text:
I want to take a few days to look at why Johns Hopkins and Harvard think 'if you are born poor you stay poor' and look at how neo-liberalism and neo-cons are working hard to reshape Western society to reflect this ideal. The corporate frauds of tens of trillions of dollars in the US alone is mirrored all over the world wherever The Clinton Foundation moved in to recruit and educate people who were placed as leaders to do in those nations what was being done in the US. You can follow Harvard graduates from other nations to see where the fraud and corruption emanates in those nations. All over the world the same wealth inequity from fraud and corruption exists and it is because of the philosophy of neo-liberal/neo-conservative free and global markets. No matter how many times a Republican states free markets can work, if you take away the oversight and accountability from corporations and government----they will become systemically criminal and corrupt as exists now in the US. Baltimore and Maryland is at the bottom. You'll notice that not one mention of fraud and corruption will be found in social research from universities.
This is the consolidated wealth. What the American people need to remember is most of this involves criminal activity and lots of unconstitutional actions and all of this can be reversed and recovered. A government aiding and abetting crime and suspending Rule of Law is denying citizens DUE PROCESS and therefore Statutes of Limitations are not in play. So, just engage in politics and take back your government!
Rebuilding Rule of Law and public justice should be the top issue for every American.
Make a good life for your children and grandchildren.
Must Read: The Corporate State of America – Widespread Crime, Corruption and Fraud
October 18, 2007, 10:28 am PR WATCH
Corruption widespread in India, says US report |
Business Line www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/international/...
There is widespread corruption in India in all ... the Bombay High Court ordered that a special team be formed to investigate an alleged fraud in which money ...
EY raises alarm over cybercrime, widespread corruption ... www.vanguardngr.com/2014/06/ey-raises-alarm-cybercrime... West Africa Leader of EY's Forensic/Fraud ... respondents who perceive bribery and corruption to be widespread in Nigeria. 72 per cent of the ...
Compliance and law combine to stem corruption in Brazilian ...
www.insidecounsel.com/2014/06/23/compliance-and-law... CachedJun 23, 2014 ·
A study has determined that 70 percent of Brazilian executives interviewed believe that corruption is widespread in ... fraud and corruption is ...
One in five executives thinks corruption is widespread in Canada's business world, EY report shows
Claire Brownell | June 11, 2014 | Last Updated: Jun 11 5:29 PM ET Financial Post
US commission finds widespread waste and corruption in ... www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2011/0901/US... CachedSep 01, 2011 · US commission finds widespread waste and corruption in wartime ... Afghanistan has resulted in as much as $60 billion in waste and fraud ... .
This article does a good job summing up the war on the middle-class. He cleans up his commentary by not declaring fraud and corruption as the problem and you can see an allegiance to Clinton when he points fingers at all the Presidential culprits but cannot name Clinton. Rather he speaks of breaking Glass Steagall/deregulation/ Nafta without mentioning Clinton's name......and the massive subprime housing fraud was a transfer of wealth. I do like how he identifies THE SEQUESTRATION AND FORCED BUDGET AGREEMENTS TO PAY DOWN THE $17 TRILLION DEBT as simply the final attack on public wealth by neo-liberals and neo-cons working together. These trillions of dollars in cuts......the deliberate manipulation of inflation to zero etc are all assaults on what is left of the American middle/working class wealth and what we won't get will be handed away as corporate subsidy or lost to continuing fraud.
Here in Maryland all pols are neo-liberals and Maryland has moved further than most states in dismantling Democracy and public justice......
SIMPLY REBUILDING A DOMESTIC ECONOMY WITH SMALL AND REGIONAL BUSINESSES AND KEEPING GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AT BAY ALONG WITH REBUILDING RULE OF LAW AND OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY IS ALL THAT IS NEEDED TO REVERSE THIS ATTACK!
It's Official: Rich Declare War on the Middle Class
For the past thirty years the rich have been waging war on the middle class. It's been astonishingly effective, partly because it has been undeclared. But even that pretense is now being abandoned. The President's National Deficit Commission has effectively declared that the rich will now go after what is left of working and middle class wealth and will take whatever steps are necessary to seize it. If allowed to succeed, their plan will reduce Americans to a state of serfdom.
Ronald Reagan began the war on the middle class with his "supply-side" economics. Its very purpose, according to David Stockman, Reagan's Budget Director, was to transfer wealth and income upwards. It cut the marginal tax rate on the highest income earners from 75% to 35% while dramatically expanding spending for war. The results were two-fold: massive federal debt and an astonishing rise in the share of income and wealth going to those who were already the wealthiest people in the world.
The national debt quadrupled between 1980 and 1992. George W. Bush would repeat Reagan's policies and double it again between 2000 and 2008. Meanwhile, the share of national income going to the top 1% more than doubled, from 9% to 24%. The share going to the top one-tenth of 1% of income earners more than tripled. We now have the most unequal distribution of income in the developing world and the inequality is growing rapidly.
Shifts of this magnitude over such short periods of time have never been seen in American history. With the rich getting much, much richer, its means that everybody else is getting poorer. And in fact, real wages for median workers are lower today than they were in 1973. Indeed, while the inflation-adjusted income of the bottom fifth of workers fell by $6,900 between 1979 and 2007, the top 1% saw its annual income increase by $741,000!
To try to keep up with living standards Americans resorted to debt. They increased their personal debt-to-income ratio from 62% in 1980 to 130% in 2008. When housing prices fell 35% nationwide in the recent collapse it left Americans with a smaller share of equity in their homes, 48%, than at any time since the Great Depression. The share they have lost has been taken by the banks.
In other words, all of the income and wealth gains for middle Americans from the "golden years" between 1945 and 1975 have now been wiped out. Or more accurately, have now been transferred to the very rich. The top 1% holds 34% of the nation's wealth while the bottom 50% holds just 2.5%. The bottom 40% owns absolutely nothing.
These effects and numbers can be numbing, even dizzying. But it's important to understand that they have not been the result of random events or impersonal market forces. Rather, they have followed as the intended consequences of the relentless application of a wide array of government and industry policies.
The massive run-up in debt is one such policy. The wealthy are net lenders. This means that massive public and private debt transfers interest income to them from the rest of the economy. Another method for effecting massive wealth transfer: Beginning in 1981 the Reagan administration effectively stopped enforcing anti-trust laws, allowing monopolies to gouge everyone who had to buy their products.
The government actually provided tax subsidies so that corporations could eliminate jobs in the industrial heartland and ship them to Mexico and later, China, India, and other low-wage countries, reducing wages and pitting American workers against each other for those jobs remaining.
The bank deregulation that began in the early 1980s reached its apex with the repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act in the late nineties. This set up the "casino capitalism" of the next decade that would spawn massive criminality and mortgage fraud by the nation's leading banks—none of which has been prosecuted. The result was the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression.
But even as more than five million homeowners have lost their homes, the wealthy had their losses covered by the Bush and later Obama administrations. Bloomberg news estimates that the transfer to the banks through the financial bailout comes to some $13 trillion dollars.
We could go on and on and on with the roster of ways the wealthy have used the government to transfer national wealth to themselves. Environmental and health laws that are not enforced. Deals with the pharmaceutical industry so they don't have to compete with foreign manufacturers. Health care "reform" that forces tens of millions of Americans to buy questionable insurance products, even as insurers continue to kick legitimate claimants off their rolls. Give-aways of the telecommunication spectrum worth hundreds of billions of dollars to media monopolies that ladle out state propaganda as if were news and never, ever challenge official narratives.
In these and a thousand other ways, the rich have conspired with the government they largely control to shift more and still more of the nation's wealth away from the working and middle classes, to themselves. It amounts to the most insidious class warfare and the most rapacious looting of public and private resources in the history of the world.
The result is vast impoverishment, demoralization, and the destruction of the American middle class. One out of eight Americans are on food stamps. One out of five people are in official poverty. One out of four children are raised in poverty. Twenty five million people cannot find enough work, while their skills atrophy and their families and communities are destroyed. These are not figures describing a banana republic, a disaster-stricken region, or a third world country. They describe the United States of America after three decades of plunder by the rich. And now they want to go in for the kill.
Not satisfied with the staggering wealth they have already siphoned away, the ultra-rich are now using Barack Obama's National Deficit Commission to propose even more brazen plunder. And the looting is no longer taking place behind closed doors or under the cover of arcane public policies.
The commission proposes to cut the federal government's budget deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade. But 75% of the "savings" will come from gutting programs that help stabilize the middle class and their communities. None of it comes from policies that would harm the rich.
For example, the commission proposes cutting the tax deduction for mortgage payments. Not only will this render housing much less affordable for millions of prospective home buyers, it will reduce housing prices, perhaps substantially, for without the tax writeoff, buyers will be able to afford much less house. This will decimate the sole source of wealth of tens of millions of Americans.
It is housing wealth that undergirds retirement security for the middle class. Or, at least it did until one out of four homeowners went underwater on their mortgage in the recent bank-triggered collapse. Then, even as the Commission plans to decimate home prices and owner equity, it proposes cutting back benefits to Social Security recipients.
It would lower Social Security cost-of living adjustments while raising the minimum retirement age. And this is being proposed at the very moment that the bank-owned Federal Reserve Board is beginning to print hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the banks from what's left of their toxic assets still held from the housing crash.
The ensuing inflation is going to destroy the value of retirement incomes at exactly the moment that 77 million baby boomers head off into retirement. It was exactly this process of money printing and bankrupting of retirees that destroyed the German middle class in the early 1920s, giving rise to Adolph Hitler.
The Commission's proposals would increase co-pays and deductibles for Medicare, making it unaffordable to millions. It proposes taxing as income the health insurance benefits millions receive from their employers. The Child Tax Credit would be eliminated as would 10% of all federal government jobs. This, at a time when more than 20% of the workforce is already underemployed and there are five workers trying for every available job.
We should be crystal clear: these policies amount to a mortal assault on what remains of middle class solvency and the democracy that a vibrant middle class makes possible.
But even as it girds up for this assault, the Commission barely touches the ultra-rich on whose boards they serve and who have gained so much over the past 30 years. And it cannot go without being said that it was these same professional predators who actually wrecked the economy, pitching it into its greatest collapse since the Great Depression.
The Commission's proposals would actually lower the maximum tax on the highest income earners, from 35% to 24%. The nominal tax rate on corporate income would fall as well, from 35% to 26%. There is nothing proposed to raise taxes after so many decades of steadily amassed wealth. No financial transactions tax (as the IMF recommends) to stanch the kind of tsunami of speculative buying and selling that brought down the economy. Such a tax would raise over $700 billion over the next decade.
Of course, there will be no claw-backs of the trillions of dollars transferred to the rich under the phony duress of "saving the system" during the height of the financial crisis. No proposal that the cap on earnings subject to Social Security withholding should be removed. That proviso alone would raise more than half a trillion dollars over the next decade.
In fact, it is in comparison with other give-aways to the rich that the take-aways from the middle class by the Commission can be seen as so one sided and venal. Remember, they propose to save $4 trillion over 10 years.
But the war in Iraq, which we now know was entirely premised on lies, will cost more than $5 trillion, according to Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz. It has proven a huge boon to the rich weapons makers, bankers, logistics companies and oil companies that Bush used to coddle as his "base."
As mentioned above, Bloomberg news estimates that the financial bailout cost some $13 trillion, all of it going to the very richest people on the planet. There is not a syllable in the Commission's report proposing getting any of that back to help reduce the deficit.
Or consider the notorious Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 where fully 40% went to the top 1% of income earners. Obama once promised to overturn them but, as is his typically cowardly pattern, is now folding. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has estimated that they will cost the government more than $18 trillion over their lifetime—four times what the Deficit Commission claims it will achieve in savings. But God forbid we should ask for even a penny of that back to help battle the deficit.
In other words, there are many, many substantial and just ways that the savings the Commission proposes to create could be secured via small contributions from those who have gamed the system and gained the most over the past three decades. But that is not the Commission's plan. And it is in that omission that its true intent is revealed.
There is no more time for stealth, no more need for subtlety. Western capitalist economies are declining at a pace that is frightening their elite stewards and compelling such desperate, slovenly measures as the wholesale printing of money to postpone the inevitable. While Obama sings lullabies of "hope" and "change" to tranquillize the suckers out front, the rich are backing the truck up to the vault in the back, no longer even deigning to disguise the heist. And of course, why should they? They have the additional diversion of the moronic Tea Party vigilantes ("Keep the government out of my Medicare"), ever ready to cut other people's throats to cure their own nosebleeds.
The Commission's proposal is the most naked, undisguised declaration of class warfare possible. Its agenda is not to reduce the deficit but rather to reduce what is left of the American middle class and American workers, to a condition of servitude, of feudal peonage. Their poverty will make them docile and subservient. This will make possible the final looting of America by those whose sociopathic greed has brought it so low already. The battle over this proposal is the last bulwark against the devastation and final destruction of America. It must be fought and won or our freedom and security ceded forever. There is no other choice.
Below you see one quality of life issue being tackled by US corporate media. You look above and you see why the middle-class is fading and you look below and you would never see that all of this simply needs justice to reverse who has the money.
In Baltimore, Johns Hopkins is pushing Michelle Rhee education privatization and that includes removing playgrounds from schools and building parks for the children to be 'reflective'. There is often no recess,
yet amazingly the hype for education and health care reform in Maryland is wellness and fitness.
The other stat that is interesting is that 20% of Americans are doing OK----FOR NOW. They are moving for only 10% so you better watch out! I point this out because it shows exactly the percentage of voters coming to the polls in elections. THOSE 'LIKELY' VOTERS. Indeed, 80% of Americans are disaffected because they are the victims of the frauds and corruptions listed above and those 20% doing OK are profiting from the fraud and corruption. See why salaries for people in government are rising above $200,000? Taxpayers are not paying for quality employees.....the rich are buying loyalty. So, in Baltimore we have Baltimore Development Corporation and Johns Hopkins skimming billions of dollars of city and state revenue that means they have to allow those minions in City Hall skim thousands just as is done in Afghanistan. Baltimore City Hall actually preys on Baltimore citizens with corrupt fines, fees, and taxes. IT IS BREATH-TAKING. This is what is happening in those nations listed above and the #1 winner----Wall Street banks and their investment firms.
If you notice, the conversation in college athletics is not why are coaches and sports departments being allowed to become corporations----it has become making the college athlete a paid worker. There goes amateur sports. Look below again and you see the real picture----the vocationalizing of K-12 with children tracked into sports training at youth. That is what sports in America will look like just as it does in China say the neo-liberals and neo-cons. We only need children playing sports if they can create profit as professionals!
WAKE UP!!!!!! LET'S SIMPLY TURN THIS AROUND.
Sports & Leisure 2/03/2014 @ 5:11PM
As The Middle Class Fades, The Casual Youth Athlete Dies Out With It
As businesses are ignoring political debates and determining that climate change is real, so, too, are they stepping out of the arguments over income inequality by operating as if it exists. In particular, that there are two markets: the few and the wealthy, and the many and the not-so-wealthy. The market that doesn't exist — or at least not like it used to — the middle class.
"Those consumers who have capital like real estate and stocks and are in the top 20 percent are feeling pretty good," said John G. Maxwell, head of the global retail and consumer practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers .
In response to the upward shift in spending, PricewaterhouseCoopers clients like big stores and restaurants are chasing richer customers with a wider offering of high-end goods and services, or focusing on rock-bottom prices to attract the expanding ranks of penny-pinching consumers.
"As a retailer or restaurant chain, if you're not at the really high level or the low level, that's a tough place to be," Mr. Maxwell said. "You don't want to be stuck in the middle. …
In 2012, the top 5 percent of earners were responsible for 38 percent of domestic consumption, up from 28 percent in 1995, [economic] researchers found.
I bring this up because I think the decline of the middle class, the greater presence (and acceptance) of an all-or-nothing economy, has something to do with why, according to one major report, fewer children are playing team sports.
The Sports & Fitness Industry Association, a trade group for what it calls "leading industry sports and fitness brands, suppliers, retailers and partners," in January reported that since 2008, or around the start of the Great Recession, "team sports have lost 16.1 million participants or 11.1% of all team participants, measured by those who played at least once a year." The sports taking the biggest hit in 2013 were the biggest sports: football, basketball and baseball — a trend that the National Sporting Goods Association, a retail trade group, noted in June (and that are increasingly being reflected in high school sports participation numbers).
The Sports & Fitness Industry Association is very sure of why that decline is happening. The issue is not so-called "core" athletes, who play frequently. In 15 out of 24 team sports measured, the number of core athletes increased (compared with only five out of 24 in 2011). But the occasional athlete, the weekend warrior, the kid just trying out a sport — those numbers are falling hard. From a news release quoting the association's director of communications and research, VJ Mayor:
"The degradation of the casual team sports participant cannot be ignored," said Mayor. "Casual participation is the gateway to more core participants. We have already begun to see a decline in core participation among traditional team sports over the last five years which is alarming. The drop could be influenced by several factors including increased single sport specialization, overuse injury, athlete burnout, safety concerns, and the marginalization of the recreation player. …"
Actually, the several factors spelled out by Mayor are all related to one factor: the increasing professionalization of youth sports and younger and younger levels. Parents are savvy enough to know that their children, at very early ages, are being sorted by a well-organized system into the pile as future athlete, or the pile as future nonathlete. There is no third pile. And there are many businesses out there — not just sporting goods businesses — that know how to exploit the ambitions and/or fears of the parents who want their kids in the athlete pile.
Exacerbating this system is a top 20 percent (as Maxwell described it) willing to spend more on kids' education — including sports careers — out of the willingness of any parents to do what they can for their kids, while also aware that their peers are doing the same thing and thus could squeeze their kids out.
As for the other 80 percent — well, while there are long-told tales of athletes using sports as their perceived only way out of poverty, the middle class is also looking at sports as their only perceived way for their kids not to slip into poverty. At the least, spending big for a college scholarship so they have a chance at graduating from school without mounds of loans to pay. But those 80 percent have to weigh, constantly, whether the cost of play is worth it, with that cost of play driven by the upper 20 percent's ability and willingness to pay. So you end up with two populations — the one that's all in, and the one that's shut out.
Of course, in the whole of the population, there are kids who will opt out of the youth sports rat race because they've found other interests. But a nagging question is, if they had access to sports that weren't hard-core, would they find joy and pleasure in them, and keep playing? Or would they have a chance to discover at a later age, like 10, that they might enjoy a certain sport?
We'll never know, because like in the American economy as a whole, increasingly there is no middle ground in youth sports. So I would expect that participation surveys in future years will show more of the same — a few playing a lot, most playing not much at all.
US Attorney General Eric Holder who along with Obama can see no corporate fraud really hates when his time is pulled back to the American people demanding justice as if they were still citizens with rights and the US Attorney General worked for public justice. He is a corporate lawyer and his entire day is working for US global corporations and their legal issues around the world. This is why corporate fraud and government corruption is rampant----our state and US Justice Departments do not do public justice. A bone is thrown now and then to assuage the masses.
Below is for whom Obama and your neo-liberal Congress person works----it is for whom O'Malley in Maryland has dedicated all economic and development---the International Chamber of Commerce. These are the corporations winning all Federal, State, and local contracts for work and they are the ones openly fleecing governments and individuals with no fear from neo-liberal or neo-con pols.
We must start at the state and local level to rebuild Rule of Law. If Maryland becomes a Rule of Law state the Governor will demand the US Justice Department protect the citizens of Maryland.
DO YOU HEAR YOUR INCUMBENTS SHOUTING TO REINSTATE RULE OF LAW? VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE IF NOT!
A word from our Secretary General Welcome to ICC, a unique global business organization.
ICC is – and has been throughout its long existence – a steadfast rallying point for those who believe, like our founders, that strengthening commercial ties among nations is not only good for business but good for global living standards and good for peace.
To that end, ICC provides a forum for businesses and other organizations to examine and better comprehend the nature and significance of the major shifts taking place in the world economy. We also offer an influential and respected channel for supplying business leadership to help governments manage those shifts in a collaborative manner for the benefit of the world economy as a whole.
