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

April 04th, 2014

4/4/2014

0 Comments

 
A ENTIRE ECONOMY IS BEING BUILT WITHOUT ANY INPUT FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND IT ALL INVOLVES GLOBAL CORPORATIONS, SPYING AND SURVEILLANCE, AND SOAKING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WITH DEBT AND INCREASING ANGER AT THE US.

CAN YOU IMAGINE ALLOWING THE US TO DEVELOP AN EXPORT MARKET FOR DRONES AND SPYING SO THAT AUTOCRATIC SOCIETIES AROUND THE WORLD COULD SUPPRESS THEIR CITIZENS INTO OBLIVION?


THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL FOR YOU!  100% TOTALITARIAN AND ALL MARYLAND'S POLS ARE NEO-LIBERAL!





Regarding the political fight called Maryland's 'TILTING AT WINDMILLS:

The latest of political discourse is exactly the source for political satire seen on Saturday Night Live.  It is absurd to the max and shows how our political system at both the Federal and State level is distorted beyond belief.  Here are two neo-liberals both working for two sets of corporations neither of which has anything to do with public interest.  Reforming Maryland contract bidding is a start.  We will need Bernie Sanders hitting the Federal Military funding to end the mess Hoyer has built for his constituents.  

CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND WILL FIX BOTH!

The wind farm project should have been public.  We need our utilities taken public as a way to protect the citizens of Maryland from the current abuses of a criminal Wall Street market.  This wind farm project should never have been given to a Texas corporation because Texas is a Right to Work state that abuses its labor and all these out-of-state contractors bring their own employees or work Maryland labor as they would in Texas.  

MARYLAND CONTRACTS NEED TO GO TO MARYLAND SMALL BUSINESS FIRST.  Cost Benefit Analysis------from a public interest and not corporate profit.

Raise your hand if you like the idea of drone warfare that has the entire world angry at the US for razing villages and killing innocent civilians-----NO ONE.  Raise your hand if you want this technology mainstreamed into our domestic economy so that hummingbird drones fly into your open windows to videotape your every move----NO ONE.  Stealth technology means nations of the world will be coming to the US to do the same.  WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND.  So, MR. STENY HOYER who voted to break Glass Steagall and NAFTA to create these global corporations and corporate rule now needs these technologies to protect US corporations overseas.  I know, let's return to rebuilding our US domestic economy by downsizing US global corporations and basing our economy on small and regional businesses that will not spread tyranny around the world.  We have dolphin radar for goodness sake developed by mother nature.

BUILDING TOTALITARIAN MILITARY AND POLICING IS NOT A GOOD ECONOMIC ENGINE FOR MARYLAND!


Steny Hoyer is a Third Way neo-liberal as is O'Malley so neither support environmental issues.  Neo-liberals support corporate interests first and that means labor and justice, including environmental justice will always lose.  So, these windfarms deals were never about the environment and always about pay-to-play money to Obama campaign donors....and soon O'Malley campaign donors.  Maryland has the worst of environmental policies and never enforce laws that do get passed so we fully expect these wind farms to send money to the private corporation to build and then be useless to alternative energy resources.  Making alternative energy PUBLIC UTILITIES would show commitment to green energy.

Let's look at the issue.  A Texas-based developer gets this Maryland state job.  Texas has the worst Right to Work laws and these deals always allow the contractors to bring their own employees so there goes the strong employment/work for Maryland small business for the most part.  Oh, that's right, Maryland businesses will be subcontractors to subcontractors.  Then, let's look at the business Steny Hoyer is protecting-----stealth radar for drones.  Indeed, Maryland is ground zero for all of the spying and drone warfare that no one in the US wants.  HELLO!!!!!!!

So, we are watching our neo-liberal politicians argue over whether a Texas corporation gets to profit from what should be a public project and whether it will bother an unwanted spying/surveillance drone warfare operation.  The answer is NONE OF THE ABOVE.

Southern Maryland is being made ground zero for this NSA/international-law breaking drone warfare.  This is the problem.  I'm sure that Southern Maryland would appreciate the opportunity to have completely different economic drivers.

The solution seems to be as is true of all neo-liberal policy coming from Maryland Assembly and O'Malley------NONE OF THE ABOVE.  Kill the military research making the US a rogue nation that breaks international law and kill the deal with Texas corporations that take our business and bring workers that are subjected to the worst of labor laws.



Hoyer, O'Malley administration spar over Eastern Shore wind project Impact on Southern Maryland naval air base debated



By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun 8:35 p.m. EDT, April 1, 2014

In a duel of sorts between two of Maryland's top Democrats, U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer went to Annapolis Tuesday to press for legislation opposed by Gov. Martin O'Malley that Southern Maryland officials insist is needed to protect their region's prized naval air base from an Eastern Shore wind energy project.

Hoyer, who represents Southern Maryland in Congress, said he was making his first appearance before a legislative committee since leaving the General Assembly for Washington in the 1970s. He said he did so because he fears giant wind turbines proposed in Somerset County could jeopardize the future of Naval Air Station Patuxent River, which supporters say is an economic engine not only for the region but for the entire state.

"I want wind energy in this state and in this country," Hoyer said. "But not at the expense of undermining the viability and effectiveness" of the St. Mary's County base, where a unique radar system is used to test the stealth capability of aircraft.

Hoyer and other Southern Maryland officials warned the Senate Finance Committee that the turbines could interfere with the radar and lead to the testing being transferred — along with the thousands of jobs associated with it — to an air base in California or elsewhere.

But the Texas-based developer of the $200 million Somerset wind project says it has reached an agreement in principle with the Navy to turn off the 25 turbines whenever radar tests are to be run. And some current and retired military officials have said that would work.


A state Senate committee is considering a bill passed by the House, which would for 15 months effectively block commercial wind development within 56 miles of the air base — a zone stretching across the Chesapeake Bay to encompass the proposed Great Bay wind project on the western edge of Somerset. The developer, Pioneer Green, has warned that the delay would kill the project.

Supporters of the bill contend that the wind project needs to be delayed pending completion of a $2 million study looking at ways to remedy a turbine's impact on the radar system.

O'Malley didn't appear in person to oppose the bill, but Abigail Hopper, his energy adviser and director of the Maryland Energy Administration, told lawmakers the governor considered the legislation both unnecessary and potentially harmful to the state's efforts to woo more renewable energy projects.

"The governor has no desire to harm Pax River," Hopper said, using the base's nickname, but argued it's not "an either-or-choice." She pointed out there are both federal and state laws guaranteeing that the Navy can impose conditions on or even block approval of any wind project it believes would impair or degrade operations of one of its facilities.

Moreover, she said, such a broad moratorium could make it harder for the state to achieve a goal set at O'Malley's urging of getting 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2022.

"You will create a reputation across the country that Maryland is not open for clean energy development," she said.

Adam Cohen, vice president and founder of Pioneer Green, said the company has already invested nearly $4 million in leasing land and planning for its 25 turbines. And he said the company has worked out a deal with Navy officials to turn off its turbines whenever the base needs to run radar tests, so there would be no interference.

That deal has not been signed by all the necessary officials, however. Hoyer said he had asked the Navy to hold off pending completion of the study.

The congressman suggested the wind project is being foisted on Pax River by an Obama administration committed to promoting renewable energy. He suggested turning off the turbines was no remedy because it might tip off the nation's adversaries when the Navy was conducting classified radar tests.

Moreover, Hoyer and other base supporters said unspecified "customers" of Patuxent River — military aircraft programs, foreign governments and private contractors conducting testing there — object to the agreement and could take their business elsewhere. Letting the wind project go forward now under that arrangement could weaken Maryland's ability to retain all the operations and jobs at Pax River the next time the Pentagon orders a realignment of bases nationwide, they warned.

Cohen countered that wind turbines generally operate only about 30 percent of the time anyway, so it would be hard to divine when testing was being done. And Pam Kasemeyer, the company's lobbyist, said Patuxent already signals publicly — by a balloon launch — when it is about to conduct radar tests.

The developer also pointed to a statement from a former director of the Pentagon agency that referees such disputes over energy projects near military bases, who called the concerns of Patuxent River supporters "misplaced." Turning off the turbines would remove any interference, said David Belote, a retired Air Force colonel. He also said there was little prospect of the Navy or its customers abandoning Patuxent River because the costs of moving the sophisticated radar system elsewhere would be "astronomical."

The Department of Defense has issued varying statements about the deal. When first asked about it last month by The Baltimore Sun, a Pentagon spokesman said Pioneer Green's agreement to turn off its turbines "will provide the periodic curtailment of operations required by the Navy."

More recently, a different spokesman, Navy Lt. Greg D. Raelson, said that the agreement "still requires revisions and has not been approved by the Navy." He declined to elaborate.

The only Navy representative to speak at the hearing told lawmakers that for security reasons he could not discuss what issues the base may still have with turning off the turbines.

Outside the hearing room, though, Gary Kessler, executive director of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, said the Navy's primary concern with the agreement is not technical but legal. Officials want to ensure that it is legally enforceable. Unless some technical fix is found, he said, base officials do worry how they could manage if more such projects are proposed on the lower Shore.

The developer's lobbyist and O'Malley's energy adviser both suggested a compromise — impose the moratorium, but allow any project with a signed agreement with the Navy to proceed.

Some members of the Finance Committee, particularly those with military background or with a military base in their district, indicated they side with the Southern Marylanders. But Sen. Allan Kittleman, a Howard County Republican, said he was torn.

"We talk about having these renewable energy goals," he said. If much of the state is off-limits to protect Patuxent River, he said, "I'm at a loss how we're going to get to these goals. This is really tough."
__________________________________________


As someone who supports public utilities I would support public alternative energy as would any democrat.  Neo-liberals who are not democrats but corporate pols want all public sector operations privatized because then corporate profit soars.  This is what O'Malley and Hoyer are fighting over.  Not what is in the public interest, but which corporation has its profits threatened.

WE WANT MARYLAND UTILITIES PUBLIC AND REGULATED SO RATES STAY LOW, PUBLIC EMPLOYEES ARE WELL-PAID AND HAVE A CAREER, AND PUBLIC MONEY IS SPENT ON PUBLIC ASSETS.


I had a 'green' energy employee come to my door this week trying to get me to switch from BGE to this 'green' corporation that wants these BGE green surcharges tied to alternative energy in Maryland.  COMMERCE ENERGY selling itself as a 'green energy' corporation wanting to receive the green energy surcharge on my BGE bill.  This is all connected to wind farms.  So, with a simple click of the computer Commerce Energy was going to get the green energy surcharge attached to the BGE bill.  Commerce Energy now has 'local' businesses all over the country.


NOTICE THIS CORPORATION WAS CREATED IN 2008 JUST TO RECEIVE YOUR GREEN ENERGY SURCHARGE.

Commerce Energy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    

Commerce Energy Group, Inc., based in Costa Mesa, California, USA, was the parent company of a wholly owned independent electricity and natural gas marketing company, Commerce Energy Inc.. The company was purchased by Universal Energy Group on December 11, 2008.[1]

On July 31, 2008, Commerce had 155,000 customers. Revenue for the fiscal year 2008, ending July 31, 2008, was $460 million. The company had 200 employees on July 31, 2008.



Meanwhile, Maryland has doubled-down on making Maryland citizens pay Wall Street speculators for profits and completely deregulated its energy sector to maximize those profits.  None of this has anything to do with the democratic party.  It is neo-liberal.

States still having their public utilities are having to fight for them as these national energy corporations buy politicians right and left.

CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND WILL FIGHT FOR PUBLIC UTILITIES AND REGULATION.




Energy in New Hampshire

A blog about New Hampshire energy matters

 by Mike Mooiman, an engineer and business program professor at Franklin Pierce University.


Wednesday, September 25, 2013


What’s It All About, Alfie?* - A Primer on Public Utilities


I have followed with great interest the various reports, meetings and debates regarding the restructuring of the electricity market in New Hampshire and the impact it has had on the State's largest electrical utility, Public Services of New Hampshire (PSNH). In the past, we allowed public utilities, like PSNH, to have unopposed access to supply services to consumers in designated areas. For much of the last century this monopolistic model worked as it permitted the build-out of the infrastructure, such as roads, power lines, railways, airports, communications networks, etc., that we now have across the country and that are so important to our economic success.

However, times have changed, economic thought has evolved, and there has been deregulation of many of these utilities. We now require that utilities give up their monopolistic hold on their markets and that they compete with other suppliers for customers. For example, consider what has happened with telephone service and the airlines and more recently with electricity supply in some states. This has had profound implications for the utilities, their investors and for us as consumers. In my next series of posts, I plan to take a look at utilities in general, at what has been happening to electrical utilities during this wave of deregulation and at the issue of stranded costs.

I think it is important to understand what a public utility is and what its obligations are because, in the electricity deregulation debate here in NH, I am sometimes astonished at the vitriolic comments aimed at public utilities such as PSNH and the condemnation of their actions. Now I am no advocate for the public utility industry, but it is essential that we discuss these matters on the basis of facts and data rather than on emotion and gut feel. It is my sense that the debate surrounding public utilities and deregulation could benefit from a reiteration of some key facts about utilities. I appreciate that many of the readers of this blog are probably familiar with these matters, but for new students in the energy world, a primer on utilities is, I think, useful material to cover.
 
So let's turn our attention to improving our understanding of a utility. A useful definition of a utility is provided by Rick Geddes, Professor of Economics at Cornell University. He states that "Utilities typically create a good or service at one location, and then distribute it over a 'network' where it is delivered to numerous customers for end use."

The delivery of electricity, natural gas and land-line telephone service are obvious examples. The supply of these services are delivered by organizations that need to run their infrastructure, such as power lines or supply piping, through a community to get to their customers. Sewer service is another example of a utility. In this case, the service is removing water-borne waste from our homes through a network of piping to be treated at another location. Other utilities we tend to forget about are the transportation networks provided by trucking, rail and air travel.

The key to a utility is the distribution network that has to run between and through communities. As a result, the utilities need the ability to utilize parts of the public space of a community to put equipment in place to establish the network. These service networks can only be established and made to function if the community allows the utility access and rights-of-way to put up support structures to carry wires or to dig up roads and sidewalks to lay piping. However, establishing these networks is a very disruptive and expensive endeavor, so this led to the concept of a natural monopoly: we agree to provide the utility with the sole right to supply the service in a specified area - a franchise as it were - on condition that it is done cost effectively, safely and that the service is reliable.

By allowing the monopoly, we in the community benefit from having the service network built and operated and the utility benefits from an assured revenue and profit stream as they have no competition in the provision of the service. We as a community also gain by virtue of only having one company digging up our roads or stringing power lines, i.e, we avoid congestion of power lines, utility poles, and pipelines in our public spaces. In permitting monopolistic access to our community in exchange for cost-effective, safe and reliable service, we, in essence, establish a financial and regulatory agreement or compact with the service provider.
 
In the figure below I have attempted to capture the main aspects of the financial and regulatory compact. The fundamental nature of the agreement is that we get affordable, safe and reliable service and the utility gets an assured rate of return for an extended period of time. At the same time, we do not permit these utilities unchecked access to our communities. We insist on the regulation of these utilities; we want them to be transparent about their financial performance so that they make reasonable, but not excessive, returns on their investments; we want to be involved in establishing rates for service; we want them to make long-term investments in infrastructure; and not discriminate against customers. The utilities, on the other hand, without challenges from competitors, are assured of a large customer base, a profitable business, steady returns to investors and, as a result, they have the ability to borrow money at low rates to fund the infrastructure projects. They are also given the power of eminent domain to obtain the land to install their networks.



Administration of this regulatory compact, with all its different configurations and nuances, is largely done by the various state-based Public Utilities Commissions (PUCs) which sit between the communities and the utilities. There is some federal based regulation of utilities. Specifically, it is the task of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to regulate the interstate transmission of electricity, oil and gas as well as the operation and location of hydropower projects. The NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is in charge of nuclear power plants.
 
As noted, most of the regulation of utilities is done on a state by state basis. Here in NH, we have the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission which is run by three appointed Commissioners. They have the challenging and interesting task of regulating a range of utilities to ensure folks in New Hampshire get reliable, safe and reasonably priced services. In New Hampshire the law is quite clear on what a public utility is. Specifically RSA 362:2 states that:
"The term "public utility" shall include every corporation, company, association, joint stock association, partnership and person, their lessees, trustees or receivers appointed by any court, except municipal corporations and county corporations operating within their corporate limits, owning, operating or managing any plant or equipment or any part of the same for the conveyance of telephone or telegraph messages or for the manufacture or furnishing of light, heat, sewage disposal, power or water for the public, or in the generation, transmission or sale of electricity ultimately sold to the public, or owning or operating any pipeline, including pumping stations, storage depots and other facilities, for the transportation, distribution or sale of gas, crude petroleum, refined petroleum products, or combinations of petroleum products, rural electric cooperatives organized pursuant to RSA 301 or RSA 301-A and any other business, except as hereinafter exempted, over which on September 1, 1951, the public utilities commission exercised jurisdiction."

So in New Hampshire, public utilities are electricity and natural gas suppliers, landline telephone companies, as well as drinking water supply and sewage treatment enterprises. They do not include your cable company or your cell phone service supplier.


There are different ownership structures for public utilities. There are utilities that are owned by the community - municipal drinking water supply and sewage services are typical examples and there are even a few communities in NH that have municipal electricity companies – there are cooperatives that are owned by their members, and then there are large investor-owned utilities, such as natural gas, electricity providers and landline telephone services that we all know (and like to complain about).

In supplying a service to a community, a public utility has to take into account three key aspects of the utility business. The first is the generation of service that it is supplying. This is usually some central location like a power plant for an electrical utility or the treatment works for the handling and discharge of domestic sewage. Secondly, these services often need to be supplied over long distances, so there is the transmission part of a utility. For example, consider the railway lines between cities or those large power lines that run across the state delivering electricity to towns. Finally, there is the distribution network where the service is dispersed throughout the community to reach individual residences and businesses. Examples of distribution networks include the telephone lines that run down our roads or the electrical wires and transformers that are spread throughout our communities.
 

The basic structure of the utility industry - the generation, transmission and distribution aspects - is shown in the figure below. Some utilities are focused on just one or two aspects of this network, e.g., I live in a community with a municipal electrical company and their focus is just on the distribution network, whereas some utilities deal with all three. PSNH is a public utility that deals with all three aspects of the utility business which is the cause for some of the challenges they currently face.

 

With this basic knowledge of a public utility and the regulatory compact involved, I will, in my next post, take a closer look at electrical utilities and the some aspects of deregulation of electricity supply in New Hampshire.

Until next time, remember to turn off the lights when you leave the room but, before you do, take a moment to think about the network that was involved in getting electricity to that light bulb.


____________________________________________

Meanwhile this is what O'Malley and Hoyer are working towards.  Skyrocketing private wind energy global corporations.  The Texas corporation?  It is a venture capitalist----One51 is a global corporation that intends to take over control of these facilities for the long-term.

So, in Somerset County, Maryland this opertation is given a name of Great Bay------the development firm is Pioneer Green Energy and the investment corporation set to take control is One51, a global energy corporation.  What part of this sounds good for Maryland citizens?



Do you think Eastern Shore residents know that a global corporation controls what is being marketed as a 'local' business is taking hold?  Do Maryland citizens know yet another global corporation controls the economy in Maryland?  A utility at that!



Renewable Energy: Pioneer Green Energy
NTR


In 2010, One51 invested in Pioneer Green Energy LLC, a next generation wind developer focused on developing assets in a number of US states. One51 has board representation and an option to take a controlling interest in the business.

Pioneer Green aims to assemble a large pipeline of competitive build-ready wind and solar projects targeted to the mid-term market in the United States. The company sees its niche in the innovative approach it takes solving transmission and other special issues blocking otherwise good renewable energy projects.
Wind Map

Headed by Andrew Bowman, Pioneer Green boasts an experienced founding team who, in their respective careers to date, have helped develop almost 3 GW of operational projects across America. These projects are now owned by some of the largest renewable energy companies in the industry.

Pioneer Green has a broad geographic reach, however the team remain extremely discerning when considering potential projects. Once a development is selected, Pioneer Green’s hands-on detail orientated approach to project management fosters a collaborative relationship with property owners and other stakeholders, enabling previous obstacles to be surmounted to mutual benefit.



Wind Energy Companies
A Snapshot of the Global Wind Industry



By Nick Hodge    August 26, 2008

Editor's Note:  The article below provides an excellent snapshot of the global wind industry from a bird's-eye view.  For a more detailed and updated look at the sector, check out Jeff Siegel's piece on top wind energy companies.

 

I've discussed wind energy in these pages many times before, but the conversation seems to have always turned to a discussion of wind turbine stocks.

Today, I want to take a step back, look at the industry as a whole, and focus more broadly on wind energy companies.

The Wind Energy Industry

First, let's get a quick rundown of the growth of the domestic and international wind markets out of the way.

Here's the chart for wind power capacity growth by year:

wind power capacity growth by country

As you can see, global installed capacity for wind energy has grown 482% over the last seven years, from 14,604 MW in 2000 to 84,934 MW in 2007.

Broken down further, the international wind industry has a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR or year-over-year) of 28.6%, which is impressive, to say the least.

But the past performance of the wind energy stocks is going to do little to help the future performance of your portfolio, apart from establishing an historic trend and highlighting what you've been missing.

So here's the global wind energy installed capacity forecast, going out to 2012:

wind energy installed capacity forecast
This data reveals that the industry will grow 215% between 2007 and 2012, from 84,934 MW to 267,837 MW. That's a CAGR of 25.8%

Now this is information that can give your portfolio a boost. In an industry that's doubling in size every four years or less, there are surely more than a few companies worthy of investment operating within it.

The only thing left to do is to actively seek out the best ones.

To start the search, it's probably worth taking a look at the countries currently boasting the highest year-over-year growth in the wind industry. So here they are, along with their respective annual growth rates, as provided by GlobalData:

    Turkey, 95.4%

    Mexico, 84.7%

    Brazil, 61%

    China, 54%

    Poland, 50.9%

Of course, those are the fastest growing markets. According to GlobalData, the largest markets by megawatt capacity are:

    China, 51,200 MW

    U.S, 45,454 MW

    Spain, 36,715 MW

    Germany, 35,829 MW

    India, 25,935 MW

The only thing left to do is single out the largest operators in those areas, invest, and reap the profits.

Wind Energy Companies

Let's begin with China since that's the only country to appear in both the largest market and fastest grower categories. Per GlobalData, here are the largest wind companies operating in China that each installed more than 100 MW in 2007:

    Goldwind Science and Technology (SZ: 002202)

    Sinovel Windtec Co.

    Gamesa Corporacion Tecnologica (MCE: GAM)

    Vestas Wind Systems (CPH: VWS)

    Dongfang Electric Corporation (HKSE: 1072)

    GE Energy (NYSE: GE)

    Suzlon Energy Limited (NSE: SUZLON)

Most of those companies trade on foreign exchanges. If you dabble in those markets, my money is on Vestas and Gamesa, with Suzlon in third. But the companies that trade in China could see significant growth as the industry continues to mature.

Vestas, for example, is getting $1,628 per kW for their turbines. The average price is $1,008 per kW.

In the U.S., which is the market most of you are probably interested in, the dynamic shifts dramatically.

Here are the largest companies operating in our domestic wind market:

    GE Energy (NYSE: GE)

    Vestas Wind Systems (CPH: VWS)

    Siemens AG (NYSE: SI)

    Gamesa Corporacion Tecnologica (MCE: GAM)

    Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (TYO: 7011)

    Suzlon Energy Limited (NSE: SUZLON)

    Clipper Windpower (LSE: CWP)

    Nordex (FRANKFURT: NDX1)

Of course, my first two picks of Vestas and Gamesa still stand, and now you can see it's because of their intense presence across multiple markets. My sleeper pick here is Nordex.

The other side of the coin is to look at the largest wind farms being erected to identify the companies involved. Here are the companies that come up when discussing the largest planned wind farms in the U.S., and around the world:

    Clipper Windpower (LSE: CWP)

    British Petroleum (NYSE: BP)

    Naikun Wind (TSX.V: NKW)

    Vattenfall AB

    SUEZ (PARIS: SZE)

    RWE Group (XETRA: RWE)

Naikun probably offers the lowest share price in relation to potential for that group.

A Windy Future

So that's a snapshot of the global wind industry. I think some clear winners are definitely emerging.

But there is much more to come. And some tiny companies will certainly make their mark before all is said and done.

This is because the big boys alone can't satiate the surging demand for wind energy and related products and services.

For example, through 2020 in Europe, wind is expected to account for 34% of new generating capacity. It'll account for 46% from 2020-2030.

And the goal of attaining 12-14% of Europe's power from wind by 2020 is well within reach.

Here in the U.S., an Energy Department study found that wind energy could generate 20% of U.S. electricity by 2030, as compared to today's one percent.

So there's still a lot of work and investment to come.

The companies discussed so far will certainly play a vital role in wind's growth. But a handful of companies are providing specialty parts and service that are also crucial to the industry, like transmission cables, installation services, gearboxes, and, increasingly, turbines.

As I said, this is snapshot of the industry—a very dynamic industry that's constantly changing.

While it's possible to base investment decisions on stationary data like this, it's probably wise to have constant updates and recommendations to really stay on top of things, especially since they change everyday.

With that in mind, the Alternative Energy Speculator has designed a way for you to cash in on the booming wind energy market.


I've compiled a full report that analyzes the wind industry, telling you exactly how much it's going to grow, and releasing the names of three companies you must own if you want to reap lucrative wind profits.

You can't afford to miss this opportunity or the chance to get in today on the wind energy giants of tomorrow.

Read the report today!

 

Call it like you see it,

nick hodge

Nick


___________________________________________

Below you see how this was sold in Maryland and it is always the minority contractors and labor unions who are told they will benefit.  A Texas corporation awarded the development contract forces local contractors to bid so low for awards that they almost always earn no profit and rarely use union labor.

Imagine a Texas development corporation bringing its labor to Maryland and then a global corporation One51 bringing its staff from all over the world. 

Who gets hired?





Friday, March 30, 2012

Maryland’s offshore wind farm could blow contracts ashore
Businesses prepare for work on proposed turbine project

Lindsey Robbins, Staff Writer


An offshore wind farm will mean opportunities for a range of small and minority-owned businesses in Maryland, executives learned Wednesday.

“There are many different industries involved in this project, industries that are already here in Maryland,” Ross Tyler, director of the Business Coalition for Maryland Offshore Wind told businesspeople attending a forum in Annapolis.

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) is calling for a 310-megawatt installation off the coast of Ocean City, at a cost of almost $1 billion. State estimates predict the project’s economic impact during the next five years could reach $2 billion, with $8.7 million in additional state tax revenues. O’Malley has introduced legislation that would add fees to electric users’ bills to help attract developers to build the wind farm.


The House Economic Matters Committee approved the bill Monday, after reducing the average residential ratepayers’ additional monthly fee to $1.50 from $2 and exempting from the surcharge the first 750 million kilowatt hours of annual electricity use by an industrial concern.

Other amendments under discussion include creating a $10 million Offshore Wind Business Development Fund to support a local supply chain for small and minority-owned businesses and a potential wind business incubator.

Prince George’s County Del. Michael L. Vaughn (D-Dist. 24) of Bowie said the fund is an important piece of the legislation to ensure small and minority-owned businesses receive equal opportunity to benefit from this project.

“I appreciated being able to give this my yes vote,” he said.

Ross illustrated the opportunities for businesses along every step of the wind farm’s life cycle, including its development, preparation of the turbine, preparation of the balance of the plant, installation, commissioning and operation.

He pointed out that local companies already are engaging in services and technologies that could bank off this project. AC Wind, a Salisbury manufacturer of wind energy composites, is prepared to make turbine blades, some of which can extend 300 feet in length. Areva of France, whose North American headquarters is in Bethesda, has the resources to make the wind tower’s nacelle, which is the size of a small house and stores all the electrical systems. Eaton, which makes electronic converters for offshore turbines and has an aerospace facility in Beltsville, also could work on the project.

At least 30 businesses support Ross’ coalition, ranging from those with ready skills to those trying to figure out where they could fit in, he said.

“There are thousands of components that go into this. It has an enormous tertiary supply chain,” Ross said. “This could operate for at least 25 years.”

‘Boots-on-the-ground jobs’

“These projects are going to create boots-on-the-ground jobs,” said R. Daniel Wallace, director of renewable energy systems for BithEnergy in Baltimore.

He cautioned that businesses prepare early and begin collaborating so they do not lose to outside competition, especially from the foreign market.

“When these jobs come to Maryland, you need to be able to identify where you can play,” he said.

Joe Gaskins, executive director of the nonprofit Economic Development & Training Institute incubator in Suitland, emphasized the need for proper training for businesses to get involved.

“You have to understand things like how wind works on water,” he said.

Gaskins said he hopes to be part of the proposed wind industry incubator, which would support up to 100 small and minority-owned businesses starting in 2013.

He said 200 small and minority-owned businesses already have the potential to compete for these contracts.

Richard Cerkovnik of Anne Arundel Community College discussed the community college resources, especially those in the science, technology, engineering and math fields, available for businesses to build capacity before these contracts go to bid.


Cerkovik’s college received a $19.7 million grant from the federal government last fall to lead the National STEM Consortium, which develops portable, certificate-level programs in these fields to meet occupational demands.

“If an industry needs something in terms of training, we can quickly ramp up our programs to meet it,” Cerkovnik said.

After the forum, Terry Goolsby of Sowinergy and Clozynergy in Upper Marlboro, said the nation needs better public policy in renewables if it hopes to keep up with other regions, such as Europe.

“This is a piecemeal reaction to a stimulus, rather than a holistic approach,” she said, referring to how the Ocean City farm is intended to connect to the Atlantic Wind Connection, which will help add 7,000 megawatts of offshore wind turbine capacity to the regional grid.

She said she supports the legislation because it gives Maryland businesses a chance at the opportunities, which otherwise would go to others.

The House committee’s approval is a good sign, Goolsby said.

“This is a proven industry and proven technology in other parts of the world, especially Europe. There’s absolutely no reason the U.S. can’t be participating and embracing this industry,” Ross said.

_____________________________

You don't hear Steny Hoyer and O'Malley shouting about the fact that there has been no public comment or input as to concerns.  Maryland State Police now use drone radar that is part of tracking license plates and vehicular movement of all Maryland citizens.  What's to worry?  Well, totalitarianism doesn't end well for American citizens.

People are not afraid of technology development, they demand to be the ones making these decisions.  When the Maryland Assembly and governor/mayor tell us over and over public business is classified simply because of outsourcing to private business---

WE HAVE ELIMINATED WE THE PEOPLE FROM ALL PUBLIC POLICY!

As Mary Pat Clarke shouted to me in Baltimore City Hall----SHE'LL WRITE ABOUT IT!  That's all we are to expect as peasants.




 Drones Flying Under the Radar
Thursday, 05 April 2012 09:33 By Tom Barry, Truthout | News Analysis

    

An undated handout photo of a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper, a drone aircraft aimed with laser-guided munitions and Hellfire missiles.An undated handout photo of a US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper, a drone aircraft aimed with laser-guided munitions and Hellfire missiles. (Photo: Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt / US Air Force via The New York Times)

Drones are the future, especially in foreign wars, surveillance and law enforcement.

In all sizes, armed and unarmed, drones are proliferating at home and abroad. Some are loaded with missiles, others simply with Tasers, but all carry surveillance payloads.

These "eyes in the skies," also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPA), may soon be inescapable. For the most part, however, drones fly outside the radar of public scrutiny, Congressional oversight or international control.

In the seven years that the CIA and US military have deployed killer drones, the US Congress has never once debated the new commitment to drone operations. Although the CIA and the US military now routinely direct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations that enter foreign airspace, these interventions haven't been subject to serious Congressional review.


Drone operations often proceed without any authorization or knowledge of the intervened nations.

On the domestic front, local police and Homeland Security agents are also enthusiastically deploying drones for law enforcement and border security missions. At all levels, government in the United States is sidelining mounting civil rights, privacy and air safety concerns. The US Congress functions more as a booster for the drone industry than as a regulator.

In the United States, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the ACLU have brought a legal challenge to the "targeted killings" carried out by the CIA and the military's Joint Special Operations Command. "The executive branch is claiming the authority to target and kill any individual anywhere in the world - including American citizens - without any judicial process or oversight and without any transparency or accountability," Leili Kashani, CCR's advocacy program manager, told Truthout. "It is subverting the Constitution and international law in assuming the role of judge, jury and executioner."

Lately, other civil liberties groups, local and national, are also raising concerns about the lack of transparency, accountability and oversight over domestic drone deployment. Such groups include the Center for Technology and Democracy, the Electronic Policy Information Center and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Drone proliferation has sparked the creation of new organizations, such as the International Center for Robotic Arms Controls, which are demanding global governance over international drone missions.

A stream of recent media reports about drone proliferation at home has sparked rising public interest and concern in the United States. The lack of attention by Congress to the drone-related privacy issues has precipitated a surge of citizen activism and nongovernmental organization advocacy - accompanied by a wave of alarmed blog postings and commentary.
 
The rising concerns in America about the implications of drone deployment parallels a more advanced public debate in Great Britain about the onset of the "surveillance society" and about the legal and human consequences of drone interventions in foreign nations.

One example of this new attention in the United States is the upcoming Drone Summit, which will bring a variety of civil libertarians, human rights activists, robotics technology experts and peace activists to Washington, DC, on April 28-29.  The Drone Summit is jointly sponsored by the peace group CodePink and the legal advocacy organizations Reprieve (UK) and Center for Constitutional Rights. Described as the "first international drone summit," the event will feature military experts and first-hand testimonies by victims of drone strikes in Pakistan.

Medea Benjamin, author of the forthcoming book "Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control," says that "our nation is leading the way toward a new form of warfare where pilots sitting on the ground thousands of miles away command drone strikes, where targets are- in military jargon- 'neutralized,' and where unintended victims are dismissed as 'collateral damage.'"

Yet, drones aren't only about war fighting and extrajudicial killings overseas. Drones are also being deployed domestically by border security and law enforcement agencies. Predator drones deployed by Customs and Border Protection search for immigrants and drugs on the northern and southern borders, while metropolitan police and county sheriffs are acquiring smaller drones to assist their SWAT operations.

Under industry pressure, the Federal Aviation Administration was mandated by new Congressional legislation to adopt procedures to open US domestic airspace to private and governmental drones by 2015 and to allow police to start flying lightweight, line-of-sight drones by this summer. The new law was a major success for the new House Unmanned System Caucus and for the Association of Unmanned Vehicles Systems International, a drone industry group that works closely with the House drone caucus.

The drone freedom law also served as a wake-up call for a US public, which has been largely oblivious to advance of drones as a surveillance and law-enforcement instrument. Benjamin, who founded CodePink, warns, "As drones become an increasingly preferred form of warfare and as their presence expands at home, it is time to educate ourselves, the US public and our policymakers about drone proliferation." For Benjamin, activism needs to complement education if drone proliferation is to be subjected to the necessary accountability, transparency and oversight. "As remotely controlled warfare and spying race forward," she says, "it is also time to organize to end current abuses and to prevent the potentially widespread misuse both overseas and here at home."

Internationally, the simultaneously contentious and mutually self-serving relationship between the United States and Pakistan has lately been stuck at an impasse over routine US drone surveillance over that nation and killer drone strikes in Pakistani tribal areas. The Pakistani Parliament and public protests say the drone interventions must stop, while the Obama administration says that the UAV deployments must and will continue.

It wasn't until January of this year that the president even acknowledged the secret targeted killing missions of drones by the CIA when he insisted in the midst of rising concern of noncombatant (collateral damage) deaths that the overseas killer drones were on a "very tight leash."

"Under the Obama administration, drone strikes have escalated and expanded in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia," said Kashani. "In Pakistan alone, the Obama administration has launched six times as many drone strikes as the Bush administration, in fewer years in office, killing hundreds of innocent people and devastating families."
"Ultimately, efforts to end the expansion of US drone strikes and covert wars are not only a legal matter," Kashani said, "but a political and ethical one on which the viability of a livable future and meaningful democracy is based."

Although information is restricted and controlled, it does appear that noncombatant deaths by killer drone strikes are declining - although continuing. But security questions remain about the level of threats represented by combatants who are being targeted and constitutional questions persist about the legality of these extrajudicial killings.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be winding down after nearly a decade. But the US military and the Obama administration are committed to the increased use of UAVs in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and war fighting.

In January, President Obama announced a shift in US military strategy, including the shedding of "outdated Cold War systems" in favor of the high-tech instruments and conflicts of the future - including the aptly denominated "shadow wars." This evolution in military strategy, including the increased reliance on drones and special operations (and presumably a continuing pattern of extrajudicial killings by drone strikes around the globe) may, as its supporters contend, be exactly the course the US military needs to ensure national and global security.
Whether strategically right or not, this is a shift that clearly calls out for the processes of moral, ethical and legal scrutiny at all levels of government - local, national and international.

The crash of the CIA's highly sophisticated - and extremely expensive (even its price tag is secret) - US stealth Sentinel drone in Iran last December proved another wake-up call about the risks of drone interventions. The US military, intelligence agencies and counterterrorist units may be the top dogs in the drone world now - but things change, blowback happens and drones have no national loyalty. Many close observers of drone proliferation point to near complete lack of governance structures, international conventions and adequate export controls to regulate drones.
 
Meanwhile, Iran is busy incorporating US drone technology into its own now-extensive drone program, and China has surged into the international drone market.

Understandably, this competition concerns the US drone industry - led by the major US military contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics, among others.

Currently the industry - with support of the Congressional caucus - is pressuring the administration to continue relaxing the export controls on US-made drone technology to ensure that the industry keeps its market share of the fastest growing military and aviation sector. As speakers at the annual Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference in February reminded industry representatives and the attending Congressional representatives, drone competition is sparking new markets for drone detection technology, defenses against enemy drones and electronic warfare instruments designed to break drone communications with their remote piloting.

"It is vital that the debate on drones is brought to American public since US drone policy is becoming vital part of US foreign policy in conflict zones," says Shahzad Akbar, attorney with Reprieve in London and with the Pakistani Foundation for Fundamental Fights. Akbar, who is listed as a summit speaker, says that a debate about drones needs to include all stakeholders, including the US public and that's a central objective of the planned drone summit in Washington, DC.

"Central to the debate are questions about the rights of individuals, whether as objects of surveillance or targets of killing machines," says Akbar. Essentially, we are asking to what degree "we [are] ready to allow government to "usurp the rights of individuals and under exactly what circumstances?" With respect to the objectives of the drone Summit, Akbar said that the summit's organizers are working to ensure that in the United States and in other drone-deploying countries they will subject their use to the "due-process rule of law" and to "proper judicial and democratic oversight."
0 Comments

March 31st, 2014

3/31/2014

0 Comments

 
DO YOU HEAR ANY OF MARYLAND CANDIDATES FOR STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL AND CITY ATTORNEY SHOUTING ABOUT ALL OF THE ISSUES AROUND DISMANTLING PUBLIC JUSTICE?  DO YOU HEAR THE MARYLAND CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR SHOUTING ABOUT ANY OF THESE ISSUES?

THAT'S BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL PART OF A CRONY AND NEO-LIBERAL POLITICAL MACHINE

Trans Pacific Trade Pact TPP gives a global corporate tribunal the rights to write law and the enforcement of law will be international and corporate as well if neo-liberals are left to their ways.  This hits poor and people of color hardest but it will bring all Americans down to third world standards very quickly.  Remember, doctors, lawyers, and Indian Chiefs in third world countries are just as poor as everyone else.



