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August 30th, 2014

8/30/2014

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As the article stated yesterday---costs for PIP are not going up----there is simply more fraud and corruption lifting the costs as with Medicare and Medicaid.  We are reforming Medicare and Medicaid because the health industry fraud sucked the Trusts dry.  That is what is happening with PIP.  The insurance and health industries are inflation costs by fraud with soaring profits and then claiming PIP needs to be dismantled because it is too costly.....same as Medicare.  So, rather than having the costs of your health care covered with this auto insurance that is required by law---you are now going to be pushed into Medicaid which now mostly covers only preventative health care.  This eliminates yet another outlet for health coverage for the working and middle-class while insurance and health industry profits soar.

Notice the Maryland Assembly is about to end PIP and push Maryland citizens into the most private and profit-driven health system in the nation---Medicaid and preventative care.
  The No Fault auto premiums are no small payment---as many times as people use it the total premium amounts paid often covered costs.

Think that at the same time, your rates go higher and higher for simply being in an accident no matter it wasn't your fault.  That is what deregulating the insurance industry looks like.  It gives them the ability to charge anything they want as laws are on the books requiring you to have some kind of insurance.  Deregulating while making insurance mandatory----watch that disposable income disappear with rate hikes.

Tort-based auto insurance means the ambulance-personal injury lawyers that you see on TV will be the only recourse for paying medical bills and we all know these lawyers pocket most of the money won in the lawsuit with the plaintiff often receiving pennies on the dollar.  So, this will cost health care more and that money will go to lawyers and it will come from taxpayer Medicaid.
So, now the insurance, the health care, and lawyers are getting a cut money that always went to actual care for the patient who will be bankrupt and/or left with little access to care.

THESE ARE NEO-LIBERAL AND NEO-CON POLICIES MOVING ALL MONEY TO CORPORATE PROFIT ON THE BACKS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.


All Maryland pols are neo-liberal and neo-cons doing all of the above.

'Rates did go down initially'---before the fraud and corruption sent them soaring.

PIP and No-Fault Auto Insurance Reform


More and more states are abandoning the PIP/No-Fault form of auto insurance in favor of a tort-based set of laws. PIP/No Fault originated in the 1930s as an alternative to the often slow and expensive process of litigating claims. The intent was to speed up the process by shifting the dispute resolution from the courts to the insurance companies. In theory, this was supposed to reduce insurance rates—and rates did go down initially.

By the mid-70s, almost 20 states had some form of no-fault insurance laws. However, over time, rates again rose until "No-Fault" states had higher rates than tort-based states. Beginning in 1980, states started repealing their no-fault laws, and now only nine states (Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota and Utah) have mandatory no-fault laws. Eleven states plus the District of Columbia have hybrid laws (Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia), which are a combination of no-fault and tort systems.

The pendulum seems to be swinging back to tort-based auto insurance. What does this mean for you as a policyholder?

The Good News

Tort-based systems, in theory, give you more choices for medical payments and could save you substantial amounts of money. As an example, depending on the insurance company and coverages selected, those with Colorado car insurance (the most recent state to revert to a tort-based system) could see savings of 10 percent to 30 percent, according to several recent Denver Post articles.

The Choices

PIP, or Personal Injury Protection, is still available (in most cases), should you wish (or need) to pay for it. If you choose to drop this coverage, or if you are already under a tort-based system and don't have this coverage, you can still purchase it with most policies to cover medical expenses. However, coverage will be limited, with a general ceiling of $50,000. This additional coverage, if purchased, will pay expenses incurred by you and your immediate family for injuries resulting from an at-fault auto accident.

Since many drivers are uninsured or underinsured, it is essential that you understand the ramifications of this and make an informed decision about the "Uninsured/Underinsured Motorists" coverage option.

What if?

What happens if you are at fault? Your auto policy should pay the other person's claims. Companies normally negotiate this with each other. If you have insufficient coverage, you may have to go to court—thus displaying the tort aspect of the law. Either you or your health insurance company will pay medical expenses for you and your family once those expenses exceed your auto policy coverages.

What if you are injured by another driver who is at fault? Generally, the two auto insurance companies will work together to determine fault and pay benefits accordingly. This resolves the problem in most cases. If not, or if the amounts paid are insufficient, it may be necessary to resort back to the court system to recover damages.

What if the other driver is at-fault and has no (or inadequate) insurance? Your insurance company normally covers your medical expenses. This protection is provided under the uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. If you do not have this coverage, your health insurance usually pays the bills, or you can sue the other party.

Consider the "Deductible Gap"

Generally, under a tort system, medical payments from your own policy are limited. However, in most cases you can choose "additional medical payments" and "Uninsured/Underinsured Motorists" coverage as part of your auto insurance policy.

After years of rising rates, many people may choose to forgo any additional coverages. Adding these coverages creates financial strain if you have high-deductible health insurance, or no health insurance at all. However, there is a potentially huge gap between the amount paid under a tort-based policy and your health insurance deductible. If you have no insurance, the out-of-pocket costs could be staggering. If you are not at fault in the accident, the tort-based system allows you to go to court to receive compensation for these costs, as well as for pain and suffering. But you must do so within a specified time period, and a lot of out-of-pocket expenses may be involved.

What does this mean for health insurance?

As more costs are shifted to the health insurance system, your insurance costs are likely to rise. This also means more people will be without health insurance.

So, what is next?

This is a good time to look at your health insurance to make sure you will have adequate coverage if you drop your PIP/No-Fault coverage. Don't wait until you're in an unpleasant situation to find out if you need more insurance. Be prepared!

_______________________________________________

This is when PIP was working in the interest of citizens and government coffers.  Insurance corporations were earning profits in the millions while the Uninsured auto insurance pool was bursting at the seams with revenue. 

NOW, HOW CAN WE DIVERT THE MONEY PAID INTO THIS FUND FOR HEALTH CARE INTO PROJECTS THAT BENEFIT DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONS.

This is when a good program was targeted for fraud and corruption just as with the other Federal programs Medicare and Federal Housing Authority.  Working well for citizens, leaving government coffers flush to handle future events, allowing millions in profits to be earned---BUT THAT WAS NOT ENOUGH.  You see the article below was written in 1993----HERE COMES NEO-LIBERAL CLINTON TO DEREGULATE ALL THAT HE CAN SEE......this is the deregulation that sent all of this surplus in the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund to development corporations like Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.  There's Donald Schaefer funneling money from Transporation Trusts and now MAIF to balance the budget with the public's designated money.  Baltimore Development paraded all kinds of working class and poor out to praise Schaefer who was behind creating Baltimore Development Corporations to funnel all the city's revenue from where it was to go----to where they wanted to send it.

You see the insurance corporations were able to move more and more people into MAIF clearing its rolls of all but the best of drivers.  It went from helping low-income people to subsidizing the costs of these auto insurance corporations.  It was gutted of its funds for
pet projects.  I know Ravens fans love their stadium----but most of the fans are the ones no longer affording auto insurance because of the subsidy.  Note that the Uninsured Motorist insurance had high premiums and should have paid all health care costs when needed.

Remember, this was done through fraud and corruption because this money was not to be fungible.  It needs to come back to this government coffer.



I KNOW---LET'S SEND THIS PIP MONEY TO BUILD THE NEW FOOTBALL FIELD.----M AND T STADIUM AND BALANCE THE BUDGET WITH IT.


MAIF's embarrassment of riches

March 04, 1993|
By Frank A. DeFilippo  Baltimore Sun

THE Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund has a big-time problem. It's rich. So rich, in fact, that other state agencies are itching to get their hot little hands on MAIF's $118 million surplus.

MAIF's been approached about financing a new football stadium in Baltimore. Sen. George W. Della Jr. of Baltimore has sponsored a bill that would shift $50 million of MAIF's money to the general fund. And the Schaefer administration is pilfering $5.4 million from MAIF to help balance the budget.

MAIF is Maryland's state-run insurer of last resort. Any Maryland motorist who's turned down by at least two commercial insurers is automatically MAIFed.

MAIF's rates aren't cheap.
Depending on how bad a motorist's record is, the driver's age and ZIP code, bare-bones coverage can range from $2,559 to a stick-it-to-'em high of $8,677 a year.

That MAIF should be suffering such an embarrassment of riches during a time of budget cuts and deficits is an embarrassment itself. MAIF's $118 million surplus is larger than the $100 million budget shortfall that's being plugged with keno proceeds and other money.

In theory, at least, MAIF is supposed to be non-profit. It was created in 1973 as an antidote to the no-fault insurance craze at the time, kind of an everybody's-fault approach. It's run by a board of trustees and receives no state funds, nor are its assets part of the state treasury. To settle claims, MAIF has the power to attach salaries and seize property.

Over the years, the commercial insurance companies in Maryland have pumped $137 million into MAIF. In effect, good drivers subsidize the insurance of bad drivers. In 1980, MAIF had 30,000 policies. Today it has 135,000.

Much of MAIF's excess is due to changes in the way it does business as well as some shrewd investments. At the same time MAIF has reduced rates over the past three years, it's also lowered awards. MAIF is also now doing all of its work in-house instead of farming it out to free-lance adjusters and collectors.

So it should come as no surprise that the Schaefer administration's pie-slicers approached MAIF about lending the Maryland Stadium Authority $100 million to help finance a new football stadium if Baltimore wins one of two NFL expansion franchises.

There are serious legal questions about whether the Stadium Authority has a funding mechanism for another stadium if the city is awarded a team. Because of a change in the tax code, the use of tax-free bonds to finance stadiums expired at the end of 1990.


The authority argues, though, that it's confident that it can float tax-free bonds because there have been a number of test cases around the country that might allow it.

Moreover, the authority has a bonding limit of $220 million, of which it has already used $170 million to build the new baseball stadium. The authority will pocket another $30 million over three years from lottery proceeds -- on top of the $50 million in bond money left over from the ballyard -- a total of $74 million. But a new topless football stadium will cost about $130 million. Put a lid on it, and it'll cost millions more.

So here's the catch: If the authority can't float tax-free bonds, it will have to go to market with bonds at a much higher interest rate. But before it can go to market with bonds, the authority will need the General Assembly's approval to increase its bonding capacity. This could hoist the total bond package over the spending affordability limit. Allowing this is action the legislature is reluctant to take.

It's for this reason that Gov. William Donald Schaefer is bypassing the spending affordability limit and proposing the use of transportation bonds to finance improvements to Baltimore's Convention Center. Now he's trying to scoot around the spending limit again just in case there's a football team in the city's future.

So drive carefully. Get MAIFed, and the premiums you pay could wind up helping to finance some government geegaw.

Frank A. DeFilippo writes every other Thursday on Maryland politics.

_______________________________________

Here we are just a handful of years later and what the first article stated was in fact true in Maryland----it was the hybrid model Maryland adopted that sent auto insurance money to lawyers and doctors.

Now, they are working to end hybrid and make it all tort. 
People not being able to afford strong health coverage will be preyed upon -----80% of the American people.

Again, another public program that worked fine for the people gutted and dismantled by neo-liberals and neo-cons.  Profit over people every time

Again, we are at the height of Reagan/Clinton's deregulation frenzy.
I wonder if those voters wanting small government wanted to be pushed out of driving because they can no longer afford car insurance? 

Your Public Trusts are being gutted by small government and deregulation.


Why car insurance is so high Law suits: System encourages excessive litigation, raises premiums $130 to $150 a year

.
December 23, 1996  Baltimore Sun

WANT TO LOWER your car-insurance premiums? It could happen -- if legislators in Annapolis stop catering to powerful special interests. More than 60 percent of your premium covers liability. Of that amount, 19 percent could be saved if excessive litigation and fraudulent claims were eliminated.Sadly, state legislators yawned at the problem when a gubernatorial commission sought reforms this year. Too many of them want to please trial lawyers and doctors who vigorously fight for the status quo. These special interests know that lower insurance premiums would come out of their pockets.



_________________________________________



I have talked about AIG spinoff HighStar and its connection with the Ivy League schools like Johns Hopkins.  The subprime mortgage fraudulent loans were insured here with the idea that HighStar would break from AIG with the equity and leave taxpayers to pay 100% on the dollar for the fraudulent Credit Default Swaps.   This article does a good job doing this.  Geithner was the NY FED chief that watched as trillions of dollars of fraud ran through the mortgage industry and did nothing about it----he aided and abetted the massive fraud.  What many people may  not know AIG was more a Life Insurance agency with this HighStar hedge fund sucking all its profits into their bank accounts.  Indeed, the taxpayer bailout of AIG saved the shareholders and those insured by CDS-----but it left an AIG still in business and limping along saying it is healthy when indeed it is not.  AIG Life Insurance advertises on Free TV---you know , where you get life insurance with no checkup.  Like you get a house without having a job. 

SAME THING.  THIS IS THE SUBPRIMING OF LIFE INSURANCE.


They are simply selling as many policies as they can and gaining those monthly payments knowing the coming economic collapse will bankrupt them again.

You are guaranteed to get back what you put into this Life Insurance plan-----OH REALLY????  They will spin that Life Insurance money off as they did with HighStar----probably to HighStar just as the economy is ready to crash.  THEN WE WILL HEAR----WE CAN'T PAY YOUR PREMIUMS BACK!


They will keep doing this with every business sector until you and I get rid of the neo-liberals and neo-cons that have allowed this corporate system to be deregulated with no oversight and accountability.

AIG's Collapse: The Part Nobody Likes to Talk About


Hester Peirce JUN 16, 2014 12:00pm ET

  Earlier this month, American International Group announced the departure of Robert Benmosche, the CEO who led the company through most of its recovery from the financial crisis. Now that the company’s postcrisis chapter is underway, it is worth taking a fresh look at AIG’s downfall and rescue and the implications for reform.

The standard AIG story lays all the blame for the company’s problems on AIG Financial Products—an allegedly unregulated, irresponsible, derivatives dealer hiding within an otherwise solid insurance company.

Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner repeats this traditional line in his recent book, where he recounts how an aggressive “hedge fund-like subsidiary called AIG Financial Products” brought the otherwise healthy insurance company to its knees and ultimately drove it into the Fed’s welcoming arms. Former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke made a similar claim when he told Congress how angry he was about AIG’s Financial Products unit—“a hedge fund attached [to] a large and stable insurance company.” And former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, with typical dramatic flair, explained that AIG’s “subsidiary, AIG Financial Products, operating out of London, brought down the company and nearly toppled the U.S. economy.”

This widely repeated narrative ignores or downplays a critical aspect of AIG’s downfall--the insurer’s securities lending program run for the benefit of its regulated life insurance subsidiaries.

An endnote in Geithner’s tome explains that securities lending was one of “AIG’s major liquidity needs” at the time of its rescue. As I describe in a recent working paper, the company got itself into hot water by lending securities from its life insurance companies’ portfolios. AIG took the cash collateral it received for these short-term loans and—in a departure from insurance industry practice—invested much of it in longer term, illiquid residential mortgage-backed securities.

The securities lending program grew from about $10 billion at the end of 2001 to over $80 billion by the end of 2007. When borrowers stopped renewing the loans, returned their securities, and asking for their cash back, AIG was in a bind—the borrowers’ cash was tied up in reinvestments. 

To meet borrowers’ demands, AIG lent more securities and used the cash collateral from new borrowers to return to existing borrowers. This solution only aggravated the problem. When CEO Robert Willumstad took the reins of AIG in June 2008, the cash drain from securities lending worried him more than AIG Financial Products’ liquidity needs.

Losses from the securities lending program threatened the viability of a number of AIG’s regulated life insurance subsidiaries. To save them from falling below minimum capital requirements, AIG pumped billions of dollars into these units.

Government rescue money was critical to this recapitalization effort. Taxpayer funds were also critical in meeting securities borrowers’ demands for cash. Securities lending counterparties received $43.8 billion in the last quarter of 2008, comparable to $49.6 billion in collateral postings and payments to AIG’s derivatives counterparties.

As consequential as it was to AIG in a time of crisis, nobody likes to tell the securities lending part of the story. First, it doesn’t feed as nicely into the vilification of derivatives that laced crisis narratives and fueled calls for an intense derivatives regulatory regime. Second, the fact that heavily regulated insurance companies got into trouble does not support the call for greater reliance on government regulators. Finally, the rescue of a deeply troubled company is less defensible than the rescue of a healthy insurance company with a troubled derivatives subsidiary.

The Fed’s contention that its loan was adequately secured rested on the supposition that apart from the derivatives unit, AIG was sound. The banks that went in to AIG in September 2008 to assess whether it was worth rescuing concluded that it was not.

As one of the private bankers subsequently explained, “The value of the company in its entirety was not necessarily sufficient to cover the liquidity need that the company had.”


Geithner recounts in his book that—looking for confirmation that a loan to AIG would comply with the legal requirement that “the Fed can only lend against reasonably solid collateral”—he asked Warren Buffett “what he thought about the earning power of AIG’s traditional insurance subsidiaries.” Buffett “was pretty positive about their underlying value, which made [Geithner] more confident that [the Fed] could meet the legal test of being secured to [its] satisfaction.” Buffett’s words of assurance to Geithner weren’t matched by a willingness to put his own money on the line; he refused AIG’s overtures to invest during 2008.

AIG was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy when the Fed stepped in with a better deal for shareholders and creditors. The government subsequently re-rescued the company by devoting additional taxpayer funds to it and softening the lending terms.
 At any of these re-rescue points, the government could instead have let the company go through bankruptcy.

By continuing to prop up AIG, the government shielded the company from the toughest regulator of all—the markets. AIG’s problems were not confined to one unregulated corner; problems also arose in full view of insurance regulators. Rather than assuming the Fed will be better than AIG’s other regulators, we ought to allow the truly superior regulator—the market—to do its job.







_____________________________________________

I spoke yesterday about Life Insurance corporations being the most leveraged and ready to collapse of the insurance industry but guess what is the next in line of threatened insurance corporations-----

THAT'S RIGHT----WORKMAN'S COMP.

They have been allowed to create the same over-leveraged financial status that will have them bankrupt with this coming economic collapse.  No more worker's compensation----

THAT'S HOW YOU GET RID OF THE NEW DEAL SAY NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS!  BLOW THEM UP AS WE DID THE HOUSING MARKET WITH FRAUD AND CORRUPTION!


Coming after more public wealth and no public justice in place to protect or give us recourse....that is what neo-liberals and neo-cons have been building these few decades-----Clinton and Obama taking the people's party and handing it to Wall Street.  Run and vote for labor and justice in all Democratic Primaries!  WE CAN REVERSE THIS!


Rapidly writing new contracts for worker's comp that they could not afford----sound familiar?


IMPLODING ALL OF THE NEW DEAL PROGRAMS TO PROTECT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DURING HARD TIMES.


After Tower Group collapse, lingering concerns about industry’s reserve adequacy

By Adam Cancryn and Saurabh Nair, SNL Financial Posted: May 6, 2014

...................................................

Most of the concern centers on long-tailed commercial lines, particularly workers’ compensation. Claims behavior takes longer to develop than in other sectors, making it more difficult to tell how much money should be set aside even years after a policy is written. Misjudging those reserving needs can be disastrous. SeaBright Holdings Inc. sold in 2013 after reserve charges pressured its operations, and Meadowbrook’s stock dropped nearly 35% from 2012 through 2013 amid several quarters of reserve charges. Tower Group served as the highest-profile example of reserving gone wrong, with its shares losing more than 80% in the six months before it hastily agreed to a sale.

Those companies ran into problems with business written during a softer market between 2007 and 2011, when they grew their books rapidly just as the rates being charged for coverage were at their most inadequate. When claim costs far outstripped the rates they originally charged, the insurers had to quickly build up their loss reserves. Analysts now consider the 2010 accident year one of the worst performers of the cycle, attributing the troubles to low prices and more expensive claims driven by high unemployment.

“The troubles they have now is on stuff they wrote years ago,” Keefe Bruyette & Woods analyst Robert Farnam told SNL.


The 10 workers’ comp insurers with the greatest adverse development in 2013 reported an aggregate $702.6 million in charges. SeaBright and Meadowbrook did not make that list. Tower Group was also absent, as it has not yet submitted all of its filings, but it said in February that its U.S.-taxed subsidiaries recorded $269.2 million of 2013 reserve charges.

Despite the issues, the sector continues to steadily release reserves.
Companies argue that Meadowbrook and Tower Group in particular are isolated situations, driven just as much by reckless growth as the broader industry conditions.
The rest of the industry, they contend, was more prudent in writing business during the soft market, leaving it with less risk and the ability to make up for a few unfavorable accident years with better results from other parts of their books of business. The insurers themselves are also working with much more detailed data than analysts and outside actuaries, they say, allowing them to most accurately evaluate their reserves.

“We look at it on a much more granular basis, and we think we have certainly better information,” W. R. Berkley Corp. Vice President of External Financial Communications Karen Horvath told SNL. Analysts have singled out W.R. Berkley’s reserving position as one of the more concerning in the industry, predicting that its quarterly releases would soon slow. But the company in the first quarter released about $25 million, extending a string of favorable reserve development that dates back to 2007.

Even so, skeptics are not quite willing to accept insurers’ assurances as fact. They worry that companies are already drawing down their reserves for the 2012 and 2013 accident years to supplement earnings or balance out problems in earlier years, without enough data to be sure about how those most recent years will ultimately perform.


“There is just no way a company would know or have the type of certainty under which they would be able to release reserves from some of the most recent business,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Siddhartha Ghosh, who warned that the workers’ comp sector will eventually have to strengthen reserves significantly. “We don’t think that’s a prudent way of addressing reserves.”

He pointed to the previous market cycle, when workers’ comp companies released $12.4 billion of reserves between 1994 and 2000 and then had to scramble to add back $10.6 billion from 2001 to 2005 to make up for their overconfidence.

The sector’s fortunes over the next several years will depend heavily on whether insurers can keep raising prices, analysts said.
The workers’ comp business is still not reliably profitable despite recent pricing actions, and low interest rates continue to pressure investment income. If companies can continue to move their prices considerably and consistently higher over the next couple years, the new premium should be enough to cover costs. If the rate hikes falter and claims from recent policies start piling up, though, the reserving actions that insurers used to buoy earnings for so long could stick them with a deficit that will take years to fill.

“It’s a simple equation,” Ghosh said. “The premium coming in has to be higher than the losses going out.”


________________________________________________
This is a pretty good analysis of the coming bond market crash.  Notice it states that the insurance market will be taken out----Life Insurance the first to go.  See why you are seeing all those Life Insurance ads requiring no medical checkup or anything-----

THEY ARE SIMPLY GOING TO POCKET THOSE MONTHLY PREMIUMS.


This was written in 2013 acting as if the crash would come in 2014 but Bernanke allowed the QE bond bubble machine to continue another year and Yellen is now having to address it as the FED is leveraged out.  The crash will come soon......the FED is simply manipulating the inevitable.

'The most vulnerable are those who can least afford to suffer losses: Seniors who are approaching or in retirement, who have shifted large amounts of their money into fixed income investments.

Your tax-free municipal bonds could tank.

Your annuities and other insurance policies could turn to dust.

Your money invested in bank and insurance company stocks could vanish right before your very eyes'.


All of this is pretty important----yet, we do not hear a thing about it from media, labor or justice, our pols---and all of these national leaders know it is coming.  Their policies created this mess and labor and justice leaders are constantly backing neo-liberals.
  It is important to have Governors and Mayors that will work through this in the people's interest and not corporate interest.

This article is not
hyperbole---it will happen.
I did edit out his marketing ---

The Next Great Bubble about to Collapse

Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. | Saturday, January 19, 2013 at 7:30 am

130 Senator Orrin Hatch warns that the bubble has the power to “destroy the retirement savings of millions of Americans.”

Famed economist Leonard E. Burman of Syracuse University is warning the U.S. Senate of “disastrous consequences for ourselves and the rest of the world.”

Goldman Sachs … Bank of America … Morgan Stanley … Royal Bank of Scotland … JPMorgan … and Oppenheimer Funds are all warning that it could bankrupt millions of investors.

Congressman Ron Paul says, simply, “this country will be ruined.”

These and many other authorities are talking about the greatest financial bubble in human history:

A bubble that is now more than EIGHT times larger than all the stock exchanges in the United States combined.

A bubble so massive, it is four times larger than the dot-com bubble of the 1990s and the housing bubble of the 2000s combined.

Now that bubble has begun to burst.

As it implodes, it will launch interest rates into the stratosphere … crush the feeble U.S. economy … destroy major U.S. banks and insurance companies … drive your cost of living through the roof, threaten your standard of living and financial security … and push the U.S. government to the very brink of financial collapse.

But the best defense is a strong offense -- and this crisis will also create windfall profit opportunities for a select group of investors who make the right moves now.

Just a few days ago, Weiss Research analyst Tom Essaye hosted a special online summit meeting to explain exactly how, and I’ll give you a transcript of the meeting in a moment.

In our online summit, he was joined by Safe Money editor Mike Larson and Real Wealth editor Larry Edelson. Here’s the transcript…

The Next Great Bubble about to Collapse
with Tom Essaye, Mike Larson and Larry Edelson — abridged transcript

Tom Essaye: If there’s anyone who knows how to capitalize on bursting bubbles, it’s our firm, Weiss Research.



For nearly a year now, I’ve been sounding the alarm again; NOT for the bursting of a bubble in the tech sector or housing sector … but in a market that is many times larger than all the stock exchanges in the United States COMBINED.


Debt is created in the bond market. That’s where the government goes to borrow money. So do states and local governments. Companies, too.

Borrowers sell bonds — or notes and bills — that guarantee investors a certain rate of interest or “yield” over time.

Since the turn of the century, the U.S. bond market has simply exploded in size — adding $20.7 trillion in new debt.


But now, despite massive new initiatives by the U.S. Federal Reserve, the meteoric rise in prices that characterized the debt market since the turn of the century has sputtered, stalled and is now dead in its tracks.

Millions of investors all over the world — including many of the world’s richest central banks — have started to stampede for the bond market’s exit.

And now, we’re beginning to see the first cracks appearing in this massive bubble.


This chart of the PIMCO Total Return Bond Fund is a perfect picture of the bubble in the bond market — and also the beginning of the crash.

On the left side of the chart, you can see the bubble in the bond market being inflated.

On the right-hand side, you can see how prices just plunged well below their support levels.

And just look at this chart of the iShares Municipal Bond ETF: It just fell off the proverbial cliff, giving back every penny it gained since last July!

But this crash has barely begun. The last few Treasury auctions showed that bidding from foreign central banks is plunging to the lowest level in years.

In addition, U.S. investors are starting to turn bearish on Treasuries. A recent report from a top industry watchdog showed that nearly 20% of all Treasury investors have started to cut back their holdings.

Even Fitch — the normally conservative ratings firm — is warning that a massive bubble has been created in the bond market.

This is huge. Bubbles are like an enormous Ponzi scheme: They collapse when the money stops flowing in.

The moment that happens, it’s over. And it’s beginning to happen right now!

As this bubble — the greatest bubble mankind has ever seen — implodes, the consequences will be devastating for millions of unprepared investors, just like the tech bubble was and just like the housing bubble was.


The most vulnerable are those who can least afford to suffer losses: Seniors who are approaching or in retirement, who have shifted large amounts of their money into fixed income investments.

Your tax-free municipal bonds could tank.

Your annuities and other insurance policies could turn to dust.

Your money invested in bank and insurance company stocks could vanish right before your very eyes.






0 Comments

August 29th, 2014

8/29/2014

0 Comments

 
THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY IS THE NEXT VEHICLE FOR PREDATORY FRAUD AND GUTTING OF PUBLIC WEALTH. FOR OVER A DECADE CONGRESS HAS LOOSENED POLICY TO ALLOW INSURANCE CORPORATIONS TO OPERATE LIKE BANKS WITH THE MONEY THEY COLLECT.  THEY ARE NOW USING THEM WITH LEVERAGING SCHEMES AND COMPLETE DISREGARD TO THE SAFETY OF YOUR FUNDS.  A CRASH IS COMING THAT WILL CAUSE THESE CORPORATIONS TO GO INTO BANKRUPTCY JUST AS AIG INSURANCE DID IN 2008.  PLEASE CONSIDER THAT PLACING YOUR MONEY IN THESE POLICIES WILL RESULT IN THE SAME FRAUD AND USE OF FUNDS AS FODDER AS HAS HAPPENED WITH OUR PENSIONS. 


