear what the change in status would mean for the university.

"Honestly, I don't know what to make of this," he said. "The decision to operate under a different set of rules is interesting. Whether the move is good, I don't know."

UMUC has been struggling with declining enrollment both stateside and overseas since fall of 2011. Although the rate of decline stateside has remained less than 10 percent in the past three years, overseas enrollment declined 20 percent for spring 2014.

The school has struggled to increase enrollment because of competition from traditional academic institutions that have started offering Web-based classes and popular massive open online courses known as MOOCs, university officials said.

A shrinking military, which is facing large-scale budget cuts, also is a factor in loss of enrollment.

University officials said that 90 percent of its budget comes from tuition and 10 percent from the state. Other colleges in the university system get about 30 percent of their budgets from the state.

"We don't know what the future is going to be like," Miyares said. "But if we don't adapt, we will go into a death spiral."

UMUC's struggles are "a reflection of how competitive online education has become," Kirwan said. "What we do need is to explore if operational flexibility is possible."


"UMUC has been quite unique in the university system," Nassirian said. "It had been mostly self-sufficient because it provides excess revenue back to the system, but that [online] business model has not fared well as of late."

Traditionally, changes in business models for colleges have occurred when a struggling nonprofit university becomes a for-profit venture after a large corporation acquires it. Nassirian gave the example of the Clinton, Iowa-based school Ashford University being purchased by Bridgepoint Education.

Miyares said the change could occur as early as next summer. Academic programs and staffing levels are not expected to be affected if the model changes, unless enrollment continues to drop.

The school laid off 70 staff members from departments at the Adelphi and Largo campuses earlier this year, and 58 the year prior. The university employs about 2,000 in the U.S.

"The whole goal is to get enrollment up," Miyares said. "If enrollment is fine, there should be no dramatic difference to the academic side. This is a pivotal moment in our history."

nadavis@baltsun.com



________________________________________________

The article above gives yet another spin----that UMUC and online colleges are being edged out by the popularity of MOOCs-----only MOOCs are not popular.  They are used less frequently then online UMUC.  We are being fed nothing but spin and this happens more and more because the public universities that would be the first to shout THAT IS NOT TRUE ----IT IS SPIN are now the ones handing us spin because they are corporations.  Maryland Assembly was the very first to pass laws that move the accreditation process towards making these online structures legitimate.  NO ONE THINKS THIS IS GOOD POLICY.  Needless to say when it comes to bad education policy it is Johns Hopkins pushing it in Maryland.  Indeed, Baltimore is cursed with a gorilla in the room that pushes the worst of policy all so they can make more profits.


This looks like a Gates Foundation study-------most employers in North Carolina have not heard of MOOCS but 3/4 of them think they are good. Meanwhile, there is no interest in the public for MOOCs outside of simple extracurricular help with existing university structures. Gates says he will buy these policy implementation yet! You know, because he is the 'good billionaire' as NPR always tells us.



All Hail MOOCs! Just Don’t Ask if They Actually Work | TIME.com

Why Do So Many Students Drop Out of MOOCs?www.brighthub.com/education/online-learning/articles/...



Study: MOOCs Viewed Positively Among Employers

April 2, 2014 Inside Higher Education

Most North Carolina employers haven't heard of massive open online courses, but about three-quarters of them view MOOCs as having a positive effect on hiring decisions, a survey conducted by Duke University and RTI International shows. The study, founded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, also suggests 71 percent of employers could see themselves using MOOCs for professional development.

Think about how the real world views MOOCs but the article in the Maryland media makes you think they are supported.  It happens all the time because they can get away with it.  Online resources for education are good----everyone thinks online instruction adds to the classroom at any level.  The problem is that corporations have as a goal to replace the classroom with these online products ------aiming at the 90% of Americans becoming trapped by Vocational K-12.......
With all public education funding going to subsidize corporate research and Human Resources we have to make the cost of educating the 90% as cheap as possible say neo-liberals and neo-cons!  Calling MOOCS a democratizing tool in a nation with the strongest public education system in the world is a mockery.  STOP DEFUNDING AND DISMANTLING PUBLIC EDUCATION.


The University of Maryland is now taking a look at bestowing transfer credit to those who are able to demonstrate a specific level of knowledge after completing a MOOC.


- See more at: http://www.educationnews.org/online-schools/can-moocs-be-a-solution-to-the-us-student-debt-crisis/#sthash.uhO1mk7Y.dpuf


Are MOOCs really dead?

  • By Jake New, Editor, eCampus News
June 6th, 2014 Recent studies suggest that MOOCs are very much alive, but are not a threat to traditional higher education For some educators and journalists, the rasping final breaths of massive open online courses (MOOCs) began late last year.

They followed nearly two years of hype and excitement that even the most skeptical of instructors and reporters got swept up in. Many of those who denounced the courses did so in a similarly frantic fashion, writing proclamations and open letters condemning MOOCs, as though they were caught in a great academic war.

Then, suddenly, a blow was struck. And it came from one of MOOCs’ most famous creators.

“Sebastian Thrun, godfather of the massive open online course, has quietly spread a plastic tarp on the floor, nudged his most famous educational invention into the center, and is about to pull the trigger,” Rebecca Schuman wrote at Slate in November 2013.

It was a dramatic way of saying that Thrun had announced that his company, Udacity, would now focus its MOOCs more on vocational training rather than traditional liberal arts courses.

That Udacity was only one company of a growing number focused on MOOCs — and that many of these platforms, including its main competitor Coursera, still aimed to disrupt traditional higher education — did little to slow the wave of speculation.

It was the capper on a year of MOOC hand-wringing. If 2012 was the “year of the MOOC,” then 2013 was the “year of the MOOC backlash.” Those who trust Gartner’s “Hype Cycle” believed MOOCs were going through a common “trough of disillusionment,” that would soon be followed by a “slope of enlightenment.”

But by the start of 2014, many were already asking: “Are MOOCs dead?”

The answer is not as sensational as the question. MOOCs aren’t dead — not yet -- but they likely won’t be replacing any traditional means of higher education, either.




Here is the source of creating a massive online system of education for the 90% in Maryland-----Wall Street itself!  The quality of education drops each time they grow this online education industry.  Since it isn't working at the university level they are now talking of sending it to K-12 vocational.  Sitting children in front of computers for online classes the goal of education reform as vocational K-12----YOU BET


Johns Hopkins Offers Nine-Course Specialization in Data ...www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/coursera...   CachedThe series of nine MOOCs are now open for enrollment and free to anyone. ... 615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205. ... Courses Careers Accreditation Web Policies ...

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July 23rd, 2014

7/23/2014

0 Comments

 
THE REASON MARYLAND IS SILENT AS THE REST OF THE NATION BRINGS OUT MILLIONS IN PROTEST OF NEO-LIBERAL AND NEO-CONS POLICIES IS THAT ERHLICH/O'MALLEY HAS WORKED HARD TO PRIVATIZE MARYLAND'S PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES.  IT IS HERE THAT HOLDING POWER ACCOUNTABLE BEGINS AND THAT IS WHY NEO-LIBERALS FROM CLINTON TO OBAMA ARE WORKING AS HARD AS THEY CAN TO MAKE THEM INTO CORPORATIONS.

We saw yesterday that it is University of Maryland's Chancellor Kirwan seeing the need to deregulate universities.  Maryland has allowed for-profit career colleges defraud for a few decades now because of deregulation of private career education so now we need to see the same in our public universities.  Kirwan says we are making money using taxpayer money to patent research but we need to super-size the profits from the products we are now sending to the corporate structures attached to our campuses----YOU KNOW---THE 'BIOTECH FACILITIES'.  Kirwan and Mikulski are not only talking about getting rid of a silly regulation that is out of date----they are intending to deregulate how universities can operate as businesses.  All those requirements for receiving taxpayer money for research that make the public partners in this research need to go.  We have proprietary patents now with that taxpayer funded research and it is heading for the open market for profit! 

Below you see what Kirwan and Mikulski are working towards.  Corporations are dismantling their research facilities because universities ARE THEIR RESEARCH FACILITIES.  University students are now paying tuition to work in a corporate research project for free supported by NIH and NCA research money.  IT'S ALL ABOUT CREATING JOBS!  Actually, college grads are as likely now to remain unemployed now as at the time of the 2008 crash because global corporations and neo-liberals are keeping the US economy stagnant.  So, these students are more likely to work as VISTAs then to get a job in the field for which they received a degree.  Meanwhile, the foreign students coming in to get degrees------doing OK especially if they go back home to work for the US corporation overseas.  FREE LABOR PAID FOR BY TAXPAYERS----NOW THAT MAXIMIZES CORPORATE PROFITS SAY NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS.  See why taxes and tuition are soaring on the working and midde-class?  It costs lots to subsidize every corporate activity.

CORPORATIONS NO LONGER NEED RESEARCH FACILITIES------UNIVERSITIES DO THE RESEARCH AND ANYTHING THAT IS SUCCESSFUL COMES TO THE GLOBAL CORPORATIONS THROUGH STARTUPS BUYOUTS.  THE PEOPLE THEY HIRED TO DO THE WORK IN PRIVATE RESEARCH LABS ARE NOW STUDENTS PAYING TUITION.

The process of patenting university research while having corporations 'partnered' with these universities is a mockery as if people cannot see that this is why student tuition is soaring and all of taxpayer money is funding this 'university' research leaving no money for student financial aid and grants. Directors of these 'university' research facilities being paid like corporate executives.

LET'S GO BACK TO PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES AS PUBLIC EDUCATION!


Below you see what deregulation Kirwan and Mikulski are working towards......making universities driven by profit-----



Colleges Urged to Count Patents in Tenure Reviews

April 29, 2014
  Inside Higher Ed


Universities should begin making patents and other industrial and commercial research count toward promotion and tenure, in an effort to stimulate such research nationwide, argues a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. "There is a fundamental disconnect between technology transfer activities and incentives for faculty members in terms of merit raises, tenure and career advancement," Richard B. Marchase, co-author and vice president for research and economic development at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said in a news release. "Beyond the monetary benefit of licensing, which is small in most cases, there is presently little to no benefit to a faculty member's merit raises, tenure and career advancement."

The paper builds on a 2012 report from the National Research Council and other groups saying that business and industry have "largely dismantled large corporate research laboratories that drove American industrial leadership," and which argues that research universities must "fill the gap."
In the new paper, called "Changing the Academic Culture: Valuing Patents and Commercialization Toward Tenure and Career Advancement," the authors argue that filling the research gap will entail changing the university "rewards culture" to value not only large research grants but also professors' patents and other commercial activities. Co-author Eric Kaler, president of the University of Minnesota, notes that this kind of work should not replace but "add to" traditional means of assessing scholarly activity. The paper's lead author is Paul R. Sanberg, senior vice president for research and innovation at the University of South Florida and president of the National Academy of Inventors. An abstract is available here.


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Keep in mind the same global corporations for whom University of Maryland's Chancellor Kirwan and neo-liberals work are the same entities keeping the US economy stagnant-----and it is deliberate.  Remember, the bond market is going to crash causing a greater recession is so there is no intent to employ these grads----but they do free work and pay to do it with ever-higher tuition.  THIS IS A SWEET DEAL FOR CORPORATE PROFITS SAY NEO-LIBERALS IN MARYLAND!

The media shout that all of this a great education policy.  That more students are being sent to college and graduating with skills that corporations need.  OH REALLY? 

THEY NEED THEM TO WORK FOR FREE WHILE PAYING FOR COLLEGE AND THEN FORGET ABOUT IT AFTER GRADUATION.

The structure neo-liberals and neo-cons are building have the job pipeline coming from the Ivy League schools-----business leaders now come from these schools and any startups that may come from the public universities are simply bought by those corporations in the portfolio of Ivy League schools.  Working and middle-class grads are largely being funneled into poverty jobs or the military.


University of Maryland Baltimore County and Grabinsky were front page news as UMBC is the face of this free labor as corporate university.  While Maryland says its unemployment is 6.1% we all know that is only the number of people receiving unemployment checks.  Maryland's unemployment is 36% and growing with this economic model.  Remember, these are Republican policies of placing corporate profit first so voting Republican will not help----Democrats simply need to shake the corporate neo-liberals out of the Democratic Party!


FOLKS----THIS IS A NEO-LIBERAL ECONOMIC MODEL THEY CALL THE 21ST CENTURY ECONOMY!

All we need is to rebuild state economies having domestic businesses driving the economy and all of this will disappear.


The Deliberate Low-Wage, High-Insecurity Economic Model submitted by pmcovay3 ScienceIndex.com  Dec 2012

In contrast to the general biases of orthodox economists, the jobs crisis in America is not inevitable or natural-and more important, does not contribute to more economic efficiency through lower wages or more productivity. It is the result of deliberate political policy choices the nation has made at least since the early 1980s, when productivity was rising on a secular basis at a slow rate. Also, the policy choices were made before the rise of very low-wage emerging markets like China’s. In sum, there has been a low-wage, high-unemployment policy regime in the rich world, and especially in the United States, for a generation.


Students Call for Reform of Economics Education


May 6, 2014  Inside Higher Ed

Economics students in 19 countries have issued a joint call -- published in The Guardian -- to change the way economics is taught. The students' analysis (similar to that of some professors in the United States and elsewhere) is that economics has become too uniform in its approaches and too removed from real life. "[I]t's time to reconsider the way economics is taught. We are dissatisfied with the dramatic narrowing of the curriculum that has taken place over the past couple of decades," the letter says. "This lack of intellectual diversity does not only restrain education and research. It limits our ability to contend with the multidimensional challenges of the 21st century – from financial stability to food security and climate change. The real world should be brought back into the classroom, as well as debate and a pluralism of theories and methods. This will help renew the discipline and ultimately create a space in which solutions to society's problems can be generated."



All academics and analysts now look at employment figures as below----the employment to population ratio.  We all know some adults of working age may choose not to work but that percentage is not too high.  So, if 58% of the population is working------42% are not.  36% unemployment is about right.  As this article points out----with wages at an all time low people are now forced to have two incomes in a family.  The employment data media and government provides is simply meant to conceal this deliberately high unemployment.

Do you know who is not fooled by the failure of neo-liberalism------ECONOMICS STUDENTS!

The article above shows that university students are fed up with universities that only offer neo-liberal economic models in economic degree programs.  As this article states----WHY STUDY A FAILED ECONOMIC MODEL?  It is the duty of public universities to hold power accountable and give the public real data and we see this is not happening because of this corporate capture.

That is what university heads like Kirwan are doing.....they are appointed to force global corporate policies that no one wants and it is the governor that appoints these people to public universities.

Unemployment Data Manipulation The Economic Recovery is a Lie!
  By Seth Mason
Friday, November 1st, 2013  Wealth Daily

I've argued time and time again that, due to the severity of job losses during the Great Recession, there cannot be a true economic recovery until the labor market has recovered.

Unfortunately, hiring was weak in September, continuing a slowing trend that began in the spring.

To make matters worse, the majority of jobs created last month were menial in nature (nearly 2/3 of them were truck drivers, bureaucrats, salespeople, and temps). These trends have been ongoing throughout this economic depression.

The number of new jobs wasn't enough to keep up with population growth.

And yet the unemployment rate fell.

So, all is well... right?

Clearly, the "headline" 7.2% unemployment rate doesn't tell the whole story about the sad state of the American labor force.

You have to take any data from the Fed with a grain of salt, anyway, as the Obama administration has a vested interest in presenting the best-looking unemployment picture possible, just as all administrations have.