While policy advocacy is a major part of ICC's work, everything else we do is also devoted to promoting international trade and investment. Indeed, much of our work is of a very practical nature, focussed on making it easier for business to operate internationally. Our world-renowned commercial arbitration service is a form of impartial and dependable private justice that gives more security to commercial partners doing business across frontiers.
Drawing on the expertise and experience of its worldwide membership, ICC has also over time developed a large array of voluntary rules, guidelines, and codes – - sometimes referred to as 'trade tools' –- which facilitate cross-border transactions and help spread best practice among companies. A notable example is ICC's famous Incoterms® rules –- first elaborated in 1936 –- which are accepted as the global standard for the interpretation of the most common terms used in contracts for the international sale of goods.
ICC strives to ensure that the emerging new world, with new poles of power and leadership, stays faithful to the precept that international trade and investment and the market economy system are key factors in raising and spreading wealth.
I remain convinced that the core values that led to the creation of ICC over 90 years ago are as relevant today as they were then. Those values will continue to provide a compass for our efforts on behalf of business to help shape the new world that is emerging.
John Danilovich
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
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
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)
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
http://keionline.org/node/1216
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
AS I SPEAK ABOUT EDUCATION REFORM THAT HAS MANY FOREIGN LANGUAGES TAUGHT IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS....REMEMBER, BEING FORCED TO EMIGRATE OVERSEAS FOR WORK IS NOT PROGRESSIVE POLICY AND THIS IS FOR WHAT EDUCATION REFORMERS ARE PLACING THIS EMPHASIS ON FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. It sounds progressive, but the goals for US citizens are regressive.
IF YOUR POLITICIANS ARE NOT SHOUTING AND EDUCATING YOU AS TO WHAT TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT (TPP) AND NEO-LIBERALISM HAVE AS A GOAL---THEY ARE NEO-LIBERALS.
Regarding corporate BBC/NPR/APM report on the state of Ireland:
From Wall Street's view Ireland was a success in the scheme of sucking all public wealth from a nation and then having the public pay to replace all the money off-shored by the looters. I liked as well the emphasis on the fact that Ireland's young people are now EMIGRANTS......as a result. Ireland's elected pols subjected its citizens to the worst of austerity and indeed took most public wealth in the country as is happening in the US today. Remember, Iceland nationalized its banks and made the looters pay and is far better off than any nation that did not do that. DO YOU EVER HEAR OF ICELAND'S SUCCESS?
I would like to look at this one case that mirrors all nation's efforts to address the massive looting by corporations of national Treasuries and public wealth. Are Irish really playing to TROIKA or have their voices been silenced?
Another important piece from this report was the push of youth towards emigration. That is indeed the plan for neo-liberals------empire-building means citizens are exported to overseas jobs to live as ex-pats after all. So, when Maryland and the Federal education reformers say we need lots of foreign language in elementary schools-----they are not being progressive-----they are preparing our children for becoming ex-pats-----emigrants.
RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU WANT YOUR CHILD'S FUTURE TO HOLD ONLY AN OPTION OF WORKING OVERSEAS? NO ONE. EVEN IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL GRADS DO NOT WANT THIS. Raise you hand if you want a strong public education system that prepares people to work in a domestic economy fueled with US families as consumers? EVERYONE. See the disconnect?
NEO-LIBERALS ARE PREPARING TO MAKE OUR CHILDREN TOOLS OF EMPIRE BUILDING BY SENDING THEM OVERSEAS AND LIVING AS EX-PATS JUST AS BBC DESCRIBED IS HAPPENING IN IRELAND.
Who will be staying in the US? With Trans Pacific Trade Pact (TPP) citizens who will live as Chinese citizens did while US corporations used China for offshore factory work.
The Bank Guarantee That Bankrupted Ireland
Posted on Nov 2, 2013 kevin dooley (CC BY 2.0)
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt
This piece first appeared at Web of Debt.
The Irish have a long history of being tyrannized, exploited, and oppressed—from the forced conversion to Christianity in the Dark Ages, to slave trading of the natives in the 15th and 16th centuries, to the mid-nineteenth century "potato famine" that was really a holocaust. The British got Ireland's food exports, while at least one million Irish died from starvation and related diseases, and another million or more emigrated.
Today, Ireland is under a different sort of tyranny, one imposed by the banks and the troika—the EU, ECB and IMF. The oppressors have demanded austerity and more austerity, forcing the public to pick up the tab for bills incurred by profligate private bankers.
The official unemployment rate is 13.5%—up from 5% in 2006—and this figure does not take into account the mass emigration of Ireland's young people in search of better opportunities abroad. Job loss and a flood of foreclosures are leading to suicides. A raft of new taxes and charges has been sold as necessary to reduce the deficit, but they are simply a backdoor bailout of the banks.
At first, the Irish accepted the media explanation: these draconian measures were necessary to "balance the budget" and were in their best interests. But after five years of belt-tightening in which unemployment and living conditions have not improved, the people are slowly waking up. They are realizing that their assets are being grabbed simply to pay for the mistakes of the financial sector.
Five years of austerity has not restored confidence in Ireland's banks. In fact the banks themselves are packing up and leaving. On October 31st, RTE.ie reported that Danske Bank Ireland was closing its personal and business banking, only days after ACCBank announced it was handing back its banking license; and Ulster Bank's future in Ireland remains unclear. The field is ripe for some publicly-owned banks. Banks that have a mandate to serve the people, return the profits to the people, and refrain from speculating. Banks guaranteed by the state because they are the state, without resort to bailouts or bail-ins. Banks that aren't going anywhere, because they are locally owned by the people themselves.
Ireland was the first European country to watch its entire banking system fail. Unlike the Icelanders, who refused to bail out their bankrupt banks, in September 2008 the Irish government gave a blanket guarantee to all Irish banks, covering all their loans, deposits, bonds and other liabilities.
At the time, no one was aware of the huge scale of the banks' liabilities, or just how far the Irish property market would fall.
Within two years, the state bank guarantee had bankrupted Ireland. The international money markets would no longer lend to the Irish government.
Before the bailout, the Irish budget was in surplus. By 2011, its deficit was 32% of the country's GDP, the highest by far in the Eurozone. At that rate, bank losses would take every penny of Irish taxes for at least the next three years.
"This debt would probably be manageable," wrote Morgan Kelly, Professor of Economics at University College Dublin, "had the Irish government not casually committed itself to absorb all the gambling losses of its banking system."
To avoid collapse, the government had to sign up for an €85 billion bailout from the EU-IMF and enter a four year program of economic austerity, monitored every three months by an EU/IMF team sent to Dublin.
Public assets have also been put on the auction block. Assets currently under consideration include parts of Ireland's power and gas companies and its 25% stake in the airline Aer Lingus.
At one time, Ireland could have followed the lead of Iceland and refused to bail out its bondholders or to bow to the demands for austerity. But that was before the Irish government used ECB money to pay off the foreign bondholders of Irish banks. Now its debt is to the troika, and the troika are tightening the screws. In September 2013, they demanded another 3.1 billion euro reduction in spending.
Some ministers, however, are resisting such cuts, which they say are politically undeliverable.
In The Irish Times on October 31, 2013, a former IMF official warned that the austerity imposed on Ireland is self-defeating. Ashoka Mody, former IMF chief of mission to Ireland, said it had become "orthodoxy that the only way to establish market credibility" was to pursue austerity policies. But five years of crisis and two recent years of no growth needed "deep thinking" on whether this was the right course of action. He said there was "not one single historical instance" where austerity policies have led to an exit from a heavy debt burden.
Austerity has not fixed Ireland's debt problems. Belying the rosy picture painted by the media, in September 2013 Antonio Garcia Pascual, chief euro-zone economist at Barclays Investment Bank, warned that Ireland may soon need a second bailout.
Ireland was suckered into this neo-liberal policy of making a state or country home to business by giving them everything they want. In the US Texas leads in this policy and neo-liberal states like Maryland are following. What happens when you allow this race to the bottom in attracting jobs is what happened in Ireland. Citizens are taken on whatever ride neo-liberals want always to the detriment of labor and justice.
This is why we need to take back the democratic party-----the people's party from the neo-liberals and move back towards economic policy that allows our country stability and first world quality of life. It is not too late as neo-liberals try to tell us. WE SIMPLY NEED TO SHAKE THE NEO-LIBERAL BUGS FROM THE RUG!
In this article I like the DUMP THE EURO because right now the monetary capture of the TROIKA makes European unity a lose-lose situation for individual nations and their citizens.
John T. Harvey John T. Harvey Contributor
Leadership 7/08/2013 Forbes
Ireland: No More Austerity (and Dump the Euro)
Today, my wife and I are traveling to Ireland to visit the town where my grandfather grew up (and maybe have a beer or two–if we survive my driving!). The economy there presents a sad case study for the austerity programs being forced on economies around the world. Just days ago, it was reported that Ireland appears to be in recession once again (Ireland falls back into recession). How can this be given the rapid growth of the Celtic Tiger just a few years ago? Actually, this comes as no surprise to many economists because the so-called solutions being implemented are a function of the very same principles that caused the collapse in the first place. Unless a significant about-turn is executed, stagnation, emigration, and unemployment will continue for years to come.
That culprit is the philosophy of neoliberalism. It argues, among other things, that unregulated financial markets efficiently price assets, higher profits are good for everyone as they lead to increased employment and wages (the so-called trickle down effect), and governments represent a net drag on economic activity. Neoliberalism has been a powerful force driving world economic policy since the 1980s and as such laid the groundwork for many of the problems we are experiencing today. Ireland was not immune to these influences and, as a consequence, policy makers lowered corporate tax rates, made transfer pricing rules business-friendly, and adopted a largely hands-off approach to financial regulation (even when improprieties emerged). Dropping the punt in favor of the euro was also seen as a sign of economic responsibility because it linked Irish policy to that of the fiscally-prudent Germans.
What resulted was the emergence of Ireland-as-tax-haven. Yes, foreign firms were attracted and the impact was not entirely negative, but they tended to repatriate a substantial portion of their profits so that this money was available neither as a component of domestic income nor as part of the tax base. This, along with low euro interest rates that were more appropriate to the German than Irish economy, created an environment in which borrowing was easy and it appeared that no investment could fail. An asset bubble–something that neoliberalism says cannot happen in a free market since assets are priced efficiently–naturally followed. As is well known, that bubble burst in 2008.
But then, rather than decide that the earlier policies had failed, bets were doubled. In keeping with the neoliberal assumption that businesses were the key to prosperity, it was they, not the citizens, that the Irish government protected. In addition, Ireland continued to cede control of monetary policy by remaining on the euro. But most egregious of all was following the neoliberal advice of reining in "wasteful" government spending via austerity.
There is little more difficult to understand than the widespread fetish for balanced government budgets. Anyone who believes that lowering public spending will help an economy expand is woefully ignorant of both elementary accounting principles and basic economic theory. With respect to the former, by definition, a public sector deficit must equate to a private sector surplus. If you reduce one, you reduce the other. That cutting government spending means cutting private sector income is an inescapable fact (see for example Why you should love government deficits).
Furthermore, the key problem in modern economies is the inability of the private sector to consistently generate sufficient demand to hire all those willing to work. Consider this. Why did the Great Depression strike America? Was there a mass wave of laziness in the United States? Did Americans forget how to produce all the goods and services people had been consuming during the Roaring 20s? Of course not. The problem was insufficiency of demand, which is why once US government deficits grew, standards of living were able to not only recover, but reach new heights. Nor was the period thereafter one of economic collapse as the weight of government debt suffocated American firms and consumers. The fact is, the private sector needs government spending to supplement demand. The latter creates jobs and income when the former cannot.
And so it comes as little surprise that Ireland's austerity policies have generated nothing more than…austerity. Unemployment stands at nearly 14%, an obscene level given that it was closer to 4% a mere six years ago. It's not as if the goods and services that Irish men and women purchased back in 2007 are no longer producible. There is zero reason that the same standard of living could not be enjoyed today. The austerity policies are a monumental injustice and a crime against every Irish man, woman, and child affected by the contraction that has followed.
Recovery will only come when the Irish government rejects the neoliberal worldview and takes steps to directly employ the unemployed. This will require, at least at the outset, larger government deficits. This also means that Ireland MUST leave the euro so that fiscal policy is no longer tied to the wishes of the European Central Bank and hedge fund managers. Nations with their own currencies are never forced to borrow abroad to finance their own government's spending (for more on how deficits actually work see The big danger in cutting the deficit). But so long as Ireland uses the euro, it will be dependent on the acquiescence of foreigners for both monetary and fiscal policy. And for far too long Ireland has been run for someone other than the Irish.
Now is the time to abandon austerity, increase spending, and leave the euro. The other path has already been tried.
Please go to this site and view the slide show that accompanies the article. All of Europe's nation's are seeing their public sector dismantled as this was the goal of the massive corporate frauds sucking all wealth from nation's Treasuries.....and it is why neo-liberals here in America deliberately ignore the massive fraud and work to dismantle the public sector.
Public health and public education are the next global market say neo-liberals so give it up! THIS IS WHY WE ARE SEEING PUBLIC HEALTH DISMANTLED BY THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT.
THE PIIGS NATIONS IN EUROPE ARE SEEING THE LEVEL OF AUSTERITY THAT WILL COME TO THE US WITH THE NEXT ECONOMIC COLLAPSE ---LATER THIS YEAR. Stability until after these primary/general elections. This is why these 2014/2016 elections are so important for labor and justice.
Ireland austerity: Hospitals to send some patients home on weekends
Friday Aug 31, 2012 6:17 AM
By NBC News staff
Hospitals in Ireland will send some patients home at weekends after the country's public health services announced a new round of deep cuts, according to a media report Friday.
Cash-strapped hospitals will have to shut some wards on weekends as part of an effort to cut $44 million in spending on staff and overtime by the end of 2012, according to the Irish Independent.
Slideshow: Austerity in Ireland
Adam Patterson / Panos for nbcnews.com
Irish voters share their views on austerity and the economy as they prepare to vote in a referendum on the European Union's new fiscal treaty.
Launch slideshow
'The country is on its knees': Ireland grapples with economic collapse
The cuts were announced Thursday by senior staff at the Health Service Executive.
The health service is facing cuts of $163 million across the service, reports said. Overall, the country's health system is running a $315 million deficit, according to the Irish Times.
Officials said the staff shortages that the cuts would cause meant that more hospitals would have to operate "five-day" wards, according to the Independent.
That meant that patients assessed as "clinically suitable" would be sent home for weekends but would return to hospitals on Mondays.
Ghost towns tell the story of Ireland's faded dream
"Every effort has been made to target areas that do not impact on direct patient or client services," the newspaper quoted Laverne McGuinness of the Health Service Executive as saying.
The disability organization Inclusion Ireland condemned the cuts.
Guess who is profiting from the dismantling of the Spanish public sector and wealth. The same people creating the massive frauds. Guess who else? US public and private pension funds. Yes, labor and justice is having their pensions used to squeeze all the public wealth from these social democracies. Know what is next? These same US pensions will be left to prop this sovereign debt as the next crash comes and the looters are covered by these credit default swaps (CDS). Same thing as happened with the subprime mortgage fraud and economic crash.
NEO-LIBERALS ARE SETTING THE STAGE TO DO THE SAME THING TO CITIZENS IN EUROPE AND US AS WAS DONE IN 2008. IS YOUR POLITICIAN SHOUTING THIS LOUDLY AND STRONGLY?
Of course you do not hear that the Spanish people as with the Irish, Italian, Portuguese, and Greek citizens are protesting en masse and vow to obtain justice from these fleecings.
Portugal Default Swaps Signaling Gain From Pain: Euro Credit
By Abigail Moses and Maria Tadeo Aug 16, 2012 4:25 AM ET
Portugal's fiscal reforms are giving investors the greatest confidence in its debt in more than a year, even as its economy struggles under the weight of austerity.
Credit-default swaps on Portugal dropped as low as 725 basis points today, from 1,515 in January and 1,237 in May. The contracts have fallen by the most of any government this year and by more than every nation except Ireland in the past month.
The implied probability of Portugal defaulting on its debt has declined to 46 percent from 73 percent as optimism that spending cuts and tax increases will get finances back on track outweighs a shrinking economy and rising unemployment. The government is trying to fulfill the terms of a 78 billion-euro ($122 million) bailout and return to bond markets next year.
"It's the poster child of success for the European programs," said Arif Husain, the London-based director of European fixed-income at AllianceBernstein Ltd., which oversees $407 billion and holds Portuguese bonds. "The reforms, unless something goes crazily, strangely wrong, will always lead to a short term contraction but put it on a better foot going forward."
Investors are both buying bonds and paring bearish bets, with credit-default swaps protecting the smallest amount of Portuguese debt since at least 2009, when Bloomberg started collecting data from the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. A total of 4,153 swaps contracts covering a net $4.5 billion of bonds were outstanding as of Aug. 10, down from $9.6 billion in January 2010.
Record Yields
The Portuguese 10-year yield was at 9.88 percent at 9:07 a.m. in London, down from a euro-era record of 18.29 percent on Jan. 31, while the rate on similar-maturity Spanish debt was 6.68 percent. German 10-year bunds yield 1.55 percent and Irish nine-year bonds pay 6.06 percent.
Portugal's gross domestic product shrank for a seventh quarter in the three months through June, falling 1.2 percent from the previous period, while unemployment rose to a euro-era record of 15 percent.
The nation, which has 173 billion euros of debt outstanding, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, is seeking to narrow its budget deficit to 4.5 percent of GDP this year and 3 percent in 2013. It sold stakes in state-owned companies including utility EDP-Energias de Portugal SA and power-grid operator REN-Redes Energeticas Nacionais SA to bolster public finances.
Troika Demands
Reforms are being demanded by the so-called troika of international creditors -- the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
"Portugal has been successful in meeting the targets required by the troika, the privatization program has been quickly implemented and the country is responding to austerity," said Joaquim Gomes, a fund manager of Dunas Capital Gestao de Activos in Lisbon. "I'm confident that Portugal will make a successful return to the bond market in 2013."
Gomes said he's now buying Portugal's 30-year bonds, after buying five-year notes starting last year. The nation's five- year notes yield 8.38 percent, while the rate on the longer- dated securities is 8.89 percent.
In the first seven months of 2012, Portuguese debt returned 28 percent, the most of 26 markets tracked by indexes compiled by Bloomberg and the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies. German bunds rose 4.1 percent and Spanish debt fell 5.1 percent.
Irish Risk
As austerity in Portugal wins plaudits from credit investors, Irish debt risk is also falling as the government reforms its economy. The nation sold bonds last month for the first time since it sought a 67.5 billion-euro international rescue in November 2010.
Swaps on Ireland dropped as low as 449.5 basis points today, the lowest in almost two years, from a peak of 1,181 last July.
"A lot of people are extrapolating Portuguese yields toward where Ireland has gone," Husain said.
The troika will arrive in Lisbon on Aug. 28 for its fifth review mission ensuring that the conditions attached to the bailout program remain on track.
Risks remain and a return to the bond market next year may be "premature," according to Gilles Moec, co-chief European economist at Deutsche Bank AG in London. But the government is doing "more than enough to justify continued support from the EU," he wrote in an Aug. 10 note to investors.
Crisis Contagion
Contagion from the crisis in neighboring Spain is one of the biggest threats to Portugal's recovery, according to Christian Schulz, an economist at Berenberg Bank in London. The Spanish government is considering requesting aid, European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn signaled in a Bloomberg Television interview this week.
"As long as Spain is in trouble, returning to the markets for Portugal will be difficult," Schulz said. "One big advantage for Portugal is politically stability, the country has a stable government and the success of the adjustment program acts as glue."
Portugal's President Anibal Cavaco Silva last week called on the ECB to buy its debt to help the government return to markets. The central bank said this month it may intervene in tandem with Europe's bailout funds if troubled nations commit to improving their economies and fiscal positions.
"The Portuguese government has exceeded expectations," said Schulz. "The real test for the Portuguese economy will be whether or not it can return to the market in 2013 at a sustainable level."