IFAwebnews.com > National >

P&C industry enjoys portfolio boost from soaring stocks in 2013

P&C industry enjoys portfolio boost from soaring stocks in 2013
By IFAwebnews Staff Posted: May 30, 2014


When Republican pols say they are going to rebuild oversight and accountability they mean they are going to stop all that Food Stamp or pension fraud by employees faking injury.  They do not mean they are going to stop the billions of dollars in corporate fraud from corporate fleecing of consumers and policy holders.  Neo-liberals simply say nothing and let it all continue because their goal is to empty government coffers to restructure for Trans Pacific Trade Pact and global tribunal rule.

I have shown so much data that shows the billions of dollars in corporate fraud and yet this corporation working for the insurance industry states that 90% of insurance fraud is by the consumers or 'non-professional' fraudsters.  That's the 99% for you and me.
  Given that most Americans were pushed into poverty with last decade's massive corporate fraud, no doubt some average Americans are looking for ways to survive the stagnant jobless economy.  Insurance corporations might want to join the fight to get rid of neo-liberals and neo-cons so we can rebuild a domestic economy and citizens have jobs to and consume.

Insurers continue to count the cost of soaring fraud

July 2012  Experian Identity and Fraud


'The vast majority of fraud – more than 90 per cent - is being carried out by consumers or ‘non-professional’ fraudsters, so-called first-party fraud'.

Below you see what is really happening----insurance corporations are creating reasons to get rid of all consumer protections regarding policies that create some level of cost protection.
You will notice that this article refers to pushing the cost of business onto Medicaid and the public as does health care reform.  Yet another move to send most Americans to Medicaid-level of care for all health care.

Is insurance fraud causing auto No-Fault premiums to rise, or are insurance companies price-gouging and trying to hide the truth?


February 20, 2012 by Steven Gursten

Insurance lawyer says truth is not what the insurance industry would like public to believe

There is a lie being spread by the auto No-Fault insurance industry in Michigan --
a lie that our auto insurance premiums are more expensive due to insurance fraud.

This from an insurance industry that is making record-breaking profits– and on the heels of a $1 billion raise. The insurance industry would love to divert attention away from its own profits and find something – anything – to blame the cost of our premiums on.

In a recent press release from the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), the group stated that fraud is “forcing” drivers into paying more for their auto insurance, especially in states like Michigan:

Soaring medical bills, high attorney fees and rampant fraud and abuse are forcing drivers in (several of the nation’s largest states including Michigan) to pay significantly more for auto insurance than they should,” said Paul Blume, senior vice president of state government relations for PCI. “Over the last several years, fraud rings and abuses of the system have cost consumers over $1.6 billion in New York and Florida alone. This amounts to a “fraud tax” on hardworking citizens and the cost trends in these states are unsustainable.”

This fraud and abuse argument couldn’t be farther from the truth. The insurance industry always lumps Michigan into its paint-with-a-broad brush approach. Yet the insurance industry has not produced actual cases of No-Fault insurance fraud in Michigan.


Yes, there have been widely publicized abuses occurring in other states. Yes, I will be the first to say there are some No-Fault insurance lawyers who are too aggressive today, and from time to time I blog about these excesses as well.

But unlike what is happening in some states, in Michigan the insurance companies are making record-breaking profits. In other words, the real cost driver of auto insurance remains an insurance industry that is almost entirely unregulated in what it can charge Michigan drivers who are forced by law to purchase No-Fault insurance.


Want to really curb insurance fraud? I’d start with empowering our insurance commissioner to regulate clearly excessive premiums that insurance companies charge here in Michigan. And then watch the cost of No-Fault insurance premiums plummet.

There is no reason why insurance companies should make more money off the backs of Michigan drivers in this state than they do in any other state in the US.

And fraud goes two ways. If we are really serious about fraud, then why not start tackling the insurance company IME industry of cut-off doctors that find nothing wrong with anyone, and that always deny people their PIP benefits, no matter how serious the injuries?  THAT'S WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT!

There will always be accusations by the insurance industry’s spin doctors, but so far these accusations have been without any factual support. In fact, this report from the National Crime Insurance Bureau puts Michigan at the lower end of questionable claims.

Let’s control excessive insurance industry profits before we pass No-Fault “reform” Meanwhile, this same insurance industry wants to increase profits even more. There is a huge push by the insurance industry for No-Fault “reform” that would eliminate vital insurance protections. In exchange for the suggestion of lower premiums (they refuse to promise), drivers would be able to choose lower amounts of PIP insurance coverage that provide limited No-Fault (PIP) benefits – including levels clearly insufficient if someone is seriously injured in a car accident, truck accident or motorcycle accident.

These auto accident victims would simply be pushed onto Medicaid. And taxpayers will be stuck footing the bill.

So while the deep-pocketed insurance industry is aiming to take away our most important insurance protections – touted by the insurance industry itself as the best No-Fault system in the nation — I’d look to the insurance industry first as the reason why our No-Fault insurance premiums are so expensive.

It’s not because there’s rampant insurance fraud in Michigan. And it is not because of the cost of medical care or No-Fault attorney fees, as the insurance industry spin-doctors would like us to believe.

It is because, again, Michigan is one of the only states that does not allow our insurance commissioner the power to regulate excessive profit-gouging by our own auto insurance companies. To put it simply, our insurance is high because the insurance industry makes it that way, in order to charge more and make higher profits in Michigan than in any other state in the country!


- Steve Gursten is one of the nation’s top insurance attorneys handling auto accident lawsuits. He is head of Michigan Auto Law and president of the Motor Vehicle Trial Lawyers Association. Steve frequently writes about Michigan auto insurance and insurance company abuse, and is available for comment.

Related Information:

Help save Michigan No-Fault: Write your representatives


Charade over “savings” from Michigan No-Fault “reform” has finally stopped

Michigan No-Fault insurance resource center

Michigan Auto Law is the largest law firm exclusively handling car accident, truck accident and motorcycle accident cases throughout the entire state. We have offices in Farmington Hills, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and Sterling Heights to better serve you. Call (888) 996-0279 for a free consultation with one of our Michigan insurance attorneys.

__________________________________________

This is a great article written last decade by New York's Attorney General Spitzer known to be actually fighting for corporate responsibility at the time.  This shows the degree of fraud and corruption that existed before the economic crash of 2008------everyone knew AIG insurance corporation was loading itself with fraudulent debt----and it shows what exists today as no attempts to change this environment have happened.  In fact, neo-liberals Obama and Congress are making it worse.

So, when insurance corporations paint consumers as driving fraud in order to hide profiteering and fraud by these very corporations-----you have a free-for-all as regards Rule of Law and accountability.  The American people are being required by law to buy these No Fault Insurance plans-----or with Affordable Care Act----the Catastrophic Care policies with rates that just keep rising.  You cannot escape them unless you opt out of driving and/or accessing health care.
......WHICH IS THE POINT.


I actually cried when Spitzer was brought down with prostitution charges.  You can believe these charges came to light to get rid of him although his behavior was unexcusable.  The point now is that this corporate fraud is going to soar with Trans Pacific Trade Pact seeking to end all US Constitutional rights of WE THE PEOPLE.


This is only a partial post of this article----you should check out the whole article.



 
State Attorney Generals And Other Agencies ?Investigate? Insurance Industry "Widespread Fraud And Corruption" Charges

Extent Of Government Agencies Insurance Industry Investigations, Results
[Notes: the "Headlines" lists (below) tell the extent of the investigations for each agency.
"Articles Library" following the headlines lists (farther below) includes the articles full text.]





Introduction - AGs Investigations, Results (various states)

On October 14, 2004,

NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer Announced A Lawsuit Brought Against Marsh & McLennan Companies, "The Nation's Leading Insurance Brokerage Firm", For "Fraud, Bid-rigging and Antitrust Violations".  The following Major Insurance Companies AIG, Hartford, ACE, and Munich American Risk Partners" were named in the Complaint as Participants." AG Spitzer said, "The insurance industry needs to take a long, hard look at itself."  "If the practices identified in our suit are as widespread as they appear to be, then the industry's fundamental business model needs major corrective action and reform." "There is simply no responsible argument for a system that rigs bids, stifles competition and cheats customers," he added, "alleging that it steered unsuspecting clients to insurers with whom it had lucrative payoff agreements, and that the firm solicited rigged bids for insurance contracts."  "The Attorney General's office has uncovered extensive evidence showing that it distorts and corrupts the insurance marketplace and cheats insurance customers." "Marsh, at times, solicited fake bids" "even as it claimed in public statements that its "guiding principle" was to always consider its client's best interests." The "immediate victims of the illegal practices were ... mainly large corporations seeking property and casualty coverage, but also small and mid-size businesses, municipal governments, school districts and some individuals." In a press conference, Attorney General Spitzer indicated, as referenced by the title of his Press Release, "Investigation Reveals Widespread Corruption In Insurance Industry", that as the investigation continues, it could proceed further into property & casualty, expand into auto, health and other areas of insurance. "Trust me," Spitzer said upon filing his complaint against Marsh, "this is Day 1".





Introduction - National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and States Departments Of Insurance (DOIs) Investigations, Results (if any)
[also includes other related state and federal agencies as may be applicable].

It Is Proven Extremely Doubtful For Most DOIs, If Any, To Investigate Or Take Real Criminal Action Against Insurance Companies That They Are Supposed To Regulate, Which Historically They Have Had A Warm And Cozy Relationship With For 150 Years. If Ever, There Has To Be A Legal Action Taken And/Or Criminal Conviction First Before DOIs Might Take Any Meaningful Action, If Any, ... And That Is To Justify Their Reason For Being. Instead state DOIs' do occasional "Market Conduct Examinations" which is no more than fluff for the Press and to deceptively show state citizens that they are supposedly doing their jobs and to justify their Agency's reason for being and to protect their jobs. EXPECT the usual politically correct announcements of alleged cooperation with state Attorney General Probes, an alleged task force set-up to investigate that we will never hear from again ... and then, even after Attorney General investigations and criminal prosecutions take place, expect no actions from the state DOIs and NAIC. This section nonetheless will cover their deceptions and announcements of their intent to cooperate with state Attorney General probes (esp. as they have all of the state insureds complaints, etc.) even though they won't share these files or information or ultimately will not cooperate with their state Attorney General's investigation ... this section also includes comments, studies and reports from FBIC and outside industry experts.

Unfortunately, based on decades of industry knowledge and experience, one should not expect any meaningful new investigative or prosecutorial results from the NAIC or state DOIs with exception of a token prosecution from a few states DOIs … who know in cases that if they don't prosecute, NY Attorney General Spitzer's office will. Otherwise, expect "the usual deception, cover-up, well disguised lack of 'real' and 'meaningful' cooperation or actions in most if not all cases. Expect their appearances of going through the exercises to satisfy the media, possibly a few meaningless fines from insurance companies which usually each state DOI gets to keep, along with a meaningless company warning or reprimand and/or temporary suspension of an employee (with pay) ... But in the whole grand scheme of things, any actions will be meaningless and have no measurable effect or contribution toward reform and the final results ... in fact expect just the opposite and maintenance of the status quo.

The truth of the matter is the NAIC’s and state DOIs’ historical record of duplicitous rhetoric, consistently staunch, pro-insurer allegiance and secretive anti-consumer positions being well disguised to the contrary for decades as they deceptively continue to portray themselves as champions of the consumer and protectionists of the people. This deception has been well maintained under a strict industry non-transparent cloak of secrecy tightly hidden behind a wall of silence made possible by decades of successful industry legislative lobbying affording them unnecessary special laws and an exemption from federal laws that are exclusive only to the insurance industry.  Regardless, in the interest of objectivity, FBIC will look to report the announcements along with outcomes and results of the NAIC and state DOI investigations and cooperation with state Attorney General offices which NONE are expected ... and then let you be the judge. The investigations are indicated as of this writing and date have just begun ...


The NAIC's and individual states DOIs' past three decades actions and track record strongly indicates a strong biased favoring of insurers versus a near total lack of actions in the protection of consumers from the unscrupulous and unlawful actions by many of the country's largest and most powerful national interstate insurers which are indicated as bad faith insurers. From research, experience and input from the many thousands of Americans, FBIC knows not to expect any meaningful actions or any real cooperation by the NAIC or individual states DOI commissioners and the Departments they oversee. Instead, FBIC expects the usual politically correct press releases from them espousing the same rhetoric and hyperboles in the past, indicating the alleged actions they are supposedly taking to investigate the insurers related criminal activities. According to their alleged usual routine, they will issue these periodic press releases to the media which espouse and give the implication that investigations are underway, active, and ongoing. As usual they hope their press releases will be adequate enough to stave off the persistence of the Press looking for interviews and more specific details. Their preferred modus operandi in between press releases is the exact opposite, that is to run and hide quietly behind their vaulted tightly closed doors and remain as quiet as possible. But when given no choice by a persistent reporter for the Press, their canned routine is to comment only on their last press release, no more and no less.  When cornered and really pressured into a corner for comment, the occasional use of the "we never comment on ongoing investigations" appears to be most suitable.


_______________________________________


Below is a stat that has a broad range.....actually most government watchdogs place the amount at $400 billion a year and rising.  This amount is staggering and it is why neo-liberals and neo-cons are claiming that the Medicare Trusts will be empty in just a decade.  IT WAS LOOTED BY THE HEALTH INDUSTRY AND FRAUDULENT INSURANCE CLAIMS.  Then, neo-liberals allowed these same health institutions write the Affordable Care Act privatizing all public health and deregulating and making global corporations of our health care.

Please stop allowing neo-liberals to control the Democratic Party.  The people's party is the one that should put protecting public wealth first.



Industry Execs Targeted for Health Fraud
Posted in Health Insurance , Medicaid , Medicare


June 1st, 2011



Health care fraud, especially in the areas of Medicare and Medicaid, is known to be costly. In fact, the government is said to lose between $60 billion and $2 trillion to fraud every year.

We Must Stop the Rampant Fraud in the Health Care Industry

www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/we-must-stop...  

Jun 29, 2009 · What we have seen over the last several decades is the systemic fraud perpetrated by private insurance companies, private drug companies, and private for ...

_______________________________________

I am shouting about this corporate fraud because it is expanding into insurance industries like LIFE INSURANCE.  If you watch free TV the commercials are on Life Insurance corporation after another.  They are using the decline in American people's wealth as the scare tactic behind buying LIFE INSURANCE.....you don't want to leave your family with your expense.  This is the same industry that used AIG to bring down the economy and take millions of people's homes through the subprime mortgage fraud.  We got your house, now come to us to protect you after you die......OH REALLY?????

What they are doing is setting the stage for the exact economic collapse that took AIG into bankruptcy unable to pay its debt and having US taxpayers paying 100% of insurance bets on subprime mortgage loans.  Only this time, it will be Life Insurance.  They are taking all that equity you and I are paying each month and using it to leverage 1,000 times what they can afford and guess what?  AN ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN THE BOND MARKET IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER.  They will be taken into bankruptcy with your equity disappearing.

NEO-LIBERALS IN CONGRESS ACTUALLY PASSED LEGISLATION ALLOWING INSURANCE CORPORATIONS TO ACT AS BANKS WITH THE POLICY INSTALLMENTS----LEVERAGING BEYOND WHAT CAN BE COVERED.


ALL OF MARYLAND'S POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS.


This is a partial clip of a great look at how the insurance industry is being allowed to become as entwined and leveraged as the financial industry creating the same conditions of too-big-to-fail and propensity to collapse.

Systemic Risk and the U.S. Insurance
Sector

By J. David Cummins and Mary A. Weiss
Temple University




Systemic Risk and the U.S. Insurance Sector

Abstract

This paper examines the potential for the U.S. insurance industry to cause systemic risk events that spill over to other segments of the economy. We examine primary indicators that determine whether institutions are systemically risky as well as contributing factors that exacerbate vulnerability to systemic events. Evaluation of systemic risk is based on a detailed financial analysis of the insurance industry, its role in the economy, and the interconnectedness of insurers. The primary conclusion is that the core activities of the U.S. insurers do not pose systemic risk.
However, life insurers are vulnerable to intra-sector crises because of leverage and liquidity risk; and both life and property-casualty insurers are vulnerable to reinsurance crises arising from counterparty credit exposure. Non-core activities such as derivatives trading have the potential to cause systemic risk, and most global insurance organizations have exposure to derivatives markets. To reduce systemic risk from non-core activities, regulators need to develop better mechanisms for insurance group supervision.



By way of preview, the analysis suggests that the core activities of insurers are not a major source of systemic risk. However, there are several sources of exposure to intra-sector crises, which could potentially spill over into the broader economy if sufficiently severe. For example, a substantial proportion of insurers have very high exposure to one or a few reinsurance counterparties, suggesting the possibility of a reinsurance spiral that could lead to substantial financial deterioration. In the life insurance industry, the high leverage of the life insurers, exposure of surplus to reinsurance defaults, and insurer investment in mortgage backed securities raise concerns about sectoral stability.


MEANWHILE-----

While they are leveraging themselves to the point of collapse-----they have a new revenue source-----SELLING YOUR PERSONAL INSURANCE DATA
....a profit bonanza.  So, too-big-to-fail and emergency bailouts with bankruptcy clearing all that need to pay consumer LIFE INSURANCE policies and VOILA-----you have AIG all over again.

THAT'S WHERE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS ARE TAKING US!


All of that data you send in that is supposed to be confidential?  FORGET ABOUT IT-----IT IS EARNING INSURANCE INDUSTRIES BILLIONS OF DOLLARS AS A PRODUCT.


How the Insurance Industry Should Leverage Big Data

  Posted February 27, 2014


The Insurance Industry generates vast amounts of data, from legacy systems, call centre dialogues to customer records and it is multiplying rapidly. It is time for the insurance companies to start getting access to all this available data and start analysing it. In this video, Laura Hay – National Leader Insurance KPMG, talks about the massive potential of Big Data, Mobile and Predictive Analytics for the Insurance industry.


0 Comments

August 27th, 2014

8/27/2014

0 Comments

 
Here in Baltimore the media and watchdogs expose scandals and corruption all the time and nothing happens.  If you go to a Baltimore Board of Estimates meeting you will see no one protesting anymore because the Board has worn down all of the contractors seeing what is widespread bid rigging and inflation.  I was at a meeting where an out of state contractor's bid was so much lower and he was as qualified and was incredulous as he was turned away from protest.  People no longer go to the meetings because they are so closed to justice there is no way through normal public channels to seek justice.  This is what happens on the state and Federal level as well.  Now that global corporations are getting contract bids from all levels of government and subcontracting ----they are the only ones pocketing all of this fraud and corruption.  Local contractors are left to the status of subcontractor having to bid so low as to not be able to earn a profit.  They then lower the standards for their workers so everyone is effected by this massive and systemic fraud.  Let's take a look again today at a local fraud and then national.  Remember, your pols are creating these conditions.  They could shout loudly, place pressure on the people in the process or the Attorney General to give due process and equal protection but the laws they are passing moves to further keep the public from accessing justice. 

NEO-LIBERALS ARE WORKING FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND NOT YOU AND ME!  STOP VOTING FOR THE SAME INCUMBENTS AND RUN FOR POLITICAL OFFICE!

Below you see how our public utilities are being corrupted by this privatization push.  My concern for Smart Meters is they are set to gather data to sell and that the goal will be to ration water and electricity.  Even greater than that is that the process has already been filled with fraud and corruption.  California, Texas, and Arizona were ground zero for this privatization and installation of Smart Meters and tons of articles exist speaking of billing inflation-----the high cost of the product and installation----all when the public system we used for a century has worked just fine until the last decade when public employees were fired and bills were 'estimated'. 

When global corporations commit fraud----no one goes after them.  Imagine a $600 utility bill and how you would get that back?  Well, those already exposed to this are shouting -----YOU DON'T GET IT BACK AND YOUR STATE WILL NOT HELP YOU!


In Maryland, O'Malley and the Maryland Assembly are so neo-liberal as to pass laws that fine you for opting out and making those fines grow too costly to have a choice.  They say----YOU WILL CONNECT---WE WANT THAT DATA!


Another Attorney General exposes "smart" meter scam
Written by Donna Hancock
Date: 04-22-2013
Subject: Big Brother
Sent from at reader:

“What the record sadly lacks is a discussion of competing considerations regarding the program or the necessity of the program and its costs as related to any net benefit to customers.”
~ Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette

Warren Woodward

55 Ross Circle

Sedona, Arizona 86336

928 204 6434

April 20, 2013

Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC)

Docket Control Center

1200 West Washington Street

Phoenix, Arizona 85007

Re: Docket # E-00000C-11-0328

Commissioners;

           In addition to both the Attorneys General of Illinois and Connecticut, the Attorney General of Michigan has also issued a statement calling into question the efficacy of “smart” meters and the “smart” grid.

           Salient excerpts:

·         “A net economic benefit to electric utility ratepayers from ... smart meter programs has yet to be established.”

·         “Any assumption that large numbers of residential customers will have the time, ability and motivation to attend to, and act upon daily or even hourly changes in their electrical is questionable.”

·         “What the record sadly lacks is a discussion of competing considerations regarding the program or the necessity of the program and its costs as related to any net benefit to customers.” [italics in original]

           The Michigan Attorney General's statement (enclosed and available online here: http://efile.mpsc.state.mi.us/efile/docs/17000/0408.pdf) reinforces what I have said repeatedly: the only benefit of the “smart” grid is to utilities, not ratepayers. Utilities are gaming the system through their 8 to 10% guaranteed rate of return on so-called “capital investments”.

           Of course another part of the scam is the proven over-billing of “smart” meters. California's KION/FOX35 TV did a three month side-by-side comparison of a “smart” meter and a calibrated mechanical analog meter. After three months the “smart” meter showed an extra 37 kilowatt hours. The test is consistent with anecdotal over-billing reports I receive from Arizonans. Do the math. I calculate a similar rip-off in Arizona would net APS over $20 million more per year. (“PG&E Smart Meter Side By Side Test Final Results” – http://www.kionrightnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=14016659)

           What a miserable pity for Arizona ratepayers that the ACC never followed through on its 2007 decision that called for the costs and benefits of the “smart” grid to be considered. Indeed, “What the record sadly lacks is a discussion of competing considerations regarding the program or the necessity of the program and its costs as related to any net benefit to customers.”

           When will it be admitted that the ACC made a colossal mistake by allowing the utilities to install “smart” meters without any regulatory oversight or examination? How much more ratepayer money will be wasted on this utility scam, while the already bloated salaries of APS executives are set to double and triple? (“APS offering executives potential bonuses for 2013” - http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2012/12/28/aps-offering-executives-potential.html?ana=yfcpc)

Sincerely,

 Warren Woodward

Cc: Governor Jan Brewer, Attorney General Tom Horne



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I had a friend run into these problems where late water bills end in your house being placed for auction.  The City Hall allows citizens homes to be handed to an investment firm buying the debt.  My friend asked 'DO YOU WANT MY HOUSE' to which the City Council person said----yes they do.  It's in a valuable section of the city.  The article below is from 2012 but it is still happening today.  Nothing has changed.

Baltimore uses fraud and corruption to take people's houses from them and it of course hits those struggling financially as it is.  WHEN GOVERNMENT PREYS ON THE PUBLIC FOR REVENUE RATHER THAN COLLECT IT FROM CORPORATIONS----

You have a neo-liberal or neo-con working City Hall.  GET RID OF THEM!


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE         Contact: Lester Davis Monday, March 5, 2012        410-396-4804 (office)   443-835-0784 (mobile)
Council President Young Calls for Moratorium on Placing Liens Against Properties Based Solely on Unpaid Water or Sewer Charges
Legislation comes after audit reveals dozens of homes were placed under lien based on estimated water bills


BALTIMORE
, MD –City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young has taken the bold step of calling for a moratorium on listing properties in the City’s annual tax sale based solely on unpaid water or sewer charges.

Council President Young will introduce a resolution at tonight’s City Council meeting requesting a moratorium on placing liens on properties with unpaid water or sewer charges. The moratorium would be in place for a two year period, or until the Departments of Public Works and Finance are able to create a viable and fair system for billing the more than 400,000 city and Baltimore County customers served by DPW. Tonight’s resolution will be followed on Monday, March 26, 2012, by the introduction of an ordinance that would enforce the moratorium through a change in city law.

Council President Young’s legislation was prompted by a recent audit that found widespread problems with the integrity of the billing system used by the Department of Public Works to charge residents for water and sewer usage.

Some of the troubling findings from the audit include:

  • 38,000 customers in Baltimore City and Baltimore County were over-billed, resulting in refunds totaling more than $4 million.
  • More than 18,000 properties were billed based solely on estimates, with no actual meter readings for a year or longer.
  • More than 2,600 customers were billed based solely on estimated meter readings for at least 4 ½ years.
  • Efforts by customers to correct these billing issues by requesting actual meter readings often resulted in the customers subsequently being over-billed.
  • $31.7 million, or 25 percent, of the total adjusted water billings for the year examined resulted from estimated billing.
Council President Young has a history of working to solve long-standing problems with the city’s water billing system. As recently as 2010, Council President Young supported legislation by Maryland State Sen. James Brochin that sought to stop the forced sale or foreclosure of properties due to unpaid water or sewer bills. Council President Young has also introduced legislation in the City Council to address this persistent problem.

“I’ve encountered too many constituents on fixed incomes, who routinely have to choose between feeding their families and buying needed medication or paying improperly estimated water bills, which if left unpaid have the danger of forcing them into homelessness,” Council President Young said. “It’s time we do something serious to remedy this situation, which has driven too many Baltimoreans further into poverty.”

In May 2010, 851 properties were included in the city’s tax sale based solely on estimated readings for one or more years. Some of these bills were for just hundreds of dollars, and a DPW review suggested that in at least one instance a property would not have been eligible for the tax sale if actual readings, instead of estimates, had been used.

Ms. Lelia Ellerbe, who has lived at Alameda Place in North Baltimore for 18 years, said that she recently contacted Council President Young’s office after growing increasingly suspicious about inflated water bills. Ms. Ellerbe said her research showed that nearly a dozen of her neighbors had received identical water bills over several billing cycles, despite differences in their water consumption.

“If you’re on a fixed income, a discrepancy with your water bill could be extremely detrimental,” Ms. Ellerbe said.

Placing unnecessary financial burdens on families during difficult economic times is harmful and unacceptable, but overcharges on water and sewer bills are especially dangerous because the charges, if left unpaid, are routinely converted into liens against the properties. The liens can then be sold or foreclosed on, which could lead to a family losing its home because of an unpaid water or sewer bill.

Click here for a copy of Council President Young’s resolution

_____________________________________

If corporations are not paying taxes, getting all kinds of subsidy, and committing huge frauds-----we need the working and middle-class paying lots of fines and fees to state and local government.  That is what speed cameras is about.  In Baltimore it became so corrupt and fraudulent that thousands of people were ticketed without cause and we could not get City Hall to turn off the cameras.  It took a huge upswell of citizen rage to have these faulty cameras turned off.

Again, a public employee used to do just fine randomly setting up speed zones to keep citizens aware.  THAT IS ALL THAT IS NEEDED.   Now, you have no idea when an infraction happens and almost no way to fight it.

The reason all this exists is no oversight and accountability and no public justice makes the conditions for a free-for-all in corporate operations.  Remember, all these businesss getting these contracts are global corporations.


This article is long but it does a great job at showing how massive the corporate grab for money has become.

Speed Cameras: A Scam the Motorist Cannot Win

It's all about the revenue

May 9, 2013 by Doug Gill

So glad we are all better drivers these days. No cell phone calls, no texting, no smoking with the snowflakes present, mandatory seat belts, helmet laws, the crackdown on drunk drivers, sobriety checkpoints, red light cameras, work zone cameras, speed cameras – why, getting behind the wheel these days is the motoring equivalent of being a babe in its mama’s arms.