The employment-to-population ratio actually provides a much more accurate gauge of the health of the American job market — and wouldn't you know, it's been showing unhealthy readings since the economy crashed five years ago...

The proportion of Americans in the workforce has barely budged since falling from 63% to 58% during the Great Recession, as you can see on the following chart:



A Precipitous Decline

The last time the employment-to-population ratio was 58% — in the early 1980s — a relatively small proportion of American households sent more than one income earner into the workforce.

Now, in a nation of mostly one-breadwinner households, the 58% employment-to-population ratio was reasonable.

Today, however, due to a decline in real personal income (thanks for the inflation, Federal Reserve), most households send multiple income earners into the workforce.

In fact, it's not uncommon these days for households to have more than two income earners.

Under this paradigm, an employment-to-population ratio stuck at 58% like it's 1982 (when "homemaker" was still a common job title) is very unhealthy.


  Also worth noting is that a large percentage of the 58% of Americans who do work are working lower-quality jobs than they were before the economy crashed.

Although the population of the United States has increased by approximately 20 million since 2008, there are 5 million fewer “breadwinner” jobs in this country than there were before this economic depression.

"Breadwinner jobs" are those positions with a base salary of $35,000 or more that enable one to live independently, however meagerly. 

So the real health of the labor force is even worse than the unsettling 58% labor force participation rate!

Here we are, more than five years since the fall of Lehman, and the job market is still awful... and it's started to backslide again.



Niagara Falls

The Fed's Niagara Falls-scale liquidity pumping measures (I say "liquidity pumping" as opposed to "printing" because QE is only one of the Fed's tricks) clearly haven't had much impact on unemployment — or the federal government's $787 billion spending binge, also known as the grand "stimulus," for that matter.

Remember the laughable estimates of unemployment with and without the "Recovery Plan"?

According to the White House's October 2009 estimate (the dark blue line on the chart above), the Fed/federal government's plan should have taken us back to pre-recession unemployment levels by now...

Yet the unemployment rate sits at an unacceptable 7.2%.

And keep in mind the 7.2% headline unemployment rate belies the true awful state of the job market.

Considering the pitiful 58% employment-to-population ratio and the 5 million fewer breadwinner jobs since 2008, it would be an understatement to say that Washington's stimulus measures have failed to reduce unemployment. (That's assuming they were created for that purpose. More about that in a future article.)

We should expect more of the same from our esteemed central planners.

The Fed, which has officially delayed "tapering," will continue to pump indefinitely.

Uncle Sam will continue to borrow and spend like mad, whether he's wearing a DEM or GOP hat.

As a result, the "mother of all bubbles," as Nouriel Roubini has called it, will continue to expand...

And we'll continue party like it's 2006, only with higher unemployment.

We'll keep ignoring the fact that 2008 is just a couple of years away.

Happy crash 2.0!

Until next time,

Seth Mason for Wealth Daily
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Having a policy that brings more foreign students into the US with the goal of green cards and employment in high-skilled jobs does nothing for the American people, the high unemployment, or creating quality education and higher achievement in our US students.  It is purely a profit-making scheme that continues to consolidate the wealth at the top.

Maryland pols are all neo-liberals so whether Milkulsi and Cardin working in the Senate on legislation to build corporate universities and send trillions of dollars to expand overseas as corporations-----or the Governor of Maryland O'Malley and the Maryland Assembly appointing these corporate university heads and building the corporate structures in our universities-----

THE SOLUTION IS SIMPLY REBUILD THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN MARYLAND BY RUNNING AND VOTING FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE.



Currency February 21, 2014

Should Universities Profit From Student Research?
By John Bringardner  The New Yorker





In 2011, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that Cornell University and Israel’s Technion would jointly open a new school on Roosevelt Island to help boost New York’s tech sector. The first buildings of the new campus won’t open until 2017, but classes are already under way in borrowed space on the third floor of Google’s New York office. And, on Monday, Cornell Tech, as the school is called, plans to announce that it has enrolled its first batch of post-doctoral researchers in a one-year “Runway” program, designed to launch them into business ventures based on their specialties: urban planning, e-commerce, health care. In an unusual twist, the school will invest in the companies founded through the program, but also allow students to keep ownership of the intellectual property they create on campus; typically, universities profit by keeping the rights to such property.



Cornell Tech isn’t the only institution to invest in student startups. Stanford announced last year that it would invest in companies founded by its students. M.I.T. also takes an equity stake in companies developed on campus. But Stanford and M.I.T. both require those companies to pay royalties on any technologies the students patent while in school.
Rather than negotiate complex patent-licensing rights with their researchers, Cornell Tech will treat the value of each post-doc position it awards—about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars—as an angel investment in any business spun out of the program; in exchange, Cornell Tech expects to get an average of a five-per-cent stake in each business. The Runway program echoes the accelerators and incubators popular among venture capitalists—three- or four-month programs in which entrepreneurs get resources to build new startups in exchange for a stake in their companies.

Universities didn’t always have the right to the spoils of the research they sponsored. The government spent heavily on research and development at U.S. universities during the Cold War, but new technologies developed with federal cash became government property. By 1980, the federal government had amassed twenty-eight thousand patents but licensed fewer than five per cent to companies that could turn them into products. That year, Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act, which allowed universities to keep and profit from the patents their students and researchers developed on campus using federal funds. The Economist called it “perhaps the most inspired piece of legislation in America over the past half-century.”

Soon, offices focussed on “technology transfer” opened up in schools around the country, staffed with lawyers who poked around campus research labs and flipped through student notebooks to suss out patentable research that they could license to corporations. A new chemical combination might become a blockbuster drug; a technological breakthrough could lead to smaller, faster semiconductors.

In 2012, American universities earned $2.6 billion from patent royalties, according to the Association of University Technology Managers. The tech-transfer model is entrenched in medical schools and in biotech development. But its usefulness in the software world has been less clear. The success of a software startup often depends less on any particular innovation than on how several pieces of technology fit together and appeal to users. A company’s value usually becomes apparent years after it has developed and refined its business model, not at the moment it files a patent application. Plus, the very concept of a software patent hangs in the balance: in December, the Supreme Court agreed to review a case that could eliminate them altogether.

Cornell Tech’s approach—taking an equity stake in each company instead of licensing rights to a handful of patents—may be a more straightforward way for the school to profit from spin-offs. “Universities look to place a value on technology at its inception, finding a fair rate for splitting royalties between the school and the inventor, but that’s not the way digital startups work,” Cornell Tech’s Dean, Daniel Huttenlocher, said. “I think intellectual-property protection, especially in software and digital tech, is a very small piece of commercialization, one that becomes too big a part of the conversation when universities are involved.”

The Runway program is designed to turn deep academic research into a marketable product; its first post-docs have already spent years in the lab, sometimes running into dead ends and starting over in a way that pure academic research allows but investors don’t. “A principal mission of Cornell University is the pursuit of knowledge for the benefit and use of society,” the school’s existing intellectual-property policy reads. Whether society benefits most when knowledge is turned into an I.P.O. is an open question.

“The entire Bay Area is enamored with these notions of innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, mega-success,” the historian and Stanford professor David Kennedy told Ken Auletta in 2012, in a report from Stanford. “It’s in the air we breathe out here. It’s an atmosphere that can be toxic to the mission of the university as a place of refuge, contemplation, and investigation for its own sake.” And when students showed up for their first classes at the temporary campus, in January, 2013, Isaac Kramnick, a professor of government at Cornell in Ithaca, told the Times, “The university has been at the forefront of big science since the 1940s and 1950s. Now it’s entering an era in which it seems to be interested in for-profit science, and that does require some thinking as to what the fundamental purpose of a university is.” (“Such potential for conflicts is quite manageable with the appropriate procedures in place, enabling this very effective interaction between students, faculty, and companies,” Huttenlocher told me.)

Yet universities are forging ahead with more business-oriented models. Over the past decade, angel investors, the main source of capital for startups, have made high-risk bets, providing money for startups to get off the ground in exchange for the right to a piece of the company’s equity if it succeeds. Most never do. Venture capitalists call their strategy “spray and pray,” sinking money into lots of different startups in the hope that at least one will be the next Facebook. It’s a gamble, but it could be a better way for universities to take advantage of the work their students are doing. The amount of revenue schools generate from patent licensing is small compared with over-all university budgets. Alumni philanthropy brings in far more money. “What would happen if schools gave up rights to their students’ intellectual property?” Adam Shwartz, the director of Cornell Tech’s Jacobs Institute, which runs the Runway program, asked. “Their patent revenue goes to zero, but down the line the successful alumni give back far more money. Here we have the first controlled experiment of this nature.”

Rendering of Cornell Tech by Kilograph.
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Below you see how bad the success rate of this model is for the student /school so a corporation directs the research it wants to fund----gets free labor and a taxpayer funded research facility----and VOILA all the failures are paid for by you and me.  No need for corporate R and D.  In lieu of corporate taxes these investment firms just send there money to these university projects and we are told this is the best mechanism for funding universities.

All work on campus is now product-driven-----professors are judged on patenting rather than academics or teaching.  Tenure is tied to being this corporate executive.  Students are engaged only in what will pay off and not with a broad education limiting their futures.  As this article shows it is the student that loses and graduates with the tuition debt and limited focus degrees.


What is sad is that the student's future success with whatever they create requires handing a percentage of future earnings to these university/venture capitalist and the few that do create successful businesses simply hand them to these global investment firms.  This is all simply universities as corporate facilities.

THE ENTIRE ACADEMIC MODEL HAS BEEN RUINED AND THE US IS AGAIN ON THE BOTTOM ACADEMICALLY IN ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS.  THIS IS WHAT MIKULSKI AND KIRWAN ARE SITTING DOWN TO BOLSTER.

DEAR ENTREPRENEURS: Here's How Bad Your Odds Of Success Are
  • Henry Blodget  Business Insider

  • May 28, 2013, 11:03 AM

As a wise investor puts it: "Many turtles hatch. Few make it to the sea."


Everyone knows that starting companies — and investing in startups — is a risky way to earn a living. But few people appreciate just how risky it is.

Thanks to a recent tweet from Paul Graham, the founder of "startup school" Y Combinator, we now have a better idea.

Graham says that 37 of the 511 companies that have gone through the Y Combinator program over the past 5 years have either sold for, or are now worth, more than $40 million.

Most entrepreneurs would probably view creating a company worth more than $40 million as a success (unless the company raised more capital than that). And, on its face, the "37 companies" number seems relatively impressive.

In fact, however, the number tells a scary and depressing story.

This number suggests that a startling 93% of the companies that get accepted by Y Combinator eventually fail.

(Not all companies that sell for less than $40 million are "failures," obviously. Assuming a company hasn't raised much capital, a sale between $5 million and $40 million could be considered a success. But a high percentage of Y Combinator companies likely end up being worth zero. And for companies that are hand-picked by very smart investors, the 93%-below-$40 million rate is still surprisingly low). 

A company accepted by Y Combinator, therefore, has less than a 1-in-10 chance of being a big success.

More alarmingly, the companies accepted by Y Combinator are only a tiny fraction of the companies that apply.

Some have estimated that Y Combinator's acceptance rate is 3-5%.

If we use the 5% rate, we can estimate that Y Combinator has received about 10,000 applications for the ~500 companies it has chosen over the years.

Assuming Y Combinator has even a modest ability to pick winners, therefore, the odds that a company applying to Y Combinator will be a success are significantly lower than the odds of success of the companies accepted into the program.

If only 37 of the companies that have applied to Y Combinator over the years have succeeded, this is a staggeringly low 0.4% success rate.

Put differently, only one in every 200 companies that applies to Y Combinator will succeed.

The reality is that Y Combinator probably misses a few winners, so the actual odds are probably slightly higher.

But in case any entrepreneur or angel investor is deluding themselves into thinking that startups are an easy way to cash in, they might want to think again.









0 Comments

July 22nd, 2014

7/22/2014

0 Comments

 
Now that universities are corporations we need to get rid of all that public protection stuff that will keep them from being profitable.  Forget all that silly stuff about educating Americans to be citizens and leaders......forget equal opportunity and access for the disabled......you cannot maximize profits that way.  Let's open our universities to the world's rich and let them attend simply because they can pay higher and higher tuition.  THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL AND NEO-CON FOR YOU.....IT'S ALL ABOUT PROFIT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

As you can see it is Maryland behind this deregulation attempt just as it leads in corporatization of universities into global systems. 


LOOK----THERE'S MIKULSKI -----MISS NEO-LIBERAL HERSELF.  SHE HANDED A COOL TRILLION OF TAXPAYERS MONEY OVER TWO DECADES TO MAKE JOHNS HOPKINS A GLOBAL CORPORATION AFTER ALL.

Also at the lead is University of Maryland Chancellor Kirwan-----you know----the one Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland is taking to court for rigging the elections for governor by choosing which candidates were heard on public university campuses across the state-----all of which is illegal.  Sure, we solve this corruption by fewer regulations!


WE WILL SELECT ANY CANDIDATE WE CHOSE FOR THESE ELECTION FORUMS FOR GOVERNOR SAYS CHANCELLOR KIRWAN.


Oh, that's how you keep installing legislation no one wants ----you rig the system so we cannot get people in office that will reverse these policies!  THAT'S KIRWAN FOR YOU-----A TRUE GLOBAL CORPORATE NEO-LIBERAL/NEOCON.  Public universities as the hotbed of democratic political debate?  That's no way to maximize corporate profits!

A New Deregulatory Push

February 13, 2014
By Michael Stratford  Inside Higher Education

WASHINGTON -- The last time the Higher Education Act came up for a vote in Congress in 2008, Senator Lamar Alexander trotted out a five-foot stack of cartons onto the Senate floor to show the enormity of existing regulations governing higher education.

Now that lawmakers are once again contemplating how to rewrite that massive piece of legislation -- which authorizes, among other things, the $150 billion-a-year federal student aid program -- Alexander is returning to his props.

Speaking to a group of community college leaders Wednesday, Alexander unfolded the full paper version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which was taller than he is, to underscore his distaste for the federal government’s bureaucratic reach onto college campuses. And last week he made the same demonstration before a group of private college presidents.

Alexander said Wednesday that his goal is to “simplify and deregulate” higher education in the upcoming renewal of the Higher Education Act -- a process he has said should “start from scratch.”

“What we’re trying to do is establish a continuous process for deregulation to overcome the continuous momentum for overregulation,” he said, noting that the “inertia” for creating new regulations comes from across the political spectrum.

“The conservative senators, from my party, they’re sometimes the worst,” he said, describing how he has to remind his colleagues that they are “the party of federalism, the 10th amendment” when they want to impose conservative ideas on how colleges should be run across the country.

All of their ideas “sound good, but you know what happens when you have to comply with it: it takes time and money away from your mission,” he told a group of community college trustees and presidents.

Alexander has formed, along with three other senators, a task force to recommend ways to reduce federal regulations on colleges and universities.  

That group of higher education leaders gathered behind closed doors at the offices of the American Council on Education on Wednesday to begin producing recommendations on how to deregulate the industry. The panel consists of college presidents from a range of sectors and higher education associations.

Reducing or eliminating regulations on colleges has long been a goal of the higher education lobby in Washington, though previous efforts have largely been unsuccessful.

William E. (Brit) Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland and co-chair of the task force, said he was encouraged by the Congressional interest in reducing regulations.

“What seems different this time is the very strong commitment of these four senators,” Kirwan said. “They are determined to address this issue and get our help in finding some meaningful reforms.”