We need to see the youth in America get ahead of this next economic crash that will leave America worse than Europe in the assault of the banks on Western nations. If you do not see that EMIGRATION is the employment future US global corporations have for US citizens.....YOU NEED TO SEE IT COMING!
Young Europeans Against Austerity Launch "Troika Party" to Run in 2014
Wed, 12/4/2013 - by Steve Rushton Occupy.com
Neoliberalism erodes democracy and people's sovereignty: this is the defiant message from the pan-European Troika Party, an irony-steeped political party that has announced its run for the European Union parliamentary elections in May 2014. The party's slogans include, "Vote for us and you will never have to vote again!" and "Democracy is not competitive!"
Set to formally launch in January 2014, the Troika Party aims to become a rallying point across the continent against the current economic direction forced by austerity policies. "The campaign is a tool to raise awareness and dismantle the current neoliberal narrative, unpacking Troika's role in European decision making," one of the Troika Party's organizers, Emma Avilés, told Occupy.com.
From Madrid, Avilés works on collective projects within the 15M movement, formerly dubbed by the media as the Indignados. "There is not a focus on who to vote [for] or not voting," she added. "We aim at people rethinking the concept of democracy."
The party takes its name from the trio alliance – the European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – which has determined the bailout and austerity packages imposed on southern European countries in recent years, widely seen as devastating those nations' social programs in favor of rescuing the banks that gambled away and indebted their economies.
Due to the bailouts, Greece is regarded to be suffering the worst humanitarian disaster in peacetime Europe. Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland are all suffering severely, too. The bailouts encapsulate northern Europe's reaction to the financial crisis – a demand for belt-tightening austerity measures that include public service cuts, workers' rights reductions and slashed wages – all of which are deepening already entrenched economic inequality. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reports that austerity has caused Europe's worst humanitarian crisis in 60 years.
As strategy goes, the Troika Party looks to build on the "Can't pay, won't pay" slogan which calls into legitimacy the dominant narrative of the international debt crisis: that countries are expected to pay back to the financial industry the debts that banks and corrupt, irresponsible governments were responsible for incurring. The Troika Party points out that the countries cannot afford to pay off these debts, even if they were legitimate.
"There is a big difference between understanding the crisis as something inevitable and our fault, then accepting austerity measures, the loss of rights and the undermining of democracy," continued Avilés. "On the other hand, we want people to read it in a different light: the crisis as a 'scam' with specific actors that move the strings and benefit from it."
The current, neoliberal economic structure is widely blamed as the key factor behind the Eurozone debt crisis –a contention forwarded inan academic paper by economists at London's School of Oriental and African Studies, which addresses how the Eurozone's financial architecture is "protecting the interests of financial capital" and "facilitating the dominance of Germany at the expense of the Eurozone."
In the fallout of the sub-prime mortgage crisis that spread to Europe, the scholars say investors saw Greece as an easy target and suggest the European Central Bank should have stopped "speculators playing destabilizing games." Furthermore, the paper catalogues the ways austerity is causing poverty and recession in Europe's peripheral countries – meaning the debts are even less likely to be repaid.
"Short-selling," they contend, is one mechanism that deepened Greece's troubles greatly. In times of crisis, speculators can short-sell financial assets and deepen a crisis by fueling panic and financial hysteria. This is done simply by borrowing assets, immediately selling them for a high price, then buying back those assets at a lower price. Looking at Greece's crisis, now in its fifth year, the Financial Timesreports it was not only hedge funds that were responsible, but banks, insurance and pension companies which profited greatly as Greece's debts escalated.
The Greek Credit Default Market is a key example. It was in the interests of the holders of these financial assets for Greece to default, as a default meant they got paid out. This credit default market's value rose sharply in the run-up to Greece's default. Worse still, from the perspective of the ensuing humanitarian catastrophe in Greece, the impacts of the credit default market created more panic sharpening the crisis.
A dominant power creates consent by shaping what people think of as "common sense," according to the political philosopher Antonio Gramsci. In turn, Gramsci suggested that hierarchies can be challenged by undermining their myths. The notion of redefining common sense is core to the Troika Party's platform. Alongside providing a hub for analysis, the party aims to challenge the messages that underpin neoliberalism itself.
"All around Europe we are hammered with tailored messages that are becoming mantras we unconsciously repeat, hiding the real truth about the direction Europe is taking and its consequences," suggested Avilés. "Instead, we want to point at how Europe is walking towards a non-democratic model where finance and economic power have more say that citizens."
The campaign aims to push serious economic and political messages in a fun and engaging way. "It will use satire, sarcasm and humor to dismantle the neoliberal narrative, backed up with visual tools and 'everyday language' to explain to Europeans what is really happening behind the curtains," she said.
"This type of campaigning will play a key role in bringing political messages to sectors of the population that are not yet politicized, contributing to the multi-level European struggle against the 'E.U. crisis regime'."
The Troika Party says it wants to challenge the stereotype that southern Europeans caused the crisis because they are lazy and that the southern countries spent too much on public services. The inspiration for the pan-European party came from Spain, where a version of it has already been active. It was later put forward at a convergence of members from different social and political movements who met in Amsterdam in October.
"Everyone is invited" is another slogan for the campaign, which seeks to create events, actions, reports and media that can be shared online. Party organizers purposefully left lots of space for campaigns and platforms to be tailored to each country.
The potential breadth of targets reach beyond the bailouts and austerity; the group highlights examples like the upcoming Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, and the Competitiveness Pact which could be included as points of opposition in the platform.
"On a global level there are movements fighting against austerity measures, illegitimate debt, questionable bailouts, privatizations, loss of labor, civil and human rights or attacks on natural resources, which this campaign might reach out to," Avilés added. "We need to recover the true spirit of citizens as political actors."
- See more at: http://www.occupy.com/article/young-europeans-against-austerity-launch-troika-party-run-2014#sthash.pA6rnaae.dpuf
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
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.
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.
CONTINUING TALK ONE MORE DAY ON TOTALITARIAN POLICY LET'S REVIEW YESTERDAY'S POINTS......CAPTURED ELECTIONS TAKING THE DEMOCRACY OUT OF DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS.......BUILD-UP OF MILITARISTIC POLICING WITH SUSPENDED RULE OF LAW ALLOWING NO PUBLIC JUSTICE AND HOLDING NO ONE ACCOUNTABLE FOR CRIMES BY CORPORATIONS AND GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION. YOUR MONEY BECOMES THEIR MONEY. I'VE SPOKEN ENOUGH FOR NOW ON TPP AND THE RE-WRITING OF THE US CONSTITUTION AND SHOWED HOW IT WILL ALLOW ENSLAVEMENT TO OPERATE RIGHT HERE IN MARYLAND FOR EXAMPLE.
No matter how many times they say all this loss of privacy and freedom is Constitutional-----IT IS NOT!
LET'S REVIEW THE SURVEILLANCE AND SECURITY SYSTEM THAT IS HOMELAND SECURITY:
Remember, the reason the US suddenly has all these people wanting death to America is that US policy went with global corporations with Reagan and Clinton and since then the IMF has attempted to capture developing world governments and economies just as they are doing now in the US. All we have to do is run and vote for labor and justice and reinstate Rule of Law to downsize these global corporations----EASY PEASY.
ARE YOU MAD AT CORPORATIONS AND WALL STREET? UNDERSTAND WHY OTHERS WOULD WANT TO FLY A PLANE INTO WALL STREET?
Baltimore is home of Johns Hopkins which is NSA and drone extraordinaire so the first to build militarized policing would be Baltimore and NYC. Bloomberg is tied to Hopkins so all policy is shared. Baltimore has a population of around 650,000 people most of which are poor and working class and Hopkins through a development corporation has been forcing huge numbers of poor and working class out of city center just as with NYC with many more wanted to go. This brings social unrest and with it all kinds of security build-up. We just had another spy plane fly over testing for radiation (dirty bombs). The other problem will be the really bad policy of making Baltimore a world-class Port for international shipping. It will kill our bay and Port but that does not matter. With international shipping comes cargo containers that may have dirty bombs.
For those living in Baltimore and Maryland we know there is a common denominator in drones, NSA surveillance, and Smart Meters of which I speak below.....JOHNS HOPKINS AND BROOKINGS INSTITUTION. Hopkins owns VEOLA ENVIRONMENTAL that will be overseeing Smart Meters for waste and energy and profiting from recycling and tiered energy pricing.....not to mention all of that personal data heading to the super computer on the Hopkins campus.
Why is a Gigantic War-Blimp About to Fly Above the Skies of Suburban Baltimore?
One of the most disturbing and relentless trends over the past several years has been the redirection of war technology and equipment from the battlefield abroad toward domestic use in the USA. This has resulted in a militarization of police across the nation and has encouraged small towns to use Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grants to purchase ridiculous items such as tanks.
Sadly, it appears this trend is only accelerating. With billions of dollars already spent, and failed wars abroad, the military-industrial complex needs to continue to generate cash flow. May as well just use it against the American people.
We find out from the Washington Post that:
They will look like two giant white blimps floating high above I-95 in Maryland, perhaps en route to a football game somewhere along the bustling Eastern Seaboard. But their mission will have nothing to do with sports and everything to do with war.
The aerostats — that is the term for lighter-than-air craft that are tethered to the ground — are to be set aloft on Army-owned land about 45 miles northeast of Washington, near Aberdeen Proving Ground, for a three-year test slated to start in October. From a vantage of 10,000 feet, they will cast a vast radar net from Raleigh, N.C., to Boston and out to Lake Erie, with the goal of detecting cruise missiles or enemy aircraft so they could be intercepted before reaching the capital.
Interesting, I didn't realize we were at war. When was the last time cruise missiles were shot into the United States?
Aerostats deployed by the military at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan typically carried powerful surveillance cameras as well, to track the movements of suspected insurgents and even U.S. soldiers.
Defense contractor Raytheon last year touted an exercise in which it outfitted the aerostats planned for deployment in suburban Baltimore with one of the company's most powerful high-altitude surveillance systems, capable of spotting individual people and vehicles from a distance of many miles.
The Army said it has "no current plans" to mount such cameras or infrared sensors on the aerostats or to share information with federal, state or local law enforcement, but it declined to rule out either possibility. The radar system that is planned for the aerostats will be capable of monitoring the movement of trains, boats and cars, the Army said.
"No Current plans." What a bunch of assholes. You know they can't wait to attach an ARGUS surveillance system to these puppies.
"That's the kind of massive persistent surveillance we've always been concerned about with drones," said Jay Stanley, a privacy expert for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's part of this trend we've seen since 9/11, which is the turning inward of all of these surveillance technologies."
The Army played down such concerns in written responses to questions posed by The Washington Post, saying its goal is to test the ability of the aerostats to bolster the region's missile-defense capability, especially against low-flying cruise missiles that can be hard for ground-based systems to detect in time to intercept them.
The Army determined it did not need to conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment, required for some government programs, because it was not going to collect any personally identifiable information, officials said in their written responses to The Post.
Did the FISA court rubber stamp this assessment?
Technologies developed for battlefields — weapons, vehicles, communications systems — long have flowed homeward as overseas conflicts have ended. The battles that followed the Sept. 11 attacks have produced major advances in surveillance equipment whose manufacturers increasingly are looking to expand their use within the United States.
Aerostats — basically big balloons on strings — grew popular in Iraq and Afghanistan and also are used by Israel to monitor the Gaza Strip and by the United States to eye movement along southern border areas. Even a rifle shot through an aerostat will not bring it down, because the pressure of the helium inside nearly matches the pressure of the air outside, preventing rapid deflation.
So equipment used to control people in war zones are coming to America and there's nothing to be concerned about?
The Defense Department spent nearly $7 billion on 15 different lighter-than-air systems between 2007 and 2012, with several suffering from technical problems, delays and unexpectedly high costs, the Government Accountability Office found in an October 2012 report.
"They are bringing this to the East Coast, close to Washington, to get the Pentagon guys and Congress to say, 'Whoa, we could really use this,' " said Daniel Goure of the Lexington Institute, a military think tank with ties to the defense industry. "This is re-purposing. You've already spent the money."
Have fun Baltimore.
U of M College Park is no longer a public university----it is now a lean, mean corporate machine with all the course work it takes to keep US global corporations safe around the world. All this is important for job creation you know!
Hitler took over a nation's industry and used it for his war of expansion, taking the public's wealth to do it. He had the largest Secret Police and surveillance service making everyone fearful that someone else was a spy. If you cannot see that happening with these NSA scandals and the expanded roll of policing and drone/surveillance technology in Maryland-----WAKE UP!!!!!
MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD OF TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND PUBLIC MONEY USED FOR EXPANSIONS OF GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND BUILDING SECURITY/SURVEILLANCE APPARATUS!!!! REALLY?????
University Of Md. Among Schools Developing Drone Concepts For Civilian Use
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (WJZ) — Maryland airspace may not be involved, but the state's brain power definitely is.
Alex DeMetrick reports the FAA will include research at the University of Maryland into the job of integrating drone aircraft into civilian airspace.
At the University of Maryland, they're trying to do more than pilot drones by hand. Researchers are trying to figure out how insects navigate through the air without big brains or GPS.
Figure that out, and:
"We can leverage that to navigate and also possibly for sense and avoid technology in the national airspace," said Dr. Darryll Pines, Dean, University of Maryland School of Engineering.
Right now, that airspace takes humans to fly in. But the FAA has selected Virginia and five other states to develop and test drone technology in unrestricted airspace–research the University of Maryland will also join in.
MEANWHILE-------
There is absolutely no way this technology will not be abused as they pretend they can simply allow these drones to fill the airways. Do we really need drones to do the work of our Department of Natural Resources employees? This is yet another step of taking the public out of all loops in knowing what is happening in the state and being accountable to the public.
YOU WILL NOT HAVE ANY EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY ONCE YOU WALK OUT THE DOOR THEY TELL US-----OH REALLY???????? THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL FOR YOU.
Please check out this group and get involved!!!!
No Drones Maryland
April Days of Action Against Drones in MARYLAND Advanced Physics Laboratory, home of drones research at JHU. Maryland has been an important site of protest activity against drones, particularly protests against drones research at Johns Hopkins University.
Numerous Maryland events are planned as part of the nationwide April Days of Action Against Drones.
UPCOMING MARYLAND EVENTS
TOWSON - Friday, April 5, through Sunday, April 7, 2013 - The Politics of Drone Warfare and the University - Topics in this important 3-day conference will include:
"Distancing Acts: Imperial War from Counterinsurgency to Drones"
"The Politics of Drone Warfare and the University"
"Teaching the War on Terror"
Speakers will include:
Rashid Khalidi - Columbia University
Nick Turse - TomDispatch.com
Phyllis Bennis - Institute for Policy Studies
Ray McGovern - Ex-CIA White House briefer
Irene Gendizer - Boston University
Judith Le Blanc - Peace Action
David Swanson - War is a Crime.org
Jerry Lembcke - College of the Holy Cross
Vinay Lal - UCLA
Paul Joseph - Tufts University
Carolyn Eisenberg - Hofstra University
John Prados - National Security Archive
Friday Keynote Session: Friday evening, April 5, St. John's Methodist Church, 2640 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, MD. Keynote speakers: Col. Ann Wright, former Army officer and State Department diplomat; Alfred McCoy, University of Wisconsin.
All Saturday, April 6 and Sunday April 7 sessions will be held at the College of Liberal Arts Building, Towson University, 8000 York Road, Towson, MD 21252
For additional details see: Historians Against the War
BALTIMORE - Friday, April 12, through Sunday, April 14, 2013 - Exhibit: Drone Warfare Exhibit and Luminous Light Intervention . . . Tuesday, April 16, 2013 - Exhibit: Workshop on the Legal, Political, and Ethical Implications of Militarized Drones . . . Tuesday, April 16, 2013 - Exhibit: "DRONECOMING" - Mobile drone warfare exhibition at Johns Hopkins University homecoming events.
(Add additional Illinois events to the master list of national April Days of Action actions.)
What about YOU? Become part of the No Drones movement!
Read about ALL the ways YOU can be involved in the April Days of Action Against Drones!
Do you think a government willing to allow massive fracking and exporting raw energy and global agriculture that drain and contaminate all of our fresh water is really concerned with energy conservation? What a LOL thought!
This would have once been thought a conspiracy theory but we now see this article as mainstream as people across the country now believe that these Smart Meters are only meant to ration and restrict the public as needed. I've spoken of the intent to end subsidy and tie product to what can be afforded. As this article indicates, it goes further than that. Wall Street and corporations will be allowed access to your energy consumption data for bill collection purposes----are you at home when not at work? Will I hire someone who can only afford to keep energy running part of the day or will that make someone easily exploited?
This is not hyperbole.....it is in fact what a totalitarian society would do. Control of every aspect of your life.
THIS IS WHY SNOWDEN OUTED THE NSA-------AS HE SAID -----YOU WILL NOT HAVE AN AVENUE OF PRIVACY AT ALL IF THIS IS LEFT UNCHECKED!
I included an article from the UK because it needs to be seen as a global effort. There is no shortage of natural gas or electricity.....so the reasons are a ploy.
Smart meters could be 'spy in the home'
Smart meters could become a 'spy in the home' by allowing social workers and health authorities to monitor households, adding to concern at Britain's surveillance society. Smart meters will eliminate the need to take readings from traditional electricity and gas meters.
10:30AM BST 11 Oct 2009 UK Telegraph
The devices, which the government plans to install in every home by 2020, will also tell energy firms what sort of appliances are being used, allowing companies to target customers who do not reduce their energy consumption.
Privacy campaigners have expressed horror at the proposals, which come as two million homes have 'spy' devices fitted to their rubbish bins by councils who record how much residents are recycling.
The government wants every home in Britain to have smart meters, which give users information on how to save energy and send real-time data direct to utility companies, eliminating the need for customers to stay at home for meter readings or to receive estimated bills.
The devices also pave the way for a national 'smart grid', backed by David Cameron's Conservatives, which would use the data to manage national demand more efficiently and advise households when it is cheapest to switch on appliances.
In its impact assessment, however, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) says there "is theoretically scope... for using the smart metering communications infrastructure to enable a variety of other services, such as monitoring of vulnerable householders by health authorities or social services departments."
Households face higher bills for using home appliances at peak periods
It adds: "Information from smart meters could also make it possible for a supplier to determine when electricity or gas was being used in a property and, to a degree, the types of technology that were being used within the property. This could be used to target energy efficiency advice and offers of measures, social programmes etc to householders."
Doretta Cocks, founder of the Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection, said: "This is Orwellian. We're already under surveillance for what we put outside the home in bins and now we could be watched for what we're doing inside as well.
"Most of us are happy to reduce our energy consumption or reduce waste but these measures always seem to come at the expense of our privacy. If I want advice on energy efficiency I will ask for it."
Guy Herbert, general secretary of NO2ID, said: "Information from smart meters might be useful to energy providers and perhaps even their customers, but there's no reason for any public authority to have access to it – unless they've a warrant to do so.
"This document is a prime example of government efforts to shoehorn data sharing and feature creep into every new policy. For example, it suggests that NHS or social services could use the system to monitor 'vulnerable
householders', or that companies could use the system to spam customers with adverts for their services – having paid the government for the privilege, no doubt."
The DECC document adds households could even have their power to some appliances turned off remotely to help the national grid if there is too much demand. It says: "In terms of potentially intrusive non-physical behaviour unrelated to data, smart metering potentially offers scope for remote intervention such as dynamic demand management, which is designed to assist management of the network and thus security of supply. This could involve direct supplier or distribution company interface with equipment, such as refrigerators, within a property, overriding the control of the householder."
It also says potential extra uses for smart meters would need to be checked to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act.
The Information Commissioner's Office said it had already discussed the issue of smart meters with some suppliers, including Eon, Scottish Power and British Gas. A spokesman said the ICO would "continue to maintain a close dialogue to ensure that their introduction does not compromise customers' privacy".
He added: "Important issues include what information is stored on the meters themselves, in particular whether information identifying the householder will be held. In any event energy companies will clearly need to hold records linking meters with householders and all the information must be held in line with the requirements of the Data Protection Act."