Well, one may think that is so – especially the way the elected ninnies tout all the “safety” regulations they’ve enacted, particularly when it comes to traffic surveillance.
But the truth? Well, the reality belies what our lawmakers are shoveling, as 2012 saw the highway death total climb faster than at any time since 1975.

Yet, fudged safety stats notwithstanding, the real truth about traffic cameras lies not in the amount of lives saved and accidents avoided, but in the enormous amount of revenue it supplies both the camera manufacturer and the jurisdictions that embrace these forms of policing for profit.

And in most instances the profits roll in whether the cameras are accurate or not… and these contraptions are proving to be anything but precise.

The evidence of that inaccuracy is overwhelming.
In mid-April, Baltimore City became the latest jurisdiction to join the ever-growing list of cities/municipalities that are revamping, reevaluating or in some cases eliminating their revenue-generating speed camera programs.

The Department of Transportation issued a news release saying Baltimore City has temporarily suspended use of its red light and speed cameras because “the devices haven’t been accurate.”
Of course, that explanation reeks of dishonesty; if accuracy was the true reason for shelving the automated cash-snatchers they would have been abandoned six months after implementation.

As of April 1, more than 580 communities had welcomed some form – red light, speed, work zone – of traffic enforcement cameras. And while 29 states currently have no camera enforcement laws on the books, only 12 states have banned the use of speed cameras.
Seven states currently prohibit red light cameras.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 66 bills related to photo enforcement have been presented nationwide so far in 2013.

But at the same time, the critical chorus against these boxed money-grabs is growing exponentially.

In New York, the same state senate that nearly always accepts Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Liberal credit card put the kibosh on a plan for cameras in New York City, prompting Emperor Michael Bloomberg to throw a hissy and announce that the next time a speeder kills a kid it will be the legislature’s fault.

Shocking, I know: Bloomberg desperate to support for-profit businesses other than his own.

In Ohio, Judge Robert Ruehlman ordered the Elmwood Place township to halt usage of the cameras saying they are “a scam” and described the issuing of thousands of $105 citations as a “high-tech game of 3-Card Monty.”

Similar rulings have ignited debate from sea to strobe-flashing sea, and Baltimore’s actions are now at the forefront of the discussions.

Not only did the city suspend use of the cameras, officials also agreed to nullify more than 6,000 tickets that had been mailed to the alleged violators.

Total cost? Over 300 grand. In the last fiscal year the city’s speed cameras – just the speed cameras – generated $19 million.

Gesture, meet token.

Obviously, the business partnerships between camera companies and cities willing to deliberately tweak their speed limits, camera locations and caution lights for maximum ticket profits, rather than for safety, are thriving in spite of symbolic damage control.
“The cameras have never really fully been tested,” Gene Simmers, a retired Maryland State Highway Administration employee, told CBS Philadelphia. Simmers was referencing a state report that found the cameras were not tested as many times as they should have been and that the type of speed detection equipment used by the cameras in highway work zones was not approved by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Pennsylvania media is interested in the thoughts of a former SHA employee because the state legislature in Harrisburg had been considering expanding the automated enforcement programs.

Now, thanks to some of the laughable examples of Baltimore City’s camera follies, even AAA Mid-Atlantic has joined the anti-camera chorus.

“It wasn’t even moving and it got a ticket,” AAA spokesperson Jenny Robinson told CBS News, referencing a Baltimore delivery truck that was issued a citation for traveling 57 miles-per-hour in a 25-mph zone even though video from the camera showed the truck was nearly at a standstill.
“That’s one example of the concerns that we have with automatic enforcement,” Robinson continued. “If it’s not accurate then there’s no point in using it.”
But there is a point in using them, and that purpose is to continue reaping the benefits of the $6 billion per year that Americans pay for speeding violations.

According to an extensive investigation by The Baltimore Sun we’ve learned – through the former camera company’s own admission – that the error rate for these devices exceeds five percent. And more than 1.6 million tickets have been issued since 2009.
And the city nullified 6,000.


“The troubles with Baltimore’s speed camera system have raised the eyebrows of motorists, legislators and traffic safety advocates,” wrote AAA spokesperson Ragina Averella, “and have truly called the integrity of the city’s entire program into question.”
But it’s not just Baltimore. Prince George’s County is taking action to stop Fairmount Heights from issuing any camera citations because the town appears to be in violation of a state law that allows photo enforcement only in school zones and requires that cameras are properly announced via signage.

In Laurel, the city is under fire for circumventing state requirements for independent calibration of the cameras.

Dozens of other national jurisdictions are waking up to elected officials trying to follow the lead of former D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty who, in 2010, accelerated the revenue-vs-safety debate when he raised traffic fines – in one instance from $50 – $125 – to help balance his city’s budget.
And why not? In a report released by AAA one camera on one stretch of the District’s New York Avenue raised $11 million in two years.

That kind of cash comes in mighty handy when you need to grease the lobbyists that help government skim the taxpayer.

If the actions of Fenty and other such kindred governmentals don’t offer proof enough of automated enforcement offering no more than a direct line to your wallet, witness the actions of the Maryland Legislature during the just-concluded General Assembly sessions.
Delegate John Cluster (R – Baltimore County) introduced a bill that would have imposed a daily calibration check on the cameras. Delegate Jon Cardin’s (D – Baltimore County) legislation would have forced the courts to impose a $1,000 fine on the camera company if it were found that a citation was issued erroneously. Delegate Frank Conaway (D – Baltimore City) wanted those who maintain the speed enforcement systems to pay a $250 penalty to the motorist who received said erroneous ticket.

Various speed camera bills were introduced by Sen. James Brochin, Sen. E.J. Pipkin, Del. Carolyn Howard and Del. Mike Smigiel and they not only addressed accuracy and effectiveness, but some also called for outright elimination of the program.
When the confetti dropped (made from shredded taxpayer dollars) in early April to signal the end of the session not a single traffic camera bill had passed, including a final version that would have placed stricter limits on where local governments could put speed cameras, required appointments of ombudsmen to hear complaints, and strengthened language prohibiting governments from entering into new contracts under which they paid private companies for each ticket issued.

Noting the bill’s failure, Sen. Brochin told the Baltimore Sun that the final product would have helped protect Maryland drivers from abuses of the camera system.
Of course, Marylanders are use to having elected officials that continually fail to do the right thing – even if it is our own fault for sending the same repeat offenders back to Annapolis.

No amount of information – no amount of facts counteracting the myths of these devices – will prevent lawmakers from trumping-up the safety angle while gorging at the predatory revenue trough.
“We’ve been able to achieve a pretty significant reduction in traffic fatalities,” Gov. Martin O’Malley weighed in on the safety aspects of traffic cameras in Maryland. “I think part of that has to do with better technology and all of us taking it a little slower. We are saving a lot of lives and reducing traffic fatalities.”

Well, save for that pesky spike in 2012 – and even though he ignored the numbers that showed fatal crashes on state highways dropped in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

State wide use of speed cameras wasn’t authorized until 2009.

In Baltimore the focus remains on getting the cash IV back into the arm of the motoring public. In January the city switched from its current camera provider – Xerox State & Local Solutions – to Brekford, a Maryland-based “upstart” in the industry that has been contracted to install/replace 72 speed cameras throughout the city. In addition to costing $2.2 million, the contract will allow a vendor to share in the proceeds of the fines collected – for every $75 traffic ticket generated by the cameras and collected by the city, Brekford is rebated $21. For every $40 ticket, Brekford gets $11.20.
Also of interest is an April 19 report by Baltimore Brew that notes that members of Brekford’s board include Douglas DeLeaver, a former chief of the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) Police; Jessie Lee Jr., executive director of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (which has longstanding ties to the Baltimore City Police Department).

The Brew also reported that the head of Brekford’s speed camera division, Maurice Nelson, was hired from Montgomery County’s automated traffic enforcement program.
In addition, the $2.2 million was handed over to Brekford even though that company’s “clerical mistakes” (and software compatibility issues) are what resulted in an undisclosed number of erroneous tickets given out to motorists.
And, Brekford scored all the repeat business without having to jump through the hoops of competitive bidding
.

“We decided it was not practical to seek competitive bids on these additional cameras,” Timothy M. Krus, the city’s chief purchasing agent said in response to City Comptroller Joan Pratt questioning the process.

When it comes to the cameras themselves as well as the government officials who vote to authorize them, it becomes more apparent that Judge Reuhlman’s said it best: automated traffic enforcement is “a scam the motorist cannot win.”


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August 26th, 2014

8/26/2014

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TO REBUILD OUR ECONOMY AND DEMOCRACY WE NEED TO REINSTATE RULE OF LAW AND REBUILD OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY.  DO NOT BELIEVE THE SMALL GOVERNMENT MANTRA. 

Trillions of dollars are still being lost every year from our Federal, state, and local government coffers from fraud and corruption.  It is simply being redirected from public programs and into the pockets of connected corporations.  Obama has been as committed to dismantling all government oversight and accountability and placed Wall Street people in our public agencies to do that redirecting of public funds.  It's like having an invading army looting your Treasury.

When a neo-liberal calls for Open Government they do not mean public transparency----they mean selling the public's data to whatever corporation can use it.

Neo-cons don't even try to disguise that they do not recognize our rights as citizens to privacy and equal protection from this fleecing of our government coffers and personal wealth.  Maryland has pretty much dismantled all of public justice.

Let's take a few days to see the scope of this looting.  It is not only one corporate industry....the financial industry drives it but there is literally a free for all.


Feds Transparency Website Can’t Account for $619 Billion


By: Rachel Blevins Aug 7, 2014

In the midst of the Obama administration’s attempt to implement the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, a recent government audit shows that $619 billion is missing from 302 federal programs.

The Transparency Act was passed by Congress last year to “expand the amount of federal spending data available to the public.”

USASpending.gov was originally created as a way to make government spending more transparent. However, a report from the Government Accountability Office revealed that only 2% to 7% of the recorded spending data in 2012 is “fully consistent with agencies’ records.”

The report stated that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) should implement more oversight of the spending data from federal agencies, and that until it does, “any effort to use the data will be hampered by uncertainties about accuracy.”

Jamal Brown, a spokesman for the OMB, made a statement insisting that the OMB is “committed to federal spending transparency and working with agencies to improve the completeness and accuracy of data submissions.”


According to USA Today, The Department of Health and Human Services was one of the 302 federal agencies, which failed to report money it had spent. This agency “failed to report nearly $544 billion, mostly in direct assistance programs like Medicare.”

The Department of the Interior neglected to report $5.3 billion it had spent, due to the fact that it claimed its accounting systems “were not compatible with the data formats required by USASpending.gov.”

USA Today also reported that for more than 22% of federal awards, “the spending website literally doesn’t know where the money went.”

The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Senator Tom Carper, acknowledged the problem saying, “We live in a world in which information drives decisions, and given the budget constraints that our government faces, we need reliable information on how and where our money is being spent.“


____________________________________________________


The health data once protected under HIPPA is now an open market.  States are selling public health data they now consider a new revenue source.  Johns Hopkins has a huge computer network that does nothing but receive and process data from around the state and from NSA networks.  All the money made from this data is pocketed as profit.  We see all kinds of efforts at protecting data----at the same time we have credit cards using fingerprints for easy access....liking simply signing is too hard.  Hackers access this data and now identity theft will include people's fingerprints. 

DIDN'T COMMIT THAT CRIME------WE HAVE YOUR FINGERPRINTS THAT SAY YOU DID!  JUST THINK HOW THAT CAN BE USED BY AN AUTOCRATIC LEADERSHIP.

I won't go into the national fingerprinting goal of Republicans for decades to say that is what this will do---I want to look at how people's money is being made more vulnerable and we are being forced at some point to use these technologies.
It was said this year that Wall Street and the NSA stated hackers like Snowden and Anonymous are making it impossible for NSA systems to keep data secure and our businesses systems are tens of thousands time more vulnerable to people around the world wanting to steal our money.  They do not secure these systems they build---they simply build and sell them. 

There is no thought given to societal implications.


Discover testing fingerprint payments

November 26, 2012|By Becky Yerak | Tribune staff reporter

Discover Financial Services Inc. employees will be able to pay by finger at their Riverwoods headquarters' cafeteria and convenience stores as they become the first to test a new payment system.

Discover, which is working with French biometrics firm Natural Security on the project and which plans to get the pilot underway in the next three months, has previously used hundreds of its employees to test new technologies including various "contactless" payments, in which credit cards are simply tap. It plans to test the fingerprint payment system with 300 to 350 employees.

Discover employees who want to participate will register at an on-site kiosk, which will read an index fingerprint and assign a number to it. Each employee will also receive a key fob with a chip that includes information about their individual credit-card account as well as their fingerprint.
 
To complete a purchase, the user will place his or her finger on a fingerprint reader near checkout, with the key fob kept nearby, such as in a pocket or purse, for the transaction to go through. One security benefit to the process is that it guarantees that the fob or credit card and its owner are at the same place at the same time. It could also be faster and more convenient as people won't have to fumble around with their credit cards.
 
The credit-card company's test comes a few years after U.S. grocer Jewel abandoned its program with Pay by Touch, which got about $300 million in debt and equity financing from investors. 

In 2006, Pay by Touch said about 10,000 Chicagoans had signed up for its fingerprint-payment program. A year later, some creditors tried forcing the owner of Pay by Touch into involuntary bankruptcy as its finances went into disarray. By 2008, the Pay by Touch machines were removed  from Jewel stores.
 
Troy Bernard, Discover's global head of emerging payments, said his company is working on several payment technologies that could come to fruition both in the short- and long-term.
 
"Biometrics falls into long-term solutions," Bernard said, acknowledging potential concerns about both biometrics as well as the barrier to entry of making someone register for something.


___________________________________________

You see below Wall Street is selling this as a means to cut down on identity theft but as this article states----it will be just as vulnerable with much more of your identity to steal.  So, you have a credit card stolen----you close the account.  You have a biometric credit card stolen and they have you for life.

Monkeetech announces iris-based credit card fraud prevention ...www.biometricupdate.com/201306/...based-credit-card-fraud...   Cached

Monkeetech has announced the development of a new (patent-pending) iris scan biometric credit card fraud prevention system, called EyeWatch.


Your Biometric Identity Proof Positive


By Jake Stroup Identity Theft Expert

One way that shows a lot of promise in trying to combat identity theft is implementing biometric identification. You can see this on television crime shows like CSI, NCIS, etc. Biometrics include fingerprints, facial recognition, voice patterns, retinal scans, DNA, the list goes on.

Although it has been a scapegoat for many identity thefts, in many ways technology has provided some of the most solid defenses against the rising tide of identity theft. RFID tags, data encryption and innovations along those lines have gone a long way to helping us secure our personal information. The Federal government is even considering using biometric ID cards to combat illegal immigration. In fact, it's easy to make the argument that the problem isn't in the technology but in our lack of interest in protecting personal information.


Victims of identity theft report that it can take three to five years, or even longer to fix an identity theft problem. Keep in mind, you can get a new credit card in two weeks, once you have all the information to the bank or credit issuing authority. But who's going to the issue you a new set of fingerprints if they get stolen?

The idea of somebody stealing your biometric information isn't as farfetched as you might hope. It has already been shown how simple it would be to plant false DNA evidence. This article even goes so far as to say, "Any biology undergraduate can perform this."

In the end we will probably see the same problems arise, and some think the problem may get even worse. This is because the way biometrics work isn't really any different from credit cards.

What's The Difference? It's easy to think of credit in terms of the plastic cards in our pocket, since we can touch them, and that makes it more real. But this isn't the case. Today, credit is really nothing more than a long string of numbers stored in a computer somewhere. When you swipe your card at the local Wal-Mart, the information stored on your card is converted into a number as well and sent to your bank. If the numbers match up you get to walk home with a bag full of goodies.

  Biometric identification works in a similar manner, but you're using your fingerprint instead of a card. It will still be turned into a string of numbers and run through a computer network. In the end does it really matter where the string of numbers comes from when an identity thief gets hold of it?


Despite the predictions of some experts, a database is still just a database. A hacker can still steal data from a computer or network, it doesn't matter if that data is a credit card number, or a digital voice print.

As far as security is concerned, many experts agree that maintaining "token" forms of identification are probably superior. Token identification is a card, password, PIN etc. – something that can be canceled, or changed if it is lost, misplaced or stolen. On the other hand biometric identification can't be lost, misplaced, or loaned to a friend, but it can't be replaced if it's compromised, either. This, combined with certain privacy issues (tracking, profiling, consumer-related privacy issues etc.) are making experts give serious consideration to whether or not biometrics are a viable option on a large scale.

It's easy to understand why this brings a sense of security, since no two fingerprints are the same. On the surface it seems like a secure form of identification. But security doesn't come from knowing that you are you, security only comes from knowing the information associated with your name is accurate, no matter what database that information might be in. In other words, if an identity thief managed to convince a fingerprint scanner that they were you, they will probably not come back to court if they manage to get released on bail/bond. In that situation, proving who you are won't help.

Biometrics have a few quirks of their own, though. For example, some states have started implementing a "no–smiles" policy for driver's licenses. This is because those states are now using facial recognition software to stem the flow of driver's license fraud. But the software might get confused if the subject smiles.

Furthermore, advocates like to say it's impossible to duplicate (for example) a fingerprint, but that's already been proven wrong. In fact, it's easy to do with a simple laser printer, and a little bit of spit.

But the biggest consideration is that a biometric identity system is only going to be as good as the information that's put into it in the first place. In other words, your fingerprint won't tell anyone who you are, all it can really do is keep you from using somebody else's identity once you are in that system. In fact, identity theft expert John Sileo said, "If we implement biometrics without doing our due diligence on protecting the identity,
we are doomed to repeat history — and our thumbprint will become just another Social Security Number."


And that would be a grim future indeed.

____________________________________________

The American people need to look at the Bush/Obama years as the USSR Perestroika where all the common public wealth was divided between a few connected families.  That is what is happening now.  We had our Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler who worked hard to see Maryland citizens got as little money from massive subprime mortgage fraud as possible making the small payments made into charitable contributions and tax write-offs just as the article below says.  That has happened to all settlement money.  Most of the money goes back to the government which then hands it to corporate subsidy.

I think Gansler was actually surprised when he received 5% of Democratic votes for Maryland governor as if people don't know.  He did almost beat Anthony Brown with 12% of the Democratic vote.  For some reason people just don't like this systemic fraud and corruption.


REMEMBER, WHEN A GOVERNMENT SUSPENDS RULE OF LAW AND DUE PROCESS---IT SUSPENDS STATUTE OF LIMITATION.



'We have seen this pattern - creating the appearance of punishing wrongdoing while actually leaving the bank basically unscathed and unchanged in its practices - over and over again from the Obama administration in the last few years'.


Friday, 22 August 2014 05:29


Bank of America's $16.6 Billion Mortgage Fraud Agreement Is Another Public Relations Stunt


MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT


BuzzFlash at Truthout has written many commentaries on how the Obama administration has been - and continues to be - quite lenient with Wall Street when it comes to financial malfeasance. In particular, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have assiduously avoided, for the most part, any serious institutional or personal criminal responsibility for massive fraud committed by banks too big to fail and other mega-financial institutions. 


The settlement this week between the DOJ and Bank of America for its role in the financial fraud that busted the economy in 2008 (including its acquisition of the scam company it acquired, Countrywide Financial) is yet another example of a large fine that looks like punishment, but amounts to much, much less than meets the eye. Indeed, that is the assessment of an August 21 article in the "Dealmaker" section of The New York Times (NYT): 

"The real financial cost to the bank could be considerably lower," said Laurie Goodman, a specialist in housing at the Urban Institute. "This is helping consumers, but it may not be costing the bank."

The actual pain to the bank could also be significantly reduced by tax deductions. Tax analysts, for instance, estimate that Bank of America could derive $1.6 billion of tax savings on the $4.63 billion of payments to the states and some federal agencies under the settlement. Shares of Bank of America jumped 4 percent on Thursday, suggesting investors believe that the bank could take the settlement in stride.

"The American public is expecting the Justice Department to hold the banks accountable for its misdeeds in the mortgage meltdown," said Phineas Baxandall, an analyst with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy organization. "But these tax write-offs shift the burden back onto taxpayers and send the wrong message by treating parts of the settlement as an ordinary business expense."

Given that we are talking about a dominant Wall Street bank and financial behemoth, the takeaway sentence from The New York Times is: "Shares of Bank of America jumped 4 percent on Thursday, suggesting investors believe that the bank could take the settlement in stride." When a bank's stock goes up after what initially appears to be a huge fine, you know that it is nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

We have seen this pattern - creating the appearance of punishing wrongdoing while actually leaving the bank basically unscathed and unchanged in its practices - over and over again from the Obama administration in the last few years.


It is true that at least one part of the Bank of America settlement could benefit mortgage holders desperately in need of readjusting the terms of their home loans. That is good:

The consumer relief is expected to help tens of thousands of homeowners across the country. Most notably, the deal could result in Bank of America forgiving billions of dollars in mortgage principal. Unlike the other settlements, a person briefed on the matter said, the Bank of America plan could involve cutting the principal on loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, a move that will primarily help low- and moderate-income borrowers.

However, as The New York Times points out, this relief is coming much too late for the large number of people who lost their homes to foreclosure in the six years since 2008. It would have assisted tens of thousands more individuals and families if the DOJ had forced Bank of America years ago to be more flexible with underwater mortgage holders. 

The Times notes that the restructuring of loans will have little impact on the finances of Bank of America:

At issue is how much of the cost of the $7 billion in "soft dollars," or help for borrowers, the bank will bear under the settlement. Some of the relief the bank will provide involves cutting the principal of a loan to make it easier for the borrower to pay. The dollar amount of that reduction gets credited toward what it needs to fulfill the settlement. But Bank of America wrote down many of its troubled mortgages years ago. And investment firms, not Bank of America, may now own some of the loans that get written down, potentially shielding the bank from a financial hit. 

Taking a closer look at the Bank of America fine, The New York Times finds that at least half of the $16.8 billion dollars is in the form of soft money or tax breaks. There are also additional financial offsets.

In what has become a traditional part of any DOJ settlement with a bank too big to fail, unnamed DOJ sources are promising to pursue charges against individual executives. Of course, the indictments never appear, but the statements make for good politics with a citizenry that wants to see some personal accountability for fraudulent bank practices.

It is clear now, with a little over two years left in the Obama presidency, that one of his key legacies will be casting little more than a wink and a nod at Wall Street's violations of the law, including a failure to prosecute any high-ranking officials for the illegal and deceptive practices that led to the near-collapse of the United States economy.

_______________________________________
As we watch Wall Street go from billions to trillions of dollars in wealth much from fraud-----the American people are being soaked with fees, fines, and taxes to make up for the government revenue stolen.  Students are deliberately left unemployed//underemployed and mid-life adults are left with no retirement because of the crash and stagnation.  Obama has placed the Department of Education in the hands of Wall Street to treat citizens most in need as if a predator.  Old student loans for a few thousands of dollars grows with thousands of fees and fines in just a few years????


Retirees' Social Security checks garnished for student loans Many had forgotten of old loans

Author: By Patrick M. Sheridan Published On: Aug 24 2014 11:33:31 AM CDT   Updated On: Aug 24 2014 06:30:52 PM CDT



What's surprised Cohen lately is the increasing number of gray-haired people walking in his doors with a problem: A portion of their meager Social Security benefits are being taken by the government to pay for old student loans they had mostly forgotten about.

It's a growing national trend. Last year, 156,000 Americans had their Social Security checks garnished because of student loans they had defaulted on. It's tripled in number from 47,500 in 2006, before the Great Recession. That's according to analysis done by the U.S. Treasury for CNNMoney.


Like Cohen, other groups have noticed the increase too. A leading nonprofit group that works with students on repaying loans, American Student Assistance, has worked this past year with over 1,000 Americans who have had their social security payments garnished to repay outstanding student loans. That's a sharp increase from 200 people in the previous year.

For retirees, any cuts to their Social Security benefits really hurts.

"Social Security means survival. It means food, shelter, medication," said Cohen, a Connecticut attorney, who works with people on debt collection harassment and student loan repayments.

What's worse is that even if the unpaid student loan was small, the amount they owe now is usually a lot larger because of compounding interest rates.

Retired Americans can start collecting Social Security benefits at 62. However, the folks that Cohen has worked with are in their 70's and 80's.

The amount taken from these checks isn't small. The average Social Security monthly check is $1200, the typical amount taken is $180.


Very few student loans can be refinanced and many people have outstanding loans with interest rates locked at over 7%, even though rates have fallen in recent years to below 3%.

Repayment terms on student loans are extremely rigid. They are rarely forgiven even in bankruptcy and people can have their wages garnished if they default.

The issue caught the attention of Senator Elizabeth Warren, who introduced a bill earlier this year to allow millions of people like Anderson to refinance their student loans. However, the bill was blocked in June.

Social workers are also seeing an increase in the number of people with mental and health issues having their Social Security disability checks garnished.

"I had a Korean War veteran in his 80's who had taken out a student loan for his son and then began having health problems. The government took money from his Social Security disability checks - money that he needed to buy medications," said Deanne Loonin, a director at the National Consumer Law Center, which works to provide economic security to low income and disadvantaged people, including the elderly.

According to the government data, the total amount garnished from social security checks last year came to $150 million.

  • Copyright 2014 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
    ___________________________________________



While seniors have their SS seized, the IRS has been allowed to be dismantled and defunded so it is now being fleeced just as Medicare and Medicaid Trusts are.  They make it sound like average people are the avoiders but most of this is corporate tax fraud.


Neo-liberals and neo-cons are simply allowing all public wealth to be gutted and stolen.  We see it to a large extent in Baltimore with Baltimore Development Corporation and Johns Hopkins leading the culture of corruption in the city.

This creates a culture of non-compliance.  Nations like Greece and Italy have never been able to develop structurally because of the massive tax evasion gutting government revenue.  That is what is happening here.....
strangling all sources of revenue to justify AUSTERITY
.  For people that want less IRS you need to know---the working and middle class will take more and more of the burden of revenue no matter the talk of reduced taxes.

ALL OF MARYLAND'S POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS

IRS Funding Cut Days Before Report Shows $330 Billion In Uncollected Taxes Posted: 04/11/2011 6:03 pm EDT Updated: 06/11/2011 5:12 am EDT Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- As part of the budget deal hashed out on Friday evening, lawmakers agreed that no additional federal funds would be used to hire new IRS agents.

Then on Monday, the Government Accountability Office publicly released a study showing that, as of the end of fiscal year 2010, roughly $330 billion in federal taxes had never been paid -- an amount that, if collected, would represent nearly nine times the amount of savings as the budget itself.

The dual developments aren’t shocking. Despite evidence that a single dollar spent on enforcing the tax code could result in up to ten dollars in revenue, politicians, naturally, are reluctant to align themselves with tax collectors. And yet, the sacrificing of funds for IRS agents in the continuing resolution deal underscores a particular problem that seems bound to confront fiscally conscious lawmakers.

“Cutting back on IRS enforcement could easily cost the treasury much more in revenue than it saves,” said Chuck Marr, Director of Federal Tax Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The GAO report, which looks specifically at the issue of passport holders who have failed to pay their full share of taxes, underscores Marr’s point. Titled “Federal Tax Collection: Potential for Using Passport Issuance to Increase Collection of Unpaid Taxes,” the study labels poor enforcement of tax laws and the tax code as a “high-risk” hole in government policy. In fiscal year 2008, passports were issued to about 16 million individuals. Of those, more than 224,000 owed more than $5.8 billion in unpaid federal taxes.

A good chunk of the evasion, the GAO concluded, was committed by individuals with “substantial personal assets” including multi-million-dollar homes and “luxury cars.” One passport recipient bought a house for $2 million and another property for $1.5 million despite owing $1 million in federal taxes.

“If you look, you can find records of most capital gains income,” said Rob Shapiro, former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce. “People deposit it in their bank accounts or the institutions may issue reports if it is capital gains on stock transactions. So it is not hard to pick it up if you have the manpower to look for it. And again, given that the salary of an IRS agent is at least as high as the average salary in America, the fact that there is a ten-to-one ratio for the returns on auditing tells you that [tax evasion] is coming from the high-income brackets.”