As I stated my last blog, it is reinstating Rule of Law and rebuilding oversight and accountability that will address all state and local structural budget deficits created by losing much wealth to fraud and corruption.  Having a governor keen to do this starts with the appointments to committees and with using the bully-pulpit to get public agencies to do their jobs.  The next step is bringing in the employees to do this job.  This means a legal team that looks to public justice and not corporate justice and protecting profit and wealth. 

I have searched under all rocks in Maryland to find a lawyer to support political and social justice.  If there are any they are buried deep in the mud no doubt because of the hostile environment for people looking for a little public justice.  So it appears the answer to rebuilding Maryland's public justice and oversight and accountability comes with the one outsourcing my administration will do -----albeit reluctantly.  Bringing law students and legal teams from other states willing to work for public justice to do the job.  One thing we know, law school grads are high among college grads today in unemployment because the intent to dismantle all of public justice leads to no lawyers available to public interest.  Only international law and corporate law need apply say neo-liberals and neo-cons.

ALL OF MARYLAND POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS HENCE THIS COMPLETE CAPTURE OF GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC JUSTICE.

Corporate NPR loves to let us know where we are in the move to third world autocracy and indeed gave us the stat that there are less than I think it was 35,000 lawyers graduating across the country today.  It made the point that Ivy League schools will provide the legal grads since Ivy League schools only focus on International and corporate law.  This should have people out in the street as they are saying------citizens of the US will have no legal recourse-----exactly what Trans Pacific Trade Pact TPP says.  The Ivy League schools said over a decade ago in anticipation to writing TPP that there is no American politics or law, only international and corporate law.  So, when you have Obama from Harvard Law, Anthony Brown from Harvard Law, and Doug Gansler from Yale Law all not able to see massive corporate fraud against the American people and government coffers, this is why.  So, why would citizens vote for these guys?  Do you hear your pundit/medi outlet or politicians shouting this? 

SEE WHY PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE DYNAMICS OF WHO THEY ARE VOTING?


Doug Gansler and Anthony Brown are so Wall Street and global empire as to be blinded to any motivation other than maximizing profit and US corporate power.  That is all they see.  Running for governor these two get most of the campaign funding because of this, they get all the media coverage, and they have endorsement from all of the labor and justice organizations in Maryland.

WAIT!  LABOR UNIONS AND BLACK MINISTERS AND UNIVERSITIES BACKING BROWN OR GANSLER?

Why would labor and justice back two pols dedicated to pushing labor and justice into ever deeper poverty?  That's the question we need to answer here in Maryland.  Much of it has to do with the fact Maryland has no public justice and these organizations are being forced to support candidates in the hope of getting a few progressive bones rather than having control of these decisions. 


WORKING FOR PROGRESSIVE BONES WHEN RUNNING LABOR AND JUSTICE WINS THE HONOR OF MAKING THE DECISIONS.


Gansler and Brown are perfect images of this neo-liberal vision of justice in America after TPP-----SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, SPEAK NO EVIL AND I SEE NO FRAUD.

Let's look nationally, statewide, and locally to see justice dismantled and know we can reverse this EASY PEASY!


Below you see the mechanism for killing the public justice department----high tuition.  Think to yourself the costs of running a law school:

THERE ARE NO COSTS IN LAW SCHOOL.  MOST WORK IS DONE FROM DOCUMENTS AND IN DEVELOPING DISCOURSE IN COURTROOMS

I'm sure I will be hit with accusations of bias but this is the truth.  The costs for tuition in law schools are only driven by the intent to make law degrees elite.  As I was told just a few weeks ago in Baltimore------all lawyers are rich.

This is a continuation of corporatization of university campuses and part of the costs have to do with the focus on international law.  The need to intern in corporate settings provides the ability of those corporations to be paid to accept these law students.  Meanwhile, public justice from government oversight, to civil rights and liberties, to consumer protections, and white collar crime represent affordable programs and are disappearing.


Keep in mind the reason there are no jobs for lawyers is that the entire white collar criminal justice system/government oversight has been dismantled and criminal/public justice is now settled by plea deals by prosecutors. 


ALL VERY, VERY, VERY BAD FOR ALL PEOPLE NEEDING PUBLIC JUSTICE.

Law Schools’ Applications Fall as Costs Rise and Jobs Are Cut

Paul Sakuma/Associated Press The law school at Stanford University has increased its attention to hands-on training.

By ETHAN BRONNER Published: January 30, 2013

Law school applications are headed for a 30-year low, reflecting increased concern over soaring tuition, crushing student debt and diminishing prospects of lucrative employment upon graduation.

The New York Times

As of this month, there were 30,000 applicants to law schools for the fall, a 20 percent decrease from the same time last year and a 38 percent decline from 2010, according to the Law School Admission Council. Of some 200 law schools nationwide, only 4 have seen increases in applications this year. In 2004 there were 100,000 applicants to law schools; this year there are likely to be 54,000.

Such startling numbers have plunged law school administrations into soul-searching debate about the future of legal education and the profession over all.

“We are going through a revolution in law with a time bomb on our admissions books,” said William D. Henderson, a professor of law at Indiana University, who has written extensively on the issue. “Thirty years ago if you were looking to get on the escalator to upward mobility, you went to business or law school. Today, the law school escalator is broken.”

Responding to the new environment, schools are planning cutbacks and accepting students they would not have admitted before.

A few schools, like the Vermont Law School, have started layoffs and buyouts of staff. Others, like at the University of Illinois, have offered across-the-board tuition discounts to keep up enrollments. Brian Leiter of the University of Chicago Law School, who runs a blog on the topic, said he expected as many as 10 schools to close over the coming decade, and half to three-quarters of all schools to reduce class size, faculty and staff.

After the normal dropout of some applicants, the number of those matriculating in the fall will be about 38,000, the lowest since 1977, when there were two dozen fewer law schools, according to Brian Z. Tamanaha of Washington University Law School, the author of “Failing Law Schools.”

The drop in applications is widely viewed as directly linked to perceptions of the declining job market. Many of the reasons that law jobs are disappearing are similar to those for disruptions in other knowledge-based professions, namely the growth of the Internet. Research is faster and easier, requiring fewer lawyers, and is being outsourced to less expensive locales, including West Virginia and overseas.

In addition, legal forms are now available online and require training well below a lawyer’s to fill them out.

In recent years there has also been publicity about the debt load and declining job prospects for law graduates, especially of schools that do not generally provide employees to elite firms in major cities. Last spring, the American Bar Association released a study showing that within nine months of graduation in 2011, only 55 percent of those who finished law school found full-time jobs that required passage of the bar exam.

“Students are doing the math,” said Michelle J. Anderson, dean of the City University of New York School of Law. “Most law schools are too expensive, the debt coming out is too high and the prospect of attaining a six-figure-income job is limited.”

Mr. Tamanaha of Washington University said the rise in tuition and debt was central to the decrease in applications. In 2001, he said, the average tuition for private law school was $23,000; in 2012 it was $40,500 (for public law schools the figures were $8,500 and $23,600). He said that 90 percent of law students finance their education by taking on debt. And among private law school graduates, the average debt in 2001 was $70,000; in 2011 it was $125,000.

“We have been sharply increasing tuition during a low-inflation period,” he said of law schools collectively, noting that a year at a New York City law school can run to more than $80,000 including lodging and food. “And we have been maximizing our revenue. There is no other way to describe it. We will continue to need lawyers, but we need to bring the price down.”

Some argue that the drop is an indictment of the legal training itself — a failure to keep up with the profession’s needs.

“We have a significant mismatch between demand and supply,” said Gillian K. Hadfield, professor of law and economics at the University of Southern California. “It’s not a problem of producing too many lawyers. Actually, we have an exploding demand for both ordinary folk lawyers and big corporate ones.”

She said that, given the structure of the legal profession, it was hard to make a living dealing with matters like mortgage and divorce, and that big corporations were dissatisfied with what they see as the overly academic training at elite law schools.

The drop in law school applications is unlike what is happening in almost any other graduate or professional training, except perhaps to veterinarians. Medical school applications have been rising steadily for the past decade.

Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools, said first-time enrollments to master of business degree programs were steady — a 0.8 percent increase among Americans in 2011 after a decade of substantial growth. But growth in first-time foreign student enrollments — 13 percent over the same period — made up the difference, something from which law schools cannot benefit, since foreigners have less interest in American legal training.

In the legal academy, there has been discussion about how to make training less costly and more relevant, with special emphasis on the last year of law school. A number of schools, including elite ones like Stanford, have increased their attention to clinics, where students get hands-on training. Northeastern Law School in Boston, which has long emphasized in-the-field training, has had one of the smallest decreases in its applicant pool this year, according to Jeremy R. Paul, the new dean.

There is also discussion about permitting students to take the bar after only two years rather than three, a decision that would have to be made by the highest officials of a state court system. In New York, the proposal is under active consideration largely because of a desire to reduce student debt.

Some, including Professor Hadfield of the University of Southern California, have called for one- or two-year training programs to create nonlawyer specialists for many tasks currently done by lawyers. Whether or not such changes occur, for now the decline is creating what many see as a cultural shift.

“In the ’80s and ’90s, a liberal arts graduate who didn’t know what to do went to law school,” Professor Henderson of Indiana said. “Now you get $120,000 in debt and a default plan of last resort whose value is just too speculative. Students are voting with their feet. There are going to be massive layoffs in law schools this fall. We won’t have the bodies we need to meet the payroll.”
___________________________________________

Below you see a comment from a national public justice organization calling the US Department of Justice on its deliberate mechanisms for ending public justice.  All of these bank fraud settlements have been unconstitutional as the public has been taken out of the entire process under the guise that the US Department of Justice is the agency for public justice.  Only, when it is run by corporate lawyers......not so much.

Better Markets sues Justice Department over JPMorgan dealwww.reuters.com


'The Justice Department cannot act as prosecutor, jury and judge and extract $13 billion in exchange for blanket civil immunity to the largest, richest, most politically connected bank on Wall Street," he said'.
____________________
Remember when people were told to get a health care degree like nursing and you will have no trouble getting a job.  Now, nursing has one of the highest unemployment.  This has to do with a type of outsourcing------immigrants brought to the US to take health care jobs but it is also the effect of downsizing health care staff to maximize profit according to the Affordable Care Act.  The same thing is happening in the legal profession.  Besides all public sector justice being dismantled, law is now outsourced all over the world.  So, the idea of elite schools having all the lawyers extends beyond the US to Ivy League Schools all over the world.  This is what Immigration reform was about-----bringing the Best of the Best in the world to the US and leaving American citizens unemployed.  We all know Best of the Best does not mean smarter or best qualified to do the job......it means having connections and working in a system rife with fraud and corruption and being quiet about it.

Imagine these law students sitting on the sidelines when the entire government and corporate system is full of fraud and corruption.   Then think what will happen when coming school admissions fall as people feel there is not future in law for most.  That is how you get a legal system run by only graduates of Ivy League schools......the Brown/Obama's from Harvard and the Gansler's from Yale.  Both having absolutely no talent except kissing the boots of Wall Street.



Inside the Law School Scam

Friday, June 8, 2012


Two out of three 2011 law school graduates did not get real legal jobs

NALP has released preliminary employment statistics for the class of 2011 as of nine months after graduation. They are, unsurprisingly, terrible.
12% of 2011 graduates were completely unemployed in February 2012, and another three per cent had re-enrolled in further graduate study, which can be treated as the functional equivalent to post-law school unemployment.  So the first takeaway from these numbers is the nearly 15% unemployment rate for people who got law degrees from ABA-accredited schools last year.  This compares with an 8.2% overall national unemployment rate, which, to my surprise at least, is also the unemployment rate among 25 to 34 year-olds (see Table A-10).  So getting a law degree correlates with a doubling of the risk that a young adult will be unemployed nine months after receiving it.
But of course this 85.6% “employment” rate includes every kind of job law graduates obtained: legal, non-legal, full-time, part-time, long-term, and temporary.   Let’s work with this preliminary data to make an estimate regarding how many 2011 graduates of ABA law schools had real legal jobs nine months after graduation, with a real legal job defined as a full-time non-temporary paying position requiring a law degree.
We can begin by eliminating jobs for which a law degree was not required.   24% of employed law graduates fell into this category, including the large majority of the 18.1% of all graduates who reported being employed in “business” (For most law graduates getting a job in “business” is short hand for either a low-paying service sector job that the graduate could have gotten more easily before going to law school, or in a smaller number of cases a good job that the graduate was qualified for prior to getting a law degree – indeed often literally the same job the graduate left in order to get a law degree).
What about those graduates of the 2011 class who had a job for which a law degree was required? Note that only 60% of graduates whose employment status was known were working full-time in a job requiring bar admission.  (Since it appears the status of somewhere around 7% of graduates was unknown, and since those graduates surely had far worse outcomes than average, this suggests that perhaps 56% to 58% of graduates had full time jobs requiring bar admission. 12% of all jobs, legal and non-legal, obtained by graduates were part-time).  Now consider how many jobs in this category have to be tossed out if we are limiting ourselves to real legal jobs, even liberally defined.  The 5% of all “jobs” funded by law schools themselves for their own graduates must be excluded, as should the 6% of all private practice jobs which consisted of graduates reduced to the desperate expedient of attempting the start a solo practice straight out of law school.  


NALP has not yet reported what overall percentage of jobs were temporary -- defined as being for a term of less than one year – but for the class of 2010 26.9% of all jobs were defined as temporary (To be conservative I’m going to treat all judicial clerkships as full-time long-term legal jobs, even though many state court clerkships are one-year way stations on the road to legal unemployment).  We do know that 7% of all jobs obtained by 2011 graduates were reported as both part time and temporary.


Then we have the always tricky category of jobs with law firms of two to ten attorneys.  A remarkable 42.9% of all graduates who obtained jobs in private practice (49.5% of all graduates went into private practice) were listed in this category.  Many of these positions are of course real, if generally low-paying, associate jobs with established several-lawyer firms.  But some are of a much more tenuous nature, including transient law clerk positions with solo practitioners, eat what you kill arrangements, in which people are given office space in return for a percentage of whatever they manage to bill, and basically fictional “law firms” consisting of two or three graduates banding together in a last-ditch attempt to avoid formal unemployment. But let’s be optimistic and assume that 80% of new graduates who were reported as obtaining jobs with firms of two to ten lawyers were in fact getting real legal jobs, liberally defined.
Thus once we exclude jobs that don’t require law degrees, law school-funded jobs, other temporary jobs, and part time jobs, and then make a generous estimate of how many private practice positions with very small firms were real legal jobs, the numbers look like this:
60% of all graduates whose employment status was known were in full-time jobs requiring bar admission.
Minus the 4% of all graduates in law school-funded temporary jobs.
Minus the approximately 15% of all graduates in temporary (less than one year) legal positions other than law school-funded jobs.
Minus an estimated 4.25% of all graduates in fictional “firm” jobs.
Minus the 3% of all graduates working as solo practitioners. 
This leaves us with 33.75% of all 2011 ABA law school graduates in real legal jobs nine months after graduation.   This is, in my view, a conservative estimate of the scope of the disaster that has overtaken America’s law school graduates.  It counts almost all positions with law firms and with government agencies as real legal jobs, even though we know some of these “jobs” are actually one-year unpaid internships.  (See for example these). Indeed it counts whole classes of time-limited jobs that are likely to leave graduates with no legal employment at their conclusion, such as most state judicial clerkships, as long-term rather than temporary employment.  Most of all, it makes what by now must be considered the questionable assumption that law schools are reporting these numbers accurately, rather than misreporting them to their advantage. 
Yet even this generous estimate of how many 2011 graduates of ABA-accredited law schools managed to get real legal jobs leads to the conclusion that two-thirds did not.

_____________________________________________

This is why many US law school graduates are unemployed and unlike customer service call centers, losing our law students and graduates essentially ends the public's ability to access legal recourse which is what is happening today.

What happens when people stop going to law school in America?  Ivy League schools are the only ones graduating lawyers and indeed, as my local Baltimore commenter said-----LAWYERS ARE ALWAYS RICH.



U.S. firms outsource legal services to India

By Cynthia Cotts and Liane Kufchock Published: Tuesday, August 21, 2007

NEW YORK — Bruce Masterson, the chief operating officer of Socrates Media, asked his outside counsel to customize a residential lease for all 50 U.S. states in 2003. About $400,000 was the firm's estimate. He rejected that cost and hired QuisLex, a firm in Hyderabad, India, that did the work for $45,000.

"It was good quality," said Masterson, whose company, which is based in Chicago, publishes legal forms on the Internet. "We've been working together ever since."

Clients are pushing law firms like Jones Day and Kirkland & Ellis to send basic legal tasks to India, where lawyers tag documents and investigate takeover targets for as little as $20 an hour. The firms are part of a trend that will move about 50,000 U.S. legal jobs overseas by 2015, according to Forrester Research in Boston.


"The objective is to have only the most valuable people in London or New York, and the others in India, China or Columbus, Ohio," said Robert Profusek, co-head of the mergers and acquisitions practice at Jones Day in New York.

Profusek sends low-end work to the cheapest locations and plans to open a document center in India.

"Lawyers are service providers," he said. "We are not gods."

Companies with in-house legal departments in India include DuPont, Cisco Systems, and Morgan Stanley, according to ValueNotes Database, which is based in Maharashtra, India.

The Indian legal services industry will more than quadruple to $640 million by 2010 from $146 million in 2006, ValueNotes said.

General Electric sends about $3 million a year in routine legal work to its Indian affiliate, said Janine Dascenzo, the GE managing counsel for legal operations.

"India has very talented lawyers," she said. "But it's a misconception that you can just send work there and it gets done. You need proper supervision and security."

Kirkland & Ellis, a major U.S. law firm based in Chicago, works with offshore lawyers at clients' request, said Gregg Kirchhoefer, a senior partner in the firm's outsourcing and technology transaction practice.

"I'm not an advocate of offshoring legal services," Kirchhoefer said. "But having worked in this area for so long, I understand the value of the model."

Typically, he said, clients hire a provider and Kirkland helps manage the laywers.

One incentive for corporations to send legal work overseas is that ethics rules compel law firms to disclose their profit margins. Traditionally, law firms charge clients markups of as much as three times what they pay associates and contract attorneys.

"Law firms can earn more by using labor they can mark up without disclosure," said Stephen Gillers, professor of legal ethics at New York University School of Law. "Clients are knowledgeable about costs, and they want to negotiate the markup on these charges."

But not every law firm has accepted the trend.

"Some firms are spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt," said David Perla, co-chief executive of Pangea3, an offshore legal-services company based in New York and Mumbai. "They see any competition as bad and they'll raise any issues as to why you shouldn't go offshore."

Of the 10 highest-grossing U.S. law firms, 7 declined to comment on outsourcing. Only one, Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, also based in Chicago, said it did not use the practice.

Perla added: "I don't think law firms are ashamed of offshoring. The firms that are having success with it aren't talking because they view it as a competitive advantage."

Of about 100 third-party legal services providers in India, clients give top marks to Pangea3 and Integreon Managed Solutions, which is based in New York according to "The Black Book of Outsourcing," a survey published in July by Brown-Wilson Group, which is based in Clearwater, Florida.

About 80 percent of Pangea3's clients are corporations and 20 percent are law firms, Perla said.

"Some firms are coming to us because in-house clients suggested it or pressured them," Perla said. "Others want to come to the client first and offer a solution."

Integreon, which provides legal services in India, the Philippines and Fargo, North Dakota, has long-term contracts with about 45 companies and 15 law firms, said Liam Brown, the company's chief executive.

Law firms contribute 45 percent to offshore revenue, while corporate law departments contribute 36 percent, ValueNotes said.

Integreon recruits lawyers from second-tier law schools in India and managers from the litigation practices of firms like Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Brown said. After training in India, managers relocate to New York or Los Angeles.

In India, legal education is based on common law and conducted in English, requiring two or three years of classes. The country produces about 80,000 law school graduates a year, according to ValueNotes, compared with about 44,000 in the United States.

Offshore companies charge $10 to $25 an hour on low-end work and $25 to $90 an hour on advanced jobs. Junior Indian lawyers might earn as much as $8,160 a year, according to ValueNotes, compared with the $160,000 average salary for associates in major U.S. cities.

Janice D'souza, a 26-year-old lawyer in Pangea3's litigation and research department in Mumbai, said her pay was three times as much as she would get at an Indian law firm.

"At an Indian law firm, generally your potential is not recognized at an early stage," D'souza said. "Here it's talent-based. In the near future, I think I will be a department manager.

________________________________________
Keep in mind this national budget deficit and debt is all manufactured by Wall Street and allowed to be used by Congress as an excuse to dismantle all that is public.  Tens of trillions of dollars in corporate fraud can easily pay the entire national debt but as you can see, we have no public justice employees.

With Eric Holder simply using settlements as justice, the state and local prosecutors cutting plea deals for everything, and class action lawsuits being disallowed by the Supreme Court....there are no avenues for public justice.  When I asked a Law School professor what the US citizens do when the highest public justice in the land, the US Justice Department becomes captured and corrupt his answer was PEOPLE WITH POWER MAKE THE LAWS.

Well, I disagree because we have a US Constitution that says WE THE PEOPLE MAKE THE LAWS!


IN ORDER TO REMAIN CITIZENS WE MUST DEMAND THAT PUBLIC JUSTICE STAY IN PLACE!

Keep in mind public justice is not always urban youth being shuffled through an unjust criminal justice system.  It means you and I have no one to recover fraud, no one to protect election laws, no one protecting community zoning issues for example.
IT HAS AN EFFECT ON EVERYONE!!!

The Impact of Federal Budget Cuts on State and Local Public Safety

An anonymous respondent wrote, “As federal funds have declined and will obviously continue to do so it reduces our means to leverage and/or diversify funding to sustain discretionary programs and programming. In the business of juvenile and adult detention, we are losing and stand to lose more alternatives to incarceration and programs that provide evidence based and/or treatment pro-gramming. These are the less costly programs to avoid more costly and lengthy stays in detention. And these are the programs that help to reduce recidivism. For example, cutting residential community corrections beds that serve as a last chance to avoid prison for probation violators has resulted in a dramatic increase in prison admission and more jail time. Bottom line, the less costly and more effective alternatives to incarceration are closed and demand for prisons and jails goes up. It is a bad deal for taxpayers but the more progressive alternatives are discretionary and jails and prisons are all that is left...Sustaining prevention and early intervention programming for juveniles as well as effective rehabilitative programming is critical to public safety. Evidence based programming changes lives away from a criminal behavior. It is not costly but without encouragement through shared funding we are losing the means to sustain it.”• An anonymous respondent from New York wrote, “The real impact over time will be the lack of funding to support new approaches in criminal justice. The reductions in crime over the past 20 years have resulted from new approaches and research that was supported with federal grant dollars. Lack of funding will seriously curtail these efforts and diminish local communities’ ability to respond to new crime problems.”• An anonymous respondent wrote, “[We have] served 50 less at risk youth since budget cuts in 2010. This puts youth at higher risk of entering the juvenile justice system dropping out of school or abusing substances. The cost of treating youth is 10 times the cost of the prevention services lost for these youth. Reductions in federal funding greatly impact our ability to serve at-risk youth in the community. These reductions, coupled with reductions in local public funding have an impact well into the future for our community. Less youth served in diversion and prevention programming will only serve to dramatically increase the cost of providing more intensive and more expensive out of home services in the future. Federal funds directed at diverting youth from formal court processing and out of home placement pay significant dividends both financially and practically in reducing crime. Federal reductions now will only increase costs to federal entities and other public organizations in the future. Short sighted budget cuts now will cost governments more, by a factor of ten, in coming years.”• An anonymous respondent from Pennsylvania wrote, “The reduced funds have also taken their toll on our partnering and community outreach. In a couple of instances, we have needed to expand or enhance community services to juveniles and adults and the local non-profits have not partnered with us - stating that they simply do not have the resources to bring new/improved services to our target population. This means many of our juveniles and needy adults remain unserved and are unable to attain self-sufficiency and are at high-risk of returning to the criminal justice system... We anticipate our recidivism rates would increase greatly and, without any services or support to offer juveniles and adults, we fear the prison cycle will spiral out of control - impacting not only the offender, but also their family.

The Vera Institute of Justice is a research and policy organization that combines expertise in research, demonstration projects, and technical assistance to help leaders in government and civil society improve the systems people rely on for justice and safety.The National Criminal Justice Association represents state, tribal, and local governments on crime prevention and crime control issues. Its members represent all facets of the criminal and juvenile justice community, from law enforcement, corrections, prosecution, defense courts, victim-witness services and education institutions to federal, state, and local elected officials. As the representative of state, tribal, and local criminal and juvenile justice practitioners, the NCJA works to promote a balanced approach to communities’ complex public safety problems.In the summer of 2012, the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA) and the Vera Institute of Justice conducted an in-formal nationwide online survey of 714 state and local criminal justice stakeholder organizations. The questionnaire’s purpose was to gather information from a wide range of jurisdictions about the impact of budget cuts, both already enacted, and anticipated cuts that would result from sequestration. This document is a summary of self-reported responses


_____________________________________________

Sandra Day O'Connor famously made all these observations over a decade ago as she was leaving the Supreme Court.  She shouted out against plea deals and settlements, arbitration and loss of public justice and judicial funding.  So, this has been happening throughout Reagan/Clinton/Bush.  Obama has now decided to pretend this transition is official and not recognize any US Constitutional law and Rule of Law.  That's what they teach in Harvard after all!

Sandra has a wonderful solution.  We need all communities to follow her lead.  We know Race to the Top is taking all social studies lessons out and civics is one of those subjects.  Baltimore is the worst in making sure public school students do not receive social studies at most schools. 

THIS IS A MUST-------PARENTS AND COMMUNITIES MUST DO THIS AS WE WORK TO REBUILD OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND CURRICULA!





Sandra Day O’Connor champions civics education
by Donna Krache, CNN  
July 19th, 2012 06:18 AM ET

(CNN) - The retired Supreme Court justice is all business as she walks into our meeting room.

But inside, she’s got the heart of an educator.

Of course, Sandra Day O’Connor will always be associated with her historic “first,” as the first woman justice to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Prior to that appointment by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, she also served as a judge and a state senator.

Since her retirement from the high court in 2006, she has found a new passion – civics education.

How did she decide to become a champion of that cause?  O’Connor says that in her last year on the bench, she was “very much aware of the major issues and debates” being brought before the high court.  There were lots of complaints about the decisions, she says, and many were directed at the judicial branch – with some blaming the justices for certain outcomes.

“As you analyzed it, it appeared to show in many cases that the concerns were misdirected:  There was a tendency to blame the courts for things that were really not a judicial matter,” she told CNN.

The solution to that misunderstanding, she believes, is civics education – a subject she notes has changed through the years.  She remembers her own schooling in El Paso, Texas, and how she learned about Texas government.  Civics knowledge was helpful to her later in life, O’Connor says, and she’s disappointed that today, many schools have stopped teaching the subject.


But she believes young people do have a desire to learn civics because they want to participate in their government, to change things and better their lives. “There is an increasing appreciation that we do need to know how our government works:  national, state and local,” says O’Connor. “And that this is part and parcel of the things that every young person wants to know because they want to have an effect.”



It’s not just about learning facts and the processes, says O’Connor.  It’s about learning how to make a difference in one’s community, state, or nation. But, she adds, “Sometimes people don’t know what government entity is equipped to deal with the problem.”

“You can make a difference if you know how to bring a particular area of concern to the attention of people who can make a change. Then you’re learning to be in a position where you can cause public bodies to take action, the public bodies that have jurisdiction over that particular area. Maybe it’s a city council, maybe it’s a town planning and zoning commission… maybe it’s a state legislature… You have to be knowledgeable.”

“To understand how to define the issue, find out what level of government can have the biggest impact on it, where should you go with this problem.  Lastly, how to best approach that body and make your case - but that takes some knowledge and experience to get that far,” she says.

O’Connor advocates an analytical approach to an understanding of government that includes defining the problem or issue, identifying the government entity that is best able to address it, then determining a course of citizen action to effect change.

Identifying the problem, she says, is the first step toward change.

“We need to learn how to define a problem then tackle it as a local issue, a state issue, a national issue.”

O’Connor was in Atlanta to address the Education Commission of the States  and promote awareness for her project,  iCivics. iCivics aims to generate civic interest and knowledge among young people and is available to all teachers, free of charge.

Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor helps a student learn as she plays a game on iCivics.

Students can play games and simulations on iCivics focusing on each of the three branches of government as well as individual rights and responsibilities.  For example, students can test their powers of persuasion in “Argument Wars” as they argue cases before the Supreme Court.  They can run for president in “Win the White House” while they learn about real campaigning, including raising funds, polling voters and crafting media campaigns. In “Immigration Nation,” students can guide newcomers through the path to citizenship.

The games are engaging and offer some opportunities for critical thinking.  All the while, students are learning about the Constitution and the branches of government.  There are about 70 lesson plans available for teachers, in addition to the games.

O’Connor and her team launched iCivics in 2009. She’s extremely proud of the site, and says teachers and students are “raving” about it.

O’Connor says she has always been interested in public service and wants to see young people engaged in it, too.  But in an age of social media and lots of distractions, what advice does she offer to parents who want their kids to be interested in civic participation and current events?

“Encourage kids to be involved in projects that get them to interact at some government level,” she told CNN.

Parents should “engage them in projects they care about, get them to interact in ways that illustrate as a practical matter how things can work and how you can be effective in creating change or adopting some policy that matters. Get them involved!”

After all, says O’Connor, “That’s what civics is all about.”

0 Comments

March 27th, 2014

3/27/2014

0 Comments

 
REMEMBER, THE GOAL OF NEO-LIBERALISM IS TAKING THE US FROM A FIRST WORLD SOCIAL DEMOCRACY TO A THIRD WORLD AUTOCRATIC PLUTOCRACY.  THAT MEANS INSTEAD OF MODERN DAY AMERICA THEY LOOK TO MEDIEVAL EUROPE----THE DARK AGES ----FOR THEIR SOCIAL MODEL.  THE MASSES IMPOVERISHED, HEAVILY TAXED WAITING FOR THE GENTRY TO SPONSOR PUBLIC PROJECTS WHILE THE CHURCH HANDLES THE POOR---AND NOT SO WELL!

Today's blog looks at billionaires as benevolent philanthropist.

This is indeed where neo-liberals are going.  The next phase after -'we have all the money and will do as we please' - is building the image of billionaire as benevolent philanthropist----you know----THE MEDICIs.  You could feel sorry for the delusions of grandeur from a moneyed-class equal to mafia-cartels, but this is life and death and fighting for democracy in America.  We are seeing in US media a build-up of image of billionaires for social good.  As they starve public coffers by fraud and tax evasion they are being allowed to 'donate' for the common good and corporate tax deductions.

Meanwhile, you and I have moved back to the vision of the US as first world social democracy. HMMMMM...did I see 900,000 registered democrats in Maryland?  Do you really think they want to go with neo-liberalism and Medicis?

I DON'T THINK SO!!!  SEE WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO KEEP CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND OUT OF ELECTION COVERAGE AND OFF THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL!

What I am seeing and hoping to build with my candidacy is a structure around crony democratic politics in Maryland and the US.  We do not need party machines and media money for campaigns.  We need labor unions and justice organizations, churches and university political groups to network for the candidate working for labor and justice.  Simple community networking and education about the need to ignore the onslaught of media campaign advertising by neo-liberal candidates with corporate war chests.


ALL OF MARYLAND CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR ARE NEO-LIBERALS EXCEPT CINDY WALSH.  SHAKE THE BUGS FROM THE RUG------GET RID OF CORPORATE CONTROL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

Regarding Basu's singing of praises for US billionaires and funding of basic research:

NEO-LIBERALS MAKING BILLIONAIRES LOOK WARM AND FUZZY AS THEY PUSH AMERICAN CITIZENS TO CHARITY!  

Who doesn't like a billionaire made rich from the massive corporate frauds of last decade exploding shareholder wealth from looting the US Treasury and American people.  A billionaire that parks hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue off-shore to avoid paying taxes and who is guilty of more hundreds of billions of dollars in tax fraud and tax evasion.  A billionaire that backs basic research that will earn his corporation trillions of dollars in profit at the expense of public health and interest.  God bless those billionaires say Basu and corporate public media.  Who needs those trillions of dollars stolen from the public that funded basic research in public universities and gave the development benefits to the public rather than private patenting to soak the public as consumer.  WHAT AMERICAN PATRIOTS THESE BILLIONAIRES ARE!  Sound like the North Korean Great Leader propaganda?  YOU BETCHA!

Let's look at the tax policies at the Federal, state, and local level that that allow this fleecing of the US Treasury beyond an IRS that has been gutted of employees to keep from doing investigations of hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate tax fraud that when recovered will make state and local universities flush with cash in education Trusts and grants and public research funding.

YOU SEE, IT IS THE MONEY THAT MADE THESE BILLIONAIRES RICH THAT IS NOW MISSING FROM THE ECONOMY BRINGING DEBT AND DISMANTLING OF PUBLIC SECTOR SERVICES AND PROGRAMS.  UNIVERSITY TUITION TOO HIGH----BLAME THAT BILLIONAIRE.

Do you get a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when a corporate CEO from the likes Starbucks receives all kinds of media coverage for 'donating' to veterans charities because he is upset with the conditions for veterans at VA hospitals around the country?  Let's see how Starbucks evades paying corporate taxes and bring that back to fund all the public VA hospitals.



Starbucks wakes up and smells the stench of tax avoidance controversy


Cafe chain executive to face questions from MPs, while protesters plan to turn branches into creches and refuges

    Simon Neville and Shiv Malik    
    The Guardian, Sunday 11 November 2012    

Starbucks
Police protect a Starbucks branch during an anti-cuts march last month after the company's low tax bill was revealed. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

On an average day its outlets are a hive of social activity, hosting everything from business meetings to reading groups looking for that all-important appointment with a morning caffeine rush, approvingly overlooked by a branded community bulletin board. But Starbucks should be careful what it wishes for.

The direct action group UK Uncut plans to turn dozens of the coffee empire's UK branches into creches, refuges and homeless shelters to highlight the chain's tax avoidance tactics.

The announcement of the action comes on the day a Starbucks executive faces questions from the House of Commons public accounts committee over why the company paid no corporation tax in the UK during the past three years, despite senior US management trumpeting the company's profitable operations in Britain.

MPs will also question management representatives from Google and Amazon, both of which have faced criticism for basing their European operations in countries that have lower tax rates such as Ireland and Luxembourg.

In his appearance before the committee, Starbucks' chief financial officer, Troy Alstead, will attempt to repair the company's reputation, which, according to research by YouGov, continues to suffer because of the controversy.

In a similar session last week, MPs accused HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) officials of having cosy relationships with big businesses. Speaking about the arrangements with Starbucks, the Conservative MP Richard Bacon said: "It smells – and it doesn't smell of coffee. It smells bad."

UK Uncut has said it will start targeting Starbucks on the Saturday following the autumn statement by the chancellor, George Osborne, on 8 December. The campaign group is attempting to draw a link between government cuts, in particular those that affect women, and tax avoidance by multinational businesses.

Sarah Greene, a UK Uncut activist, said funding for refuges and rape crisis centres faced cuts unless companies paid their fair share of tax. HMRC estimates around £32bn was lost to tax avoidance last year.

Greene said the government could easily bring in billions that could fund vital services by clamping down on tax avoidance, but was instead "making cuts that are forcing women to choose between motherhood and work, and trapping them in abusive relationships".

The group, which rose to prominence after staging a sit-in at Vodafone stores, Sir Philip Green's Topshop and Fortnum & Mason, turned its attentions to Starbucks last month after an investigation by Reuters discovered the company had paid only £8.6m in corporation tax since launching in the UK 14 years ago, despite cumulative sales of £3bn.

Longstanding Uncut campaigner Anna Walker said the group wanted to "galvanise the anger" that women were feeling: "We've chosen to really highlight the impact of the cuts on women this time. So there is going to be a real focus on transforming Starbucks into those services that are being cut by the government … [such as] refuges and creches," she said.

Walker said the campaign group had been in touch with women's groups across the country in the lead-up to the direct action event and believed that, along with a pre-established network of activists, dozens of the company's coffee shops were likely to be targeted.

"Starbucks is a really great target because it is on every high street across the country and that's what UK Uncut finds really important: people can take action in their local areas," she said. "We're really hoping that women who are impacted by the cuts, who are seeing their Sure Start centres where their kids go being reduced in services, and people who use refuges, [will] be involved."

Several international organisations have faced criticism over their UK accounts, with Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google and Ikea all paying little or no corporation tax despite large British operations.

However, according to pollsters at YouGov's BrandIndex, Starbucks has suffered the deepest damage to its image.

The organisation, which records the strength of companies' brand identities, revealed Starbucks' cachet plummeted following the tax revelations and continues to languish at near-record lows.

Its "buzz" score, which measures the number of negative and positive comments customers have heard, hit -16.7. That is only slightly higher than the lowest levels it hit during the most heated point of the controversy last month, at -28.6. A year ago its rating was at +3.1.

By comparison, Google and Amazon – both due at the select committee – have seen their ratings seemingly unaffected.

UK BrandIndex director Sarah Murphy said: "A brand's buzz score typically recovers quite quickly following a spate of bad press, but we aren't seeing that with Starbucks, which is quite unusual. Its scores started to level out around the end of last month, but whatever modest recovery Starbucks has made could well be in jeopardy if this story flares up again in the media."

The coffee store chain insists it pays the correct level of taxes. The group chief executive, Howard Schultz, has said in a statement: "Starbucks has always paid taxes in the UK despite recent suggestions to the contrary.

"Over the last three years alone, our company has paid more than £160m in various taxes, including national insurance contributions, VAT and business rates."

However, MPs will no doubt point out that VAT is paid by the customers at point of sale and collected by Starbucks.

Margaret Hodge, who chairs the public accounts committee, told parliament last month that Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google and Starbucks had avoided nearly £900m of tax. The prime minister, David Cameron responded to the claim by saying: "I'm not happy with the current situation. I think [HMRC] needs to look at it very carefully. We do need to make sure we are encouraging these businesses to invest in our country as they are but they should be paying fair taxes as well."

A spokeswoman for Starbucks said on Sunday: "While the subject of tax law can be extremely complex, Starbucks respects and complies with tax laws and accounting rules" in each of the 61 countries where we do business, including the UK – a market that we remain committed to for the long term. We've posted the facts about our tax practices in the UK on our website .

"Starbucks' economic impact in the UK spans far beyond our stores and partners (employees). We spend hundreds of millions of pounds with local suppliers on milk, cakes and sandwiches, and on store design and renovations. When you take into account the indirect employment created by Starbucks' investments in the UK, the company's extended economic impact to the UK economy exceeds £80m annually.

"We hope that UK Uncut will respect the wellbeing of our partners and customers, and recognise the value that we add to the economy, creating jobs and apprenticeships, as well as paying our fair share of taxes in the UK."

________________________________________

How does a US global corporation go from being called a tax cheat and immoral in overseas press.....which is far more free and fair than a US state-run corporate media......to being the good guys in America donating all that money for tax write-offs instead of paying US taxes that would flood government coffers with revenue?

 NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS CONTROL US MEDIA AND HAVE MADE IT US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ALL THE TIME.  THE US MEDIA IS NOW EQUAL TO ROMANIA AS FREE PRESS.  ERGO, BASU'S LOVEFEST.