A spokeswoman for the DECC said: "The accurate, informative data that smart meters provide will be of great value to consumers. Rules and safeguards governing access to, and the use of, the data from smart meters will be reviewed as part of the Government's work in preparing for the start of the mass smart meter roll-out."
Consumer Focus, the watchdog, has also expressed concern about the privacy implications of the meters, saying consumers are "at risk of unfair, excessive, inequitable and inefficient charging" because energy companies could use the new data to introduce more complex tariffs to maximise profits at peak times.
The government has yet to decide who will pay for replacing Britain's 47 million meters, which could cost up to £8bn over the next 20 years. Its preferred option is for the cost to be met by energy firms, who stand to gain the most from meters as they remove the need to employ meter readers or calculate estimated bills.
More than two million households in Britain have microchips in their council bin. Sensors and weighing equipment fitted to the back of each rubbish lorry allow the council to collect data as each bin is raised. Information collected from outside each household is downloaded to a database that allows officials to monitor how much waste each household is producing for waste and for recycling. Officials then use the data to target errant streets and households in a bid to increase recycling rates from 43 per cent to 60 per cent.
I want to be clear, when we are made to use our energy a particular way.....forced to recycle because to is now a corporate profit factor......charged more to use energy at prime time......and having all our data sold to corporations for their marketing/research needs we have lost all of our freedoms.
Keep in mind that when there is a water shortage or an electrical shortage the government simply has local news tell people not to water lawns or wash cars or not to use air conditioners at peak hours AND THAT WORKS JUST FINE! So, this is NOT about conservation.....it is about control and surveillance.
The complaint about detecting marijuana growers is mute......the problem is far greater than that.
Smart Meters: Surveillance Devices
Smart Meters Are Surveillance Devices That Monitor The Behavior In Your Home Every Single Minute Of Every Single Day
Today's Date: Friday, January 24th, 2014	Decrypted Matrix
Have you heard about the new "smart meters" that are being installed in homes all across America? Under the guise of "reducing greenhouse gas emissions" and "reducing energy bills", utility companies all over the United States are forcing tens of millions of American families to accept sophisticated surveillance devices in their homes. Currently, approximately 9 percent of all electric meters in the U.S. have been converted over to smart meters. It is being projected that by 2012, the number of smart meters in use will rise to 52 million, and the federal government is spending a lot of money to help get these installed everywhere. Eventually the goal is to have these smart meters in all of our homes and if that ever happened there would essentially be no more privacy. Once installed, a smart meter monitors your home every single minute of every single day and it transmits very sophisticated data about your personal behavior back to the utility company.
So can't we just tell the utility companies that we don't want these stupid things?
Unfortunately, in many areas of the country you can't. For example, one outraged resident of California contacted the utility company and was told that if he did not consent to taking a smart meter he would receive no service.
So unless you want to live "off the grid", what are you going to do? Can any of us really survive without electricity these days?
The sad truth is that these things are being forced upon us.
It is happening in Europe too. The European Parliament has set a goal of having smart meters in the homes of 80 percent of all electricity consumers by the year 2020.
Sadly, as these smart meters have gone in there have been reports all over the country of electricity bills increasing dramatically. There have been mountains of complaints about these things and yet their use keeps spreading.
But of course the biggest issue with smart meters is how they will strip us of our privacy.
The concern is that the incredibly detailed data that these surveillance devices collect will be given or sold to a vast array of third parties.
For example, smart meters are already being used by police to bust marijuana growers.
It is also feared that insurance companies, credit agencies, lawyers, marketing firms and even criminals will be able to get their hands on this data as well.
A recent article posted on the website of the Electronic Frontier Foundation summarized some of the concerns….
"Without strong protections, this information can and will be repurposed by interested parties. It's not hard to imagine a divorce lawyer subpoenaing this information, an insurance company interpreting the data in a way that allows it to penalize customers, or criminals intercepting the information to plan a burglary. Marketing companies will also desperately want to access this data"
For law enforcement officials, these surveillance devices are a dream come true. According to the Columbus Dispatch, police in central Ohio have been filing at least 60 subpoenas every single month for the energy-use records of those that they suspect are growing pot in their homes.
Well, it turns out that sometimes police are raiding homes that are using a lot of energy and they don't find any marijuana at all. Instead, sometimes these raids reveal others kinds of activities….
Sometimes, high electricity use doesn't lead investigators to drugs. A federal investigation in the Powell area turned into a surprise for detectives.
"We thought it was a major grow operation … but this guy had some kind of business involving computers," Marotta said. "I don't know how many computer servers we found in his home."
So do you want police raiding your home if you start using a little bit too much electricity?
Jerry Day, an electronics and media expert from Burbank California, recently detailed many of the ways that smart meters act as surveillance devices when they are installed in our homes….
1. They individually identify electrical devices inside the home and record when they are operated causing invasion of privacy.
2. They monitor household activity and occupancy in violation of rights and domestic security.
3. They transmit wireless signals which may be intercepted by unauthorized and unknown parties. Those signals can be used to monitor behavior and occupancy and they can be used by criminals to aid criminal activity against the occupants.
4. Data about occupant's daily habits and activities are collected, recorded and stored in permanent databases which are accessed by parties not authorized or invited to know and share that private data.
5. Those with access to the smart meter databases can review a permanent history of household activities complete with calendar and time-of-day metrics to gain a highly invasive and detailed view of the lives of the occupants.
6. Those databases may be shared with, or fall into the hands of criminals, blackmailers, law enforcement, private hackers of wireless transmissions, power company employees, and other unidentified parties who may act against the interests of the occupants under metered surveillance.
7. "Smart Meters" are, by definition, surveillance devices which violate Federal and State wiretapping laws by recording and storing databases of private and personal activities and behaviors without the consent or knowledge of those people who are monitored.
8. It is possible for example, with analysis of certain "Smart Meter" data, for unauthorized and distant parties to determine medical conditions, sexual activities, physical locations of persons within the home, vacancy patterns and personal information and habits of the occupants.
Jerry Day has also produced a terrific YouTube video in which he explains many of these points more fully. If you live in an area where these insidious smart meters are going in, then please share this video with as many people living near you as you can….
The time to object to these smart meters is before they go in. Once they are in all of our homes it is going to be too late.
This is all part of the radical green agenda that is being forced down the throats of people all over the world.
Everything that we do has to be watched, monitored and tightly controlled for the "good of the environment".
To the control freaks running things, that also means that the liberties and freedoms that we cherish so much must be greatly restricted.
If you don't know about "Agenda 21", you should learn about it. The UN has a plan for the future of this planet, and once you find out about this plan you probably are not going to like it very much. The entire globe is rapidly becoming one big prison grid as the elite implement their vision of the future.
If you want to get a really good idea of what they are planning, just watch this video.
If the control freaks get their way, there will eventually be no more privacy for any of us.
Unless we speak out now, the surveillance devices are just going to become more and more sophisticated. At some point, none of us is even going to be able to sneeze without someone knowing about it.
So what do all of you think about these smart meters? Does anyone out there have a smart meter horror story? Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below….
Those of us in Baltimore already know the debacle that is speed cameras and we know as well that it took constant media shaming and huge public outrage to stop what all knew were faulty tickets actually stealing money from citizens. Between Smart Meters that are already showing skewed pricing for utilities and these ticketing schemes all of which record our movement by car.......the WAR BLIMP will follow us by train or bus!
Who are these people preparing all kinds of escape from whom our Homeland Security pretend to protect WE THE PEOPLE? Probably the world's citizens coming to recover their tens of trillions of dollars stolen with massive corporate fraud!
Cordon multi-target photo-radar system leaves no car untagged
(video) BY Amar Toor October 31st, 2011 at 8:37AM ET
Go easy on the gas, Speed Racer, because Cordon is on its way. Developed by Simicon, this new speed sensor promises to take highway surveillance to new heights of precision. Unlike most photo radar systems, which track only one violator at a time, Simicon's device can simultaneously identify and follow up to 32 vehicles across four lanes. Whenever a car enters its range, the Cordon will automatically generate two images: one from wide-angle view and one closeup shot of the vehicle's license plate. It's also capable of instantly measuring a car's speed and mapping its position, and can easily be synced with other databases via WiFi, 3G or WiMAX. Plus, this device is compact and durable enough to be mounted upon a tripod or atop a road sign, making it even harder for drivers to spot. Fortunately, though, you still have time to change your dragster ways, as distributor Peak Gain Systems won't be bringing the Cordon to North America until the first quarter of 2012. Cruise past the break to see some footage of a field trial that's currently underway -- cars tagged with a green dot are traveling below the speed limit, those with a yellow marking are chugging along within an acceptable range above the limit, while vehicles with a red tab are just asking for trouble.
PLEASE STOP ALLOWING THESE CORPORATE POLS AND MEDIA HIDE THE FACT THAT TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CORPORATE FRAUD AND TAX EVASION NEED TO COME BACK AND OUR GOVERNMENT COFFERS WILL BE FLUSH WITH MONEY.
Wonder why Congress would allow the US to be taken from first world to third world on about $150,000 salary plus health benefits? Below you see why. These pols are getting super-sized pay-to-play in a system that allows anyone to pay someone else through these offshore accounts. DOES THAT SOUND LIKE GOOD PUBLIC INTEREST, DEMOCRATIC LAW? Yet, your neo-liberal here in Maryland is all for this banking system. We are fortunate to have International Journalists working with Wikileaks-like sites to locate lots of this money and to whom it is attached and we will pull together cases to claw this back. We need to have a candidate that will connect the US to the International Criminal Courts so this massive fraud can be handled like the Holocaust looting. These journalists are using the same structures to hunt and identify wealth according to country carted to these offshore accounts.
"According to the CBC, there was a massive leak of 'files containing information on over 120,000 offshore entities — including shell corporations and legal structures known as trusts — involving people in over 170 countries. The leak amounts to 260 gigabytes of data, or 162 times larger than the U.S. State Department cables published by WikiLeaks in 2010...In many cases, the leaked documents expose insider details of how agents would incorporate companies in Caribbean and South Pacific micro-states on behalf of wealthy clients, then assign front people called "nominees" to serve, on paper, as directors and shareholders for the corporations — disguising the companies' true owners.' Makes a good read and there are some good interactive components. Perhaps Slashdot readers can figure out how the source of the leak, the D.C.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists got their hands on this data."
The good news is that the American people can and will get this money back as we organize and reverse this corporate hold on government by getting rid of neo-liberals and rebuild the democratic party. Just think how much money Obama and neo-liberals could have brought back to government coffers and now, they are play-acting that there is a crisis around every corner to hide why they are dismantling the US public sector!
The first thing a neo-liberal supermajority in 2008 did was to protect the wealth inequity by massive corporate fraud. The next thing....make it easier to hide and/or keep the massive wealth the few now have. The estate tax and other legislation from the Depression era designed to keep a few from amassing this huge wealth we have today are being dismantled by neo-liberals. ALL OF MARYLAND DEMOCRATS ARE NEO-LIBERALS.
You see that the top states working hard to hide wealth are democratic leaders-----HARRY REID OF NEVADA AND JOE BIDEN OF DELAWARE. You know, those blue-collar kind of guys! WAKE UP AND RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!
America's Most Wealth Friendly States Continue to Bid for Your Clients' Trust Business
Posted by Jerry Cooper, Contributor - on January 15th, 2010
State legislatures are still enacting trust law enhancements to provide greater protection for your client's wealth.
As more wealthy families cross borders to protect assets, they choose to set up personal trusts in states other than their own to take advantage of favorable trust laws.
According to recent data, 72 percent of U.S. households with more than $1 million in investment assets use trusts as a key component to their estate planning.
The main reasons to cross borders are:
• Some states don't tax assets held in a trust, while distributions might be taxable in your home state.
• Trust codes in some states seek to protect assets from lawsuits and creditors.
• Some states allow "dynasty trusts" which permit future generations to avoid estate taxes.
Over the last few years a growing number of states have revised their trust codes to add features that provide for creditor protection, low or no state income tax and ability to establish a dynasty trust which allows for assets to pass to heirs for generations to come.
Nevada recently revised its trust code to provide for directed trusts. Directed trust statutes provide for an ability for the trustee to appoint an investment advisor to manage assets within the trust. This provides for low trustee fees and minimal trustee liability and provides flexibility to the investment manager ultimately benefiting the client.
Steven J. Oshins, an estate planning attorney and author of several trust laws in Nevada says, "Nevada's new directed trust statute is critical to high net worth investors." He adds, "Nevada now offers everything Delaware offers and more because of the combination of its 365-year dynasty trust law, two-year statute of limitations on self settled asset protection trusts and no taxation."
Alaska revised its trust code to make it more difficult for divorcing spouses to grab trust assets. State trust laws vary widely and clients should compare jurisdictions for features that best fits their needs. Some of the most important trust features include whether or not a state has income tax.
When setting up a trust arrangement having a trust in a state that has no income tax has a definite economic financial impact on your client's family. Therefore, no state income tax is amongst the most important.
Dynasty trusts are important beginning next year when estate taxes resume at a 55 percent tax rate. The general rule is the longer the period of time that the trust can exist the better it is.
Other factors include the number of trust providers or independent trust companies in the state which is an indication of whether a trust center is beneficial to a client and the time zone from New York.
But going out of state for a trust may not always make financial sense, especially for smaller trust accounts. Since the most favorable jurisdictions might be in states where you don't know an individual trustee, you might need to hire a corporate trustee, which can cost about between ½ of 1 % to 1% or less of trust assets per year, depending on the size of the trust.
Moving an existing trust may also involve additional fees and may require court approval, depending on how the trust was originally drafted and state law.
With great states spread around the country, one important factor to consider when seeking a home for a trust is the avoidance of state income taxes. Trust experts say one of the first factors to look for when examining where to set up a trust is whether the assets are subject to state taxes.
The idea is to let trust investments grow for as long as possible free of state taxes, which can save significant sums of money, especially in high-tax states such as New York and California. (Beneficiaries, however, may be taxed on distributions, depending on whether their home state has an income tax.) Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, and Wyoming are attractive because they don't impose any taxes on trust assets.
The following chart, the Best States for Trusts gives you a thumbnail view of which states are best. It is divided into three tiers Tier 1 being the best, Tier 2 being good and Tier 3 being marginal. Given that Alaska, Delaware, Nevada, South Dakota are in Tier 1 they are probably your best choices for trust business.
States bidding for trust business often will not tax those assets they are betting on increased economic activity which will bring other prosperity to the state such as job creation, corporate tax revenue collected from trust companies, corporate tax assessments from the trust companies.
It is for this reason that state legislatures continue to sharpen their pencils and enact new laws designed to attract wealthy baby boomers and their parents' estates for future generations. Trust accounts have been an important port of the investment landscape.
For wealth management organizations advisors can gain additional income and provide more value to their service by bundling trust services within investment management. Last year several advisory firms launched their own trust companies in order to be better positioned to provide these services.
This includes Wealth Advisors Trust Company and Dominion Trust Company in South Dakota, both new launches targeting wealthy clients from a wealth-friendly trust state. This trend was featured in an Investment News Article last summer, More Advisory Firms Expected to Start Trust Companies.
Trusts can be created for a variety of other purposes including avoiding probate, passing on a family home to heirs, protecting money from creditors, caring for disabled child or even providing for a pet after one dies. Trusts continue to grow in popularity thanks to the aging population and more aggressive trust marketing by financial firms and the concerns about maximizing trusts' growth performance.
Asset protection trusts have gained in popularity as marketing vehicles for advisors over the last several years with Alaska, Delaware, Nevada and South Dakota being the most popular jurisdictions. Doctors, business executives and other professionals have become increasingly interested in these trusts, advisors say. With these you transfer assets into a trust run by an independent trustee who can give your client distributions from time to time. These trusts if set up properly are in most cases able to keep the assets of the trust out of reach of creditors.
If you notice, the three banks handling the most offshore accounts and wealth are the same 3 most guilty of the massive financial frauds of last decade with almost no penalty and lots of flooding of Fed money at the time of the crash.
We know much of the money is-----we only need Rule of Law reinstated to get it. As the US Congress fights over the IRS tax scandal regarding political non-profits rage, the IRS is being defunded more and more so tax recovery does not happen.
THIS IS A NEO-LIBERAL ADMINISTRATION AND NOT ONE WORD FROM CONGRESS AS TO THESE TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF TAX EVASION.
'The three private banks handling the most assets offshore are UBS, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs'
22 July 2012 Last updated at 12:20 ET
Tax havens: Super-rich 'hiding' at least $21tn
A global super-rich elite had at least $21 trillion (£13tn) hidden in secret tax havens by the end of 2010, according to a major study.
The figure is equivalent to the size of the US and Japanese economies combined.
The Price of Offshore Revisited was written by James Henry, a former chief economist at the consultancy McKinsey, for the Tax Justice Network.
Tax expert and UK government adviser John Whiting said he was sceptical that the amount hidden was so large.
Mr Whiting, tax policy director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation, said: "There clearly are some significant amounts hidden away, but if it really is that size what is being done with it all?"
Mr Henry said his $21tn is actually a conservative figure and the true scale could be $32tn. A trillion is 1,000 billion.
Mr Henry used data from the Bank of International Settlements, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and national governments.
His study deals only with financial wealth deposited in bank and investment accounts, and not other assets such as property and yachts.
The report comes amid growing public and political concern about tax avoidance and evasion. Some authorities, including in Germany, have even paid for information on alleged tax evaders stolen from banks.
The group that commissioned the report, Tax Justice Network, campaigns against tax havens.
Mr Henry said that the super-rich move money around the globe through an "industrious bevy of professional enablers in private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries.
"The lost tax revenues implied by our estimates is huge. It is large enough to make a significant difference to the finances of many countries.
"From another angle, this study is really good news. The world has just located a huge pile of financial wealth that might be called upon to contribute to the solution of our most pressing global problems," he said.
'Huge black hole' James Henry says his $21tn figure is a conservative estimate
The report highlights the impact on the balance sheets of 139 developing countries of money held in tax havens that is put beyond the reach of local tax authorities.
Mr Henry estimates that since the 1970s, the richest citizens of these 139 countries had amassed $7.3tn to $9.3tn of "unrecorded offshore wealth" by 2010.
Private wealth held offshore represents "a huge black hole in the world economy," Mr Henry said.
Mr Whiting, though, urged caution. "I cannot disprove the figures at all, but they do seem staggering. If the suggestion is that such amounts are actively hidden and never accessed, that seems odd - not least in terms of what the tax authorities are doing. In fact, the US, UK and German authorities are doing a lot."
He also pointed out that if tax havens were stuffed with such sizeable amounts, "you would expect the havens to be more conspicuously wealthy than they are".
Other findings in Mr Henry's report include:
At the end of 2010, the 50 leading private banks alone collectively managed more than $12.1tn in cross-border invested assets for private clients
The three private banks handling the most assets offshore are UBS, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs
Less than 100,000 people worldwide own about $9.8tn of the wealth held offshore.
Mr Henry told the BBC that it was difficult to detail hidden assets in some individual countries, including the UK, because of restrictions on getting access to data.
A spokesman for the Treasury said great strides were being made in cracking down on people hiding assets.
He said that in 2011-12 HM Revenue & Customs' High Net Worth Unit secured £200m in additional tax through its compliance work with the very wealthy.
He said that agreements reached with Liechtenstein and Switzerland will bring in £3bn and between £4bn and £7bn respectively.
Top Offshore Banking Locations for Enhanced Privacy and Protection
Emma Mackenzie | 7 Nov 2012	|
Offshore bank accounts are commonly misrepresented as a financial tool for the ultra wealthy. In reality, most individuals can establish offshore bank accounts that benefit from low minimum deposits, tax-free savings, increased privacy, and asset protection. Depending on your citizenship, your financial objectives, and your banking needs, the most appropriate jurisdiction in which you should select to set up an offshore account will vary.
Besides being an effective investment and tax friendly vehicle, an offshore bank account offers numerous advantages to account holders. Not only can individuals make use of offshore accounts to diversify their investment portfolios, but also they can benefit from tax savings, high interest rates, legal protection, and financial stability. However, knowing which jurisdiction to establish your account in is key to achieving your financial goals. Many countries require personal presence for the opening of an account, while other locations may require substantial deposits. Upon deciding on your primary banking goals, you can then ascertain the most suitable jurisdiction to bank with.