Alexander and Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, attended Wednesday’s meeting, and two other lawmakers -- Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, a Democrat, and Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, a Republican -- are also on board.

The panel will focus on identifying “the most egregious, excessive regulations," but will also make recommendations on the Education Department’s rule making process in general, Kirwan said.

“The hope is that we can make some suggestions that will enable us to meet our obligations and be accountable to the federal government but to do so in a way that is cost effective and not excessively bureaucratic,” he said.

Kirwan said that one example of the type of regulations that his task force would be targeting is a campus safety rule that requires colleges to collect crime information from local police jurisdictions when students study abroad or when athletes travel to an out-of-town hotel.

The task force hopes to produce a report on its recommendations within the next 12 months, Kirwan said. The group will also be coordinating with the National Research Council, which was directed by Congressional appropriators last month to conduct a $1 million study of the cost of regulations on higher education.

Kirwan, who also chairs the subcommittee at the NRC that will oversee the study, said that work would be focused on all federal regulations that affect higher education, while the Congressional task force would focus only on Education Department regulations.

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This is what Kirwan and his group of global corporate bosses think they are going to do with our universities and deregulating gets rid of all that public justice and civil rights stuff....you know----THE US CONSTITUTION AND OUR STATUS AS AN EQUAL PROTECTION DEMOCRACY.  Who in the world wants people like this deciding what is good.


That is what testing from K onward is about----the state determining how a child will be tracked and into what vocation from elementary school on. Remember, school privatization means the entity deciding will be corporations. This is already happening in Baltimore and it is nothing but autocratic.

O'Malley has made his career as Governor of Maryland building these tracking systems into our schools at every level......it is failing miserably although spin will make it sound a great success.


It is the for-profit colleges AND THAT DEREGULATION that distorted who and how students went to college last decade and it is infused with fraud and corruption so it is not our decades-old system of allowing families to decide where and what that child will pursue that failed----

IT IS THE SAME PEOPLE WRITING THESE PRIVATIZATION POLICIES THAT DISTORTED A GOOD SYSTEM.


This article is long but please glance through!


College material or not: who should decide?


By Valerie Strauss March 26 (The Washington Post)

College, of course, isn’t for everybody, but who should decide — and how and when — which students should go and shouldn’t? In this post, Kevin Welner and Carol Burris ask whether the decision should be made by policy makers and school officials or parents and students after young people have had equitable opportunities to learn in elementary and secondary school.

Welner is the director of the National Education Policy Center, located at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. He is the author of the 2008 book, “NeoVouchers: The Emergence of Tuition Tax Credits for Private Schooling.” Burris is the award-winning principal of South Side High School in New York. She was named New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and in 2010, tapped as the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State.


By Kevin Welner and Carol Burris

Robin should become a printer. That’s what Robin Calitri’s school counselor told his dad in 1965. Robin thought his counselor’s advice was just swell. He wasn’t a motivated high school student. But his dad, who was a professor of English Literature at Hofstra University, made it clear to the counselor that his son was going to college.

Robin later became the principal of Long Island’s South Side High School and was a finalist for the national principal of the year in 1999. He would tell that story about the counselor whenever he explained the harm done by tracking—the sorting of some students into classes that are not designed to prepare those children for post-secondary education.

If his dad had gone along with the counselor’s recommendation, his son would likely have ended up in a trade that was becoming obsolete. To his credit, Robin understood that this was precisely the situation faced by children in working-class and poor families. Research on tracking and choice confirms this; working-class and poor families, as well as parents without a college education, are more deferential to the advice of school authorities and less willing to push back on the system. Robin also understood that a young person’s future hangs in the balance when school authorities are making rules that will cut off college as an option.


Yes, we can all agree: college is not for everybody. But should school officials and top-down policy makers decide based, for example, on Common Core college readiness test scores, or should the decision be left to parents and students after schools have given them meaningful, enriching, equitable opportunities to learn?


While college is not for everybody, opportunities to be prepared for college definitely should be.
When college-educated parents have the capacity to secure the college advantage, they certainly seize it for their own children. It is not unusual, for example, to see upper middle class parents spend thousands on tutoring—including tutors for the SAT and the college essay. College-educated parents understand that a four-year diploma is key to securing financial success.

That’s just one reality that Mike Petrilli, the executive vice president of the Fordham Institute, refuses to confront in his article in Slate, with the man-bites-dog title, “Kid, I’m Sorry, but You’re Just Not College Material” Is exactly what we should be telling a lot of high school students.”

The “we” who are the deciders is left somewhat undefined, but it’s safe to assume that the use of “we” does not give power and capacity to the students themselves.

Before continuing, this is a good spot to pause and acknowledge when we are talking about other people’s children. The two of us, like Mr. Petrilli, represent families where post-secondary education is a given. Accordingly, we’re essentially debating what’s best for those “other” families. As we contemplate tinkering with their fate, it is wise to remember John Dewey’s axiom:

“What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy.”

Perhaps we are unwise in working our tails off for our children to go to college. But unless and until we acknowledge this, we should be wary of sending other families down a different path.


The vocational education push isn’t coming from just Mr. Petrilli. As he notes, it’s also coming from a project headquartered at Harvard University (apparently with no irony intended) as well as from policymakers throughout the nation. The Education Commission of the States recently studied the “State of the State” addresses from the nation’s governors and found that “at least 13 governors and the D.C. mayor outlined proposals improving or expanding CTE [career and technical education, aka vocational education] options for students.”

Mr. Petrilli and the governors are correct to the extent that they are simply acknowledging that not all children will go to college and that those who do not should nonetheless have opportunities to thrive. It is also true that the decision to forgo or delay college should be made before graduation day.

From that point on, however, the “sort and select” advocates get almost everything wrong. Their fundamental two-part assumption is, first, that they can and should identify children who are beyond academic hope. Second, they believe that it is possible and beneficial to identify these children early, separate them from their academically oriented peers, and put them on a track that hopefully prepares them for post-secondary employment but does not prepare them for college.


Equitable schools reject such tracking policies because they believe in the American Dream and because they have learned from past mistakes.
History tells us that schools should not be in the business of foreclosing children’s options. At the start of the 20th century, schools faced an influx of immigrants, and policymakers responded by creating programs for those who were called the “great army of incapables.” Vocational tracks prepared immigrants to be factory workers, while the children of well-off parents were given a college preparatory education. This pattern of separating students into different classes was repeated during the era of racial desegregation as a way to maintain segregated classrooms—and then again in the 1970s when students with special needs were increasingly enrolled in mainstream schools.

History and research show that when schools sort in this way, it is the disadvantaged children who are directed toward lower-tier tracks. No matter what criteria are used—scores, recommendations or even choice—the same patterns of stratification occur. Accordingly, when lawmakers adopt these misguided policies, they open up opportunity gaps that inevitably lead to the achievement gaps that these same lawmakers then decry.

Mr. Petrilli concedes that he understands the danger. Describing the bad old days, he writes, “Those high school ‘tracks’ were immutable, and those who wound up in ‘voc-ed’ (or, at least as bad, the ‘general’ track) were those for whom secondary schooling, in society’s eyes, was mostly a custodial function.” Yet he turns back to voc-ed because, as he contends, the odds are otherwise too long for disadvantaged students.

Beginning with the statistic that only 10 percent of these disadvantaged students earn a four-year degree, Mr. Petrilli asserts that if we work really hard as a society maybe this number would rise to 30 percent, which for Mr. Petrilli is not good enough. Since recent data show that 33.5 percent of Americans ages 25 to 29 have at least a bachelor’s degree, that sounds like a pretty good outcome to us. By the way, that’s the highest percentage ever for Americans, and it doesn’t include those who earn two-year degrees as well as certificates in our community colleges and post-secondary technical schools.


The “You’re Not College Material” approach is the same one we use far too often in schools.  Too many kids hear--You’re not ‘honors’ material, or Challenging science and math isn’t for you. And every time that strategy is used, we see the same results—classes that are stratified by social class and race. It’s an approach that reinforces existing inequalities. To say in a supposedly neutral way that not all students will go to college is disingenuous without first acknowledging something else: that what’s really being said is that we should accept that college is for the already advantaged.

On some level, Mr. Petrilli grasps these concerns—when he acknowledges the past harms of tracking and that “when judgments were made on the basis of ZIP code or skin color, the old system was [deterministic, racist, and classist].” What he doesn’t acknowledge is that his new system would be the old system.

It’s interesting to us that the Petrilli article’s argument relies in part on the German system of tiered schooling, where college-bound students head to the Gymnasium while vocation-bound students head to the Hauptschule or Realschule. Yes, it’s true that students attending the German vocational schools do better than voc-ed students here, in part because of a more equitable job sector following graduation. But a team of German psychologists recently published an article in The Journal of Educational Psychology on the effects of the German vocational track on the development of student intelligence—and they found that students in the academic track experienced substantial IQ gains as compared to those voc-ed students. Not only did the learning gap grow, so did the very capacity to learn between German academic and vocational students. That outcome should give us pause.

Our quarrel is not with offering vocational opportunities in high schools. Rather, we favor a smart and fair approach that works for children and families who, at the right time and place, make the choice for a career after high school.
We might, for example, retool our two-year colleges so that they offer more programs in technology and other marketable areas, without making students jump through remedial hoops to stay. We might also follow the lead of Finland and prepare students with a strong and equitable academic education without tracking until age 16, and then allow them to make meaningful career and life choices. We may even look at promising models, such as California’s Linked Learning schools, which integrate career preparation while still preparing students for college. High schools have an obligation to do their best to prepare students for college and career; preparation for both has more overlap than often assumed.


We reject, however, No College for You! proposals that sort  14 year olds into vocational high schools. South Side High School, one of the best in the nation, would likely be a very different place if co-author Carol Burris’ predecessor, Robin Calitri, had obliged his counselor when he was told “Kid, you are not college material.”  That counselor did not have the right to make that decision—and neither does Mike Petrilli.



___________________________________________

Neo-liberals installed the education policy in South Korea after the Korean war that it is trying to install in the US today.  The difference is that the US has a history of public education and people as citizens with the rights to legislate and equal protection laws.  From Korea this policy traveled to China and Singapore and involves very autocratic and pedantic learning where parents in these countries have been fighting for decades to get rid of it.  NO ONE LIKES THESE NEO-LIBERAL EDUCATION POLICIES.  Look below and you see the AFT union leader Weingarten with Arne Duncan praising this neo-liberal model.  Weingarten allowed the AFT to support these Race to the Top and Common Core policies for the first years of Obama's terms but the public outcry and teachers grew too large for Weingarten to follow the neo-liberal lead and as you see in the article after this one-----the AFT is now fighting Obama's and Wall Street's education reform.

IT WAS THE PUBLIC OUTCRY THAT FORCED THIS UNION LEADER TO STOP FOLLOWING NEO-LIBERALS.  WE MUST HAVE THE PUBLIC PROTESTING LOUDLY AND STRONGLY TO SUPPORT TEACHERS IN KILLING THIS VERY BAD EDUCATION REFORM.  NEITHER REPUBLICANS NOR DEMOCRATS WANT THIS REFORM.  IT IS ONLY ABOUT MAKING EDUCATION INTO GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.



I spoke at great length about the Finland model for education that has made Finland number 1 in education.  Finland embraced the American model of the 1950s and 1960s while the US was dismantling the best in the world public education to make this corporatized model they are pushing today. 

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE GOING BACK TO THE PUBLIC EDUCATION BUILT FOR DEMOCRACY AND AWAY FROM THIS AUTOCRATIC CORPORATE MODEL.




Which winning ideas could the U.S. steal from Singapore?


Singapore has one of the best education systems in the world, according to international assessments. President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan talk about its performance. United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten visited in 2012 and her counterpart at the National Education Association, Dennis Van Roekel, has praised its teacher training. And in 2012, Singapore was featured in the first-ever International Summit on the Teaching Profession as a country that many places – including America – could learn from.



In light of all this hype, I spent the past week in Singapore visiting schools to find out why they are so successful. But, not surprisingly, there’s no big secret or magic trick that the United States could simply copy tomorrow. Rather, my impressions were of a nation where education is respected, where educators and administrators think critically about their jobs and the qualities they want their students to develop and where self-reflection is ingrained. Those are qualities already found in many American schools, and that reformers are trying to spur in others.

But some of Singapore’s latest strategies go beyond or challenge some of the most popular ideas right now for improving American schools. At the same time, it’s important to remember the vast differences between the two countries that make it difficult to transfer ideas. Here are my main takeaways from my conversations with educators, students and education officials:

- Singapore is looking to revamp their standards. As most states in America continue the rollout of the Common Core State Standards, an internationally benchmarked guide laying out what students are supposed to learn in each grade in math and English, Singapore also has changes planned. But education officials there are more concerned about some less tangible skills, like collaboration and creativity, and coming up with ways to systematically introduce those into the curriculum. In theory, the end goals of Common Core and Singapore’s newest push are similar. They both aim to create individuals with critical thinking skills who can thrive in a modern economy. But as we try to copy Singapore’s methods, like their math sequencing, educators there are already moving on to new ideas.

- Lots of Singaporean students are stressed. The country is looking for ways to reduce this and trying to decrease the emphasis on grades and test scores. The Ministry of Education is trying to reduce the emphasis on the primary school exit exam, which all students have to take to determine which secondary school they will attend, for instance. But many people told me one of the biggest challenges will be changing the mindset of parents. Not all students in Singapore worry endlessly about exams, but several people said that for those that do, parents are a primary source of their anxiety.

- Singapore is small. As several people pointed out to me, if you drive for an hour in any direction, you arrive at the water. While some people told me the small size of the country has disadvantages for education – it severely limits options for field trips for instance – it also has its benefits. Most notably, the country’s size, along with the fact that the schools are run by a centralized authority, allows the Ministry of Education, the National Institute of Education – which trains every teacher in the country – and the schools to be in close communication about research and new strategies. New programs can be implemented quicker and the National Institute for Education can easily keep track of what is actually happening in classrooms to tweak its offerings when needed.

- The schools are big. Half a million students are enrolled in the island’s schools, but most schools have student populations of more than a thousand – even at the primary level. With that many students, classes of 35 to 40 are typical, but nothing seemed disorderly. The atmosphere in the classrooms that I visited switched between formal and relaxed. Students bowed to greet visitors and again to thank them for coming. They stood up to speak whenever called upon, and chatter while a teacher was talking was almost nonexistent. At the same time, though, laughter was common. Teachers would gently tease students and discussion was highly encouraged.

Not everything Singapore does would apply to our much larger, decentralized education system and not everything they do should be emulated. But there are some inspirations we could draw from the country, such as trying to get more high-performing students into the classroom as teachers or being more explicit in the character qualities we want students to develop – without obsessing over how to measure them.

__________________________________________

As a social democrat I do not want to break from the Democratic Party-----I want to take the Democratic Party back from corporate neo-liberals.  The important thing is that more and more people are understanding where this is going and know we can stop and reverse this no matter what political stance you take.  We need Republicans pushing against this as these policies are written by neo-conservative and neo-liberal think tanks.

'The way forward for teachers requires a complete break with the pro-corporate trade unions and Democratic Party.


.......calling for Duncan’s resignation, saying he had championed a “failed education agenda” consisting of policies that “undermine public schools and colleges, the teaching education professionals, and education unions.”