We all know that as all US commerce becomes consolidated and owned by the same few people at the top we will not be able to police US global corporations overseas and while they stagnate our US economy for growing profits overseas, all that wealth generated overseas does nothing for US yet we have the global headquarters ruling over all government and public policies and taxpayers subsidizing corporate wealth.  The article above on the state of US corporations doing business in the UK paying no taxes is mirrored in America.  The difference, the American people are electing the very neo-liberals turning their heads to this massive fraud and allowing media to ignore all of this.

EUROPE IS SEEING MORE ACCOUNTABILITY BECAUSE ITS CITIZENS HIT THE STREETS AND VOTE BAD POLS OUT OF OFFICE.




Starbucks, Google, Amazon accused of 'immoral' tax avoidance ...


www.csmonitor.com/.../1203/Starbucks...immoral-tax-avoidance   

Starbucks, Google, and Amazon were among the major multinational corporations accused by lawyers of exploiting British tax laws to move UK-made profits ...

__________________________________________

Sending money stolen through tax fraud and shareholder wealth created by massive corporate fraud of US Treasury to charity just to write the donation off future taxes-----WHAT A GUY-----HOWARD SCHULTZ!  Mind you, I have a history of Starbucks and its beginning in Seattle even having a Starbuck's green Jeep in my enthusiasm for fair trade coffee.  THOSE DAYS ARE LONG GONE.

Do you know the entire GI Bill would be flush with money if Starbucks paid its corporate taxes and shouted to end massive corporate fraud?


THE LEVEL OF DISGRACE IN PUSHING AMERICAN VETERANS TO HAWKING FOR CHARITY IS UNMEASURABLE.


Starbucks CEO To Donate $30 Million To Support PTSD Research For Veterans


The Huffington Post  | by  Melissa McGlensey

Posted: 03/21/2014 6:18 pm EDT Updated: 03/21/2014 6:59 pm EDT

Starbucks Starbucks Coffee Howard Schultz Charity Military Veterans Veterans Video Impact News

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is making a large donation to help U.S. veterans.

Schultz spoke to CBS Evening News on Wednesday and announced his plan to allocate most of the $30 million donation toward researching solutions to brain trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.

PTSD affects between 11 and 20 percent of military members who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Schultz told CBS that veterans often don't get the treatment or understanding they need and deserve.

"The truth of the matter is, and I say this with respect, more often than not, the government does a very -- a much better job of sending people to war than they do bringing them home, " he stated. "They're coming home to an American public that really doesn't understand and never embraced, what these people have done."

Schultz has shown support for troops in the past. Last year, Starbucks announced its initiative to hire 10,000 veterans and spouses of active military in five years.

The unemployment rate among post-9/11 veterans dropped to 9.0 percent last year, down from 9.9 percent the year before, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This number is about 1.6 percentage points above the civilian population.

____________________________________________

Bill Gates was given the 'good billionaire' logo by neo-liberals trying to push the Buffett 'billionaires need to pay what their secretary pays in taxes' at a time when the US needs billionaires to pay what they paid before the Reagan/Clinton era-----60-70% tax rate -----to bring back the massive frauds and swing the pendulum back to flush government coffers and a first world society.  This is not targeted tax policy-----

IT IS SIMPLY RULE OF LAW AND JUSTICE BRINGING TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CORPORATE FRAUD BACK TO US TREASURY AND PUBLIC TRUSTS.

As Basu pretends that Bill Gates created the Gates Global Health Initiative for the good of mankind the first thing that comes to mind is that African and Asian PHARMA developed and patented by the Gates foundation has Bill Gates, Obama, and Clinton lobbying hardest this past decade to dismantle all of public health and protections of generic manufacturing and subsidy of PHARMA around the world with the Trans Pacific Trade Pact.  It is Bill Gates building a PHARMA corporation that seeks to maximize profits by gutting all public health protections for medicine around the world.  WHAT A GUY-----BILL GATES THAT GOOD BILLIONAIRE!

While in Washington State I attended Microsoft shareholder meetings that had stockholders angry that Bill was moving all Microsoft money to a trust that was then spending billions of dollars in Pharma and health care products in Africa and Asia.  Warren Buffett moved his billions to this new economy as well.  WHILE BEING TOUTED AS PHILANTHROPISTS THEY WERE SIMPLY GUARDING MONEY FROM TAXATION UNDER THE GUISE OF PRIVATE NON-PROFITS WHILE THEY BUILT WHAT THEY KNEW WAS THE NEXT ECONOMIC ENGINE-----HEALTH AND EDUCATION.  This was at the end of Reagan and the beginning of Clinton when the transition to privatization of public health and education to create the next Wall Street markets were made.

RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU THINK A BILLIONAIRE USING PRIVATE NON-PROFITS AND THE GUISE OF PUBLIC HEALTH TO SHIELD MONEY FROM TAXATION ALL TO CREATE AND PATENT PHARMA TARGETING A DEVELOPING WORLD THEY WANT TO MAKE A MARKET IS A GOOD GUY------NO ONE!!!!

Bill Gates is the face of Race to the Top and education privatization for the same reason-----creating private education businesses centered online and developed by Microsoft and other tech institutions.  The Industrial Philanthropists built the public structures of public universities, libraries, and K-12 and Bill Gates Foundation seeks to tear them down for profit.  WHAT A GUY-----BILL GATES!


Keep in mind that all these excuses of republicans defunding the IRS or Wall Street regulatory agencies made by neo-liberals are a farce.  Look to neo-liberal Maryland where fraud and corruption is king to see a dismantled and unfunded oversight.

RECOVERING CORPORATE FRAUD PAYS FOR ITSELF, NO REPUBLICANS OR TAXPAYER MONEY NEEDED.  THAT FIRST BILLION IN RECOVERY PAYS FOR THE NEXT TRILLION DOLLARS IN RECOVERY!




Microsoft, HP skirted taxes via offshore units: U.S. Senate panel

By Kim Dixon

WASHINGTON Thu Sep 20, 2012 7:12pm EDT


A variety of logos hover above the Microsoft booth on the opening day of the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas January 10, 2012. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

A variety of logos hover above the Microsoft booth on the opening day of the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas January 10, 2012.




(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co pushed back against claims by a U.S. Senate panel on Thursday that they used offshore units and loopholes to shield billions of dollars in profits from U.S. taxes.

Calling tax avoidance rampant in the technology sector, the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said tech companies used intellectual property, royalties and license fees in overseas tax havens to skirt taxes.

The panel subpoenaed internal documents from the companies and interviewed Microsoft and HP officials to compile its report, which uses the companies as case studies.

"The tax practices and gimmicks range from egregious to dubious validity," Democratic Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the panel, said at a news conference.

Officials at HP and Microsoft strongly denied any wrongdoing, noted tax officials had not objected to the structures and said there were valid reasons for tax planning.

Senator Tom Coburn, the top Republican on the panel, signed onto the new report but blamed Congress.

"Tax avoidance is not illegal. Congress has created this situation," Coburn said, criticizing the complex tax code and the 35 percent corporate tax rate, among of the world's highest, though few companies pay that statutory rate.

The subcommittee said that from 2009 to 2011, Microsoft shifted $21 billion offshore, almost half its U.S. retail sales revenue, saving up to $4.5 billion in taxes on goods sold in the United States.

This was accomplished, the report said, by aggressive transfer pricing, where companies value intra-company movement of assets. Corporate units must use a fair market price to value transfers, but critics say they are manipulated to minimize tax.

The report also said the software giant shifts royalty revenue to units in low-tax nations, such as Singapore and Ireland, avoiding billions of dollars of U.S. tax.

Levin said one Microsoft Singapore unit was legally headquartered in Bermuda and had no employees. Levin asked Microsoft's tax vice president, William Sample, if the reason was to cut its tax bill. "Yes, that is correct," Sample said.

Sample also said several offshore units employ hundreds of workers, which Levin noted was a tiny fraction of its workforce.

IRS CITES CHALLENGE

Internal Revenue Service officials are not allowed to comment on specific taxpayers, but Chief Counsel William Wilkins said enforcing transfer pricing law "has been the IRS's most significant international enforcement challenge."

U.S. companies have at least $1.5 trillion in profits sitting offshore. Most say they are keeping them there to avoid U.S. tax. Of the top 10 companies with the biggest offshore cash balances, five are in the technology sector.

"The high-tech industry is probably the No. 1 user of these offshore entities to transfer intellectual property," Levin said.

The panel said Hewlett-Packard funded U.S. operations with a stream of intra-company loans, using an exception in the law for short-term loans, to avoid billions of dollars in taxes.

Levin said more than 90 percent of HP's cash was sitting offshore, as opposed to about 65 percent of revenue coming from countries outside the United States.

An HP spokesman said in a statement that the hearing was a politically motivated attack.

"We are disappointed to see what appears to be a politically motivated attack on one of America's largest employers," HP spokesman Michael Thacker said before the hearing.

Lester Ezrati, an HP tax vice president, said HP used cash faster in the United States for valid reasons including that certain payments like pensions must be made with U.S. cash.

"HP has an overall strategy to minimize expenses and that is what generates where the cash is located," and "one of those expenses is taxes," Ezrati said.

REPATRIATED PROFITS TAXABLE

Under tax law, foreign profits are subject to U.S. tax when they are "repatriated," or brought into the United States, usually in the form of a dividend.

One internal document released by the panel suggested that HP routinely brought money into the U.S. without paying U.S. tax. An HP presentation noted that "without planning, repatriation of foreign earnings could lead to tax payments."


Loans by the foreign units to a related U.S. entity are considered a dividend for tax purposes but there is an exception for loans that are repaid within 30 days, according to the committee's tax experts.

HP set up a complicated series of short-term loans starting in 2008 to these businesses that were continuous without gaps, to get around that provision, the panel found.

Big companies have lobbied for a tax holiday to let them bring offshore profits into the United States at a reduced tax rate, arguing that the profits are trapped offshore. That effort has fallen flat amid reports suggesting such a program would cost the government significant revenue and not produce U.S. jobs.

The report on transfer pricing "mocks the notion that profits of U.S. multinationals are 'locked-up' or 'trapped' offshore," Levin said.

The subcommittee also criticized accounting giant Ernst & Young for blessing HP's practices.

Ernst & Young partner Beth Carr said that the firm stands firmly behind its auditing for HP.

_________________________________________

Below you see from 2002-2005 Bill Gates was positioning himself for the coming Affordable Care Act health legislation and privatization and making of global health corporations.  Keep in mind that mental health pharma was just given a boost in rewriting the Psychiatric definition of what constitutes depression. increasing government subsidy of more depression PHARMA as Gates moves to Prozac.  Medicare and Medicaid will now pay for depression medicine for what we all know is common sadness.

Bill Gates was simply moving his wealth to what he knew would be the new markets created by privatization of public health and education-----AFFORDABLE CARE ACT AND RACE TO THE TOP.

ALWAYS WORKING FOR THE PUBLIC'S INTERESTS THOSE GOOD BILLIONAIRES!  NEO-LIBERALS----WORKING FOR WEALTH AND PROFIT AND THIRD WORLD QUALITY OF LIFE.  HOW DO THEY RUN AS DEMOCRATS?

Below you see a blogger that obviously attended the same Microsoft shareholder meetings I did.

created 04/07/2005 - 07:35, updated 31/08/2006 - 14:01 by cybe


Bill Gates is [alledgedly] giving 95% of his wealth for africa .....
.


I wonder if he is diversifying his investments and has bought shares in the pharmaceutical industry so he is just transferring his money into a new business venture whilst "looking" as though he is giving it away.

The Real Way to Health is a completely different one:- "Healing in His Wings"

Three articles below:

Bill Gates sells MSFT, takes Prozac
Bill Gates and Big Pharma
Bush's bogus AIDS offer, and why Bill Gates is making it worse.
The Gates And Buffet Foundation Shell Game

 


Bill Gates sells MSFT, takes Prozac

By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
http://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?story_url=/2002/09/09/bill_gates_sells_msft_takes/

Published Monday 9th September 2002 19:48 GMT

Bill Gates has sold almost half a billion dollar's worth of Microsoft stock this year, and begun to invest heavily in big pharma. In the second half of this year he bought 2.5 million shares in Eli Lilly, manufacturer of Prozac, and also made major investments in Merck and Pfizer, notes /Information Week/.

The 9 million shares Gates relinquished represent only a tiny proportion of Chairman Bill's MSFT holdings, or about 1.36 per cent.

Eli Lily's patent on Prozac expired a year ago, but the company has sought to widen its appeal, combining its with other drugs and marketing it as a kind of MSG of anti-depressants.

"Companies are getting a lot more creative in ways to sustain the product lifespan of drugs," a J.P. Morgan told The Street.

In sickness and in wealth, big pharma remains the most profitable industry in America. No doubt Gates took comfort in the Bush administration's indulgent attitude towards the inflated prices charged by the pharmaceutical industry. Although nine out of ten drugs fail clinical tests, the industry - which argues that high prices are needed to justify R&D - spends two and half times as much on marketing than on research, according to Families USA .

(I'll defer to our very own Thomas C Greene, who covered the industry in detail).

A crack about anxiety-inducing computer software would simply be too cheap, so we won't dream of making it here.


_______________________________________________
We must be very careful to follow where these last few years of US global corporation has led under Obama and neo-liberals in Congress.  Remember, between the FED policy and trillions in fake job stimulus money that was just used to expand US global corporations overseas, the US has allowed global corporations to create a global network of empire that looks just like this one below.  IT IS HORRENDOUS.

So, as Basu tells us on corporate 'public' media WYPR that billionaires are doing good in their bequests to basic research, the entire world knows what kind of empire Bill Gates is building!



'Blackwater, Monsanto and Gates are three sides of the same figure: the war machine on the planet and most people who inhabit it, are peasants, indigenous communities, people who want to share information and knowledge or any other who does not want to be in the aegis of profit and the destructiveness of capitalism'.

A Link Between Monsanto, Blackwater & Bill Gates?

By majestic on January 3, 2011 in News

There’s an unlikely story circulating on various underground news sites claiming that the controversial biotech company Monsanto has acquired infamous mercenary outfit Blackwater (now trading as Xe Services). The report apparently first appeared in La Jornada, one of Mexico City’s leading daily newspapers, described by Noam Chomsky as “the one independent newspaper in the whole hemisphere.” Pravda has translated the original Spanish text written by Silvia Ribeiro into English. From my reading of the Jeremy Scahill article that seems to form the basis of the report, the most you can deduce is that Monsanto hired the creeps at Blackwater to do dirty work for them, but the rumor keeps circulating, so could there be a grain of truth somewhere in this story?:

A report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation (Blackwater’s Black Ops, 9/15/2010) revealed that the largest mercenary army in the world, Blackwater (now called Xe Services) clandestine intelligence services was sold to the multinational Monsanto. Blackwater was renamed in 2009 after becoming famous in the world with numerous reports of abuses in Iraq, including massacres of civilians. It remains the largest private contractor of the U.S. Department of State “security services,” that practices state terrorism by giving the government the opportunity to deny it.

Many military and former CIA officers work for Blackwater or related companies created to divert attention from their bad reputation and make more profit selling their nefarious services-ranging from information and intelligence to infiltration, political lobbying and paramilitary training – for other governments, banks and multinational corporations. According to Scahill, business with multinationals, like Monsanto, Chevron, and financial giants such as Barclays and Deutsche Bank, are channeled through two companies owned by Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater: Total Intelligence Solutions and Terrorism Research Center. These officers and directors share Blackwater.

One of them, Cofer Black, known for his brutality as one of the directors of the CIA, was the one who made contact with Monsanto in 2008 as director of Total Intelligence, entering into the contract with the company to spy on and infiltrate organizations of animal rights activists, anti-GM and other dirty activities of the biotech giant.

Contacted by Scahill, the Monsanto executive Kevin Wilson declined to comment, but later confirmed to The Nation that they had hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and 2009, according to Monsanto only to keep track of “public disclosure” of its opponents. He also said that Total Intelligence was a “totally separate entity from Blackwater.”

However, Scahill has copies of emails from Cofer Black after the meeting with Wilson for Monsanto, where he explains to other former CIA agents, using their Blackwater e-mails, that the discussion with Wilson was that Total Intelligence had become “Monsanto’s intelligence arm,” spying on activists and other actions, including “our people to legally integrate these groups.” Total Intelligence Monsanto paid $ 127,000 in 2008 and $ 105,000 in 2009.

No wonder that a company engaged in the “science of death” as Monsanto, which has been dedicated from the outset to produce toxic poisons spilling from Agent Orange to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), pesticides, hormones and genetically modified seeds, is associated with another company of thugs.

Almost simultaneously with the publication of this article in The Nation, the Via Campesina reported the purchase of 500,000 shares of Monsanto, for more than $23 million by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which with this action completed the outing of the mask of “philanthropy.” Another association that is not surprising.


It is a marriage between the two most brutal monopolies in the history of industrialism: Bill Gates controls more than 90 percent of the market share of proprietary computing and Monsanto about 90 percent of the global transgenic seed market and most global commercial seed. There does not exist in any other industrial sector monopolies so vast, whose very existence is a negation of the vaunted principle of “market competition” of capitalism. Both Gates and Monsanto are very aggressive in defending their ill-gotten monopolies.

Although Bill Gates might try to say that the Foundation is not linked to his business, all it proves is the opposite: most of their donations end up favoring the commercial investments of the tycoon, not really “donating” anything, but instead of paying taxes to the state coffers, he invests his profits in where it is favorable to him economically, including propaganda from their supposed good intentions. On the contrary, their “donations” finance projects as destructive as geoengineering or replacement of natural community medicines for high-tech patented medicines in the poorest areas of the world. What a coincidence, former Secretary of Health Julio Frenk and Ernesto Zedillo are advisers of the Foundation.

Like Monsanto, Gates is also engaged in trying to destroy rural farming worldwide, mainly through the “Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa” (AGRA). It works as a Trojan horse to deprive poor African farmers of their traditional seeds, replacing them with the seeds of their companies first, finally by genetically modified (GM). To this end, the Foundation hired Robert Horsch in 2006, the director of Monsanto. Now Gates, airing major profits, went straight to the source.

Blackwater, Monsanto and Gates are three sides of the same figure: the war machine on the planet and most people who inhabit it, are peasants, indigenous communities, people who want to share information and knowledge or any other who does not want to be in the aegis of profit and the destructiveness of capitalism.


* The author is a researcher at ETC Group



__________________________________________

I watched a TV commercial that had UnderArmour CEO standing on an African mountaintop stating that he wants to use his billions to help the poor worldwide.  This is the same CEO who demands his UnderArmour headquarters in Baltimore be given tax-free status starving Baltimore City government coffers of money that would go to underserved communities and public schools.  

IF THAT ISN'T OBSCENE ENOUGH-----UNDERARMOUR USES THE FACT THAT THE VETERANS ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN DISMANTLED AND NEO-LIBERALS ARE PUSHING VET CHARITY TO SUPPORT VETS.


So, rather than paying taxes that would support a strong, public supported VA, he is making profits off of his athletic brand and 'donating' money to vet charities for corporate tax write-offs.  WHAT A GUY-------BILLIONAIRE PROFITS OFF OF VETS FORCED TO SEEK CHARITY IN LIEU OF VETERAN'S BENEFITS!

Below you see yet another corporation that is ground zero for making the American people impoverished and yet finding time to 'donate' to help the poor.

THIS IS NEO-LIBERALISM WHERE WEALTH AND PROFIT CREATE AN AUTOCRATIC SYSTEM MODELED ON MEDIEVAL EUROPE-----THEY CALLED IT THE DARK AGES.



UNDERARMOUR---GlassDoor

 “Employee survey results were poor”
Director (Former Employee)
Baltimore, MD

I worked at Under Armour full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Successful brand w/ currently valuable stock

Cons – Don't just go by these anonymous reviews. In a recent survey of all employees, findings were that an overwhelming majority feel "disengaged", "overworked" , "underpaid", and "under appreciated". What was the founder's response when he pulled Directors into a room? Instead of saying "here's what we're going to do", he said "it's your problem. You fix it." Needless to say there's extremely high turnover. Those that do stay wish they were somewhere else.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to employee issues and do something about. Currently you're doing neither.

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

__________________________________________

TAX CREDITS FOR HIRING VETS IS LIKE ENTERPRISE ZONE TAX CREDITS FOR HIRING THE UNDERSERVED ------AS IN BALTIMORE'S INNER HARBOR THESE CONTRACTS ARE ALL IGNORED AND THE JOBS ARE FILLED WITH FRAUD AND WORKPLACE ABUSE.

All across the country veterans are being hired into the worst of jobs and working conditions as corporations get tax credits for simply hiring.  Those fighting to keep public military positions are being harassed and denied civil liberties and workplace safety.  Remember, the Bush Administration made military service contracts NULL and VOID requiring national guard and military to serve extended service tours knowing these troops would be battle weary and did while dismantling Va facilities.  AS Obama does the same, O'Malley travels overseas to recruit Veterans to substandard online degrees and career colleges.




UNDERARMOUR
Shop the Wounded Warrior project


Between August 2012 and December 2014, Under Armour® will make a donation of over $1 Million to Wounded Warrior Project™ benefitting injured service members and their families.

__________________________________________

The neo-liberals spent all last decade shouting against the abuses of the US troops by neo-conservatives and now neo-conservatives are blaming neo-liberals for the outrageous move to dismantle all that is public veterans administration.

TAG TEAM OF GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS----STOP ALLOWING A NEO-LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATES---RUN LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL PRIMARIES!


Below you see the same labor and justice conditions that existed under Bush are now super-sized under Obama and neo-liberals in Congress.  Do you hear your incumbent shouting out against the deliberate attack of public sector workers in order to get them to quit and be replaced by private contractors and to protect yet more people breaking the US laws from prosecution?


General News 3/1/2014 at 17:57:53
    
Veterans Speak Out Against a Debilitating Federal Workplace Harming the Health of America's Returning Military

By Ward Jordan

opednews.com


(WASHINGTON, DC)   --  In a recently released statement veterans, members of The Coalition For Change, Inc. (C4C), called for the U.S. Congress and the Obama administration to stop the political power play and to mandate that federal supervisory and management officials face discipline for willfully breaking civil rights and whistleblower-protection laws.

"The unrestrained retaliatory actions the VA supervisors take against subordinate employees cripples the agency's healthcare system and stifles many employees from exposing unfair customs, unsafe conditions and unlawful practices," said Oliver Mitchell, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and a former employee with the Veterans Affairs' Greater West Los Angeles Medical Center Imaging Service, Radiology Section. While serving as a Patient Services Assistant, Mitchell received "excellent" performance ratings.   "Things changed rapidly after I refused an order to purge patient documents," Mitchell explained.   "The harassment started and VA officials detailed me repeatedly after I filed a whistleblower complaint with the Office of Special Counsel (OSC)."

According to Mitchell, both the VA's Office of Inspector General and the OSC failed to properly pursue the matter even after hearing Mitchell's submitted audio tape of employees discussing how to destroy veteran patients' records.   "Although I declined to purge patient records, VA officials hired another employee to delete valid MRI requests from the system as a means of reducing the backlog," said Mitchell, now homeless after being constructively removed from the U.S. Veterans Affairs pursuant to terms put in a settlement agreement.

"The constructive discharge is a popular tactic used in discharging complaining parties," said Janel Smith, a disabled Air Force veteran and the Vice President of the Coalition For Change, Inc. (C4C).

Ralph Saunders, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and a former employee with the VA's New Orleans Medical Center, agreed that reprisal against employees who file complaints is a daunting problem.   According to Saunders, VA personnel once destroyed his medical documents and subjected him to endless reprisal after he filed an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaint against a manager who had denied him requested time off from work to accommodate his wife's heart-surgery operation. Saunders prevailed in his discrimination complaint (Saunders v Shinseki, Case Number 200L-0629-2004-100828).

Unequivocally, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) found managers (Cassandra Holiday, Jeanette Butler, and Linda Cosey) guilty of "abusing the rules" and "retaliating against Saunders for his protected EEO activity."   The EEOC also found "evidence that officials retaliated against other employees who filed EEO complaints."   Saunders, who had worked sixteen years with the VA before officials targeted him for removal from federal service, is presently challenging the VA on a settlement-breach issue.


"Retaliation by rogue VA managers is destroying the lives of men and women who served honorably on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces," said Isaac Decatur, a U.S. Navy veteran, who after eighteen years with the department was fired from Veterans Affairs' Durham, North Carolina, office after filing an EEO complaint (Decatur v Shinseki, 0120073404).

"I wrote to President Obama about the VA's failure to take discipline against the supervisors who engaged in the blacklisting of employees and who the EEOC found guilty of discrimination," said Decatur. "My letter to the President spurred a reply letter from the EEOC in which the federal agency, charged with enforcing federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination, openly asserted: While EEOC orders agencies to consider; we have no authority to issue discipline."

"Some of these VA managers need to face conspiracy criminal charges for destroying veterans' records and engaging in various illegal activities," said Chauncey L. Robinson, who served in the Persian Gulf War.
Robinson reported that he has been waiting twenty-one years for the VA to process his claim for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and a heart condition. "VA officials destroyed my records," said Robinson, who joined other veterans in a class-action lawsuit that asserts the VA has been systematically violating veterans' due process for decades (Gary Kendall v Eric A. Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Case No. CV07-103-S-EJL).

"The ill-treatment of VA's workforce harms the well-being of VA's employees as well as the veterans deserving of timely health care and benefits," said Al Hunt, III, a Gulf War veteran and a former VA supervisor with the New Orleans Medical Center.
Hunt explained that he was forced to resign from the VA due to discriminatory practices and harassment. "I refused to be complicit in a managerial scheme to write-up and fire black veterans who bravely served our country solely because they had exposed civil rights abuses in the VA workplace," Hunt said.

"Internal federal workplace dysfunction will continue to adversely impact public programs and services until supervisors and managers are held accountable for violating civil rights and whistleblower-protection laws."  said Tanya Ward Jordan, the President and Founder of the volunteer support and advocacy group, C4C.


-------------------------------------------------------
About The Coalition For Change, Inc. (C4C)
The Coalition For Change, Inc. (C4C) is a Washington, DC-based volunteer organization comprised of present and former federal employees who have been injured or ill-treated due to workplace race discrimination and /or reprisal.  C4C recently produced a YouTube video to expose how an internal broken workplace system harms the public. The video is entitled -- Veterans Affairs Dishonoring America's Veterans and Civil Servants.


__________________________________________________



Below is possibly more than you want to know about Bill Gates as US corporate lobby to end public health and capture health patents and curb generics but it is one of the best overviews.  Keep in mind this was written in 2011 and we now know TPP is worse than this article shows.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett placed hundreds of billions of dollars into trusts under the guise of private non-profits and health care that are now these very patents and intellectual rights protections sought for the PHARMA and health industry.  So, rather than paying taxes and allowing the public do the research to produce these PHARMA results as it always has, these billionaires privatized the research and seeks patents and protections on what would be a trillion-dollar PHARMA industry in developing worlds.

AS BILL GATES SAID AT THE 1990s SHAREHOLDER MEETING QUESTIONING HIS MOVING OF ALL THAT MONEY INTO TRUSTS RATHER THAN REINVESTING IT IN TECH INNOVATION-----'WE ARE MOVING TO AFRICA AS THE NEXT MARKET AND WE HAVE TO MAKE IT LIVABLE FOR US EMPLOYEES BEING SENT THERE TO WORK.  Meanwhile, all of the African citizens that were helped by these research and development activities are now seeing funding disappear and are not feeling to advantages of all that patented research.
 



Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
TPP Issue Brief
- September 2011


How the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Threatens Access to Medicines


The eighth round of closed-door negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement will be held in
Chicago from September 6-15, 2011. Negotiations during this round are expected to be substantial, as the
current nine negotiating countries, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United
States and Vietnam, plan to present the outlines of an agreement at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) Leaders’ meeting in Honolulu, November 8-13 2011.1
According to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), “U.S. involvement in the TPP is predicated on the
expansion of the agreement to include more economies across the Asia-Pacific region,”2 and should “set the
standard for 21st-century trade agreements going forward.”3 It is therefore expected that the norms that emerge
from these negotiations will serve as a baseline for future trade agreements, potentially impacting a much wider
group of countries, including developing countries where MSF has medical operations and beyond. For
example, Japan and South Korea are reportedly currently considering joining the TPP.
TPP negotiating parties are under no obligation to subject their negotiating positions to public scrutiny; only the
final agreed-upon text will be made publicly available. However, a leaked draft of the U.S. position, now
available to the public,4 indicates that the U.S. is demanding aggressive intellectual property provisions that go
beyond what international trade law requires. Furthermore, the U.S. position represents a major retreat from
previous U.S. commitments to global health, including the 2007 bipartisan New Trade Policy, in which
Congress and the Bush administration agreed to abide by important public health safeguards in future trade
agreements.


1. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND ACCESS TO MEDICINES
Vital Importance of Affordable Medicines
Affordable, quality generic medicines are a critical component of treatment programs. About 80% of the HIV
medicines that MSF uses are generics, and MSF routinely relies on generic drugs to treat TB, malaria, and a
wide range of infectious diseases. In fact, all the major donors and leading international treatment providers,
including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for
AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), UNITAID and UNICEF, rely on quality affordable generic drugs for the programs they
support. PEPFAR, which purchases 80-90 percent of its ARVs drugs from generic suppliers, has reported
significant savings through the purchase of generic medicines.5
The first generation of HIV drugs have come down in price by 99 percent over the last decade, from
U.S.$10,000 per person per year in 2000 to roughly $60 today, thanks to generic production in India, Brazil and
Thailand, where these drugs were not patented. This dramatic price drop has been instrumental in helping scale
up HIV/AIDS treatment for more than six million people in developing countries. About 80 percent of donorfunded
anti-AIDS drugs and 92 percent of drugs to treat children with AIDS across the developing world comes
from generic manufacturers.


1 http://www.ustr.gov/tpp
2 http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2010/june/ustr-ron-kirk-comments-trans-pacific-partnership-talk
3 http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2009/november/ustr-news-kirk-comments-trans-pacific-partnership
4 Leaked TPP IPR chapter (http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/tpp-10feb2011-us-text-ipr-chapter.pdf)
5 http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/304/3/313.short



Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
TPP Issue Brief - September 2011

Public Health Safeguards Threatened
Since the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the conclusion of the Agreement on Trade
Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in 1995, the most comprehensive multilateral
agreement on intellectual property to date, developing countries have struggled to strike a balance between
protecting public health and making their patent laws TRIPS compliant. Patents and other intellectual property
(IP) regulations pose significant barriers to access to life-saving medicines, and flexibilities in patent systems are
recognized as important public policy tools in the fight to protect public health interests. Even developed
countries like the U.S. have utilized TRIPS-compliant legal flexibilities to protect public health and other
national interests.
The WTO 2001 Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health was signed to reaffirm that the TRIPS
Agreement does not and should not prevent members from taking measures to protect public health, and that it
can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO members' right to protect public
health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all.

 These commitments were reaffirmed and
strengthened in the 2008 World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public
Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property.
However, over the last decade, many developing countries have come under pressure in trade negotiations not to
use TRIPS flexibilities and to implement even tougher rules than those set out in TRIPS – these are known as
“TRIPS plus.” The U.S. and the European Union routinely use bilateral and regional trade agreements to limit
or circumvent developing countries’ abilities to implement the Doha Declaration and safeguard public health.
The U.S. and the E.U. both have large pharmaceutical industries lobbying for stricter patent regulations, and
these interests not only tip the balance away from public health protections and threaten access to medicines, but
also work to counter the efforts of global health programs.


In fact, studies have shown that U.S. bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) have already
undermined access to medicines in developing countries. For example, Oxfam found in a 2007 study6 that
during the five-year period since Jordan implemented TRIPS plus measures included in the U.S.-Jordan FTA,
medicines prices rose 20 percent, without any corresponding benefit in terms of domestic innovation or access
to new products. In addition, the Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH) found in a 2009
study7 that once Guatemala enacted data exclusivity, on the basis of the Dominican Republic-Central America-
United States (CAFTA-DR) FTA, prices for some medicines rose significantly – even though just a handful of
medicines were under patent protection.
Recognizing the damaging effects that trade agreements have had on public health, the Bush administration and
the U.S. Congress signed a bipartisan agreement on May 10th, 2007, known as the 2007 New Trade Policy to
scale-back the harshest IP protections in order to strike a better balance between protection of IP and public
health needs. The agreement specifies that the USTR should modify its intellectual property demands in trade
agreement negotiations so that important public health safeguards are included. Yet in several meetings with
U.S. civil society, the USTR has stated on the record that they are considering options in the TPP that would
shift U.S. policy away from the 2007 New Trade Policy.
MSF is concerned that the U.S. demands for the TPP negotiations threaten to roll back vitally important public
health safeguards in developing countries, creating a fundamental contradiction between U.S. trade policy and
U.S. commitments and priorities on global health.
Medical Innovation Threatened
MSF is also concerned about the effects that intellectual property norms have on innovation for essential
medical technologies. The USTR presents its efforts to demand stronger regimes for intellectual property
protection in developing countries as a tool to protect innovation. MSF recognizes the importance of innovation

6 http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/bp102_jordan_us_fta
7 http://www.cpath.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/cpathhaonline8-25-09.pdf
8 http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/enewsletter/5-11-07/07%2005%2010%20New%20Trade%20Policy%20Outline.pdf


Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
TPP Issue Brief - September 2011

and the need to finance research and development. We are a humanitarian medical organization that needs and
welcomes biomedical innovation to better treat our patients. However, the reality is that intellectual property
protection in the medical field keeps prices high and limits access to treatment, and furthermore does not
stimulate innovation for many of the diseases affecting people in developing countries, where patients have
limited purchasing power. By seeking greater and higher intellectual property norms in developing countries,
the U.S. government is perpetuating a failed business model that links innovation costs to high prices, and does
not address the innovation needs of developing countries.


2. THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP AND ACCESS TO MEDICINES

The TPP negotiations are being conducted in secret, so MSF other interested stakeholders don’t have access to
the U.S. or other countries’ demands. However, according to a leaked draft of the U.S. position, now available
to the public at http://keionline.org/node/1091, as well as correspondence and discussions between Congress and
the USTR, the U.S. is expected to demand the following TRIPS plus measures to be included in the

Intellectual Property Chapter of the TPP:


a) Broadening the scope of patentability: the U.S. wants to make it easier to patent new forms of old
medicines that offer no added therapeutic efficacy for patients
The TRIPS agreement includes important flexibilities for governments to decide what type of “innovation”
deserves to be protected by patents in a given country. Essential terms such as ‘novelty,’ ‘inventive step,’ and
‘industrial applicability’ are left undefined as standards to be best determined by individual governments within
the context of existing national legislation and circumstances.
However, the U.S. is seeking to erode this flexibility by requesting that TPP partners introduce new rules that
would severely limit the ability of each country to define what is ‘patentable.’

For example, the U.S. proposal for the TPP requests the patenting of a “new form, use, or method of using” an
existing product - even if there is no increase in efficacy. This technique, known as “evergreening,” allows
pharmaceutical companies to obtain or extend monopoly protection for old drugs simply by making minor
modifications to existing formulas. Evergreening significantly delays the arrival of more affordable generic
medicines onto the market.
Novartis has been battling the Indian government on its implementation of this flexibility since 2006, when its
patent for the cancer drug imatinib mesylate (Gleevec) was rejected on the grounds it was based on a drug
compound that already existed. Having lost its case in 2007 and the patent appeal in 2009, Novartis is now
attempting to ensure the words ‘therapeutic efficacy’ are interpreted in a way that allows even small changes to
an old medicine – such as imatinib mesylate – to be patentable10.
Additionally, the US seeks to require that parties make patents available on plants and animals, as well as
diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical methods for the treatment of humans or animals despite the fact that Article
27 of the TRIPS Agreement explicitly allows for the exclusion of these inventions from patent protection11.
Aside from the serious ethical concerns for surgeons performing procedures on patients, this text is not even
compatible with the U.S. policy not to enforce patents against medical professionals.

b) Restrictions on pre-grant patent oppositions: the U.S. wants to make it harder to challenge unjustified
patents
The TRIPS agreement allows countries and third parties (including generic companies and civil society organizations such as patient groups) to file an opposition to the granting of a patent - either before it has been


 Article 8.1, Leaked TPP IPR chapter (http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/tpp-10feb2011-us-text-ipr-chapter.pdf)
http://www.msfaccess.org/about-us/media-room/press-releases/drug-company-novartis-tries-weaken-indian-patent-law-protects
 Article 8.2, Leaked TPP IPR chapter (http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/tpp-10feb2011-us-text-ipr-chapter.pdf)
 http://keionline.org/node/1216


Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
TPP Issue Brief - September 2011

granted (pre-grant opposition) or after (post-grant opposition). Patent opposition procedures have been
successfully used in several countries to prevent patents being granted undeservedly.
For example, in June 2008 the Indian patent office rejected a patent for the hemihydrate (syrup) form of
Nevirapine (NVP), a widely-used antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, based on pre-grant oppositions by civil society
groups. The price of NVP has decreased dramatically over the past years as a result of generic competition.
Similarly, the Indian patent office rejected the patent application for Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate (TDF), an
important HIV drug highly recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), and Darunavir (DRV), a
third-line ARV, based on pre-grant oppositions.
Patent oppositions are an essential public health safeguard that can accelerate the entry of generic competition,
improve the patent system through public participation, and help reduce over-patenting.
However, the U.S. government is now seeking to clamp down on this flexibility and prevent pre-grant oppositions in TPP partner countries,13 making it more costly and cumbersome to oppose a patent. In addition, patent offices will not have the benefit of the expertise of opponents/competitors to the applicant who may be
able to identify inaccuracies in the application before a patent is approved.


c) Imposing new forms of IP enforcement: the U.S. wants to allow customs officials to seize shipments of drugs on mere suspicion of IP infringement and to increase damages for IP infringement
The TRIPS agreement allows for governments to have a great amount of flexibility when designing the mechanisms that the country will allow for the enforcement of IP rights. However, the U.S., through the TPP and other tools (e.g. ACTA14), is demanding that countries enforce IP rights with new forms of enforcement beyond what TRIPS requires.
For example, the U.S. is requesting that TPP countries grant customs officials the ex officio right to detain
shipments of medicines at the border, even in transit, if the goods are suspected of being counterfeits or if they
are considered “confusingly similar” to trademarked goods.
Under TRIPS, “counterfeit” products are defined as those resulting from criminal – and not civil – trademark
infringement, which occurs knowingly and on a commercial scale. The U.S.’s proposed TPP IP chapter allows border officials to rely on a different, more lenient standard - “confusingly similar” – in order to seize consignments. This standard conflates pure commercial trademark disputes, which do not represent a threat to
public health or patent rights, with criminal offenses, such as production of counterfeit, falsified or substandard
medicines.

In fact, customs and border officials are often not fully trained or equipped to make accurate assessments with
regard to intellectual property infringement and may be overzealous in the protection of brand name companies.
For example, during 2008 and 2009, at least 19 shipments of generic medicines from India to other countries
were impounded while in transit in Europe on grounds that the shipments were suspected of infringing patent
rights. In one instance, German customs authorities wrongfully seized a drug shipment of “Amoxicillin” on the
suspicion that it infringed the brand name “Amoxil” – the cargo was detained for four weeks while further
investigation took place, eventually revealing that there was no trademark infringement. In another instance,
the Dutch customs authorities seized a shipment of the AIDS drug abacavir sulfate while it was en route (via
Europe) from India to a Clinton Foundation project in Nigeria.

 Article 8.7, Leaked TPP IPR chapter (http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/tpp-10feb2011-us-text-ipr-chapter.pdf)
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) would impose limits on price-reducing generic competition and jeopardize the free flow of legitimate medicines across borders.