Here we provide the top five locations that offer unparalleled banking privacy to account holders.
#1 Seychelles The Seychelles is a renowned jurisdiction for the opening of offshore bank accounts; individuals can achieve asset protection in a financially stable and secure climate whilst enjoying 100% anonymity and heightened account privacy. One of the most favored aspects of the Seychelles as an offshore banking destination is that the jurisdiction's governmental authorities have no direct access to bank information without a court order. In addition, there is no personal presence required to open a Seychelles offshore account.
Seychelles is favored not only for its high levels of privacy and banking protection, but also for its tax friendly climate; the country has 13 double tax treaties including Cyprus, Barbados, UAE and China. Further to this, the Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) is signed only with the Netherlands, making the Seychelles an excellent choice for individuals seeking tax and privacy benefits.
Online banking access
International wire transfer payments
1-2 days to open account
Available banking currencies include but are not limited to USD, EUR, GBP and CAD
Individuals should note that the initial minimum deposit required is US $100,000.
#2 Cyprus Although Cyprus is an EU member state and thus operates in accordance with the EU Savings Tax Directive 2005, information regarding interest paid to legal entities including trusts and foundations are not subject to the directive and as such, cannot be passed over to tax authorities. In addition, Cyprus authorities cannot obtain any financial or banking information regarding an account holder without a court order.
Cyprus bank accounts boast 100% anonymity and no personal presence is required to open an account.
No initial minimum deposit is required
No minimum balance is required
Tax friendly jurisdiction with double tax treaties with 45 countries
Access to online banking
Banking currencies include USD, EUR, GBP and CAD
#3 Belize For individuals whose primary concern is banking privacy, Belize reigns as one of the best bank account choices. Not only is banking secrecy 'strictly enforced by law', but personal presence is not a requirement for opening an account. Authorities cannot access any bank information about an account holder without a court order, which can only bse obtained with good reason i.e. evidence that funds are a result of a crime.
Belize offshore bank accounts have a credible reputation as a safe financial vehicle for asset protection and wealth management purposes. Banking institutions, which provide offshore accounts, are regulated by the Belize Central Bank in accordance with:
The Banks and Financial Institutions Act 1995
The Introduction of the Offshore Banking Act 1996
The Money Laundering (prevention) Act 1996
International bank cards
Savings and time deposit accounts
Exempt from local taxes or exchange control restrictions
Accounts can be in any major currency including USD, EUR, CAD
Account can be opened in 1-2 working days
Access to online banking and bank cards
Account holders should note that a minimum initial deposit of US $1,000 is required, and a minimum balance of US $1,000 must be maintained at all times.
#4 Singapore Singapore's domestic tax law favors offshore bank account holders in that the government of Singapore cannot access banking information on the account holders, information on investment gains, and bank-deposit interest activity under domestic tax law. Account holders therefore enjoy advanced levels of privacy and banking secrecy, as the government cannot pass over any financial information to the tax authorities of the account holder's country of domicile.
As one of the world's largest offshore financial centers, Singapore is widely regarded for its continued commitment to asset protection and banking privacy through the enforcement of strict secrecy regimes. One way of furthering your banking privacy is to open an offshore Singapore account under the name of a foreign entity such as a trust, foundation, or corporation. In doing this, certain situations may allow account holders to be exempt from reporting requirements on their personal assets.
Accounts can be opened in any major currencies including SGD, USD, EUR and AUD
Singapore remains a top financial center for stability and secure monetary controls
Lowest tax rates in Asia
Accounts can be held in gold
ATM bank card with worldwide acceptance
Quick set up (usually 1-2 business days)
Personal presence may be required in Singapore in order to open an offshore bank account (effective September 1st 2011).
#5 Dubai Dubai offers exceptional levels of anonymity and privacy for bank account holders. With banking secrecy at the forefront of Dubai's banking institutions' priorities, account holders can rest assured that their assets will be protected to the highest of levels. Dubai's privacy policy regarding offshore bank account activity is highly regarded by investors on a global scale.
Online banking is available to all account holders, enabling transactions to be performed internationally
Choice of either corporate or private bank account to suit your needs
No fund transfer restrictions
No tax on interest, investment income, inheritance, exchange controls and capital gains
Dubai is a reliable and stable financial center with no tax exchange agreements with any countries
Flexible banking system
Dubai's legislation favors the confidentiality and privacy of investors and account holders
Preservation of banking privacy Banking privacy cannot be taken for granted, and with ongoing agreements for banking and tax transparency in place, countries across the globe are facing difficulties in maintaining their reputation as a financial center for banking secrecy, stability and financial security.
Due to the European Union Tax Savings Directive 2005 – known informally as the automatic exchange of information – all EU countries are now restricted in the level of financial privacy they can guarantee to offshore investors. This has subsequently catapulted the popularity of banking in offshore locations, particularly in the Caribbean and Asia. Other agreements such as the Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) also adversely affect the financial privacy of individuals banking in countries member to the TIEA.
The future of offshore banking confidentiality Nevertheless, maximum banking privacy can still be achieved, legally, professionally and quickly by opening an account in one of the abovementioned locations. Not only will account holders enjoy anonymity, banking privacy and financial confidentiality with respect to their banking activities, but in many cases, they have the opportunity to open an account under the name of a corporation to achieve 100% anonymity and confidentiality.
Regarding Snowden and the security leak....a proud Marylander:
Why would Snowden fly from Hawaii to Hong Kong on his way to sanctuary? Could it be that he did not want to fly over US territory and knew people through business in Hong Kong? Seems more likely then thinking he worked for the Chinese intelligence for example. Snowden will prove to be yet another American who sees authoritarianism killing freedom and made a decision of conscience that he knew would be costly. Did you hear him say he feared for his family? Sound like something you hear from dissidents in Iran and China.....YOU BETCHA!!!! SAME THING.
Polls show almost 70% of citizens do not trust or want this surveillance. Polls also show 17% trusting Congress and 80% wanting an end to corporate rule. Yet, US policy from Congress to Obama pushes forward with what no one wants. Ergo.....authoritarianism. Third Way corporate democrats are leading the way towards all of these policies that are killing democracy and Maryland democrats are all Third Way corporate. THEY NEED TO GO! Something worth noting is that a NPR/APM person thought how could an uneducated worker with no prospects give up a $200,000 a year salary? You see, when you turn criminal and corrupt you must buy loyalty as with foreign dictators. We see this locally when city administrators and private 'consultants' are paid well above staff.....they are buying loyalty as they do city workers wrong.
The MEME of the day on Facebook goes like this:
'Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both-----Benjamin Franklin
I think it is important to understand that you cannot have 100 percent security and then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make some choices as a society-----Barack Obama
Now, looking at my opening I see that we have made choices as a society and we have shouted, polled, petitioned our voices loud and clear------WE DO NOT WANT GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AS THEY WILL ONLY DOMINATE SOCIETY, REMAIN UNACCOUNTABLE AND PREDATORY, AND CREATE ILL-WILL AROUND THE WORLD AS POLICY BECOMES ALL ABOUT MARKET-SHARE. ENFORCING RULE OF LAW AND BRINGING BACK THE STOLEN LOOT WILL DOWNSIZE THEM.....THERE, SOCIETY HAS SPOKEN OBAMA. What could be more clear than that President Obama and Third Way corporate democrats? Indeed, it is global policy that is creating these attacks, creating the instability around the world that is reversing decades of advancement for the poor and women. Sadly, people in leadership have no moral compass.....they are the ones incredulous that someone would risk a $200,000 job for goodness sake. So the media we get from our leaders becomes nothing more than the propaganda machines of China and Korea. I am thankful that MSNBC and other Third Way corporate media are falling in listeners....we know the left are not sheep as are the right....we know bad policy when we see it.
One policy made clear is that a private contractor...in this case Booz and Co....is placed in charge of NSA data. Here we have an International Business Management/Consultant Firm with access to information on all Americans and national security but the American people cannot know this. THIS SHOWS HOW YOUR THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRAT HAS HANDED OUR GOVERNMENT TO CORPORATE CONTROL....PERIOD.
Below you see this company is master at winning at all cost....marginalizing people as citizens pushing them to become 'fit for purpose'....that's robot talk for cog in a wheel. You see as well their commitment to making our health care system a global market-driven profit machine! JUST WHAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANT OF THEIR HEALTH CARE.
SHAKE THE BUGS FROM THE RUG! VOTE THESE POLS OUT AND RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS!
THIS IS WHO IS MAKING THE DECISIONS WHAT IS IMPORTANT DATA FOR COLLECTION AND WHO SEES IT!
Greater China Partners Sarah Butler Sarah Butler is Managing Director of Booz & Company, Greater China and leads our Health and Financial Services China, (Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Taipei). He has more than 20 years of management consulting and senior corporate management experience
BOOZ AND CO:
The 2012 Chief Executive Study
This is the thirteenth year that Booz & Company has examined CEO successions and success among the world's top 2,500 public companies. This year we focused particularly on the professional and educational backgrounds of new CEOs and on how CEOs should lead through disruption.
In 2012, 15.0 percent of CEOs left office, up from 14.2 percent in 2011. This is the second-highest rate of CEO successions in the history of our study. And the new leaders who came into the office were, for the most part, familiar faces.
Every company will face fundamental disruption sooner or later. Our feature article in strategy+business explains how chief executives must engage personally at every stage of planning and response to make sure their company does better than others.
The 2013 State of the European Union Survey
Business leaders are more pessimistic and more urgently demanding change—but, despite this, remain optimistic about the EU's long-term prospects. This is a core message of the survey produced by Booz & Company, INSEAD, and the European Executive Council.
Capabilities-Driven Strategy
The power of coherence: A company's right to win in any market depends not just on external market positioning, and not just on internal capabilities—but on a coherent strategy that aligns them at every level. Our research has revealed three interlocking elements that make up a capabilities-driven strategy.
Fit for Growth*
In an uneven business climate, companies need to transform how they operate, while creating the capacity to invest in growth. That starts by articulating a clear and compelling cost agenda, continues with the building of lean processes, systems, operations, and organization, and culminates in the institutionalization of capabilities that keep companies fit.
Thanks to digitization, companies across industries are racing to migrate "analog" approaches to customers, products, services, and operating models to an always-on, real-time, and information rich marketplace. In doing so, these companies secure not only continued relevance, but also superior returns.
Booz & Company strongly believes that consumerism is a revolutionary force that will fundamentally alter the status quo in the health industry. We work with our clients—payors, hospitals and health systems, and life sciences companies—as they seek to understand all the implications of this new world and become leaders in the consumerization of healthcare.
The Global Innovation 1000 Study
In addition to our annual analysis of R&D spending trends, the 2012 Global Innovation 1000 study focuses on the "fuzzy front end" of the innovation process: the tools, mechanisms and networks companies use to generate ideas and effectively convert them into potential future products and services.
The New Functional Agenda
Rising demands on corporate functions provide functional leaders and staff with a golden opportunity. Instead of striving to be "best in class" in everything they do, they can become "fit for purpose" by focusing on activities that are strategically important to the enterprise and that help drive its distinctive value proposition.
2013 Industry Perspectives
Find out how companies can plan for and address the trends specific to their industry and adapt to broader changes, such as the post-presidential-election business climate, the impact of new technologies, and the emphasis on structural and investment innovations that will drive profitability and growth.
Today we are hearing that a majority of people are OK with government spying says Pew Research and Washington Post.....but I have not trusted polls since this overt corporate takeover of government and media. Here is a poll from 2006 when it showed almost 70% of people did not want the government spying!
PLEASE QUESTION THE DATA YOU ARE GIVEN....REMEMBER, NPR JUST TOLD US SOCIAL SECURITY WILL ONLY LAST UNTIL 2020s WHEN JUST A FEW YEARS AGO, BEFORE BEING TAKEN CORPORATE SOCIAL SECURITY WAS FINE UNTIL 2070s......they are lying to us!
NSA Domestic Spying Polls--It's What You Ask
By Lee RussMonday, January 16, 2006 at 05:20 PM Watching the Watchers
Semantics, semantics, semantics. Not a day goes by without another headline about what "the people" think of the NSA domestic spying issue. And you'd go nuts if you put all the headlines on a table and tried to reconcile their very different conclusions.
Which prompted me to collect several recent polls and try to make sense out of them.
It's all semantics. With a touch of opinions based on nothing. But mostly semantics.
Poll Number 1, Zogby poll: headlined "Majority supports impeaching Bush for wiretapping" Certainly to my taste and liking.
What they asked :
"If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
What the prople said:
Agree Disagree No Op/No
ALL 52 43 6
Dems 76
Indep 50
Repub 29
Well, at least the question was objectively worded to focus on wiretapping of American citizens, without some confusing and misleading crap about those citizens being "suspected of involvement with terrorism." On the other hand, it asks if Congress "should consider" impeachment--they want the thing investigated--so the results can't support the headline conclusion that the majority are actually in favor of impeachment.
Poll Number 2, CNN/USA Today/Gallup:
What they asked on Jan 6-8, 2006:
a. "As you may know, the Bush Administration has been wiretapping telephone conversations between U.S. citizens living in the United States and suspected terrorists living in other countries without getting a court order allowing it to do so. How closely have you been following the news about this: very closely, somewhat closely, not too closely, or not at all?"
What the people said:
Very Somewhat Not Too Closely Not at All
b. "Do you think the Bush Administration was right or wrong in wiretapping these conversations without obtaining a court order?"
Right Wrong Unsure
Just how bad are these questions? Well:
a. It isn't necessarily JUST "telephone conversations between U.S. citizens living in the United States and suspected terrorists living in other countries"; that's what the admin claims, but without objective oversight, no one KNOWS. There's pretty good evidence that they are tapping EVERYTHING available to them, storing it, and using computer programs to analyze things later.
b. "Without getting a court order" sounds like you're asking if they should have gotten a court order BEFORE the wiretapping; as we all know, the law allows them to get warrants AFTER the wiretap, as long as it's within 72 hours. Did the people answering the question understand that they haven't bothered to get RETROACTIVE warrants?
c. 96% of the respondents had an opinion on the right/wrong question, but 25% of the respondents had not been following the issue very closely, or at all. So, of the 96% with a right/wrong opinion, at least 21% were answering without any real understanding of the issue.
Poll Number 3, ABC News/Washington Post:
What they asked on Jan. 5-8, 2006:
a. "According to recent news reports, the National Security Agency has been investigating people suspected of involvement with terrorism by secretly listening in on telephone calls and reading e-mails between some people in the United States and other countries, without first getting court approval to do so. How closely have you been following this story: very closely, somewhat closely, not too closely or not closely at all?"
Very Somewhat Not Too Closely Not Closely At All
b. "Would you consider this wiretapping of telephone calls and e-mails without court approval as an acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism?"
Acceptable Unacceptable Unsure
This is even worse than number 2, as it explicitly restricts itself to "without FIRST getting court approval." And the discrepancy is even greater between those who have been following it very/somewhat closely, and those who have opinions on its rightness/wrongness--98% have a right/wrong opinion, but only 66% followed it very or somewhat closely.
Poll Number 4, CBS News:
This was more extensive on the spying issue:
a. "During wartime, some presidents have either received or assumed special war powers, which give the president more authority to act independently when he feels it is necessary. In the current campaign against terrorism, is it a good idea or a bad idea for the president to have the authority to make changes in the rights usually guaranteed by the Constitution?"
Good Idea Bad Idea Unsure
b. "In order to reduce the threat of terrorism, would you be willing or not willing to allow government agencies to monitor the telephone calls and e-mails of ordinary Americans on a regular basis?"
Willing Not Willing Unsure
c. "In order to reduce the threat of terrorism, would you be willing or not willing to allow government agencies to monitor the telephone calls and e-mails of Americans that the government is suspicious of?"
d. "Do you think that in order to fight terrorism, the federal government should have more authority to use wiretaps, or would this violate Americans' constitutional rights?"
Have More Violate Rights Unsure
e. "In general, how much confidence do you have that government agencies are able to correctly tell whose phone calls and e-mails should be monitored and whose should not? Do you have a great deal of confidence, a fair amount, not very much, or none at all?"
Great Fair Not Much None At All Unsure
This is really interesting and revealing. The majority think it's a bad idea for the president to have the power to change the protections under the constitution (a), and a better than two-thirds majority think it's a bad idea to spy on "ordinary Americans" (b), and a similarly large majority think it's okay to spy on "Americans that the government is suspicious of."
If you stopped there, you could say that "the people" don't like expanding presidential power, and really don't like spying on ordinary folks, but they seem to think that, hey, if the government is suspicious of you, you must not be ordinary. But then ther's question e, which indicates that a full 43% of the people don't have much confidence in the government's suspicions. Net result? You've got me. Schizophrenia?
Poll Number 5, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press:
a. "Would you favor or oppose allowing the U.S. government to monitor your personal telephone calls and e-mails to curb terrorism"
Favor Oppose Unsure
b. "Would you favor or oppose allowing the U.S. government to monitor your credit card purchases to curb terrorism"
c. "Do you think it is generally right or generally wrong for the government to monitor telephone and e-mail communications of Americans suspected of having terrorist ties without first obtaining permission from the courts?"
Questions a and b here get right to the heart of it. We're not talking about the abstract, we're not talking about some people who've already been tainted by suspicion, we're talking about YOU. YOUR phone. YOUR e-mail. And what a shock--big majorities, at least two-thirds, say, hey, no spying on me, man. The minute you muddle it up in question c with the idea that the government is only spying on those about whom they have "suspicions," voila--split opinion again.
Poll Number 6, Associated Press/Ipsos:
"Should the Bush Administration be required to get a warrant from a judge before monitoring phone and Internet communications between American citizens in the United States and suspected terrorists, or should the government be allowed to monitor such communications without a warrant?"
Get Warrant OK Without Warrant Unsure
Well, in this one we're talking about nice, innocent U.S. citizens, with the only suspicious people being the terrorists, so people are more likely to want a warrant (after all THEY'RE U.S. citizens), but this also specifies that the warrant be obtained BEFORE monitoring. I'm a little surprised, and pleased, that 56% of the people think a warrant is required under this wording.
In evaluating any of these polls, you need to pay attention to, at a minimum:
--whether the hypothetical people being spied on are described as "you," innocent citizens, or people under suspicion
--whether the question specifies a warrant before spying, entertains the option of getting one after the spying, or doesn't address that issue
--whether the people have been following the issue they are now voicing an opinion on (especially a gap between the number of people who say they're following it and the number of people who express a definite opinion)
--how the nature of the spying is described--is it called a change in the law, or is that left for the respondents to decide for themselves?
Russ Feingold Calls NSA Report "Deeply Troubling" By Emma Roller SLATE
Posted Thursday, June 6, 2013, at 3:02 PM
19 20 Former Sen. Russ Feingold speaks at a rally in Milwaukee on Oct. 23, 2010.
Photo by Mira Oberman/AFP/Getty Images
It shouldn't be too surprising that Russ Feingold, the former senator from the great state of Wisconsin and the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act, is not a fan of the NSA's phone snooping. He called the NSA report "deeply troubling" in a statement:
In 2001, I first voted against the PATRIOT Act because much of it was simply an FBI wish list that included provisions allowing our government to go on fishing expeditions that collect information on virtually anyone.
Today's report indicates that the government could be using FISA in an indiscriminate way that does not balance our legitimate concerns of national security with the necessity to preserve our fundamental civil rights. This is deeply troubling. I hope today's news will renew a serious conversation about how to protect the country while ensuring that the rights of law-abiding Americans are not violated. Some important context, however, is his frenemy-like relationship with President Obama. Feingold co-chaired Obama's re-election campaign, but their views diverged on the 2005 reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Obama gave a now-telling response showing where his views diverge from Feingold at a town hall in 2008 when an attendee asked him to explain why he voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act.