Regardless of who the worst evaders are, the GAO concludes that “IRS enforcement of federal tax laws is vital,” not just to pinpoint the offenders but to promote “broader compliance.” And what do the study’s authors cite as a compelling reason to beef up IRS functions? A “federal deficit” that “continue[s] to mount.”

Indeed, several close observers of the budget debate have wondered exactly how lawmakers can shudder at going after tax evasion while simultaneously preaching fiscal responsibility on the stump. Marr, for one, noted that Congress has already disbanded a tax reporting provision in the president’s health care reform law that would have resulted in stronger compliance. That was scuttled for politically obvious reasons: the paperwork it placed on small businesses was deemed well beyond burdensome. But the decision to deny funding for more IRS agents doesn’t have such an easy-to-distill an explanation.

“Hiring more IRS agents would have allowed the Obama administration to enforce its agenda, insofar as its agenda is to make sure that people don't cheat on their taxes,” wrote Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic.

Obama has made buffing up the IRS a relative hush-hush plank of his tax reform agenda. Upon entering office he advocated for more funds for the agency, and as part of his 2012 budget, he proposed a 9.4 percent increase so that it could hire roughly 5100 new employees. The proposal, which pivoted off of previous studies that reached similar conclusions as the GAO's, was met with somewhat frenzied pushback from conservative circles -- the specter of black-suited tax collectors roaming the streets undoubtedly on the mind. And almost immediately, the suggested increase in IRS funds became a target of cut-happy legislators.


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August 23rd, 2014

8/23/2014

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Sorry I've been posting these blogs later in the afternoon.....my summertime schedule makes consistency hard.  Please keep coming back-----I am lucky to have thousands of visits.


FOLKS....NEO-LIBERAL MARYLAND HAS NOT ONLY SYSTEMIC ELECTION FRAUD IN THE CASE OF THE ELECTION FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND BUT A NEW LAW THAT PLACES ONLY ANNE ARUNDEL COURTS AS JURISDICTION FOR ELECTION LAWSUITS SHOULD HAVE EVERYONE UP IN ARMS.....THIS IS A REAL POWER-GRAB THAT THREATENS CIVIL RIGHTS AND ELECTION FREEDOM.
  THESE CONDITIONS ARE WHAT HAS EXCLUDED LABOR AND JUSTICE AND SEEK TO MAKE THAT PERMANENT!  Subject Jurisdiction always allows courts in each county/city to handle that subject----for example----disability court/family court.  Law that limits a subject (election) to just one county looks to be unconstitutional.

CINDY WALSH IS STILL EXPECTING TO BE IN THE GENERAL ELECTION FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND!

I want to use today to talk election issues by looking at my lawsuit claiming widespread election irregularities in the Democratic Primary race for Governor of Maryland should invalidate the election results.   As neo-liberals pretend to protect election rights they are consolidating the power of these incumbents with legislation threatening the public's ability to hold the elections process accountable.


Below you see the next step of my court case in Maryland.  I have filed the complaint, served the defendants, written an amended complaint, and the 30 day response period for defendants just passed.  We now need the court to set the trial date and verify it will accept jurisdiction.  In other words----if the court is going to dismiss this case it needs to do it now.  Routine cases can see a wait of 4 months just for jurisdiction and trial date....my case is expedited because Maryland law requires a speedy process for contests to elections for Governor.  I'm not a lawyer so all that I do is not correct or the best approach----but it should get to the end result.

I want to note some of the concerns I have while doing this.  First, the Maryland Assembly moved the cost of funding for Legal Aid---a Federal/Maryland Constitutional right from the state budget to people who file complaints in court nearly doubling the cost to the public to go to court.  The average person will feel the expense of $135 filing fee.  Then Maryland has the plaintiff bare the costs of serving the defendants.  In many cases courts include this serving with the filing fee.  Not too bad with one defendant---but it becomes pretty expensive if you have multiple defendants.  Maryland also has the laws that place the burden of trial costs on plaintiff if case is not won.  I know this cuts on frivolous lawsuits but in an atmosphere of fraud and corruption one doesn't have to have a bad case to not win.  Remember, my case should have been handled by the Maryland Attorney General protecting my rights as a candidate so I should not even be self-representing or taking this to court. All the costs of multiple copies of trial evidence and motions----all the costs of mailing to all defendants should be falling on Maryland Attorney General's office.  They do not have a public justice section or funding allotted to it.  So costs can easily grow to thousands of dollars by the trial's end.





August 26, 2014




                              
Cindy Walsh files motion to Baltimore City Circuit Court regarding date of trial and jurisdiction
                    Civil Action # 24-C-14-004156





Plaintiff notice to court and defendants of prospective trial dates

Plaintiff's Notice Requirement

It is the responsibility of the plaintiff's counsel to give notice of trial and settlement conference dates, times and departments. Only dates set by the court will be noticed by the court.



Your Full Name: Cindy Walsh - Plaintiff

Phone Number (with area code):

Email Address:

Case Number: 24-C-14-004156

Case Title: Cindy Walsh vs Bobbie Mack et al

Name of Party Representing: Self-representing----Cindy Walsh

Cindy Walsh vs Bobbie Mack is an expedited case due to the case being a contest of the election for Governor. The plaintiff requests the trial dates of September 8, 10, or 12, 2014 to meet the expedited requirement set by Maryland law and to give the defendant Linda Lamone added with an amended complaint a two week preparatory period. The original complaint filing and affidavit of process serving of summons was July 21, 2014 with August 21 meeting the original 30 day period for defendant response. The plaintiff has received no response from any defendant as of August 21 so the court should not have pending responses. Due to the expedited nature of this case the plaintiff calls for the court to shorten these scheduling proceedings to include the court's moving forward with setting the trial dates as listed above.


Cindy Walsh is self-representing

Cindy Walsh

2522 N Calvert St

Baltimore, Maryland 21218


_______________________________________

The plaintiff filed this complaint in the Circuit Court of Baltimore and not Anne Arundel County because this case is not protesting actions at the polls, actions regarding ballot presentation or presentation of election material by Maryland Board of Elections. This is not an official capacity lawsuit; it is an individual capacity lawsuit claiming willful and deliberate violation of Federal and State law and Civil Rights. The plaintiff also seeks to challenged the Maryland Assembly's right to legislate which court is given jurisdiction in contests to elections. It has been the right of a plaintiff to file suit in any court qualifying for jurisdiction and the election process effects all citizens of the state. This case and elections do not qualify for special jurisdiction.  Special jurisdiction such as family court has a presence in all counties/cities and is not particular to any one county.  It without a doubt creates an environment of conflict of interest, bias, and/or undue power to have one court system handling all cases especially of a subject having strong civil rights implications like elections.

Many of the election irregularities included in this case occurred in Baltimore City, the plaintiff lives in Baltimore City, and the Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, a defendant has his office in Baltimore City. This motion not only seeks to bring to the attention of the court that this case contesting the election for Governor of Maryland is by law directed to be handled in an expedited manner, but seeks to avoid dismissal on the grounds of jurisdiction. This is an ongoing election with the General Election for Governor of Maryland officially beginning after Labor Day so the Baltimore Circuit Court has the power to rule on jurisdiction without regard to the constitutional challenge and must set the trial date or dismiss sooner rather than later due to the expedited rules of the case.

The plaintiff concerns regarding delays in setting a court trial include:

  • The 30 day period after serving of summons with no response from defendants should provide the court with rights to set a trial date earlier than normal cases. The plaintiff includes in this motion the request for trial dates with the dates desired listed.

  • The plaintiff filed an amended complaint and does not receive summons for two weeks and only by making two calls. The rule of summons has a three-day turn-around from time complaint is filed to issuing summons. The plaintiff loses two weeks in setting trial date because of this delay. Second, the summons for the new defendant in this amended complaint is given 30days for response rather than falling into the time line of the original complaint. If the summons had been sent to the plaintiff in three days this window of two weeks remaining in the original time line would have given the new defendant time to respond to the court. As it is the court looks to add another month and a half to setting a trial date which fails to meet the expedited nature of this case and denies justice for the plaintiff. The new defendant, Linda Lamone needs to be made aware by the court she does not have 30 days to respond in this case and will instead have two weeks (14 days). The 30 day period for the original defendants to respond was over August 22, 2014 ----Lamone will be served by August 25 so we need the trial date set two weeks after this service date. Resolving this court case the first week in September falls into the ongoing election cycle. If the Baltimore Circuit Court decides to dismiss on grounds of jurisdiction the 5 day Appeal requirement of this Maryland election law will have the case resolved with expediency.

  • The plaintiff was told on August 22, 2014 by the court clerks handling filings that the court has not even reviewed defendant responses for this case and will take time to do that before setting a trial date. This sounds like more delay. Since the plaintiff has received no communication from any of the defendants, and the defendants are required by law to include the plaintiff in any communication with the court, it is safe to say the court had no response issues to consider. We need to set the trial date in two weeks to meet the expedited nature of this case.


  • The plaintiff provided proof of process to all defendants in this case by certified mail with restricted delivery.  Signatures were obtained at the addresses attached to each defendant.  On August 4, 2014, the envelope with all of the court documents and summons delivered to Heather Mizeur was returned to Cindy Walsh at her address unopened and stripped of all identifying delivery indicators such as the certified mail and restricted delivery paperwork attached the said envelope as if never delivered.  Plaintiff does not want this used as reason to delay trial date.




The plaintiff asks this court to set this trial date with the original filing date in mind and notify the new defendant Linda Lamone that the 30 day period to respond is actually 14 days. Plaintiff will not receive justice in this case if a decision on trial date does not occur soon after Labor Day.



Self-representing:

Cindy Walsh

2522 N Calvert St

Baltimore, Maryland 21218






MARYLAND ELECTION LAW:

Title 12 Subtitle 2.    Judicial Review of Elections

12-202.  Judicial challenges

a)  In general--- If no other timely and adequate remedy is provided by this article, a registered voter may seek judicial relief from any act or omission relating to an election, whether or not the election has been held, on the grounds that the act or omission:

1)  is inconsistent with this article or other law applicable to the elections process; and
2)  may change or has changed the outcome of the election.

b)  Place and time of filing.---- A registered voter may seek judicial relief under this section in the appropriate circuit court within the earlier of:

1)  10 days after the act or omission or the date the act or omission became known to the petitioner; or

2)  7 days after the election results are certified, unless the election was a gubernatorial primary or special primary election, in which case 3 days after the election results are certified.  (An Code 1957, art. 33, 12-202; 2002, ch.291, 2, 4)


12-204.  Judgement.

a)  In general.  ------- The court may provide a remedy as provided in subsection (b) or (c) if this section if the court determines that the alleged act or omission materially affected the rights of interested parties or the purity of the elections process and:

1) may have changed the outcome of an election already held; or

2) may change the outcome of a pending election.

b)  Act or omission that changed election outcome.  ----If the court makes an affirmative determination that an act or omission was committed that changed the
outcome of an election already held, the court shall:
1)  declare void the election for the office or question involved and order that the election be held again at a date set by the court; or

2)  order any other relief that will provide an adequate remedy.

c)  Act or omission that may change outcome of pending election.  -----  If the court makes an affirmative determination that an act or omission has been committed that may change the outcome of a pending election, the court may:


1)  order any relief it considers appropriate under the circumstances; and

2)  if the court determines that it is the only relief that will provide a remedy,, direct that the elections for the office or question involved be postponed and rescheduled on a date set by the court.

d)  Clear and convincing evidence.  -----  A determination of the court under subsection (a) of this section shall be based on clear and convincing evidence.  (An Code 1957, art. 33, 12-204; 2002, ch. 291, 2, 4)




 

The motion below addresses what I feel is a real threat to the public's ability for impartial judicial action.  Maryland just passed a law that requires contests of elections be given to the courts in Anne Arundel.  Special jurisdiction for elections.  This mirrors having jurisdiction for Wall Street banks in the states having a strong banking presence.  It gives the defendant the immediate advantage with the plaintiff having no control of jurisdiction.  This is why if we sue banks we are taken to New York or North Carolina because that is where Wall Street and Wall Street South is located.  Having special jurisdiction for something as general as elections taken to one county takes the plaintiff out of his/her district and into what we all know is a very crony  Annapolis system.....which is what this lawsuit is about.  A plaintiff has always had the right to file where he/she wants if the jurisdiction rules are met.....I live/work in Baltimore/many of the crimes were committed here.....for example.  I ate lunch one day in Annapolis and asked where to go to share my views on issues and the restaurant owner told me----they don't want you there----they do as they like.  Is there bias against this kind of lawsuit in Anne Arundel courts?  Let's stay with the historical precedent of plaintiffs filing in any court they want and even special jurisdiction courts are available in every county/city. 

So, I am challenging the law setting Anne Arundel with special jurisdiction for elections.  Now, I filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court rather than Anne Arundel because I want this court to decide whether to take jurisdiction or dismiss this case for lack of jurisdiction.  The contest of constitutionality will still go to Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler as he is a defendant in this lawsuit.  As a plaintiff I can take this to the Maryland AG and then the US AG if necessary to fight this special status.


The law states that the Baltimore City Court does not have to wait for the resolution of constitutionality to set a date of trial or dismiss so none of this should delay this court case.  If Baltimore moves to dismiss----I will head to the Appeals Court with this case.  What is most important is getting the court to keep the spirit of the Maryland law calling for expedited trial for contests of Maryland election for Governor.





Contesting the 2013 Maryland Statute assigning Anne Arundel County as the only court to hear election contests.


The Plaintiff asserts that the law setting Anne Arundel County as the only jurisdiction for a plaintiff to file election lawsuits is not valid, or do not constitutionally exist as they do not conform to certain constitutional prerequisites, and thus are no laws at all, which prevents subject matter jurisdiction to the above-named court. A state statute cannot undermine Federal law. This is not an official capacity lawsuit.

Special jurisdiction such as family court has a presence in all counties/cities and is not particular to any one county.  It without a doubt creates an environment of conflict of interest, bias, and/or undue power to have one court system handling all cases especially of a subject having strong civil rights implications like elections.


Subject matter jurisdiction is the power of a court to hear particular types of cases. In state court systems, statutes that create different courts generally set boundaries on their subject matter jurisdiction. One state court or another has subject matter jurisdiction of any controversy that can be heard in courts of that state.

The plaintiff filed this election lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Baltimore because that is where the plaintiff lives, that is where much of the election irregularities occurred, and the Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, a defendant in this case has his office in Baltimore. The plaintiff has legal history as the one deciding jurisdiction. I am sending this contest to constitutionality to the Maryland Attorney General as part of this lawsuit. The Circuit Court of Baltimore must rule on jurisdiction in this particular case in an expedited manner as Maryland law places urgency on any contest of election for Maryland Governor. This is an ongoing election and a ruling of jurisdiction cannot wait. The case was filed and summons served to the original defendants over 30 days ago giving defendants time to petition the court. As yet no trial date has been set damaging the plaintiff's right to due process and expedited trial. This court can rule on jurisdiction before the Maryland Attorney General makes a ruling on constitutionality. If the Baltimore Court finds it does not have jurisdiction it will dismiss the case as such allowing the plaintiff to appeal.

Jurisdiction may refer to the origin of a court's authority. A court may be designated either as a court of general jurisdiction or as a court of special jurisdiction. A court of general jurisdiction is a trial court that is empowered to hear all cases that are not specifically reserved for courts of special jurisdiction. A court of special jurisdiction is empowered to hear only certain kinds of cases.


ARTICLE IV Part III - Circuit Courts.


SEC. 20. (a) There shall be a Circuit Court for each County and for Baltimore City. The Circuit Courts shall have and exercise, in the respective counties, and Baltimore City, all the power, authority and jurisdiction, original and appellate, which the Circuit Courts of the counties exercised on the effective date of these amendments, and the greater or lesser jurisdiction hereafter prescribed by law.




By rule, each of the Circuit Courts is required to have a differentiated case management plan “for the prompt and efficient scheduling and disposition of actions[.]”[20] Such plans vary by jurisdiction, but include the classification of cases by complexity and priority, to be assigned to particular scheduling “tracks” based on that classification.[20] Consistent with applicable court rule, the Circuit Courts have endeavored to make their differentiated case management plans as similar as possible;[21] in practice, however, the plans do vary somewhat among the Circuit Courts.



In a federal and state civil law suit, the plaintiff decides where a case is going to be heard by filing the complaint at whatever court she chooses. An individual or a company may file a claim in any jurisdiction for any reason.  The historical precedence is long-standing.



Rule 5.1. Constitutional Challenge to a Statute



(a) Notice by a Party. A party that files a pleading, written motion, or other paper drawing into question the constitutionality of a federal or state statute must promptly:

(1) file a notice of constitutional question stating the question and identifying the paper that raises it, if:

(A) a federal statute is questioned and the parties do not include the United States, one of its agencies, or one of its officers or employees in an official capacity; or

(B) a state statute is questioned and the parties do not include the state, one of its agencies, or one of its officers or employees in an official capacity; and

(2) serve the notice and paper on the Attorney General of the United States if a federal statute is questioned—or on the state attorney general if a state statute is questioned—either by certified or registered mail or by sending it to an electronic address designated by the attorney general for this purpose.

(b) Certification by the Court. The court must, under 28 U.S.C. §2403, certify to the appropriate attorney general that a statute has been questioned.


(c) Intervention; Final Decision on the Merits. Unless the court sets a later time, the attorney general may intervene within 60 days after the notice is filed or after the court certifies the challenge, whichever is earlier. Before the time to intervene expires, the court may reject the constitutional challenge, but may not enter a final judgment holding the statute unconstitutional.

(d) No Forfeiture. A party's failure to file and serve the notice, or the court's failure to certify, does not forfeit a constitutional claim or defense that is otherwise timely asserted.

Notes (As added Apr. 12, 2006, eff. Dec. 1, 2006; amended Apr. 30, 2007, eff. Dec. 1, 2007.)

Committee Notes on Rules—2006

Rule 5.1 implements 28 U.S.C. §2403, replacing the final three sentences of Rule 24(c). New Rule 5.1 requires a party that files a pleading, written motion, or other paper drawing in question the constitutionality of a federal or state statute to file a notice of constitutional question and serve it on the United States Attorney General or state attorney general. The party must promptly file and serve the notice of constitutional question. This notice requirement supplements the court's duty to certify a constitutional challenge to the United States Attorney General or state attorney general. The notice of constitutional question will ensure that the attorney general is notified of constitutional challenges and has an opportunity to exercise the statutory right to intervene at the earliest possible point in the litigation. The court's certification obligation remains, and is the only notice when the constitutionality of a federal or state statute is drawn in question by means other than a party's pleading, written motion, or other paper.

Moving the notice and certification provisions from Rule 24(c) to a new rule is designed to attract the parties’ attention to these provisions by locating them in the vicinity of the rules that require notice by service and pleading.


Rule 5.1 goes beyond the requirements of §2403 and the former Rule 24(c) provisions by requiring notice and certification of a constitutional challenge to any federal or state statute, not only those “affecting the public interest.” It is better to assure, through notice, that the attorney general is able to determine whether to seek intervention on the ground that the act or statute affects a public interest. Rule 5.1 refers to a “federal statute,” rather than the §2403 reference to an “Act of Congress,” to maintain consistency in the Civil Rules vocabulary. In Rule 5.1 “statute” means any congressional enactment that would qualify as an “Act of Congress.”

Unless the court sets a later time, the 60-day period for intervention runs from the time a party files a notice of constitutional question or from the time the court certifies a constitutional challenge, whichever is earlier. Rule 5.1(a) directs that a party promptly serve the notice of constitutional question. The court may extend the 60-[day] period on its own or on motion. One occasion for extension may arise if the court certifies a challenge under §2403 after a party files a notice of constitutional question. Pretrial activities may continue without interruption during the intervention period, and the court retains authority to grant interlocutory relief. The court may reject a constitutional challenge to a statute at any time. But the court may not enter a final judgment holding a statute unconstitutional before the attorney general has responded or the intervention period has expired without response. This rule does not displace any of the statutory or rule procedures that permit dismissal of all or part of an action—including a constitutional challenge—at any time, even before service of process.

Changes Made After Publication and Comment. Rule 5.1 as proposed for adoption incorporates several changes from the published draft. The changes were made in response to public comments and Advisory Committee discussion.

The Advisory Committee debated at length the question whether the party who files a notice of constitutional question should be required to serve the notice on the appropriate attorney general. The service requirement was retained, but the time for intervention was set to run from the earlier of the notice filing or the court's certification. The definition of the time to intervene was changed in tandem with this change. The published rule directed the court to set an intervention time not less than 60 days from the court's certification. This was changed to set a 60-day period in the rule “[u]nless the court sets a later time.” The Committee Note points out that the court may extend the 60-day period on its own or on motion, and recognizes that an occasion for extension may arise if the 60-day period begins with the filing of the notice of constitutional question.


The method of serving the notice of constitutional question set by the published rule called for serving the United States Attorney General under Civil Rule 4, and for serving a state attorney general by certified or registered mail. This proposal has been changed to provide service in all cases either by certified or registered mail or by sending the Notice to an electronic address designated by the attorney general for this purpose.

The rule proposed for adoption brings into subdivision (c) matters that were stated in the published Committee Note but not in the rule text. The court may reject a constitutional challenge at any time, but may not enter a final judgment holding a statute unconstitutional before the time set to intervene expires.

The published rule would have required notice and certification when an officer of the United States or a state brings suit in an official capacity. There is no need for notice in such circumstances. The words “is sued” were deleted to correct this oversight.

Several style changes were made at the Style Subcommittee's suggestion. One change that straddles the line between substance and style appears in Rule 5.1(d). The published version adopted the language of present Rule 24(c): failure to comply with the Notice or certification requirements does not forfeit a constitutional “right.” This expression is changed to “claim or defense” from concern that reference to a “right” may invite confusion of the no-forfeiture provision with the merits of the claim or defense that is not forfeited.

Committee Notes on Rules—2007 Amendment

The language of Rule 5.1 has been amended as part of the general restyling of the Civil Rules to make them more easily understood and to make style and terminology consistent throughout the rules. These changes are intended to be stylistic only.



Determining the Constitutionality of Laws By John DiMotto




Today, I wa
nt to examine the Rules of Statutory Construction that are considered by the courts when a constitutional challenge to legislation is raised.

When a party claims that a law is unconstitutional, that party is claiming that the law is at odds with a provision in either the US or the Wisconsin Constitution or both and, as such, the law cannot stand or be enforced. Black's Law Dictionary, 5th Edition defines "Constitution" as:

"The organic and fundamental law of a nation or a state...establishing the character and conception of its government, laying the basic principles to which its internal life is to be conformed, organizing the government, and regulating, distributing, and limiting the functions of its different departments, and prescribing the extent and manner of the exercise of sovereign powers. A charter of government deriving its whole authority from the governed. The written instrument agreed upon by the people ... of a particular state, as the absolute rule of action and decision for all departments (ie. branches) and officers of the government in respect to all the points covered by it, which must control until is shall be changed by the authority which established it (ie. by amendment), and in opposition to which any act or ordinance of any such department or officer is null and void."

It is a fundamental bedrock of our government, by virtue of the "separation of powers," that:

1) The Legislature enacts the law.


2) The Executive enforces the law.

3) The Judiciary interprets the law.

Thus, when a law is challenged as being unconstitutional -- an affront to the constitution -- it is the judiciary which makes the final decision.

A party has standing to challenge a statute's constitutionality if that party has a sufficient interest in the outcome of a justiciable controversy to obtain a judicial resolution of that controversy. Standing involves a two step analysis. The court must determine whether the plaintiff has suffered threatened or actual injury and the interest asserted must be recognized by law. see State v. Oak Creek, 232 Wis.2d 612 (2000).

The Rules of Statutory Construction as they pertain to constitutionality provide that:

1) Statutes enjoy a presumption of constitutionality, and,

2) All doubts are resolved in favor of constitutionality.

3) Therefore, a party challenging a statute's constitutionality bears a heavy burden and must demonstrate the statute is unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt.

see Ferdon v. Wisconsin Patients Compensation Fund, 284 Wis.2d 573 (2005).

The only exception to the challenger bearing the burden of proof is when a statute infringes on a First Amendment Right. In this instance, the State has the burden of proving constitutionality beyond a reasonable doubt. see State v. Trochinski, 253 Wis.2d 38 (2002).

A constitutional challenge to a law can be:

1) A "facial" challenge; that is, on its face, the law is unconstitutional in every context, or

2) An "as applied" challenge; that is, the law is unconstitutional as to the challenger alone.

see State v. Smith, 323 Wis.2d 377 (2010).


A constitutional challenge to a law can be based on:

1) Overbreadth -- a statute is overbroad when its language is so sweeping that its sanctions may be applied to constitutionally protected conduct which the State is not permitted to regulate. see County of Kenosha v. C & S Management Inc., 223 Wis.2d 373 (1999). In order to assert a claim of overbreadth, it is not necessary that a person's own conduct be constitutionally protected. The overbreadth analysis reflects the conclusion that possible harm to society from allowing unprotected speech to go unpunished is outweighed by the possibility that protected speech will be muted. Thus, if a statute included in its prohibition conduct which is constitutionally protected, it is void even if the person's own conduct is unprotected and may be prohibited by a more narrowly drawn law. see State v. Johnson, 108 Wis.2d 703 (Ct. App. 1982). The danger in overbroad statutes is that they provide practically unbridled administrative and prosecutorial discretion that may result in selected prosecution based on certain views deem objectionable law enforcement. However, overbreadth must be real and substantial. Marginal infringement or fanciful hypotheticals of inhibition which are unlikely to occur will not render a statute unconstitutional on overbreadth grounds. see State v. Stevenson, 236 Wis.2d 86 (2000).

2) Vagueness -- a statute is vague if it fails to afford proper notice of the conduct it seeks to proscribe. The test for vagueness is whether a statute is so obscure that men of ordinary intelligence must guess as to its meaning and differ as to its applicability. To withstand a vagueness challenge it must be sufficiently definite so that potential offenders are able to discern boundaries of proscribed conduct. see Johnson, supra. Procedural due process is at issue. see County of Kenosha, supra.

3) Procedural Due Process -- requires that a person who has life, liberty or property at stake must be afforded the opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner. Failure of a statute to so provide renders a statute unconstitutional. see
Estate of Makos v. Masons Health Care Fund, 211 Wis.2d 41 (1997).

4) Substantive Due Process -- the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause is a guarantee of "more than a fair process." It contains a substantive sphere as well barring certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them. The threshold inquiry when analyzing an alleged violation of substantive due process is whether the challenger has established a deprivation of a liberty or property interest protected by the constitution. see Dowhower v. West Bend Mutual Ins. Co., 236 Wis.2d 113 (2000).

5) Equal Protection -- a statute which treats members of similarly situated classes differently violates the Fourteenth Amendment. If the challenge implicates a fundamental right or suspect classification the statute is subject to a strict scrutiny test. It must be shown by the State that the regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and that it is narrowly drawn. see State v. Baron, 318 Wis.2d 60 (2009). If the challenge does not implicate a fundamental right or suspect classification then the statute is subject to a rational basis test. It must be shown by the challenger that the regulation is not rational. All doubts are resolved in favor of constitutionality. see Nankin v. Village of Shorewood, 245 Wis.2d 86 (2001).

Whenever there is a challenge to the constitutionality of a state statute, notice must be given to the Wisconsin Attorney General under 806.04(11) so he/she can decide whether the State wishes to be heard above and beyond the parties to the lawsuit.

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August 18th, 2014

8/18/2014

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NEO-LIBERALISM AND NEO-CONSERVATISM HAVE DECLARED WAR ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE US AND AROUND THE WORLD.  CLINTON AND OBAMA ARE THE FACE OF NEO-LIBERALISM AND CONGRESS IS CONTROLLED BY NEO-LIBERALS.  TAKE BACK THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!


I will talk a few days about neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism and women.  Yesterday I shared a piece from an International Women's meeting in Europe--- for openDemocracy 5050  from the Nobel Women's Initiative conference.  I also want to remind people that Maryland League of Women Voters leaders knew all the candidates in Maryland's race for Governor ----Brown, Gansler, and Mizeur -----were neo-liberals.  It is critical to take back these organizations tasked with protecting labor and justice. 