 Article 14.4, Leaked TPP IPR chapter (http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/tpp-10feb2011-us-text-ipr-chapter.pdf)
16 http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/reports/2011/2011Special301MSF_Final.pdf
17 http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/reports/2011/2011Special301MSF_Final.pdf
18 http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c2672.extract
19 http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/IPR/pdf/ipr13.pdf
20 http://www.safemedicines.org/nigeriabound-hivaids-drugs-seized-in-netherlands.html


Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
TPP Issue Brief - September 2011

In addition, under the U.S.’s proposed TPP regulations, shipments that are legitimate in the country of origin
and the country of ultimate destination would still be subject to detention in the transit country. Unwarranted
interception of legitimate in-transit pharmaceutical supplies can undermine legitimate trade in generic
medicines.

Furthermore, the U.S. is requesting TPP countries to mandate that judicial authorities consider valuing damages
based on “the suggested retail price or other legitimate measure of value submitted by the right holder” in cases
of infringement of intellectual property rights,” a mechanism that strongly favors the rights holder and
increases damage amounts. Each country should have the flexibility to individually determine the appropriate
measure for damages for IP infringement.

d) Expanding data exclusivity: the U.S. is seeking to expand a backdoor way to grant monopoly status
Data exclusivity is a TRIPS plus provision that restricts access to essential clinical trial data pertaining to the
safety and efficacy of drugs. Data exclusivity measures prevent generic manufacturers from using existing
clinical research to gain regulatory approval of their medicines, forcing them to perform duplicate clinical trials
or wait for the “data monopoly” period to end.
In the absence of data exclusivity measures, when a generic manufacturer applies to register and sell a version of
a previously-registered medicine, they only have to provide data showing that their product is equivalent to the
original. The drug regulatory authority relies on the clinical trial data provided by the original manufacturer to
evaluate the safety and efficacy of the generic drug.
The introduction of data exclusivity provisions essentially creates a new system for granting monopolies by
blocking registration of generic medicines until the data exclusivity period ends, even if the patent monopoly
has already ended or been overcome, for example with the use of a compulsory license. Under these terms,
generic competition is stifled not only for old medicines no longer under patent protection, but also for new
medicines that don’t warrant patent protection.
Data exclusivity prevents the registration of generic versions of a medicine for many years (the U.S. is asking
for up to 12 years of data exclusivity for some classes of drugs), unless the generic manufacturer repeats the
necessary clinical trials. This is not only extremely costly, but also arguably unethical, as it forces duplication
of clinical trials for patients and animals in order to prove something that is already known.
In addition, while there are clear methods and procedures by which patents can be challenged and overcome –
such as patent oppositions and compulsory licenses – rules governing data exclusivity for pharmaceutical test
data do not always provide the same public health safeguards.
Although it is not yet clear what the U.S. demands for data exclusivity will be for the TPP, the U.S. has
traditionally pressed for a minimum term of five years, similar to U.S. law for certain products. However,
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) has been aggressively lobbying for the TPP
to require 12 years of data exclusivity for a subset of pharmaceutical drugs, called biologic (also called
biosimilar or biopharmaceutical) drugs.

In August 2011, several members of the House of Representatives,
led by Rep. Henry Waxman, urged president Obama to refrain from negotiating any provisions on exclusivity
for biologics in the TPP, noting that a 12-year exclusivity period would impede the ability of Congress to
achieve the administration's proposal that the exclusivity period for biologics be reduced to seven years, as
reflected in the FY2012 budget proposal, without running afoul of U.S. trade obligations. It is also unclear if
the U.S will allow the public health safeguards for data exclusivity specified in the 2007 New Trade Policy.


 Article 12.3 (b), Leaked TPP IPR chapter (http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/tpp-10feb2011-us-text-ipr-chapter.pdf)
 http://www.who.int/medicines/services/expertcommittees/pharmprep/QAS04_093Rev4_final.pdf
 http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/05/phrma-wants-12-years-data-protection-in-tpp-talks
 http://www.waxman.house.gov/UploadedFiles/TPP_Biologics_Letter_08-04-11.pdf
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
TPP Issue Brief - September 2011


e) Requesting patent term extensions: the U.S. is seeking to keep generic competitors out of the market,
for longer
The TRIPS Agreement requires patents to last 20 years. Although it is not yet clear what the U.S. demands for
patent term extensions in the TPP will be, the U.S. is expected to seek to extend the monopoly patent period in
order to compensate for administrative delays in the regulatory process, even though the 2007 New Trade Policy
made patent extensions optional for countries negotiating trade agreements with the U.S. Such extensions delay
the entry of generic medicines, punishing patients for bureaucratic delays.

f) Requesting patent linkage: the U.S. is seeking to turn drug regulatory authorities into ‘patent police’
Patent linkage provisions prevent drug regulatory authorities from approving new drugs if they could potentially
infringe existing patents. Such provisions effectively require drug regulatory authorities, which are responsible
for evaluating the safety, quality, and efficacy of medicines, to take on the responsibility of policing patents, an
area normally under the purview of separate patent authorities. Linking drug registration and patent status can
delay generic entry into the market and is an aggressive TRIPS plus measure.
The 2007 New Trade Policy made patent linkage optional for countries negotiating trade agreements with the
U.S. Most countries in Europe do not impose linkage between patent status and drug registration. If a linkage
obligation is included in the TPP, it will impose on developing countries more restrictive conditions for the
registration of generic medicines than are found in Europe3. OBAMA ADMINISTRATION BACKTRACKING ON U.S. COMMITMENTS TO ACCESS TO
MEDICINES

The TPP is the first trade agreement negotiated under the Obama administration. Leaked U.S. positions and
correspondence and discussions between Congress and the USTR indicate that the U.S. is prepared to walk
away from its previous public health commitments, including the 2007 New Trade Policy.


The bipartisan May 10th, 2007 New Trade Policy,25 signed by the Bush administration and U.S. Congress,
specified that the USTR should modify its intellectual property demands in trade agreement negotiations so that
important public health safeguards are included. The 2007 New Trade Policy aims to scale-back the harshest IP
protections for developing countries in order to strike a better balance between protection of IP and public health
needs. Although it did not go far enough, it was a step in the right direction. In particular:26
 Patent linkage provisions were made voluntary (whereas they had been mandatory in previous US trade
agreements).
 Patent term extension provisions were made voluntary (whereas they had been mandatory in previous
US trade agreements).
 Data exclusivity was limited to five years for new chemical entities; concurrent periods of exclusivity
were mandated, and public health exceptions were allowed to ensure governments could still implement
public health safeguards such as compulsory licenses.
When the 2007 New Trade Policy was announced, the House Ways and Means Committee called it “a
fundamental shift in U.S. trade policy.”27 However, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry has been aggressively
lobbying against the 2007 New Trade Policy being applied to the TPP negotiation countries.

USTR has stated
that they are considering options in the TPP that would shift U.S. policy away from the 2007 New Trade Policy
and toward greater protection of intellectual property rights for brand-name pharmaceutical companies in the
25 http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/enewsletter/5-11-07/07%2005%2010%20New%20Trade%20Policy%20Outline.pdf
26

 For an analysis of the May 10 agreement, see: Fabiana Jorge. New U.S. trade policy: A turning point?. Journal of Generic Medicines
(2007) 5, 5–8. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jgm.4950093. Available at: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jgm/journal/v5/n1/abs/4950093a.html
27 http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/enewsletter/5-11-07/07%2005%2010%20New%20Trade%20Policy%20Outline.pdf

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
TPP Issue Brief - September 2011


Several Members of US Congress have also warned against this possibility and written to the
Obama administration to demand that it uphold the 2007 New Trade Policy28.
0 Comments

March 01st, 2014

3/1/2014

0 Comments

 
THERE IS A FREE-FOR-ALL ALL OVER THE WORLD WITH THE PUBLIC'S MONEY BEING STOLEN AND CARTED TO OFF-SHORE ACCOUNTS AND THE MOMENTUM COMES FROM THE US AND NEO-LIBERALS.  THE CRASH IN 2008 SET THE STAGE FOR A VISIGOTH RAIDING OF ALL PUBLIC ASSETS.

WHEN A GOVERNMENT SUSPENDS RULE OF LAW IT SUSPENDS STATUTES OF LIMITATION!


DO YOU HEAR ANY OF THE MARYLAND CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR SHOUTING ANY OF THIS

Regarding the organized theft of public pensions in Maryland:

Private pensions were shed over a few decades mainly by Bains Capital attacks on healthy businesses that gut all of the assets from a corporation and then leave the shell with all of labor contracts to sink into bankruptcy.....we saw Hostess do that just last year. Is it legal to gut a corporation of assets and walk away from any obligations of sending it into bankruptcy-----ALL ON PURPOSE! OF COURSE NOT. NO AMOUNT OF LEGALESE WILL MAKE IT LEGAL TO DELIBERATELY SEND A HEALTHY CORPORATION INTO BANKRUPTCY TO SHED LABOR/DEBT OBLIGATIONS. IT IS PREMEDITATED.


Corporations Are Stealing Pension Funds
- Dylan Ratigan Show - 9/15/2011
keithmsnbcer keithmsnbcer·

Uploaded on Sep 16, 2011

On The Dylan Ratigan Show, Ellen Schultz reports on how corporations are pillaging and plundering employees' pension funds. 9/15/2011
***************


Well, what we see now with public pensions is the same Bain's Capital process only done on government coffers. Corporations gutted all levels of government with massive fraud....left them a shell and now want to shed all labor/debt obligations as they zoom in on the rest of the assets.

MARYLAND IS GROUND ZERO FOR THIS PROCESS. IF YOU LOOK AT STATE AND CITY PENSIONS....THEY WERE ALL SENT FROM THE THEN SAFETY OF THE BOND MARKET TO STOCK MARKET JUST AS THE MARKET WAS TO CRASH IN 2007 JUST TO BUOY THE COLLAPSING BIG BANKS. THIS IS PUBLIC MALFEASANCE AND FRAUD.

So, the 1/2 value in public and private pension losses needs to come back as recovered fraud and the gains from the BULL market of these few years need to be damages claimed. PUBLIC PENSIONS ARE FLUSH WITH MONEY THAT WE ARE WAITING FOR PUBLIC JUSTICE TO RECOVER!

Below you see the source of all of this pension-raiding policy------the neo-liberal Brookings Institute. You know, the group that says....NOW THAT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE TRUSTS HAVE BEEN RAIDED WITH FRAUD WE NEED TO REFORM THESE PROGRAMS! See the pattern? This group of people are much like the Oracle of Delphi. In other words they are out of touch and full of themselves.

'Delphi is best known as the home of the Delphic Oracle or the Pythia, a priestess of Apollo. The traditional picture is of the Delphic Oracle, in an altered state, muttering words inspired by the god, which male priests transcribed. The Delphic oracle sat on a great bronze tripod in a spot above a crevice in rocks from which vapors rose. Before sitting, she burned laurel leaves and barley meal on the altar. She also wore a laurel wreath and carried a sprig'....or just plain sociopaths

Pensions are fine.....we simply need to recover the fraud and reform a little of the over-zealous deals unions made for their members. What these reforms do is take away health care by sending these plans into the same co-pay/deductible system as Affordable Care Act that keep people from affording to access the care. UNION LAWYERS SHOULD BE IN COURT DEFENDING THESE PENSIONS FROM THIS BAD PENSION REFORM POLICY! This next thing neo-liberals want to do is get those pensions into the stock market to be used as fodder by Wall Street. 401Ks are more easily made fodder than managed pensions funds, although pension funds are corrupt as well. 401k is worse.

YET THAT IS JUST WHAT MARYLAND/BALTIMORE IS DOING WITH PUBLIC PENSIONS-----SENDING THEM TO LOCALITIES WHERE THEY ARE THEN SENT TO WALL STREET.
Remember, Wall Street is ready to crash from the same conditions as 2007 only super-sized and it is again all illegal....look where your pension funds are this time......sovereign and municipal debt.

HERE IS THE POLICY BEING PUSHED BY NEO-LIBERALS AND FROM OBAMA, TO O'MALLEY, TO RAWLINGS-BLAKE.......ALL ARE FOLLOWING ORDERS!


Paper | February 26, 2014
Public Pension Reform Series

By: Patrick McGuinn, Patten Priestley Mahler, Matthew M. Chingos and Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst

In their June 2013 paper, Are Public Pensions Keeping Up with the Times?, Matthew M. Chingos, Grover J. Whitehurst, and Richard W. Johnson reported a $2.7 trillion nationwide funding gap in states’ public pension systems. In two new follow-up papers, Chingos, Whitehurst and colleagues seek to answer the inevitable question provoked by their initial work: What can be done about the rampant underfunding of public pension systems?

Improving Public Pensions: Balancing Competing Priorities by Patten Priestley Mahler, Chingos, and Whitehurst makes a significant contribution to the public pension discourse by providing policymakers and stakeholders with a framework for evaluating proposed reforms to pension systems – even in light of the frequently competing objectives of such systems. The authors begin by defining three essential goals of a pension system: to provide adequate retirement security; to ensure fiscal sustainability; and to maintain/improve public-sector workforce productivity. By analyzing the performance of various pension system designs against these three goals, the authors conclude that a collective defined-contribution plan is best suited to meet the complex objectives of a pension system.

The collective defined-contribution approach to pension reform combines many of the advantages of the defined-benefit plan currently favored in the public sector with those of the defined-contribution plan prevalent in the private sector.

Whereas Improving Public Pensions provides a means by which to evaluate proposed reforms, and identifies an ideal pension plan, Pension Politics: Public Employee Retirement System Reform in Four States by Patrick McGuinn provides actionable policy recommendations for those states that are looking to enact such reforms. McGuinn examines recent pension reform efforts in four states with diverse political climates. Two of the states (Utah and Rhode Island) succeeded in passing significant structural changes to their pension systems, while the others (New Jersey and Illinois) enacted more limited, less innovative changes. McGuinn highlights what activities have and have not been successful in producing meaningful reform, and details a number of recommendations for other states seeking to successfully improve their underfunded pension systems. Key recommendations include:

Avoid turning pension reform into an ideological issue

Enlist a credible and visible reform champion (having a Democrat lead the effort goes a long way towards countering the charge that reforms are merely a conservative attack on labor)

Clearly communicate the reality of their state’s pension liability and demonstrate pensions’ impact on taxes and other state spending priorities, such as education

Sell the benefits of pension reform to state workers (as ultimately in the best interests of pension participants, relative to a system that can’t meet its obligations)

Sell the benefits of pension reform to school reformers

Anticipate and plan for legal challenges

________________________________________________

Chicago has a strong labor and justice system of activists and they know a scam when they see it! Maryland needs to recruit these labor lawyers to come in and get our state back on track with pension accountability and government reform! THOSE ARE THE REFORMS NEEDED FOR HEALTHY PENSIONS!

Look at neo-liberals pretending that pensions are the crisis of our time. These are people running as democrats with the sole goal of dismantling all of New Deal and labor gains knowing it will impoverish the very people who elected them. They are doing it only for corporate gain.


Illinois teachers sue to overturn state pension reform
– Blogs On Politics – Crain’s Chicago Business
27 Dec

Two groups representing educators today filed suit against the state\’s new pension-reform law late today, contending that it violates provisions of the Illinois Constitution.

In an action filed in Cook County Circuit Court, the Illinois Retired Teachers Association and the School Administrators Association contend that, by recently voting to reduce cost-of-living hikes and other benefits without the permission of workers and retirees, the General Assembly acted counter to mandates in the constitution that specifically protect pension benefits once someone is hired.

The new measure, which lawmakers said would save $160 billion over the next 30 years, will not take effect until June 30. \”But the law will be in effect\” then, said Chicago attorney Gino DiVito, the attorney for the plaintiffs.

Worker unions have threatened to sue since even before the bill was approved last month, arguing that their members paid what was required toward their retirement and that the state dropped the ball. Even before the suit, the retired-teachers group on its website had been appealing for funds to pay for it.

Both Gov. Pat Quinn and House Speaker Michael Madigan have expressed confidence that the new law is \”constitutionally sound,\” as Mr. Quinn put it in a statement this evening. \”This historic law squarely addresses the most pressing fiscal crisis of our time.\”

But Senate President John Cullerton has been skeptical and has said he\’s prepared to move forward with a more modest proposal if need be.

The case is assigned to Circuit Court Judge Sophia Hall. But whatever she does, the case eventually is certain to be decided by the Illinois Supreme Court.

Illinois Teachers Lawsuit — Heaton v. Quinn

via Illinois teachers sue to overturn state pension reform – Blogs On Politics – Crain’s Chicago Business.

_______________________________________

Below we see Zuckerberg doing just as Brookings Institute outlines above. If we check back on these officers in Tennessee to see how it ends for them....I bet they will be shouting loudly at the results. The spin on these reforms does not allow people to know how all benefits will be lost in the coming years.

So, you see a labor leader who reasons that all across the country these pension reforms are happening.....So cost of living increases down by half and worker contributions up by double that amount AND TALKS THE MEMBERS INTO CONCEDING following the Brookings Institute guide to pension reform.

AND THIS IS DESCRIBED AS A COMPROMISE WHEN IT IS A GREAT BIG LOSS FOR LABOR. THIS DOESN'T EVEN INCLUDE THE HEALTH CARE CUTS. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED IN BALTIMORE. Public pensions are now heading to the in same place as private pensions lost in bankruptcy.

Look at next article to see why what is being said below is not true!


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

Facebook Helps Chattanooga Earn Employees' Trust on Pension Reform

A Facebook page created to enlighten people about the mayor's "attack" on the public safety pension fund helped change the tone of the conversation and got some employees to actually support reform.

by LIZ FARMER / February 20, 2014 1

Lack of trust from employees is one of the hardest barriers to overcome for those attempting pension reform but in Chattanooga, Tenn., officials think they have found the answer.

It started off with all the animosity one would expect. Last summer, as talk of rising pension costs escalated, an anonymous group connected to the local police and firefighter union chapters created the Facebook page Chattanooga Fire & Police Pension Enlightener in order to educate people about Mayor Andy Berke’s “attack” on the public safety pension fund. As the mission states, the page’s “hope is to dispel myths and half-truths that the mayor's office is perpetrating against the fund.”

At the time, the city administration had started working with a financial consultant to establish a task force made up of public safety employees, retirees, members of the business community and other city representatives to find a solution to the city’s increasing pension costs. The fund has a roughly $150 million unfunded liability and is 61 percent funded according to actuarial figures (80 percent is considered healthy.) In the 2014 fiscal year, Chattanooga’s public safety pension payments took up about 7 percent of its $215 million budget. In five years, costs were projected to rise to $20 million, or 10 percent of the budget with no relief in sight.

Among the Enlightener’s first posts was an invite to interested groups, including “...the [pension task force members] we trust” to request administrative and posting approval. Another early post asked seasoned fire and police members “what are some of the tactics from past fights” used by politicians to get what they wanted?

“There was a lot of misunderstanding on behalf of employees and taxpayers,” recalls Vijay Kapoor, the consultant from Public Finance Management Inc. who helped guide the task force through the process. “There was a lot of concern that the mayor was trying to come in there and gut the pension fund – that we had some fixed plan from the start and that we were going to railroad it through. And that’s just not the case.”

By the beginning of this year, the Enlightener’s posts had begun to take on a different tone. One in January described the plan proposed by the task force as a “good alternative” to what Mayor Berke was expected to push for. Another commentor reasoned that “all across the country have conceded to pay cuts to prevent layoffs and other deep cuts to their benefits.” Individuals have also posted their support for the task force's proposal.

The plan proposed by the task force that will be voted on by the Fire and Police Pension Board Thursday includes an average reduction in pension cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) to 1.5 percent from 3 percent. (Those with smaller pensions see a higher-than-average COLA and those with larger pensions will get a lower COLA.) It also phases in a 3 percent increase in current employee contributions over three years. Those two changes would help immediately reduce the city’s unfunded liability, boosting the pension’s status to about 71 percent funded.

On the labor side, some benefits would actually increase: Widows of retirees would see increased benefits and beneficiaries of those killed in the line of duty would get nearly double their current pension. The Deferred Retirement Option Program, which allows employees to increase their pensions by deferring retirement and continuing to work, was kept largely intact.

The proposed plan is an alternative to sending a more drastic plan out to voter approval. In California in 2012, San Jose and San Diego both sought and won voter-approved pension reforms that immediately brought on lawsuits from public safety unions.

By no means is anyone under the illusion that the proposal has made everyone happy. There are still angry posts by commenters on the Enlightener’s Facebook page and a group of retirees and some active employees has reportedly hired a Nashville law firm to contest the reduction in COLAs.

But with pension reform, there simply is no appeasing everyone. And a history of bad blood between the union and previous administrations didn’t help the city’s case. But what Chattanooga and public safety employees aimed to do is make the most people happy while keeping the plan sustainable for the city.

“We had to earn the trust in particular of the constituency groups who didn’t necessarily trust…what we were trying to achieve,” says Berke. “Their first response was that we were trying to kill the pension fund and take it over because there had been numerous attempts before.”

If the pension board approves the proposal, it goes to the city council for a vote. Berke says the process has been so open and debated he doesn’t foresee any problems with the proposal making its way to his desk for approval.

Officials here believe the process can easily be replicated for other cities considering a more mediated approach to pension changes. After all, Chattanooga got the idea after PFM helped Lexington, Ky. form a similar task force in 2012 that helped reduce that city’s roughly $296 million unfunded pension liability by nearly half.

“This is a tough process and difficult decision for any mayor,” Berke says. You’re talking about benefit issues for people who risk a lot for the city. By same token you have to be responsible knowing that a [61] percent-funded pension plan is not sustainable. Getting that through to people took a while.”

______________________________________

REMEMBER----THE PROBLEM WITH PUBLIC BUDGETS IS MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD AND NOT PUBLIC BENEFITS!

Families impoverished by this massive fraud should have received compensation by now, instead they are being left desperate and forced into pensions and Social Security disability schemes that limit what they get for later. ALL OF THIS NEEDS TO BE REVERSED AS RULE OF LAW SHOWS THAT THESE FAMILIES WERE DAMAGED BY MASSIVE AND DELIBERATE FRAUD.


Sun Apr 28, 2013 at 03:11 PM PDT

Latest Financial "Services" Scam: Stealing Your Pension


by blue memeFollow

You think that after they took your house, and your job, and your personal savings, you've been squeezed dry? You think milking your meager IRA for fees, which nets Wall Street billions every year, would keep the monster fat and happy? You think manipulating every market metric and stacking the deck in every way imaginable would be enough?

Sorry, folks.

Now they're after your pensions, and it ain't pretty.

The financial services industry is wolfing down an ever-larger share of our economy. As a percentage of GDP, they are north of 8%, which may not sound like much, but in a world where interest rates on savings are counted in fractions of one percent, that's a helluva drag on the rest of us. Their take has been rising steadily since the 1950's, when it was around 2%. But the really telling statistic is that they account for nearly a third of all profits.

How do they do it?

Well, there's the scam by which defined benefit pensions got swapped out for IRAs and 401(k)s. There's the mortgage-backed security scam. The MERS scam. The LIBOR scam. And now the ICAP scam (see Matt Taibi's latest, and weep.) You probably know and can recite the litany.

It has all put the average family under tremendous pressure. That pressure has made many people vulnerable. And now comes a new scam specifically designed to separate the vulnerable from their last remaining assets.

A stunning piece in the NYT by Jessica Silver Greenberg lays bare a new outrage:

To retirees, the offers can sound like the answer to every money worry: convert tomorrow's pension checks into today's hard cash.

But these offers, known as pension advances, are having devastating financial consequences for a growing number of older Americans, threatening their retirement savings and plunging them further into debt.

The advances, federal and state authorities say, are not advances at all, but carefully disguised loans that require borrowers to sign over all or part of their monthly pension checks. They carry interest rates that are often many times higher than those on credit cards.

If you are inclined to give the benefit of the doubt, you might say that there are circumstances where such lenders might actually provide a useful service. But then there's this:

A review by The New York Times of more than two dozen contracts for pension-based loans found that after factoring in various fees, the effective interest rates ranged from 27 percent to 106 percent — information not disclosed in the ads or in the contracts themselves. Furthermore, to qualify for one of the loans, borrowers are sometimes required to take out a life insurance policy that names the lender as the sole beneficiary.

I'm long past wondering how these jackals sleep at night.

What will they take when there is nothing left to steal?
__________________________________

LOOK BELOW AT WHAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS DOING TO FEDERAL POST OFFICE PENSION FUNDING AND YOU SEE WHAT WAS DONE ON STATE AND LOCAL LEVELS WITH PUBLIC PENSIONS.....IT ALL INVOLVES PUBLIC MALFEASANCE AND FRAUD.

The US Treasury is empty----that is why they keep saying the government will shut down in debt ceiling debates. Yet, $4 trillion in Social Security and Medicare has been sent to the Treasury and as we see below the Post Office Pensions are there and gone with the wind.

NEO-LIBERALS ARE WORKING AS HARD AS REPUBLICANS TO MOVE PENSION WEALTH TO CORPORATE PROFIT....IN THE POST OFFICE CASE...THEY ARE BUILDING THE HOMELAND SECURITY/NSA NETWORK ALL RUN BY WALL STREET.

This started with Bush but as we know by the empty Treasury....neo-liberals are raiding this public trust as well.

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

'Congress needed a way to ensure that $4.5 billion kept making its way from the Postal Service to the Treasury. That’s essentially why Congress came up with a plan to frontload the fund with an aggressive ten-year schedule of annual payments of about $5.5 billion. Mandating those huge payments wasn’t simply about ensuring that the Postal Service covered its retiree health care liability (a liability that wouldn’t come due for decades), and the size of the payments wasn’t based on actuarial calculations. The payments were all about making sure that the billions the Postal Service was overpaying into its pension fund would continue to help out the bottom line of the unified federal budget'.

******************
Washington
Politicians Raid Postal Service Revenue
October 7, 2011 politicol

October 7, 2011 Updated: Sept 28, 2012

Another raid on government workers even the Post Office is in jeopardy of a major shutdown even though politicians are responsible for raiding their revenues.

The story you hear in mainstream media is that the US Postal Services in running at a loss, losing billions of dollars, needs a bailout, has to fire workers, cannot honor pensions that were paid for by workers and so on.

Politicians Raid Postal Service Revenue

By raiding the Post Office coffers, transferring funds to make the deficit appear somewhat smaller, the accounting just doesn’t add up. We seem to understand who is behind the attacks on government workers since the 2010 mid-terms and that is an all out assault on unionized workers by the Republican Party.

Their aim for two years has been to destroy union jobs, government workers salary, pensions, healthcare benefits and any dues that have been earned by American government workers. The newest negative effect of all this is that now, US postal workers must “Pre Pay” their health benefits in advance? An outrageous policy not replicated in other industrialized countries.

The pre-payment of health care benefits was set up under George Bush in 2006 known as the

Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act

Basically it makes postal workers prepay their own health care costs presumably because in 2006 the post office revenues were already hacked by the Bush administration.

Postal workers have rallied against these new austerity measures and vow to keep fighting this faked financial crisis.There is not one fact that the post office is in trouble financially only it is due to the government raiding the piggy bank. Clearly the aim of this attack is to completely privatize the post office into corporate hands like UPS, or other major mail carriers.

Politicians Raid Postal Service Revenue

If Congress did not keep moving revenues through underhanded accounting procedures back in 2002 again under George Bush, they would have found that the US Postal Service overpaid into the US government pension plan by 80 billion dollars. That was 9 years ago. If the post office was self-sufficient in providing it’s operating revenues, pensions, healthcare prior to 2002 the and that 80 billion dollars was returned to their balance sheet the repair to the health care prepayments would be solved.

Congress has created the problems of the post office by emphasizing a negative campaign that has been fabricated for the goal of scrapping the US Postal Services by privatization for corporate lobbyists.


0 Comments

February 26th, 2014

2/26/2014

0 Comments

 
FOLKS......PRIVATE MILITARY CONTRACTORS ACTING AS OUR NATIONAL MILITARY AND RECRUITING FOREIGN NATIONALS TO PROTECT US GLOBAL CORPORATE INTERESTS OVERSEAS!!!!!!!  REALLY?????  THESE EMPLOYEES HAVE ALLIANCE TO CORPORATIONS AND NOT THE PUBLIC!  TPP ON STEROIDS.

NEO-LIBERALS HAVE WORKED TO PRIVATIZE THE MILITARY HARDER THAN BUSH/CHENEY.   SO, WHEN YOU LISTEN TO ONE FEEL OUR PAIN AND NOT SHOUTING OUT AGAINST ALL OF THIS POLICY....IT IS PROGRESSIVE PROPAGANDA. 
THEY ARE NOT DEMOCRATS!




Regarding the WYPR's voice out to Van Hollen on military cuts:


HELLO!!!!!!!!  THE PROBLEM IS PRIVATIZATION OF US MILITARY!


'The Clinton administration's "Reinventing Government" initiative promised to downsize it by shifting functions to contractors as a way cut costs and improve efficiency. Later under George Bush, private companies got to compete for 450,000 government jobs, and in 2001, the Pentagon's contracted workforce exceeded civilian DOD employees for the first time'.

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


First, I listened to Van Hollen remorse about the treatment of Vets and outraged at this austerity that would have vets with 1% COLA raises each year and no access to health care as premiums, co-pays, and deductibles would keep vets from accessing most care.  Haven't heard Van Hollen say anything about recovering trillions of dollars in defense industry fraud or the dismantling of all that is public with the Veteran's Administration.  Haven't heard a thing from Van Hollen over the suggestion that after freezing wages of teachers and other public sector workers that they too were to get 1% increases, and lastly, Van Hollen said nothing about Social Security monthly payments being gutted of hundreds of dollars because the FED manipulates the inflation numbers to make what is 3-4% inflation look as if it is near zero.  So, Van Hollen is surrounded by people getting only 1% pay raises and yet....it is this one that hurts.

All of this is happening of course in the State of Maryland....Van Hollen's neo-liberal state.  It is neo-liberals who are allowing massive fraud to go without recovery making the public and a manufactured 'austerity' pay down the debt of tens of trillions stolen from the American people.

There is a greater concern in this conversation that Van Hollen is not telling you....the cuts to the defense industry is not only about gutting veterans benefits just as neo-liberals in Maryland are gutting all public sector wealth....it is about the fact that hundreds of thousands more public military staff are being let go.  Remember, I wrote a while ago that today's US military is over 70% private military contractors all of which operate with impunity overseas without government oversight.  The further downsizing of public military troops does not tell Americans the over side of the coin.  Congress passed laws that allow foreign citizens to serve as US military in the nation's where US global corporations have investments so as to protect them overseas.  So, Americans are having fewer and fewer public military troops accountable to them as corporate military contractors protecting corporate interests are taking most of the US military budget and is subsidized by global corporations.  WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THAT?  WELL, YOUR MILITARY NO LONGER WORKS FOR WE THE PEOPLE....IT WORKS FOR CORPORATIONS.  

HOW TPP IS THAT????

Of course Van Hollen knows all of this as he comes on media and feels the pain of vets being thrown under the bus by Obama and neo-liberals after Bush and neo-cons forced them to fight in military tour after tour after tour.....all the time knowing they were going to take all of what was due to these vets.  MARYLAND IS DOING THIS NOW SO THIS IS NOT A REPUBLICAN ISSUE....IT IS NEO-LIBERAL/NEO-CON.  Wouldn't you think the goal of making the US military completely privatized and working for US global corporations would be shouted by democratic pols?  NOT IF THEY ARE NEO-LIBERALS RUNNING AS DEMOCRATS!

Below is a great overview of the goal of transferring our public military over to private military contractors.  You can see how, with no oversight these military contractors are stealing trillions of dollars in fraud and now have more alliance to the global corporation for which it fights than to a sovereign nation called the US.  HOW TPP IS THAT??????  This is a long article so please continue down to the last few articles.





Outsourcing War: The Rise of Private Military Contractors

Contributed by Stephen Lendman on Tue, 2010/01/19 - 6:37pm


In sections:

 
Outsourcing War: The Rise of Private Military Contractors (PMCs) - by Stephen Lendman

In The Prince, Machiavelli (May 1469 - June 1527) wrote:

"The mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous, and if anyone supports his state by the arms of mercenaries, he will never stand firm or sure, as they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, faithless, bold amongst friends, cowardly amongst enemies, they have no fear of God, and keep no faith with men."

In an August 11, 2009 Global Research article titled, "The Real Grand Chessboard and the Profiteers of War," Peter Dale Scott called Private Military Contractors (PMCs) businesses "authorized to commit violence in the name of their employers....predatory bandits (transformed into) uncontrollable subordinates....representing....public power in....remote places."

True enough. Those performing security functions are paramilitaries, hired guns, unprincipled, in it for the money, and might easily switch sides if offered more. Though technically accountable under international and domestic laws where they're assigned, they, in fact, are unregulated, unchecked, free from criminal or civil accountability, and are licensed to kill and get away with it. Political and institutional expediency affords them immunity and impunity to pretty much do as they please and be handsomely paid for it.

So wherever they're deployed, they're menacing and feared with good reason even though many of their member firms belong to associations like the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA) and the British Association of Private and Security Companies (BAPSC). Their conduct codes are mere voluntary guidelines that at worst subject violators to expulsion.

When IPOA wanted Blackwater USA investigated (later Blackwater Worldwide, now Xe - pronounced Zee) for slaughtering 28 Iraqis in Al-Nisour Square in central Baghdad and wounding dozens more on September 16, 2007, the company left the association and set up its own, the Global Peace and Security Operations Institute (GPSOI), with no conduct code besides saying:

"Blackwater desires a safer world though practical application of ideas that create solution making a genuine difference to those in need (by) solving the seemingly impossible problems that threaten global peace and stability."

Blackwater, now Xe, makes them far worse as unchecked hired guns. Wherever deployed, they operate as they wish, take full advantage, and stay unaccountable for their worst crimes, the types that would subject ordinary people to the severest punishments.

In his book "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," Jeremy Scahill described a:

"shadowy mercenary company (employing) some of the most feared professional killers in the world (accustomed) to operating without worry or legal consequences....largely off the congressional radar. (It has) remarkable power and protection within the US war apparatus" to practice violence with impunity, including cold-blooded murder of non-combatant civilians.

Employing Mercenaries - A Longstanding Practice

Called various names, including mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, dogs of war, and Condottieri for wealthy city states in Renaissance Italy, employing them goes back centuries. In 13th century BC Egypt, Rameses II used thousands of them in battle. Ancient Greeks and Romans also used them. So didn't Alexander the Great, feudal lords in the Middle Ages, popes since 1506, Napoleon, and George Washington against the British in America's war of independence even though by the early 18th century western states enacted laws prohibiting their citizens from bearing arms for other nations. Although the practice continued sporadically, until more recently, private armies fell out of favor.

Defining a Mercenary

Article 47 in the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions provides the most widely, though not universally, accepted definition, based on six criteria, all of which must be met.

"A mercenary is any person who:

(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;

(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities:

(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of the Party;

(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;

(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and

(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces."

This Article's Focus and Some Background

This article covers the modern era of their resurgence, specifically America's use of private military contractors (PMCs) during the post-Cold War period. However, the roots of today's practice began in 1941 in the UK under Captain David Stirling's Special Air Service (SAS), hired to fight the Nazis in small hard-hitting groups. In 1967, he then founded the 20th century's first private military company, WatchGuard International.

Others followed, especially during the 1980s Reagan-Thatcher era when privatizing government services began in earnest. As vice-president, GHW Bush applied it to intelligence, and then defense secretary Dick Cheney hired Brown and Root Services (now KBR, Inc., a former Halliburton subsidiary) to devise how to integrate private companies effectively into warfare.

The Current Proliferation of PMCs

According to PW Singer, author of "Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry:"

Included are companies offering "the functions of warfare....spanning a wide range of activities. They perform everything from tactical combat to consulting (to) mundane logistics....The result is that (the industry) now offers every function that was once limited to state militaries."

Warfare, in part, has been privatized so that "any actor in the global system can access these skills and functions simply by writing a check."

In the 1991 Gulf War, the Pentagon employed one PMC operative per 50 troops. For the 1999 Yugoslavia conflict, it was one for every 10, and by the 2003 Iraq War, PMCs comprised the second largest force after the US military.

They've also been used in numerous civil wars globally in nations like Angola, Sierra Leone, the Balkans throughout the 1990s, Papua New Guinea, and elsewhere. From 1990 - 2000, they participated in 80 conflicts, compared to 15 from 1950 - 1989.

Singer cites three reasons why, combined into "one dynamic:"

1. Supply and demand

Since the Cold War ended in 1991, the US military downsized to about two-thirds its former size, a process Dick Cheney, as defense secretary, called BRAC - Base Realignment and Closure, followed by privatizing military functions. But given America's permanent war agenda, the Pentagon needed help, especially because of the proliferation of small arms, over 550 million globally or about one for every 12 human beings, and their increased use in local conflicts.

2. Changes in the conduct of war

Earlier distinctions between soldiers and civilians are breaking down, the result of low-intensity conflicts against drug cartels, warlords and persons or groups aggressor nations call "terrorists," the same ones they call "freedom fighters" when on their side for imperial purposes.

High-intensity warfare also changed, so sailors aboard guided missile ships, for example, serve along side weapons and technology company personal, needed for their specialized expertise.

In addition, the combination of powerful weapons and sophisticated information technology let the Pentagon topple Saddam with one-fourth the number of forces for the Gulf War. This strategy can be just as effective in other conventional warfare theaters, depending on how formidable the adversary, but it doesn't work in guerrilla wars - the dilemma America faces in Afghanistan, earlier in Iraq and still now as violence there is increasing.

3. The "privatization revolution"

Singer calls it a "change in mentality, a change in political thinking, (a) new ideology that" whatever governments can do, business can do better so let it. The transformation is pervasive in public services, including more spent on private police than actual ones in America. And the phenomenon is global. In China, for example, the private security industry is one of its fastest growing.

By privatizing the military, America pierced the last frontier to let private mercenaries serve in place of conventional forces. Singer defines three types of companies:

1. "Military provider firms"

Whatever their functions, they're used tactically as combatants with weapons performing services formerly done exclusively by conventional or special forces.

2. Military consulting companies

They train and advise, much the way management consulting firms operate for business. They also provide personal security and bodyguard services.

3. Military support firms

They perform non-lethal services. They're "supply-chain management firms....tak(ing) care of the back-end, (including) logistics and technology assistance...." They also supply intelligence and analysis, ordnance disposal, weapons maintenance and other non-combat functions.

Overall, the industry is huge and growing, grossing over $100 billion annually worldwide, operating in over 50 countries. By far, the Pentagon is their biggest client, and in the decade leading up to the Iraq War, it contracted with over 3,000 PMCs, and now many more spending increasingly larger amounts.

A single company, Halliburton and its divisions grossed between $13 - $16 billion from the Iraq War, an amount 2.5 times America's cost for the entire Gulf War. The company profits handsomely because of America's commitment to privatized militarization. More about it below.

Since 2003, Iraq alone represents the "single largest commitment of US military forces in a generation (and) by far the largest marketplace for the private military industry ever."

In 2005, 80 PMCs operated there with over 20,000 personnel. Today, in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, it's grown exponentially, according to US Department of Defense figures - nearly 250,000 as of Q 3, 2009, mostly in Iraq but rising in Afghanistan to support more troops.

Not included are PMCs working for the State Department, 16 US intelligence agencies, Homeland Security, other branches and foreign governments, commercial businesses, and individuals, so the true total is much higher. In addition, as Iraq troops are drawn down, PMCs will replace them, and in Afghanistan, they already exceed America's military force.