Obama's response:
The first Patriot Act, I wasn't there so I did not vote for that. The second one, I actually worked with Russ Feingold, who is one of the people who opposed it, to try to amend it to deal with some of its excesses. There were some provisions in the Patriot Act that actually did address changes that needed to take place, and let me give you a specific example. Prior to the Patriot Act, you could not wiretap a phone that wasn't land-based. Now think about it: Nobody uses a land-based phone anymore. Certainly people who might be engaging in terrorism aren't going to be using an old dial-up phone, right? So it made sense then to change that law. And there were some other provisions that made sense. ...
The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all, and that's what I intend to reverse when I'm president of the United States of America.
Feingold in 2016?
By Jennifer Rubin, Published: June 10, 2013 at 2:45 pmE-mail the writer
Hillary Clinton is mired in her own scandal and will, with the left, bear the taint of President Obama's Bush-like national security surveillance. VP Joe Biden is a punch line. It would seem the Dems will need a generational break from Obama and the actual liberal they've been pining for. (Much as they'd like to gussy Hillary up, she dragged her feet on gay marriage, voted for the Iraq War and counseled Obama to use force in Libya.)
So what about former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold? He would seem to be the perfect antidote to what ails Dems and an alternative to other candidates sure to sell them out once again.
Here are 10 reasons Democrats should want him to run:
1. He is an actual maverick, bucking his party (from the left) on financial regulation and civil liberties.
Former senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.). (Joe Koshollek/AP)
2. He has shown actual bipartisanship in crafting McCain-Feingold and trying to control money in politics. He voted with Republicans in favor of some pro-gun measures and against Tim Geithner for Treasury Secretary.
3. He is a true liberal, in the tradition of prairie progressives. He has favored environmental protection, a single-payer health-care plan and gay marriage. He carries no taint of scandal and no attachment to big money politics.
4. He voted against the Patriot Act, precisely the courage the Dems wanted and the fidelity to civil liberties they expected of Obama.
5. He can make deals with liberals and libertarians on everything from immigration to national security to gay rights to government pork.
6. He should quickly develop a cult on the left considering his opposition to NSA snooping.
7. He is perfectly positioned to win in a neighboring state Iowa. If he does, Hillary will be dealt a blow just as she was against Obama.
8. Running a Clinton creates the same problem for Dems as running Jeb Bush does for Republicans. Really, isn't it about time the progressive party, you know, progresses?
9. If Dems are pining for a woman, Feingold can put Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on the ticket. (There is next to no chance the Republicans will run a woman in 2014, so they can rest assured they won't be out-maneuvered on that front. And he would be the first Jewish president.)
10. He's a rather likeable, telegenic fellow who bears no resemblance to the scowling, hard-edged Hillary Clinton or the bombastic Biden. Born in 1953, and looking younger than his age, he also provides a bigger draw for youth voters. (He is six years younger than Hillary and nine years younger than Biden.)
I WANTED TO BEGIN WITH MY COMMENT TO OUR CORPORATE PUBLIC MEDIA WYPR AS THEY EXTOL THE VIRTUES OF THE BALTIMORE MAYOR'S BUDGET. I'VE SPOKEN AGAINST SEVERAL ELEMENTS....THIS IS THE PLAN TO THROW PUBLIC PENSIONS INTO THE STOCK MARKET AND TURNING THEM TO 401Ks. SHE ALSO SAYS THAT FUTURE EMPLOYEES SHOULD NOT HAVE PENSIONS ANYMORE....EVEN AS SHE SAYS THEY MUST HAVE DEGREES. KEEP IN MIND SHE IS A DEMOCRAT.....ALBEIT THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRAT. THEY ARE DETERMINED TO MAKE SURE WE HAVE NO BENEFIT THAT TAKES AWAY FROM CORPORATE WEALTH. DO YOU REALLY THINK THIRD WAY DEMOCRATS ARE FIGHTING FOR YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY AND ENTITLEMENTS!
Regarding Rawlings-Blake budget:
Sending the Firefighter's pensions to 401Ks and not offering pensions to future employees but requiring them to be college grads....sound republican? Yes, it is as is all Third Way corporate democratic policy. They are sending all working people to poverty no matter whether they have degrees or not...
The Atlantic Monthly had a good article in its Jan issue about the dubiousness of the banking industry and highlighted Wells Fargo which is being sold as a good bank. The article made clear that all sophisticated investors and academics like myself are now publicly calling Wall Street crony, criminal, and a harm to American society. We know trillions of dollars were stolen by banks in the massive frauds of last decade. Bill Clinton and Third Way corporate democrats are to thank for allowing Bush to super-size this mess. The article looks deep into the business operations of Wells Fargo and sees that there is absolutely no transparency or indications that anything legal is happening in this bank. It is telling the Wells Fargo looks right across from the Attorney General's office in downtown Baltimore. The article goes on to say that because the banks are ready to implode with just as much leverage and bad/risky debt as in 2008.....no one is investing in bank stock except the Federal Reserve which is feeding free money at 0% interest to keep them and the market looking solvent.
Guess who the main investors left holding bank stock are? That's right ......private and public pensions, municipal bonds, and insurance investments....ALL PUBLIC MONEY. See why Rawlings-Blake, Baltimore County exec and all of Maryland are placing ever more public assets like 401Ks in the market? To get a perspective the State of Maryland and the City of Baltimore pulled its pensions out of the then safe bond market and sent it to the stock market just before the crash...in 2007 where they are sitting ever since. They were used as fodder as they are now. Also, look at the Cyprus/PIGS European crisis where all that bank fraud is now being paid for with ....guess what....pensions and public assets! The Europeans are being taken for more because their retirements are in the banks and not in Trusts like our SS and entitlements. So when you hear depositors are going to pay on anything over $133,000.....that means on all these public assets. It is not only the Russian mafia that is paying as NPR/Marketplace...Wall Street all the Time....would have you believe. Third Way corporate democrats are allowing massive fraud to steal all of people's savings, retirements, and benefits.
THERE IS EVERY SIGN THAT THE ECONOMY IS GOING TO CRASH AND EVEN SO THESE CORPORATE POLS ARE LOADING PUBLIC ASSETS AND PENSIONS INTO THE MARKET.. THIS IS MALFEASANCE AND IT IS ILLEGAL.
Controversial Interview Exposes 5 Signs Stocks Will Collapse in 2013
Monday, 25 Mar 2013 02:05 PM
"After putting $803,436 in Obama's re-election campaign, a media giant attempted to keep Americans from seeing the video by banning it from their sites," stated Aaron DeHoog, the financial publisher who is unapologetic for the release of controversial footage that has gained international attention.
The video DeHoog is referring to is a stunning interview with famed economist Robert Wiedemer, author of the New York Times best-selling book Aftershock.
Wiedemer, best known for correctly predicting the collapse of the U.S. housing market, equity markets, and consumer spending that almost sank the United States during the "Great Recession", provides disturbing evidence in the video interview for 50 percent unemployment, a 90 percent stock market crash, and 100 percent annual inflation . . . starting as soon as 2013.
When the host of the interview expressed disbelief in Wiedemer's claims, he calmly displayed five indisputable charts to back up his predictions (click here to see those exact charts).
The interview has become a wake-up call for those unprepared (or unwilling) to acknowledge an ugly truth: The country's financial "rescue" devised in Washington has failed miserably.
The blame lies squarely on those whose job it was to avoid the exact situation we find ourselves in, including current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and former Chairman Alan Greenspan, tasked with preventing financial meltdowns and keeping the nation's economy strong through monetary and credit policies.
At one point, Wiedemer even calls out Bernanke, saying that his "money from heaven will be the path to hell."
But it's not just the grim predictions that are causing the sensation in Wiedemer's video interview. Rather, it's his comprehensive blueprint for economic survival that's really commanding global attention.
The interview offers realistic, step-by-step solutions that the average hard-working American can easily follow.
Editor's Note: See the 5 signs the stock market will collapse in 2013. Click here now
"[The interview] was originally filmed for a private audience," DeHoog explains. "People were sitting up and taking notice, and they begged us to make the interview public so they could easily share it."
Since that day, over 40 million concerned citizens have tuned in to prepare for "the unthinkable."
As for the media giant that wanted to ban the video, DeHoog was able to work out a compromise.
"We agreed to tweak the webpage some, but we didn't change the content of the interview. That had to stay the same. The interview simply states the financial data as is, and then simple, practical advice is given that viewers can take to protect their wealth, and even profit, during the days ahead." Asked if he is concerned if Wiedemer's predictions don't come true, DeHoog replied, "Absolutely not. The best-case scenario is that Wiedemer is wrong. .
"Unfortunately, he has been dead-on thus far. No, our real concern is this, and it's the more likely scenario — what if just half of Wiedemer's predictions come true? Bottom line, it is imperative that Americans be prepared, and that is why we will continue to air this powerful interview."
Editor's Note: For a limited time, Newsmax is showing the Wiedemer interview and supplying viewers with copies of the new, updated Aftershock book including the final, unpublished chapter. Go here to view it now.
MY COMMENT TO ARTICLE BELOW:
Know that homeless were ticketed to death for things like loitering just so their inability to pay fines made them felons? Did you know this economy was blown up on purpose by the banks who committed massive fraud of trillions of dollars and have yet been made to repay their debt..these are big-time debtors needing big-time prison sentences. The millions of Americans whose lives were turned upside down because of this massive corporate fraud are themselves becoming the debtors unable to pay. You can believe that any government allowing open corporate fraud will not be protecting people victim of it. THESE ARE THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATIC POLICIES AND WE NEED TO RUN AND VOTE LABOR AND JUSTICE TO REVERSE THEM!
Now that we have a corporate leadership holding US politics you are seeing the removal of social safety nets, retirements, and access to legal justice. Think you will continue to shed credit card debt or medical debt now that corporate pols see the government coffers as cash for corporate profits? No way Jose! People will fall into deep credit debt just trying to survive and when this debt is no longer legal..they will be working on the chain gang. In MD that brings about $2 an hour to the prisoner and several more for the private prison contracting company.
Remember, Third Way democrats=Third world society. Don't think republicans will do any different!
Consumer groups fear that debtors' prisons are making a resurgence
Debtors can be arrested for ignoring court orders in small claims cases
By Eileen Ambrose, The Baltimore Sun
8:12 p.m. EDT, March 25, 2013
When a warrant for his arrest arrived at his mother's house, Bryan Bookman went to the district court in Essex to clear up the matter.
"That's when I was handcuffed and shackled, right on the spot, like I was a common criminal," said Bookman, who didn't have the money to post bail and spent the night in the Baltimore County Jail in Towson.
His crime? Failure to show up in court for a small claims case.
Debtors' prison, where people are incarcerated for owing money, seems like something out of another century. But consumer advocates say Bookman experienced a modern-day version in Maryland. When people with even small judgments against them fail to show up in court as ordered, the creditor can ask the judge to issue a so-called "body attachment" that allows the defendant to be arrested.
In the fiscal year ended June 30, 1,830 body attachments were issued by Maryland courts handling small claims of up to $5,000, according to the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition. And 39 defendants were incarcerated, including one person who spent 14 days in jail, the group reported.
"It's a de facto debtors' prison," said Marceline White, the coalition's executive director.
Most states permit body attachments and use them in a similar way to pursue consumers for small debts, she added.
But creditors and others say consumers aren't arrested for unpaid bills but for repeatedly ignoring court orders. Debtors easily can avoid arrest just by showing up in court, they say.
In Maryland, the process works like this:
A creditor wins a judgment against a consumer to collect on a debt. The creditor then asks the judge to bring the defendant into court to answer questions about available assets or employment so wages can be garnished. If the consumer fails to show up, the court may issue another summons to determine why the person shouldn't be held in contempt. And if the defendant is a no-show again, the creditor can ask the judge to issue a body attachment.
When defendants are arrested, a judge or commissioner might release them or set a bond. Defendants too poor to pay the bond end up in jail.
"People who owe money to creditors — guess what — they don't have money," said Peter Holland, who runs the Consumer Protection Clinic at the University of Maryland School of Law. "They have fallen on hard times. They are elderly. They are living on a fixed income. They are sick. They are jobless. Is it any surprise they are spending a night in jail because they don't make bail?"
Maryland lawmakers recently considered legislation that would prevent people from being arrested for failing to appear in court in small claims cases. The Maryland Bankers Association, the Maryland-DC Creditors Bar Association Inc. and the state judiciary all opposed it.
"No one is incarcerated for failure to pay a debt," said Kathleen Murphy, president of the bankers group. But "what we can't support is taking away the court's right to exercise some remedy when the judgment debtor ignores an order to appear."
The Maryland Judiciary also submitted testimony, saying: "By not allowing the arrest of an individual for failure to respond to a court order, that individual is essentially free to disregard the orders of the court, with no repercussion."
And Del. Luiz Simmons, a Montgomery County Democrat, showed little sympathy for defendants during a hearing on the legislation last month.
When he was a young lawyer, Simmons said, his mother-in-law hired him to collect on some of the hundreds of bad checks she received from customers at her dry cleaning business.
"People gave them for her dry cleaning and tailoring, knowing full well that it was very expensive to go to court" to collect, he said.
When a case reaches the stage of a body attachment, it means the defendant refused to show up twice, he said. "They have flouted the court."
Faced with stiff opposition, the legislation failed to progress in the legislature. But a related bill has broad support. This would require that a consumer arrested on a body attachment be immediately taken before a judge or commissioner. A hearing on that bill will be held Wednesday.
The new policy to rid cities of the poor and working class is to make homelessness a crime so loitering, taking food from trash, or simply hanging out in affluent business districts will now lead to fines over fines. As these penalties accumulate without payment the homeless are then charged with felonies. All of this makes that person ineligible for public housing..so you see these policies leave homeless no choices.
Homeless Vet Ticketed For Looking For Food In Trash
get causes updates
Apparently, maintaining a proper trash can is apparently more important than feeding the homeless in Houston, Texas.
At least, that's how it appears after James Kelly, a 44-year-old homeless vet, was so hungry that he was driven to digging into the trash to find his next meal. Earlier this month, he made the mistake of doing this in a trash bin near Houston City Hall. For that, he received a citation from a Houston police officer that charged him with "disturbing the contents of a garbage can in (the) downtown district."
Really? Police officers in Houston have nothing better to do than issue citations to the homeless who are driven to desperately searching in the trash for food?
Houston Law: Don't Touch The Trash
The Houston Police Department (HPD) later issued a short statement: "The ordinance is specific to the Central Business District. It is a violation for anyone to remove any contents of any bin, bag or other container that has been placed for collection of garbage, trash or recyclable materials. An officer has probable cause to issue such a citation when a person is seen opening a lid and rummaging through contents of a dumpster or trash can."
Why on earth would anyone create such an ordinance?
According to Alternet,
The Chronicle traced the law back to 1942, when it was delightfully titled "molesting garbage containers." A 1988 rewrite expanded legal protection from molestation to recyclables, and over the last 2 decades it's become increasingly restrictive as municipalities have become more and more committed to purging the homeless from city centers.
There's another contributing factor: in 2012, Houston passed a law banning the feeding of the poor without proper registration. The homeless can no longer rely on the kindness of strangers because such acts are illegal, unless those strangers are registered.
Does this sound as crazy to you as it does to me?
Houston Law: Don't Feed The Homeless
More from Houston's News 92 FM:
The voluntary homeless feeding ordinance was passed last April in a 11-6 vote by Houston City Council. The program moves for registration of formal and informal food service organizations, free food handling training by the city's Department of Health and Human Services, and coordination of locations and times of feeding.
Registrants are also required to obtain the consent of public or private property owners before distributing food.
So, first Houston takes away the homeless person's option of a helping hand from a stranger, and next the city turns the homeless into criminals when they search for food in dumpsters. Whatever happened to compassion and respect?
This criminalization of the homeless is not just happening in Houston:
* The city of Atlanta conducted a sting operation in 2008, when police officers went undercover as tourists and office workers, to snag anyone begging. At that time, the city had banned panhandling within 15 feet of an ATM, bus stop, pay phone to public toilet, and anywhere at all after dark.
* More than 50 cities, including Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, Oklahoma City have adopted some kind of anti-camping or anti-food-sharing laws, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.
* Gary Williams just spent 30 days in jail, because on two occasions a San Francisco police officer found him slumped over, asleep, on a milk crate. Even though he had no camping gear with his, he was charged with unauthorized lodging and public nuisance, his lawyer, Andrea Lindsay, told AlterNet.
Laws that restrict panhandling are designed to target poor people living on the street. Other examples of such laws include bans on sitting or lying down on the sidewalk, eating in public, setting up camp or sleeping in a park or other public places. Most advocates for the homeless believe that these laws are created in order to push the homeless out of sight.
If you believe that searching in a trash can for food is not a criminal act, please sign our petition, asking the Houston Police Department to withdraw their citation. Kelly is due in court on April 10.
We appreciate this opinion piece as it is true....it should not be chartered here. Did you know that MD allowed the debt consolidating industry to come to MD to handle all the foreclosures and people's personal bankruptcies caused by massive bank fraud knowing these debt consolidation companies have been riddled with..you guessed it massive claims of fraud. It seems that being guilty of fraud is a business plus in MD.
The Atlantic Monthly had a great article about the state of the big banks....even sophisticated investors are calling them crony, criminal, and to be avoided using Wells Fargo as an example. Wells Fargo absorbed some of the worst of subprime mortgage offenders and as such still owes tens of billions of dollars in fraud beyond Doug Gansler's parking ticket of $25 billion. A professional look into its business practices shows how ugly banking still is and how it is ready to bring down the economy once again. Wells Fargo sits right across from the Attorney General's office in Baltimore.
The laws protecting corporations from fraud oversight and prosecution are still in place in MD. It is impossible for the public to seek justice and if by chance they do, the caps on awards will barely pay legal expenses. Third Way corporate democrats and republicans share the policy of protecting wealth and profits over people...the democratic base needs to send them packing!
Money-laundering firm should get no welcome in Maryland HSBC may be 'too big to jail,' but it doesn't deserve to be chartered here
By Bartlett Naylor 6:00 a.m. EDT, March 25, 2013
When criminal prosecutors at the U.S. Department of Justice found that giant bank HSBC — whose American operation is chartered in Maryland — had violated money-laundering laws covering $200 trillion in transactions, and with customers including terrorists, sanctioned states and Mexican drug lords, one might reasonably have expected a criminal prosecution.
After all, other, much smaller money launderers are currently serving prison sentences. However, the DOJ chose instead to fine HSBC roughly 12 percent of last year's profits. No one faces jail in this case.
This month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress that the firm's size challenged the government's prosecution. He testified, "I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. ... Some of these institutions have become too large."
Few are comfortable with Mr. Holder's rationale. Senators on both sides of the partisan aisle decry using an institution's size as a reason for deferring prosecution. Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Maryland bank regulator, observed that even bankers and those who follow banking may not support this rationale. She pointed to a poll of American Banker readers that "found that a mere 8 percent of readers who responded thought authorities took the right course in the case of enforcement against HSBC for money laundering violations. As many as 47 percent said the Justice Department should have prosecuted the bank, while another 45 percent said authorities should have gone after the individuals responsible for the violations."
In the case of HSBC, the public need not rely entirely on federal officials to do the right thing. Maryland officials can play an important role. Maryland law equips the state attorney general with a powerful tool to advance justice. According to the Maryland statute on corporations and associations, the attorney general "may institute a civil proceeding in the courts to forfeit the charter of any Maryland corporation and to revoke the authority of any foreign corporation to do business in this State," in cases where the corporation's activities serve to "aid, or abet the violation of criminal laws relating to ... illegal drug distribution."
In a situation where Marylanders and others in the country suffer because we've been held hostage to banks that are "too big to fail" (as President Barack Obama says), the chilling new policy of "too big to jail" adds another nightmarish dimension.
In January, Public Citizen wrote Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler and asked him to exercise his prerogatives in this matter. More than 600 Marylanders have joined 38,000 other Americans in a petition to the Maryland attorney general stating: "HSBC is a large corporation, but should enjoy no special privilege because of its size. A Maryland corporate charter should signal integrity, and we ask that you uphold this standard."
In a similar situation last year, New York's Department of Financial Services "determined that grounds existed for revocation of [Standard Chartered Bank's] license to operate in the State of New York and that interim measures must be taken to protect the public interest." Standard Chartered was accused of laundering some $250 billion in transactions involving Iran. The New York agency ultimately elected not to revoke the license, but the bank paid a substantial fine.