Seeking to regain credibility, US teachers unions criticize Obama’s education secretary
By Phyllis Scherrer
22 July 2014


After spending the last five-and-a-half years collaborating with the Obama administration’s attack on teachers’ jobs and conditions, the two teachers’ unions in the US recently passed resolutions seeking to distance themselves from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his anti-public education policies.

The National Education Association (NEA) passed a resolution at its national convention in Denver, Colorado, on July 4, calling for Duncan’s resignation, saying he had championed a “failed education agenda” consisting of policies that “undermine public schools and colleges, the teaching education professionals, and education unions.”

This was followed by a July 13 resolution at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) conference in Los Angeles, California, which called on President Obama “to implement a secretary improvement plan” for Duncan, modeled on the punitive testing measures used to fire “failing” teachers. “If Secretary Duncan does not improve, and given that he has been treated fairly and his due process rights have been upheld, the secretary of education must resign,” the statement read.

The conventions were held just weeks after Duncan’s enthusiastic support for the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Vergara v. California case, which attacks tenure and another job protections won by teachers over decades of struggle. At the time Duncan hailed the right-wing forces behind the lawsuit, saying, “millions of young people in America” are “disadvantaged by laws, practices, and systems that fail to identify and support our best teachers and match them with our neediest students.”

The NEA and AFT resolutions, however, were nothing more than an exercise in damage control by the unions, aimed at reviving the credibility of both unions, which have been undermined by their collaboration with Duncan and the administration’s pro-corporate “school reform” agenda. The resolutions will have no affect whatsoever on the continued collaboration of the teachers’ unions with the Obama administration.

In fact, the day the NEA convention passed its resolution, officials from the rival AFT were at the White House meeting with Duncan to collaborate on the implementation of a new “teacher equity plan,” another teachers “evaluation” plan to rid poor school districts, with the assistance of the unions, of higher paid, more senior teachers.

Duncan dismissed the NEA resolution with the contempt it deserves, saying, had NEA officials not been at their convention, “I think they would have stood with us on this” today, too. He congratulated new NEA President-elect Lily Eskelsen Garcia and added, “We’ve had a very good working relationship with the NEA in the past.”

In addition to concealing their own role, by presenting Duncan as the author of this anti-teacher agenda, the unions are seeking to protect President Obama and the Democratic Party. The teachers unions promoted the lie that Obama would reverse the attacks of his Republican predecessor. In fact, the Democratic president has gone well beyond the attacks associated with Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001.

Under Obama’s Race to the Top (RTTT) the administration allocated $4.35 billion to fund a “competition” designed by the Bill & Melinda Gates, Eli Broad, Boeing, Walton Family and other Foundations. School districts were forced to vie against each other for funds already severely reduced under Bush’s NCLB—federal funds that under the War on Poverty reforms of the 1960s were allotted directly to districts serving high percentages of students in poverty.

Under RTTT “winning” districts are those who agree to fire teachers and close or privatize schools based on poor standardized test scores, which are chiefly the result of poverty and decades of budget cutting, not bad teachers. Since the implementation of RTTT, public schools have been starved of funding, 330,000 teachers and other public school employees have lost their jobs, at least 4,000 public schools have been closed, and the number of students enrolled in charter schools has doubled.

Obama and the Democratic Party have embraced the anti-teacher nostrums long associated with the most right-wing sections of the Republican Party. This is underscored by the fact that former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and several other former Obama aides are spearheading a national public relations drive to support lawsuits in New York and other states, modeled on Vergara, to overturn teacher tenure, seniority and other job protections.

On the local level, Democratic mayors and school officials from Chicago, Philadelphia and New York to Detroit, New Orleans and Washington, DC, have spearheaded the attack on public education and expansion of for-profit charters.

The well-heeled executives who run the teachers’ unions--including AFT President Randi Weingarten and NEA President Dennis Van Roekel who received salaries of $543,150 and $306,286 respectively in the last year alone—are not opposed to the pro-corporate school “reform.” On the contrary, they are only looking to be partners in this process, as the AFT slogan, “School reform with us, not against us,” makes clear.

Both the NEA and the AFT were direct recipients of Gates’ money for the implementation of the so-called Common Core curriculum, which will be used to further attack teachers, while subordinating public education to the needs of profit-making technology and publishing companies. In 2012, the AFT accepted $4.4 million in order to “work on teacher development and Common Core Standards.” In July 2013 the NEA endorsed the Common Core and was awarded $6.3 million to assist with developing the Common Core Curriculum.

As teachers became wise to the character of Common Core, and every more disdainful of the AFT’s support of it, AFT officials tried to distance themselves from Gates last March by refusing to take any additional money from the Gates Innovation Foundation Fund, only one of several conduits of the billionaire’s money to the AFT.


Part of the grandstanding against Duncan is the increasing turf war between the AFT and NEA and their competition for dues money among a shrinking number of teachers. The AFT convention passed a dues increase by 45 cents per month this year and 55 cents per month next year, for a total monthly dues bill of $18.78 for each member by September 2015—largely to offset the loss of Gates money—and is increasingly seeking to get a foothold among low-paid charter teachers, as well as non-teaching members like nurses.

The NEA, the nation’s largest union, with just over three million members, including teachers, paraprofessionals and higher education instructors, has seen a significant drop in membership. Since the 2010-2011 school year, which coincides with the recession and the election of Obama, union membership for the NEA is down by 201,000 of its teacher members.

Under conditions in which more states are enacting Republican-backed “right-to-work” laws, which end automatic dues deduction from teachers’ paychecks, and sections of the Democratic Party are openly discussing dispensing with the services of the unions altogether, the AFT and NEA are doubling down to ensure state and local officials that they can be relied on to slash costs, destroy teachers’ conditions and suppress opposition to the closing of schools and the attack on education.

Over the last five years there have been growing struggles of teachers—in Wisconsin, Chicago, Portland, Oregon, St. Paul, Minnesota, and other cities—which have led to a direct clash between teachers on the one hand and the Democratic Party and their servants in the trade unions on the other.

Well aware of the growing anger of rank-and-file teachers, a section of trade union bureaucracy and its supporters in pseudo-left movements like the International Socialist Organization, whose supporters have gained union positions in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and other districts, are doing everything they can to refurbish the image of the teachers’ unions.

Their model of “social justice unionism” has proven to be a dead end as the betrayal of the 2012 teachers strike, by Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis and Vice President Jesse Sharkey, a supporter of the ISO, showed. The CTU shut down the nine-day strike by 26,000 Chicago teachers before it could develop into a direct political confrontation with Mayor Rahm Emanuel—Obama’s former White House Chief of Staff—and the White House.

This betrayal gave Emanuel the green light to close 50 schools and lay off 3,500 teachers and school workers. As a reward, an AFT-affiliated union was given the franchise to “organize” low-paid teachers at the Chicago United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) charter schools run by one of Emanuel’s closest supporters.

Lewis and the CTU are now promoting the idea of running “independent” political campaigns in Chicago. Far from challenging the Democratic Party and advancing any independent political strategy for the working class, these campaigns fully accept the domination of society by the corporate and financial elite and are solely aimed at pressuring the Democrats to more effectively use the unions as partners in the dismantling of public education.


The way forward for teachers requires a complete break with the pro-corporate trade unions and Democratic Party and the fight to mobilize the working class as a whole against the profit system and to defend all of the democratic and social rights of the working class, including access to high quality public education.


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Below you see how other states still have democratic debates and open elections while in Maryland any politician that speaks against neo-liberals and neo-cons are censured.  We must fight for free and fair elections to make sure we can vote these neo-liberals out of office.

Remember, Common Core is not about quality education.....it is about controlling what is taught.  Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math are already standardized and we do not want our humanities and liberal arts standardized because that is what makes the US a plurality and democracy-----differing points of view.  So this is simply a policy meant to give global corporations control of what our children learn in classrooms.

We have the AFT, the CTU, and it looks like the UFT moving against these education reforms and now we need parents and communities fighting with them.  It does not matter your political stance----these policies hurt all Americans.


New York Now Leads the Way in the Movement Against Common Core- At The Polls | With A Brooklyn Accent
20 Jul 2014   | Common Core · New York Share NPE News Briefs

Something truly extraordinary has happened in the New York State Gubernatorial race-something with broad national implications.  A big money Democratic Governor, Andrew Cuomo, who thought he was going to make himself a front runner in the 2016 Presidential Race by ramming through legislation requiring teacher evaluations based on Common Core aligned tests, has generated so much opposition among teachers and parents that there are now three different Gubernatorial candidates who oppose Common Core- the Republican candidate, Rob Astorino, the Green Party candidate, Howie Hawkins, and the new and quite formidable challenger in the Democratic Primary, Zephyr Teachout.

There are two reasons this situation is “game changer”

First, it shows how much opposition to Common Core is emerging  across the political spectrum.  For the last year, Common Core supporters in the media, the corporate world, and the US Department of Education have tried to portray Common Core opponents as extremists whose views should be rejected out of hand, but the what we have in New York is a mainstream Republican, a strong candidate on the left, and a liberal Democrat all saying that Common Core is untested, undemocratic and a threat to strong, locally controlled public schools.  And this position is going to be put forward strongly from now until election day. Even if Andrew Cuomo wins the Democratic primary, he will be facing two strong anti-Common Core voices in the general election.

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July 21st, 2014

7/21/2014

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IT'S CALLED SOVEREIGN DEBT/MUNICIPAL BOND FRAUD FOLKS------NEO-LIBERALS SIMPLY FOLLOW WALL STREET'S LEAD NO MATTER WHERE IT ENDS.


I'd like to spend one more day on the bond market and the coming crash.....looking today at the public and private pensions.  Folks, neo-liberals and neo-cons look at pensions as fodder only meant to boost Wall Street profit. 

LOOK AT WHERE YOUR PENSIONS ARE INVESTED BECAUSE MARYLAND IS RUN BY NEO-LIBERALS WORKING FOR WALL STREET PROFIT AND NOT YOU AND ME!

I pointed to Maryland pol Dulaney and his focus on repatriation taxes and bond market for corporations.  The timing of this legislation is no accident----the bond market crash will place this market at the bottom ready to climb to profits just as the 2008 crash made the stock market bottom.  So, Dulaney is not warning his constituents that the bond market crash is coming and will take away most of the value recovered since the last crash-----he is only thinking of what legislation with maximize corporate profit.  THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL FOR YOU BUT WHY IS HE RUNNING AS A DEMOCRAT????

The second point is that as you can see all of the major news journals are now reporting the crash is coming just as I have written for four years.  What I said was the plan-----and everyone knew it.
  Please consider where you get your information-----all neo-liberal media like MSNBC and NPR never mentioned these policy goals-----

I spoke of the public malfeasance behind the public pension losses last crash were politicians moved public pensions from the then safety of the bond market into a collapsing stock market in 2007 just to buoy the Wall Street banks.  THIS WAS ILLEGAL AND PUBLIC MALFEASANCE AND FRAUD. All of the pols in Maryland involved in doing this were simply re-elected and public sector unions simply agreed to cuts rather than take the fraud to court.  The failure to address the last fraud has the same thing coming with this bond crash.....public and private pensions have been used to buoy the coming bond market as investment firms jump ship. 

DO YOU HEAR YOUR POLS SHOUTING ALL OF THIS IS BAD FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ELECTED THEM???????  I DON'T HEAR A THING!


Below is a UK article that speaks to what is coming.  Look how it states the FED is considering making people stay in the bond market to stop a run.  It created the conditions for the crash and now it wants to force people to stay in......punitive exit fees.
  Remember, people went to bonds because the stock market is criminal.......they are now being forced back into this criminal market because Wall Street imploded the only safe investment ------bonds.

Can you save your pension from the great bond bubble? Why a bank rate rise could ruin your retirement...

‘Those limits will be set by each individual fund — they may put a cap on how much you can withdraw, or reduce the value by a percentage.’


By Holly Black  Daily Mail Pensions and Retirement

PUBLISHED: 18:34 EST, 17 June 2014 | UPDATED: 03:20 EST, 18 June 2014

About £800billion of savings and investments sitting in bond funds could fall in value if interest rates begin to rise.


An increase in the Bank of England base rate threatens to burst the five-year bond bubble that has seen the value of funds soar by as much as 137 per cent.

It threatens to wipe out a chunk of the life savings of an estimated 500,000 people who have put their money into bond funds, and millions more in company pension schemes.


Bond bubble: When interest rates rise the value of bonds will fall



However, while any rise in rates is likely to cause a fall in bond funds - any increases should be small, giving investors time to react. There are, though, fears that money in bond funds could be locked up.

In the U.S. there are already reports that the Federal Reserve is considering imposing punitive exit fees on anyone trying to take their money out of bond funds to halt a run on the investments.



Brian Dennehy, founder of investment research site Fund Expert, explains: ‘When there is sustained heavy selling there will almost certainly be restrictions, if you’re allowed to sell at all.


‘Those limits will be set by each individual fund — they may put a cap on how much you can withdraw, or reduce the value by a percentage.’


Bonds are essentially IOUs issued by companies and governments. In exchange for your money, they promise to pay you a rate of interest. These are not fixed-rate savings bonds offered by High Street banks and building societies, which keep your capital safe and your interest fixed.


With investment bonds the value can rise and fall, and they were often seen as a safer type of investment, as they don’t change in value very much. But because of poor rates on High Street savings accounts, bonds have become wildly popular and, as a result, prices have surged.


Someone who put £10,000 into the average strategic bond fund five years ago would have £15,500 today. The best fund would have grown to £23,700.


At risk: A substantial chunk of the £770bn of our pensions is invested in bonds



How £800billion could be trapped
Fears of a fall in value of these funds could now lead to a great bond sell-off. A bond-fund plunge has been widely expected since late 2012.



Then, the value of funds had increased by 50 per cent following the Government’s policy of printing money to boost the economy, known as Quantitative Easing. This involved the Bank of England flooding the economy with cash, by buying bonds — which led them to increase in value.


Now that QE has come to an end, and the economy is recovering, interest rates could soon rise. When this happens, the value of these bonds will fall, and the interest they are paying will suddenly seem less attractive.


Unlike with shares, the money in bonds is tied up. It means that investors may not be able to trade their bonds freely to eager buyers, leaving them trapped because no one will want to buy them.


Retail investors who have relied on bonds for the past six years have a massive £126billion of their savings tied up in these funds. But a substantial chunk of the £770billion of our pensions is invested in them, too, because many stock-market-linked company schemes move savers’ money into bonds the closer they get to retirement.


This is done to protect the cash they have built up over the years by transferring it out of supposedly riskier stocks and shares. The strategy is known as life-styling and happens automatically. But it has meant that workers are being unwittingly exposed to any potential fall in the bond market.


Thousands of investors found themselves stuck in property funds in 2008 when there was a run of people withdrawing cash from these investments. A lack of ready cash available in them meant firms were telling their customers they could not have their money.


Many property funds own entire buildings directly so that if they need to raise money they have to sell them, rather than just sell shares, which is a much quicker and easier process. Bond funds face similar problems.

Bonds have a fixed duration and if funds can’t find a willing buyer to dispose of them, they will have to hold onto the investment. That means they can’t raise any money to give back to investors looking to sell their units in the fund.

Should you hang on or try to sell?
Many fund managers are already selling their bonds. Marcus Brookes, head of multi-manager funds at Schroders’, has reduced his bond holdings to just 10 per cent of his assets and he is planning to sell more.

  ‘Returns have been amazing for too long and we’re starting to worry,’ he says. And Mr Dennehy points out that with interest rates likely to rise in ‘baby steps’, investors shouldn’t have to rush out of all of their bonds at once.