According to a September 21, 2009 Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report, as of June 2009, PMCs in Afghanistan numbered 73,968, and a later year end 2009 US Central Command figure is over 104,000 and rising. The expense is enormous and growing with CRS reporting that supporting each soldier costs $1 million annually, in large part because of rampant waste, fraud and abuse, unmonitored and unchecked.

With America heading for 100,000 troops on the ground and more likely coming, $100 billion will be spent annually supporting them, then more billions as new forces arrive, and the Iraq amount is even greater - much, or perhaps most, from supplemental funding for both theaters on top of America's largest ever military budget at a time the country has no enemies except for ones it makes by invading and occupying other countries and waging global proxy wars.

Regulating PMCs

Efforts to do so have been fruitless despite the General Assembly trying in 1989 through the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries. It took over a decade to get the required 22 signatories, but neither
America or other major PMC users were included.

An earlier effort also failed when in 1987 a special UN rapporteur was established to examine "the use of mercenaries as a means of impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination." It was largely ignored, and a 2005 effort won't likely fare better under a working group for the same purpose. Nor will industry associations functioning more for show than a commitment to end bad practices that will always go on as long as rogue firms like Xe and others like it are employed.

Singer noted how PMCs have been involved in some of the most controversial aspects of war - from over-billing to ritual slaughter of unarmed civilians. Yet none of them have ever been prosecuted, convicted or imprisoned, an issue Singer cites in listing five "dilemmas:"

1. Contractual ones - hiring PMCs for their skills, to save money, or do jobs nations prefer to avoid. Yet unaccountability injects a "worrisome layer of uncertainty" into military operations, opening the door to unchecked abuses.

2. PMCs constitute an unregulated global business operating for profit, not peace and security when skilled killers are hired - former Green Berets, Delta Force soldiers, Navy Seals, and foreign ones like the British SAS.

3. Conducting public policy as serious as war through private means is worrisome, including covert operations to avoid official oversight and legislative constraints.

4. Moving private companies into the military sphere creates disturbing gray areas. PMCs can't be court martialed, and international law doesn't cover them. Further, operating in war zones makes them even less accountable as who can prove their actions weren't in self-defense, even against unarmed civilians.

5. Increasing PMC use also "raises some deep questions about the military itself." How do you retain the most talented combat troops when they can sell their skills for far greater pay? Also consider the uniqueness of the military.

"It is the only profession that has its own court system, its own laws; the only profession that has its own grocery stores and separate bases;" its own pensions and other benefits for those staying around long enough to qualify. So what happens when it's transformed into a business with profit the prime motive? Simple - more wars, greater profits. The same idea as privatizing prisons - more prisoners, fatter bottom line.

Another consideration is also worrisome. Given America's imperial ambitions, global dominance, permanent war agenda, and virtual disregard for the law, public distrust is growing for politicians who never earned it in the first place.

Given the Pentagon's transformation since 1991, the number of services it privatized, and America's permanent war agenda, what will conditions be in another decade or a few years? How much more prominent will PMCs be? How much more insecurity will result? How soon will it be before hordes of them are deployed throughout America as enforcers in civilian communities outside of conflict zones, with as much unaccountability here as abroad? What will the nation be like if it happens?

Halliburton/KRB

In his book, "Halliburton's Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War," Pratap Chatterjee describes a company tainted by bribes, kickbacks, inefficiency, corruption and fraud, exploitation of workers as near-slaves, and other serious offenses, yet operates with impunity and sticks taxpayers with many billions of dollars in charges.

Before spun off in 2007, KBR won the bulk of Iraq contracts as part of Halliburton, many of them no-bid. Earlier from 2002 to March 2003, it was involved with the Pentagon in planning the war and its role once it ended - the one co-founder George Brown claimed Lyndon Johnson described in the 1960s as a "joint venture (in which) I'm going to take care of politics and you're going to take care of the business side of it." Fast forward, and nothing's changed.

In a February 19, 2009 article, titled "Inheriting Halliburton's Army," Chatterjee writes how their employees are in "every nook and cranny of US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan," yet stateside operations yield additional billions in revenue. He describes their "shoddy electrical work, unchlorinated shower water, overcharges for trucks sitting idle in the desert, deaths of KRB (its former subsidiary) employees and affiliated soldiers in Iraq, alleged million-dollar bribes accepted by KBR managers, and billions of dollars in missing receipts, among the slew of other complaints" that got wide publicity since the beginning of the Iraq war.

He explains that since it got a 2001 contract to supply US forces in combat theaters, KBR grossed over $25 billion. It then got new contracts under Obama, leading Chatterjee to ask: "How did the US military become this dependent on one giant company?"

Tracing its history since the 1960s, he noted its connection to Lyndon Johnson, its profiteering from the Vietnam War, again under Ronald Reagan, then more under GHW Bush and Dick Cheney, his defense secretary who accelerated the Pentagon's privatization agenda, then headed the company as CEO. Bill Clinton continued it, hiring KBR in 1994 to build bases in Bosnia, later Kosovo, and run their daily operations.

Then under Bush/Cheney, outsourcing accelerated further, so today there's one KBR worker for every three US soldiers in Iraq. They build base infrastructure and maintain them by handling all their duties - feeding soldiers, doing their laundry, performing maintenance, and virtually all other non-combat functions.

Despite its abusive practices, KBR is such an integral part of the Pentagon that Chatterjee asks "could Obama dismiss (its) army, even if he wanted to?" Not at all so expect KRB's $150 billion 10-year LOGCAP contract (the Army's Logistics Augmentation Program - beginning September 20, 2008) to continue, and KBR's army to remain on the march reaping billions from the public treasury as the nation's largest PMC war profiteer.

PMCs Under Obama

In February 2007, Senator Obama introduced the Transparency and Accountability in Military Security Contracting Act as an amendment to the 2008 Defense Authorization Act, requiring federal agencies to report to Congress on the numbers of security contractors employed, killed, wounded, and disciplinary actions taken against them. Referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee, it never passed.

Then in February 2009 as president, Obama introduced reforms to reduce PMC spending and shift outsourced work back to government. He also promised to improve the quality of acquisition workers - government employees involved in supervising and auditing billions of dollars spent monthly on contracts. Even so, PMCs are fully integrated into national security and other government functions, as evidenced by the massive numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan alone.

Earlier, PMCs were at times used in lieu of US forces. As mentioned above, they helped General Washington win America's war of independence. Later the war of 1812, and in WW II the Flying Tigers fought the Japanese for China's Chiang Kai-Shek. In the 1960s and early 1970s, they were prominent nation builders in South Vietnam. From 1947 through 1976, the CIA's Southern Air Transport performed paramilitary services, including delivering weapons to the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

In 1985, the Army's LOGCAP was a precursor for more extensive civilian contractor use in wartime and for other purposes. It's involved in pre-planned logistics and engineering or construction contracts, including vehicle maintenance, warehousing, base building abroad, and a range of non-combat functions on them.

The Clinton administration's "Reinventing Government" initiative promised to downsize it by shifting functions to contractors as a way cut costs and improve efficiency. Later under George Bush, private companies got to compete for 450,000 government jobs, and in 2001, the Pentagon's contracted workforce exceeded civilian DOD employees for the first time.

In 2002, under Army Secretary Thomas White, the military planned to increase its long-term reliance on contracted workers, a plan known as the "Third Wave" after two earlier ones. Its purposes were to free up military manpower for the global war on terror, get non-core products and services from private sources so Army leaders could focus on their core competencies, and support Bush's Management Agenda.

In April 2003, the initiative stalled when White resigned, among other reasons for a lack of basic information required to effectively manage a growing PMC force, then estimated to be between 124,000 - 605,000 workers. Today, more precise figures are known and for what functions, but a lack of transparency and oversight makes it impossible for the public, Congress, the administration, or others in government to assess them with regard to cost, effectiveness, their services, whether government or business should perform them, and their effect on the nation for good or ill, with strong evidence of the latter.

The 2008 Montreux Document is an agreement obligating signatories with regard to their PMCs in war zones. Seventeen nations ratified it, including America, Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Canada and China, pledging to promote responsible PMC conduct in armed conflicts. Divided in two sections, its first one covers international laws binding on private contractors, explains states can't circumvent their obligations by using them, requires they take appropriate measures to prevent violations, address them responsibly when they do, and take effective steps to prevent future occurrences.

The second section lists 70 practices for helping countries fulfill their legal obligations, including not using PMCs for activities requiring force, implementing effective control, using surveillance and sanctions in case of breaches, and regulating and licensing contracted companies, that in turn, must train their personnel to observe the rules of law.

Given the obvious conflicts of interest, self-regulation won't work. Unchecked, combatant PMCs are accountable only to themselves, operating secretly outside the law - for the Pentagon as an imperial tool.

Given Obama's permanent war agenda and how entrenched PMCs have become, expect little constructive change, save for tinkering around the edges and regular rhetorical promises, followed by new fronts in the war on terror and even greater numbers civilians and soldiers for them.

Then add hundreds more billions diverted from vital homeland needs to enrich thousands of war profiteers, addicted to sure-fire blood money, and expecting plenty more ahead. They'll get it unless enough public outrage demands an end to this madness before it's too late to matter.

Some Final Comments

On January 13 (on antiwar.com), Jeremy Scahill reported that Representative Jan Schakowsky (D. IL and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence member):

"is preparing to introduce legislation (Stop Outsourcing Security Act - SOS) aimed at ending the US government's relationship with Blackwater and other armed contracting companies."

Originally introduced in 2007 but not passed, Schakowsky says:

"The legislation would prohibit the use of private contractors for military, security, law enforcement, intelligence, and armed rescue functions unless the President tells Congress why the military is unable to perform those functions. It would also increase transparency over any remaining security contracts by increasing reporting requirements and giving Congress access to details about large contracts."

Meanwhile on January 12, 2010, a coalition of groups opposed to Blackwater called on Congress to investigate why criminal charges against the company were dismissed on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. They also want to "pull the funding on war profiteers like Blackwater (and) stop them for good."

It's a tall order given how entrenched they are and expanding. In Haiti, for example, reports say Blackwater is there providing security, an indication perhaps of more contingents to follow, from them and other armed contractors, "authorized to commit violence in the name of their employers."

Stephen Lendman is Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.


____________________________________________


As we see both Clinton and now Obama are working as hard as they can to hand almost all of the US military off to private military contractors.  The 'austerity' cuts neo-liberals and neo-cons are using to pay for the massive corporate fraud of trillions of dollars are a continuation of that privatization.  More and more cuts of public troops and what would have been their benefits as more and more private contractor troops are hired overseas.  Your military tax dollars are going to a defense industry budget to pay for the US hiring of African citizens to protect US global corporate interests in Africa.  This isn't just the fight against terrorists....this is the protection of oil fields, banking systems, industrial factories.  This army works for corporations and not me and you.  

I THINK MOST AMERICANS FIND THIS OUTRAGEOUS AND UNACCEPTABLE YET YOU DO NOT HEAR ONE PEEP FROM NEO-LIBERALS!  They simply have to pretend to feel our pain as they work to see this all implemented!  

This article from 2005 does not include Obama as the one above does....but it does show that Clinton era is when this process grew.  It is important to know that as Secretary of State, Hillary moved Bill's military privatization forward with Obama.



DON'T YOU THINK VAN HOLLEN AND MARYLAND POLS WOULD BE SHOUTING OUT ABOUT THIS AS THE PROBLEM!

What do private military contractors do?
Frontline PBS 2005

Doug Brooks, the president of the International Peace Operations Association, an association of private contractors, describes three categories of companies: logistical support firms, private security firms, and private military companies. The private military companies provide combat forces for hire. These types of companies, such as the now-dissolved South African company Executive Outcomes, are rare and none of them are currently operating in Iraq.

+ When did the relationship between private contractors and the military take off?

"You're talking about an industry that really didn't exist until the start of the 1990s," says Peter Singer, the author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. "And since then, it's grown in size, in monetary terms to about $100 billion worth of revenue a year. In geographic terms, it operates in over 50 different countries. It's operated on every single continent but Antarctica."

Singer says three trends coalesced during this time that drove the industry's growth: the end of the Cold War, which led to military downsizing not only in the U.S., but around the world; a global increase in smaller conflicts; and the ideological shift towards privatizing government functions in general. The Pentagon's use of private contractors has increased dramatically between the two Gulf wars: During the first Gulf War in 1991, there were 50 military personnel for every one contractor; in the 2003 conflict the ratio was 10 to 1.

+ How many private security firms are working in Iraq?

No one knows the exact number of private security contractors that rushed into Iraq following the war. In April 2004, in response to a request from Congress, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) compiled a list of 60 different firms employing a total of 20,000 personnel (including U.S. citizens, Iraqis and third-country nationals).

Before handing over power to the newly elected Iraqi government in January 2005, the CPA established "Memorandum 17," a notice that called for all private security companies operating in Iraq to register by June 1 and established an oversight committee led by Iraq's Ministry of the Interior.

According to Lawrence Peter, a former CPA official and the director of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, as of June 21, 2005, 37 security contractors have registered with the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior. One is awaiting approval, and at least 18 additional security companies are in the process of registering.

+ Who is employed by the private contracting firms in Iraq?

Here is a breakdown of the numbers:

    50,000 support/logistics contractors
    These are civilians hired by KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary which holds the military's logistical support contract. They work as weathermen, cooks, carpenters, mechanics, etc. Most are from Third World countries and the majority are Filipinos.

    20,000 non-Iraqi security contractors
    Of these, 5-6,000 are British, American, South African, Russian or European; another 12,000 are from Third World countries, such as Fiji, Colombia, Sri Lanka, and India.

    15,000 Iraqi security contractors
    Most of these were hired mainly by the British security firm Erinys to guard Iraq's oil infrastructure.

    40-70,000 reconstruction contractors
    Hired to rebuild Iraq. Some are Iraqis, but they're mostly from the U.S. and dozens of other countries and employed by companies such as General Electric, Bechtel, Parsons, KBR, Fluor and Perini.

+ How much do private contractors get paid?

Money is a prime motivator for those working in Iraq. Guards for private security firms can typically make between $400 and $600 per day. Guards employed by Blackwater, a high-profile American company that guarded Ambassador Paul Bremer, the former head of the CPA, are paid up to $1000 per day.

+ How many contractors have been killed in Iraq?

The exact number is not known; not all companies report casualty numbers. In June 2005, when the film originally aired, Erinys said it had lost three employees on its contract with the Army Corps of Engineers, and an additional 16 employees who were killed guarding Iraqi oil infrastructure. KBR, which employs over 50,000 in the region, told FRONTLINE that 65 of its employees, including 16 truckers, have been killed since the beginning of the war.

Update: In November 2005, Knight Ridder obtained insurance-claim statistics from the Department of Labor and reported 428 civilian contractor deaths and 3,963 other casualties. However, the story quoted two companies -- Halliburton and L-3 Communications -- as saying their casualty figures were higher than those reported by the Labor Department for their companies.

+ Given the continuing violence and dangers facing contractors, are the companies having problems hiring?

So far, no. The private companies can increase salaries to correspond with need, and as yet, there haven't been recruitment problems.

+ What are some advantages and disadvantages of hiring private contractors?

The number one reason cited for using private contractors in Iraq is the same reason driving arguments for privatizing other government functions: Outsourcing saves taxpayer money because private firms in a competitive market can do the job more efficiently and at a lower cost. Critics question how money is saved if firms must pay employees higher wages to attract them to work in Iraq, but defenders point out that a) firms can hire and fire based on a surge capacity; b) that employees from non-Western countries can be paid lower wages; and c) that companies don't have to pay all the long-term benefits that are required of the military.

Critics also argue that financial efficiencies are lost when companies subcontract with other companies, as is typical of the private contractors operating in Iraq.

No definitive studies on the cost-effectiveness of military outsourcing have been done yet.

+ Read more on the debate over cost-effectiveness.

One of the major disadvantages of using private contractors in Iraq is that they operate outside of the military chain of command, with two consequences. First, if a situation becomes too dangerous, individuals can halt operations or break their contracts and leave. For example, after an incident on April 9, 2004, in which a 19-truck KBR convoy was ambushed -- six drivers were killed, one was taken hostage, and one is still missing -- FRONTLINE was told that scores of KBR truckers refused to drive until security improved and hundreds of contractors left the country. For weeks, the military was left with dwindling stores of ammunition, fuel and water.

+ Read this July 2005 GAO report on the continuing challenges in getting capable private security contractors, coordinating their working relationship with the U.S. military and tracking the costs of these forces. (pdf file)

Another consequence of contractors being outside the military command structure is the lack of coordination on the battlefield. As Steven Schooner, an expert in government contracting, explains, "[Contractors and the military] don't communicate in the same networks. They don't get the same intelligence information. And so, when things begin to develop quickly, there's an awful lot of people around with weapons who have important tactical responsibilities who don't have the same information and aren't getting the same messages from the tactical leadership." This problem was evident on March 31, 2004, when four contractors working for the private security firm Blackwater were ambushed and killed while escorting a convoy in Fallujah. Marine Col. John Toolan, who at the time was in command of the region including Fallujah, told FRONTLINE that not only did he not know the Blackwater contractors were in the area, but that their deaths forced him to set aside his initial strategy for quelling the insurgency in the area when he was forced to invade the city and find the killers.

In order to remedy the coordination problem, the CPA contracted with another private security firm, the British company Aegis, to coordinate and track all the security teams operating in Iraq through a Reconstruction Operations Center (ROC). But participation is voluntary and because they want to maintain their competitive advantage in the marketplace, some companies are loathe to share information with another company. A July 2005 report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the ROC had improved coordination between the military and the security contractors, but it also suggested two problems remain. First, there were still incidents when security personnel approached military convoys or checkpoints, and second, upon deployment to Iraq, many military personnel were not aware of security personnel operating within the country.

+ Is the use of private contractors leading to a "brain drain" from the U.S. military?

This is an argument of some critics, who say private security firms are poaching highly trained Special Forces soldiers with salaries that are two to four times what they can earn in the military. According to a report from the British-American Security Information Council, "Reportedly, exhausted American and British Special Forces personnel are resigning in record numbers and taking highly-paid jobs as private security guards in Iraq and Afghanistan." The Pentagon has responded by offering cash bonuses of up to $150,000 for Special Forces to reenlist.

Brooks of the IPOA acknowledges that the industry's growth has created a new market for Special Forces soldiers. However, he argues that the temporary nature of the security industry is unlikely to draw those who didn't already want to leave the military. "How long is Baghdad going to last? How long is there going to be demand for these services? It's not a career-ending decision," he says. "You have to think if you're about ready to leave Special Forces it makes sense. If you're in it for a career, then there's no point in leaving just to do one or two years of personal security work.

+ What is the legal status of private contractors in Iraq? Are they accountable under U.S. or Iraqi law?

One of the real problems in regulating all private contractors is their somewhat ambiguous legal status. As Singer wrote in a March 2005 article in Foreign Affairs, "Although private military firms and their employees are now integral parts of many military operations, they tend to fall through the cracks of current legal codes, which sharply distinguish civilians from soldiers. Contractors are not quite civilians, given that they often carry and use weapons, interrogate prisoners, load bombs and fulfill other critical military roles. Yet they are not quite soldiers, either."

In June 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority handed down Memorandum 17, which grants foreign contractors immunity from Iraqi law while working within the boundaries of their contracted tasks. The memo placed private contractors under the legal authority of the workers' home countries. In June 2004, one day before the CPA transferred sovereignty in Iraq to the interim Iraqi government, Paul Bremer signed a revised version of Memorandum 17, which stipulates that the rule remain in effect until multinational forces are withdrawn from Iraq or until it is amended by Iraqi lawmakers.

U.S. government contracts worth $50 million or more with private companies must be reported to Congress, and the companies must comply with the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which regulates the import and export of arms material and services. But, for example, of the 60 known private security companies operating in Iraq, only eight worked directly for the CPA; the rest are subcontracted to provide protection for the primary contractors or even other subcontractors. When companies are not contracted directly to the government, they are accountable only to the contractor whom employs them.

Companies that contract with the Pentagon are required to follow a set of rules known as the Defense Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS). DFARS governs all aspects of contract enforcement, from accounting procedures to use of government property, and contains a section on "Contractor Standards of Conduct" covering proper behavior and a hotline for reporting improper conduct. DFARS was amended on June 6, 2005, to hold contractors working to provide support to U.S. forces deployed overseas accountable under U.S. and international laws as well as those of the host country. It also permits contractors to carry weapons at the discretion of the military commander.

American private contractors are also subject to the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA), which allows for the prosecution of civilians employed by or accompanying the military while overseas and was signed by President Bill Clinton in October 2000. MEJA has been criticized for loopholes, which came to attention after reports surfaced of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Although private contractors stand accused in a series of lawsuits filed in U.S. courts by former detainees, the companies might not be liable under MEJA because the law deals only with contractors employed by the Department of Defense. As of June 2005, the only person to be prosecuted under MEJA was Latasha Lorraine Arnt, who in February 2005 was sentenced to eight years in prison for killing her husband, a military policeman stationed at a U.S. Air Force Base in Turkey.

+ Have any contractors been prosecuted for misbehavior in Iraq?

No, according to Peter Singer. However, there have been civil lawsuits filed against some of the PMCs; for example, the families of the four Blackwater guards killed in Fallujah are suing for wrongful death.

+ What about allegations against Halliburton/KBR?

KBR has inspired a cottage industry of critics charging undue political influence -- as its parent company Halliburton was formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney -- and financial fraud. The company has been the subject of numerous audits: One by the U.S. Government Accountability Office of dining hall costs for one four-month period alleges KBR charged $88 million for meals it never served. And Pentagon audits allege that KBR overcharged $212 million for fuel and billed the government $1.8 billion in other unsupported costs. The Pentagon terminated the fuel contract. As for meals, KBR says workers prepared food that just wasn't consumed. And the unsupported $1.8 billion, they say, is a paperwork issue that's being resolved.

But for all the controversy, there are many in Wall Street and in Washington who believe KBR is making only a slim profit, and that they've simply been overwhelmed by the military's needs and failed to adequately track costs.


________________________________________________

You can see why neo-liberals paint Kirsten Gillibrand as the next Hillary.....SHE IS AS NEO-LIBERAL AS IT GETS.  THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PARTY/NEO-LIBERALS MEDIA LOVES GILLIBRAND!  

Remember, it is Harry Reid as Senate leader who appoints the heads of these committees.  You do not have a raging privatization without these people.



United States Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel
From Wikipedia,


    Kirsten Gillibrand, New York, Chairwoman
    Kay Hagan, North Carolina
    Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut
    Mazie Hirono, Hawaii
    Tim Kaine, Virginia
    Angus King, Maine[1]

    

    Lindsey Graham, South Carolina, Ranking Member
    Saxby Chambliss, Georgia
    Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire
    Roy Blunt, Missouri
    Mike Lee, Utah

Ex officio

    Carl Levin, Michigan
********************************************

SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE.

Majority     

    Carl Levin, Michigan, Chairman
    Jack Reed, Rhode Island
    Bill Nelson, Florida
    Claire McCaskill, Missouri
    Mark Udall, Colorado
    Kay Hagan, North Carolina
    Joe Manchin, West Virginia
    Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire
    Kirsten Gillibrand, New York
    Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut
    Joe Donnelly, Indiana
    Mazie Hirono, Hawaii
    Tim Kaine, Virginia
    Angus King, Maine[2]

***************************
If you know Pelosi  and Hoyer are neo-liberals and the DCCC is controlled by neo-liberals .....you know Van Hollen is right there.  Now, if you were on the House Budget Committee and Deficit REduction Committee the first thing you would do as a democrat...

SHOUT LOUDLY AND STRONGLY THAT ALL OF THE NATIONAL DEBT WAS CREATED BY MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD AND RECOVERY OF THAT FRAUD WILL PAY THE ENTIRE NATIONAL DEBT.

Just because a pol is a nice guy or gal....doesn't mean they are working for you and me.
  These pols can use their platforms to protect the American people from TPP


Chris Van Hollen
From Wikipedia

Christopher "Chris" Van Hollen, Jr. (born January 10, 1959) is the U.S. Representative for Maryland's 8th congressional district, serving since 2003. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes most of Montgomery County, an affluent suburban county adjacent to Washington, D.C., as well as portions of Carroll and Frederick counties. He is an alumnus of the Kodaikanal International School, a very prestigious school in southern India.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi created a new leadership post, Assistant to the Speaker, in 2006 so that Van Hollen could be present at all leadership meetings. After the Democrats regained control of the House in the 2006 elections, Van Hollen became the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the fifth-ranking position among House Democrats. In this post, Van Hollen was responsible for leading efforts to get more Democrats elected to Congress.

After the Democratic losses in 2010, Van Hollen did not run for re-election to chair of the DCCC. Van Hollen instead chose to run for the top Democratic spot on the House Budget Committee, which was being vacated by outgoing chairman John Spratt who had been defeated for re-election. Van Hollen was elected as the ranking member on the Budget Committee on November 17, 2010. Pelosi appointed him to the 12-member bipartisan Committee on Deficit Reduction with a mandate for finding major budget reductions by late 2011.
0 Comments

February 10th, 2014

2/10/2014

0 Comments

 
WHEN NEO-LIBERALS SAY 'SUSTAINABILITY' THEY MEAN....NOW THAT WE HAVE ALL THE MONEY.....EVERYTHING PUBLIC HAS TO GO!!!



As we know, big investors are dumping the bonds and heading to gold investments as the bond market is ready to implode.  So what do we see below as a result?

PENSIONS ARE BEING THROWN INTO THE BOND MARKET TO KEEP IT AFLOAT JUST A LITTLE LONGER BEFORE THE COMING ECONOMIC CRASH.

Remember, in 2007 pensions were taken from the then safe bond market and placed into the stock market as it was ready to collapse causing pensions to lose 1/2 their value.  Mind you....these pension-fund managers, whether public or private, know these are bad investments as does the public officials involved in allowing it.  This coming crash will take all the value again from pensioners as big private investors run and insure against losses with Credit Default Swaps.
  The entire bubble was manufactured with the intent to blow up the bond market with sovereign and municipal bond debt -----THE PUBLIC SECTOR------taking the hit.

Bonds are low because the market is ready to crash and that is not the same as a simple low in a normal stock cycle.

Pensions Sell Stocks to Buy Bonds

By Roben Farzad January 24, 2014


Coming off a year when the broad U.S. stock market enjoyed a 30 percent gain, investors and financial advisers are struggling to determine the most appropriate portfolio asset allocation consistent with their tolerance for risk, says Andrew Clinton, president of Clinton Investment Management, in Stamford, Conn. Pension funds, in particular, are striving to lock in the outsize gains they have enjoyed over the past few years in the booming debt and equity markets. To do so, they are going against the broader fund-flow trend by selling equities and shifting money to fixed income. Deutsche Bank (DB) forecasts that pensions will liquidate about $150 billion in equities this year alone to buy bonds with maturities of 10 years or longer.

“It’s only logical,” says Clinton. “Pensions struggling with underfunded status need to lock in the lift of the past couple of years. From a risk-adjusted perspective, equities, for all their recent outperformance, are nearly four times as volatile as municipal bonds. Pension managers are in a different dialogue than everything you hear now about people rotating out of stocks, etc.”

Clinton believes this asset reallocation is likely to last for years. As for domestic equities, which are near their all-time high: They are their costliest compared with government debt in three years. The Standard & Poor 500-stock index’s profits as a percentage of the index’s price is just under 3 percentage points higher than the yield for 10-year government notes, the smallest premium since March 2011.

Video: Stocks vs. Bonds vs. Commodities: Where to Invest? In the third quarter, U.S. pension funds, which have assets of $16 trillion, swapped out of equities and into bonds at the fastest clip in five years, data compiled by the Federal Reserve show. According to Matt Robinson of Bloomberg News, they bought $117 billion of debt on an annualized basis and offloaded $135 billion of stocks. The 100 biggest corporate pension plans thinned their deficits by a net $319 billion, according to consultancy Milliman; they are now 95 percent funded, compared with a low of 77 percent two years ago.

“It makes sense,” says Michael Gayed of Pension Partners in Manhattan. “Rebalancing to target weights is a time-tested approach to enhancing longer-term returns--forcing you to buy low and sell high.” He says the “Great Rotation” is presently, at the margin, from stocks back to bonds.


______________________________________
This is the reason the Spanish citizens are marching in the street.  Their pensions are being eliminated because TROIKA payments are being made by Spanish leaders by the citizen's public assets.  It is incredible as Spain is one of the hardest hit with fraud and corruption.  They had all that debt created by leaders tied with Wall Street and DeutschBank with development that was not deeded.....money simply spent to move it to the top.  This is what is happening with US pensions as well as they are moved to the bond market ready to implode!

'Retiring' The Debt: Spain Drains Pension Fund To Prop Up Bonds

Jan. 14, 2013 9:33 AM ET  |  Includes: EWP Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. (More...)

Last week, Spain's Treasury raised $5.82 billion euros at auction in the country's first debt sale of the year; this was well above even the upper end of the target range. The auction, which the Wall Street Journal described as 'robust,' was enough to drive yields on Spanish 10-year notes below 5% for the first time in 10 months.

The Treasury in Madrid sold three bonds, one maturing in 2015, one maturing in 2018, and a 2026 note. Yields were down across the maturities compared with the last time the notes were sold and, in the case of the 2026 note, compared with where it traded in the secondary market. The consensus, which of course is somewhat justifiable, is that the successful auction indicates demand for Spanish debt isn't going to dry up anytime in the very near future. Here's Annalisa Piazza, a fixed income strategist quoted by the Wall Street Journal:

Today's Spanish auction suggests that market appetite for euro-zone periphery's debt remains solid despite uncertainties regarding the request for a bailout and eventual activation of the European Central Bank's Outright Monetary Transactions.

The problem for Spain in 2013, however, is that two major sources of demand for the country's debt are likely to be largely unavailable in the coming year. In a rather disconcerting piece published on January 3, the Wall Street Journal disclosed that Spain has now spent over 90% of its Social Security Reserve Fund buying its own debt. Just to reiterate: Spain has spent pretty much the entirety of its pension fund on its own bonds.

There are three obvious problems here. First, this means that the fate of pensions in Spain is now hopelessly intertwined with the fate of Spanish government bonds, a fact that doesn't inspire much confidence, given the market for periphery sovereign debt in 2012. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal notes that the decision to invest the Social Security Reserve Fund's cash in Spanish government bonds violates a Spanish government decree which states that the fund can only purchase securities "of high credit quality and a significant degree of liquidity." This is terribly ironic given that if anyone should know that Spanish government bonds are not of the highest quality and are certainly not highly liquid, it's the Spanish government.

__________________________________________
Keep in mind that the California pension fund was found to be the worst for fraud and corruption in investments the last economic crash.  Tons of lawsuits for bad investments bringing little back as 'settlements' were just as bad in pension claims as Wall Street financial fraud and the US Justice Department. 

Here we see California pensions back in the action of losing money.  Keep in mind that corporate stocks have soared through this BULL market....mergers and acquisitions from free money by the FED made corporations rich.....yet pensions are again dying on the vine because they are invested in markets that are ready to implode.


Keep in mind that if the US Justice Department had brought back all of the fraud lost to pensions in 2008 and all that had been invested in the BULL market these few years....pensions would be flush.  Rather, neo-liberals deliberately placed pensions into investments they knew would fail and now pretend these pensions are unsustainable.

As this article shows.....this was a national plan by neo-liberals to dismantle public sector pensions and just as Rawlings-Blake is ready to throw Baltimore's pensions into the market as 401Ks and O'Malley sends teacher's union pensions to localities knowing localities cannot pay....this pension dismantling was planned and it is all illegal!

California teachers’ pensions sink further into debt
By Kevin Martinez
27 November 2013

A new report released by the California Public Policy Center on November 12 reported that the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) added $4 billion to its unfunded pension obligations for the 2012 fiscal year.

CalSTRS, the largest teachers’ pension fund in the United States, collected $5.8 billion from employees and employers last year. Of this, $4.7 billion was considered a “normal contribution,” while $1.1 billion was used to pay unfunded liabilities, which by 2012 were estimated to be $71 billion in debt. As a result, plans to dismantle the pension fund in the name of fiscal solvency are being aggressively developed.

The study shows that the so-called “catch up” payment should have been 7 times higher based on unfunded liability payback terms recommended by Moody’s Investor Services in April. The study also shows that if the rate of return projection drops to 6.2 percent, the unfunded liabilities recalculate to $107.8 billion and the catch-up payment increases to $9.6 billion, assuming a rate of return of 6.2 percent. Because of overly optimistic forecasts, the study estimates that CalSTRS actually increased its debt in 2012 by $4 billion.

Should CalSTRS lower its rate of return projections, its funded ratio of 67 percent will fall dramatically.
The dependency on stock market profits thus sets the stage for volatility, even more indebtedness and, ultimately, privatization. While in Detroit, with President Obama’s backing, banks are using the bankruptcy courts to tear up pensions and privatize city services, California’s Democratic Governor Jerry Brown has pursued similar results by signing a pension “reform” last year which demands workers pay more toward their own pensions and work many more years before they collect it.

The corporate media is supporting the argument that there will be no money to fund pensions in another 30 years. This is the same strategy used to argue for the dismantling of Social Security and other basic entitlements. The claim is being made that pension enhancements from 1999 are responsible for the unsustainable obligations, when in actuality calculations were based on optimistic Wall Street investment projections. Now, in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crash, these same financial forces are trying to justify a “take back” of benefits.

In San Jose, Democratic Mayor Chuck Reed is being touted for his work on pension “reform.” After a referendum was passed last year, the city will now force current employees to contribute up to 16 percent toward their pensions or switch over to an even more expensive private plan, and new workers will have a pension that pays even less, while they are required to contribute half toward their pensions.


Plans for the dismantling of these funds are clearly well advanced. In addition to Governor Brown’s “reform” and various municipal initiatives, powerful lobbyists are pursuing similar plans which would ensure workers’ loss of hard-fought, essential survival benefits.

One such initiative is the so-called Pension Reform Act of 2014, proposed by the Coalition for Fair and Sustainable Pensions, made up of a group of mayors from cities with similar problems (San Jose, Vallejo, San Bernardino). Based on San Jose Mayor Reed’s brutal attack on municipal workers’ retirement, the plan, according to its web site, “would amend the California Constitution to give government agencies clear authority to negotiate changes to existing employees’ pension or retiree healthcare benefits on a strictly going-forward basis.” In essence, it’s open season for the demolition of pension benefits.


The premise that these funds, including CalSTRS, are going bankrupt, is a lie. First of all, workers have paid their whole lives into these funds, making it their money and no else’s. Secondly, while the banks and major corporations were bailed out during the crash and continue to be supported to the tune of $85 billion a month, no one in the political establishment is arguing for pensions to be rescued, although these funds have also invested billions in the same “free market.”

Lastly, there is plenty of money to be found. California is home to more billionaires than anywhere else in the world. One out of nine of the world’s billionaires reside there. The total combined wealth of California’s billionaires amounts to $1 trillion, nearly the total GDP of countries like South Korea or Mexico.

While in the post-war era the US economy was based on industrial production and pension fund operations were regulated in order to ensure a degree of stability, now the economy has been financialized and pension fund portfolios rise and fall with the gyrations of the stock market. Not only are they exposed to financial crises in the US, but to international fluctuations as well, such as the European debt crisis or derivatives markets. According to CalSTRS’s website, the portfolio invests over 56 percent of its assets into global equity, 12 percent into real estate, and another 12 percent into private equity funds.

The situation for workers is now so desperate that many have to work until they are elderly to get a decent pension. According to a recent poll by Harris Interactive, 48 percent of middle-class Americans don’t think they have enough money saved for a comfortable retirement and a full one-third think they will work “until at least 80.”

The poll also found that more than half of the people said that paying monthly bills comes before saving for retirement. More than 4 out of 10 Americans say that saving for retirement and paying their bills at the same time is not possible.

For their part, the California Teachers Association (CTA) has been instrumental in the implementation of the pension “reform.” It has been complicit with the Democrats in supporting these initiatives to dismantle pension funds. All it asks for is a seat at the table.

On the CTA website, under the headline, “Where we stand on Teachers’ Retirement,” they write on the estimated $56 billion shortfall that “this does not have to be paid overnight. Like a mortgage, this is an amount that will need to be closed over a 30-year period.” The CTA does not bother to explain how, because, in essence, it agrees that teachers will have to pay for the shortfall by increasing their contributions to the pension fund.

Moreover, the CTA supported Prop. 30, which promised to restore funding to education at the expense of thousands of teachers being laid off and no budget cuts rescinded. The CTA also supports Common Core, which tailors school curriculum to the demands of big business.

In related developments, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) is also reporting $340 billion in liabilities with only $260 billion in assets as of September 2013. A 2011 study by Joe Nation, a former Democratic state legislator and professor at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, estimated that the real number is closer to $170 billion in unfunded pension obligations, not $80 billion as previously assumed.

According to Nation, CalPERS uses an overly optimistic formula to calculate returns on investments averaging 7.5 percent annual growth. A more realistic figure would be 5 to 6 percent. Even with this model, both CalSTRS and CalPERS are expected to run out of funds by 2043.

CalPERS, like its CalSTRS counterpart, is intimately involved in Wall Street investments. As of April, the $263 billion fund was 65 percent invested into “growth investment” (i.e. stocks), with 52 percent in public equity, 12 percent in private equity, and 8 percent in real estate. For every dollar paid to CalPERS, 66 cents comes from “investment earnings,” 21 cents from CalPERS employers, and 13 cents from CalPERS members. This last figure is likely to increase if the ruling class continues its policies unabated.

_____________________________________________
Below you see a LOL comment from the last economic benefactor of massive corporate fraud.  As people reading my blog know I have these four years shouted that inflation was already high and that the FED was simply pretending/hiding it in order to justify all that FREE MONEY FROM THE FED.   They all knew they were creating huge inflation and that when the bond market imploded the inflation would create what will be a Great Depression.  This is not hyperbole ......it is coming and deliberate.

Remember, the investment firms for the rich have protected their wealth from this coming catastrophe....investment in real estate and gold with little in the bond or stock market.  See why they need to move pensions into these markets as they pull out....just as they did in 2008!

IT IS ALL PLANNED AND ILLEGAL!


Either way, I think we're all best served to heed the words of John Paulson, the preeminent hedge fund manager who oversees $14 billion in assets: "By the time inflation becomes evident, gold will probably have moved, which implies that now is the time to build a position."

What Inflation Could Look Like in 2014
By Jeff Clark, Senior Precious Metals Analyst

Most economists, especially those from the mainstream, will tell you that inflation is widely expected to remain benign for the foreseeable future. And for those who think it could climb higher, it's usually because they think it should be higher. History has a message for them: be careful what you wish for.

There are plenty of examples in history showing that once inflation takes hold, it can quickly spiral out of control. That's the danger we face now. Here's what I mean…

A recent article about sudden inflation by Amity Shlaes, a senior fellow of economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations and a best-selling author, provides some examples from the past century of US inflation that was at first subdued but then abruptly rocketed to alarming levels. I put them into a chart so you could see how quickly inflation rose within just two years from "benign" levels. I then made some projections for us today based on these historical examples.

According to Shlaes, US inflation was 1% in 1915 (based on an earlier version of the CPI-U). Over just two years, it hit 17%. As she states, it happened because the Treasury "spent like crazy on the war, creating money to pay for it…"

Given the fact that our spending and money-printing is now out of control, I projected what our inflation rate would be if we matched the inflation rates of these time periods. The first striped bar to the right represents what the CPI would register if we matched the 1915-1917 rise. Inflation would hit 19% by 2014. (Yes, the CPI has been tinkered with many times, but this is at least what "unofficial" or "authentic" inflation would register.)