If you listened to Tom Friedman and other neo-liberal economists over these few decades after Reagan/Clinton neo-liberalism joined the Bush neo-conservatives you would have heard that US sweat shops in developing worlds were good for those poor peasants.  Now that US corporations are being pushed out of these developing worlds and coming back to the US under the guise of job creation----they will bring these same conditions.  Do you know that many low-wage workers in the US both domestic and immigrant do not bring home much more than the developing world's $10 a day after wage theft and fraudulent independent contractor status is laid on them?  Indeed-----and Maryland leads in these policies.


THIS IS NEO-LIBERALISM AND NEO-CONSERVATISM.....IT IS NOT DEMOCRATIC OR REPUBLICAN AND IT KILLS WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND FAMILIES.


If you are going to push women back into poverty and out of the workforce in a meaningful way the first thing to do in a formerly first world where women gained freedom and independence because they were able to work and graduate to high positions is pretend they are winning in the race to the bottom.  Women paid more in part time jobs as women become the majority of part time workers.  As job creation becomes service industry this means poverty jobs.  Just a quick look locally I have noticed a change in banks in Baltimore---it seems that the once abundance of women bank management behind desks now looks to be all men.  I seriously have seen no women in my M and T banks except as tellers.  When jobs are made scarce you will see that mentality that men need the jobs because they are the breadwinner come back and that is what is happening.  Is it bad to remove financial freedom from women in the US?  Well, let's look at the rate of domestic violence, rape, and sexual harassment growing in the US -----the growing sex traffic of women in the US to see abusing women comes with neo-liberalism.

  IF NO RULES/RULE OF LAW AND NO PUBLIC JUSTICE EXIST-----WOMEN LOSE.


This Is The One Area Where Women Earn More Than Men
  • Alison Griswold

  • Nov. 7, 2013, 9:28 AM


There's one area where the gender wage gap is irrelevant and even reversed. Women consistently earn more than men in part-time jobs, which women are also more likely to have.


_______________________________________________


Look below at the article written by Korean women rights groups to see the history of subjugation of women in that country to see where neo-liberalism is taking the US.  We are pummeled with news that women are graduating from college in higher numbers than men but we do not get the big picture.  First, college grads represent a large percentage of the 36% unemployed in the US and women more so than men.  So, women may be graduating in larger numbers but they represent those students with large student loan debts as well.

What we see is a gender change in careers that have been mostly female and paying the most to that of men.  Nursing and teaching are two careers that have paid well for women and these jobs are being taken more and more by men.  Then there comes the pay inequity within the same job categories.....women paid less.  What this all represents is the movement of women out of the workforce and into what will be increasingly part time or unemployed status....just as the Korean women state in the article below.  That is what neo-liberalism does----it marginalizes women and creates the poverty for women that dis-empowers.
  Now, Republicans have always pushed policy for women in the home----the problem is that with neo-liberals pushing 80% and more of Americans into poverty------women become trapped and abused----as in all third world countries. 
So, when neo-liberals place women pay equity on their policy stance as they knowingly push everyone into poverty with a loss of Rule of Law and Equal Protection and Trans Pacific Trade Pact moving US citizens to third world status----THEY ARE HANDING YOU PROPAGANDA. 


THAT IS WHERE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS ARE TAKING WOMEN AND THEY ARE SIMPLY PROVIDING STATS THAT MAKE IT SOUND LIKE WOMEN ARE DOING GREAT.


ALL OF MARYLAND POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS.



Graduating to a Pay Gap: The Earnings of Women and Men One Year after College Graduation

(2012) AAUW

Foreword
Women are paid significantly less than men are in nearly every occupation.



Because pay equity affects
women and their families in all walks of life, it is not surprising that many women consider the issue
important. Many business leaders also believe that pay equity is “good business,” because it improves
morale and productivity. Yet progress in closing the gap between men’s and women’s pay has been slow
and, in recent years, has stagnated.
For more than 130 years, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) has advocated
for gender equity in education and the workplace. During this time, women have gone from a small
minority on college campuses to a majority of the student body. Today, women make up half the workforce,
but they continue to earn less than men do throughout their careers.

Why does this gender pay gap persist? This question is a focal point of AAUW’s research and advocacy
work. Graduating to a Pay Gap finds that women working full time already earn less than their
male counterparts do just one year after college graduation. Taking a closer look at the data, we find
that women’s choices—college major, occupation, hours at work—do account for part of the pay gap.
But about one-third of the gap remains unexplained, suggesting that bias and discrimination are still
problems in the workplace.
At AAUW, research informs action. As an organization of college-educated women, we believe that
the pay gap among college-educated workers and its ramifications—starting with higher student loan
debt burden immediately after college graduation—are of great importance. AAUW is proud to share
research that you can trust. We hope this report will inspire you to join us in taking action to eliminate
the pay gap.
_________________________________________

Keep in mind that the media presenting all of this news knows what the goal of neo-liberalism is---they know women will be targeted for impoverishment.  Yet, they pretend it is just that nasty stagnant economy!!!!  Neo-liberals pretend Republicans cause the stagnant economy ----Republicans pretend its the Democrats---when it is neo-liberals working with neo-cons deliberately creating the stagnant economy because they want US citizens to overwhelmingly become impoverished....third world.


Student Debt Weighs Down Women More. Blame The Wage Gap

by Jessica Glazer

April 06, 2014 5:18 AM ET NPR


When Kristine Leighton graduated from a private college five years ago with a degree in hospitality, she owed $75,000 in student loans. Each month, she paid the minimum amount of $450 and lived at home with her parents on Long Island, N.Y.

At first, she was working at a hotel for $10 an hour; money was tight. Even after she got a job in Manhattan making $75,000 a year, she still couldn't afford to move out. She funneled her earnings into car payments, credit card bills and debt, and a monthly commuter train pass. The loan payments left little extra money for things like an emergency fund.


______________________________________

Women are not choosing to stay home----they are being pushed out of the workforce and marginized into poverty careers and part time.


Global markets allow corporations to profit from a small number of very rich in nations around the world while keeping the majority of people in each nation in poverty.  That is what the Clinton Foundation has worked to do after his pushing of NAFTA and breaking Glass Steagall to grow global corporations and empire-colonialization.


You do not create an environment of suspended Rule of Law, corporate rule, and pervasive fraud and corruption, war and violence from poverty if you have good intentions.



The Mythical ‘Choice’ of the Stay-at-Home Mom

The fact that so much anger erupts at any perceived slight tells us many women are not truly choosing to be home with the kids



By Judith Warner @judithwarner  Time

The mood has shifted considerably on last week’s Ann Romney–Hilary Rosen fracas, with poll results showing that most women don’t really care about what Washington insiders have to say about Rosen’s word choice or, for that matter, how Romney chose to spend her time once she had children. Women are shrugging off political attempts to rekindle the tired old “mommy wars” debate, and are getting on with their busy and complicated lives.

I was shocked, nonetheless, by the degree of rage contained in some of the e-mails I received in response to my column last week. I was also deeply surprised this week when a readers’ panel I participated in on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show on the 1899 Kate Chopin novel, The Awakening, devolved, very quickly, back to Rosen-and-Romney talk once again.



The proximate cause: disagreement over the character of Edna Pontellier, a wealthy young New Orleans woman stifling within her loveless marriage and unstimulating, toil-free life (I believe I can say “toil-free” without unduly again stirring the pot: Edna’s children and home are cared for by ample domestic help), who, after experiencing an emotional and sensual “awakening” through infatuation, escapes her husband and children by taking her own life.

Some readers around the country, and I, distanced ourselves from Edna’s “selfishness” in abandoning her children. Others felt we owed much greater compassion to a woman who had such a stark lack of choices. All of which somehow looped back to Rosen and Romney, and maternal stay-at-home loneliness and despair. Diane Rehm, the radio talk-show host, and Jane Holmes Dixon, suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, recalled the stifling isolation they’d felt as mothers 50 odd years earlier; they could strongly relate to Edna, as could a number of listeners.

It quickly became clear that the link between this more-than-a-century-old fictional character and these moms writing or calling in to express their solidarity with Edna was simple: misery. It was feelings, current or remembered, of depression, of the sense of a vital loss of self and of a deep maroonedness. Rehm and Dixon, who have known each other for many decades, remembered how important it had been to be able to get together way back then and talk their way through all these feelings. It is still a great unifier of stay-at-home mothers today.

This reality, I think, fuels much of the anger, the desire for recognition, the demand for respect we’ve heard so often of late from this minority of mothers — only 30% of whom, in the U.S., are home full-time with children under 18. Recent research has shown that this group is considerably less happy than working mothers, and less contented than part-time working mothers in particular. Working moms are healthier and less depressed, the American Psychological Association reported late last year. Why they feel this way isn’t hard to imagine. Stay-at-home mothers give up their financial freedom, and with it many feel their sense of agency slip away. Their position of equality with their husbands is by necessity somewhat eroded. They lose the sense of strength that comes from knowing that, come what may, they can keep themselves and their children afloat economically. They lose intellectual stimulation (assuming that they were lucky enough to have it in their jobs anyway), the easy companionship and structure of the workplace, and recognition from the outside world. And if they don’t have the money to outsource domestic jobs, their freedom from paid work comes at the cost of repetitive thankless tasks — laundry, cleaning and the like — that test their patience and can chip away at their self-worth. The pleasure in this life of course is time with the children, but school-age kids leave a void that many find hard to meaningfully fill.


In the past, women lived constricted lives because society didn’t afford them much by way of choice. Today, our society in theory offers them a plethora of choices — so many, “that they’re overwhelmed by the stress of so many choices,” as Maureen Dowd said in her New York Times column this week — but in practice, far too many of these choices are false. A woman who ends up staying home with her kids because her work pays so badly that she can’t afford decent child care really has no choice. Ditto for a woman who has a special-needs child requiring constant medical visits and attention and whose husband earns more than she does, making her the natural, if not necessary, primary parent. The woman whose 55-hour-a-week job combines with her husband’s equally demanding career to produce a level of busyness that makes having a connected family life all but impossible unless one of them (the lower-paid one, of course) stays home isn’t really free in her choices either. How many women, after all — or men, for that matter — are in the enviable position of being able, like Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, to leave work at 5:30 p.m. in order to make it home for a nice dinner with their kids? If more could, we’d probably see women’s workforce participation sharply increase — economy permitting.


If women were truly choosing to be home full-time, I think there would probably be a whole lot less emphasis on the hard work involved in doing so and a lot more talk about the privilege that choice would then clearly be. The fact that so much anger — masking so much unhappiness — erupts at any perceived slight to stay-at-home mothers’ efforts should tell us that the condition of full-time motherhood is one we should talk about a great deal more — not through Hallmark-worthy platitudes, but with concern and an eye toward change.

____________________
This is why neo-liberals and neo-cons are working hard to privatize all public agencies charged with oversight and accountability.  No data is being generated from US universities that now dismantle sociology and humanities that created this data.  In Maryland, all of our data is questionable as we find time and again that stats reported one year are found to be skewed and/or false a few years later.  Create the headline with faulty data say neo-liberals and then bury the fact that the data was found false.

Whether women in the military, women on college campuses, women in marriages, women being used in sex traffic----these are US women being attacked and it all has to do with increasing poverty and suspension of Rule of Law, Equal Protection, and Bill of Rights by neo-liberals and neo-cons.
When neo-liberals in Congress pretend to try to fund these programs but it is the 'republicans' that keep them from doing it ----tell them

TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CORPORATE FRAUD FROM LAST DECADE WOULD PAY OFF THE ENTIRE NATIONAL DEBT AND MAKE GOVERNMENT COFFERS FLUSH WITH MONEY-----JUST RECOVER THE FRAUD!



US: Soaring Rates of Rape and Violence Against Women
More Accurate Methodology Shows Urgent Need for Preventive Action December 18, 2008


The National Crime Victimization Survey, based on projections from a national sample survey, says that at least 248,300 individuals were raped or sexually assaulted in 2007, up from 190,600 in 2005, the last year the survey was conducted. The study surveyed 73,600 individuals in 41,500 households. Among all violent crimes, domestic violence, rape, and sexual assault showed the largest increases. Except for simple assault, which increased by 3 percent, the incidence of every other crime surveyed decreased.

"The numbers in this survey show an alarmingly high rate of sexual violence in this country,"
said Sarah Tofte, researcher for the US Program at Human Rights Watch. "This should serve as a wake-up call that more must be done to address the problem in the US."

The projected number of violent crimes committed by intimate partners against women increased from 389,100 in 2005 to 554,260 in the 2007 report. By comparison, the number of violent crimes against men by intimate partners went down.

"Domestic violence is often a hidden crime, and these numbers are a stark reminder of how serious and widespread this problem is," said Tofte. "The Obama-Biden administration should make prevention and protection against all forms of domestic and sexual violence a top priority."

The National Crime Victimization Survey is conducted every two years, with data gathered in phone calls made to a sample of households across the United States. Due to criticism from experts in the subject, the survey's methodology was adjusted in 2007 to capture more accurately the incidence of gender-based violence. The authors say in the report that the higher numbers may reflect the new, more accurate methodology rather than an actual increase. Two major shifts were to describe types of sexual assault to those being interviewed, and to replace "computer-assisted telephone interviews conducted from two telephone centers" nationwide with interviews "by field representatives either by telephone or in person."

"The new numbers
indicate that previously, the government significantly underestimated the number of individuals affected by domestic and sexual violence in this country,"
said Tofte. "Authorities should urgently adjust public policies, law enforcement, and provision of support services accordingly."

Human Rights Watch is currently investigating and monitoring the criminal justice response to sexual violence. The organization's recent work includes investigating the backlog in untested DNA evidence collected in rape cases in the US. In Los Angeles City and County alone, there is a combined total of at least 13,000 untested sets of evidence, known as rape kits, sitting in storage.

Human Rights Watch's national recommendations include:

  • The Obama administration should appoint a special adviser on violence against women in the US;
  • Congress should restore full funding to the Office on Violence Against Women;
  • The Department of Justice, through the National Institute of Justice, should authorize comprehensive studies that more accurately track sexual and domestic violence in the US, especially among individuals who are least likely to be surveyed by the National Crime Victimization Survey;
  • Congress should increase funding for sexual and domestic violence prevention, intervention, and treatment programs;
  • Congress should amend the federal Debbie Smith Act, a grant program designed to eliminate the rape kit backlog, but that states can and have used for other kinds of DNA backlogs;
  • The US should ratify the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which obligates states to prevent, protect against, and punish violence against women.
________________

Below you can see what is coming to the US----Korea was taken neo-liberal after the Korean War in the late 1950s and shows the progression as it hit full-scale in the 1990s---Reagan/Clinton.  Koreans use the term 'irregular worker' for part time. This is long but please glance through because you will read in this history of Korea's takeover by neo-liberals exactly what is happening today.  It is women and children who's wealth fell the most in the last decade of corporate fraud---women are the majority of job losses----and the majority working part time in the US.  Indeed, women now make up a majority of the poor.  Given that women in the US make up a little over 50% of the population----the numbers in poverty are very high.

This is why you have women hitting the political races who are neo-liberals pretending to feel the pain of women driven into poverty by neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism.

HILLARY AND OBAMA REPRESENT THE TWO GROUPS KILLED BY NEO-LIBERALISM AND THAT IS WHY NEO-LIBERALS ARE PUTTING BLACK, HISPANIC, AND FEMALE FACES ON THEIR CANDIDATES.


Remember, less than 10% will be allowed to escape poverty as administrators of this global corporate mess.  Don't vote for a candidate because of race or gender!  Your chances of remaining in that 10% is slim to nothing.

NEOLIBERALISM THRHOUGH THE EYES OF WOMEN
Joo-Yeon Jeong & Seung-Min Choi, PICIS*


There is no place on Earth where neo-liberalism has not poisoned. It has allowed a handful of private interests to control as much as possible of social life in order to maximize personal profit. It has poisonous effects especially in the Third World, where imperial powers continue to pirate natural and human resources to fill the pockets of transnational capitalists. Initiated by Reagan and Thatcher, for the last two decades, neo-liberalism has become the dominant economic and political trend for much of the leftist (so they identify themselves) governments as well as the right.

However, as women fighting against global capitalism and its new phase, as women yearning for a better world where we will not be exploited and abused, we must go a step further into looking into this 'neo-liberalism' through the experiences of women. And it is not just about how women linearly experience it - we must go into the depths to manifest how neo-liberalism operates in a very gender-biased way.

WOMEN WORKERS AS SCAPEGOATS


In Korea, the process of being absorbed into global capitalism began earlier than the economic crisis, during the economic 'hyper '-development era of military dictatorship of Park Jung-Hee, with quite a bit of help from the US. Fluctuating together with global economic crises, the Korean economy started to show signs of a recession from the early 90s, as rate of profit decreased. Thus, capitalists started to adopt policies of introducing flexibility to the labour market. It was 'experimented' on women workers first before taking full force on the entire working class at the end of the millennium.

Jobs where women were predominant started to be transformed in the 1980s, beginning in the form of dispatch labour and eventually expanding to generalisation of irregular labour. However, this process was mainly targeted at women workers and the male-oriented labour movement did not give much importance to it, even though women worker's movement consistently called for the address of the issue.

Although the incorporation of Korean economy into the global capitalist system had already started around a decade ago, Korean people came to experience its destructive nature during and after the economic crisis of 1997. The structural adjustment program of the IMF shook the labour market and massive lay-offs were implemented. In particular, women workers were laid off first, and the working conditions of women workers fell to the ground.

The methods that the management used was subcontracting or abolishing those production lines and business sectors where women were predominant. Women in these places were usually typists or clerical assistants, who were considered not important and cumbersome, and thus provided the logic and justification for the lay-offs. Many companies would lay-off these women, and instead employ workers from dispatch companies - thus providing the management with ways in which to decrease labour costs and evade provision of insurances and benefits. Or in the case of banks, the same worker would be reemployed, but on a contract basis as irregular workers, again to decrease labour costs. Another method of laying off women workers or transforming them into irregular workers, was targeting foremost women who were married to someone in the same workplace, and also those who were pregnant or were on their maternal leave. They provided the management with strong justifications based on patriarchal values of 'women's place is at home'. This process of unjust and discriminatory lay-offs at the onset of the economic crisis saw the deterioration of maternal protection and women worker's rights in general. The achievements that the women worker's movement had accomplished over the last couple of decades were undermined.

"FLEXIBILITY" OF WOMEN WORKERS


The massive lay-offs that occurred after 1997 was obviously not 'inevitable' on the part of the management,
but was a calculated process of increasing the rate of profit through flexibility of the labour market. Because the need for lay-offs did not come simply from decrease in production, workers who were laid off were re-employed, but as irregular workers. And because flexibility measures were implemented foremost on women, women were also absorbed again in masses into the labour market, but this time as irregular workers with low wages and low protection.

Attaining flexibility of women workers was backed up by the patriarchal ideology of 'male as breadwinner'1 . Through this ideology, women workers are considered not really as workers, but as 'assistant income providers', the ideology that contributes to devaluation of women's work. And this in turn provided the justification for the primary lay-offs of women and transforming women's jobs into irregular jobs - a justification that quelled the possibility of resistance from the working class. Recently, capitalist institutions and mainstream media elaborate that the rate of women's employment is increasing faster that the rate of men. On one hand, this is due to the increase in absolute number of jobs-irregular jobs for women, but also due to the fact that women do not have much choice than take up highly unstable jobs without any hesitation to earn a living, whereas men can afford to be more 'selective'.

Now, the percentage of irregular workers is risen to higher levels than regular workers. In analyzing a census on the economically-active workforce implemented by the Korean Statistical Office in August 2001, the Korea Labor & Society Institute (www.klsi.org) estimated the number of irregular workers to be 7.37 million, constituting 55.7% of the total workforce2.According to studies made in 2000, out of entire irregular workers, the percentage of women is higher than that of men at 53%, and within the entire women workforce irregular workers take up 70%. These official statistics exclude specially employed labour (for example, the type of jobs that capitalists characterise as self-employment) such as private tutors, insurance sales, golf caddies etc., so if these jobs are included, the rate of irregular women workers will definitely rocket.

Irregular work pertaining to capital's flexibility measures has brought deterioration of working conditions and impoverishment for workers of both genders. But it has affected women workers more severely. At the moment, most of irregular women workers are employed in small enterprises of less than 10 employees. It has driven women's work into the ditches and has also increased mental stress from lack of self-confidence and the fear of losing their jobs. One feminist scholar was interviewing irregular women workers and told of how the interviewees were in constant fear of being seen throughout the interview. Many social psychologists point out that the increase of irregular work and the mental stress that comes from it is becoming a serious social problem that is bound to affect the whole society.

Moreover, with the automation of production lines and transfer of factories in capital's constant search for cheaper labour, many women workers who had originally constituted a large proportion of the workforce in the manufacturing sector are now being absorbed into the service sector - in areas such as the so-called 'entertainment' businesses and as domestic workers. The service sector has rapidly expanded over the last few years in Korea, and many women are being employed as narrator models, telemarketers, and as servers and entertainers in bars. These jobs are not only unstable, low waged and physically strenuous, but they also enforce the use of 'femininity' and sexuality to raise sales, making women more vulnerable to possibilities of sexual abuse and exploitation. Also, because the service sector has always shared a very thin borderline with the sex industry, it is not very surprising that more and more women workers, both young and aged, are being drawn into the sex industry. For example, many married women in their 30's and 40's are employed in the so-called 'telephone rooms (jeon-hwa-bang)' and are forced to have phone sex with men. Many other married women were employed as 'pager women', who are paged to come to bars to 'entertain' men. This became a very heated issue when Daewoo Motors unionists went to a bar, paged women, and came face to face with familiar faces. When Daewoo workers were laid-off, the wives had to find jobs to sustain their families and the only ones available were as 'pager women'. The ruling elite and the conservative media are enthusiastically deploring the moral collapse of Korean women, but the reality is that it is the capitalist system that is corrupting the people.

The situation is not much different on the international arena. Neo-liberal globalisation has paved the way for increase in migrant women workers, international trafficking and enforced sex work in the Third World. In Korea, many women from the Philippines and Russia come to Korea as domestic workers and 'entertainers', and then are tricked into providing sexual services to Korean men and the US military.

WIDENING GAP BETWEEN WOMEN


Neo-liberal globalisation has also impeded the widening of gap between different classes of women. The living standard between women in the developed countries and those in the Third World is now incomparable, as is the situation inside Korea. Rich women of the bourgeoisie can afford to wear fur coats that cost tens of million won, shop in department stores in their imported cars, buy US produced baby food, send their children to expensive private English language schools so that they are reproduced as the minority elite who rule the world of globalisation, and employ women from South-east Asia as housemaids. This is how the minority of women in Korea live, and furthermore, they are not living on the wealth that they had accumulated themselves, but on the wealth accumulated by their husbands. And this in turn is the wealth accumulated from exploiting women workers in Korea and elsewhere in the Third World. In contrast to the minority of women who enjoy the outcome of neo-liberal domination in a good part of the world, majority of women cannot find a proper job no matter how hard they try, and when they do find a job, it is an unstable job in slave-like conditions that can get snatched away from them. They cannot afford domestic help or a nanny - they work for long tiring hours outside and then come home to find piles of dishes to be washed and children to be fed. Also, studies by women's organizations have found that domestic abuse has increased, as husbands and fathers who have lost jobs turn to expressing their anger at their daughters and wives, and resort to violence.

CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL BACKLASH


To quell mass resistance against economic globalisation that has brought about increase in unemployment, decrement of public services, downfall in wages and deterioration of quality of life, the ruling elite has manipulated cultural conservatism to solidify its dominance over society.
Cultural conservatism in Korea is represented by Confucian patriarchy. The economic crisis of 1997 saw the rise of this ideology that came together with the capitalist form of 'male as breadwinner' model, and acted to cover up the oppression of women while highlighting the need for women to make more sacrifices for the sake of saving the crumbling economy. In the meanwhile, unemployment of men was highlighted as a serious social problem. Thus the role of women was limited to that of 'comforting' the suffering man in the family, while the sufferings of women both as wage workers and non-wage workers were ignored. The Korean mainstream media and the conservative ruling elite alike have neglected the seriousness of women suffering from sexual abuse on the basis that women should have perseverance, but has spotlighted those desperate women who left home after losing all hopes as destructors of family values. Women who had replaced their husbands as the breadwinners end up in the sex industry, after being rejected from any other type of work, but then are stigmatised as being morally corrupt. The severity of unemployment of male youths appear in the news everyday, whereas female students are not only ignored but are blocked altogether from the labour market. Many right-wing sociologists and economists actually suggested that marriage for women should be more emphasized by the government so as to block women from entering the labour market - and thus lowering the official unemployment rate. The media focuses evermore on the fantasies of marriage, and the 'marriage business' is now enjoying its 'Belle Epoque'.

A CRITIQUE OF KIM DAE-JUNG'S POLICIES ON WOMEN


Kim Dae-Jung's government has been portrayed as being democratic and pro-feminist in and outside of Korea. There were high hopes for this president with his long history of fighting for democracy, and from the beginning, many civil and women's organizations decided to give him 'critical' support. However, his promise of establishing a ministry specific on women's issues was replaced by the Special Committee On Women's Affairs with no legislative powers, much to the disappointment of women's groups. As his presidential term is coming to an end, he did launch the Ministry of Gender Equality during the first half of this year, with a prominent figure from a major women NGO seated as the Minister. However, the policies that the Ministry is adopting are those that will hardly benefit majority of women suffering at grassroot levels.

This was recently manifested in the revisions that were made to the maternity clauses in the Standard Labour Laws in June. The Ministry had announced that it will expand public childcare so as to decrease the burden on working women. With support from major women NGOs3, the Ministry proposed revisions to maternity-related clauses in the Standard Labour Laws, and the clauses were changed for the first time since 1953. There were basically two major improvements - maternity leave was increased from the present 60 days to 90 days, and prohibition on employment of women in hazardous workplaces was expanded. This may seem like a big step, but the fact of the matter is, these laws came in exchange for further flexibility of women's labour. In exchange for increase of maternal leave, the Ministry also agreed to abolish the clauses restricting overtime work and night work, paid familycare leave and menstruation leave.

In a situation where 70% (or perhaps even higher and ever increasing) of women workers are irregular workers, how many women workers will actually benefit from the revision? The majority of working class women are outside legal boundaries. The Ministry and women NGOs argue that they will fight for the application of the laws to irregular workers, but without questioning the neo-liberal characteristics behind the legislation, there is really no chance that this will actually take place. Many women activists had fought hard for these laws for the last decade and they are congratulating themselves in finally achieving their objective, but in the meantime, a vast majority of women workers have fallen into the ditches of irregular work and the demands of the majority have been neglected to benefit a few. Capitalists have learnt to 'sacrifice' a few laws for the sake of obtaining further flexibility. Despite the argument that these revisions will open new opportunities for women, without questioning the essence of Kim's government and its support for neo-liberalism, the revisions that were recently made will only expedite the flexible usage of women workers and thus further deteriorate the working conditions of irregular women workers. The Ministry and the NGOs do not realize that the laws, along with others that were made during the recent years4 , are all in compliance with neo-liberalism.

It has only been one year since the Ministry of Gender Equality took off, but those benefiting from it are middle-class, elite women, and only the minority of women workers who are lucky enough to be in a regular job. The presidential elections take place next year. Despite that the Ministry is conforming to neo-liberal policies and trying to confuse the workers about the essence of its policies, it does have some significance amidst the severely patriarchal political scene of Korea - which may well be undermined by any of the major right-wing political parties that take office - including the ruling New Millenium Democratic Party of Kim Dae-Jung, which still receive a lot of support from NGOs. This will merely lead to more lack of hope for state-led labour policies.