‘But you should still ask yourself why you are bothered to invest in bonds,’ he adds. ‘At best, they won’t lose any of your money this year, but I don’t think they will make any either.’


Yet this could leave investors with another dilemma. Ben Gutteridge, head of fund research at wealth management company Brewin Dolphin, explains: ‘If you are taking your money out of bonds, where are you going to put it?


‘The obvious choice is equities. But if all of your investments are equities, that’s incredibly risky.’


Because of this, investors may be forced to accept the risk of staying in bonds in a bid to spread the risk in their portfolio.

Or else they may have to pull out of the stock market completely and bide their time in cash just to make sure that they’re not losing any money.


__________________________________________

Wall Street and their pols knew people would leave the stock market for the safety of the bond market after the 2008 crash so they started immediately to create the conditions to fleece these bond investors.  Congress and Obama created legislation that pushed US bonds to the world market just as they did subprime mortgage loans they knew were fraudulent.  Watching the FED and QE create the ballooning of the bond market just to accommodate Wall Street profit knowing a bond collapse would hit Federal, state, and local governments hard.

IT IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY!!!!  THESE ARE SOCIOPATHS FOLKS!


Public pensions were never too much to handle for states and local governments-----neo-liberals simply never intended to fund them just as corporations were never made to actually fund their contributions as these benefit packages required.  So, there is no pension deficit weighing on governments----it is the fiscal policy schemes that are designed to bring ever more money to Wall Street that are soaking taxpayers.  Below you see just another financial instrument that again placed public wealth in harms way.  Remember, we went through a fiscal boom last decade albeit fueled by corporate fraud so government coffers should be flush.  Rather, billions of dollars were lost to public malfeasance and fraud.  The article below shows states using pension investments that were known to be bad policy-----placing bonds into plans at the wrong time and this is not an accident.  It takes no rocket scientist to know all of these investment strategies were bad for the public.  These neo-liberals did it to hide debt to take on more debt knowing Wall Street would bring in tons of profit.


The story of Oregon is Maryland's story and Martin O'Malley and the Maryland Assembly are the stars of this public abuse.
  Now, the same thing was done for private pensions as corporations were allowed to fail to fund and place pensions into ever riskier investments everyone knew would fail.

Just think.......if we all knew years ago that the policies since the 2008 crash would implode the bond market-----do you leave state and local governments exposed to bond leveraging?  OF COURSE NOT UNLESS YOU WANT TO IMPLODE GOVERNMENT BUDGETS.

Pension Obligation Bonds: Risky Gimmick or Smart Investment?

Pension obligation bonds have bankrupted whole cities. Yet some governments are still big players. BY: Eric Schulzke | January 2013



“It’s the dumbest idea I ever heard,” Jon Corzine told Bloomberg.com in 2008 when he was still governor of New Jersey
. “It’s speculating the way I would have speculated in my bond position at Goldman Sachs.”

Corzine, who followed up his tenure as governor with a $1.6 billion investment debacle as chairman of MF Global, seemed to know a thing or two about risky ventures. In this case, he was speaking of pension obligation bonds. POBs are a financing maneuver that allows state and local governments to “wipe out” unfunded pension liabilities by borrowing against future tax revenue, then investing the proceeds in equities or other high-yield investments. The idea is that the investments will produce a higher return than the interest rate on the bond, earning money for the pension fund. It’s a gamble, but one that a lot of governments are willing to take when pension portfolio returns plummet, causing unfunded liabilities to run dark and deep.

Almost every fund has faced such liabilities from time to time, though current times have been more treacherous than others. As Paul Cleary, executive director of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) points out, since 1970 his state’s pension fund has suffered annual losses only four times
. But three of those losses were in the last decade, and one, in 2008, was a catastrophic 27 percent decline.

Faced with such losses -- and with a dearth of state and local revenue to make up for the shortfalls -- POBs have become a favored tool to fix pension woes. Oregon is a big player in the POB market, along with scores of its cities, counties and school districts. Other major POB issuers include California, Connecticut, Illinois and New Jersey.

The bonds took on some notoriety this past summer when two California cities, Stockton and San Bernardino, went bankrupt. Generous pensions awkwardly propped up with ill-timed POBs contributed to both debacles.


Over the years, returns on POBs have often fallen below the interest rate the state or locality paid to borrow the money, digging the liability hole even deeper
. Nonetheless, they remain popular with politicians in a revenue pinch. Politically, it is easier to borrow money to pay for pension costs than it is to squeeze an already-stressed budget. While many economists and policy analysts view them as risky gimmicks and question the high market growth assumptions that make them seem viable, POBs have defenders who believe that with careful timing they can pay off.

When Oakland, Calif., launched the first pension obligation bond in 1985, it appeared to be a reasonable strategy. It qualified as a tax-free bond that could be issued at the lower municipal bond rates. A state or city could then pivot and invest the funds in safe securities -- a corporate bond, for instance -- at a slightly higher rate. “That was classic arbitrage,” Cleary says. “You were locking down the difference between nontaxable bonds and taxable bonds.”


The Tax Reform Act of 1986 ended that strategy by prohibiting state and local governments from reinvesting for profit the money from tax-free bonds. When the concept resurfaced, the strategy called for states or localities to issue a taxable bond and leverage the higher interest rate of that bond against higher return but riskier equity market plays. So long as markets boomed, the new tactic seemed savvy. “Some people call this arbitrage, but it’s not,” Cleary says of post-1986 POBs. “It’s really an investment gamble.”

Arbitrage occurs when prices for the same product differ between two markets, allowing a nimble player to exploit the difference. “Real arbitrage is free money,” says Andrew Biggs, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “But it doesn’t hang around very long.”


Safe bonds and risky equities are not the same product, but public pension accounting currently permits state and localities to treat them as if they were.
“They are counting the return on the stocks before the return is there,” Biggs says. “If you borrowed money to invest in the real world, you would factor the current value of the debt with the current real value of the stocks.”

Given the inherent risks and possible rewards, how have POBs fared? In 2010, a research team led by Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, ran some numbers to find out. The team took 2,931 POBs issued by 236 governments through 2009. They used each bond’s repayment schedule to calculate interest and principal, and then clustered them into cohorts based on the year issued. They assumed a 65/35 investment split between equities and bonds and tracked the results with standard indexes. They then produced two composite graphs -- one at the height of the market in 2007 and the second in 2009, after a crash and before recovery.

In general, bonds issued in the early stages of a stock boom performed well prior to the crash. Thus, POBs issued in the early 1990s were healthy, ranging from 2 to 5 percent net growth. Borrowings in 2002 or 2003 also looked good.


Those issued in the latter years of the 1990s or 2000, however, were in negative territory even before the 2008 crash, having suffered serious losses to their principal in the 2001-2002 downturn. After 2008, all POBs were under water -- except those issued in the trough of the collapse, which by 2009 were already pushing 25 percent gains.

Oregon’s numbers mirror Munnell’s findings. Local government POBs issued in 2002 at the depth of that market collapse and managed by Oregon PERS gained an annual average of 8.84 percent through 2012, before principal and interest on the bond. Less lucky were bonds issued in 2005. The Springfield School District’s POB earned just 5.53 percent, for example. Since that bond carried 4.65 percent interest, it likely earned roughly one point annually -- not much, but slightly above neutral. Oregon’s 2007 issuers earned just 2 percent on their investments through 2012, and are upside down today after debt service.

The same fate befell Stockton, Calif., which also came to market in 2007. Similarly, New Jersey issued a $2.8 billion POB in 1997 -- on the wrong side of another stock bubble.

“The whole thing is the timing,” Oregon’s Cleary says. “You are trying to issue them when the market has bottomed out and when interest rates are reasonable, because really what you are doing is making an investment bet. If people thought when they did POBs that they were refinancing a debt or doing a locked-in arbitrage, rather than an investment play, I’m sure they have been very surprised by the results.”


And yet that is exactly how they were sold. When Oregon voted on new POBs in 2009, the voter education pamphlet argument in favor of issuance explicitly framed the choice as a “refinance” and cast the projected returns as money “saved.”

“Just like many homeowners are refinancing their home mortgages,” the pamphlet read, “the State should take advantage of these historically low rates, which can save Oregon more than $1 billion over the next 25 years. The money saved will help reduce cuts and protect services that all Oregonians rely on.”

Because POBs demand headroom between the interest an issuer pays to borrow and the high returns promised on resulting investments, their investment strategies tend to chafe against safer portfolios. Without a hefty “discount rate” -- as the projected annual gain assumed by a pension fund is known -- the pension bonds would not be possible.

In a 2012 paper, Andrew Biggs argues that the aggressive 8 percent discount used by many states overstates likely earnings and understates risks. A fund that required $100 million in 20 years and employed an 8 percent discount rate would be “fully funded” with $21 million, Biggs notes. But if that same fund were to gain only 5 percent annually, it would need $38 million today to be fully funded in 20 years.


Many experts argue that because public pension obligations are legally binding, pension funds should be discounted at close to zero risk on the front end -- at or near the rates offered by government bonds.
“While economists are famous for disagreeing with each other on virtually every conceivable issue,” wrote then-Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman Donald Kohn in 2008, “when it comes to this one there is no professional disagreement: The only appropriate way to calculate the present value of a very-low-risk liability is to use a very-low-risk discount rate.”

In point of fact, the 8 percent discount rate may be on its way out. The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) is launching a complex hybrid discount standard in 2014, which will affect the assumptions states make with their funds. Some fear the GASB rule will only create more confusion. Bond rater Moody’s is taking a simpler tack in weighing government pension plans, having recently proposed to shift its pension discount rate down to the level of AA taxable bonds, which are now at 5.5 percent. “Currently, discount rates used by state and local governments are all over the place,” says Tim Blake, Moody’s managing director of public finance. “Most are in the range of 7.5 to 8 percent. We need a uniform rate.”

Not surprisingly, 5.5 percent is very close to the rate at which many POBs are sold to investors.


With aggressive 8 percent discount rates now under attack by economists, oversight boards and rating agencies, issuers who counted on rosier outcomes have learned some hard lessons. Five years ago, when Connecticut State Treasurer Denise L. Nappier announced a new $2.28 billion pension bond, she noted that the state had “achieved a favorable borrowing cost of 5.88 percent, which is well below the 8.5 percent assumed long-term return on assets of the Teachers’ Retirement Fund. This will provide significant cash flow savings over the long term and a potential savings to taxpayers of billions of dollars.”

When the bond was issued in April, the Dow Jones average stood just shy of 13,000. By November, the market was in free fall. It bottomed out the following March at just over 6,600. Connecticut’s timing could hardly have been worse. As the market plunged, Pensions & Investments lit into POBs, singling out Connecticut. The editors argued that POBs shove obligations “that should have been paid as earned” onto future generations, along with the risk of the debt.

By 2010, with the market still emerging from the trough, Connecticut’s finances were as messy as ever. But now there was little appetite for more bonds. POBs “are certainly a risky proposition,” Michael J. Cicchetti, chairman of Connecticut’s Post Employment Benefits Commission, told the CT Mirror. “Things are different now than they were then.”


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Wall Street has the nerve to state that public sector pensions are too big of a liability for governments.  After all, Wall Street fraud caused a loss of 1/2 pension value in 2008 and the rating corporations like Moody's was ground zero for the fraud---they should know pensions are limping along!

Indeed, simply taking the assets of the three major rating corporations and pushing them into bankruptcy for their part in the fraud would have made pensions flush with cash.  RULE OF LAW WOULD HAVE SOLVED GOVERNMENT PENSION SHORTFALLS.  No one shouted this!  Did you hear your pols shouting for recovery of pension losses from fraud to make up the shortfall?  They went straight to cutting benefits.  They through pensions into bad investments just to claim they were liabilities that needed to be cut.

THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL FOR YOU-----WORKING TO MAXIMIZE WALL STREET PROFITS AT PUBLIC EXPENSE!

Now, why should all citizens be concerned about pension fraud ----even those with no pensions? 


THE SAME THING IS HAPPENING WITH SOCIAL SECURITY!  YOUR RETIREMENT PROGRAM IS BEING RAIDED BY THE SAME PEOPLE.  DO NOT THINK IT OK FOR SOME PEOPLE TO LOSE THEIR RETIREMENTS WHEN THE PROBLEM IS CORPORATE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION AND NOT THE BENEFIT!

So while neo-liberals like Dulaney are busy making sure legislation places corporations into positions to earn grand profits-----they are setting you and I to take the losses once again.

The policy of risk-free rating is not a bad thing-----what is bad is that it comes at a time when pensions are waiting for recovery from fraud by Moody's and it comes as the bond market is ready to implode from public sector malfeasance.  Can you imagine how impossible it will be to meet these obligations after an economic crash bigger than 2008? 

THAT'S RIGHT-----THEY DO NOT WANT TO BE ABLE TO MEET THEM!  THAT IS WHY THEY ARE IMPLODING THE BOND MARKET FOR GOODNESS SAKE!


A Maryland neo-liberal running for Governor of Maryland Heather Mizeur actually stated-------if public employees gave up pension benefits we could build all these schools in Baltimore.  That is what neo-liberals do----pit people in the same Democratic base against one another.  It is not an either/or----STOP THE CORPORATE FRAUD AND PROFITEERING!

LABOR AND JUSTICE ARE THE DEMOCRATIC BASE!

Moody’s Playing Dangerous Games With Public Pension Funds

Tuesday, 07 May 2013 09:29 By Dean Baker, Truthout | Op-Ed

The bond-rating agency Moody's made itself famous for giving subprime mortgage backed securities triple-A ratings at the peak of the housing bubble. This made it easy for investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to sell these securities all around the world. And it allowed the housing bubble to grow ever bigger and more dangerous. And we know where that has left us.

Well, Moody's is back. They announced plans to change the way they treat pension obligations in assessing state and local government debt.

Instead of accepting projections of pension fund returns based on the assets they hold, Moody's wants to use a risk-free discount rate to assess pension fund liabilities. This will make public pensions seem much worse funded than the current method.

While this might seem like a nerdy and technical point, it has very real consequences. If the Moody's methodology is accepted as the basis for accounting by state and local governments then they will suddenly need large amounts of revenue to make their pensions properly funded. This will directly pit public sector workers, who are counting on the pensions they have earned, against school children, low-income families, and others who count on state supported services.

In other words, this is exactly the sort of politics that the Wall Street and the One Percent types love. No matter which side loses, they win. While public sector workers fight the people dependent on state and local services, they get to walk off with all the money.

Wall Street is expert at these sorts of accounting tricks; it is after all what they do for a living. And this is not the first time that they have played these sorts of games to advance their agenda.

The current crisis of the Postal Service, which is looking at massive layoffs and cutbacks in delivery, is largely the result of accounting gimmicks. In 2006 Congress passed a law requiring an unprecedented level of pre-funding for retiree health care benefits. The Postal Service is not only required to build up a massive level of prefunding, it also is using more pessimistic assumptions about cost growth than any known plan in the private sector.

This requirement is the basis for the horror stories of multi-billion losses that feature prominently in news stories about the Postal Service. The Postal Service would face difficulties adjusting to rapid declines in traditional mail service in any case (it doesn't help that they are prohibited from using their enormous resources to expand into new lines of business), but this accounting maneuver is imposing an impossible burden. The change in pension fund accounting could have a comparable impact on state and local governments.