In 1945, the official inflation rate was 2%. It accelerated to 14% in 24 months. If we matched this percent rise, we'd hit 15% by 2014 (middle striped bar)..

And the example that kicked off the greatest bull market in gold and silver, the early 1970s. The CPI stood at 3.2% in 1972, a level close to ours today. It soared to 11% just two years later. Mimicking this rise, the third striped bar shows we'd also be at 11% in 2014. (Shadow Stats says we're already at 10% based on 1980 methodology, so from this level we'd hit 17% in 24 months.)


Could we really have inflation that high within two years? Consider the following:

  • Fox Business reported on March 7 that "wages grew much more quickly at the end of last year than originally estimated…" This is an important data point because most economists believe you can't have higher inflation without rising wages.
  • Commercial and industrial loans have risen 14% year over year, and business and consumer spending are in an uptrend.
  • Home-building permits are at their highest point since October 2008. Existing home sales fell 0.9% last month, but that's after January sales were up 4.6%.
     
  • Jobless claims are coming down, retail sales gained the most in five months, and auto sales were up 16% last month. One report I read stated that we've had 24 consecutive weeks of stronger US data.
If the economy continues to improve and more money is sloshing through the system, it's easy to see how inflation could grab hold. Yet, if you understand Austrian economics, you'll look beyond how the mainstream views inflation and to its root cause: monetary debasement.

  • The US monetary base stands at $2.72 trillion, a 168% increase since October 2008.
  • The national debt in the US has risen by a whopping $4.9 trillion just since Obama took office. It now stands at $15.5 trillion.
  • The US budget deficit this year is projected to be over $1.3 trillion, an obscene amount that exceeds the entire annual budget of just 20 years ago.
  • According to ISI Group, there have been an incredible 122 "stimulative policy initiatives" from central banks around the world over the past seven months.
Remember, in these historical examples, inflation was initially low and therefore off everyone's radar. But government tinkering with the monetary system lit the spark that led to a sudden and rapid rise in inflation. It caught many off guard, just like I suspect it would now. Don't think there are no consequences to our unwise fiscal and monetary course; a potentially ugly tipping point is more likely than not at some point.

Given the abuse most fiat currencies are undergoing around the world today, coupled with obscene amounts of deficit spending, I think gold should be viewed not just as a potential moneymaker but as protection against the rabid inflation that will invariably damage our economy and dilute our pocketbooks.
If you think deflation is next, I'll accept that argument – for a time – if you accept mine, that the Fed would almost certainly panic at another deflationary event and print to the max. This is why we're convinced that inflation, à la currency dilution, is inevitable. (Harry Dent, best-selling author of The Great Crash Ahead, is convinced deflation poses our biggest economic threat, while Currency Wars author James Rickards believes inflation is the real danger. You can hear them debate the issue – and participate as a member of the audience – during the Inflation-Deflation Face-Off program at the upcoming Casey Research Recovery Reality Check Summit.)

To those of you who say gold hasn't always kept up with inflation, don't kid yourself about what it would do in a highly inflationary environment: it would surely climb like it did in the 1970s. And those "productive assets" Warren Buffett prefers over gold? They would have a difficult time raising the prices of their products quickly enough to keep up with a rapidly escalating CPI. Gold may not perfectly track inflation when it's low, but it is precisely a high-inflation environment where it serves one of its core purposes.

You may think high inflation is further away than 2014, but don't dismiss the fact that it can happen suddenly. And keep in mind the possibility that a sudden shift in inflation – especially inflation expectations – could be the spark for a mania in precious metals. I can easily see this being the catalyst that finally pushes the greater public into our sector, causing a paradigm shift that eventually sends it into a bubble.


Either way, I think we're all best served to heed the words of John Paulson, the preeminent hedge fund manager who oversees $14 billion in assets: "By the time inflation becomes evident, gold will probably have moved, which implies that now is the time to build a position."

We agree. As we stated in the February BIG GOLD, if 10% of your total investable assets (i.e., excluding equity in your primary residence) aren't held in various forms of gold and silver, we think your portfolio is at risk. And as Doug Casey reminded us last week, "Anyone who thinks they have any measure of financial security without owning any gold – especially in the post-2008 world – is either ignorant, naïve, foolish, or all three."

This is the time to accumulate, while gold and silver prices are below their peaks. Buy a little every month and store it in a safe place. And for even better bargains, look to the undervalued stocks, which I would argue offer better protection against inflation than most other equity investments since their cash flow will climb commensurate with gold and silver prices. We identified the two best stocks for new money right now in the current issue of BIG GOLD, and you can get the brand-new pick from International Speculator – an African company that has built its first gold mine and is already working on its second.


If we match the inflation rates seen several times in the recent past, what will your savings be worth in a few years? We'll have lots to worry about in a high-inflation climate, but our purchasing power can be protected by owning gold.

________________________________________________
Mainstream media pretended that the economy was on its way to recovery each year even as they knew it was being positioned to implode.  That is why you and I did not know anything and it is why I am a blogger today....so I will know what is happening and share it with you!  It is true we cannot stop this....but all we need to do is

REINSTATE RULE OF LAW AND REBUILD WHITE COLLAR CRIMINAL AGENCIES TO RECOVER ALL THIS CORPORATE FRAUD.....EASY PEASY.  WHEN GOVERNMENT SUSPENDS RULE OF LAW, THEY SUSPEND STATUTES OF LIMITATION!



THE 1% ARE READY FOR THIS NEXT CRASH THAT WILL TAKE ALL PENSIONS AND PUBLIC SECTOR ASSETS WITH IT.  HEAVILY LEVERAGED CREDIT BOND DEBT IN MARYLAND AT A TIME OF ECONOMIC COLLAPSE?  THERE IS A REASON FOR THAT!

Zero Coupon Inflation Swap

  Definition of 'Zero Coupon Inflation Swap'


An exchange of cash flows that allows investors to reduce or increase their exposure to the risk of a decline in the purchasing power of money. In a zero coupon inflation swap, which is a basic type of inflation derivative, an income stream that is tied to the rate of inflation is exchanged for an income stream with a fixed interest rate. However, instead of actually exchanging payments periodically, both income streams are paid as one lump-sum payment when the swap reaches maturity and the inflation level is known. Investopedia explains 'Zero Coupon Inflation Swap'
The currency of the swap determines the price index that is used to calculate the rate of inflation. For example, a swap denominated in U.S. dollars would be based on the Consumer Price Index of the United States, while a swap denominated in British pounds would typically be based on Great Britain's Retail Price Index. Other financial instruments that can be used to hedge against inflation risk are real yield inflation swaps, price index inflation swaps, Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS), municipal and corporate inflation-linked securities, inflation-linked certificates of deposit and inflation-linked savings bonds.



0 Comments

January 27th, 2014

1/27/2014

0 Comments

 
Regarding the next phase to the New Economy....economic collapse:

The major banks and states appear to be preparing for impending crisis, while pretending to the public that the economic situation is improving.


It is interesting that when I first hit on this Forbes article yesterday I had no problem opening it.....and today, the page was inaccessible.

Below you see what has been coming since Obama took office.  Since all Obama did was oversee massive movement of money from one place to another to make it look like economic activity was happening while tens of trillions of dollars have  been carted out of the US and into off-shore accounts....making the economy starved of cash and stagnant.....China/Europe has been doing the same thing.  So, all the Wall Street news about recapitalized banks ready to get on with business is a lie.  What is happening is the few families at the top who have the massive wealth are now fighting on how to hide it and/or use it to their benefit while the entire economic system collapses.


REMEMBER, WE NEEDED TO NATIONALIZE THE US BANKS IN 2009 TO DOWNSIZE THEM BY SIMPLY RECOVERING TENS OF TRILLIONS IN CORPORATE FRAUD.  EASY PEASY.  OBAMA AND NEO-LIBERALS WERE THERE TO MAKE SURE THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN....RATHER, ALL THAT MONEY HAS BEEN MOVED AROUND THE WORLD TO HIDE IT.



China Halts Bank Cash Transfers: Forbes

Sunday, January 26, 2014 15:59
0

(Before It's News)


According to this breaking story from Forbes.com, China has halted all bank cash transfers as shared in the story below. WHY would China’s central bank ORDER commercial banks to put an end to cash transfers? Is this the next step in the global currency war? Could this lead to WW3 as is now being argued by some? With America already practically ‘owned’ by China and getting more in debt every year, this can’t be a good thing. Video reports on China’s money problems also below.
The People’s Bank of China , the central bank, has just ordered commercial banks to halt cash transfers.
In short, there will be a three-day suspension of domestic renminbi transfers. There will also be a suspension, spanning nine calendar days, of conversions of renminbi to foreign currency.
The specific reason given—“system maintenance” at the central bank—is preposterous.  It is not credible that during the highest usage period in the year—the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday beginning January 31—the central bank would schedule an upgrade and shut down cash transfers.
A better explanation is that the country’s banking system is running dry.  Yes, there is an increased need for money in the run-up to and during the Lunar New Year holiday, but that is only a small factor.  After all, central bank officials knew this spike in demand was coming—it occurs every year at this time—and a core function of central banks is to manage seasonal liquidity fluctuations.  Moreover, the holiday has not started yet, and the PBOC, as that institution is known, could have added more liquidity to meet cash needs.


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

As we see, a US bank crash is coming because all that has happened over these few years is scuffling around of money to prop up the European market and hiding and expanding in a Chinese market all of which having money sucked out of economies.  

THIS IS OF COURSE ALL FRAUD AND CORRUPTION THAT YOUR NEO-LIBERAL IS AIDING AND ABETTING BY PASSING LAWS THAT MAKE ONCE ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES NOW LEGAL....OR SO THEY SAY.  THE US HAS ANTI-TRUST AND MONOPOLY LAWS THAT ARE SIMPLY BEING IGNORED.

You know I have called for this for three years as US media played the propaganda machine yet again....acting as if something real was being done.  There is nothing that can be done to stop this crash.....citizens in Europe will stop the TROIKA sucking of all public wealth and the US citizens are waking to the fact that all their wealth is being sucked up as well in this US Perestroika.  Without that sucking of public money the economies will collapse.  Not so bad for the few families at the top they say......the plan is to soak the public sector with debt as Rawlings-Blake and O'Malley have done with tons of credit bonds, Wall Street leverage deals,  and TIFs, so that when the collapse comes, even more public wealth comes as cities and states default and public property and partnership deals go into the hands of Wall Street and public sector pensions and benefits are dismissed in bankruptcy.  

THIS IS THE BAINS CAPITAL GUTTING OF PUBLIC SECTOR WEALTH....SAME THING THAT WAS DONE WITH PRIVATE CORPORATIONS SHEDDING ALL THEIR DEBT AND LABOR CONTRACTS WILL NOW HAPPEN WITH THIS CRASH.

Look at what has happened with HSBC to see the wave of the future in the UK, Europe, and US.....this is the next bank bailout.....it involves simply capturing the people's bank accounts to pay a municipal debt created by mayors and governors across the country all under the guise of 'development and jobs'.

HSBC is simply the British version of Wall Street banks like Bank of America and Citigroup.....that spent these few years expanding all over the world with the free money the FED gave them and now all of them are exposed to these global economic calamities.  So, Obama and neo-liberals......ALL MARYLAND POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS....were not deadlocked these few years.  They were working on TPP and international marketing and growth while allowing the US economy to be starved.  That was their job.  So, US banks have been operating under the wild west of no regulation as they expanded overseas and our economy is now tied ten times more to this TOO BIG TO FAIL.  Only this time the Federal government has been tapped and it will be your bank account and mine that banks seize to keep them afloat.  Add to that all kinds of public infrastructure like roads, bridges, water and sewer infrastructure and you betcha......PERESTROIKA'S NEXT STEP IN THE NEW ECONOMY!

It is valuable to record all of this....I for example print all FACEBOOK and website entries because I know they could disappear any time.....please do the same.  Documenting that all of this was known beforehand allows for legal retribution when the people reinstate Rule of Law and bring back all those tens of trillions of dollars.....remember, when a government suspends Rule of Law, it suspends Statutes of Limitation!



A Closer Look at China and HSBC – Are they Running Out of Cash?
Kerry-anne


January 26, 2014


Fears are growing that HSBC bank is insolvent, after the Bank refused cash withdrawals and has an $80bn blackhole in their balance sheet.  Last night,Forbes and a variety of sources including Max Keiser, and FXstreet (Forex) reported a Bank of China announcement suspending all cash transfers for the next several days.  So what’s really going on?


HSBC Collapse

 

HSBC is scrambling to manage a seemingly terminal liquidity crisis (a lack of hard cash) that could see the bank become the next Northern Rock – and trigger a bank crash. The analyst’s advice is for shareholders to sell HSBC investments, and customers to move their accounts elsewhere before the crash.


This from the Telegraph:

Forensic Asia on Tuesday began its coverage of Britain’s largest banking group with a ‘sell’ recommendation, warning the lender had between $63.6bn (£38.7bn) and $92.3bn of “questionable assets” on its balance sheet, ranging from loan loss reserves and accrued interest to deferred tax assets, defined benefit pension schemes and opaque Level 3 assets.

According a report by the BBC’s MoneyBox Programme, HSBC customers have gone to withdraw cash from their accounts, only to find HSBC would not release the funds. Customers were told to make a bank transfer instead, unless they provided documentation proving the intended use of the money. Stephen Cotton attempted a withdrawal and told the programme:

“When we presented them with the withdrawal slip, they declined to give us the money because we could not provide them with a satisfactory explanation for what the money was for. They wanted a letter from the person involved.”

Mr Cotton says the staff refused to tell him how much he could have: “So I wrote out a few slips. I said, ‘Can I have £5,000?’ They said no. I said, ‘Can I have £4,000?’ They said no. And then I wrote one out for £3,000 and they said, ‘OK, we’ll give you that.’ “

He asked if he could return later that day to withdraw another £3,000, but he was told he could not do the same thing twice in one day.

As this was not a change to the Terms and Conditions of your bank account we had no need to pre-notify customers of the change”

He wrote to complain to HSBC about the new rules and also that he had not been informed of any change.

The bank said it did not have to tell him. “As this was not a change to the Terms and Conditions of your bank account, we had no need to pre-notify customers of the change,” HSBC wrote.

Mr Cotton is not alone, with other customers seeking to withdraw cash amounts over £3,000 facing the same obstacles. While HSBC argue there is comes customer security interest here, the story simply doesn’t add up. Customer identification is required for large withdrawals, not customer intentions – a person’s cash is theirs to withdraw and place wherever they so wish. Instead, HSBC has been found to have a capitalization black hole (gap between actual cash and obligations) of $80bn. The message is simple, get your money out now.
The Gold Rush

The major banks and states appear to be preparing for impending crisis, while pretending to the public that the economic situation is improving.

There is a gold rush underway, with Banks and States frantically buying up as much gold reserve as they can, stoking fears that confidence in currency is at an all-time low. In recent months and weeks, banks like HSBC and JP Morgan, and states such as the US, Germany and China have joined the gold rush, making vast purchases of stocks.

Investment analysts at Seeking Alpha have been monitoring the strange activity on the COMEX, stating:

“keeping track of COMEX inventories is something that is recommended for all serious investors who own physical gold and the gold ETFs (SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), PHYS, and CEF) because any abnormal inventory declines may signify extraordinary events behind the scenes.”


Another Bank Crash? Why?

 

The crash is in some ways a replay of the last one. The US dollar is a fiat currency (as is the pound sterling, the euro and most other major currencies). This means, it is monopoly money. There is no gold reserve that its values are pegged to. It is simply made up. So how does money get made? A private, for profit central bank prints it and lends it to the government (or other banks) at an interest rate. So the Central Bank prints $100, and gives it to the government on the basis that it returns $101. You may have already spotted the first flaw in this process. The additional $1 can only ever come from the Central Bank. There is never enough money. The second issue is that all money is debt.

This used to be the way pretty much all of the money in circulation came to be. That is, until Investment and Retail Banks got tired of this monopoly on debt based currency, and kicked off the commercial money supply. You might assume that when you take out a loan or other form of credit, a bank gives you that money from its reserves, and you then pay back that loan to the Bank at a given interest rate – the Bank making its profit on the interest rate. You would be wrong. The Bank simply creates that loan on a computer screen. Let’s say you are granted a loan for $100,000. The moment that loan is approved and $100k is entered on the computer – that promise from you to the bank creates $100k for the bank, in that instant. This ledger entry alone creates the $100k, from nothing. Today, over 97% of all money that exists, is made this way.

This is what drove the dodgy lending practises that created the last crisis. But since then, the failure to regulate the markets means that while bailouts hit public services and the real economy – banks were free to continue the same behaviour, bringing the next crash.

The world’s second richest man, Warren Buffet warned us in 2003 that the derivatives market was ‘devised by madmen’ and a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ and we have only seen the first blast in this debt apocalypse.

The news that should have us all worried is: the derivatives market contains $700trn of these debts yet to implode.

Global GDP stands at $69.4trn a year. This means that (primarily) Wall Street and the City of London have run up phantom paper debts of more than ten times of the annual earnings of the entire planet.

Not only can the Bankers not pay it back, the combined earning power of the earth could not pay it back in less than ten years if every last cent of our productive power went solely to pay off this debt.

This is why answering the issues with our currencies, our banking practices and economic system are not theoretical or academic – they are a most practical matter of keen urgency.


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

Below you see what is about to happen in the UK, Europe, and the US.  When this happened in Cyprus there was all kinds of discussion as to how this could be legal, but what happens when a government allows itself to be called bankrupt and tied to the IMF is that all sovereignty is lost.  This is what they are doing to the southern European nations and they know that banks will do the same thing in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Greece as was done in Cyprus.

For the US and Americans.....remember the first thing neo-liberals did when the last collapse came was to raise the FDIC insurance of bank accounts to $250,000 per bank, protecting the affluent from losses.  The wealthy no longer have much wealth tied to these accounts and just as Congress voted to raise the FDIC.....it can lower/eliminate it because.....it will not be able to afford to pay the protection....it will default on you and me.


ARE MY DEPOSITS INSURED?

FDIC insurance covers all deposit accounts, including checking and savings accounts, money market deposit accounts and certificates of deposit. The standard insurance amount is $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, for each account ownership category.




Cyprus banks remain closed to avert run on deposits

By Michele Kambas and Karolina Tagaris

NICOSIA Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:44pm EDT


People sit at a cafeteria as Cyprus' President Nicos Anastasiades addresses the nation in Nicosia March 25, 2013. REUTERS-Yorgos Karahalis


Anti-Troika protesters hold a 'Hands off Cyprus' banner during a demonstration outside the EU offices in Nicosia March 24, 2013. REUTERS-Yannis Behrakis

 
(Reuters) - The president of Cyprus assured his people a bailout deal he struck with the European Union was in their best interests, but banks will remain closed until Thursday - and even then subject to capital controls to prevent a run on deposits.

Returned from fraught negotiations in Brussels, President Nicos Anastasiades said late on Monday the 10-billion euro ($13 billion) rescue plan agreed there in the early hours of the morning was "painful" but essential to avoid economic meltdown.

He agreed to close down the second-largest bank, Cyprus Popular, and inflict heavy losses on big depositors, many of them Russian, after Cyprus's outsize financial sector ran into trouble when its investments in neighboring Greece went sour.

European leaders said a chaotic national bankruptcy that might have forced Cyprus from the euro and upset Europe's economy was averted - though investors in other European banks are alarmed by the precedent of losses for depositors in Cyprus.

"The agreement we reached is difficult but, under the circumstances, the best that we could achieve," Anastasiades said in a televised address to the nation on Monday evening.

"We leave behind the uncertainty and anxiety that we all lived through over the last few months and we look forward now to the future with optimism," he told compatriots who face an immediate, deep recession and years of hardship unlikely to be milder than those experienced by Irish, Greeks and Portuguese.

Many Cypriots say they felt anything but reassured by the bailout deal, however, and are expected to besiege banks as soon as they reopen after a shutdown that began over a week ago.

Reversing a previous decision to start reopening at least some banks on Tuesday, the central bank said late on Monday that they would all now stay shut until Thursday to ensure the "smooth functioning of the whole banking system".

Little is known about the restrictions on transactions that Anastasiades said the central bank would impose, but he told Cypriots: "I want to assure you that this will be a very temporary measure that will gradually be relaxed."

Capital controls, preventing people moving funds out of the country, are at odds with the European Union's ideals of a common market but the government may fear an ebb tide of panic that would cause even more disruption to the local economy.

Without an agreement by the end of Monday, Cyprus had faced certain banking collapse and risked becoming the first country to be pushed out of the European single currency - a fate that Germany and other northern creditors seemed willing to inflict on a nation that accounts for just a tiny fraction of the euro economy and whose banks they felt had overreached themselves.

Backed by euro zone finance ministers, the plan will wind down the largely state-owned Cyprus Popular Bank, known as Laiki, and shift deposits under 100,000 euros to the Bank of Cyprus to create a "good bank", leaving problems behind in, effectively, a "bad bank".

Deposits above 100,000 euros in both banks, which are not guaranteed by the state under EU law, will be frozen and used to resolve Laiki's debts and recapitalize the Bank of Cyprus, the island's biggest, through a deposit/equity conversion.


PRECEDENT SET

The raid on uninsured Laiki depositors is expected to raise 4.2 billion euros of the 5.8 billion euros the EU and IMF had told Cyprus to raise as a contribution to the bailout, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said.

Cyprus government spokesman Christos Stylianides said losses for uninsured depositors would be "under or around 30 percent".


Laiki will effectively be shuttered, with thousands of job losses. Officials said senior bondholders in Laiki would be wiped out and those in Bank of Cyprus would have to make a contribution - setting a precedent for the euro zone.

Comments by Dijsselbloem on the need for lenders to banks to accept the potential risks of their failure had a knock-on effect in the euro zone, raising the cost of insuring holdings of bonds issued by other banks, notably in Italy and Spain.

Global equity markets and the euro retreated on his comment that the Cyprus bailout could be a template for solving other problems, by shifting more risk to depositors and stakeholders:

"What we've done last night is what I call pushing back the risks," Dijsselbloem, who heads the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers, told Reuters and the Financial Times.

A first attempt at a deal 10 days ago had collapsed when the Cypriot parliament rejected a proposed levy on all deposits, large and small. That proposal outraged ordinary Cypriots, leading to queues at bank cash machines.

The central bank has imposed a 100-euro daily limit on withdrawals from ATMs at the two biggest banks to avert a run.

PUBLIC SCEPTICAL

Russia signaled it would back the bailout even though it would impose big losses on Russian depositors, who by some estimates may hold a third of all deposits in Cypriot banks.

President Vladimir Putin ordered officials to restructure a loan Moscow granted to Cyprus in 2011 - having rejected Nicosia's request for easier terms in crisis talks last week.

Among Cypriots sipping coffee in warm sunshine, there was a mood of wariness about the deal: "How long will it last?" asked Georgia Xenophontos, 23, a hotel receptionist in Nicosia.

"Why should anyone believe anything this government says?"

In the morning, a public holiday, residents of the capital lined the streets to watch a parade by soldiers and students to mark Greek Independence Day, waving the Greek and Cypriot flags.

"On this day I'm proud to be Greek, but at the same time I feel humiliated," said Marios Charalambous, 56, a print-shop owner. "I'm worried what will happen when the banks reopen."

Cyprus' tottering banks held 68 billion euros in deposits, including 38 billion in accounts of more than 100,000 euros - enormous sums for an nation of 860,000 people that could never sustain such a big financial system on its own.

The U.S. Treasury, noting the importance to the United States of financial stability in Europe, its largest trading partner, said it was now up to Cypriots to rebuild their economy: "It is critical to lay the foundation for a return to financial stability and growth in Cyprus," the Treasury said.

______________________________________________


China's Epic Offshore Wealth Revealed: How Chinese Oligarchs Quietly Parked Up To $4 Trillion In The Caribbean

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/21/2014 20:02 -0500


  The last time the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists made a splash in the financial media was in April of last year year when it disclosed a trove of secret documents revealing a massive treasury of offshore wealth parked away from taxation-happy host governments. The context was clear: in the aftermath of the Cyprus deposit confiscation, public opinion had to turn against those who were exploiting offshore tax loophole in order to avoid a panic that the same "bail in" could happen to the common man.

Needless to say, the circumstances surrounding the release then were rather curious: one day thousands of files - revealing the names behind covert companies used by people from American doctors to Russian executives and international arms dealers - just happened to turn up at a source's house.

Well, the ICIJ is back in the spotlight once again, this time revealing "nearly 22,000 tax haven clients from Hong Kong and mainland China. Among them are some of China’s most powerful men and women — including at least 15 of China’s richest, members of the National People’s Congress and executives from state-owned companies entangled in corruption scandals."

Once again, the source of this treasure trove of data is secret, although we feel the recent Bloomberg cover up (and suspension and termination of Michael Forsyth) regarding a certain investigation into Chinese tycoons' connections with Communist party leaders may have something to do with it. All ICIJ says on the matter is that "In November, a mainland Chinese news organization that was working with ICIJ to analyze the offshore data withdrew from the reporting partnership, explaining that authorities had warned it not to publish anything about the material. ICIJ is keeping the identity of the news outlet confidential to protect journalists from government retaliation." But where the data comes from is largely irrelevant.

What is relevant is that once again the two largest Swiss banks are about to be embroiled in yet another money laundering scandal, this time involving the parking of wealth belonging to China's aristocracy - including its princelings - in various Caribbean, and mostly British Virgin Island, tax havens.

From the ICJC's findings:

PricewaterhouseCoopers, UBS and other Western banks and accounting firms play a key role as middlemen in helping Chinese clients set up trusts and companies in the British Virgin Islands, Samoa and other offshore centers usually associated with hidden wealth, the records show. For instance, Swiss financial giant Credit Suisse helped Wen Jiabao’s son create his BVI company while his father was leading the country.

The files come from two offshore firms — Singapore-based Portcullis TrustNet and BVI-based Commonwealth Trust Limited — that help clients create offshore companies, trusts and bank accounts. They are part of a cache of 2.5 million leaked files that ICIJ has sifted through with help from more than 50 reporting partners in Europe, North America, Asia and other regions.

Since last April, ICIJ’s stories have triggered official inquiries, high-profile resignations and policy changes around the world.

Until now, the details on China and Hong Kong had not been disclosed.

What is notable, if not unexpected, is just how pervasive the parking of offshore capital has been, and confirms that it is not inflow of money that the PBOC has to be afraid of when its internationalizes the Yuan, it is the outflow that will be far more worrisome.

The data illustrates the outsized dependency of the world’s second largest economy on tiny islands thousands of miles away.  As the country has moved from an insular communist system to a socialist/capitalist hybrid, China has become a leading market for offshore havens that peddle secrecy, tax shelters and streamlined international deal making.

Every corner of China’s economy, from oil to green energy and from mining to arms trading, appears in the ICIJ data.

But the biggest stunner is the sheer size of the wealth transfer: according to ICIJ estimate, up to $4 trillion in "untraced assets" may have left China since 2000.

Chinese officials aren’t required to disclose their assets publicly and until now citizens have remained largely in the dark about the parallel economy that can allow the powerful and well-connected to avoid taxes and keep their dealings secret. By some estimates, between $1 trillion and $4 trillion in untraced assets have left the country since 2000.

And while the parking of capital abroad is not illegal, it does contribute to concerns about vast corruption in China, which is also why the current Politburo has been scrambling to cut down on superficial among China's higher echelons. At least optically... And certainly not going to the very top, where it appears the bulk of the corruption resides as the initial data dump discloses.

To be sure, this is just the start of peeling away the layers of China's offshore wealth: the ICIJ provides this teaser: "Along with the China and Hong Kong names, ICIJ’s files also include the names of roughly 16,000 offshore clients from Taiwan. ICIJ will continue to publish stories with its partners in the next few days and will release the Greater China names on its Offshore Leaks Database on Jan. 23."

In the meantime, the ICIJ has disclosed select key individuals that suddenly may have a lot of explaining to do, considering China's very theatrical crackdown on corruption and all that.

The key players, whose life is about to get a whole lot more difficult, are without doubt China's princelings.

China's Politburo Standing Committee is the all-powerful group of seven (formerly nine) men who run the Communist Party and the country. The records obtained by ICIJ show that relatives of at least five current or former members of this small circle have incorporated companies in the Cook Islands or British Virgin Islands.

China’s “red nobility” — elites tied by blood or marriage to the current leadership or Party elders — are also popularly known as “princelings.” Ordinary Chinese have grown increasingly angry over their vast wealth and what many see as the hypocrisy of officials who tout “people-first” ideals but look the other way while their families peddle power and influence for personal gain.

The leaked offshore records include details of a BVI company 50 percent owned by President Xi’s brother-in-law Deng Jiagui. The husband of Xi’s older sister, Deng is a multimillionaire real estate developer and an investor in metals used in cell phones and other electronics. The records show the other half of Excellence Effort Property Development was owned by yet another BVI company belonging to Li Wa and Li Xiaoping, property tycoons who made news in July by winning a $2 billion bid to purchase commercial real estate in Shenzhen.

Since taking over as the Communist Party’s top official in 2012, Xi has sought to burnish his image with an aggressive anti-graft campaign, promising to go after official corruption involving both low-level “flies” and high-level “tigers.” Yet he has crushed a grassroots movement that called for government officials to publicly declare their assets. Wen Jiabao, who stepped down as premier in 2013 after a decade-long tenure, also styled himself as a reformer, cultivating an image of grandfatherly concern for China’s poor.

The ICIJ offshore files reveal that Wen’s son Wen Yunsong set up a BVI-registered company, Trend Gold Consultants, with help from the Hong Kong office of Credit Suisse in 2006. Wen Yunsong was the lone director and shareholder of the firm, which appears to have been dissolved in 2008. 

Bare-bones company structures are often created to open bank accounts in the offshore firm’s name, helping obscure the relationship to the real account owner. It isn’t immediately clear from the documents what Trend Gold Consultants was used for. A U.S.-educated venture capitalist, Wen Yunsong co-founded a China-focused private equity firm and in 2012 became chairman of China’s Satellite Communications Co., a state-owned firm that aspires to be Asia’s largest satellite operator.

ICIJ made repeated attempts to reach Wen Yunsong and other individuals named in this story. Only a few responded. Wen was among those who did not. Citing confidentiality rules, a Credit Suisse spokesman said the bank is “unable to comment on this matter.”

The ICIJ files also shed light on the BVI’s previously unreported role in a burgeoning scandal involving Wen Jiabao’s daughter, Wen Ruchun, also known as Lily Chang. The New York Times has reported that JPMorgan Chase & Co. paid a firm that she ran, Fullmark Consultants, $1.8 million in consulting fees. U.S. securities regulators are investigating the relationship as part of a probe into the bank’s alleged use of princelings to increase its influence in China.

Fullmark Consultants appears to have been set up in a manner that obscured Wen Ruchun’s relationship to the firm, the ICIJ files indicate. Her name does not show up in any of the incorporation documents in the ICIJ data, though a 'Lily Chang' is CC’d in one August, 2009 email correspondence about the company. Her husband Liu Chunhang, a former Morgan Stanley finance guru, created Fullmark Consultants in the BVI in 2004 and was the sole director and shareholder of the firm until 2006, the same year he took a government job at the agency that regulates China’s banking industry.

Liu transferred control of the company, the ICIJ files show, to a Wen family friend, Zhang Yuhong, a wealthy businesswoman and colleague of Wen Jiabao’s brother. The Times reported that Zhang also helped control other Wen family assets including diamond and jewelry ventures. 

The ICIJ files show that offshore provider Portcullis TrustNet billed UBS AG for a certificate of good standing for Fullmark Consultants in October 2005, indicating a business relationship between Fullmark and the Swiss bank. In response to ICIJ’s questions, UBS issued a statement saying its “know-your-client” policies as well as procedures to deal with politically-sensitive clients are among “the strictest in the industry.” Liu and Zhang did not respond to ICIJ's requests for comment.

A 2007 U.S. Department of State cable passed along a source’s tip that Premier Wen was “disgusted with his family’s activities,” and that “Wen’s wife and children all have a reputation as people who can ‘get things done’ for the right price.” The cable, part of the Wikileaks document dump, reported that Wen’s kin “did not necessarily take bribes, [but] they are amenable to receiving exorbitant ‘consulting fees.’ ”

The records also include incorporations by relatives of Deng Xiaoping, former Premier Li Peng, and former President Hu Jintao.

China experts say that the growing wealth and business interests of the princelings, including offshore holdings, are a dangerous liability for the ruling Communist Party but that people in leadership positions are too involved to stop it.

“What’s the point of running the Communist Party if you can’t get a couple billion for your family?” said Steve Dickinson, a China-based American lawyer who has investigated fraud cases involving BVI companies. “The issue is enormous and has tremendous significance for China, and the fact that everybody dances around it and doesn’t want to talk about it is understandable but scandalous.”


Perhaps now, finally, the dancing will stop. Because for the first time, key players are named. First the "Red Nobility" (full list here)


0 Comments

January 17th, 2014

1/17/2014

0 Comments

 
SO FAR IT HAS BEEN BERNIE SANDERS AND RUSS FEINGOLD THAT HAVE SHOUTED FOR STRONG BANK REFORM AND JUSTICE IN THESE MASSIVE FRAUDS....SO LET'S GET THEM TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT/VICE-PRESIDENT IN 2016!!!



Did you hear the corporate NPR introduction of Obama's next Wall Street appointment to an agency supposedly protecting the public from economic instability and work for high employment?  What a stellar appointment of a good all-round guy!!!  We all love him!  Now, if you look at the US Federal Reserve as the center of global corporate tribunal rule acting to place massive corporate fraud on steroids and installing policy that keeps the public caught in boom and bust crony and criminal markets losing all their wealth and causing ever-growing levels of unemployment.....ALL MAXIMIZING WEALTH FOR THE FEW---- you see from where this promotion comes. Indeed, Fischer is in fact THAT good ole' boy.  In the days of TPP there is no public sector or US citizens to consider for goodness sake!

For those who know better you'll see below how the Fischer/Bernake/Draghi fit goes with the TROIKA mess that has hold of the US and Europe.  You can follow the money to see his place in the pecking order of moving massive wealth.  Again, we want to thank Anonymous and those hackers that are doing civil disobedience and not stealing people's pin numbers.....hacking to download banking information that is allowing International Journalists to follow the money to off-shore accounts to the tune so far of $35 trillion dollars.  We are getting a great picture of who has the money and where it is so when Rule of Law is reinstated the people of Europe and US will be able to recover the loot and reverse wealth inequity.  THIS IS WHERE FISCHER COMES INTO THE PICTURE.

We all remember when Obama placed Greenspan's deputy and Geithner to head Financial agencies needed by the public to hold banks accountable.  These two where of course in the forefront of allowing the massive frauds to go forward while everyone was shouting MASSIVE AND SYSTEMIC MORTGAGE AND FINANCIAL FRAUD throughout the 2000s.  This is now round two of 'IT'S ABOUT THE GLOBAL TRIBUNAL AS WORLD RULER' politics.
  Yellen has stated she supports all of what Bernanke did so she will be status quo for the US economy and wealth inequity.


For those liking to follow the financial fraud this is the next connection of dots in the revolving door of cronyism.  It is important because as more people see how corrupt this system is, the more people will move to revolution.  Fischer is MIT material tied to Summers and Italy's Draghi.  Draghi is now head of the European ECB.  We all know Summers as Clinton's global market king and MIT is of course farm team for Wall Street.  Fischer's connection with the BAnk of Israel coincides with the exact time Wall Street was moving massive amounts of money off-shore and guess where the top off-shore location was according to International Investigative Journalists using WIKILEAKS hacking download of Wall Street banks showing the movement of $35 trillion dollars?????  ISRAEL WAS ONE TO THE TOP LOCATIONS.  Know why Pope Benedict retired suddenly...Draghi's Italy used the Vatican Bank to move money from NYC through the Vatican.  See the crony?  It is all illegal and it is all documented by International Justice groups!!!!



Obama to nominate Stanley Fischer, 2 others to Federal Reserve seats

By Jim Puzzanghera January 10, 2014, 8:35 a.m. Los Angeles Times



WASHINGTON -- President Obama will nominate Stanley Fischer, the former head of the Bank of Israel, to be vice chair of the Federal Reserve, and also tapped two other people for seats on the central bank's Board of Governors, the White House said Friday.

Lael Brainard, who recently stepped down as Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, was chosen to fill one of the vacant seats on the seven-member Fed board.

And Jerome H. Powell, a former Treasury official and investment banker who has served on the Fed board since 2012, will be renominated. Powell was confirmed to an unexpired term that expires on Jan. 31.

PHOTOS: Federal Reserve chairs through the years

"These three distinguished individuals have the proven experience, judgment and deep knowledge of the financial system to serve at the Federal Reserve during this important time for our economy," Obama said.

The nominations, which had been expected, add to the major changes coming at the Fed as it tries to pull back on its aggressive stimulus efforts without damaging the economic recovery.

Current Vice Chair Janet L. Yellen was confirmed this week to replace Ben S. Bernanke, whose second four-year term as central bank chair expires on Jan. 31. She will lead a different, and potentially more fractious Fed policy-making team.

This month, four new regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents will rotate into the 12 voting positions on the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, which sets monetary policy. All seven Fed governors are voting members.

Friday's disappointing government report showing the economy created just 74,000 net new jobs in December highlighted the difficulties for Fed policymakers. They must decide if the economy is strong enough to continue the reduction started last month in the Fed's bond-buying stimulus program, when most data pointed to an improving labor market.

Fischer, who was governor of the Bank of Israel from 2005-13, is a legendary economist who brings a wealth of experience to the Fed board.

He has worked at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and was vice chairman of Citigroup Inc. from 2002-05.

Fischer was the PhD advisor for outgoing Fed Chair Ben S. Bernanke at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Fischer also taught European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers.

If confirmed by the Senate, Fischer would replace Yellen as the Fed's No. 2 official.

"He is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading and most experienced economic policy minds and I’m grateful he has agreed to take on this new role and I am confident that he and Janet Yellen will make a great team," Obama said.

Brainard also brings international experience to the Fed. And she helps close a pending gender gap on the central bank's board. Elizabeth Duke stepped down last year and Sarah Bloom Raskin is awaiting confirmation as deputy Treasury secretary.

If Raskin departs as expected, Yellen would be the only woman remaining on the board.

Obama said Brainard's "knowledge of international monetary and economic issues will be an important addition to the Fed."

Powell served as an assistant secretary and under secretary at the Treasury Department under President George H.W. Bush.

Fed governors have 14-year terms but rarely serve all of it. Powell is nominated to a full 14-year term. Fischer would fill a term expiring in 2020 and Brainard one expiring in 2026.


_______________________________________________________________________
Below you see nothing has been done with the Financial Reform Bill.  Volcker demanded long ago that his name be taken off of what neo-liberals are pretending are rules that will safeguard the banking system.  NO ONE BELIEVES THAT.  I'v spoken as to the importance of bank capitalization and the fact that most financial experts wanted this to be at least 20%...below you see the TROIKA as will the FED move away from any accountability.  Remember, QE and 0% recapitalized the banks by taking all the most toxic subprime mortgages off the banks accounting and move them to the FED in the trillions of dollars.  THIS IS WHAT CORPORATE NPR CALLS 'THE BANKS/CORPORATIONS ARE HEALTHY NOW'.

Somehow we are getting bank warnings that requiring capital will hurt lending that has yet to happen as they roll in profit and will not happen as the goal is to consolidate all small and regional businesses into these global corporations.