Mr. Gansler and Maryland alone can't resolve the problem of "too big to jail." Even if Maryland de-charters HSBC, it could recharter elsewhere. That other state, however, would suffer opprobrium for countenancing admitted money laundering operations.
Granted, pursuing the forfeiture of a charter of the world's fifth-largest company requires courage. That is all the more reason to move forward. My organization believes that that the attorney general should strongly consider forfeiting HSBC's Maryland charter, and we look forward to Mr. Gansler's response.
Bartlett Naylor, a Maryland native, is financial policy advocate for Public Citizen in Washington, D.C. His email is bnaylor@citizen.org.
THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS SAY........WHO'S YOUR MASTER!!!!!
Corporate Welfare – Employees Paying Taxes Directly To Corporations
2013/03/24By Justin Acuff
Taxes have been a part of government for as long as there have been things to tax, and the general idea behind them is pretty well understood. The government takes a portion of everyone's income and spends it in such a way as to improve things for everyone in one way or another. That could be defensive spending, such as military technology or troop wages, administrative costs will always factor in, educational funding, etc. And that's the way it works in America. Or is it? In truth, corporate lobbyists have ensured that our convoluted tax code heavily favors corporations. The fact is that it's even possible, if you're employed by a large corporation, that you're paying your taxes directly toward your employing company.
In his recent book, The Fine Print, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston explains the laws that allow corporations to go to war with the American working class. In an interview with Alternet, he said the following:
It's now up to 21 states. In 21 states, they've passed a law that says that taxes withheld from your paycheck, for the state, can be kept by the company. Now, every employer doesn't get this windfall — you have to have to get a deal from the government to do it — 2,700 big companies, every big company you've ever heard of, General Electric, Procter and Gamble, Deutsche Bank, you name it, they've got these deals, where they get to keep the taxes. Billions of dollars are diverted this way. You know the best thing for the companies about this?
The workers don't know, because once the taxes are withheld, the state government treats you as having paid your taxes. You paid your taxes. They just then give a credit to let the company keep the taxes. I've called journalists. I've called union people who negotiate union contracts. And they say, "What are you talking about?" I showed them the work I've done. They go, "Oh my God!" They have no idea that this is what's happening, and the fact that it's spread from the 16 states when I first wrote about this and it's now grown to 21 – eventually, all of the 44 states with income taxes are going to allow this, if we don't put a stop to it.
He also addresses the fact that a lack of regulation is actually limiting to competition when it comes to capitalism, as more successful businesses will rapidly form industrial monopolies and oligarchies:
I want more competition. Here's what really goes on, however. We put up barriers to competition, and in fact, Wall Street has institutionalized this concept. Morningstar, they're a big financial advice firm. They tell people that they should grade companies and decide whether to buy their stock, based on something called a "moat index." Moat, like around a castle? A moat index asks, "What barriers has the government erected to keep anybody else from competing against that company?" Indeed, as I show in my book, you could get rich if you invest in those companies that have regulatory moats — where under the name of deregulation, we have insulated them from the rigors of the market.
This is the real welfare in America. Corporate welfare. Where the rich get richer, and they pay other people to convince Republicans how important it is to vote for conservative puppet politicians that will vote for laws that allow "the American people" to keep more of their income tax dollars — which really benefits the rich. In reality, it's the Republican Party that is engaging in wealth redistribution. The difference in their version? They're redistributing wealth to the top.
UPDATE: Sixteen states with programs like this are Utah, South Carolina, Ohio, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas and Kentucky. We aren't aware what the other five states in this group are at this time, and the article will be updated further when we have that information. Contact us if you are aware.
I would also like to add that the fight against corporate interests ruling our government is a bipartisan, because corruption reaches across the aisle. However, on this particular issue, conservative ideology promotes business interests no matter how harmful, and I think that the Democratic Party handles it slight better. Only slightly.
The democratic base understands the nature of the current DNC....Third Way corporate and global...and I agree she fits right in with that group. These are the people who look you right in the eye as you demand the fraud be addressed across all business sectors and they all say 'what fraud'? I listened to a APM Marketplace interview with the Mayor of Miami......a city that rivals Baltimore in fraud and corruption and just as with Maryland's O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake he attributed all of the government watchdog reports of malfeasance a 'problem with paperwork'. This has become the code for 'I'll do anything to advance the interests of the 1% no matter the costs to the general public. That is the Third Way corporate democratic stance and it is why O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake has a national stance.......they are rampant team players with this!!
Those looking at these Maryland politicians know what it takes to be in this crony political environment and as an extension can imagine why they have been selected to move forward in the DNC. THE PROBLEM WITH ALL OF THIS INEQUITY, CRIME, AND CORRUPTION STARTS WITH THIRD WAY POLICY. LABOR AND JUSTICE MIGHT NOT BE CRIME FREE IN ANY SENSE, BUT THE FOCUS IS ON PEOPLE AND NOT CORPORATE INTERESTS!
Think of how just these two pols have spoon fed the Baltimore Development Corp and have article upon article published as to crime, corruption, and unaccountability..........IS THAT WHAT YOU REALLY WANT IN YOUR FUTURE LEADERSHIP?
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!
RUN LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES IN THE NEXT ELECTIONS!!!
The bad news for these two leaders and for the Third Way corporate caucus is that the democratic base has caught on even as mainstream media tried its best to cover for them. The democratic base represents 80% of the democratic party to the 20% of corporate Third Way types so these Third Way are a dying breed. It takes a while to organize in a captured media environment but as with Europe who is seeing an overwhelming shift from corporate liberal to labor...yes we can!!!!
Rawlings-Blake to take leadership post at DNC
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake as Mayor of Baltimore as she is sworn in by Frank Conaway Sr. (Lloyd Fox, Baltimore Sun / December 6, 2011)
By John Fritze, The Baltimore Sun 11:10 a.m. EST, January 21, 2013
WASHINGTON — Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake will become the secretary of the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday, giving her a prominent role in national politics.
The appointment, which has not been formally announced, will give Rawlings-Blake a voice in the party's national political apparatus at a time when President Barack Obama is beginning his second term and several Democrats — including Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley — are thought to be jockeying for the 2016 nomination.
"My hope is that we can carry forward the momentum of the Obama administration and that we can continue to grow the Democratic Party," Rawlings-Blake said Monday in Washington, where she was attending Obama's second inauguration. "It's about making sure that we activate the majority of the people in the country."
The move comes as former Obama campaign aides are launching a permanent advocacy group called Organizing for Action that hopes to marshal the volunteer muscle that twice elected him to the White House. Some Democrats have questioned whether the group, which will accept donations, could cut into the party's influence.
A DNC spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
The most public role the party secretary performs is to call the roll of delegates at the national convention — a largely symbolic act of recognizing each state on the floor to determine which candidate its delegates will support. Behind the scenes, the secretary is responsible for scheduling meetings, distributing talking points to members and, occasionally, campaigning for candidates across the country.
Rawlings-Blake, 42, has served as Baltimore's mayor since 2010 and has presided over the city at a time of historic lows in homicides and fire deaths. A former president of the City Council, she also has led the city through trying budget times.
The daughter of the late Del. Howard P. Rawlings, she helped change the direction of city and state politics when in 1999 she convinced her influential father to back O'Malley, a white councilman from Northeast Baltimore, in his bid for mayor of a majority-black city. O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake have remained close allies.
The current DNC secretary, Alice Germond, has served for three consecutive terms — predating Obama's first term. Active in the party for more than four decades, Germond is married to longtime political writer and former Baltimore Sun columnist Jack Germond.
"I wish her very well," Alice Germond said of Rawlings-Blake. "I've enjoyed being the secretary for a long time. It's a tremendous honor."
The decision, which must be confirmed by what is expected to be a perfunctory vote by party leaders, appears to have been made quickly. Rawlings-Blake said she first learned of the appointment Sunday when she was in Washington attending a reception for Vice President Joe Biden's official inauguration.
Baltimore Sun reporter Luke Broadwater contributed to this article.
The state budget's turnaround has everything to do with mortgage and bank fraud settlements that just get put in the State General Fund and do not make it to the people who were victims of the frauds and it does not make any attempt to rebuild the non-existing white collar criminal agencies as is directed in all settlements. Maryland has a habit of making it impossible for its citizens to seek damages for fraud on their own and when the state or federal government makes even a cursory settlement it rarely makes it to the people.
What is important to remember is this:
The state owes $1.5 billion at the very least to Baltimore City Schools per law suits; $700 million needs to go to underserved communities from mortgage fraud so they can decide how to spend the money; the public sector pensions need to be fully funded as we are not going to watch them disappear through neglect; the transportation fund which we all are sure was a victim to budget balancing now needs to be replenished without taxing average citizens or Wall Street credit bond instruments as the Muni-market is getting ready to implode.
So, there really isn't a balanced budget there is just a deliberate decision to not pay people what the state owes them and calling it a closed case.......which isn't first world and it is not democratic.....it is a campaign stunt.
Big improvements for Md.'s budget Our view: Gov. O'Malley's spending plan still has some soft spots, and dangers lie ahead, but it represents a remarkable turnaround in the state's fortunes
2:35 p.m. EST, January 17, 2013 Baltimore Sun
Amid the boasting typical of a governor's budget proposal, Gov. Martin O'Malley's new spending plan includes this peculiar claim to fame: The O'Malley administration has managed to effectively eliminate Maryland's structural budget deficit not just once but two times. This is a bit like bragging that you've married the same person twice — it suggests you've gotten to the right place in the end but glosses over some unpleasantness in the middle.
The fiscal unpleasantness, in Mr. O'Malley's case, was particularly severe, and to be fair, not really his fault. When Mr. O'Malley came into office in 2007, the state had a substantial cash reserve, thanks to the real estate bubble, but obvious underlying budget problems. That fall, Mr. O'Malley pushed through a package of new revenues — tax increases and slot machine gambling — and new spending that, on balance, should have put the state on sound footing. Then the global economy melted down, and the state was in worse shape than ever.
The climb back has been long and painful, but it is nearly complete — at least for the moment. The state's structural deficit — the chronic imbalance between projected spending and revenue — falls to just $166 million, according to the Department of Budget and Management. Considering the gap for this year was estimated at one point to be almost $1.9 billion, that's quite a turnaround, and little of it came easily.
The O'Malley administration and the General Assembly approved income and alcohol tax increases, shifted some teacher pension costs to local government and benefited from some modest improvements in the economy. The bulk of the improvement, however, comes from holding spending to a much slower rate of growth than had been expected — thanks in no small part to innovative efforts in the health department to hold down Medicaid costs. That the governor has managed to do that during such difficult economic times while maintaining historic investments in K-12 and higher education is remarkable and a testament to his priorities.
Still, it's not time for celebration just yet. Mr. O'Malley uses his budget book to tout Maryland's recovery from the recession and its record of job growth in recent years, but that progress is exceedingly fragile. A failure by Congress to raise the federal debt ceiling could ruin the economy again, and Maryland is more vulnerable than almost any other state to the kinds of spending cuts that will be required to bring the federal budget deficit back to a manageable size.
Meanwhile, there are some soft spots remaining in Governor O'Malley's budget. He is proposing that the state not make this year's installments in its plans to repay an income tax reserve fund the state raided during the height of the recession, or open space funds diverted by the Ehrlich administration. Each move saves the state $50 million. And Mr. O'Malley is proposing to continue for the next five years his practice of shifting real estate transfer tax funds from their intended purpose, land preservation programs, to the general fund, and instead paying for those programs through capital funds. Such a maneuver is legal, and previous budgets relied much more heavily on it and tactics like it. They got us through the recession, but their long-term cost is becoming apparent.
Debt service payments have increased from $654 million in Governor O'Malley's first year in office to a projected $984 million next year. By 2022, annual payments are expected to approach $1.5 billion. The state portion of the property tax is dedicated to making those payments, and it is expected to grow only modestly during that time. Before long, the state will likely have to raise the property tax rate or start dedicating money that could otherwise go to pay for schools, health care or other operating expenses to pay off the bonds.
The new spending and tax breaks the governor is proposing for next year are relatively modest. He is asking for a 3 percent pay raise for state workers, perfectly reasonable given the pay freezes and furloughs of recent years; a $25 million investment in school safety; $1.5 million for a much needed-study of the environmental and economic costs and benefits of allowing hydraulic fracturing in Western Maryland; and an assortment of new or expanded tax credits designed to boost employment in cybersecurity, the film industry and other sectors.
Still, legislators should carefully examine them and the rest of the $37.3 billion spending plan. The General Assembly could easily cut enough to wipe out what remains of the structural deficit, but that need no longer be the major focus. Given the uncertainty created by federal budget deliberations and the costs the state put off during the last few years, lawmakers need to concern themselves with increasing the resiliency of Maryland's finances. Governor O'Malley wisely proposed to increase the state's rainy day fund from 5 percent of revenues to 6 percent, and he is leaving another $236 million in unallocated funds. Legislators should seek to go further to help the state withstand what could be more difficult times ahead.
THE ONLY WAY THAT JAMES CLYBURN COULD ADVANCE INTO THE HOUSE LEADERSHIP WAS TO JOIN THE THIRD WAY CAUCUS. THOSE OF US WHO WATCH THIS STUFF UNDERSTAND THAT CLYBURN WAS NOT THIRD WAY BEFORE HE ASKED FOR THIS LEADERSHIP POSITION.
THIRD WAY HAS CAPTURED OUR DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADERSHIP AND THE DEMOCRATIC BASE OF LABOR AND JUSTICE MUST REPLACE THIRD WAY IN THE MAJORITY AND LEADERSHIP TO REVERSE THIS HOLD CORPORATIONS HAVE ON CONGRESS!!!!
Third Way Home
Third Way Co-Chair James Clyburn
US House, South Carolina
President Barack Obama has said he is, "One of a handful of people who, when they speak, the entire Congress listens." As Assistant Democratic Leader in the 112th Congress, the number three Democrat in the House, James E. Clyburn will be the leadership liaison to the Appropriations Committee and one of the Democratic Caucus' primary liaisons to the White House. Working with the internal caucuses, he'll play a prominent role in messaging and outreach.
His humble beginnings in Sumter South Carolina, as the eldest son of an activist fundamentalist minister and an independent civic minded beautician, grounded him securely in family, faith and public service. He was elected president of his NAACP youth chapter when he was 12 years old, helped organize many civil rights marches and demonstrations as a student leader at South Carolina State College, and even met his wife Emily in jail during one of his incarcerations.
When Clyburn came to Congress in 1993, he was elected co-President of his Freshman class and quickly rose through leadership ranks. He was elected Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1999, and his reputation as a leader and consensus-builder helped him win a difficult three-way race for House Democratic Caucus Vice Chair in 2002. Three years later, he was unanimously elected Chair of the Democratic Caucus. When Democrats regained the House majority in 2006, Congressman Clyburn was elevated by his colleagues to House Majority Whip.
As a national leader he has worked to respond to the needs of America's diverse communities. He championed rural communities supporting the development of regional water projects, community health centers, and broadband connections. He has supported higher education by leading the charge for increased Pell grants; investing millions in science and math programs and historic preservation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He has encouraged economic development by securing funding for Empowerment Zones; investing in green technology development such as nuclear, wind, hydrogen and biofuels; and directing 10 percent of Recovery Act funding to communities 20 percent under the poverty level for the past 30 years. Clyburn was instrumental in advancing into law measures to resolve historic discrimination issues, significantly reducing the statutory disparity in cocaine sentencing and compensating African and Native American farmers who suffered racial discrimination under the USDA loan program
Jim and Emily Clyburn have three daughters, Mignon, Jennifer Reed, and Angela Hannibal; two sons-in-law, Walter Reed and Cecil Hannibal; and two grandchildren, Walter A Clyburn Reed and Sydney Alexis Reed.
Third Way corporate democrats are represented in policy by the Brookings Institute. Here you see that this think tank is and has always been about global interests and is the source of Reagan's and Clinton's move to break the Glass Steagall wall to build global corporate empires. THESE ARE NOT PEOPLE WORKING FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE'S INTEREST.......YOU AND I ARE SIMPLY SOMETHING THAT HAS TO BE PLACATED IN THIS RUSH TOWARDS EMPIRE BUILDING.
We must take back the democratic party if we are to make these industries accountable to the American people rather than the reverse!!! Run and vote for labor and justice these next elections!!
Terrible Imperialism
The Brookings Institution: a Think Tank of Good Feelings
The Brookings Institution is generally presented as Democrats' main think tank (a usually political center of research, propaganda and spreading of ideas), though it is mainly a representative entity of moderate elites which favors a limited economic regulation opposed to the American Enterprise Institute's libertarian patters. Today, it is very active in foreign policy and, as well as neoconservatives, it suggests the use of force but for humanitarian reasons and as a duty and not based on a democratic evangelism or a biased enthusiasm. Half of its researchers were former members of the National Security Council or the White House.
Voltaire Network | 30 June 2004 français русский Español Just before U.S.'s entry into WWI in 1916, businessman Robert S. Brookings and his friends financed the creation of an institute of governmental research that would be called Brookings Institution. Since they were convinced that good management is not based on political decisions but on the quality of its technical capacity, they identified a group of six researchers, including a professor of Political Sciences of Princeton University, to work with the President of John Hopkins University.
During the war, the institute worked for the National Defense Council and once it ended, it analyzed the budgetary consolidation of the country. In the 30s it advised candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt though its New Deal project was criticized. During WWII, the Brookings Institution worked on prices control and war economy. Later, in 1946, it focused on rebuilding Europe and made all necessary economic assets for the Marshal Plan as a complement of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) political studies [1].
In the 50s and 60s, the Brookings Institution increased its financial sources and signed major research contracts with the federal state, always to study economic issues. Its position is recognized as a center-right institution and progressively identified with the Democratic Party although many of its members were and still are republicans. Consequently, its funds and influence depended on the White House. It was powerful during Kennedy and Johnson but Nixon's administration did not renew its contracts. Nevertheless, it flourished again under Carter's though languished during Reagan's to reemerge again during Clinton's.
Today's Brookings Strobe Talbott In 2002, Strobe Talbott became the sixth president of the Institute whereas John L. Thornton was the head of its Administration Council, among which Teresa Heinz was included. Talbott was Time Magazine's former director of foreign services, Under Secretary of State, and a man Bill Clinton, his old roommate at the university, trusts in. As a member of the troika [2] that was supposed to negotiate with Yugoslavia the prevention of the war in 1999 he became internationally renowned. On the other hand, Thornton, professor of economics, is the President of Goldman Sachs. Teresa Heinz is Senator John Kerry's wife [3]. It seems that all members of the Administration Council were approved by the Council on Foreign.
In 1998 and with the purpose of reaching a consensus, Brookings Institution -considered as a Center Right entity - came to an agreement with the extreme right wing American Enterprise Institute (AEI) [4] to set up a joint program for studying the federal rules on economic regulation. Its analyses were reviewed by the Council of Economic Advisers of the White House.
Brookings Institution has also studied international matters and they are currently a third of its researches. It has three main working groups: The Center for the Study of Northern Asia Polices: it monitors Japan and Korea but it is mainly focused on the simultaneous relations of America with China and Taiwan. It is directed by Richard C. Bush III, former director of the North American Institute of Taiwan, and supervised by J. Stapleton Roy, former American ambassador to China and Henry Kissinger's business partner. Among its researchers, Michael O'Hanlon has become a figure in television studies and Congress hearings, extremely loquacious on North Korean nuclear danger.
The Center for the Study of U.S. and Europe: Previously the Center for U.S. and France, it was extended to study Turkey, Russia and Italy. It is directed by Philip H. Gordon and mainly financed by the federal State, through the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and industrial Daimler-Chrysler.
Philip H. Gordon This Center is linked to an equally called program directed by Guillaume Parmentier at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) which is completely bipartisan though neoconservatives have their own niche.