Moody's change in accounting is not just bad politics, it is horrible policy. The key question is how we should assess the returns that pension funds can anticipate on the assets they hold in the stock market. Moody's and other bond rating agencies did flunk the test horribly in the 1990s and 2000s. They assumed that the stock market would provide the historic rate of return even when price to earnings ratios were more than twice the historic average at the peak of the stock bubble.

While some of us did try to issue warnings at the time (here) and (here) the bond rating agencies were not interested. As a result, when the stock market plunged, many pensions that had previously appeared to be solidly funded, suddenly faced substantial shortfalls.

It is possible to construct a methodology that projects future returns based on current market valuations and projected profit growth that maintain proper funding levels, while minimizing the variation in contributions through time. By contrast, if the pension funds adopted the Moody's methodology as the basis for their contribution schedules, they would find themselves making very large contributions in some years followed by years in which they made little or no contribution.

A state or local government that used the Moody's methodology to guide their contributions would effectively be prefunding their pensions in the same way that it would be prefunding education to build up a huge bank account so that K-12 education was paid from the annual interest. While it would be nice to have the cost of these services fully covered for all time, no one thinks this policy makes sense. We would be hugely overtaxing current workers so that future generations could get a huge tax break.

Even worse, Moody's scoring of pensions may discourage pension managers from holding stock as an asset. They would be held accountable for any losses in bad years, but would not get credit for the higher expected returns on stock. For this reason, risk averse pension managers may decide to hold safe but low yielding bonds.

This would lead to the perverse situation in which collectively invested funds held in pensions only hold safe bonds, even though market timing carries little risk for them. On the other hand individual investors, who are hugely vulnerable to market timing, would be holding stock in their 401(k)s.

That outcome makes no sense. But of course it didn't make sense that subprime mortgage backed securities were Aaa. This is Moody's we're talking about.


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July 19th, 2014

7/19/2014

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Good morning!  I blog during the week and during the election season speak to elections.  The top priority for the citizens of Maryland is reinstating Rule of Law and oversight and accountability.....The court has issued and I have served the summons to the Maryland Circuit Court case challenging the results for the Democratic Primary for Governor of Maryland.  The defendants now have 30 days to respond.  Hopefully the court case will be over by end of August in time for campaigning for General Election. STAY WITH CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND!

DO YOU HEAR YOUR INCUMBENT SHOUTING THAT OR ARE THEY RIGGING ELECTIONS BY NOT ALLOWING CANDIDATES WITH THESE ISSUES AS A PLATFORM NOT PARTICIPATE IN PRIMARIES?


TODAY-----HOW TO SPOT A NEO-LIBERAL AND IN MARYLAND ALL POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS!

The reason US infrastructure in crumbling is that since Reagan/Clinton corporations have been paying little taxes and corporate subsidy has skyrocketed leaving no money for public projects.  Neo-liberals came up with the idea of public private partnership to dismantle the public sector and send all public money to global corporations to disperse as they developed the project and policies.  These policies are what has infused our entire government with fraud and corruption with all oversight and accountability dismantled.  Billions of dollars are lost from every state and local coffer because of these private partnership policies.

The reason there has been no infrastructure project as everyone calls for one is that neo-cons and neo-liberals have to get all the structures and policies in place to see the trillion dollars goes to the right people.  The bill below is one of them as is Trans Pacific Trade Pact and the Senate Immigration bill.  Note that Dulaney wants to create yet another non-profit fund to handle the money----you know, to get it away from public scrutiny.


I will talk more in depth about this plan but I wanted today to show you the difference between a Democrat and a neo-liberal.  This article calls Dulaney a business-friendly Democrat.  How can a pol be a Democrat and work so hard to hide the policy-making process and make sure that public money goes to every higher corporate profit?  Remember, the amount of corporate fraud and tax evasion done in this country alone would finance all infrastructure development if stopped.  We don't even need the repatriation of corporate taxes from overseas for this.  So, this entire plan is simply to maximize corporate profit at public expense.  HOW DOES THIS MAKE DULANEY A DEMOCRAT?????

The structure for public works has always been-----people and corporations pay taxes to the general fund------a community has a need for public work and let's City Hall know-----and City Hall sends public employees from the Public Works department with city equipment to do the work.  It is very easy.  There is no motivation for fraud; no padding of bills to buy new equipment for a private business; no loss of public revenue with unending tax break incentives for simply doing work.  You have public money paying people a decent wage with benefits with the money not lost through fraud and profiteering.  The outsourcing that does happens goes to small and regional businesses.

THIS IS HOW THE US BECAME THE LEADER IN FIRST WORLD INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT ----WITH A STRONG PUBLIC SECTOR AND CORPORATIONS PAYING TAXES.

No doubt there were political wheeling and dealing about which infrastructure projects were financed but not the billions of dollars lost each year to global corporate fraud and corruption.  Not the killing of Maryland small businesses by allowing global corporations control of projects and then subcontract to subcontractors to make the locals beg for work that won't allow a profit.  That is what this Clinton economic policy brought to the US

and it has killed the country......LITERALLY.

The election for Governor of Maryland was all about making sure only a neo-liberal that supports all of these public private partnerships and financial instruments that simply fill these deals with fraud and corruption would be elected.  Brown, Gansler, and Mizeur.  Brown was the Clinton candidate because Brown is as raging a Wall Street pol as O'Malley.



PWFinancing/July-August201325

AsPublicWorksFinancing
PWFinancing/July-August2013


A business friendly Democrat from Maryland is quickly gathering bipartisan support for a bill (H.R.2084) that would create a $50-billion nonprofit infrastructure investment fund to provide bond guarantees and low-interest loans to various types of projects selected by state and local governments.


Delaney’s bank is the first to answer a recent call by
former President Bill Clinton to bring private capital and expertise more directly to bear in addressing public works financing needs.  But it does that indirectly.  Delaney would offer financial incentives for states to adopt the PPP project delivery model.  But PPP capital raising would be supported only indirectly—by reducing the cost of state and local debt used as the public contribution to hybrid financings.  Private developers would not be able to access the loan pool directly.  And by lowering the cost
of public borrowing, the bill would further skew value-for-money analyses to traditional delivery with cheap public debt. P3 advocates are hoping to convince Delaney to level the playing field.


_______________________________________

Here is a look at the same politician as Dulaney------a corporate neo-liberal looking to privatize all that is public------Elizabeth Warren.  You know that 'populist' politician that embraces all the public policy wanted by the 99% of Americans all the while supporting Hillary and Bill Clinton and global corporate markets.  WOW-----TALK ABOUT SPIN!  Warren is the progressive poser as was Obama.  Remember, Obama was to the left of Hillary last elected then served to the right of Bush.  This is who Warren is.  She supports a few progressive issues and then backs the worst of issues thinking the American people will follow her.  Whereas Dulaney is openly a Wall Street guy, it is candidates like Warren and Obama who do the most damage to Democratic voters because they pretend to be what they are not.

Below you see Warren trying as hard as any Republican to end the Post Office as a public service by tying it to Wall Street.  Raise your hands if you can see how tying anything to Wall Street will end up imploding an institution----you know, like the Federal Housing Authority FHA with Freddie and Fannie; Federal Student Loans with Sallie Mae; Federal Credit Unions now operating as Wall Street banks.  Remember, credit unions were created to do just what this Post Office as bank wants to do.  In each case these partnerships imploded the Federal agency with fraud and corruption to the detriment of the American people.  They can say all they want that this banking idea is different----it is not.  The intent is to end the Post Office by filling it with fraud and corruption.  The Post Office is perfectly fine the way it is.....it only needs Congress to stop outsourcing to private corporations all the services that bring in profit.

So, Warren is doing with the Post Office what Dulaney is doing to our public works departments----
Warren says if the people won't allow direct privatization, we'll do it the Wall Street partnership way!


Know how easy it is to start a State Bank-----a public banking system?  That is what Warren is fighting against and she is doing it for Wall Street.

Elizabeth Warren Has A Radical Plan To Remake The Post Office
  • Linette Lopez  Business Insider

  • Feb. 3, 2014, 4:22 PM

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to solve two American problems with one solution — turn the country's increasingly empty post offices into simple retail banks for low-income citizens without bank accounts. In an op-ed in the Huffington Post, Warren writes that "about 68 million Americans — more than a quarter of all households — are underserved by the banking system. Collectively, these households spent about $89 billion in 2012 on interest and fees for non-bank financial services like payday loans and check cashing, which works out to an average of $2,412 per household."


That means poor Americans spend roughly 10% of their income on basic banking services, according to a recent report from the Office of the Inspector General.

Meanwhile, we've got an entire infrastructure of post offices and postal employees who are seeing the number of letters and packages they deliver dwindle more and more by the day.

The services Warren and the OIG are suggesting aren't complex — just check cashing, small international money transfers, small loans, reloadable prepaid cards, and bill paying. The OIG insists that the USPS wouldn't become a bank. In fact, it insists that these services would merely use the USPS's ubiquitous network to complement what banks do and go where banks can't go.

Other countries have already done this, and the OIG says that if even 10% of what underserved Americans pay on interest and fees went to the USPS it would generate $8.9 billion in new revenue per year.

Hey, if it works ...



You know what would bring $8.9 billion in new revenues----STOP OUTSOURCING POST OFFICE SERVICES

__________________________________________
Here Warren yet again making public private partnerships the solution for the implosion of the FHA caused by public private partnerships.  This article indicates Warren is splitting the progressives------WARREN IS NOT A PROGRESSIVE SHE IS A NEO-LIBERAL PRETENDING TO BE PROGRESSIVE. Democratic voters must look at what a politician is pushing as a whole to know that when they say they are for the people----they are not.

The problem with Freddie and Fannie is that as public private partnerships they allowed themselves to be loaded with toxic subprime mortgage debt----they were used just as AIG was used to take the toxic mess to the taxpayer.  It was a plan.  So, the almost trillion dollars of toxic fraudulent mortgages loaded onto Freddie and Fannie simply need to be written off by the banks as bad loans.  THAT IS THE SOLUTION TO THE HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN BAD DEBT.  Then, Fannie and Freddie need to be dissolved as public private partnerships so the Federal Housing Authority can go back to being a public agency that does good work for the low-income people.  Before the partnership status the FHA ran a great operation with no malfeasance or losses.

THIS IS WHAT A PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRAT WOULD WANT TO DO------

Warren has never stated any of this and as this article shows her solution to the massive holding of toxic fraudulent loans it to create a different kind of public private partnership......we'll call it a public utility neo-liberals say.  IT IS INSANE!!!!

As you see in this article the use of the word progressive has nothing to do with progressive legislation.  It is not progressive to see public housing coupled with private entities that we know skew operations.  It appears Sherrod Brown sees this problem. 

IF YOUR POL IS NOT SHOUTING THAT THE PROBLEM WITH FREDDIE AND FANNIE IS THAT ALMOST A TRILLION DOLLARS IN FRAUDULENT SUBPRIME LOANS ARE BEING LEFT ON THE ACCOUNTS OF FREDDIE AND FANNIE----THEY ARE NEO-LIBERALS.  GET RID OF THEM.


Elizabeth Warren Splits Progressives On Mortgage Reform
Posted: 07/14/2014 7:31 am EDT Updated: 07/14/2014 7:59 am EDT Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is dividing Wall Street critics in Congress by leading talks regarding a controversial Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reform bill that some of her usual allies would prefer to abandon.

Warren is negotiating with Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) over a housing finance overhaul that cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May. The bipartisan bill, authored by outgoing Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), has been sharply criticized by bank reform advocates, including Warren, and some conservative groups for recreating many of the same problematic incentives that took down Fannie and Freddie in 2008.

The dispute among Democrats on the banking committee is mostly over tactical considerations, but it has unearthed an ideological fault line in the progressive movement: Should Fannie and Freddie be reformed to be more friendly to the middle class, or should their operations be scrapped in favor of a private -- or fully public -- system?

"The whole Crapo-Johnson approach ... seeks to replace a mortgage system the size of JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup combined [and] is a dangerous and misguided approach that creates unprecedented complexity in the form of an experiment that may not work -- and at worst, will roil and unsettle markets and risk our system of mortgage finance," said Josh Rosner, managing director at Graham Fisher & Co. "It is worse than GSEs were at their worst."

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) is also involved in the talks, but it's Warren's seal of approval that has some progressive housing advocates fretting. According to multiple Democratic sources, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), one of the most forceful Wall Street watchdogs in Congress, would prefer to see the bill scuttled entirely. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), arguably Warren's closest Senate ally, is sitting out the negotiations. And Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who consistently votes with Warren on the committee and is emerging as a surprisingly reliable skeptic of big banks, has also avoided the talks. Six Democrats on the committee voted for the original reform bill, which Warren voted against. Negotiators need to secure at least three additional votes to convince Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to bring the bill to the floor.

Warren's progressive opponents argue that her chief goals are at odds with one another, and a significant strategic risk is attached to having her name on a bill that could change dramatically either on the Senate floor or in the House. Supporters argue that she is targeting core problems with the bill, and believe a bipartisan Senate consensus would make it easier (eventually) to enact a good bill.

"This is a long game," said Barry Zigas, a former Fannie Mae senior vice president who now serves as director of housing policy for the Consumer Federation of America. "The economy needs a fair and durable mortgage finance system, and the Johnson-Crapo bill solidified bipartisan support for critical parts of that, including a federal guarantee for mortgage securities. But it needs more work, and Sen. Warren's, Sen. Corker's and others' efforts on both sides to improve it -- especially to make sure it serves the broadest possible range of creditworthy borrowers and holds its participants accountable for doing so -- are really important."

Fannie and Freddie exist, ostensibly, to lower the price of mortgages for consumers. The firms purchase mortgages from banks, pool them into securities, and sell them to investors, while guaranteeing those investors against losses. That guarantee increases investor appetite, which allows banks to offer mortgages at lower interest rates.

Prior to the crash, that system hinged on an implicit government guarantee: Investors knew that if anything ever happened to Fannie and Freddie, taxpayers would take the hit. But this support encouraged Fannie and Freddie -- which officially functioned as for-profit companies -- to engage in increasingly risky activities in the pursuit of higher payouts for shareholders and executives. When Wall Street banks started scoring huge profits on subprime loans, Fannie and Freddie followed their lead and, like the big banks, were ravaged and bailed out.

In an era of congressional stalemate, the mortgage finance status quo has its advantages. Liberal economist Dean Baker has emphasized that government control of Fannie and Freddie eliminates the core problem of the old order: private profit at public expense. The government is currently on the hook for losses, but it also books the profits from Fannie and Freddie's dealings.

There are also problems. Then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner set up a bailout repayment plan for Fannie and Freddie that makes it impossible for the firms to establish a capital cushion. The profits from their current operations are simply swept back into Treasury every quarter. Without beefier capital levels, Fannie and Freddie are barred from changing mortgage standards that would allow many creditworthy middle-class families to buy homes.

"Sen. Warren opposed the Johnson-Crapo bill in committee because she believes that it would make it harder for creditworthy borrowers to get affordable mortgages and for smaller lenders to compete against larger ones," Warren spokeswoman Lacey Rose told HuffPost. "But she is also very concerned about the lack of access to mortgage credit in the current system for lower income families and African-American and Hispanic families."

U.S. homeownership rates have long been sharply stratified by race, a phenomenon Suzy Khimm recently detailed for MSNBC. Even in the heyday of the housing bubble, most African Americans did not own a home. Today, the figure is about 43 percent, compared to 72 percent for whites. While lending standards for Fannie and Freddie have tightened already, a botched overhaul could easily leave much of the market, particularly people of color, without good options.