FIGHTING AND ORGANISING


Neo-liberalism was not something that hit Korea suddenly in 1997, but is a historical development of capitalism that has gradually taken form during the last few decades. It had been women workers who had felt the effects of globalisation first and thus were the first ones to resist. It was the women workers of Korea, who fought militantly during the 70s and early 80s for a democratic union and worker's rights. Women workers formed the foundation for the modern labour movement, although this fact often tends to be forgotten. During the late 80's, the Korean economy reconstructed itself into focusing on export-oriented heavy industries, whose workers were predominantly men, and women workers were left behind.

The onslaught of neo-liberal globalisation and the impoverishment that came with it was also felt first by women workers. Just after the economic crisis, the women worker's movement moved a big step forward when independent women's trade unions began to beformed5 . The unions came out of the need to address the specific issues of women workers that could not be properly dealt with in a general union -organising irregular workers, the unemployed, domestic workers and those women who worked in small companies where there are no unions. The percentage of women participating in unions still remain at a meagre 5%, due to the fact that general unions do not accommodate workers who are not regular workers. It was only in 1997, when the IMF enforced austerity measures and structural adjustment programs also affected male workers, that the people's movement in Korea fully realised the destructive nature of neo-liberalism. From then on, flexibility of labour has become the main target of struggle for the working class. Spotlight was finally thrown on the fact that neo-liberalism attack women workers foremost, but unfortunately the longtime demands and struggles of women workers are being put aside, as the struggles against 'irregular labour' is again being organised in a male-oriented fashion.

The establishments of these unions are very significant in the history of the Korean labour movement and also in the women's movement. Just as the strategies of capitalists change, the organisation of the working class also much change to resist effectively. The essence of neo-liberalism and its gender-bias cannot be resisted through the traditional method of organization concentrating on male, regular workers from big enterprises.

However, these newly formed women's unions still have further developments to make and many obstacles to overcome, in their struggles against national and international capital. The unions must question the role of neo-liberal globalisation and its strategy of incorporating flexibility measures into the labour market, for a full understanding of the situation of women workers and organizing of more radical struggles that go into the fundamental core. And at the same time, the worker's movement of Korea must go through structural changes to accommodate the ever increasing irregular workers, and must also make more effort into overcoming the patriarchal values that are still prevalent inside people's movement. Many women activists and unionists have started to address the issues of gender discrimination and sexual violence inside the people's movement, which up until now had been covered up. Over the years, many fervent and militant women activists have had to leave the movement because of discrimination and violence. It was always considered women's fault, or victimized women were forced to 'forgive' for the 'greater cause'. Many women activists, workers and unionists are uniting themselves and are calling upon the movement to tackle the problem of hierarchy, discrimination and violence.

TOWARDS ORGANIZING GLOBAL RESISTANCE OF WOMEN


As we have seen, neo-liberal globalisation affects all areas of society, to attain flexibility of the labour market solely for the interests of transnational capital. In the case of Korea, this process of enforcing structural adjustment and flexibility has devastated the lives of the people, especially women. Capitalist industrialisation has brought about the rise of the women's proletariat and neo-liberal globalisation has further feminised the proletariat while at the same time impoverishing the proletariat into the verge of slavery.

This is not a matter of women merely being affected 'more' - we must look at the mechanisms of neo-liberalism that operate in a gender-biased way. Indeed, neo-liberal globalisation itself feed upon gender discrimination and effectively use traditional patriarchal values to exploit women further. Patriarchal ideologies act to crush any attempts of women to politicize and form resistance.

However, the essence of neo-liberalism is slowly being manifested and women have begun to fight back. Feminisation of labour and feminisation of poverty signify increased exploitation of women, but precisely because of that, provide the possibility for organization and resistance, nationally and internationally. Women must now go forth as subjects in uniting the people in our fight against neo-liberal globalisation. Instead of being incorporated into a ready-made movement of men or middle-class elite women, instead of taking the problems of discrimination for granted, women workers, farmers, indigenous peoples, migrants and other grassroot peoples of the Third World must form a broad solidarity. We must analyse globalisation from women's perspective, plan strategies that conform with the particular needs of women, propose alternatives that include women as equal subjects, keep to the principle of internationalism, and unite with other oppressed groups in the mass resistance in the fight against neo-liberalism - and go beyond in creating a world based on equality.

* Joo-Yeon Jeong & Seung-Min Choi are with the Policy & Information Center for International Solidarity (PICIS), Korea. This paper was presented at the International South Group Network (ISGN) Asian Workshop on Women and Globalisation, 22-24 November, Manila.

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August 16th, 2014

8/16/2014

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I want to spend one more day shouting to the middle-class to WAKE UP!!!!!!  STOP LOOKING AT THE TV NEWS AND THINKING THIS MILITARIZED POLICING AND SPYING IS ONLY HURTING THE WORKING CLASS AND POOR.

The small government of neo-liberals and neo-cons gutted oversight and accountability and public justice.  We want to be clear----when equal protection disappears everyone is hurt but women and people of color the most.  The middle-class is seeing its life savings and investments shredded by fraud and corruption linked to this outsourcing of the public sector.  The unemployment in the US is at around 36% and is called a permanent fixture because that 36% is the middle-management that gave oversight and accountability to corporations and government.  All of this plays hard on people of color and the working class in the form of poverty issues, but it opens as well to the fact that 80% and soon 90% of American people will fall into this category.  Republican voters must see that small government effects all people's rights as citizens-----not just the poor and/or people of color.  It will come to your family!

WE MUST FIGHT AGAINST THIS ILLEGAL ATTACK ON OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AS CITIZENS, EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER RULE OF LAW, AND OUR BILL OF RIGHTS.

Baltimore City State's Attorney does not even have a white collar criminal unit and no funds to build one.  Rawlings-Blake and City Hall are overseeing a systemic fleecing of government coffers and have no interest in public oversight and accountability.  Baltimore City is one of a few governments not having routine audits -----it all happens because Johns Hopkins controls public policy and revenue in the city and does not want oversight and accountability.  They want only to control the symptoms of the poverty this creates.


Baltimore City Will Hire 2 New Prosecutors To Reduce Violence

July 11, 2013 7:01 PM

Mike Hellgren WJZ general assignment reporter

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A new plan of action. The recent spike in city violence sparks local and federal lawmakers to enact a new plan of action.

The mayor, police commissioner and U.S. attorney appoint two special prosecutors to target violent offenders.

Mike Hellgren has more on the new partnership.

These two new experienced prosecutors are veterans of the system. They have not yet been selected; background checks are underway now. They will have the full resources of the federal government.




I shared with everyone that Maryland's Attorney General Doug Gansler ran with an agenda item being dismantling the prosecutor's office assign to provide oversight and justice from government malfeasance and corruption.  This office was created as a result of the Agnew years.  Well, fraud and corruption never left and the attorneys running for these state's attorney and Attorney's General offices simply ignore and defund agencies tasked with public justice.  There is so much business fraud in Maryland against citizens that people have to work hard to find an honest contractor and then watch them like a hawk-----just because these public justice agencies are dismantled.  These are the same agencies that protect people's civil rights as with police brutality and unconstitutional policing.  So, THIS AFFECTS EVERYONE FOLKS!

THINK WHICH GROUPS IN MARYLAND BACK NEO-LIBERALS LIKE ANTHONY BROWN AND DOUG GANSLER ----AND REPUBLICAN HOGAN WILL DO THE SAME-----LABOR AND JUSTICE LEADERS IN MARYLAND BACK THE VERY POLS DOING THIS DAMAGE.  MARYLAND HAS NO LABOR AND JUSTICE LEADERS THAT ARE NOT CAPTURED BY THIS PROCESS.


People need to see that the white collar crime that empties the Baltimore City coffers----and this happens all across Maryland----is directly related to the crime and violence in low-income communities.  If billions are stolen by Baltimore Development Corporation and Johns Hopkins through fraud and corruption then cuts to social services and community programs occur.  If Johns Hopkins writes policy that floods the city labor market with immigrants who are then fleeced of their wages ----or workers brought from out of state to work in Baltimore
-----high unemployment drives crime and violence.  The middle-class in Baltimore are being hit with car/home break ins/robberies because people are not able to be employed.  RAIDING CITY COFFERS WITH FRAUD AND CORRUPTION AND THEN BRINGING LABOR TO BALTIMORE WHO ARE THEN FLEECED OF WAGES-----all involving suspended Rule of Law and public justice.  THIS WILL AFFECT EVERYONE.

IT IS NOT ONLY THE UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF POLICING--IT IS THE SUSPENSION OF RULE OF LAW FOR ALL WHITE COLLAR CRIME.


This report simply shows the pattern that exists throughout Baltimore City government.  If you look at the report on SAIC from yesterday and the corruption in that Hopkins corporation the problems are the same.  If you go further and look at the structure for Wall Street financial instruments filling our financial industry with fraud-----it is all the same model.  Creating multiple layers of service and responsibility and then claim it is all too complicated to audit.  Baltimore does not have a revenue problem----the revenue is being stolen and diverted to the same people.

IInside City Hall: What a federal audit tells us about city spending Baltimore ranks at the bottom of cities audited by HUD's Inspector General. Where, exactly, did the $9.5 million in homeless funds go?

Mark Reutter December 5, 2012 at 7:11 am


Homeless men and women sit near the city’s Harry and Jeanette Weinberg homeless shelter at 620 Fallsway.

Calling for audits has become a popular pastime at City Hall.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake wants one to look at Comptroller Joan Pratt’s Municipal Telephone Exchange office, while Pratt is calling for numbers crunchers to sift through the contracts of the Mayor’s Office of Information Technology.

Councilman Carl Stokes has called for audits of all city agencies, something the mayor and majority of the City Council don’t want to do. But the mayor and Council did agree over the summer to audit selective agencies beginning in year 2014.

Given all the fuss, wouldn’t it seem that when an audit does appear, elected officials would rush to find out what it says about how the city spends money?

Such a report arrived last month. The Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released an audit of Baltimore’s use of $9.5 million for homeless programs awarded under President Obama’s 2009 Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

A Crash Nobody Heard

City Hall seems to be pretending that this audit does not exist, like the proverbial tree that fell in the woods with a crash nobody heard.

There’s been no comment about the report by top officials, not least by Mayor Rawlings-Blake, whose Office of Human Services and Homeless Services Program stand accused of ineptitude and mismanagement by HUD’s auditors.

The report says that the city did not properly monitor the homeless funds, paid sub-providers based on a preset formula rather than on actual expenditures, lost track of money in several instances, and paid city staffers according to estimates, not on the actual time they spent on grant activities.

Calling 100% of Baltimore’s homeless expenditures “unsupported” by required documentation, HUD’s Inspector General is recommending that the city either provide proof that its homeless payments were legit or return the dough – all $9,472,118 – to the federal government.

The Inspector General faulted Baltimore’s homeless program.

“Baltimore Was Delinquent”

While Rawlings-Blake and her staff haven’t publicly responded to the audit, the Homeless Services’ rebuttal to HUD was published in the report.

It’s revealing. The city admits that it violated federal regulations because it did not have the staff to ensure compliance and because it found the program’s regulations too complicated.

“The City of Baltimore was delinquent in monitoring the program’s sub-providers as required because we lacked resources to conduct an appropriate level of monitoring, both fiscally and programmatically,” Kate Briddell, director of Homeless Services, wrote.


She acknowledged a number of management infractions. Among them: “the fiscal director improperly directed the fiscal staff to draft funds . . . to reimburse itself,” the Board of Estimates approved a homeless contract “in error,” the language of another contract “was not amended in title or terms to accommodate” the federal program, and funds “that appear to be drawn” improperly from one account were in fact used without documentation for a related program.

After making these admissions, Briddell went on to deny that they had any real consequences. “[W]hile some of the paperwork was not completed or kept in a standard we would like, no waste, fraud or abuse was conducted during the course of administering this project,” she wrote.

Briddell’s statement was flatly contradicted by her own acknowledgment that the Prisoner’s Aid Association of Maryland did not properly handle $270,550 in homeless funds – HUD claims the group was double billing the government for clients they had placed in emergency housing.

Perhaps that’s why HUD’s reply to Briddell begins so bluntly: “We disagree with the city’s statements.”

At the Bottom of Cities Audited


To check whether other cities shared Baltimore’s managerial shortcomings, The Brew reviewed a dozen HUD audits of city and county governments that also received funds under the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program.

Compared to Baltimore’s 100% “unsupported” expenditures, HUD’s Inspector General found that less than 1% of the funds spent by New York City, Houston and San Francisco to be “unsupported” or “ineligible.” The exact percentages were: New York (0.6%), Houston  (0.48%) and San Francisco (0.7%).

The Los Angeles Housing Department was also audited. HUD found $29,004 of the $29.4 million awarded was not properly documented, or less than 0.001%.

Even the worst offenders – Buffalo with 6.6% unsupported documentation and Newark with 8.5% unsupported, according to HUD – look like like fiscal angels compared to Charm City.

HUD certified in its audit of Baltimore that it followed generally accepted government auditing standards.

Coming Back for More

The lack of sufficient internal controls has been a longstanding criticism of Baltimore government.

City departments, including the Mayor’s various offices handling criminal justice, CitiStat operations, information technology, health and human services, are budgeted a certain amount of funds for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

But the practice of letting departments come back for more funds during the year, through supplemental appropriations approved by the Board of Estimates, undercuts fiscal discipline, critics say.

This coupled with the lack of oversight by the City Council – the Budget and Appropriations Committee chaired by Councilman Helen Holton has yet to reconvene a hearing concerning agency spending last year – and the necessary checks and balances are absent.

Farming Out Responsibility

A larger issue brought out by the HUD audit was the lack of programmatic oversight by the city.
The Mayor’s Office of Human Services did not even hand out the homeless grants. The task was farmed out to its fiscal agent, the United Way of Maryland.

That process split up management functions, which effectively meant that nobody was minding the store and determining whether the sub-providers were actually fulfilling the needs of the homeless as well as meeting the requirements of HUD.

Until effective accountability is instilled at the top, the future audits promised for city agencies are likely to suffer the same fate as the HUD homeless audit – official silence from those in charge, leading to more public cynicism about the workings of local government.

_____________________________________________



Below you see the supposed Democratic candidate for Maryland Attorney General.  If you look at the issues you will never see or hear the words----massive corporate fraud and government corruption as any justice candidate's platform.  You see selected justice issues that are always aimed at low level criminals such as scammers targeting senior citizens.  The subprime mortgage fraud targeted seniors and the parking ticket settlement was a disgrace yet Frosh never mentioned the injustice---he instead looked at individual solutions to foreclosures.  The fact that Maryland was the source of the fraud----MERS operated out of Frosh's Montgomery County as well as Virginia's Washington beltway----Maryland was the hardest hit by subprime mortgage fraud-----and it is the state with the highest number of foreclosures happening even now.  All of this shows there is no public justice at work in this particular case.  I choose Frosh and his statement on protecting seniors as a way to show how these issues mean nothing.  Sure, there are scammers targeting seniors but that exists because there is absolutely no public justice agency in place preventing these predations.  Maryland TV programming is filled with businesses that scam people.  Our local and state agencies of Licensing and Regulation DLLR is a skeleton crew and this is what allows for contractors to act criminal at will.  Frosh never mentions this and will not do anything to change this.

If you listen to Republican candidate for Governor Hogan he will use the fraud and corruption issue but as with Frosh-----he means he will look at low-level scams like Food Stamp and Pension fraud and never mentions the systemic culture of corporate fraud and government corruption.  So, don't vote for a Republican just because neo-liberals have made the Democratic Party so corrupt.....

GET RID OF THE NEO-LIBERALS!  THEY ARE ONLY PROTECTING WEALTH AND PROFIT AND WILL NOT HOLD POWER ACCOUNTABLE.


Neo-liberals always talk about gun violence and control but they are the ones implementing the policies that kill labor and justice....creating the conditions for this increase in crime and violence.  So, if a candidate simply shouts a mantra of gun control and gun violence without shouting that the Maryland Assembly and Baltimore City Hall passes policy that creates the conditions for crime and violence----he/she will do nothing about solving these problems.
  Now, FROSH is definitely better than Jon Cardin but the point is Maryland never has a candidate for public justice that will provide public justice.

Google  '
Frosh and government corruption and corporate fraud' and you will get nothing.

THE GOVERNOR HAS THE ABILITY TO CREATE SPECIAL TASK FORCES AND PRESSURE MARYLAND AGENCIES TO ENFORCE LAW-----


neo-liberals like Brown will protect the fraud and corruption----Cindy Walsh for Governor will fight and reverse it!



PETER FROSH FOR MARYLAND ATTORNEY GENERAL



Issues Protecting Kids Online


Information technology has made our world more connected and productive than ever before. Unfortunately, the anonymity and freedom of the Internet have also created greater opportunities for crime, exploitation, and abuse. As a father of two daughters, I know firsthand the threats the Internet brings into the lives of young people today. Through that expe...

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Protecting Seniors Our seniors deserve the respect and care that they have earned throughout their lifetime. Maryland's senior population will only continue to rise in the coming years. As a result, the number of crimes against seniors will also increase. Far too often, scam artists perceive senior citizens as vulnerable and relatively wealthy due to their ability to access...

Read More

Making Maryland Safer Protecting people - it’s what I have done in the courtroom and in the legislature. My number one priority as Attorney General will be keeping Maryland families safe. I have been a leader in keeping Maryland families safe by: Leading the fight for the Firearm Safety Act, landmark gun safety legislation that will prevent gun violence and save thousan...

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Protecting Maryland's Environment We know that the beauty of our state isn’t just something we enjoy, but it is also one of the things that make our economy strong. Responsible and sustainable utilization of our natural resources should be a guiding principle for Maryland businesses and individuals. Everywhere I go, Marylanders tell me they want clean water to drink and clean air to...

Read More

Protecting Maryland Consumers As a young man, I was taught the importance of justice and fairness, and to stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. I have carried those values with me throughout my career in public service: championing laws to protect children from ingesting harmful chemicals in baby bottles and formula; expanding the Attorney General’s power t...

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The only oversight in Maryland comes from the Federal government and as we all know Eric Holder and Obama have made it their top priority to get rid of that with the help of Congress.  You see below that all of the agencies tasked with oversight and transparency are the ones cut in the attack of small government.  THAT IS ALL THESE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS CARE ABOUT---HIDING THE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION TRAIL.

This is third world.  It is what Trans Pacific Trade Pact does----eliminates a sovereign nation's ability to limit corporate profit in any way.  I had a young black Republican in Maryland tell me WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH PROFIT?  Well, you are being sold a bill of goods if you do not understand the power of Rule of Law and Equal Protection and Bill of Rights in everyone's life.



Continued cuts to legislative branch budget hurt transparency, accountability, and capacity

.
by Matthew Rumsey
  • policy
July 9, 2013, 4:16 p.m.


This morning, the House Appropriations Committee's Legislative Branch Subcommittee marked up its FY 2014 funding bill, agreeing to a plan that would cut funding for Congress and legislative support agencies well below FY 2013 levels, and even beneath sequestration levels for most offices.

Committee leadership claimed that cuts were necessary to "lead by example" and help get the government's "fiscal house in order,"
but, in reality, the cuts will likely limit accountability, access to information, and the ability of Congress and the legislative support agencies to do their jobs efficiently and effectively
. The shrinking budgets could also make it more difficult for Congress to implement a number of important transparency initiatives.

Specifically, the plan would continue several years of cuts to House operations and the Government Accountability Office that have diminished the capacity of both bodies.

The GAO exists to help Congress fulfill one of its most important functions,
overseeing and improving the accountability and efficiency of the federal government, and pays for itself many times over through the cost savings that it identifies every year. Unfortunately, Since major budget cuts began three years ago the GAO has lost more than 14% of its staff and seen its ranks fall to the lowest staffing level since 1935. The GAO cannot continue to identify waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government and help to save taxpayers billions of dollars every year if its budget keeps shrinking.

Meanwhile, the House has cut individual office budgets by more than 17% over the past few years, reducing Representatives' ability to understand and enact complex policy, communicate openly and efficiently with constituents, perform oversight, and do the job of governing that they were elected to do. Unfortunately, Congressional staffs have been shrinking since the late 1970's. These cuts will most likely accelerate that trend and further diminish Congress' policy expertise and ability to conduct oversight.

Finally, limited budgets could make it harder for Congress to move forward with important transparency reforms, including opening Congressional Research Service reports and reports from the Executive branch to Congress to the public.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to mark up their Legislative Branch funding bill on Thursday. Hopefully they will push for funding necessary to ensure that Congress and its support agencies can do their jobs effectively.


_____________________________________________

The same forces dismantling public justice for citizens in poor communities is that dismantling oversight and accountability in government and corporations.  The idea is that chaos and unaccountability allows the few in the autocracy to control everyone else----and that is what people in third world nations
live with every day.  When my friends dread having to find a contractor to do simple work because everyone is fleecing consumers---the middle-class are losing  rights as the people in poor communities enduring 'stop and frisk', home invasions, zero tolerance, and now youth curfews......loss of citizenship.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO WAKE UP TO THE CULTURE OF CRIMINALITY WE HAVE IN GOVERNMENT AND CORPORATIONS.


Below you see the political culture of neo-liberals and neo-cons.....O'Malley is the mirror of Cuomo and both are raging Wall Street neo-liberals----Clinton's farm team.  If you have leadership in government openly committing fraud as you do today---you have no
Rule of Law being enforced anywhere.


I went to the Baltimore Comptroller's office for FOIA request on a statement made by Mayor Rawlings-Blake during a Board of Estimates meeting.  The mayor's lawyer Nilson was there and stated out loud that the FOIA would be used against the people included in a lawsuit to which the BOA employee stated.....well, we can lose that information.  This is so pervasive that a lawyer feels no problem with suggesting that information disappear.
  You can just see how this behavior is mirrored in the Baltimore City Police Department.

UNCONSTITUTIONAL CONDUCT!  PROVE IT!


Wednesday, Jul 23, 2014 09:30 AM EST  Salon


Report: Andrew Cuomo under federal investigation for allegedly thwarting ethics inquiries

The governor of New York and possible future presidential candidate may have tried to shield his donors Elias Isquith

According to a new bombshell report in the New York Times, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, widely expected to coast to reelection this fall and long rumored to have presidential ambitions, is under federal investigation for allegedly trying to thwart his own anti-corruption commission after it began looking at his political allies.......


Why Is the Cuomo Administration Automatically Deleting State Employees' Emails?

Wednesday, 13 August 2014 10:23 By Theodoric Meyer, ProPublica | Report

Governor Andrew Cuomo (Photo: Diana Robinson / Flickr)New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration — which the governor pledged would be the most transparent in state history -- has quietly adopted policies that allow it to purge the emails of tens of thousands of state employees, cutting off a key avenue for understanding and investigating state government.

Last year, the state started deleting any emails more than 90 days old that users hadn't specifically saved — a much more aggressive stance than many other states. The policy shift was first reported by the Albany Times Union.

A previously unpublished memo outlining the policy raises new questions about the state's stated rationale for its deletions policy. What's more, the rules on which emails must be retained are bewilderingly complex – they fill 118 pages – leading to further concern that emails may not be saved at all.

"If you're aggressively destroying your email, it looks like you're trying to hide something," said Benjamin Wright, a Dallas lawyer who has advised companies and government agencies on records retention.

ProPublica obtained the memo through a public records request.

In the June 18, 2013, memo, Karen Geduldig, the general counsel of the state's Office of Information Technology Services, described New York's decision to automatically delete emails as a way to cut down on the state's "enormous amount of email data."

But the state implemented the policy as part of a move to Microsoft's Office 365 email system, which offers 50 gigabytes of space per email user — enough to store hundreds of thousands or even millions of emails for each state worker. The state's version of Office 365 also offers unlimited email archiving.

The Office of Information and Technology Services declined to comment on the record. An official in the office said even though the state can store large quantities of email, it can still be difficult to manage.

"Just because you have a big house doesn't mean you have to shove stuff in it," the official said.

Geduldig's memo also pointed out that some federal government agencies and corporations automatically purge employees' email. "Such a system will aid the State in improving its email management," Geduldig wrote.

But many states take a different tack.

Florida, for instance, requires state employees to keep routine administrative correspondence for at least three years, and emails dealing with policy development for at least five years. Connecticut requires employees to keep routine emails for at least two years. Washington State requires workers to keep emails dealing with public business for two years, and emails to and from top officials for four years. Those states also do not automatically delete email.

"It shouldn't be an automatic process," said Russell Wood, the records manager for the Washington State Archives. "There should be some point of review in there."

Emails that qualify as "records" are supposed to be preserved under New York's policy. But determining which emails qualify and which don't — a task left up to individual state employees — can be mind-numbingly complicated.

The state's rules include 215 different categories of records — including two separate categories dealing with office supplies.

"We don't think it's plausible at all that agency personnel are going to meticulously follow" those rules, said John Kaehny, the executive director of the good-government group Reinvent Albany. If the rules for preservation aren't followed, emails will be purged by default.

The length of time emails are required to be kept varies by category. Any emails related to "human rights training," for instance, must be kept for six years. Emails concerning "agency fiscal management" must be kept for three years. Emails about "the development of internal administrative policies and procedures" must be kept for a year, but emails "used to support administrative analysis, planning and development of procedures" can be deleted as soon as they're "obsolete," according to the rules.

The governor's office has its own rules detailing which emails must be saved, with 55 categories, from emails of weekly reports to emails "related to Native-American affairs." Anything that doesn't fall into one of the categories "should be deleted" once they've been opened, the governor's office advises.

There is no internal or external watchdog to make sure the rules are being followed, Kaehny said.

The state also doesn't have a standardized system for preserving emails that do have to be saved, according to the Office of Information Technology Services official. State workers can save their emails by printing them out, pasting them into Microsoft Word documents or placing them in a special folder in the email program itself.

"Everyone does it differently, and some people are still learning how to do it," the official said.

Emails related to potential litigation and freedom of information requests are not supposed to be deleted under New York State's policy. But Karl Olson, a San Francisco lawyer who has represented news outlets including the Los Angeles Times in freedom of information lawsuits, said that deleting emails after such a short period of time might mean they're gone by the time reporters need to request them.

"It may take a while for evidence of misconduct to bubble to the surface," Olson said.

Emily Grannis, a fellow with the nonprofit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said New York's automatic deletion policy "strikes me as inconsistent with the goals of [freedom of information] laws, and to have such a short timeframe is particularly troubling."

Government agencies often adopt deletion policies to help protect themselves from potential lawsuits and freedom of information requests, said Mark Diamond, the chief executive of Contoural, a records management consulting firm. Getting rid of emails after 90 days, though, risks deleting correspondence that employees might need down the road. "I don't think it's a well thought-out strategy," he said.

Cuomo's aides have also developed a reputation for using their personal email accounts to conduct state business — a move that can make it more difficult to seek the emails under the state's freedom of information law. The Cuomo administration has denied that it does so, but a ProPublica reporter and others have, in fact, received such emails from officials.

New York isn't the only state that destroys unsaved email after 90 days.

California's governor's office, for instance, has automatically deleted employees' sent and received email after 90 days for more than a decade. But the office also requires employees to save far more than in New York, including official correspondence, memos, scheduling requests and other documents.







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August 14th, 2014

8/14/2014

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WE CAN REVERSE ALL OF THESE POLICIES EASY PEASY BY SIMPLY VOTING FOR POLS THAT SHOUT OUT AGAINST GLOBAL CORPORATIONS DRIVING MARYLAND'S ECONOMY AND FOR REBUILDING RULE OF LAW


I have been speaking with and handing my research to Baltimore police officers for a few months now making sure they understand that Johns Hopkins has told City Hall and the Chief of Police Batts to move towards privatization of Baltimore police and fire departments.  Since the economic collapse Baltimore has seen an explosion of fraud and corruption that is taking a billion dollars a year from city coffers and we cannot afford to support public sector employees as middle-class when all the money is being sent to corporate fraud and subsidy.  The public union-busting by neo-liberals and neo-cons in Baltimore and Maryland-----those neo-liberals O'Malley/Brown and the Maryland Assembly with the neo-cons Rawlings-Blake and the Baltimore City Hall are now getting rid of our public police and fire.  Remember, Clinton, Bush, Obama have almost finished privatizing the US military.....the manufactured sequestration cuts for the military were all about getting rid of public military and their benefits so now these global corporate pols are doing the same at the state and local level.  When you are bringing a formerly first world nation to third world status you must have all security working for corporations and not loyal to the public as public sector employees say Johns Hopkins.