The two issues in financial reform were banks having enough capital to cover leverage and the Glass Steagall separation of bank's money from its consumers....the Volcker Rule was advanced for this. So, capitalization many thought needed to be 20% as it had historically been 70%. When the financial reform debate was hot we were told we would get 8-10% which was a start, but now we see below they are back where it was before the crash....3%. NOT ONE CHANGE HAS BEEN MADE....NOT ONE BIT OF ACCOUNTABILITY.....AND THIS IS BECAUSE WE HAVE A NEO-LIBERAL PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS.

KEEP IN MIND THAT IT IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE WRITING MANY  OF THESE LAWS AND CHOOSES TO ENFORCE REGULATIONS OR NOT.  SINCE NEO-LIBERALS CONSIDER TPP A DONE DEAL.....ALL THE POLICY IS ABOUT WHAT MAXIMIZES PROFIT....MORE NAKED CAPITALISM.

What the American people want is a President that appoints people that want the opposite.....more capitalization, more regulation, and more downsizing by recovering tens of trillions of dollars in fraud still owed. 


SO FAR IT HAS BEEN BERNIE SANDERS AND RUSS FEINGOLD THAT HAVE SHOUTED FOR STRONG BANK REFORM AND JUSTICE IN THESE MASSIVE FRAUDS....SO LET'S GET THEM TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT/VICE-PRESIDENT IN 2016!!!

Debt Rule Faces Dilution as Regulators Heed Bank Warnings

By Jim Brunsden Jan 10, 2014 8:05 AM ET

Lenders are poised to win concessions from central bank chiefs and global regulators over a debt limit they criticized as a blunt instrument that would penalize low-risk activities and curtail lending.

A revised leverage-ratio plan is set to be laxer than a draft published last year by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, said a person familiar with the scope of a Jan. 12 meeting of the group’s oversight body at which the measure will be discussed.

Leverage ratios are designed to curb banks’ reliance on debt by setting a minimum standard for how much capital they must hold as a percentage of all assets on their books. A quarter of large global lenders would have failed to meet the draft version of the leverage limit had it been in force at the end of 2012, according to data published by the committee in September.

“I expect considerable change in the rule to defer to applicable national accounting systems,” Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner of Washington-based research firm Federal Financial Analytics Inc., said in an e-mail. “If the rule in fact doesn’t do this, it will wreak tremendous havoc in securities financing, repo, and other capital-market activities and send them over to the shadows.”

Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said, “My personal view, is that a leverage ratio... Read More

Some supervisors have called for greater use of leverage ratios instead of standard Basel capital requirements, which are measured as a ratio of banks’ equity against risk-weighted assets, because banks are inconsistent in the way they calculate these standards.

Asset Size The draft leverage rule published last year would have required banks to hold capital equivalent to at least 3 percent of their assets, without any possibility to take into account the riskiness of their investments. Stefan Ingves, the Basel committee’s chairman, has said that discussions in the group have focused on calibrating how banks should calculate the size of their assets, as opposed to reopening talks on the 3 percent figure.

“In our view, the final leverage rule will be significantly moderated to avoid it becoming a binding constraint on bank lending activity,” research firm Capital Alpha Partners LLC wrote in a note to clients yesterday.

The “most likely adjustments will be to allow for greater netting for derivatives and securities financing transactions,” according to the note. There is also “a good chance” that regulators will scale back rules on how banks must calculate the size of some off balance sheet commitments, it said.

Stated Intentions The Basel committee declined to comment on the leverage ratio talks.

“Overall and in contrast to publicly stated intentions, a binding leverage ratio may actually encourage increased risk-taking by European banks while at the same time forcing them to cut back on low-risk exposures” such as derivatives used to hedge risk, Jan Schildbach, senior economist at Deutsche Bank Research, said in an e-mail. This would potentially hurt “their clients and the European economy as a whole.”

Global regulators have met for almost 40 years in Basel, Switzerland, to negotiate common standards for supervising the banking system.

The Jan. 12 meeting will be of the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision, or GHOS, which oversees the committee’s work and is comprised of central bank and regulatory chiefs. The GHOS is led by Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank.

Bank Strength Relying on leverage ratios to assess a bank’s strength wouldn’t be sensible as the measure can easily be influenced and is hard to compare between lenders under different reporting standards, Rabobank Groep Chief Financial Officer Bert Bruggink said in an interview this week.

“For banks reporting under European accounting rules, a leverage ratio of 3 percent or 4 percent is very well defendable,” Bruggink said. “Requiring higher numbers, especially if that’s done with reference to U.S. banks, would be wrong and harmful to the economy.”

Main Item The leverage measure is the main item on the agenda for the GHOS talks, according to two other people familiar with the talks. All three asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.

Under the published Basel timetable, banks will be expected to publicly disclose how well they measure up to the standard from 2015, with the rule to become a binding minimum standard in 2018.

Banks such as BNP Paribas SA (BNP), Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. (C) have called for a rewrite of the draft leverage rule published in June, saying it would adversely affect economic growth and job creation, make it more expensive for governments to sell their debt and give banks incentives to invest in riskier assets.

“The leverage ratio instrument sets the wrong incentives by discriminating against low-risk business, which also accounts for a larger share of European banks’ operations than for U.S. institutions,” Schildbach said. “In addition, in the U.S., a compulsory leverage ratio has been in place for many years already, whereas the Europeans are used to align their business models to a system of risk-weighted capital ratios.”

More Scope Banks have called on the committee to alter the rule by giving lenders more scope to carry out netting, which would allow them to reduce the size of the pool of assets used to calculate the leverage ratio.

Netting is an accounting term describing the process of banks offsetting the value of different assets and liabilities they have taken on with a single counterparty.

Lenders have argued that they should be allowed to net the collateral received on derivatives trades because otherwise the protection they gain wouldn’t be taken into account by the leverage ratio. They have also called for more scope to use netting on securities financing transactions such as repurchase agreements, or repos.

Other requests from banks have included that assets perceived to bear little risk of loss, such as high quality mortgage debt, should be exempted or partially exempted from the leverage ratio calculation.

Playing Field Knowing how the international leverage ratio is defined “is important domestically for a level playing field,” Bank of England Governor Mark Carney told U.K. lawmakers in November, according to a public record of the proceedings.

“My personal view, is that a leverage ratio is an integral part of the capital framework of banks, so it is absolutely necessary,” Carney said.

There is no chance that all high quality assets will be removed from the calculations, Simon Hills, executive director at the British Bankers’ Association, said in a telephone interview.

“The most we can probably hope for on scope is a little movement,” he said. “Our priority is that cash held with central banks should be excluded from the leverage ratio calculations, as well as gilt purchases made as part of central bank monetary policy operations. We think that merits another look.”



__________________________________________________
As corporate NPR and local WYPR pretend they do not know the economy is ready to implode with the same conditions as last time only instead of subprime mortgage fraud in the trillions it will be sovereign and muncipal bond debt that took Europe last crash.  We are over the $600 trillion leverage mark now!

This is why Fischer and Yellen are so important for the global tribunal because they both will use the same system of bailout and coverup that Bernanke and Geithner did in 2007-2008.



Derivatives: The $600 Trillion Time Bomb That's Set to Explode
  • By Keith Fitz-Gerald, Chief Investment Strategist, Money Map Report  ·   October 12, 2011  ·   Print  |   Email
56
    Text sizeA++A+A
Keith Fitz-Gerald Do you want to know the real reason banks aren't lending and the PIIGS have control of the barnyard in Europe?

It's because risk in the $600 trillion derivatives market isn't evening out. To the contrary, it's growing increasingly concentrated among a select few banks, especially here in the United States.

In 2009, five banks held 80% of derivatives in America. Now, just four banks hold a staggering 95.9% of U.S. derivatives, according to a recent report from the Office of the Currency Comptroller.

The four banks in question: JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS).

Derivatives played a crucial role in bringing down the global economy, so you would think that the world's top policymakers would have reined these things in by now - but they haven't.

Instead of attacking the problem, regulators have let it spiral out of control, and the result is a $600 trillion time bomb called the derivatives market.

Think I'm exaggerating?

The notional value of the world's derivatives actually is estimated at more than $600 trillion. Notional value, of course, is the total value of a leveraged position's assets. This distinction is necessary because when you're talking about leveraged assets like options and derivatives, a little bit of money can control a disproportionately large position that may be as much as 5, 10, 30, or, in extreme cases, 100 times greater than investments that could be funded only in cash instruments.

The world's gross domestic product (GDP) is only about $65 trillion, or roughly 10.83% of the worldwide value of the global derivatives market, according to The Economist. So there is literally not enough money on the planet to backstop the banks trading these things if they run into trouble.

Compounding the problem is the fact that nobody even knows if the $600 trillion figure is accurate, because specialized derivatives vehicles like the credit default swaps that are now roiling Europe remain largely unregulated and unaccounted for.

Tick...Tick...Tick To be fair, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) estimated the net notional value of uncollateralized derivatives risks is between $2 trillion and $8 trillion, which is still a staggering amount of money and well beyond the billions being talked about in Europe.

Imagine the fallout from a $600 trillion explosion if several banks went down at once. It would eclipse the collapse of Lehman Brothers in no uncertain terms.

A governmental default would panic already anxious investors, causing a run on several major European banks in an effort to recover their deposits. That would, in turn, cause several banks to literally run out of money and declare bankruptcy.

Short-term borrowing costs would skyrocket and liquidity would evaporate. That would cause a ricochet across the Atlantic as the institutions themselves then panic and try to recover their own capital by withdrawing liquidity by any means possible.

And that's why banks are hoarding cash instead of lending it.

The major banks know there is no way they can collateralize the potential daisy chain failure that Greece represents. So they're doing everything they can to stockpile cash and keep their trading under wraps and away from public scrutiny.

What really scares me, though, is that the banks

think this is an acceptable risk because the odds of a default are allegedly smaller than one in 10,000.

But haven't we heard that before?

Although American banks have limited their exposure to Greece, they have loaned hundreds of billions of dollars to European banks and European governments that may not be capable of paying them back.

According to the Bank of International Settlements, U.S. banks have loaned only $60.5 billion to banks in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy - the countries most at risk of default. But they've lent $275.8 billion to French and German banks.

And undoubtedly bet trillions on the same debt.

There are three key takeaways here:

  • There is not enough capital on hand to cover the possible losses associated with the default of a single counterparty - JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), BNP Paribas SA (PINK: BNPQY) or the National Bank of Greece (NYSE ADR: NBG) for example - let alone multiple failures.
  • That means banks with large derivatives exposure have to risk even more money to generate the incremental returns needed to cover the bets they've already made.
  • And the fact that Wall Street believes it has the risks under control practically guarantees that it doesn't.
Seems to me that the world's central bankers and politicians should be less concerned about stimulating "demand" and more concerned about fixing derivatives before this $600 trillion time bomb goes off.


__________________________________________________
Corporate NPR/APM likes to tell us that the world's economy is getting better now that looted money has made it to offshore accounts and austerity in Europe and US has the public filling the $17 trillion whole in the national deficit caused by the massive frauds.  The free money and QE has moved most of the US real estate into the hands of these huge investment firms now controlling development and soaking people with rents and slum-landlording.  YES, THIS IS INDEED THE NEW ECONOMY!!!

So, as Americans pray the TPP nations that signed the treaty can bring down their governments to end the TPP......and as we pray that the Atlantic Trade deal will fall because of loss of trust created by the NSA exposure and Europe's farm/environment issues that will not bend to US naked capitalism.....this we know:

Europeans are not all rosy and cheerily agreeing to austerity and TROIKA rule and the dismantling of their social programs and labor unions contracts.  In fact the move for dismantling the Euro is far stronger and Wall Street knows that the shock from this default will be traumatic to the world and US economy.  What is happening in Spain, Wall Street's favorite nation following TROIKA orders as you see below is a return of Fascism to Spain.  Global corporate tribunals will be totalitarianism and while Americans have not known this personally and this is why we are slow to fight.....

EUROPEANS HAVE ALL OF THIS AUTOCRACY IN RECENT MEMORY AND THEY WILL NOT ALLOW IT TO CREEP!  That's why the NSA scandal was so important, it is why attempts to pass laws limiting protest and political speech happening in the US will not fly in Europe.  Remember, it was Germany/DeutscheBank and Wall Street/Goldman Sachs that started this full fledged attack on social governments over the decade and it started with fraudulent financial instruments hiding sovereign debt and then loading these countries with tremendous municipal debt.  Europeans know this dynamic and will not join a European union with Germany leading the TROIKA and the UK fat on massive financial fraud on top!  As we see the PIIGS nations have been made IMF developing world wards with this massive fraud and attack on their sovereignty!

What does that mean to you and me?  It means that all the US pensions and municipal bonds that are now propping up these European nations under attack by the TROIKA will default and just as with these same US pensions./municipal bonds sent into the stock market to prop up the Wall Street banks in 2007 losing 1/2 their value to fraud.....it is about to happen big time sometime soon and your politician, your pension fund manager knows this!  With the amount of debt Wall Street has....$600 trillion in leveraged debt, the FED has several trillion in leveraged debt, the US Federal debt of $17 trillion, and local credit bond and municipal debt soaking local budgets-----


THIS WILL BE A DEPRESSION-MAKER JUST AS WE HEAD INTO 2014 ELECTION YEAR.  REMEMBER OBAMA ELECTED JUST AS THE LAST CRASH HIT?  WE WILL HEAR ALL POLICY AGAIN SURROUNDING BAILING OUT THE ECONOMY.

This is where Obama's Federal Reserve appointments come into play as the same system of bailouts and protection from fraud happen all over!!

The EU is a new form of colonialism – it’s time to break free

Posted by revoltingeurope ⋅ January 14, 2014 ⋅ 


Spain has a future but it means breaking with the Eurozone and EU institutions, argue Hector Illueca and Adoración Guamán

The economic crisis affecting our country and the austerity policies imposed by the troika (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund) are leading to an increasingly evident social fracture. Astonished citizens observe the degradation of everyday life and the tolerance of abuses of power by the most privileged in the country. The deterioration of the material conditions of an increasingly wide social majority comes accompanied by grave corruption scandals that have infected the political and economic elites, shining a light on a society in which injustice and inequality are ever more entrenched.

In this context, the dream of European integration has become a nightmare of a brutal present and a bleak future. Citizens have been quite deliberately served up a false, ideological and idyllic image of the European Union, with the media projecting a mythical vision quite removed from reality: the truth is that the European Union completely alien to the principles of cohesion and solidarity collaborative solidarity and has become a sort of German hunting ground where strong economies exploit their economic and commercial advantages to crush the weak economies. This is a European Union governed by the law of the jungle .


However, the severity of the economic situation and declining well-being has cast aside the veil and the inhabitants of the periphery are starting to understand that they are victims of a new settlement. It is increasingly difficult to hide that the introduction of the euro has led to a centre-periphery relationship within the European Union, where the North dominates the South. It is no longer possible to deny that the single currency has benefited Germany and the other rich countries of Europe, strengthening their position in the European scheme as net exporters of capital goods and consumption, and net importers of overall demand.

To put it plainly and simply: economic and monetary union has allowed the core countries, especially Germany, to accumulate growing trade surpluses in Europe, blocking any possibility of competitive devaluation and fuelling a radical redistribution of work to the detriment of the less powerful economies of the Mediterranean basin. Strong core countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, increase their competitiveness, retain their national sovereignty and finance their welfare states due to loss of competitiveness and the destruction of sovereignty and welfare in the European periphery.

The new European division of labour

Spanish workers, along with workers in other peripheral economies, have become a reservoir of low cost labour. As noted by others, the process of European integration has created a new international division of labour, fuelling colonialist dynamics characterized by German hegemony and the subordination of peripheral [1 ] economies. This is what explains why state control over the market and the protection of social rights are being dismantled according to the dictates of economic and monetary union.

When this process clashes with state provisions in social policy, peripheral states adapt their welfare systems, always, to be clear, reducing the protection of labour and social rights. Social dumping has not only not been challenged, but it has been fostered, placing labour regulation as a competitive factor and triggering a fierce regulatory Darwinism to reduce labour standards and social protection.

SOUND FAMILIAR?????  SAME THING HAPPENING IN THE US!!!

The new European division of labour explains and promotes the progressive destruction of state -sponsored social models desired by the Troika and which is immediately apparent in two key areas: the flexibility of labour markets (in particular, lowering the protection for stabile employment and cutting the cost of labour) and the reduction of welfare, in particular social security systems (reducing pensions, health care reforms, etc. . ) .

Its influence is also evident in the education reform in Spain pursued by Minister Wert, reforms which are also sponsored by European institutions, which guide the educational system towards the formation of cheap labour and providing the knowledge needed to deal appropriately with the garbage that characterizes the labour market in underdeveloped countries. The dependent and peripheral position of our economy in the European scheme is radically incompatible with the existence of public pensions, education and public health and a fair and decent job market.

By accepting the dictates of the Troika, the ruling classes of the peripheral countries show their inability to take an independent path for their respective countries and seal a relationship of subordination and dependence similar to that which occurs in the process of classic colonization, characterized by the systematic dispossession of peripheral economies and the exploitation of its workers. We must not forget that they are the ruling classes of the Member States which have built and paid for this European Union model, under whose untouchable legitimacy the most unpopular and tough reforms have sheltered. The undermining of the bargaining position of the unions is the price of the treacherous collusion of the elites of the deficit countries in forging a strong and stable alliance with the German bourgeoisie to impose a new political and social order throughout Europe.

More Europe?

In this context, it is surprising that certain sectors of the Spanish and European left insist on reforming the eurozone as a solution to the current social and economic emergency. With something of a Panglossian air, they invoke the need for “more Europe” , denounce the fragmentation of fiscal policy and the criticise the ECB for providing ample liquidity to banks while abandoning indebted member states to face speculative attacks.

They propose the abolition of the Stability Pact, the creation of a fiscal authority and amendments to the statutes of the ECB to enable loans to governments experiencing difficulties. In a burst of ingenuity, they even speak of a “good euro” in which one could establish a European minimum wage to reduce the competitiveness differentials between countries.

This is an illusion that for decades has paralyzed much of the left and the labour movement and blocked the construction of an alternative at the service of the masses of our country. The euro area lacks a single European state and there is no expectation that one will be created in the near future. The unification of fiscal policy would mean a complete restructuring of sovereignty throughout the European Union, constructed from a strict hierarchy of states and a careful calculation of national interests, and would require a consensus that will not occur.

Any possible reform would follow the existing hierarchy of power, characterized by the dominance of the countries of the centre and especially Germany. To be exact, the euro has been the means to build the hegemony of German capital, which has inexorably imposed itself on the European stage and prevents the possibility of implementing a programme that meets the needs of the social majority.

Time for a break

In our opinion, any political agenda that seeks to actually break with neoliberalism, even in a reformist direction, should seriously consider euro exit. As noted by Costas Lapavitsas [2 ] , the only progressive answer for our people is to leave the euro zone and regain control of sovereignty in the context of a radical shift in economic and social power to labour.


This strategy must start with the default on sovereign debt and extends to a euro exit to allow our country to escape the cataclysm of internal devaluation imposed by the European Union. Our country has a future, but a decent future will necessarily mean breaking with this Europe and the European institutions.
0 Comments

December 07th, 2013

12/7/2013

0 Comments

 
These three headlines BELOW show how global corporations and naked capitalism are under attack by people with a voice.  Now, we understand that this may just be the 'now that we have all the money let's go back to the 1960s and save the poor' routine------that's why I am reserved about Warren.....but she is saying the right things and I think it is making neo-liberals uncomfortable.  WE NEED MORE OF THIS!

Neo-liberals are exposed and are trying to ram as much through Congress as possible before the elections.  You see the TPP deal at the end of the blog.  The American people need to remember that all of this is illegal and will be reversed and all we need to do is GET RID OF THE NEO-LIBERALS BY RUNNING AND VOTING FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL PRIMARIES!


Thursday, December 5, 2013

Elizabeth Warren Attacks Beltway Powerhouse Third Way as Fronting for Wall Street

______________________________________


Pope blames tyranny of capitalism for making people miserable

Date May 18, 2013
  • Autoplay OnOff
  • Video feedback
  • Video settings
Rome: Pope Francis has attacked the ''dictatorship'' of the global financial system and warned that the ''cult of money'' is making life a misery for millions.

He said free market capitalism had created a ''tyranny'' and that people were being judged purely by their ability to consume goods.


_______________________________________
Whether Socialists or Labor tickets, people are running for office and taking back Congress and the state house......and the 1% notice!

Ohioans Elect Two Dozen City Councilors on Independent Labor Ticket
December 04, 2013 / Bruce Bostick

After one too many sell-outs by the local Democratic Party, the Lorain County central labor council decided to draw "a line in the sand" and run their own city council candidates on an Independent Labor Party ticket. Two dozen won seats—including union teacher Joshua Thornsberry, shown canvassing with his young son, who beat the head of the local Chamber of Commerce. Photo: Joshua Thornsberry.

Union-dense Lorain County, Ohio, is now home to an independent labor slate of two dozen newly elected city councilors—recruited and run by the central labor council there. All labor’s candidates had strong showings last month, and all but two were elected.

“This was a step we took reluctantly,” said Lorain County AFL-CIO President Harry Williamson. “When the leaders of the [Democratic] Party just took us for granted and tried to roll over the rights of working people here, we had to stand up.”

___________________________________________


If you listened to the corporate NPR political discussion between two global corporate pundits......Brooks and EJ Dionne....you can hear the unease in both pundit's voice and the defensiveness in their discussion.  THE GLOBAL PLUTOCRACY IS SHAKEN BY THE FACT THAT THE WORLD KNOWS THE TRUTH......

speak truth to power

A phrase coined by the Quakers during in the mid-1950s. It was a call for the United States to stand firm against fascism and other forms of totalitarianism; it is a phrase that seems to unnerve political right, with reason.The founders of United States risked their lives in order to speak truth to power, that of King George. It was and is considered courageous, although is more commonly scorned today.


This happened through whistleblowers like Manning, Snowden, and Wikileaks/Assange.  This release of truth was not in the plan of world dominance.  It also comes as US citizens are seeing neo-liberal policy unfold......health reform, education reform, and the policies making the rich richer with a suspended Rule of Law and no justice for the public.


IT REALLY IS IMPORTANT TO SPREAD THE WORD.

YOU KNOW BY NOW THE PUNDITS THAT LED YOU ON......MSNBC AND THE NEO-LIBERALS LIKE EJ DIONNE.  YOU KNOW I HAVE SHOUTED FOR YEARS THAT WHAT HAS HAPPENED WOULD HAPPEN, SO THESE PEOPLE WERE NOT SURPRISED.....THEY ARE FEEDING YOU MIS-INFORMATION!

In these two days I showed were global corporations are now open about their plans to dominate.  Whether ALCOA on the stage for SKILLS GAP telling us that we will not be hired if taxpayer funded community colleges are not made into corporate Human Resources job training or General Electric and now Lockheed Martin becoming the health care systems FROM ANYONE'S NIGHTMARE.  Maryland is ground zero for any global corporation as health care provider.....remember, we have a hedge fund (Carlyle Group) owned Manor Care handling all our senior care centers!

This is the point of today's blog......WE CAN TELL THESE GLOBAL CORPORATIONS TO GO TAKE A HIKE AND SEND THEM THE BILL FOR MASSIVE FRAUD THROUGH THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURTS.  The US must return to a domestic economy with strong labor wages and small and regional businesses if we are to remain a democracy and return to first world.  Mayors and governors are the executives at the state level to do that-----no state assembly needed. 
START THERE!

I want to remind people that Noam Chomsky said very clearly that the only thing that comes from corporate rule is totalitarianism.  PERIOD.  Hitler's fascism expanded through his takeover of business in each country he conquered and that is what is happening in today's politics......neo-liberals deliberately created this global empire as corporations to takeover the developed world's governing structure.  Looking locally, that is why Baltimore is literally a corporate town run by Hopkins who says 'if you want to work, you will work for Hopkins' as they have  much of the consolidated business in the city.  No public sector since private non-profits run by these same people write the public policy etc......this is TOTALITARIANISM!


SHAKE THE BUGS FROM THE RUG BY RUNNING LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL PRIMARIES AGAINST NEO-LIBERALS.  MARYLAND DEMOCRATS ARE ALL NEO-LIBERALS!

These 1% are afraid because now everyone knows that neo-liberals are the same as neo-cons---the same in Europe and once citizens organize all of this will disappear!

Is Humanity Declaring Checkmate On The New World Order?
  • mr.z
  • December 5, 2013

Bernie Suarez

What is the line between confidence and acknowledgement of victory? Early celebration versus clear vision of how nature will handle a conflict within itself? Is victory and hope truly all imaginary or is there something more to it?

As humanity exponentially wakes up to the plans of the global elite (those in power, the ruling class, the “Illuminati” or whatever you want to call them), when will it officially become common knowledge that, yes, we are in trouble as a species unless and until we put a working system in place that holds all politicians, government and private corporations accountable for their actions? This expected new level of accountability is the mass awakening and official paradigm shift we have all been waiting for and I suggest that we are mighty close to at this point in history.

As the secluded and secretive government elite continue to struggle to push their global agenda only to run into increasing mass opposition, those at the very top of the control structure are no double worried that their time is up. They must know how humanity works as do we. Humanity generates thoughts which we share with each other. Governments are nothing more that organized thoughts and agreements among a set of people who also have logistical control and means to enforce their agreements (laws and statutes). Thankfully, grassroots movements, humanitarian efforts, and passionate displays of moral human consciousness also have a life of their own and ultimately have shown to have never-ending effects on humanity throughout history.

Fact is, humanity applauds those who have stood for morality, justice, and peace more than it esteems warmongers and tyrants. The jury was in on this issue long ago. Thankfully we do not have to debate on the meaning of what is wrong and what is right on a personal level. The argument for war, killing, torture, and oppression of humans is only offered to humanity from a political perspective barring the rare religious fanatical belief that promotes this ideology which we now know, in this generation was and has been an engineered radicalization of groups now known to have been sponsored, armed, educated, radicalized, and trained by the very corrupt secret government and individuals who we are now fully exposing. In other words, we now know that the radical (Muslim) fundamentalism which has been alleged and has led to supposed violence around the world in our times was and is politically engineered.

With no clear justification for the atrocities that the U.S. Empire and the new world order has brought on the world, the global elite stand alone, hoping that humanity simply doesn’t wake up politically to their agenda. We, the truth seekers of our time, are here to destroy that hope; the hope that the globalist had, that their Bilderberg meetings would remain secret. Yes that hope. The hope that the global elite had, to keep the masses believing their constant lies and their constant false flag operations in order to keep everyone in fear. That hope is now dwindling to nothing as humanity wakes up.

The globalists were hoping the 9/11 truth movement was going to go away; instead it grew into a worldwide phenomenon with more and more people waking up to the easy (9/11 was an inside job proving) 9/11 science every day. Then there was the hope that the global elite had to keep the NSA spying a secret, and that hope was shattered by Edward Snowden as the world now is fully awakened to this evil agenda of spying, recording, and filing mass records into fusion center databases.

We are all now well aware of the drone killing programs paid for and approved by the Obama administration; the power grab to suppress free-speech even at the Internet level; the push to take guns and gun rights away; the implementation of a global ‘climate religion’ carbon tax and international environmental laws to subvert and trivialize individual, local, and national sovereignty; the militarization of police nationwide including in states and towns with little to no crime.

We are now aware of how evil Obamacare is and how it will be used to force the globalist style control grid on all forms of human activity here in the United States. People everywhere are going into their own ‘shock and awe’ seeing and understanding what Obamacare is really all about. Activists nationwide are working on solutions to these now very clear problems, solutions to disempower the federal government and return the power back to the people. America has experienced this before, we were all due for a tough challenge; we all knew from history that freedom is not free and that the only people in the world who deserve freedom are those willing to fight for it.

I now hear the wake-up call nationwide. I see and hear the voices of freedom that make me feel like I should be doing more. More than ever before people are wondering what they can do to make a difference. This is a good sign for America and for our future. We may not see it yet, and the road ahead may still look dark. We all expect things to get worse before they get better. Deep down, however, many of us are now realizing this is the cycle we were waiting for. Things must get worse in order for more people to wake up. This is the reality we must all see before we truly realize we are all in control and where this is going.

With that said, I believe humanity arguably may be declaring ‘checkmate’ on the globalist elite. They are losing and we are winning the battle of information. We must prevail and we will prevail. We have the historic facts on our side and, more importantly, we have a source of human energy and a natural form of human conscious progression on our side that cannot be reversed.

Viewed holistically, this battle between freedom and fascism, controlling governments versus the people, good versus evil, and love versus hate seems to be the story of our lives and perhaps the central purpose of our journey on earth. The ruling class uses slavery, labor, intimidation, fear, coercion, and forcefulness to convert the existence of other humans into wealth. The wealth is then used to maintain this control. The rest of humanity on the other hand just wants to be free from this control. When simplified to its most elementary form it is and will not be very difficult for most humans to see this rational and to recruit their cooperation in a plan that involves creating a solution for the human race. Who doesn’t want this? Unfortunately for the global elite, they are the only ones in this planet who don’t want this and because of this they will eventually stand alone in their quest for full control.

A good chess player often knows several steps before the end of the game if he/she has the game clinched. In chess they call it checkmate. In this game of life we can call it anything we want. The most important thing is the concept which is now very clear to me. Looking back many years from now I believe many of us will be honored and thankful to have lived in times where we faced a historic and unprecedented real-time battle for freedom. This quest for freedom will be looked back upon as the driving force of our generation and to some like me, a candle of fire that lights our way.

Bernie Suarez is an activist, critical thinker, radio host, musician, M.D, Veteran, lover of freedom and the Constitution, and creator of the Truth and Art TV project. He also has a background in psychology and highly recommends that everyone watch a documentary titled The Century of the Self. Bernie has concluded that the way to defeat the New World Order is to truly be the change that you want to see. Manifesting the solution and putting truth into action is the very thing that will defeat the globalists.


____________________________________________
What Obama and neo-liberals have allowed these 5 years since the economic crash is massive global consolidation of all business industries.  This is why the FED was feeding US corporations free money to spend on expansion and it is where all the trillions of dollars in 'job stimulus' money sent to corporations was spent......merger and acquisition.

Now, the US has anti-trust laws but as I showed with health care form......neo-liberals are allowing policy that completely ignores these laws.  It is Europe that is taking US corporations to court for monopoly/anti-trust.  ALL WE NEED TO DO IS REINSTATE RULE OF LAW AND ENFORCE THESE LAWS BEING IGNORED AND BETWEEN BRINGING BACK TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN FRAUD AND BREAKING THEM UP WITH ANTI-TRUST----WE CAN REVERSE THESE ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES-----AND THEY ARE ILLEGAL.

This is why Obama and neo-liberals in Congress are in such a hurry to pass TPP because it rewrites the US Constitution making all those silly public justice and anti-trust laws void.  It is why Obama and neo-liberals are pushing as hard as they can to enact the Affordable Care Act that consolidates and deregulates the health industry leading to the same mess.  They are scared because they know the public knows and this is all being done illegally......

THEY ARE STAGING A COUP AGAINST THE US CONSTITUTION AND US CITIZENS AND THAT IS TREASON.


Powering Alcoa

Alcoa Energy is a global producer, controlling more than 2.8 GW of generating capacity to provide for the energy needs of Alcoa’s smelting and refining system as well as the needs of regional wholesale markets. The business includes Alcoa Power Generating Inc, which operates North American Energy assets, as well as partnership positions in Australia, Brazil, Suriname and Jamaica. Alcoa Energy is actively developing new energy assets to increase Alcoa’s energy self-sufficiency and grow the company’s energy portfolio.



Alumina
Alcoa World Alumina Minerals

Primary Metals
Alcoa Global Primary Aluminium
Alcoa Primary Aluminium – Europe
Alcoa Primary Aluminum - North America

Global Rolled Products
Alcoa Global Flat Rolled Products
Alcoa Australia Rolled Products
Alcoa China Rolled Products
Alcoa Global Commercial Transportation, Industrial and Specialties
Alcoa North American Rolled Products
Alcoa Recycling
Alcoa Rigid Packaging

Engineered Products and Solutions
Alcoa Engineered Products & Solutions
Alcoa Architectural Products
Alcoa Architectural Products (Americas / Pacific / Caribbean)
Alcoa Architectural Products (Europe / Africa / ME / China)
Alcoa Architectuursystemen
Alcoa Building & Construction Systems
Alcoa China Automotive Products
Alcoa Fastening Systems
Alcoa Fastening Systems Aerospace
Alcoa Fastening Systems Industrial
Alcoa Forgings and Extrusions
Alcoa Howmet
Alcoa Mold & Tooling Products
Alcoa Oil & Gas
Alcoa Power and Propulsion
Alcoa Wheel Products
Kawneer
Kawneer Alcoa Architektur Systeme
Kawneer Company, Inc.
Kawneer España
Kawneer France SA
Kawneer India
Kawneer Maroc
Kawneer Portugal
Kawneer Sustainable Solutions
Kawneer UK Limited
Traco

___________________

Here you see a defense industry giant deciding it needs a little bit of this health care as global corporation business since the defense industry is on the cutting line now that the US has drones and kills people from Utah and Nevada.

You see this article makes it sound like this business brings something special to these umbrella health corporations that will make health care more 'affordable'.  Remember, 1/2 of health care spending is lost to fraud and profiteering and Lockheed Martin is the fraud and profiteering of the defense industry......



Lockheed Martin looks to grow health care role New Baltimore health care center comes amid military cuts


By Natalie Sherman, The Baltimore Sun 7:58 p.m. EST, December 4, 2013


Lockheed Martin, a government contractor best known for its fighter jets, formally opened a health care center in Baltimore County Wednesday, part of a bid to expand the company's role in the medical sector.

While health care services still represent a small portion of Lockheed's business, company representatives said they see the opportunity to apply Lockheed's technology and security background to the rapidly increasing amount of data entering the medical field.

"We've done really large information systems in other domains, like defense intelligence … and health care is, I don't want to say just another domain, but it's going through the same pains and revolutions that we've seen in our other businesses," said chief scientist Michael Hultner.

Lockheed, one of the largest private employers in Maryland, has been hit in recent years by cutbacks in military spending, as the federal government has increased its role in health care through health care reform. Since 2008, Lockheed's workforce has shrunk from 146,000 to 116,000, and on Nov. 14, executives announced plans to cut 4,000 additional positions and consolidate operations.

About 2,000 of the company's 116,000 employees work in health care in roles that range from providing software support to performing medical evaluations, said Karoom Brown, a Lockheed executive director of strategy and business development. In the Baltimore area, Lockheed's health and life sciences division occupies six buildings and employs about 500 people, some of whom are based offsite.

"Over the last five years Lockheed's made a conscious decision to increase our focus and investments in health care," Brown said. Health care generates almost $1 billion in revenue per year for the company, he said.

The new center for health innovation is a glass-filled showroom with ergonomic chairs and portable touch screens located on the first floor of an office park on Lord Baltimore Drive near Milford Mill. The facility, which Lockheed formally opened Wednesday but has been in operation for about a year, includes a wellness center, where Lockheed employees can go for treatment and "tele-medicine."

The center will act as a hub where Lockheed can meet with clients and connect them to the company's technologies, which include developing the data processing systems and analysis that many believe will be critical to future advances in medicine.

"It's a good place where you can see all of Lockheed's technologies in one place; customers can touch and demo it," said Brown, noting that the location capitalizes on proximity to the Social Security Administration and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which use Lockheed for similar services, as well as other institutions, such as Johns Hopkins.

Lockheed's health care projects include efforts to design systems to sift and compress the hundreds of gigabytes generated by a single sequenced genome, streamlining the data into information that a doctor could use during an appointment with a patient, Hultner said.

David Seo, chief medical information officer and associate professor of medicine at the University of Miami, is working with Lockheed to develop computer programs that will use patients' medical data to ask and answer the questions the doctors want. He said the partnership is critical so that doctors can use data to help them prevent problems, instead of simply treating them when they arise.

"Most hospital systems — and even most university medical centers — they don't actually have the capability to do this work," Seo said. "It's really when you combine [efforts] that you can really push the field."

_________________________________________________


antitrust:


an overview

Trusts and monopolies are concentrations of economic power in the hands of a few. Economists believe that such control injures both individuals and the public because it leads to anticompetitive practices in an effort to obtain or maintain total control. Anticompetitive practices then lead to price controls and diminished individual initiative. These results in turn cause markets to stagnate and depress economic growth.

Because of fears during the late 1800s that monopolies dominated America's free market economy, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 to combat anticompetitive practices, reduce market domination by individual corporations, and preserve unfettered competition as the rule of trade. The Sherman Antitrust Act forms the foundation and the basis for most federal antitrust litigation.

As for the states, many have adopted antitrust laws that parallel the Sherman Antitrust Act to prevent anticompetitive behavior within local intrastate commerce. Since Congressional jurisdiction does not reach purely intrastate commerce, states needed to pass their own legislation to avoid having anticompetitive behavior depress their own local economies. See, for example, the Massachusetts Antitrust Act.

The Federal Antitrust Acts Congress derived its power to pass the Sherman Act through its constitutional authority to regulate commerce. Therefore, the Sherman Act can only be used when the conduct in question restrains or substantially affects either interstate commerce or trade within the District of Columbia. To satisfy this jurisdictional requirement, the plaintiff must show that the conduct in question occurs during the flow of interstate commerce or has an appreciable effect on some activity that occurs during interstate commerce.

The Sherman Act is divided into three sections. Section 1 delineates and prohibits specific means of anticompetitive conduct, and Section 2 deals with end results that are anticompetitive in nature. Sections 1 and 2 supplement each other in an effort to outlaw all types of anticompetitive conduct. Congress designed the supplementary relationship to prevent businesses from violating the spirit of the Act, while technically remaining within the letter of the law. Section 3 simply extends the provisions of Section 1 to U.S. territories and the District of Columbia.

Because the courts found certain activities to fall outside the scope of the Sherman Antitrust Act, Congress passed the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 to further widen its scope. For example, the Clayton Act added the following practices to the list of impermissible activities: price discrimination between different purchasers, if such discrimination tends to create a monopoly; exclusive dealing agreements; tying arrangements; and mergers and acquisitions that substantially reduce market competition.

The Robinson-Patman Act of 1936 amended the Clayton Act. The amendment aimed to outlaw certain practices in which manufacturers discriminated in price between equally-situated distributers to decrease competition.

The Per se Rule vs. the Rule of Reason Violations under the Sherman Act take one of two forms - either as a per se violation or as a violation of the rule of reason. Section 1 of the Sherman Act characterizes certain business practices as a per se violation. A per se violation requires no further inquiry into the practice's actual effect on the market or the intentions of those individuals who engaged in the practice. Some business practices, however, at times constitute anticompetitive behavior and at other times encourage competition within the market. For these cases the court applies a totality of the circumstances test and asks whether the challenged practice promotes or suppresses market competition. Courts often find intent and motive relevant in predicting future consequences during a rule of reason analysis. A presumption exists in favor of the rule of reason for ambiguous cases.

Types of Prohibited Anticompetitive Schemes Congress designed these federal antitrust laws to eradicate certain frequently used anticompetitive practices of which the following are a few.

Section 2 of the Sherman Act prohibits monopolization, attempts to monopolize, and conspiring to monopolize. Any such act constitutes a felony. A monopoly conviction requires proof of the individual having intent to monopolize with the power to monopolize, regardless of whether the individual actually exercised the power.