The current alternatives to Fannie and Freddie are, at the high-end, the jumbo mortgage market, and at the other, the Federal Housing Administration. The jumbo market is for loans that are too big to qualify for Fannie and Freddie treatment, and features higher interest rates since its loans don't benefit from government backing. The government runs FHA to assist first-time borrowers seeking smaller-sized loans, and conservatives have long waged an ideological campaign against the agency's very existence, as affordable housing advocates are well aware.

"We don't want a housing apartheid, where you've got one system over here for the better heeled homeowners and then everything else is dumped in an FHA bucket," said Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial.


Warren has focused on two central aspects of Johnson-Crapo. First, the bill's weak language on affordable housing provides no homeownership mandate, and no requirements to make loans in underserved markets. Second, its potential to exacerbate "too big to fail" by turning over many of Fannie and Freddie's powers to Wall Street, replete with government subsidies. Tackling either issue is a tall political order, and in some ways, the two goals are in conflict.

Johnson-Crapo offers two replacement regimes for Fannie and Freddie. One would allow Wall Street banks to sell mortgage bonds that put private-sector investors on the hook for 10 percent of all losses, with the government shouldering the remainder. It's easy to understand why banks have been lobbying hard in favor of such an arrangement. It would give them a piece of Fannie and Freddie's game, allowing them to offer "low-risk, high reward" products -- a financial holy grail that doesn't currently exist on the private market. It's also the same public-risk-for-private-profit model that brought down Fannie and Freddie, and a big new line of business for banks that are already too big to fail.

Warren wants to forgo that model in favor of the other system outlined in Johnson-Crapo, which would require a public utility to issue mortgage bonds, with 100 percent of any losses insured by a heavily regulated private company. The government would only step in should the insurer fail.

Every bank reform Democrat on the banking committee agrees that Warren's "bond guarantor" model is an improvement. But the model has credible detractors, including Rosner, a longtime critic of Fannie and Freddie who was one of the few to accurately diagnose the problems that eventually brought them down.

"This is the worst Rube Goldberg approach: Rather than fixing the GSEs as fully private, well-capitalized entities with real capital and rate-of-return caps and no guarantee, which would lead market participants to price deals based on the GSEs' capital, deals will be based on a government backstop," Rosner said. "It's a horrible subsidy that ensures a future systemic event."

By focusing on the types of public-private hybrids that might be acceptable, the ideological scope of the housing reform talks has narrowed significantly since the years immediately following the crisis. Rosner and other reformers, including Raj Date, an ally of Warren's at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during the agency's formative years, had advocated doing away with the convoluted subsidies of the Fannie and Freddie system in favor of a private market with more straightforward tax credits. Rosner advocates a special tax program to help low-income families save for a down payment. He has also argued that the mortgage interest deduction, which rewards families for taking on debt, should be swapped out for a mortgage equity deduction, which rewards families for paying it down.

Such an approach to housing subsidies would be far more efficient than anything currently being contemplated by the banking committee. And its efficiency is one reason why it has little political support. Conservatives are reluctant to vote for a direct subsidy, even one that would ultimately save taxpayers money. And elected officials consider any move away from the very popular mortgage interest deduction to be politically toxic.

The basic, legitimate social goal of giving citizens access to an affordable house and financial foundation is also a convoluted game of insider rewards: Any piece of mortgage-related legislation typically has to benefit various interest groups -- from realtors all the way up to hedge funds -- in order to actually pass Congress.

To advance the "bond guarantor" model, Warren will have to work out tricky technical details. Capital is the buffer between the bond insurer and taxpayers, and that buffer needs to be robust to protect the latter. But among Democrats, progressive and otherwise, there are real differences on the subject.

Warren subscribes to a widely held belief in high finance that hefty capital standards make loans more expensive, although some recent research on capital has concluded that this idea is simply wrong. But Warren, with backing from some affordable housing nonprofit groups, is pushing to reduce capital levels in the name of cheaper mortgages.

When they were taken over, Fannie and Freddie backed about $5.5 trillion worth of mortgages, and they burned through $78 billion of their own capital and more than $187 billion in taxpayer funds -- combined capital a bit less than 4.9 percent of the total mortgage book. Johnson-Crapo requires each regulated bond insurer to take on a 10 percent threshold, although it doesn't define what would count as capital (some kinds of debt are often permitted). Warren wants to bring that number down, and accompany it with a serious affordable housing mandate to prevent the new system from locking out creditworthy borrowers of modest means.

If one believes that deeper capital reserves make things more expensive, then one must strike a balance between protecting taxpayers with capital buffers and serving the market with affordable mortgages.

And then there are the very real political considerations. Even if Warren could cut a deal that included affordable housing standards and eliminated the most noxious of the public-private partnerships, she would still need to protect the core reforms on the Senate floor. The House, meanwhile, is pushing a bill that would simply eliminate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and let the market do what it will. Reconciling the two bills would be difficult, and given the political gulf between the chambers, the possibility of reaching such an agreement in 2014 borders on fantasy. If Democrats hold on to the Senate in the November elections, Brown is likely to serve as the next chairman of the banking committee, giving a Wall Street watchdog and Warren ally more leverage over a bill to chart the future of Fannie and Freddie.

On the other hand, if Republicans take the Senate, any deal Democrats could get becomes that much less favorable to the party's core constituents. Then there's always the status quo.

"I think it's a good idea to try and move the ball," said the Urban League's Morial, "but a deal that doesn't create a system that's better than the current system is not one that we can support."


_________________________________________


The FHA before privatized Freddie and Fannie operated with sound lending, helped low-income people who could truly support a home, and never had a problem with staying within its budget.  The Post Office is just as the FHA was.....it is doing its job for the American people at no cost to taxpayers.  Neither need a public private partnership.  These PARTNERSHIPS have as a goal only to place the public in the position of subsidizing corporate profits and to weaken the public entity attached to the partnership.  Neo-liberals work for small government to such a degree that they want all public agencies under corporate control and they want public money subsidizing profits all with no oversight and accountability.  That is the economy created since the Reagan/Clinton neo-liberal transition.

The first thing Obama and neo-liberals in Congress did to Freddie and Fannie when they had a super majority in 2009 was to extend the Federal protection to housing loans to $700,000 homes.  Do people affording a $700,000 home need government assistance?   In the midst of a crisis they took the FHA to funding homes for the wealthy while the low-income housing funding stopped. 

NEO-LIBERALS FIRST STEP WAS TO END THE FHA AS A LOW-INCOME HOUSING AGENCY TO PLACE THE EMPHASIS ON PROTECTING THE RICH.  THEY ALLOWED FORECLOSURES TO CONTINUE WHILE SENDING TRILLIONS TO CORPORATIONS TO EXPAND OVERSEAS.  THESE ARE NOT DEMOCRATS FOLKS.
 

The Democratic Party is not failing the 80% of labor and justice that identify as Democrats.  It has simply been taken by a group of plundering sociopaths.  Below you see 1968 ......Nixon Administration Fannie Mae became private

It was acquired by the Housing and Home Finance Agency from the Federal Loan Agency as a constituent unit in 1950.[9] In 1954, an amendment known as the Federal National Mortgage Association Charter Act[10] made Fannie Mae into "mixed-ownership corporation" meaning that federal government held the preferred stock while private investors held the common stock;[5] in 1968 it converted to a privately held corporation, to remove its activity and debt from the federal budget.[11] In the 1968 change, arising from the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, Fannie Mae's predecessor (also called Fannie Mae) was split into the current Fannie Mae and the Government National Mortgage Association ("Ginnie Mae").

But it took Clinton and neo-liberals to set the stage for the subprime mortgage fraud.  Remember, it was Robert Rubin....Clinton's partner that started Citigroup and all of the illegal financial dealings.  This had nothing to do with helping low-income----it targeted urban areas for fraud at the expense of the taxpayer.

In 1999, Fannie Mae came under pressure from the Clinton administration to expand mortgage loans to low and moderate income borrowers by increasing the ratios of their loan portfolios in distressed inner city areas designated in the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977.[18] Additionally, institutions in the primary mortgage market pressed Fannie Mae to ease credit requirements on the mortgages it was willing to purchase, enabling them to make loans to subprime borrowers at interest rates higher than conventional loans.[18]

In 1999, The New York Times reported that with the corporation's move towards the subprime market "Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980s."[1



We simply need to take HUD back to its mission.

HUD Historical Background


 

The federal government’s interest in housing conditions can be traced back to the first national investigation of large urban slum areas in 1892. HUD is the successor to a number of federal housing agencies, which gradually evolved following a major effort during the great depression to stimulate housing development. The following narrative highlights major events and legislation tracing the Department over the past decades.



1930 1950 1970 1990 1940 1960 1980 Present

The 1930s
 In the midst of widespread unemployment and financial collapse, Congress passed the Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932, creating the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). This was the government’s first major involvement in the housing field. The RFC was authorized to make loans to private corporations providing housing for low-income families. Also in 1932, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board was established to make advances on the security of home mortgages and establish a Home Loan Bank System.

However, these efforts did little to assist individual homebuyers. The average home loan at that time required very short-term credit, with terms generally ranging from three to five years. Large down payments, second mortgages, and high interest rates were commonplace. As the depression ended, and the prospect of improved financial status for individual families increased, the National Housing Act of 1934 was passed to relieve unemployment and stimulate the release of private credit in the hands of banks and lending institutions for home repairs and construction. To accomplish this, the Act of 1934 created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The FHA continues to this day, under the Assistant Secretary for Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner, as the main federal agency handling mortgage insurance. Title II of the Act of 1934 established two basic mortgage insurance programs: Section 203 mortgage insurance for one to four family homes; and Section 207 multifamily project mortgages. The FHA’s assumption of risk, through its insurance programs, made possible the amortization of mortgage loans with regular monthly payments to reduce the size of loan.

The Act of 1934 also authorized the FHA to create a national mortgage association to provide a secondary market where home mortgages could be sold. The allowed more money to be available for home loans. In 1937, the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae, was chartered by the FHA as a subsidiary of the RFC.

While these early measures were a major government effort to stimulate housing construction, they did not help those lower income families most in need of housing. Because of the needs of this group, the United States Housing Act of 1937 established the public housing program. The Act, administered by the United States Public Housing Authority, authorized loans to local public housing agencies for lower-rent public housing construction expenses.

The programs created by these acts guided the direction of federal housing policy for the next 10 years, leading to the creation of the urban renewal program. Over the years, all of these original programs have undergone some changes and additions. However, they continue to reflect the federal government’s aim to marshal both public and private resources to improve housing conditions for low-and moderate-income families.

The same year that the public housing program was approved by Congress, the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act was passed to allow the Secretary of Agriculture to make rural housing loans. The separate administration of rural loans continues to the present with the Farmers Home Administration’s (FmHA). FmHA direct loans for rural housing may be used in conjunction with other housing assistance such as Section 8 housing assistance.

While another major housing act would not be passed until 1949, government housing agencies underwent several reorganizations between 1937 and 1949. In 1939, the United States Public Housing Authority was transferred to the newly created Federal Works Agency; and the Federal Loan Agency was created to assume responsibility for the FHA, the RFC, Fannie Mae, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, and the Home Owners Loan Corporation. Three years later, the National Housing Agency (NHA) was established to handle all non-farm housing programs. The Federal Home Loan Bank Administration, the FHA, and the Federal Public Housing Administration became constituent agencies of NHA. In 1943, the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA), HUD’s immediate predecessor, replaced the NHA. Back to top.

The 1940s  World War II caused a temporary moratorium on domestic housing construction except for defense proposes. Legislation during this period, however, has a major impact on housing. The 1944 authorization of the Veterans Administration (VA) home loan program has guaranteed millions of single-family and mobile home loans since its inception. The market increase in housing construction following World War II, which led to the growth of suburban areas, is in part attributable to this financing program. This exodus to the suburbs in turn led to the need for new housing programs to deal with declining urban areas.

Congress responded to this urban decline with the Housing Act of 1949 (1949 Act). Title I of the 1949 Act authorized funds to localities to assist in slum clearance and urban redevelopment. This program, as earlier programs, once again emphasized new construction. In addition, it provided funding for activities not directly related to housing construction. Open space land, neighborhood facilities and basic water and sewer facilities were all made eligible for federal assistance. Back to top.



The 1950s The Housing Act of 1954 amended the 1949 Act to provide funding, not only for new construction and demolition, but for the rehabilitation and conservation of deteriorating areas. These amendments represented a substantive change in the evaluation of housing problems. The gradually shift from new construction to conservation has had a major impact on today’s housing policies where rehabilitation rather than demolition is encouraged. Two years later the Housing Act of 1956 added special provisions under Sections 203 and 207 and the public housing programs to give preference to the elderly, and amended the 1949 Act to authorize relocation payments to persons displaced by urban renewal. Federal involvement in housing was rapidly expanding to include not only the financing of new construction but measures to preserve existing housing resources and develop better communities. This trend continued throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. Back to top.

The 1960s
Legislation in the 1960s expressed the social concerns of providing decent and sanitary housing and ensuring that such housing is made available to all. In that sprit, Executive Order 11063, Equal Opportunity in Housing, was issued in 1962 and represented the first major effort by the federal government to combine civil rights with housing. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 assured nondiscrimination on federally assisted programs. Equality in housing opportunity was legislated by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the Fair Housing Act, which prohibited discrimination in the sale, financing, or leading of housing. The full protection of the law was expanded by the Fair Housing Amendments of 1988, further prohibiting discrimination based on familial status or handicap.

In 1965, the Housing and Urban Development Act created HUD to succeed the HHFA as a cabinet-level agency.

The 1960s brought a new method of developing low-income housing. The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 initiated a new leased housing program to make privately owned housing available to low-income families. The Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 (1974 Act) replaced Section 23 with the Section 8 Leased Housing Assistance Payment Program (Section 8). Title I of the 1974 Act created a new community development block grant (CDBG) program. Back to top.

The 1970s  In the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, laws were enacted to define and protect the rights of consumers in the areas of interstate land sales and real estate settlement procedures (RESPA). The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1976 and the Community Reinvestment Act of 1978 attempted to have lending institutions reveal where they were making their housing loans in an effort to discourage geographical discrimination in the mortgage lending industry. Back to top.



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July 18th, 2014

7/18/2014

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from subprime mortgage fraud to municipal bond fraudFRO
FROM SUBPRIME MORTGAGE FRAUD TO MUNICIPAL BOND FRAUD-----NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS ARE ALL ABOUT MOVING MONEY TO THE TOP ANY WAY POSSIBLE

Let's compare again the 2008 subprime mortgage crash and the coming bond market crash to see it is neo-liberals working with neo-cons deliberately manufacturing these crashes with the goal of moving ever more public assets to the top.  Clinton's administrative team with Robert Rubin at Citigroup created the subprime mortgage plan with Greenspan and Tim Geithner and the Federal Reserve's Bernanke with Obama created this bond market crash.  Both required the neo-liberals in Congress to pass the laws allowing the conditions.

As we know the foreclosures on homes are still going strong and Maryland leads the pack.  Remember, almost none of the parking ticket of a settlement for subprime loan fraud made it to the victims of fraud---it is being sent back to the banks paying the settlement in the form of development subsidy.  So the transfer of homeownership has never stopped since we elected a super-majority of neo-liberals.  A ridiculous attempt at refinancing with a program called HARP delayed dispensing money for years and is now advertizing to help through the same mortgage lenders having committed the frauds.  Most people have of course lost their homes through yet again a fraudulent foreclosure process.  Can you imagine handing HARP to the same institutions defrauding trillions from the FHA? 