Baltimore Chief of Police Batts was brought to Baltimore to do just that.  The Hopkins-owed SAIC surveillance and security systems Batts installed in Oakland, California are now being installed in Baltimore.  Batts is paid a salary that looks like the corporate executive he is.  The Baltimore Police have been battered with wage and benefit cuts and changes in shifts and hours that have Baltimore police one of the worst work environments and pay in the state and that doesn't even include the crime and violence and chronic intra-departmental problems.  If one didn't know better it almost seems like they are trying to get Baltimore police officers with tenure and pensions to leave the city!  Talking with officers that is indeed what is happening.  Police officers with ten years invested in pensions are leaving because of the hostile environment brought by Hopkins and their pols at City Hall.  The more stress on the police the more stress on the job.  Baltimore City is a tinderbox as citizens are tired of crime and violence and the police ignoring civil rights and liberties in the communities.  All of this is caused by the public policy written at Johns Hopkins and played out in City Hall.  Deliberately high unemployment and a stagnant economy is impoverishing people and the police department is headed by a chief known for abuse inside and outside of the department.  Remember, injustice necessitates chaos and that is what neo-liberals and neo-cons are allowing to happen under the guise of budget cuts and small government.

The Baltimore Police Department has sent representatives to Europe to contract with an International Security Corporation to send private security workers to Baltimore to replace existing public forces.  The fire department will go next.  The citizens already have trouble with police acting outside of the Constitution and when International security forces come----they will be working under Trans Pacific Trade Pact-----which replaces the US Constitution say the neo-liberals and neo-cons. 

ONLY THE TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT IS ILLEGAL AND A COUP AGAINST THE US CONSTITUTION SO ANY ATTEMPTS TO INSTALL TPP CAN BE REVERSED AS ILLEGAL.



What does life under International Security forces look like?  Well-----third world.


State Police, or Police State? --Nathan

Eleven facts about police militarization:
1. It harms, and sometimes kills, innocent people.
2. Children are impacted.
3. The use of SWAT teams is often unnecessary.
4. The “war on terror” is fueling militarization.
5. It’s a boon to contractor profits.
6. Border militarization and police militarization go hand in hand.
7. Police are cracking down on dissent.
8. Asset forfeitures are funding police militarization.
9. Dubious informants are used for raids.
10. There’s been little debate or oversight.
11. Communities of color bear the brunt.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/08/13/not-just-ferguson-11-eye-opening-facts-about-americas-militarized-police-forces/


_____________________________________________

A police representative going to Europe to talk International Security contracting for the Baltimore City Police force would no doubt find an organization like the one below.  This is a US global corporation that does much of its work overseas but we see these operations moving into Western nations under the guise of 'terrorism'.  The threat of 'terrorism' falls squarely with dissent and protest---crime and violence by American citizens.  As 70% of Americans fall into poverty from the massive corporate frauds and the deliberate global corporate stagnation of our domestic economy-----and with that 70% growing to 80% and more----this third world society will see people WAKING UP and this is the structure O'Malley and the Maryland Assembly and Rawlings-Blake and Baltimore City Hall are building.  It is of course coming to your neck of the woods as well!

As important as a militarized government structure is we need to think as well how much taxpayer money is being spent on all of this Stalin-like security buildup.  The article below states that so much taxpayer money was funneled
to SAIC to create this Hopkins corporation that much of what all taxpayers paid in taxes for years went into building this surveillance structure unrolling in cities like Oakland, Calif, NYC, and Baltimore, Maryland.


You can see the job categories to see this organization will take over all public security duties as a global corporation.  Our Bank of America in Charles Village Baltimore already has contracted International Security outside their bank branch.

ISIO - INTERNATIONAL SECURITY INDUSTRY ORGANIZATION
Security Case S
tudies and
Applications


Belong to the most formidable International NETWORK for Security Professionals

ISIO Demographics

Reach
increases world-wide. Security Directors, Managers, General Managers, Trainers, Staff in all sectors, namely, Military and Defence, Buildings, Mall and Security, Law Enforcement, Prisons, Investigators, Assessors, Consultants and Advisors for Ports and Cargo, Hotel and Casino Security landside and on ships. Location (289071)United States, (89152)United Kingdom, (38194)India (34709)Canada, (31546)South Africa


The Focused Security Professional, is able to identify companies that have experience in providing security solutions for [Their] region of interest.

* Bank Security

* Border Security

* Building Security

* Business and Commercial Security

* Cargo Security

* City Security

* Control Station Security

* Event Security

* Homeland Security

* Hospital Security

* Hotel, Casino & Landmark Security

* Military and Defense Security

* Industrial Security

* Law Enforcement Security

* Oil and Refinery Security

* Port Security

* Prison Security

* Rail/Tunnel and Subway Security

* Retail and Store Security

* School Security


PROVIDING INTERNATIONAL SOLUTIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES. ISIO Global is a boutique, international solutions provider headquartered in the U.S. with operations in North and South America, Africa and Asia. The ISIO Global team of Principals and associates is comprised of a unique and diverse set of professionals with backgrounds in government security, intelligence, logistics, political strategy, energy, finance, international trade, risk management, and the military.

ISIO Global provides comprehensive custom-tailored solutions to meet our clients’ needs. Our client list includes countries, presidents and other high ranking officials from both the private sector and the military, high net worth individuals, and Fortune 100 companies. Through our vast international experience and contacts, ISIO Global is uniquely positioned to quickly and efficiently design and implement comprehensive solutions for the most pressing problems and exciting opportunities around the globe.

______________________________________________
You can see how neo-con SAIC and Hopkins is with this connection to Bush/Cheney and Halliburton----the biggest fraudsters in the world.  The reason I speak now about what most people who study this knows is that this is what will be brought to Baltimore -----and has been in the works for a while-----and it is completely ineffective, corrupt, and will work with no transparency or with any regard to Rule of Law.  If you think Baltimore Police Department is lacking transparency or attention to Constitutional policing wait until this ISIO/SAIC consortium comes our way.

THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL AND NEO-CON FOR YOU----THIRD WORLD SOCIETY
. 

STOP VOTING FOR THEM.  REMEMBER, IN MARYLAND WE HAVE LABOR AND JUSTICE LEADERS BACKING THESE NEO-LIBERALS EVERY ELECTION.  VOTE FOR BROWN OR GANSLER SAY BALTIMORE MINISTERS AND MARYLAND LABOR UNION LEADERS----WELL, THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE PUSHING ON THE CITIZENS OF MARYLAND.



This is an attempt to make a blog in which I comment on scientific issues.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Who or what is SAIC? Vanity Fair has a quite interesting article about SAIC, a company I had never heard about before.

Washington's $8 Billion Shadow
Mega-contractors such as Halliburton and Bechtel supply the government with brawn. But the biggest, most powerful of the "body shops"—SAIC, which employs 44,000 people and took in $8 billion last year—sells brainpower, including a lot of the "expertise" behind the Iraq war.
The article goes on to describe SAIC, and their less than stellar record. The article also touches on why such companies exist.
It is a simple fact of life these days that, owing to a deliberate decision to downsize government, Washington can operate only by paying private companies to perform a wide range of functions. To get some idea of the scale: contractors absorb the taxes paid by everyone in America with incomes under $100,000. In other words, more than 90 percent of all taxpayers might as well remit everything they owe directly to SAIC or some other contractor rather than to the IRS.
This is hardly a new trend. In his 1980 book, Fat City, Donald Lambro describes much the same going on. It goes without saying that this is not a cost effective way of running things, and that it creates problems with oversight and conflict of interest, as the article also explains.
In Washington these companies go by the generic name "body shops"—they supply flesh-and-blood human beings to do the specialized work that government agencies no longer can. Often they do this work outside the public eye, and with little official oversight—even if it involves the most sensitive matters of national security.

[....]

SAIC's relative anonymity has allowed large numbers of its executives to circulate freely between the company and the dozen or so government agencies it cares about. William B. Black Jr., who retired from the N.S.A. in 1997 after a 38-year career to become a vice president at SAIC, returned to the N.S.A. in 2000. Two years later the agency awarded the Trailblazer contract to SAIC.
I highly recommend the article - go read it, and see what the US taxpayers' money is really used on.


__________________________________________

SAIC is Johns Hopkins and represents billions of taxpayer dollars sent to Hopkins in development funding and as you see below-----it operates world-wide just as Baltimore Board of Estimates operates here in Baltimore.  The corruption in cost overruns and bid-rigging is breath-taking and you see the same ethics permeates all of what these Ivy League Universities are involved. 

SAIC is the spying network behind the NSA that Snowden exposed to the world and it is in the consortium of security and surveillance groups that operate as ISIO above.  ISIO would be an example of what the police privatization in Baltimore would look like.  For decades SAIC and ISIO have operated in developing worlds but they are now moving into Western countries to control dissent of Americans et al to being taken third world.


Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin have worked hard to send Federal funds to build these kinds of systems through Hopkins.  HOW TOTALITARIAN OF THEM!


The article states that despite the known corruption in SAIC that Bloomberg of NYC handed a multi-million contract to the same and the reporter wonders why give business to a known criminal element-----WELL, HOPKINS IS BLOOMBERG.

'SO INEFFECTIVE'-----DOESN'T THAT SOUND LIKE GOVERNMENT IN MARYLAND AND BALTIMORE???


Just How Corrupt is SAIC?

Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 7:23PM
David Callahan The latest revelation in the CityTime corruption case offers yet more evidence that the Science Applications International Corp., or SAIC, may have an unethical organizational culture. SAIC is one of the largest and most well-connected government contracting firms in the country, with 45,000 employees worldwide. It's incompetence in handling the CityTime contract, with hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns, appears to be part of a pattern -- with other clients, like the FBI, reporting similar experiences.

But now comes evidence of something darker. According to a files unearthed by New York City Controller John Liu, SAIC tried to exert improper influence over the top city official monitoring its work. Juan Gonzalez, the New York Daily News reporter who has been on top of this story all along describes the new revelations about SAIC:

On Jan. 28, 2002, Richard Valcich, then the director of the Office of Payroll Administration, wrote a one-page note to William Russell, a senior vice president for Virginia-based Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC).

"I appreciated meeting with you to discuss SAIC issues that are pending with the Office of Payroll Administration," Valcich wrote. He then apologized to Russell "if I seemed rude and abruptly shortened your discussion on a future post city-employment position with SAIC."

"[I]t is inappropriate to discuss any post employment with a company that I do business," Valcich warned him.

Valcich went on to say that he was "flattered you would consider me for such a position with SAIC but there are restrictions due to the city's conflicts of interest rules."

Such restrictions include a lifetime ban against working on the same "matter" that a city employee handled while in government. 

Wow. Of course, those familiar with how big contractors and lobbyists corrupt government officials will not find any of this surprising. There is a long history of companies using offers of lucrative jobs to exert improper influence. These deals are simple and often hard to scrutinize: Do our bidding now, companies say, and we'll give you a job paying a million dollars a year (or whatever) down the road. A big focus of ethics reform in recent decades has been to crack down on "revolving door" enticements.

SAIC's tactic in this episode raises questions about its corrupt dealing around other contracts. Stay tuned for more on that topic. 

Gonzalez's latest article on the subject of SAIC includes a kicker near the end: 

Amazingly, despite years of red flags on the CityTime project, the Bloomberg administration confirmed yesterday it recently awarded a new $40 million contract to SAIC.

So what is it about Michael Bloomberg and SAIC?
Why is a mayor so famously focused on efficiency so forgiving to a contractor that is so ineffective? That is a question that deserves closer attention. 

 
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August 13th, 2014

8/13/2014

0 Comments

 
Do you hear your labor and justice leaders shouting out against this?  NO, they are backing the neo-liberals who are embracing Trans Pacific Trade Pact pretending it will create jobs.  Well, you will be working as a third world Chinese sweat shop employee with these neo-liberals.

Below I show the local effect of PERESTROIKA of American citizen's assets by global corporations.  I have spoken before about the goal of privatization of public water.  We see the effect in Detroit, a city gutted with fraud and corruption just as in Baltimore.  The American people have paid loads of taxes over a few decades that would have rebuilt state and city infrastructure if that revenue was not being looted by Baltimore Development Corporation and Hopkins to expand global interests.  Now, they want to raise public water bills over double the amount to pay again for rebuilding infrastructure and guess what----the same Johns Hopkins is there to pocket the profits from this public work as VEOLA ENVIRONMENT.  Remember, these Ivy League universities made their billions in endowment profits from the subprime mortgage fraud and AIG investment firm that was spun to become HighStar.  So, all of that profit was based on fraud.  They used that money made from fraud to by VEOLA ENVIRONMENT from the French global corporation.  These same Ivy League universities like Hopkins are now pushing Baltimore City Hall to privatize public transportation to French Veola and privatize public water and waste to HighStar VEOLA ENVIRONMENT.  So, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Berkeley, et al of the Ivy League are using those endowment funds to privatize public water and waste all over the world.  At the same time they are buying all fertile land and fresh water sources around the world at the same time contaminating US and world aquifers with fracking.....as in Maryland with the Marcellus Aquifer.


I am writing today after coming from the center of fraud and corruption----Baltimore City Hall and the Board of Estimates meeting.  I attended today because they are handing contracts to private corporations for public water service that everyone knows is only steps towards water privatization.  There is Jack Young and Mr. Black for Rawlings-Blake and Comptroller Pratt ready to vote for privatization of Baltimore city public water and waste.  All working for the most neo-conservative institution in the world----Johns Hopkins while running as Democrats.

PRIVATIZING PUBLIC WATER----HOW NEO-CONSERVATIVE OF THEM!!!!!


Jack Young as head of the Board of Estimates has worked hard to make sure public interruptions do not occur during meetings by placing a police officer to escort citizens out if they try to speak.  You know, the public is not allowed to speak about public policy in public in Maryland and especially in Baltimore.  So, instead of speaking during the Board of Estimates meetings on camera for all to see, people like Cindy Walsh must speak to the room before the meeting starts.  Only today, when I explained to all in the room what the goal of this privatization is and how Johns Hopkins is involved-----Jack Young called the police to drag me out BEFORE THE MEETING EVEN STARTED.  He works so hard to make sure no one knows what is happening that he was prepared to throw me out for just speaking in the City Hall room.  I of course reminded him that the meeting had not started and he could not throw me out of the room -----he immediately called the meeting to order.

YOU KNOW WHO LEADS IN PRIVATIZATION OF ALL THAT IS PUBLIC?  O'MALLEY/ANTHONY BROWN.  YOU KNOW WHO BACKED BROWN DURING THE ELECTION FOR GOVERNOR?  LABOR UNION LEADERS.  KNOW WHO WAS THERE TO PROTEST PRIVATIZED WATER----LABOR UNIONS.  ASK FRED MASON OF MARYLAND AFL-CIO WHY HE BACKS NEO-LIBERALS DOING ALL THIS DAMAGE?

We need labor union leaders working for their membership's interests when they support candidates.  You cannot support the neo-liberals installing these policies and then pretend to fight against them.  Union members and labor and justice need to see how VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY BAD THESE PRIVATIZATION POLICIES ARE FOR EVERYONE!

IT TAKES A SOCIOPATH TO PLAN THESE KINDS OF CORPORATE POLICIES AND THE POLS HIRED TO PUSH THESE GOALS INTO PLACE ARE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS.
ALL OF MARYLAND POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS.


Don't privatize Baltimore water
[Letter]June 23, 2014

The presence of the private water industry at this week's United States Conference of Mayors meeting threatens public health and democracy in Baltimore.

Time and time again, experiences in other cities that have privatized their water systems have demonstrated that privatization fails to provide secure and equitable water access to residents. The industry's strategy of placing profits over the human right to water is reprehensible and undermines the democratic system.

As a voter and someone who calls Baltimore my home, I strongly urge Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to take a stand at the USCM and keep the private water industry out of our city.

Jacob Fishman, Baltimore


_________________________________________


Did you know that it is Johns Hopkins who is a major shareholder in Veola Environment through HighStar Investment firm that is pushing the privatization of public water and waste?  Did you know that Veola Environment and HighStar have Ivy League endowments in the other cities pushing the privatization of public water----like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Berkeley.  Privatization of public assets to maximize profits for these endowments.

Did you know the goal is to privatize water, end public subsidy of water as water rates rise, use SMART METERS to ration water to what the every growing impoverished public can afford all to maximize profits for Johns Hopkins endowment? 

You must be listening or reading Maryland media -----they make sure you do not know----especially Marc Steiner.

VEOLA ENVIRONMENT is a global corporation bought from the French global corporation VEOLA of transportation fame.  The one known for slave conditions for their workforce all over the world.  VEOLA ENVIRONMENT is working all over the world to privatize the world's public water and waste and in nations having the pleasure of a few decades of their presence water rationing with SMART METERS has been in what followed.  Now, Wall Street and Ivy League endowments want to bring it to America since they are taking the US to third world levels.  That Trans Pacific Trade Pact may not be in place in the US but Maryland and neo-liberals in Congress are preparing for it.



I wonder if an interview with Hopkins staff will let people know what the goal is and who is behind it?


Water Privatization in Baltimore

08/12/14 Marc Steiner
August 11, 2014 –

Segment 3 We turn to the topic of the possibility of water privatization in Baltimore, with: Lauren DeRusha, National Campaign Organizer of Corporate Accountability International; and Dr. Lester Spence, Center for Emerging Media Scholar-in-Residence and Associate Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University.




The Dangerous Return of Water Privatization

Community waters systems have sustainably provided safe drinking water for generations but corporations are now using local fiscal crises to push for water privatization. By Maude Barlow and Wenonah Hauter, from Sojourners
January/February 2014
  Utne


It’s time for an integrated, holistic national water policy, including the establishment of a federal water trust fund. Instead we face the cannibalization of our public utilities by private corporations.

The United States has one of the best public water supply systems in the world. More than 250 million people count on local governments to provide safe drinking water. Over the last 40 years, federal, state, and municipal governments have worked together to improve and protect water resources. The Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act have kept the U.S. on target for preserving rivers, lakes, watersheds, wetlands, natural aquifers, and other sources of fresh water.

Great strides have been made in managing waste water and storm water. More than 90 percent of community water systems in 2012 met all federal health standards. Public water utilities have been a tremendously successful model for the U.S. and continue to keep drinking water safe, accessible, and affordable for all Americans.

It hasn’t always been this way.

During the 1800s, private companies controlled the water systems of several large U.S. cities—to dire effect. Because the companies were more interested in making a profit than providing good service, many poor residents lacked access to water. As a result, cholera outbreaks were common in poor neighborhoods; water pressure was sometimes too low to stop fires, which destroyed both homes and businesses.


By the turn of the 20th century, city governments, including Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, and New York City, had taken over drinking water provision from private companies. The goal of government was to improve service, reduce waterborne diseases, and increase water pressure to better fight fires. New York City, for example, assumed control of its drinking water services from the bank and holding company called the Manhattan Company, the predecessor of JPMorgan Chase, after an outbreak of cholera killed 3,500 people and a devastating fire caused extensive property damage.

These cities learned the hard way just how important public water provision is for human and environmental health. The shift to a public utility system, responsive to community needs, allowed local public control of water and sewer services. Public utilities helped local governments manage water resources, growth, and development, and ensured that safe and reliable services were available to all.

Now, just past the turn of the 21st century, our national water framework needs rethinking with climate change and sustainability in mind. It’s time for an integrated, holistic national water policy, including the establishment of a federal water trust fund. Instead we face the cannibalization of our public utilities by private corporations.

Despite our success over the last 100 years, public water utilities face daunting challenges in the days ahead:

1. Water systems nationwide are aging and wearing out. Last summer more than 150,000 residents in the greater Washington, D.C. region faced the specter of being without water for days because of a stuck valve on a major water main. Delayed maintenance on the valve due to funding cuts led to the crisis.

________________________________________________

Ivy League university endowments were heavily invested in the subprime mortgage loans knowing they were fraudulent and would bring down the economy.  They took the profit made from those fraudulent loans and started buying land overseas with the intent of cornering the next market----privatized public works like transportation and water and waste.  They starved governments with massive frauds and corruptions just to pretend we now have to hand all that is public over to the same institutions creating and profiting from the frauds.


I'm picking on Ivy League universities today but there are plenty of other bad guys profiting from these policies.  Look how rich Ben Cardin and Nancy Pelosi are getting from Insider Trading for example!  Those Clinton neo-liberals who voted for global corporations and markets have worked two decades to advance these policies.  IT'S THE REPUBLICANS THEY SAY-----

WELL, MARYLAND IS ONE BIG NEO-LIBERAL STATE SO IT'S BOTH NEO-CONS AND NEO-LIBERALS.




US universities in Africa 'land grab' Institutions including Harvard and Vanderbilt reportedly use hedge funds to buy land in deals that may force farmers out
  • John Vidal and Claire Provost
  • The Guardian, Wednesday 8 June 2011 15.18 EDT


US universities are reportedly using endowment funds to make deals that may force thousands from their land in Africa. Photograph: Boston Globe via Getty Images Harvard and other major American universities are working through British hedge funds and European financial speculators to buy or lease vast areas of African farmland in deals, some of which may force many thousands of people off their land, according to a new study.

Researchers say foreign investors are profiting from "land grabs" that often fail to deliver the promised benefits of jobs and economic development, and can lead to environmental and social problems in the poorest countries in the world.


The new report on land acquisitions in seven African countries suggests that Harvard, Vanderbilt and many other US colleges with large endowment funds have invested heavily in African land in the past few years. Much of the money is said to be channelled through London-based Emergent asset management, which runs one of Africa's largest land acquisition funds, run by former JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs currency dealers.

Researchers at the California-based Oakland Institute think that Emergent's clients in the US may have invested up to $500m in some of the most fertile land in the expectation of making 25% returns.

Emergent said the deals were handled responsibly. "Yes, university endowment funds and pension funds are long-term investors," a spokesman said. "We are investing in African agriculture and setting up businesses and employing people. We are doing it in a responsible way … The amounts are large. They can be hundreds of millions of dollars. This is not landgrabbing. We want to make the land more valuable. Being big makes an impact, economies of scale can be more productive."

Chinese and Middle Eastern firms have previously been identified as "grabbing" large tracts of land in developing countries to grow cheap food for home populations, but western funds are behind many of the biggest deals, says the Oakland institute, an advocacy research group.

The company that manages Harvard's investment funds declined to comment. "It is Harvard management company policy not to discuss investments or investment strategy and therefore I cannot confirm the report," said a spokesman. Vanderbilt also declined to comment.

Oakland said investors overstated the benefits of the deals for the communities involved. "Companies have been able to create complex layers of companies and subsidiaries to avert the gaze of weak regulatory authorities. Analysis of the contracts reveal that many of the deals will provide few jobs and will force many thousands of people off the land," said Anuradha Mittal, Oakland's director.

In Tanzania, the memorandum of understanding between the local government and US-based farm development corporation AgriSol Energy, which is working with Iowa University, stipulates that the two main locations – Katumba and Mishamo – for their project are refugee settlements holding as many as 162,000 people that will have to be closed before the $700m project can start.
The refugees have been farming this land for 40 years.

In Ethiopia, a process of "villagisation" by the government is moving tens of thousands of people from traditional lands into new centres while big land deals are being struck with international companies.

The largest land deal in South Sudan, where as much as 9% of the land is said by Norwegian analysts to have been bought in the last few years, was negotiated between a Texas-based firm, Nile Trading and Development and a local co-operative run by absent chiefs. The 49-year lease of 400,000 hectares of central Equatoria for around $25,000 (£15,000) allows the company to exploit all natural resources including oil and timber. The company, headed by former US Ambassador Howard Eugene Douglas, says it intends to apply for UN-backed carbon credits that could provide it with millions of pounds a year in revenues.

In Mozambique, where up to 7m hectares of land is potentially available for investors, western hedge funds are said in the report to be working with South Africans businesses to buy vast tracts of forest and farmland for investors in Europe and the US. The contracts show the government will waive taxes for up to 25 years, but few jobs will be created.

"No one should believe that these investors are there to feed starving Africans, create jobs or improve food security," said Obang Metho of Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia. "These agreements – many of which could be in place for 99 years – do not mean progress for local people and will not lead to food in their stomachs. These deals lead only to dollars in the pockets of corrupt leaders and foreign investors."

"The scale of the land deals being struck is shocking", said Mittal. "The conversion of African small farms and forests into a natural-asset-based, high-return investment strategy can drive up food prices and increase the risks of climate change.

Research by the World Bank and others suggests that nearly 60m hectares – an area the size of France – has been bought or leased by foreign companies in Africa in the past three years.

"Most of these deals are characterised by a lack of transparency, despite the profound implications posed by the consolidation of control over global food markets and agricultural resources by financial firms," says the report.


"We have seen cases of speculators taking over agricultural land while small farmers, viewed as squatters, are forcibly removed with no compensation," said Frederic Mousseau, policy director at Oakland, said: "This is creating insecurity in the global food system that could be a much bigger threat to global security than terrorism. More than one billion people around the world are living with hunger. The majority of the world's poor still depend on small farms for their livelihoods, and speculators are taking these away while promising progress that never happens."

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Why is Harper Selling Canada's Fresh Water Supply to French Companies?


Posted: 10/18/2013 12:35 pm EDT Updated: 01/23/2014 6:58 pm EST   Huffington Post


Prime Minister Harper has just signed the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and Canadians who care about our freshwater heritage should be deeply concerned for three reasons.

First, the massive increase in beef and pork exports that have been negotiated will put a terrible strain on our water supplies. Beef producers can now export close to 70,000 tonnes of beef to Europe and an undisclosed but higher amount of pork. Meat production is highly water intensive. It takes over 15 million litres of water to produce one tonne of beef, for example.

Already Alberta's dwindling water supplies are over-taxed by a beef industry that is rapidly expanding and expected to double its water footprint by 2025, according to an assessment done before this deal was signed. Intensive hog operations in Manitoba are killing Lake Winnipeg, their waste creating nutrient overload that covers over half the lake in blue green algae. To protect our precious watersheds, what we need is more sustainable and local food production, not massive new trade deals that will strain our water sources beyond their capacity.

Second, this deal will give French companies Suez and Veolia, the two biggest private water operations in the world, access to run our water services for profit. Under a recent edict, the Harper government has tied federal funding of municipal water infrastructure construction or upgrading to privatization of water services. Cash-strapped municipalities can only access federal funds if they adopt a public-private partnership model, and several cities have recently put their water or wastewater services contracts up for private bids. If Suez or Veolia are successful in bidding for these contracts (and under the new deal, local governments cannot favour local bidders) and a future city council decides it wants to move back to a public system, as municipalities are doing all over the world, these corporations will be able to sue for huge compensation. Private water operators charge far higher rates than public operators and cut corners when it comes to source protection. Privatization of water services violates the essential principle that Canada's water is a public trust.

The same "investor-state" clause contained in the Canada-EU deal poses the third threat to Canada's water. The rules essentially say that if a government introduces new environmental, health or safety rules that were not in place when the foreign corporation made its investment, it has the right to compensation, which a domestic corporation does not have. For instance, an American energy company is suing Canada for $250 million in damages using a similar NAFTA rule because Quebec decided to protect its water by placing a moratorium on fracking. Moreover, transnational corporations are now claiming ownership of the actual water they require in their operations. Another American company successfully sued Ottawa for $130 million for the "water rights"; it left behind when it abandoned its pulp and paper operations in Newfoundland, leaving workers without jobs or pensions. The new deal with Europe will give large European corporations similar rights, further eroding the ability of governments to protect our fragile watersheds and ecosystems.

The Harper government has gutted every regulation and law we had in place to protect our freshwater supplies. Now this deregulation is locked in as corporations from Europe as well as the U.S. can soon claim to have invested in an environment without water protection rules and sue any future government that tries to undo the damage.

On a planet running out of clean accessible water, this is a really stupid way to treat our water.