Price-fixing occurs when a company or companies within a given market artificially set or maintain the price of goods or services at a certain level, contrary to the workings of the free market. Section 1 provides that price-fixing is an illegal restraint on trade, regardless of whether a vertical or horizontal scheme. A vertical scheme is a scheme among parties in the same chain of distribution. A horizontal scheme occurs among competitors on the same level.

In 1911 vertical price-fixing schemes became a per se violation of Section 1 when the Supreme Court interpreted the statute in Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co., 220 U.S. 373. However, in the landmark case of Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U.S. __ (2007), the Supreme Court overturned the 96-year-old Dr. Miles precedent and held that courts should apply the rule of reason when analyzing vertical price-fixing schemes. The ruling renders all vertical limitation schemes subject only to the rule of reason.

Collusive bidding occurs when two or more competitors agree to change the bids they otherwise would offer absent the agreement. Under Section 1, collusive bidding is per se illegal.

A tying arrangement is an agreement by a party to sell one product only on the condition that the buyer agrees either to buy different products from the seller or not to buy those different products from another seller. Tying arrangements are subject to the rule of reason unless the arrangement shuts out a substantial quantity of commerce in which case the scheme is per se illegal.

Section 2 makes illegal a firm's refusal to deal with another firm if the refusing firm refuses for the purpose of trying to monopolize the market. Meanwhile, section 1 prohibits a group from refusing to deal with a particular firm. A group refusal to deal is known as a group boycott. Because of seemingly contradictory Supreme Court decisions over the years, the question of whether group boycotts are subject to the rule of reason or a per se rule has been left murky.

Exclusive dealing agreements require a retailer or distributor to purchase exclusively from the manufacturer. These arrangements make it difficult for new sellers to enter the market and find prospective buyers, thus depressing competition. However, because companies widely-use requirements contracts, which essentially are exclusive dealing agreements, for purposes that promote competition, exclusive dealing arrangements only face rule of reason scrutiny.

Below-cost pricing intended to eliminate specific competitors and reduce overall competition is known as predatory pricing. Section 2 disallows this conduct. In Brooke Group Ltd. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco, 509 U.S. 209 (1993), the U.S. Supreme Court devised a two-part test to determine if predatory pricing had occurred. First, the plaintiff must establish that the defendant's production costs surpass the market price charged for the item. Second, the plaintiff must establish that a "dangerous probability" exists that the defendant will recover the investment in above-cost inputs. In Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Ross-Simmons Hardwood Lumber Co., Inc. (05-381) (2007), the Supreme Court said that this test also applies when determining if a predatory bidding scheme exists.

Exemptions Certain practices and organizations have received exemption from the federal antitrust laws. First, patent owners received an exemption in the Sherman Act because federal policy favors incentivizing innovation. Of course, the exemption does not go beyond the granted patent monopoly.

Second, the Clayton Act exempted labor unions and agricultural organizations from the Sherman Act's reach.

Third, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (SEA) heavily regulates securities trading; thus, certain activities that fall within the scope of the SEA are exempt from antitrust law. The U.S. Supreme Court took up this very issue in 2007 in Credit Suisse Securities (USA) v. Billing (05-1157). The Court decided that if securities regulation and antitrust law are incompatible, then the securities regulation prevails and individuals who would otherwise violate antitrust law receive antitrust immunity. Determining incompatibility requires the presence of the following four criteria: 1) behavior squarely within securities regulation; 2) clear and adequate SEC authority to regulate; 3) active and ongoing SEC regulation; and 4) a serious conflict between regulatory and antitrust regimes.

Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 (FTCA) bolstered the Sherman Act and Clayton Act by providing that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could proactively and directly protect consumers rather than only offer indirect protection by protecting business competitors. Congress endowed the FTC with the power to fill gaps remaining in antitrust law or to stop new business practices not yet invented at the time of the Clayton Act's enactment but contrary to public policy. Section 5 of the FTCA gives the FTC broad powers to cope with new threats to the competitive free market.


___________________________________________
We have lawyers letting Obama and Congress know they will be sued and TPP will be in court as illegal and unconstitutional so

WE WILL TURN THIS AROUND IF THEY DARE TO DECLARE A COUP AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

December 06, 2013, 10:40 am

Lawmakers near deal to give Obama fast-track power

By Ben Goad

  House and Senate negotiators are close to an agreement that would give President Obama crucial authority to fast-track approval of major international trade deals now in the works, The New York Times reports.

The congressional discussions come as negotiators wrap up talks in support of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.



At issue is whether Congress should grant Obama trade promotion authority (TPA). Under TPA or fast-track authority, administration negotiators send completed trade deals to Congress for an up-or-down vote, affording lawmakers no opportunity to submit amendments.

More than 170 House members came out against fast-track authority last month, with many arguing that the trade talks have been too secretive and that Congress should play a greater role in the process, The Hill reported at the time.

However, the Times, citing a source with knowledge of the congressional discussions, says a deal could soon be struck.

"A congressional aide close to the negotiations said that both sides had made significant progress on reaching a fast-track deal, also known as trade-promotion authority," writes the Times’s Annie Lowrey. “But the aide, who declined to speak on the record because of the delicate nature of the talks, emphasized that an agreement was not complete.”

Fast-track authority is considered critical for passage of the trade deals, as international negotiators are generally reluctant to sign off on an agreement that could later be changed via an amendment process.

Check out The New York Times’s full story
here. 

0 Comments

November 12th, 2013

11/12/2013

0 Comments

 
GLOBALIZATION IS IN DECLINE AND THE 1% HAVE THIS POLICY OF LYING, CHEATING, STEALING BECAUSE THEY ARE TRYING TO CORNER WHAT IS LEFT OF THE WEALTH.  DO NOT ALLOW THE 99% TO BE MADE THIRD WORLD IN THIS ATTEMPT------THAT WILL BE THE OUTCOME IF WE DO NOT FIGHT FOR A RETURN TO FIRST WORLD DEMOCRACY!!!!


Wonder why with all the work that is being done for the public sector why, with all the problems in finished work do we continue to go with private contracting of public work?  The intent is to privatize all that is public.  As global markets die the 1% are pressed to lay claim on as much wealth they can get and that is what you have witnessed this last decade.  Labor losses when public sector unions are privatized and busted by public private partnerships and private unions thinking they are going to get the work are finding all the jobs given to immigrant workers. 

The good news is that global corporations are going to shrink and are being forced to move back to the US for business.  This means we can rebuild a domestic economy that uses US labor as consumer to fuel the economy rather than having global corporations worried about building a middle-class overseas.  So, the elements of our former economy centered on domestic consumerism is there.  The bad news is that the 1% do not care if we have a strong economy domestically because they have all the money and can just limp along forever.  This is what is happening as neo-liberals fight to keep wealth and profit at the top and pass laws like the TPP that undermines the US Constitutional rights of citizens as legislators.  We must fight hard to stop this descent into third world autocracy by taking back the democratic party from the neo-liberals and reinstate Rule of Law and democratic principles-----we have a chance to move back to the US of 1950----strong economy and middle-class and first world quality of life. 

WAKE UP AND GET MOVING------CREATE COMMUNITY ACTION GROUPS AND SHAKE THESE BUGS OUT OF THE RUG!!!


We are sitting listening to corporate NPR tell us that we need to dismantle more regulation in order for private contractors to take more of public sector work even as what they say has already failed in Europe.



UK government auditor questions reliance on big contractors

By Christine Murray

LONDON Tue Nov 12, 2013 12:08am GMT

Margaret Hodge, Labour Party Member of Parliament and chairwoman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), poses for a portrait after speaking to Reuters about corporate taxation, in Westminster, central London April 24, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Andrew Winning

(Reuters) - A review of Britain's use of big companies to run services from prisons to hospitals raised questions about whether the rise of a few major contractors was in the public interest, the National Audit Office (NAO) said on Tuesday.

And it said transparency on profit made from government contracts was limited, with firms' tax affairs hard to understand, setting the agenda for a parliamentary grilling of some of the state's biggest suppliers next week.

Two NAO reports on government contractors, based largely on information from Capita (CPI.L), G4S (GFS.L), Serco (SRP.L) and Atos (ATOS.PA), will form the basis of two Public Accounts Committee hearings later this month, one with representatives from the four firms, and another with government officials.

  "I asked the NAO to carry out this work after looking at case after case of contract failure ... in each case we found poor service; poor value for money; and government departments completely out of their depth," Margaret Hodge, the lawmaker who chairs the PAC said. "These reports together raise some big concerns". 

SOUND FAMILIAR?????

The political spotlight is firmly on Britain's 187 billion pound public sector contracting market after a series of high-profile contract failures.

There are currently eight reviews of the industry, including a criminal investigation into G4S and Serco's botched prisoner tagging contracts launched earlier this month.

A Serco spokesman pointed to the firm's corporate renewal program, announced in October to rebuild its relationship with its largest customer, as evidence of its improved transparency.

A spokeswoman for Atos said it had been open and transparent with the NAO, whilst balancing its ability to compete for future work.

The NAO added that the Cabinet Office, which is currently deciding whether G4S and Serco can work for government again, should develop a more "mature" approach to dealing with its biggest suppliers.

It said a balance must be struck between short-term savings, which have mostly come from fierce contract renegotiations, and innovation and investment.

Until the austerity-focused coalition came into power in 2010, suppliers like Capita and Serco enjoyed double-digit revenue growth for two decades.

In some markets, such as private prisons, child custody and medical assessments, there are only a few large providers which the NAO said could be considered "too big to fail".


Some 3 billion pounds of the 40 billion spent by central government each year on suppliers is with the four firms in the report.

Capita said in a statement that all its businesses seek to ensure value for money in an open, fair and transparent way.

A spokeswoman for G4S said it was a strong believer in partnerships with customers and it fully supported NAO's work.

The government said earlier this month that 10.5 percent of all government business went directly to small and medium-sized enterprises in 2012/13, up slightly from 10 percent in the previous year. It has a target of 25 percent for that figure by 2015.



______________________________________________
As Congress and Obama race to build global corporations sending all US Treasury wealth and all spending expanding global markets we know that the global market is dying .......

We need to get rid of global corporate pols wasting our wealth on the status quo and bring corporations  back to small and regional businesses. 


ALL OF THIS REQUIRES THAT THE US WORKER EARNS ENOUGH TO BE MIDDLE-CLASS CONSUMERS.  IT IS BAD POLICY TO KEEP LABOR IMPOVERISHED AS NEO-LIBERALS ARE DOING!


TRUST IN GOVERNMENTS, CORPORATIONS AND
GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS CONTINUES TO DECLINE


Global Survey ahead of World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
in Davos shows ‘trust deficit’ deepening

Geneva, Switzerland, 15 December 2005 – A global public opinion survey carried out for the World Economic Forum in 20 countries, interviewing more than 20,000 citizens, paints an alarming picture of declining levels of trust. The survey, carried out by GlobeScan, shows that trust in a range of institutions has dropped significantly since January 2004 to levels not seen since the months following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. The poll also reveals that public trust in national governments and the United Nations has fallen the most over the past two years.

Since signalling the importance of trust in world affairs by making it the theme of its Annual Meeting in 2003, the World Economic Forum has been monitoring public trust levels and today presents the most recent responses to a set of questions asked of representative samples of citizens around the world since January 2001. The research, conducted by GlobeScan Incorporated, shows that:

• Public trust in national governments, the United Nations and global companies is now at its lowest level since tracking began in January 2001. • Since 2004, trust in government has declined by statistically significant margins in 12 of the 16 countries for which tracking data is available. The only national government with increased trust is Russia’s, continuing its upward trend since 2001. • The United Nations, while continuing to receive higher trust levels than other institutions, has experienced a significant decline in trust from 2004 levels in 12 of the 17 countries for which tracking data is available, suggesting an impact of the scandal over the Oil-for-Food Programme. • Public trust in companies has also eroded over the last two years. After recovering trust in 2004 to pre-Enron levels, trust has since declined for both large national companies and for global companies. Trust in global companies is now at its lowest level since tracking began. • NGOs remain the leaders in trust, but they also have to contend with some decline. In 10 of 17 countries for which data is available, trust in NGOs has fallen since 2004, in some cases sharply (e.g., Brazil, India, South Korea).
These findings are based on a global public opinion poll involving a total of 20,791 interviews with citizens across 20 countries (n=1,000 in most countries), conducted between June and August 2005 by respected research institutes in each participating country, under the leadership of GlobeScan. (A full list of participating institutes, with contact details, is available at: www.weforum.org.) Each country’s findings are considered accurate to within 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The survey asked respondents how much they trust each institution “to operate in the best interests of our society”. Identical questions were asked in most of the same countries in January 2004, August 2002 and January 2001. Net trust levels are presented here – the difference between the percentage of respondents who express trust and those who express no trust in a given institution.

A full report, including charts illustrating all findings, is available at: http://www.weforum.org/trustsurvey.




NOTE: The 14 countries that were tracked are: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the USA.

Declining trust in governments across the world Of all the institutions examined, national governments have lost the most ground over the past two years. In 12 of the 16 countries for which data is available, public trust in the national government has declined by statistically significant margins, leaving only 6 of the tracking countries today with more citizens trusting their national government than distrusting them.

Trust in government has fallen the most in Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Canada and Spain, followed closely by Argentina and the USA. The case of Nigeria is also noteworthy, where trust in the national government fell by 13 points while trust in all other institutions rose. Even in countries such as Great Britain and India, where trust remains positive, it has suffered its biggest fall since tracking began in 2001. Only in Italy, Indonesia and France has trust in the national government held steady, although polling was completed prior to the recent riots across France. The Russian government is now the only institution in any country polled to have consistently increased trust since 2001.




For complete results across all countries, please see the additional charts available on http://www.weforum.org/trustsurvey.



Changing patterns of trust in global companies While trust in global companies has not fallen everywhere, statistically significant declines have occurred over the past two years in 10 of 17 countries for which tracking data is available, and the overall trust level for global companies is the lowest since tracking began. After global companies had rebounded in 2004 to pre-Enron trust levels, these latest findings will be discouraging for business leaders. Perhaps most worrying for corporate executives are the sharp drops in trust in Spain, the USA and Canada, where net trust in global companies has turned negative for the first time. Trust in global companies is strongest in China, Nigeria, Kenya, Indonesia and India.




In commenting on the poll’s findings, Ged Davis, Managing Director, World Economic Forum, said: “The Annual Meeting in Davos in January will be held under the theme “The Creative Imperative” and it is clear from these figures that to regain the trust of the general public in institutions and governments we must find new and effective ways to reconnect with citizens and tackle the public trust deficit. If not, the very institutions that govern our world will be increasingly under threat.”

Doug Miller, President of GlobeScan, offered the following perspective: “If Francis Fukuyama was right when he described trust as the necessary glue of any properly functioning society, then these poll results suggest we’re in danger of becoming unstuck – especially when values-driven organizations like non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the United Nations are losing trust almost as quickly as large companies. It’s time for all organizations to better understand how to earn the public’s trust.”



Each national survey was based on a representative sample of about 1,000 adults and was conducted in-home or by telephone between June and August 2005 as part of the annual 20-nation GlobeScan Report on Issues and Reputation. Individual country findings are accurate within +/- 3%, with 95% confidence. Multi-country results were calculated using the one nation/one vote method.

Notes for Editors:
A fuller document detailing all the survey’s findings is available at www.weforum.org/trustsurvey
For more details on the report’s findings please contact Doug Miller, President of GlobeScan at doug.miller@GlobeScan.com


_____________________________________________
Just look at this indicator having global shipping in decline.  Obama and states are pushing port dredging and expansion to accommodate global tankers and this is where tens of billions are heading.......Baltimore being in this mode.  Remember, it is the HighStar investment firm with Ivy League universities as major shareholders that are being given public ports all across America. 

This is particularly bad policy for Baltimore because having global tankers chugging up the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore is the most environmentally damaging policy anyone could pass.  All of the invasive species coming from ship hulls will kill the Bay habitat and for what?  A DECLINING GLOBAL SHIPPING MARKET!!!!

GET RID OF NEO-LIBERALS BY RUNNING AND VOTING FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL PRIMARIES!



Global shipping industry in danger of decline


Report released today into the global shipping industry warns of oversupply and high pricing constraining performance   The shipping trade could be entering rough waters

1 12 Aug 2013 Joseph Wilkes  
Supply Chain Digital

A report into the global shipping industry has been released today, warning of decline.

Online market research store Research and Markets has released the Global Shipping Industry 2013 – Forecast, Trends and Opportunities, report from Taiyou Research company, which provides analysis and overview of the entire industry as well as individual elements such as ownership and prices.

The report states that in the coming years, the global shipping industry is expected to decline by five to 10 percent.


Oversupply and high bunker oil prices will eventually lead to a constraining of performance.

The report said: “A sustained oversupply of vessels combined with high bunker oil prices will pressure margins in most shipping segments. The dry-bulk and crude oil tanker segments are likely to have the largest supply-demand gap in 2013, complicating these sectors' ability to meaningfully improve their earnings.

“The tanker market has also been affected by the oversupply of vessels in the near term aided by lower OPEC production levels; though the outlook for the product tanker segment is more favorable since demand growth is likely to outpace supply during 2013, leading freight rates to rise by the end of this year. Box freight rates for the container segment have rebounded since March this year.

“However, strong improvement in earnings should not be expected for the full year in this segment. This reflects sustained high bunker oil costs and pressure on container rates stemming from recent increases in deployed tonnage of box ships.”

But Japanese conglomerates could be affected to a lesser extent by the negative market trends that will damage other global shipping trends. This is due to the scale of the Japanese conglomerates, their diversification, (including their liquefied natural gas, or LNG, fleets) and strong relationships with customers, said the report.

The report includes analysis of 35 major shipping companies such as AP Moller Maersk, China COSCO, China Shipping Development, D/S Norden, Golar LNG, Kawasaki Kisen, Hyundai Merchant Marine.

AP Moller Maersk, Nippon Yusen, Kawasaki Kisen, Mitsui OSK Lines, China COSCO and Evergreen Marine are some of the top players in the industry, the report suggested.


___________________________________________

GLOBALIZATION TOOK A HIT WHEN THE 2008 ECONOMIC COLLAPSE REVEALED AN ENTIRE NETWORK OF US CORPORATE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION  BUT THE SNOWDEN WHISTLE BLOWING WILL SHUT GLOBAL MARKETS DOWN AND THE US KNOWS THIS.

The American people are under assault for their wealth because the 1% know they will have no more markets to build and wealth will decline.  WE NEED TO STOP THE LOOTING AND FIGHT FOR A RETURN TO DOMESTIC CONSUMERISM FUELING THE DOMESTIC ECONOMY.  As global corporations are forced to move back to US they intend to make Chinese sweat shop workers of US labor-----


GET RID OF NEO-LIBERALS WORKING FOR WEALTH AND PROFIT!!!


Mistaking Omniscience for Omnipotence: A World Without Privacy

Tuesday, 12 November 2013 09:55 By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch | News Analysis

Protesters rally against mass surveillance during an event organized by the group Stop Watching Us in Washington, DC on October 26, 2013. via Shutterstock)" height="400" width="400">(Image: Protesters rally against mass surveillance during an event organized by the group Stop Watching Us in Washington, DC on October 26, 2013 via Shutterstock)Given how similar they sound and how easy it is to imagine one leading to the other, confusing omniscience (having total knowledge) with omnipotence (having total power) is easy enough. It’s a reasonable supposition that, before the Snowden revelations hit, America’s spymasters had made just that mistake.  If the drip-drip-drip of Snowden’s mother of all leaks -- which began in May and clearly won’t stop for months to come -- has taught us anything, however, it should be this: omniscience is not omnipotence.  At least on the global political scene today, they may bear remarkably little relation to each other. In fact, at the moment Washington seems to be operating in a world in which the more you know about the secret lives of others, the less powerful you turn out to be.

Let’s begin by positing this: There’s never been anything quite like it. The slow-tease pulling back of the National Security Agency curtain to reveal the skeletal surveillance structure embedded in our planet (what cheekbones!) has been an epochal event.  It’s minimally the political spectacle of 2013, and maybe 2014, too. It’s made a mockery of the 24/7 news cycle and the urge of the media to leave the last big deal for the next big deal as quickly as possible. 

It’s visibly changed attitudes around the world toward the U.S. -- strikingly for the worse, even if this hasn’t fully sunk in here yet. Domestically, the inability to put the issue to sleep or tuck it away somewhere or even outlast it has left the Obama administration, Congress, and the intelligence community increasingly at one another’s throats. And somewhere in a system made for leaks, there are young techies inside a surveillance machine so viscerally appalling, so like the worst sci-fi scenarios they read while growing up, that -- no matter the penalties -- one of them, two of them, many of them are likely to become the next Edward Snowden(s).

So where to start, almost half a year into an unfolding crisis of surveillance that shows no signs of ending? If you think of this as a scorecard, then the place to begin is, of course, with the line-up, which means starting with omniscience. After all, that’s the NSA’s genuine success story -- and what kid doesn’t enjoy hearing about the (not so) little engine that could?

Omniscience

Conceptually speaking, we’ve never seen anything like the National Security Agency’s urge to surveill, eavesdrop on, spy on, monitor, record, and save every communication of any sort on the planet -- to keep track of humanity, all of humanity, from its major leaders to obscure figures in the backlands of the planet. And the fact is that, within the scope of what might be technologically feasible in our era, they seem not to have missed an opportunity.

The NSA, we now know, is everywhere, gobbling up emails, phone calls, texts, tweets, Facebook posts, credit card sales, communications and transactions of every conceivable sort.  The NSA and British intelligence are feeding off the fiber optic cables that carry Internet and phone activity. The agency stores records (“metadata”) of every phone call made in the United States. In various ways, legal and otherwise, its operatives long ago slipped through the conveniently ajar backdoors of media giants like Yahoo, Verizon, and Google -- and also in conjunction with British intelligence they have been secretly collecting “records” from the “clouds” or private networks of Yahoo and Google to the tune of 181 million communications in a single month, or more than two billion a year. 

Meanwhile, their privately hired corporate hackers have systems that, among other things, can slip inside your computer to count and see every keystroke you make. Thanks to that mobile phone of yours (even when off), those same hackers can also locate you just about anywhere on the planet.  And that’s just to begin to summarize what we know of their still developing global surveillance state.

In other words, there’s my email and your phone metadata, and his tweets and her texts, and the swept up records of billions of cell phone calls and other communications by French and Nigerians, Italians and Pakistanis, Germans and Yemenis, Egyptians and Spaniards (thank you, Spanish intelligence, for lending the NSA such a hand!), and don’t forget the Chinese, Vietnamese, Indonesians, and Burmese, among others (thank you, Australian intelligence, for lending the NSA such a hand!), and it would be a reasonable bet to include just about any other nationality you care to mention. Then there are the NSA listening posts at all those U.S. embassies and consulates around the world, and the reports on the way the NSA listened in on the U.N., bugged European Union offices “on both sides of the Atlantic,” accessed computers inside the Indian embassy in Washington D.C. and that country’s U.N. mission in New York, hacked into the computer network of and spied on Brazil’s largest oil company, hacked into the Brazilian president’s emails and the emails of two Mexican presidents, monitored the German Chancellor’s mobile phone, not to speak of those of dozens, possibly hundreds, of other German leaders, monitored the phone calls of at least 35 global leaders, as well as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and -- if you’re keeping score -- that’s just a partial list of what we’ve learned so far about the NSA’s surveillance programs, knowing that, given the Snowden documents still to come, there has to be so much more.

When it comes to the “success” part of the NSA story, you could also play a little numbers game: the NSA has at least 35,000 employees, possibly as many as 55,000, and an almost $11 billion budget.  With up to 70% of that budget possibly going to private contractors, we are undoubtedly talking about tens of thousands more “employees” indirectly on the agency’s payroll. The Associated Press estimates that there are 500,000 employees of private contractors “who have access to the government's most sensitive secrets.” In Bluffdale, Utah, the NSA is spending $2 billion to build what may be one of the largest data-storage facilities on the planet (with its own bizarre fireworks), capable of storing almost inconceivable yottabytes of information.  And keep in mind that since 9/11, according to the New York Times, the agency has also built or expanded major data-storage facilities in Georgia, Texas, Colorado, Hawaii, Alaska, and Washington State. 

But success, too, can have its downside and there is a small catch when it comes to the NSA's global omniscience. For everything it can, at least theoretically, see, hear, and search, there’s one obvious thing the agency’s leaders and the rest of the intelligence community have proven remarkably un-omniscient about, one thing they clearly have been incapable of taking in -- and that’s the most essential aspect of the system they are building. Whatever they may have understood about the rest of us, they understood next to nothing about themselves or the real impact of what they were doing, which is why the revelations of Edward Snowden caught them so off-guard.

Along with the giant Internet corporations, they have been involved in a process aimed at taking away the very notion of a right to privacy in our world; yet they utterly failed to grasp the basic lesson they have taught the rest of us. If we live in an era of no privacy, there are no exemptions; if, that is, it’s an age of no-privacy for us, then it’s an age of no-privacy for them, too.

The word “conspiracy” is an interesting one in this context.  It comes from the Latin conspirare for "breathe the same air." In order to do that, you need to be a small group in a small room. Make yourself the largest surveillance outfit on the planet, hire tens of thousands of private contractors -- young computer geeks plunged into a situation that would have boggled the mind of George Orwell -- and organize a system of storage and electronic retrieval that puts much at an insider’s fingertips, and you’ve just kissed secrecy goodnight and put it to bed for the duration.

There was always going to be an Edward Snowden -- or rather Edward Snowdens. And no matter what the NSA and the Obama administration do, no matter what they threaten, no matter how fiercely they attack whistleblowers, or who they put away for how long, there will be more.  No matter the levels of classification and the desire to throw a penumbra of secrecy over government operations of all sorts, we will eventually know. 

They have constructed a system potentially riddled with what, in the Cold War days, used to be called “moles.” In this case, however, those “moles” won’t be spying for a foreign power, but for us. There is no privacy left. That fact of life has been embedded, like so much institutional DNA, in the system they have so brilliantly constructed. They will see us, but in the end, we will see them, too.

Omnipotence

With our line-ups in place, let’s turn to the obvious question: How’s it going? How’s the game of surveillance playing out at the global level? How has success in building such a system translated into policy and power? How useful has it been to have advance info on just what the U.N. general-secretary will have to say when he visits you at the White House? How helpful is it to store endless tweets, social networking interactions, and phone calls from Egypt when it comes to controlling or influencing actors there, whether the Muslim Brotherhood or the generals?

We know that 1,477 “items” from the NSA’s PRISM program (which taps into the central servers of nine major American Internet companies) were cited in the president’s Daily Briefing in 2012 alone. With all that help, with all that advanced notice, with all that insight into the workings of the world from but one of so many NSA programs, just how has Washington been getting along?

Though we have very little information about how intelligence insiders and top administration officials assess the effectiveness of the NSA’s surveillance programs in maintaining American global power, there’s really no need for such assessments. All you have to do is look at the world.

Long before Snowden walked off with those documents, it was clear that things weren’t exactly going well. Some breakthroughs in surveillance techniques were, for instance, developed in America’s war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. intelligence outfits and spies were clearly capable of locating and listening in on insurgencies in ways never before possible. And yet, we all know what happened in Iraq and is happening in Afghanistan.  In both places, omniscience visibly didn’t translate into success. And by the way, when the Arab Spring hit, how prepared was the Obama administration? Don’t even bother to answer that one.

In fact, it’s reasonable to assume that, while U.S. spymasters and operators were working at the technological frontiers of surveillance and cryptography, their model for success was distinctly antiquated. However unconsciously, they were still living with a World War II-style mindset. Back then, in an all-out military conflict between two sides, listening in on enemy communications had been at least one key to winning the war. Breaking the German Enigma codes meant knowing precisely where the enemy’s U-boats were, just as breaking Japan’s naval codes ensured victory in the Battle of Midway and elsewhere.

Unfortunately for the NSA and two administrations in Washington, our world isn’t so clear-cut any more. Breaking the codes, whatever codes, isn’t going to do the trick. You may be able to pick up every kind of communication in Pakistan or Egypt, but even if you could listen to or read them all (and the NSA doesn’t have the linguists or the time to do so), instead of simply drowning in useless data, what good would it do you? 

Given how Washington has fared since September 12, 2001, the answer would undoubtedly range from not much to none at all -- and in the wake of Edward Snowden, it would have to be in the negative. Today, the NSA formula might go something like this: the more communications the agency intercepts, the more it stores, the more it officially knows, the more information it gives those it calls its “external customers” (the White House, the State Department, the CIA, and others), the less omnipotent and the more impotent Washington turns out to be.

In scorecard terms, once the Edward Snowden revelations began and the vast conspiracy to capture a world of communications was revealed, things only went from bad to worse.  Here’s just a partial list of some of the casualties from Washington’s point of view:

*The first European near-revolt against American power in living memory (former French leader Charles de Gaulle aside), and a phenomenon that is still growing across that continent along with an upsurge in distaste for Washington.

*A shudder of horror in Brazil and across Latin America, emphasizing a growing distaste for the not-so-good neighbor to the North.

*China, which has its own sophisticated surveillance network and was being pounded for it by Washington, now looks like Mr. Clean.

*Russia, a country run by a former secret police agent, has in the post-Snowden era been miraculously transformed into a global peacemaker and a land that provided a haven for an important western dissident.

*The Internet giants of Silicon valley, a beacon of U.S. technological prowess, could in the end take a monstrous hit, losing billions of dollars and possibly their near monopoly status globally, thanks to the revelation that when you email, tweet, post to Facebook, or do anything else through any of them, you automatically put yourself in the hands of the NSA. Their CEOs are shuddering with worry, as well they should be.

And the list of post-Snowden fallout only seems to be growing. The NSA’s vast global security state is now visibly an edifice of negative value, yet it remains so deeply embedded in the post-9/11 American national security state that seriously paring it back, no less dismantling it, is probably inconceivable. Of course, those running that state within a state claim success by focusing only on counterterrorism operations where, they swear, 54 potential terror attacks on or in the United States have been thwarted, thanks to NSA surveillance. Based on the relatively minimal information available to us, this looks like a major case of threat and credit inflation, if not pure balderdash. More important, it doesn’t faintly cover the ambitions of a system that was meant to give Washington a jump on every foreign power, offer an economic edge in just about every situation, and enhance U.S. power globally.

A First-Place Line-Up and a Last-Place Finish

What’s perhaps most striking about all this is the inability of the Obama administration and its intelligence bureaucrats to grasp the nature of what’s happening to them. For that, they would need to skip those daily briefs from an intelligence community which, on the subject, seems blind, deaf, and dumb, and instead take a clear look at the world.

As a measuring stick for pure tone-deafness in Washington, consider that it took our secretary of state and so, implicitly, the president, five painful months to finally agree that the NSA had, in certain limited areas, “reached too far.” And even now, in response to a global uproar and changing attitudes toward the U.S. across the planet, their response has been laughably modest. According to David Sanger of the New York Times, for instance, the administration believes that there is “no workable alternative to the bulk collection of huge quantities of ‘metadata,’ including records of all telephone calls made inside the United States.”

On the bright side, however, maybe, just maybe, they can store it all for a mere three years, rather than the present five. And perhaps, just perhaps, they might consider giving up on listening in on some friendly world leaders, but only after a major rethink and reevaluation of the complete NSA surveillance system. And in Washington, this sort of response to the Snowden debacle is considered a “balanced” approach to security versus privacy.

In fact, in this country each post-9/11 disaster has led, in the end, to more and worse of the same. And that’s likely to be the result here, too, given a national security universe in which everyone assumes the value of an increasingly para-militarized, bureaucratized, heavily funded creature we continue to call “intelligence,” even though remarkably little of what would commonsensically be called intelligence is actually on view.

No one knows what a major state would be like if it radically cut back or even wiped out its intelligence services. No one knows what the planet’s sole superpower would be like if it had only one or, for the sake of competition, two major intelligence outfits rather than 17 of them, or if those agencies essentially relied on open source material. In other words, no one knows what the U.S. would be like if its intelligence agents stopped trying to collect the planet’s communications and mainly used their native intelligence to analyze the world.  Based on the recent American record, however, it’s hard to imagine we could be anything but better off. Unfortunately, we’ll never find out.

In short, if the NSA’s surveillance lineup was classic New York Yankees, their season is shaping up as a last-place finish.

Here, then, is the bottom line of the scorecard for twenty-first century Washington: omniscience, maybe; omnipotence, forget it; intelligence, not a bit of it; and no end in sight.



0 Comments
<<Previous

    Author

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

    Archives

    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012

    Categories

    All
    2014 Economic Crash
    21st Century Economy
    Affordable Care Act
    Affordable Care Act
    Alec
    Americorp/VISTA
    Anthony Brown
    Anthony Brown
    Anti Incumbant
    Anti-incumbant
    Anti Incumbent
    Anti Incumbent
    Attacking The Post Office Union
    Baltimore And Cronyism
    Baltimore Board Of Estimates
    Baltimore Board Of Estimates
    Baltimore Development Corp
    Baltimore Development Corp
    Baltimore Recall/Retroactive Term Limits
    Bank Fraud
    Bank Fraud
    Bank Of America
    Bank Settlement
    Bank-settlement
    B Corporations
    Bgeexelon Mergerf59060c411
    Brookings Institution
    Business Tax Credits
    California Charter Expansion
    Cardin
    Career Colleges
    Career Colleges Replacing Union Apprenticeships
    Charters
    Charter School
    Collection Agencies
    Common Core
    Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
    Consumer-financial-protection-bureau
    Corporate Media
    Corporate-media
    Corporate Oversight
    Corporate-oversight
    Corporate Politicians
    Corporate-politicians
    Corporate Rule
    Corporate-rule
    Corporate Taxes
    Corporate-taxes
    Corporate Tax Reform
    Corporatizing Us Universities
    Cost-benefit-analysis
    Credit Crisis
    Credit-crisis
    Cummings
    Department Of Education
    Department Of Justice
    Department-of-justice
    Derivatives Reform
    Development
    Dismantling Public Justice
    Dodd Frank
    Doddfrankbba4ff090a
    Doug Gansler
    Doug-gansler
    Ebdi
    Education Funding
    Education Reform
    Edwards
    Election Reform
    Election-reform
    Elections
    Emigration
    Energy-sector-consolidation-in-maryland
    Enterprise Zones
    Equal Access
    Estate Taxes
    European Crisis
    Expanded And Improved Medicare For All
    Expanded-and-improved-medicare-for-all
    Failure To Prosecute
    Failure-to-prosecute
    Fair
    Fair And Balanced Elections
    Fair-and-balanced-elections
    Farm Bill
    Federal Election Commissionelection Violationsmaryland
    Federal Election Commissionelection Violationsmarylandd20a348918
    Federal-emergency-management-agency-fema
    Federal Reserve
    Financial Reform Bill
    Food Safety Not In Tpp
    For Profit Education
    Forprofit-education
    Fracking
    Fraud
    Freedom Of Press And Speech
    Frosh
    Gambling In Marylandbaltimore8dbce1f7d2
    Granting Agencies
    Greening Fraud
    Gun Control Policy
    Healthcare For All
    Healthcare-for-all
    Health Enterprise Zones
    High Speed Rail
    Hoyer
    Imf
    Immigration
    Incarceration Bubble
    Incumbent
    Incumbents
    Innovation Centers
    Insurance Industry Leverage And Fraud
    International Criminal Court
    International Trade Deals
    International-trade-deals
    Jack Young
    Jack-young
    Johns Hopkins
    Johns-hopkins
    Johns Hopkins Medical Systems
    Johns-hopkins-medical-systems
    Kaliope Parthemos
    Labor And Justice Law Under Attack
    Labor And Wages
    Lehmann Brothers
    Living Wageunionspolitical Action0e39f5c885
    Maggie McIntosh
    Maggie-mcintosh
    Martin O'Malley
    Martin O'Malley
    Martin-omalley
    Martin-omalley8ecd6b6eb0
    Maryland Health Co Ops
    Maryland-health-co-ops
    Maryland-health-co-ops1f77692967
    Maryland Health Coopsccd73554da
    Maryland Judiciary
    Marylandnonprofits
    Maryland Non Profits
    Maryland Nonprofits2509c2ca2c
    Maryland Public Service Commission
    Maryland State Bar Association
    Md Credit Bondleverage Debt441d7f3605
    Media
    Media Bias
    Media-bias
    Medicaremedicaid
    Medicaremedicaid8416fd8754
    Mental Health Issues
    Mental-health-issues
    Mers Fraud
    Mikulski
    Military Privatization
    Minority Unemploymentunion And Labor Wagebaltimore Board Of Estimates4acb15e7fa
    Municipal Debt Fraud
    Ndaa-indefinite-detention
    Ndaaindefinite Detentiond65cc4283d
    Net Neutrality
    New Economy
    New-economy
    Ngo
    Non Profit To Profit
    Nonprofit To Profitb2d6cb4b41
    Nsa
    O'Malley
    Odette Ramos
    Omalley
    O'Malley
    Open Meetings
    Osha
    Patronage
    Pension-benefit-guaranty-corp
    Pension Funds
    Pension-funds
    Police Abuse
    Private-and-public-pension-fraud
    Private Health Systemsentitlementsprofits Over People
    Private Health Systemsentitlementsprofits Over People6541f468ae
    Private Non Profits
    Private-non-profits
    Private Nonprofits50b33fd8c2
    Privatizing Education
    Privatizing Government Assets
    Privatizing-the-veterans-admin-va
    Privitizing Public Education
    Progressive Policy
    Progressive Taxes Replace Regressive Policy
    Protections Of The People
    Protections-of-the-people
    Public Education
    Public Funding Of Private Universities
    Public Housing Privatization
    Public-libraries-privatized-or-closed
    Public Private Partnerships
    Public-private-partnerships
    Public Transportation Privatization
    Public Utilities
    Rapid Bus Network
    Rawlings Blake
    Rawlings-blake
    Rawlingsblake1640055471
    Real Progressives
    Reit-real-estate-investment-trusts
    Reitreal Estate Investment Trustsa1a18ad402
    Repatriation Taxes
    Rule Of Law
    Rule-of-law
    Ruppersberger
    SAIC AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
    Sarbanes
    S Corp Taxes
    Selling Public Datapersonal Privacy
    Smart Meters
    Snowden
    Social Security
    Sovereign Debt Fraudsubprime Mortgage Fraudmortgage Fraud Settlement
    Sovereign Debt Fraudsubprime Mortgage Fraudmortgage Fraud Settlement0d62c56e69
    Statistics As Spin
    Statistics-as-spin
    Student-corps
    Subprime Mortgage Fraud
    Subprime-mortgage-fraud
    Surveillance And Security
    Sustainability
    Teachers
    Teachers Unions2bc448afc8
    Teach For America
    Teach For America
    Technology Parks
    Third Way Democrats/new Economy/public Union Employees/public Private Patnerships/government Fraud And Corruption
    Third Way Democratsnew Economypublic Union Employeespublic Private Patnershipsgovernment Fraud And Corruption
    Third-way-democratsnew-economypublic-union-employeespublic-private-patnershipsgovernment-fraud-and-corruptionc10a007aee
    Third Way/neo Liberals
    Third-wayneo-liberals
    Third-wayneo-liberals5e1e6d4716
    Third Wayneoliberals7286dda6aa
    Tifcorporate Tax Breaks2d87bba974
    Tpp
    Transportation Inequity In Maryland
    Union Busting
    Unionbusting0858fddb8b
    Unions
    Unionsthird Waypost Officealec3c887e7815
    Universities
    Unreliable Polling
    Unreliable-polling
    Van Hollen
    Van-hollen
    VEOLA Environment -privatization Of Public Water
    Veterans
    War Against Women And Children
    War-against-women-and-children
    Youth Works

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.