THESE CORPORATE POLS COULD CARE LESS WHAT YOU AND I THINK----THEY THINK THEY HAVE ELECTIONS CAPTURED AND WE CANNOT MAKE CHANGE!  THEY ARE WRONG!



'So, have QE and the ballooning debt been a fantastic success or a Questionably Effective policy designed to recapitalize banks and the financial elite at the expense of most others, including pension funds, retirement accounts, savers, and bond funds'?

QE is simply a policy to allow the FED to leverage debt to buy the toxic subprime loans from Wall Streets accounts making them look as though they have recapitalized.  Those trillions that the FED bought are the most toxic of subprime mortgage loans.  The second goal was lowering the interest rate for selling homes because after all Wall Street had tens of millions of foreclosed homes coming to them and they needed to sell them as cheaply as possible to maximize bank profits.  So while neo-liberals in Congress bailed out the banks---they left Main Street in mass foreclosure all designed to move these homes to Wall Street where they were bundled and resold to the same investment firms creating the mortgage frauds.  QE lowered interest rates to zero and the only ones benefitting were those banks peddling foreclosure bundles and the foreigners laundering their looted wealth from their country to US real estate.  That was the rising sales you heard on TV news.  We see it in Baltimore as developers are buying huge tracts of communities for next to nothing ----these communities being the ones devastated by the subprime loan fraud and foreclosures.  Consolidated ownership of property is good for no one.

The FED has a mission of economic stability and low unemployment and it is fraud and malfeasance when the policies they push do the opposite.  They pretended unemployment went down when it is now at 36%----they pretended they were keeping inflation low when it is at 5% ---and they certainly will not be able to claim economic stability when the market crashes in 2015 from the bond implosion. 

ALL INSTITUTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH GOVERNMENT ARE OPENLY WORKING AGAINST THE MISSION OF PROTECTING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND ONLY A FEW ARE BEING MADE RICH FROM THIS MALFEASANCE.

For those thinking their pensions have made gains to replace losses from 2008-----those gains are about to disappear and then some.


QE: Quantitative Easing or Questionably Effective

-- Posted Tuesday, 8 July 2014
By GE Christenson

We all know the S&P 500 Index has been on a 5+ year rally to all-time highs – thanks to ultra-low interest rates and the levitating wonder of “printing money” via QE – Quantitative Easing.  Examine the following chart of the S&P for the past 20 years.

If you were a member of the top 5 – 10% and had a large investment in the stock market, you increased your nominal net worth. However, if you were in the bottom 90%, then the wonders of QE did not “trickle down” to you and your family, except as higher prices.

Pension and retirement funds benefitted to the extent of their stock investments but they were hurt by generational low interest rates in their bond portfolios.  Simply put, the stock market rally benefitted a narrow band of society – mostly the political and financial elite and upper middle class.

But how does the massive rally in the S&P look when priced in barrels of crude oil?  Examine the following chart of weekly S&P divided by weekly Crude Oil prices – both smoothed with a 52 week moving average.


That rally in the S&P, when priced in barrels of crude oil, does not look nearly as impressive.  Remember – a small percentage of people benefit from higher stock prices, but everyone pays when oil prices rise.  The price of crude oil affects food prices, gasoline prices, shipping costs, home heating costs, mining and manufacturing costs, and so many more. 

When we look at the S&P in terms of crude oil, we see:

1)    The ratio is DOWN over 75% from its peak.

2)    The ratio has been essentially unchanged since 2006.

3)    The price of crude has risen for the last 14 years - much more rapidly than the S&P, along with a massive increase in debt and the money supply.

4)    A few people benefitted from the nominal rise in the S&P and most people were hurt by the rising costs of energy, gasoline, manufacturing, food, and so on.

5)    The overall US economy seems to be sputtering, unless you believe what financial television is “selling.”

So, have QE and the ballooning debt been a fantastic success or a Questionably Effective policy designed to recapitalize banks and the financial elite at the expense of most others, including pension funds, retirement accounts, savers, and bond funds?

QE looks like it produced a toxic cloud of dangerous mal-investment, debt and currency bubbles, higher consumer prices, and a weakened economy. 

___________________________

The FED was busy taking trillions of subprime mortage loans off banks accounts leaving the FED leveraged to the max right before this coming bond crash.  What happened when the insurance corporation AIG was tethered to this same fraud?  Taxpayers paid the debt and indeed the FED's debt will be handed to taxpayers with this coming bond crash.

The other stash for toxic loans was Freddie and Fannie and rather than making banks write off those fraudulent loans to clear the debt on these public/private entities-----Obama and neo-liberals are embracing the debt as public debt and taxpayers are paying off yet another trillion in fraudulent loans there.

Friday, September 14, 2012
 
QE Infinity: Fed Buying More Toxic Assets From Banks Will NOT Help Main Street Dees Illustration

Eric Blair
Activist Post

Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve announced an open-ended bailout for the banks yesterday by a new mechanism called QE Infinity where they plan to purchase $40 billion of toxic mortgage-backed securities per month "until further notice".

Shrouded in confusing language like "unlimited stimulus" or "quantitative easing", this unprecedented move and rule change by the Fed was said to be warranted because employment remains weak even though they still maintain the false notion that "economic activity has continued to expand at a moderate pace in recent months."

As stated in the FMOC press release:
If the outlook for the labor market does not improve substantially, the Committee will continue its purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities, undertake additional asset purchases, and employ its other policy tools as appropriate until such improvement is achieved in a context of price stability. Of course this move "to foster maximum employment and price stability" does nothing to directly help job creation, and will continue to hurt main street by inflating the price of everything purchased by dollars. Yet it will clearly reward the investor class who already own most of the dollar-based assets.

The theory is that by removing toxic assets from the bank's books they have more liquidity to offer more credit, or to purchase more government debt. Somehow this is supposed to trickle down and help improve unemployment, which real numbers show to be in the 20% range when all factors are considered.

After a combined $2.3 trillion from
QE1 ($1.7T) and QE2 ($600B), plus over $16 trillion is secret bailouts to recapitalize banks with absolutely no measurable improvement in the economy, how could any thinking person believe this policy will be beneficial?


Since mortgage-based assets total a conservative $600 TRILLION, QE Infinity is nothing more than an endless giveaway to the criminal banks at the expense of struggling taxpayers. Wall Street will obviously celebrate the move and stock prices will go up, along with food and energy prices.

It is so blatantly a policy that will steal from the poor to give to the rich.  It also makes one wonder how can the government cry poor when it comes to paying for food stamps, healthcare, education, and other benefits for the needy when they have endless trillions to prop up the banksters?

Significantly, this announcement comes on the heels of a census report that shows median incomes have fallen to levels of the
late 1960s and early '70s. Of course, the mainstream version is they've only fallen to 1989 levels, which is hardly any better.

ShadowStats.com
The census report showed that the middle class is struggling with a median family income of $50,054. In 2010, Michael Snyder decisively proved that it is flat impossible for a family of four to survive on this income in America, and prices for essentials have only increased over the last two years primarily because of the Fed's reckless money printing.

This policy is an absolute disgrace and represents the final looting of the American people. There will simply be nothing left to the value of the dollar, and all of the important assets will be funneled straight up to the elite banksters.

You think you are slaves now?  Just wait.

______________________________

JUST WAIT says the article above.  Below you see how Obama and neo-liberals in Congress passed the laws creating the conditions for this bond bubble knowing a crash would hit Federal, state, and local governments the hardest.  As I question Maryland politicians about these bond leverage deals that place the taxpayer in charge of debt for decades and telling them the bond market is getting ready to crash----they tell me----OH, THAT WON'T EFFECT A PLAIN VANILLA BOND DEAL LIKE THIS!  Plain vanilla bond deal?  When Obama and Congress created terms for bonds that made the world want to buy them the bond bubble soared.  Then, the FED QE made them soar.  Remember, when the subprime loan crash came we found all of Wall Street investors in these loans had Credit Default Swaps-----insurance against losses ----with AIG being the corporation served up in sacrifice for the fraud.  These toxic policies were insured for 100% on the dollar and Obama and Geithner made sure that 100% was paid by taxpayer bailout.

Below you see the same thing happening.  The boom market now in insurance is Bond Insurance.  We see this corporations looking to be the AIG of this bond fraud as it insures bond deals against losses at 100%.  We all know the crash is coming so why are these insurance deals happening?  Taxpayers will come in to bailout this insurance corporation when the bond crash occurs. 

As you see Moody's and the other rating corporations are still in the game rating these bonds and the insurance no doubt AAA as it does Maryland and its financial picture. 


THIS ENTIRE BUSINESS DEVELOPED IN RESPONSE TO THE POLICIES IMPLEMENTED BY OBAMA, CONGRESS, AND THE FED.  IT IS THERE SIMPLY TO ALLOW THESE BANKS TO CREATE BOOM AND BUST WITH NO LOSSES FOR THE PEOPLE DOING IT.


Answers to Questions about the Novation of CIFG Assurance North America, Inc. Municipal Bond Insurance Policies to Assured Guaranty Corp.
 
December 12, 2011

In January 2009, CIFG Assurance North America, Inc. (CIFG) and Assured Guaranty Corp. (AGC) entered into a reinsurance transaction whereby AGC provides reinsurance to CIFG with respect to certain U.S. public finance and infrastructure bond insurance policies (the "covered policies").  CIFG and AGC also agreed that they would use commercially reasonable efforts to novate the covered policies to AGC.  CIFG has begun sending requests to the issuers of insured obligations (or to the applicable trustee of the bondholders) seeking consents for the novation of the covered policies. 

The novation is being implemented in two phases.  In the first phase, consents are being solicited for bonds insured in the primary market.  Bonds insured in CIFG’s secondary market custodial receipt program will be solicited in the second phase.
To the extent regulatory filings or approvals are required in connection with the novation of any policy, requests for consent will only be sent after any applicable waiting periods have elapsed or any required approvals have been obtained.

What are the benefits of novation?

Novation gives bondholders the direct protection of AGC’s claims-paying resources.  Once a municipal bond insurance policy has been novated,
AGC will request, and expects to obtain, an AGC insured rating from S&P, Moody’s or both depending on which originally provided a CIFG insured rating for the related bonds.  Although AGC already provides 100% reinsurance for the covered policies and administers the policies on behalf of CIFG, CIFG remains the insurer until the policies are novated, and the bondholder remains subject to credit risk of CIFG.

As a bondholder, do I need to take any action for the bond insurance policies to be novated?

In general, bondholders are not being asked to take any action at this time.  If there is a trustee for an issue insured by CIFG at origination, the trustee has been asked to execute a consent to the novation.  If there is no trustee (as is true for many municipal general obligations that utilize a paying agent), then the issuer has been asked to execute such consent.  If an insurance policy was written by CIFG after the bonds began trading in the secondary market, the custodian bank holding the custodial receipt that associates the policy with the insured bonds will be asked to execute the consent. Bondholders may be contacted directly by the applicable trustee, issuer VIEW LIST OF COVERED POLICIESor custodian bank as part of the consent process.

The offer to novate a particular municipal bond insurance policy will be open through the date specified in the offer unless such date is extended or the solicitation is earlier terminated at the sole discretion of CIFG and AGC.   Bondholders should contact the trustee, issuer or custodian to inquire about the status of the request and whether any action has been taken.  Bondholders are also encouraged to send their contact information, together with the name of the issuer, CUSIP number, original par, series and other identifying information concerning the insured bonds, to CIFG at novationteam@cifg.com in order to facilitate the novation process.

How will I know if the insurance policy has been novated? 

Novated policies will be identified in a list of covered policies maintained on this page of the Assured Guaranty website, which may be reached at www.assuredguaranty.com/novation.  Additionally, once S&P and Moody’s have issued new insured ratings for a given issue, those ratings should be reflected on data services such as Bloomberg.

VIEW LIST OF COVERED POLICIES
What happens to the insurance policy when novation takes place?

All of the terms and conditions of the policy will remain unchanged, except that AGC will be the insurer in full substitution for CIFG and, because of that substitution, AGC will have all of the rights and obligations of CIFG under the policy and related documents and CIFG will be fully released of its obligations under the terms of the policy. The consent form signed by AGC and the issuer, trustee or custodian, as the case may be, and a notice of effective date issued by AGC following receipt of the signed consent form will become part of the policy.

Will all the municipal bond insurance policies be novated at the same time?

No.  Except as described below, the effective date for each policy’s novation is the date on which CIFG receives an executed consent form for that policy.

If CIFG issued a debt service reserve fund surety bond or a swap insurance policy in connection with my CIFG-insured bonds, will that be novated, too?

Separate consent requests are being sent to issuers, trustees or swap counterparties, as appropriate, for each debt service reserve fund surety bond and swap insurance policy.  In cases where a debt service reserve fund surety bond or a swap insurance policy was issued in connection with a bond insurance policy or policies, CIFG must receive the executed consent forms for each bond insurance policy, debt service reserve fund surety bond and swap insurance policy, as applicable, before the novation of such policies and surety bond shall become effective.  (Where there is no debt service reserve fund surety bond or swap insurance policy, multiple bond insurance policies issued in connection with a single bond transaction may be novated independently.)

________________________________________________

Do you see anything below that leads you to believe the FED is acting in the public interest?  It is Obama and Congress that appoints these FED chairs.  DO YOU HEAR YOUR POLS SHOUTING THE FED IS ACTING CRIMINALLY?

If you do not hear your pols shouting about this rogue FED policy they are neo-liberals working for wealth and profit ----NOT DEMOCRATS FOR GOODNESS SAKE.  GET RID OF THEM!


Mission
The Federal Reserve System is the central bank of the United States. It was founded by Congress in 1913 to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. Over the years, its role in banking and the economy has expanded. Today, the Federal Reserve's duties fall into four general areas:

  • conducting the nation's monetary policy by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates
  • supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation's banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers
  • maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets
  • providing financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nation's payments system

Is the Federal Reserve accountable to anyone?
 
The Federal Reserve is accountable to the public and the U.S. Congress. The Fed has long viewed transparency as a fundamental principle of central banking that supports accountability. In the area of monetary policy, the Federal Reserve reports
twice annually on its plans for monetary policy. In addition, the Chairman and other Federal Reserve officials often testify before the Congress. To further foster transparency and accountability in monetary policy, the Federal Open Market Committee publishes a statement immediately following every FOMC meeting that describes the Committee's views regarding the economic outlook, and provides a rationale for its policy decision. Full minutes for each meeting are published three weeks after each FOMC meeting. Full verbatim transcripts of the FOMC meetings are made available with a five-year lag. Further, the Federal Reserve Chairman holds press conferences after selected FOMC meetings to discuss the monetary policy outlook.

The Federal Reserve is transparent and accountable in its other functions as well. The Board of Governors prepares an
Annual Report summarizing activities of the Board and all Reserve Banks; the annual report is delivered to the Congress. To ensure financial accountability, the financial statements of the Federal Reserve Banks and the Board of Governors are audited annually by an independent outside auditor. In addition, the Government Accountability Office, as well as the Board's Office of Inspector General, frequently audit many Federal Reserve activities. Weekly, the Board of Governors publishes the Federal Reserve's balance sheet. During the recent financial crisis, the Federal Reserve provided information about its lending programs on its public website and in a special monthly report to Congress.







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

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