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The same investment firms pushing to privatize public water and waste are behind these fracking industry expansions.  Exporting natural gas places fracking in the US and around Maryland on steroids as profits rise and that means more and more fresh water sources will disappear.  NO WORRIES.  VEOLA ENVIRONMENT will sell you water from overseas and if you cannot afford the price----they will use SMART METERS to ration what you can pay.

THAT JOHNS HOPKINS----LYING, CHEATING, AND STEALING THEIR WAY TO PROFITS AND THEN USING THEM FOR EVIL-----



Fracking Spreads Worldwide

By Nidaa Bakhsh and Brian Swint November 14, 2013


Bloomberg Financial

The hydraulic fracturing of shale in search of oil and gas has hardly started outside the U.S., but that’s changing. A record 400 shale wells may be drilled beyond U.S. borders in 2014, with most of the activity in China and Russia, according to energy consultants Wood Mackenzie. (In contrast, thousands of shale wells will be drilled in the U.S. next year.) The number of rigs used onshore in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region has increased 10 percent over the past year, data compiled by oil services company Baker Hughes (BHI) show. Most of those rigs are meant for shale. “It’s likely there will be a revolution,” says Maria van der Hoeven, executive director at the Paris-based International Energy Agency. “But not everywhere at the same time. And you just can’t copy the U.S. experience.”

Fracking in the U.K. will start next year, after the government lifted an 18-month moratorium imposed when a fracking company found it had accidentally caused earthquakes. Two utilities—Centrica (CNA:LN) of Britain and GDF Suez (GSZ:FP) of France—have bought stakes in British drilling licenses to help bankroll the drillers and win a cut of any profit.



The shale boom has moved the U.S. closer to energy independence, added jobs, helped revive manufacturing, and lowered gas bills. Yet the conditions that fostered the U.S.’s success don’t exist elsewhere. In some countries, landowners don’t own the oil and gas in the ground: The state retains all mineral rights. Or a country may levy much heavier taxes on oil and gas profits.

Story: U.S. Shale-Oil Boom May Not Last as Fracking Wells Lack Staying Power Once they start drilling and fracking, though, countries such as China, Argentina, and Russia could experience new oil and gas booms. China has the largest shale gas reserves, estimated to be the equivalent of 212 billion barrels of oil. In shale oil, Russia tops the list with about 75 billion barrels, the U.S. Energy Information Administration says. Australia, Poland, and Algeria all have big reserves.

Fracking activity outside the U.S. is likely to be good for the big oil players. Royal Dutch Shell (RDS/A) teamed up with China National Petroleum Corp. this year to explore in Sichuan, the province that accounts for 40 percent of China’s shale reserves. Hess (HES) is exploring with CNPC in the western Xinjiang region. YPF (YPF), the Argentine oil company, has joined with Chevron (CVX) to tap deposits in Argentina’s vast Vaca Muerta formation. Says Edward Morse, head of commodities research at Citigroup (C): “Within three to five years, there should be exponential growth in drilling as there was in the U.S.”


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As I stated with health care and the deliberate building of a perfect storm for antibiotic resistance and world health epidemics we see the same characters------Wall Street, Ivy League universities like Hopkins, and their neo-liberal and neo-con pols working to break our public health and environmental protections to profit from selling what will become a scarce resource.  Not to mention how large populations unable to obtain fresh water are easily managed when made desperate.

This is what Maryland Assembly and O'Malley/Brown and in Baltimore, Baltimore City Council and Maryland Rawlings-Blake are working toward.  They are neo-liberals and neo-cons who do not care about anything but maximizing corporate profits.


SIMPLY REVERSE ALL OF THIS BY VOTING THESE POLS OUT OF OFFICE AND REBUILD RULE OF LAW AND PUBLIC JUSTICE------AND REBUILD A DOMESTIC ECONOMY WITH SMALL AND REGIONAL BUSINESS WHILE KEEPING GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AT BAY IN MARYLAND.

Contaminated freshwater systems caused by ‘fracking’

Friday, April 4, 2014 13:52

Fracking fluids from oil and gas extraction is contaminating our freshwater systems. http://www.blissful-wisdom.com/contaminated-freshwater-systems-caused-by-fracking.html

A local resident recently wrote about the monetary significance of hydrocarbon extraction and exportation.  What many advocates of the oil-dependence industry seem to ignore completely is the short-sighted and toxic process with which ‘unconventional oil and gas sources’ are being extracted. This process is known as ‘induced hydraulic fracturing’, or ‘fracking’ (for short).

There is growing peer-reviewed scientific evidence of the harmful effects of shale gas development.  ‘Pro-fracking’ opinions focus on the big bucks and ignore the detrimental effects on our limited, freshwater systems.


There are a million well sites in North America which have used fracking.  A horizontal well in a shale formation can use between 7.5 million to 19 million litres of water.  That water used for extraction in gas shale ‘plays’ becomes toxic by the addition of: water‐based fracturing fluids mixed with friction‐reducing additives; biocides to prevent microorganism growth and to reduce biofouling of the fractures; oxygen scavengers and other stabilizers to prevent corrosion of metal pipes; and acids that are used to remove drilling mud.   80 % of this fracking fluid comes back to the surface and 20 % stays in the shale excavation ‘play’. This fracking fluid is highly toxic and contaminates local well-water, rivers, and underground water systems. 

This is the part which outweighs the financial benefits of present ‘fracking’ and non-conventional oil extraction methods. Our North American water reserves are limited.  Toxifying our limited water resources is insanity to say the least.  No amount of remuneration can justify contaminating underground water beds and surface-water courses for coming generations.

As of 2012, 2.5 million hydraulic fracturing jobs have been performed on oil and gas wells worldwide!

Do an internet search on the topic of ‘fracking’ and why it is so controversial. Be wary of industry-backed politicians who would smooth over the environmental collateral damage left from ‘fracking’ practices.

  Water well testing must take place both prior to and after seismic testing operations
If a well-owner does not test and show healthy conditions were present prior to nearby  ‘fracking’, then there is no possibility of claiming damages when contamination does eventually occur.

For the last hundred years, water rights belong to the owner of the land.  Tough luck for  those landowners and city-dwellers downstream, since liability favors industry not local taxpayers.  High cancer rates and damaging side-effects to human and animal life occur where tailing ponds and fracking fluid has escaped into underground and above-ground waterways. 

How can we not seriously demand alternatives to oil/gas addiction and its collateral damage?  There is money to be made and jobs to be had, but it requires focusing on developing those alternatives.  Industry is not going to encourage that shift.  Politicians serve industry and corporate interests, not the long-term health of the nation.  And once again…fresh, drinkable water is becoming threatened by ‘fracking’ practices.


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August 12th, 2014

8/12/2014

0 Comments

 
I want to take a few days to look at why Johns Hopkins and Harvard think 'if you are born poor you stay poor' and look at how neo-liberalism and neo-cons are working hard to reshape Western society to reflect this ideal.  The corporate frauds of tens of trillions of dollars in the US alone is mirrored all over the world wherever The Clinton Foundation moved in to recruit and educate people who were placed as leaders to do in those nations what was being done in the US.  You can follow Harvard graduates from other nations to see where the fraud and corruption emanates in those nations.  All over the world the same wealth inequity from fraud and corruption exists and it is because of the philosophy of neo-liberal/neo-conservative free and global markets.  No matter how many times a Republican states free markets can work, if you take away the oversight and accountability from corporations and government----they will become systemically criminal and corrupt as exists now in the US.  Baltimore and Maryland is at the bottom.  You'll notice that not one mention of fraud and corruption will be found in social research from universities.

This is the consolidated wealth.  What the American people need to remember is most of this involves criminal activity and lots of unconstitutional actions and all of this can be reversed and recovered.  A government aiding and abetting crime and suspending Rule of Law is denying citizens DUE PROCESS and therefore Statutes of Limitations are not in play.  So, just engage in politics and take back your government!
Rebuilding Rule of Law and public justice should be the top issue for every American.

Make a good life for your children and grandchildren.


Must Read: The Corporate State of America – Widespread Crime, Corruption and Fraud


October 18, 2007, 10:28 am  PR WATCH


Corruption widespread in India, says US report |

Business Line
 www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/international/... 

There is widespread corruption in India in all ... the Bombay High Court ordered that a special team be formed to investigate an alleged fraud in which money ...




EY raises alarm over cybercrime, widespread corruption ... www.vanguardngr.com/2014/06/ey-raises-alarm-cybercrime...    West Africa Leader of EY’s Forensic/Fraud ... respondents who perceive bribery and corruption to be widespread in Nigeria. 72 per cent of the ...


Compliance and law combine to stem corruption in Brazilian ...

www.insidecounsel.com/2014/06/23/compliance-and-law...   CachedJun 23, 2014 ·

A study has determined that 70 percent of Brazilian executives interviewed believe that corruption is widespread in ... fraud and corruption is ...



One in five executives thinks corruption is widespread in Canada’s business world, EY report shows
Claire Brownell | June 11, 2014 | Last Updated: Jun 11 5:29 PM ET Financial Post






US commission finds widespread waste and corruption in ... www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2011/0901/US...   CachedSep 01, 2011 · US commission finds widespread waste and corruption in wartime ... Afghanistan has resulted in as much as $60 billion in waste and fraud ... .


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This article does a good job summing up the war on the middle-class.  He cleans up his commentary by not declaring fraud and corruption as the problem and you can see an allegiance to Clinton when he points fingers at all the Presidential culprits but cannot name Clinton.  Rather he speaks of breaking Glass Steagall/deregulation/  Nafta without mentioning Clinton's name......and the massive subprime housing fraud was a transfer of wealth.  I do like how he identifies THE SEQUESTRATION AND FORCED BUDGET AGREEMENTS TO PAY DOWN THE $17 TRILLION DEBT as simply the final attack on public wealth by neo-liberals and neo-cons working together.  These trillions of dollars in cuts......the deliberate manipulation of inflation to zero etc are all assaults on what is left of the American middle/working class wealth and what we won't get will be handed away as corporate subsidy or lost to continuing fraud.

Here in Maryland all pols are neo-liberals and Maryland has moved further than most states in dismantling Democracy and public justice......


SIMPLY REBUILDING A DOMESTIC ECONOMY WITH SMALL AND REGIONAL BUSINESSES AND KEEPING GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AT BAY ALONG WITH REBUILDING RULE OF LAW AND OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY IS ALL THAT IS NEEDED TO REVERSE THIS ATTACK!


It’s Official: Rich Declare War on the Middle Class

by 

Robert Freeman


For the past thirty years the rich have been waging war on the middle class.  It’s been astonishingly effective, partly because it has been undeclared.  But even that pretense is now being abandoned.  The President’s National Deficit Commission has effectively declared that the rich will now go after what is left of working and middle class wealth and will take whatever steps are necessary to seize it.  If allowed to succeed, their plan will reduce Americans to a state of serfdom.

Ronald Reagan began the war on the middle class with his “supply-side” economics.  Its very purpose, according to David Stockman, Reagan’s Budget Director, was to transfer wealth and income upwards.  It cut the marginal tax rate on the highest income earners from 75% to 35% while dramatically expanding spending for war.  The results were two-fold:  massive federal debt and an astonishing rise in the share of income and wealth going to those who were already the wealthiest people in the world.

The national debt quadrupled between 1980 and 1992.  George W. Bush would repeat Reagan’s policies and double it again between 2000 and 2008.  Meanwhile, the share of national income going to the top 1% more than doubled, from 9% to 24%.  The share going to the top one-tenth of 1% of income earners more than tripled.  We now have the most unequal distribution of income in the developing world and the inequality is growing rapidly.

Shifts of this magnitude over such short periods of time have never been seen in American history.  With the rich getting much, much richer, its means that everybody else is getting poorer.  And in fact, real wages for median workers are lower today than they were in 1973.  Indeed, while the inflation-adjusted income of the bottom fifth of workers fell by $6,900 between 1979 and 2007, the top 1% saw its annual income increase by $741,000!

To try to keep up with living standards Americans resorted to debt.  They increased their personal debt-to-income ratio from 62% in 1980 to 130% in 2008.  When housing prices fell 35% nationwide in the recent collapse it left Americans with a smaller share of equity in their homes, 48%, than at any time since the Great Depression.  The share they have lost has been taken by the banks.

In other words, all of the income and wealth gains for middle Americans from the “golden years” between 1945 and 1975 have now been wiped out.  Or more accurately, have now been transferred to the very rich.  The top 1% holds 34% of the nation’s wealth while the bottom 50% holds just 2.5%.  The bottom 40% owns absolutely nothing.


These effects and numbers can be numbing, even dizzying.  But it’s important to understand that they have not been the result of random events or impersonal market forces.  Rather, they have followed as the intended consequences of the relentless application of a wide array of government and industry policies.

The massive run-up in debt is one such policy. The wealthy are net lenders. This means that massive public and private debt transfers interest income to them from the rest of the economy.  Another method for effecting massive wealth transfer:  Beginning in 1981 the Reagan administration effectively stopped enforcing anti-trust laws, allowing monopolies to gouge everyone who had to buy their products.

The government actually provided tax subsidies so that corporations could eliminate jobs in the industrial heartland and ship them to Mexico and later, China, India, and other low-wage countries, reducing wages and pitting American workers against each other for those jobs remaining.

The bank deregulation that began in the early 1980s reached its apex with the repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act in the late nineties.  This set up the “casino capitalism” of the next decade that would spawn massive criminality and mortgage fraud by the nation’s leading banks—none of which has been prosecuted.  The result was the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression.

But even as more than five million homeowners have lost their homes, the wealthy had their losses covered by the Bush and later Obama administrations.  Bloomberg news estimates that the transfer to the banks through the financial bailout comes to some $13 trillion dollars.

We could go on and on and on with the roster of ways the wealthy have used the government to transfer national wealth to themselves.  Environmental and health laws that are not enforced.  Deals with the pharmaceutical industry so they don’t have to compete with foreign manufacturers.  Health care “reform” that forces tens of millions of Americans to buy questionable insurance products, even as insurers continue to kick legitimate claimants off their rolls.  Give-aways of the telecommunication spectrum worth hundreds of billions of dollars to media monopolies that ladle out state propaganda as if were news and never, ever challenge official narratives.

In these and a thousand other ways, the rich have conspired with the government they largely control to shift more and still more of the nation’s wealth away from the working and middle classes, to themselves.  It amounts to the most insidious class warfare and the most rapacious looting of public and private resources in the history of the world.

The result is vast impoverishment, demoralization, and the destruction of the American middle class.  One out of eight Americans are on food stamps.  One out of five people are in official poverty.  One out of four children are raised in poverty.  Twenty five million people cannot find enough work, while their skills atrophy and their families and communities are destroyed.  These are not figures describing a banana republic, a disaster-stricken region, or a third world country. They describe the United States of America after three decades of plunder by the rich.  And now they want to go in for the kill.

Not satisfied with the staggering wealth they have already siphoned away, the ultra-rich are now using Barack Obama’s National Deficit Commission to propose even more brazen plunder.  And the looting is no longer taking place behind closed doors or under the cover of arcane public policies.

The commission proposes to cut the federal government’s budget deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade.  But 75% of the “savings” will come from gutting programs that help stabilize the middle class and their communities.  None of it comes from policies that would harm the rich.

For example, the commission proposes cutting the tax deduction for mortgage payments.  Not only will this render housing much less affordable for millions of prospective home buyers, it will reduce housing prices, perhaps substantially, for without the tax writeoff, buyers will be able to afford much less house.  This will decimate the sole source of wealth of tens of millions of Americans.

It is housing wealth that undergirds retirement security for the middle class.  Or, at least it did until one out of four homeowners went underwater on their mortgage in the recent bank-triggered collapse.  Then, even as the Commission plans to decimate home prices and owner equity, it proposes cutting back benefits to Social Security recipients.

It would lower Social Security cost-of living adjustments while raising the minimum retirement age.  And this is being proposed at the very moment that the bank-owned Federal Reserve Board is beginning to print hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the banks from what’s left of their toxic assets still held from the housing crash.

The ensuing inflation is going to destroy the value of retirement incomes at exactly the moment that 77 million baby boomers head off into retirement.  It was exactly this process of money printing and bankrupting of retirees that destroyed the German middle class in the early 1920s, giving rise to Adolph Hitler.

The Commission’s proposals would increase co-pays and deductibles for Medicare, making it unaffordable to millions.  It proposes taxing as income the health insurance benefits millions receive from their employers.  The Child Tax Credit would be eliminated as would 10% of all federal government jobs.  This, at a time when more than 20% of the workforce is already underemployed and there are five workers trying for every available job.

We should be crystal clear:  these policies amount to a mortal assault on what remains of middle class solvency and the democracy that a vibrant middle class makes possible.

But even as it girds up for this assault, the Commission barely touches the ultra-rich on whose boards they serve and who have gained so much over the past 30 years.  And it cannot go without being said that it was these same professional predators who actually wrecked the economy, pitching it into its greatest collapse since the Great Depression.

The Commission’s proposals would actually lower the maximum tax on the highest income earners, from 35% to 24%.  The nominal tax rate on corporate income would fall as well, from 35% to 26%.  There is nothing proposed to raise taxes after so many decades of steadily amassed wealth.  No financial transactions tax (as the IMF recommends) to stanch the kind of tsunami of speculative buying and selling that brought down the economy.  Such a tax would raise over $700 billion over the next decade.

Of course, there will be no claw-backs of the trillions of dollars transferred to the rich under the phony duress of “saving the system” during the height of the financial crisis.  No proposal that the cap on earnings subject to Social Security withholding should be removed.  That proviso alone would raise more than half a trillion dollars over the next decade.

In fact, it is in comparison with other give-aways to the rich that the take-aways from the middle class by the Commission can be seen as so one sided and venal.  Remember, they propose to save $4 trillion over 10 years.

But the war in Iraq, which we now know was entirely premised on lies, will cost more than $5 trillion, according to Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz.  It has proven a huge boon to the rich weapons makers, bankers, logistics companies and oil companies that Bush used to coddle as his “base.”

As mentioned above, Bloomberg news estimates that the financial bailout cost some $13 trillion, all of it going to the very richest people on the planet.  There is not a syllable in the Commission’s report proposing getting any of that back to help reduce the deficit.

Or consider the notorious Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 where fully 40% went to the top 1% of income earners.  Obama once promised to overturn them but, as is his typically cowardly pattern, is now folding.  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has estimated that they will cost the government more than $18 trillion over their lifetime—four times what the Deficit Commission claims it will achieve in savings.  But God forbid we should ask for even a penny of that back to help battle the deficit.

In other words, there are many, many substantial and just ways that the savings the Commission proposes to create could be secured via small contributions from those who have gamed the system and gained the most over the past three decades.  But that is not the Commission’s plan.  And it is in that omission that its true intent is revealed.

There is no more time for stealth, no more need for subtlety.  Western capitalist economies are declining at a pace that is frightening their elite stewards and compelling such desperate, slovenly measures as the wholesale printing of money to postpone the inevitable.  While Obama sings lullabies of “hope” and “change” to tranquillize the suckers out front, the rich are backing the truck up to the vault in the back, no longer even deigning to disguise the heist.  And of course, why should they?  They have the additional diversion of the moronic Tea Party vigilantes (“Keep the government out of my Medicare”), ever ready to cut other people’s throats to cure their own nosebleeds.


The Commission’s proposal is the most naked, undisguised declaration of class warfare possible.  Its agenda is not to reduce the deficit but rather to reduce what is left of the American middle class and American workers, to a condition of servitude, of feudal peonage.  Their poverty will make them docile and subservient.  This will make possible the final looting of America by those whose sociopathic greed has brought it so low already.  The battle over this proposal is the last bulwark against the devastation and final destruction of America.  It must be fought and won or our freedom and security ceded forever.  There is no other choice.











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Below you see one quality of life issue being tackled by US corporate media.  You look above and you see why the middle-class is fading and you look below and you would never see that all of this simply needs justice to reverse who has the money.

In Baltimore, Johns Hopkins is pushing Michelle Rhee education privatization and that includes removing playgrounds from schools and building parks for the children to be 'reflective'.  There is often no recess,
yet amazingly the hype for education and health care reform in Maryland is wellness and fitness. 


The other stat that is interesting is that 20% of Americans are doing OK----FOR NOW.  They are moving for only 10% so you better watch out!  I point this out because it shows exactly the percentage of voters coming to the polls in elections.  THOSE 'LIKELY' VOTERS.  Indeed, 80% of Americans are disaffected because they are the victims of the frauds and corruptions listed above and those 20% doing OK are profiting from the fraud and corruption.  See why salaries for people in government are rising above $200,000?  Taxpayers are not paying for quality employees.....the rich are buying loyalty.  So, in Baltimore we have Baltimore Development Corporation and Johns Hopkins skimming billions of dollars of city and state revenue that means they have to allow those minions in City Hall skim thousands just as is done in Afghanistan.  Baltimore City Hall actually preys on Baltimore citizens with corrupt fines, fees, and taxes.  IT IS BREATH-TAKING.  This is what is happening in those nations listed above and the #1 winner----Wall Street banks and their investment firms.

If you notice, the conversation in college athletics is not why are coaches and sports departments being allowed to become corporations----it has become making the college athlete a paid worker.  There goes amateur sports.  Look below again and you see the real picture----the vocationalizing of K-12 with children tracked into sports training at youth.  That is what sports in America will look like just as it does in China say the neo-liberals and neo-cons.  We only need children playing sports if they can create profit as professionals!


WAKE UP!!!!!!  LET'S SIMPLY TURN THIS AROUND.


Sports & Leisure 2/03/2014 @ 5:11PM

As The Middle Class Fades, The Casual Youth Athlete Dies Out With It


As businesses are ignoring political debates and determining that climate change is real, so, too, are they stepping out of the arguments over income inequality by operating as if it exists. In particular, that there are two markets: the few and the wealthy, and the many and the not-so-wealthy. The market that doesn’t exist — or at least not like it used to — the middle class.

From The New York Times:


“Those consumers who have capital like real estate and stocks and are in the top 20 percent are feeling pretty good,” said John G. Maxwell, head of the global retail and consumer practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers .

In response to the upward shift in spending, PricewaterhouseCoopers clients like big stores and restaurants are chasing richer customers with a wider offering of high-end goods and services, or focusing on rock-bottom prices to attract the expanding ranks of penny-pinching consumers.

“As a retailer or restaurant chain, if you’re not at the really high level or the low level, that’s a tough place to be,” Mr. Maxwell said. “You don’t want to be stuck in the middle. …

In 2012, the top 5 percent of earners were responsible for 38 percent of domestic consumption, up from 28 percent in 1995, [economic] researchers found.

I bring this up because I think the decline of the middle class, the greater presence (and acceptance) of an all-or-nothing economy, has something to do with why, according to one major report, fewer children are playing team sports.

The Sports & Fitness Industry Association, a trade group for what it calls “leading industry sports and fitness brands, suppliers, retailers and partners,” in January reported that since 2008, or around the start of the Great Recession, “team sports have lost 16.1 million participants or 11.1% of all team participants, measured by those who played at least once a year.” The sports taking the biggest hit in 2013 were the biggest sports: football, basketball and baseball — a trend that the National Sporting Goods Association, a retail trade group, noted in June (and that are increasingly being reflected in high school sports participation numbers).

The Sports & Fitness Industry Association is very sure of why that decline is happening. The issue is not so-called “core” athletes, who play frequently. In 15 out of 24 team sports measured, the number of core athletes increased (compared with only five out of 24 in 2011). But the occasional athlete, the weekend warrior, the kid just trying out a sport — those numbers are falling hard. From a news release quoting the association’s director of communications and research, VJ Mayor:

 “The degradation of the casual team sports participant cannot be ignored,” said Mayor. “Casual participation is the gateway to more core participants. We have already begun to see a decline in core participation among traditional team sports over the last five years which is alarming. The drop could be influenced by several factors including increased single sport specialization, overuse injury, athlete burnout, safety concerns, and the marginalization of the recreation player. …”

Actually, the several factors spelled out by Mayor are all related to one factor: the increasing professionalization of youth sports and younger and younger levels. Parents are savvy enough to know that their children, at very early ages, are being sorted by a well-organized system into the pile as future athlete, or the pile as future nonathlete. There is no third pile. And there are many businesses out there — not just sporting goods businesses — that know how to exploit the ambitions and/or fears of the parents who want their kids in the athlete pile.

Exacerbating this system is a top 20 percent (as Maxwell described it) willing to spend more on kids’ education — including sports careers — out of the willingness of any parents to do what they can for their kids, while also aware that their peers are doing the same thing and thus could squeeze their kids out.

As for the other 80 percent — well, while there are long-told tales of athletes using sports as their perceived only way out of poverty, the middle class is also looking at sports as their only perceived way for their kids not to slip into poverty. At the least, spending big for a college scholarship so they have a chance at graduating from school without mounds of loans to pay. But those 80 percent have to weigh, constantly, whether the cost of play is worth it, with that cost of play driven by the upper 20 percent’s ability and willingness to pay. So you end up with two populations — the one that’s all in, and the one that’s shut out.

Of course, in the whole of the population, there are kids who will opt out of the youth sports rat race because they’ve found other interests. But a nagging question is, if they had access to sports that weren’t hard-core, would they find joy and pleasure in them, and keep playing? Or would they have a chance to discover at a later age, like 10, that they might enjoy a certain sport?

We’ll never know, because like in the American economy as a whole, increasingly there is no middle ground in youth sports. So I would expect that participation surveys in future years will show more of the same — a few playing a lot, most playing not much at all.


_________________________________________
US Attorney General Eric Holder who along with Obama can see no corporate fraud really hates when his time is pulled back to the American people demanding justice as if they were still citizens with rights and the US Attorney General worked for public justice.  He is a corporate lawyer and his entire day is working for US global corporations and their legal issues around the world.  This is why corporate fraud and government corruption is rampant----our state and US Justice Departments do not do public justice.  A bone is thrown now and then to assuage the masses.

Below is for whom Obama and your neo-liberal Congress person works----it is for whom O'Malley in Maryland has dedicated all economic and development---the International Chamber of Commerce.  These are the corporations winning all Federal, State, and local contracts for work and they are the ones openly fleecing governments and individuals with no fear from neo-liberal or neo-con pols.


We must start at the state and local level to rebuild Rule of Law.  If Maryland becomes a Rule of Law state the Governor will demand the US Justice Department protect the citizens of Maryland.

DO YOU HEAR YOUR INCUMBENTS SHOUTING TO REINSTATE RULE OF LAW?  VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE IF NOT!


A word from our Secretary General Welcome to ICC, a unique global business organization.

ICC is – and has been throughout its long existence – a steadfast rallying point for those who believe, like our founders, that strengthening commercial ties among nations is not only good for business but good for global living standards and good for peace.

To that end, ICC provides a forum for businesses and other organizations to examine and better comprehend the nature and significance of the major shifts taking place in the world economy. We also offer an influential and respected channel for supplying business leadership to help governments manage those shifts in a collaborative manner for the benefit of the world economy as a whole.

While policy advocacy is a major part of ICC’s work, everything else we do is also devoted to promoting international trade and investment. Indeed, much of our work is of a very practical nature, focussed on making it easier for business to operate internationally. Our world-renowned commercial arbitration service is a form of impartial and dependable private justice that gives more security to commercial partners doing business across frontiers.

Drawing on the expertise and experience of its worldwide membership, ICC has also over time developed a large array of voluntary rules, guidelines, and codes – - sometimes referred to as ‘trade tools’ –- which facilitate cross-border transactions and help spread best practice among companies. A notable example is ICC’s famous Incoterms® rules –- first elaborated in 1936 –- which are accepted as the global standard for the interpretation of the most common terms used in contracts for the international sale of goods.


ICC strives to ensure that the emerging new world, with new poles of power and leadership, stays faithful to the precept that international trade and investment and the market economy system are key factors in raising and spreading wealth.

I remain convinced that the core values that led to the creation of ICC over 90 years ago are as relevant today as they were then. Those values will continue to provide a compass for our efforts on behalf of business to help shape the new world that is emerging.




John Danilovich

Secretary General
International Chamber of Commerce



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

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