Guillaume Parmentier The Saban Center for Middle East Policy: Its analyses are made from American and Zionist perspectives. It is directed by Martin S. Indyk, former American ambassador to Tel Aviv and co-founder of WINEP, a think tank of Likud. It was name after his sponsor, Jewish millionaire Haim Saban, co-owner of Fox TV, and was inaugurated by Abd Allah, King of Jordan.
Haim Saban One of Brookings Institution's employees is Kenneth M. Pollack, author of a reference book on the Iraqi war which was written before the hostilities. According to it, certain conditions should have been met before launching the attack. Even though it could have been used by war opponents, the author has become a justifying-the-war-intellectual.
Other researchers have programs of their own, like Susan Rice, for instance, former assistant to Madeleine Albright, who is working on the threat weak states constitute to American security. Another example is Nigel Purvis, who along with the Pew Center, is working on the possibilities of using U.S aid and cooperation to the Third World to pressure them to make concessions on ecological matters.
Such activities are very impressive for their quantity and the quality of its experts. However, Red Voltaire has noticed that these intellectuals have something in common though they never say it: even when economics and not international politics is their main focus, more than half of Brookings Institution currently 142 researchers seem to have worked for the National Security Council or the White House. The fact that its Council of Administration, composed of multinational patterns, favors companies such as AT&T or Chiquita (former United Fruit) which key role in the National Security Council secret operations is well documented, is quite remarkable.
In the year 2003, Brookings Institution's goods were assessed at 197 million dollars and a donation of 10 million dollars was added to its profits. The institution budget was calculated at 39 million dollars. 275 persons worked at the main office plus 40 additional researchers abroad. Brookings Institution published 27 reports and 50 books in 2003.
PLEASE CHECK ACTIONS LISTED ON DECEMBER 16!
I HAVE HEARD TIME AND AGAIN FROM MY ELECTED INCUMBENTS.....'I DON'T WORK FOR YOU, I WORK FOR CORPORATIONS'. AND THEY DO FOLKS! YOU AND I DO NOT HEAR OF THE MOST IMPORTANT LAWS BEING WRITTEN THAT ARE UNDERMINING OUR SOCIETY!!!
THINK ALEC WRITING EDUCATION REFORM OR GUN LAWS IS BAD......ALL OF THAT IS CHILD'S PLAY.
In this midst of receiving emails from political action organizations that solicit our email addresses for signing issue petitions we are being told that our democratic incumbents are fighting for our entitlements. I was told that Cardin and Mikulski are standing firm against cuts. We all know that all of the policy which they have been a part has done nothing but weaken our social safety nets so this is propaganda. IF THOSE POLITICAL ACTION GROUPS ARE TELLING YOU YOUR INCUMBENT IS WORKING FOR YOU......THEY ARE THIRD WAY CORPORATE POLITICAL GROUPS WORKING FOR CORPORATE INTEREST. Signing petitions is a good thing......do not take these organizations as supporting the people just because they advance these petitions!
Below you'll see what is the most nefarious and deeply destructive legislation ever pulled together in America's history. It basically subjugates the US government to multinational corporations and places US citizens in the position of having a government that cannot and will not work in the interest of its citizens.......THIS IS WHAT IS MEANT WHEN THE ELITE SCHOOLS SAY THAT POLITICS IN AMERICA IS DEAD. You will see that these international laws surrounding trade between countries state that a nation's government will be sued if a law is changed that hurts the business interests of these multinational corporations. So, if we wanted to protect the US environment with a law and that law places burden on the profitability of a multinational corporation, that corporation will sue the US government and take it to court for breech of contract. Taxpayers would be paying for the US government's fight to be able to pass a law.
THIS LEGISLATION IS DELIBERATELY WRITTEN IN A WAY THAT WILL MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDO BECAUSE THEY ARE GETTING MANY NATIONS TO SIGN ON TO THIS AND IT IS BEING WORKED INTO ALL OF INTERNATIONAL TREATIES.
I was at a progressive meeting last year in Washington DC where one of the attendees stood up and said she received a leaked piece of what was being discussed and that it wasn't good. The important point is that these negotiations are so closed that even the most ardent political hacktivists are not finding out what is being discussed. This is because.......NONE OF US WILL LIKE IT. IF YOU THINK YOU ARE CLOSED OUT OF YOUR CITY DEVELOPMENT MEETINGS OR IF OPEN MEETINGS ARE A SHAM AT THE MARYLAND STATE LEVEL.......YOU SHOULD SEE WHAT YOUR NATIONAL INCUMBENTS ARE DOING TO YOU AND ME.
This is what Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulski are doing for you and me.....this is what Sarbanes, Hoyer, and Cummings are doing for you and me.......THIS IS WHAT YOUR THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATIC INCUMBENT......THE BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON CAUCUS ARE DOING TO YOU AND ME!!!!!
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!!
This is why the last election of incumbent senators and reps were so important to Third Way.....to the extent that a media blackout in the Baltimore area during elections to make sure Ben Cardin.....the most threatened, was reelected. These incumbents who have been in office these few decades since the Clinton Administration have been working towards this goal. It is also why we are seeing these Non-governmental organizations NGOs......the private non-profit industrial complex becoming public......this is what they think will be the corporate center that replaces domestic politics.
HERE IN MARYLAND ........ JOHNS HOPKINS LEADS THIS EFFORT. IT CAN BE SEEN IN THE GIFTING PROGRAMS LIKE ABAG (ASSOCIATION OF BALTIMORE AREA GRANTMAKERS) AND MARYLAND NON-PROFITS
These people have decided to push policy that will end not only democracy in America.....but completely eliminate our governmental structures. Remember, we barely have Rule of Law anymore so the entire Justice Department focuses almost exclusively on corporate law. We barely have a judicial system as 90% of court cases are plea bargains and arbitration. Judges and lawyers are disappearing. YOUR INCUMBENT IS DOING THIS!!!!
AS YOUR INCUMBENT SHOUTS THAT THEY ARE PROTECTING YOUR ENTITLEMENTS THEY ARE LEGISLATING SO THAT YOU AND I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO AFFORD EVEN BASIC HEALTH CARE. PLEASE TAKE TIME TO READ THIS ARTICLE BELOW AND GO TO THE ATTACHED SITES TO SEE THAT THIS IS WHAT YOUR INCUMBENT HAS BEEN WORKING THESE FOUR YEARS AS THE ECONOMY STAGNATES.
Leaked Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement Texts Reveal U.S. Pushing Extreme Pharmaceutical Corporation Demands that Would Undermine Consumers' Access to Affordable Medicine Obama Administration Positions Roll Back Initial 2007 Reforms Made by Bush Administration on Medicines Patents, Abandon Access to Medicines Commitments
Leaks of U.S. proposals for the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (FTA) reveal that the Obama administration has reversed reforms designed to enhance access to affordable medicines made during the George W. Bush administration and is instead demanding new rights for pharmaceutical firms to challenge pricing and other drug formulary policies used by many developed countries to keep down prices. The leaked draft text raises multiple concerns, including the following:
EMPOWERING BIG PHARMA TO ATTACK COST-SAVING DRUG FORMULARIES
This is a new proposal to empower pharmaceutical firms to attack the medicine formulary systems that New Zealand, Australia and other developed countries have used so successfully to reduce sky-high drug prices. Governments use formularies to control health costs by listing medicines approved for government purchase or reimbursement and negotiating with drug firms to obtain the lowest prices. Using the Trans-Pacific FTA to undermine Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and New Zealand's Pharmaceutical Management Agency (PHARMAC) is a goal U.S. pharmaceutical firms. U.S. states and some U.S. national programs also use formulary systems.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) The Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement: NAFTA for the Pacific Rim? Read CTC's Most Current Fact Sheets
The Trans-Pacific Partnership
What Corporations Want in Trans-Pacific Trade Negotiations
The TPP's Threats to Public Health
The TPP and the Environment
Citizens Trade Campaign	P.O. Box 77077
Email : info(at)citizenstrade.org
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a massive new international trade pact being pushed by the U.S. government at the behest of transnational corporations. The TPP is already being negotiated between the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam — but it is also specifically intended as a "docking agreement" that other Pacific Rim countries would join over time, with Japan, Korea, China and others already expressing some interest. It is poised to become the largest Free Trade Agreement in the world.
The Obama administration's recent embrace of the Bush-negotiated Korea, Panama and Colombia Free Trade Agreements leaves many worried that the Trans-Pacific Partnship will become nothing but a massive new NAFTA-style agreement. Indeed, while not all the negotiating text for the FTA has yet been released, it is already clear that trade negotiators are using past free trade agreements as their basic starting point for this one. The leaked of several chapters, in fact, show rollbacks from the Bush years on topics like access to medicine and zero progress on investment.
The ongoing, multi-year negotiations over the TPP are supposed to conclude in 2012, and as such, the window of opportunity for preventing the FTA from becoming a new "NAFTA for the Pacific Rim" is rapidly closing. Here are some of the questions yet to be answered:
Labor rights: Will the Trans-Pacific FTA include labor standards based on International Labor Organization conventions, and if included, how will they be enforced?
Investment Provisions: Will the Trans-Pacific FTA include so-called "investor-state" provisions that allow individual corporations to challenge environmental, consumer and other public interest policies as barriers to trade?
Public Procurement: Will the Trans-Pacific FTA respect nations' and communities' right to set purchasing preferences that keep taxpayer dollars re-circulating in local economies?
Access to Medicines: Will the Trans-Pacific FTA allow governments to produce and/or obtain affordable, generic medications for sick people?
Agriculture: Will the Trans-Pacific FTA allow countries to ensure that farmers and farm workers are fairly compensated, while also preventing the agricultural dumping that has forced so many family farmers off their land?
If labor, environmental, family farm, consumer, faith, immigrant rights, human rights and other social justice advocates don't force Trans-Pacific FTA negotiations into the public light, the answers to these questions aren't likely to be ones we'll be happy with.
International trade policies can be designed to lift labor, environmental and human rights standards and living conditions at home and abroad — but only if we demand it.
Trans-Pacific Trade Negotiations: We Need a Fair Deal or No Deal
Urge negotiators to release the texts of the Trans-Pacific FTA negotiations using this online petition or by helping to circulate this petition on paper
See photos from actions outside the Dallas round in May 2012
See photos from actions outside the Chicago round in September 2011
See photos from actions outside the southern California mini-round in January 2012
See photos from actions outside the San Francisco round in June 2010
See the leaked investment text and analysis from June 2012
See the leaked IP, drug formularies and regulatory coherence texts and analysis from October 2011
See the October 2011 civil society letter urging transparency in the negotiations
See our September 2011 Background Memo on the Trans-Pacific FTA
See our 2010 CTC Letter to President Obama on the Trans-Pacific FTA
In 2009, 350+ groups sent a letter to USTR on the Trans-Pacific FTA
Make or Break: Obama Officials Start TPP Talks Today Global Trade Watch, March 15, 2010
Trans-Pacific Partnership Opportunity to Fix Broken System Teamsters, January 26th, 2010
See the USTR TPP Statements and Actions to Date
Host U.S. under pressure in Asia-Pacific Trade Talks Reuters, June 13, 2010
US environment groups urge inclusion of Lacey Act language in TPP Inside US Trade, June 4, 2010
US Tries to Build Consensus for Trans-Pacific Trade Talks Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2010
Aiming for a trade agreement that breaks with the past Human Rights for Workers, May 13, 2010
Global Union Leaders: Open Trans-Pacific Trade Talks AFL-CIO NOW Blog, May 12, 2010
Must be told Wellsboro Gazette, May 12, 2010
Trading away financial stability Guardian, May 4, 2010
Malaysia could join Asia-Pacific trade talks – US Reuters, May 6, 2010
Kagen says trade deal could make or break U.S. dairy industry Wisconsin Ag Connection, April 29, 2010
TPP as backdoor to Colombia FTA? Eyes on Trade, March 23, 2010
Trade unions in TPP countries call for a fairer trade framework friendly to working people CTU Media Release, March 15, 2010
Proposed Pacific trade agreement must deliver for workers, jobs and the environment, say unions Australian Council of Trade Unions, March 15, 2010
Don't trade away health, labour, cultural and environmental policies AFTINET, March 14, 2010
Thirty US Senators warn US Trade Representative Ron Kirk about Dairy Provisions in TPP March 11, 2010
House Trade Working Group Requests Meeting with USTR on Trans-Pacific Partnership FTA Office of Congressman Mike Michaud, January 21, 2010
Levin Argues Against Fast-Track Trade Authority CQ Politics, December 15, 2009
Trans-Pacific Partnership Announcement Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, December 14, 2009
Obama Tells Congress U.S. Will Pursue Asia Trade Bloomberg, December 14, 2009
Kirk says U.S. will work with Congress on Pacific trade pact Bloomberg, November 14, 2009
For trade, Obama doesn't look South Miami Herald, October 19, 2009
U.S. Wants Japan, Malaysia, South Korea to Join Talks Bloomberg, December 18, 2009
Obama boosts hopes for free trade in Asia-Pacific Associated Press, November 17, 2009
In March of 2009, our national, state and local affiliates, representing well over sixteen million combined members, and 350 individual organizations in the trade reform movement, agreed that many of the most serious problems of the previous trade agreement model were replicated in past FTAs, and that the initial reforms made to labor and environmental standards and medicines patent rules required further improvements.
For a prospective TPP to be successful, it cannot merely mirror past U.S. agreements, including those negotiated with Peru, Colombia, Panama and Korea. The FTAs negotiated under the previous Administration do not represent an acceptable trade agreement model. Indeed, a majority of House Democrats voted against the Peru FTA. However, specific improvements made to some of those pacts' terms in 2007 with respect to labor and environmental standards and patent rules related to medicines are a starting point from which a prospective TPP agreement must achieve more progress.
If the TPP if it is to represent a more balanced way to expand trade, and garner broad support from the public, labor and civil society organizations and thus Congress, it must address the core issues below which are also central to the TRADE Act.
- Labor and Environmental Standards. The Peru FTA and the three leftover Bush FTAs require countries only to implement the vague terms set forth in the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and they explicitly do not refer to the ILO Conventions, with their associated jurisprudence and protections. The labor standards of a prospective TPP agreement must require signatories to enforce the core International Labor Organisation's (ILO) standards as set forth in the ILO Conventions. Requiring in the TPP that countries implement in their domestic law the ILO Convention standards will be a historic accomplishment for international worker rights. Indeed, all future U.S. trade agreements must include a requirement that countries implement in their domestic law the ILO Convention standards.
- Enforcement. They must also include provisions stating that the failure to enforce or the weakening of such policies would constitute a violation of a trade pact provision, for which the consequences will be just as stringent as commercial violations. The record of implementation of the Peru FTA demonstrates why better enforcement of trade pact labor and environmental terms must be a goal of a prospective TPP. Despite inclusion of the 2007-revised labor and environmental language, the Peru FTA was implemented in 2009 without Peru fully implementing its labor commitments as required and after its government rolled back existing environmental protections. Given the disconcerting labor rights records of Vietnam and Brunei, the issue of enforcement will be a critical one in the TPP negotiations.
- Foreign-Investor Rights and Private Extra-judicial Investor-State Enforcement. The TPP must not include the same foreign investor terms included in NAFTA, CAFTA and the Bush FTAs that led many Democrats to oppose these pacts. These past rules afford foreign investors operating here with greater rights than those enjoyed by U.S. investors. The past FTA investment provisions also allow foreign investors and corporations to directly enforce their special FTA investor rights and privileges by suing governments in foreign tribunals to demand cash compensation. President Obama cited these investment rules as problematic during the campaign. The past FTAs' investor rights terms create incentives for U.S. firms to offshore their U.S. production to foreign jurisdictions where they can operate under privileged FTA foreign investor status rather than be forced to deal with that country's regulatory policy and courts. They also subject our domestic environmental, zoning, health and other public interest policies to challenge by foreign investors in foreign tribunals.
- Food and Product Safety. NAFTA, CAFTA and past FTAs contain language requiring the United States to accept imported food that does not meet our domestic safety standards and limiting import inspection of food and products. In all future U.S. trade pacts, the right to send food and products into the United States must be conditioned on meeting U.S. safety and inspection standards.
- Procurement Provisions. Past FTA procurement rules subject many common federal and state procurement policies to challenge and directly forbid other common procurement policies. These procurement rules continue the NAFTA/CAFTA ban on anti-offshoring and many Buy America policies, and expose U.S. renewable-energy, recycled-content and other environmental safety requirements to challenge. These terms must be changed in the TPP to provide the policy space for exciting "Green Economy" proposals needed to get our economy back on track.
- Service-sector deregulation. Future U.S. trade pacts must not limit domestic policy regarding the regulation of health, energy, and other essential services. As well, the financial crisis has shown the perils of locking in deregulation of banking, insurance, and other financial services, as has occurred in past pacts.
- Agriculture Provisions. Past FTAs contain the NAFTA-style agriculture trade rules that have simultaneously undermined U.S. producers' ability to earn a fair price for their crops at home and in the global marketplace. Multinational grain-trading and food-processing firms have made enormous profits, while farmers on both ends have been hurt. If this model is continued, hunger is projected to increase, along with illicit drug cultivation, and undocumented migration. Failure to establish new agriculture terms would intensify the race to the bottom in commodity prices, pitting farmer against farmer and nation against nation to see who can produce food the cheapest, regardless of labor, environment or food-safety standards.
- Access to Medicines. While the most egregious, CAFTA-based terms limiting access to affordable medicines were removed from the last four Bush FTAs, the texts still include NAFTA-style terms that undermine the right to affordable medicines that were contained in the WTO's Doha Declaration. The TPP negotiations must build on the 2007 reforms on medicine patents rules.
We look forward to working with President Obama to create a new American trade and globalization policy, starting with the process of reviewing our old trade agreement model and formulating a new approach which can be debuted in the context of the TPP process. It will be challenging to remedy the considerable damage that our past trade policies have wrought, however we are confident that working together, we can replace the failed trade policies of the past with those that deliver broadly shared benefits and thus earn broad support.
Comments on the TPP
Executive Committee of Citizens Trade Campaign
Document: USTR-2009-0041-0051
Comments Concerning an Environmental Review of the Proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Environmental Investigation Agency, Friends of the Earth US, Sierra Club, June 2, 2010
President Hoffa, Int. Brotherhood of Teamsters
Teamsters Will Support Trade Pact That Protects Workers
Public Citizen's Detailed Comments
Global Trade Watch on the TPP Trade Agreement
350+ groups to USTR on how to structure a new TPP March 18th, 2009
Comment from David Frengel, Penn United
Comment from Steve Neubeck, Jobs With Justice
Comment from Humane Society International
Comment from International Fund for Animal Welfare
Comment from US Wheat Associates
Previous Comments from Public Citizen on the TPP March 9, 2009
See all comments to the USTR
THINK YOUR TAX DOLLARS ARE BEING SUCKED AWAY BY DEFENSE INDUSTRY FRAUD, HEALTH CARE, FOR-PROFIT EDUCATION, AND FINANCIAL INDUSTRY FRAUD? MOVE OVER, NOW IT IS THE LAWYERS TURN (AS THOUGH THEIR ROLE IN THE SUBPRIME MORTGAGE GIG WASN'T ENOUGH) AS GOVERNMENTS AGREE TO KEEP POLICIES IN PLACE THAT ARE BUSINESS-FRIENDLY REGARDLESS OF THE EFFECTS ON THE PUBLIC........ALL AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE.
Profiting from injustice How law firms, arbitrators and financiers are fuelling an investment arbitration boom
27 November 2012 Cecilia Olivet Pia Eberhardt
A small club of international law firms, arbitrators and financial speculators are fuelling an investment arbitration boom that is costing taxpayers billions of dollars and preventing legislation in the public interest.
Download the report Profiting from Injustice (pdf, 1.1MB)
Download Executive summary in English, German, Dutch, French, Spanish
The last two decades have witnessed the silent rise of a powerful international investment regime that has ensnared hundreds of countries and put corporate profit before human rights and the environment.
International investment treaties are agreements made between states that determine the rights of investors in each other's territories. They are used by powerful companies to sue governments if policy changes – even ones to protect public health or the environment – are deemed to affect their profits. By the end of 2011, over 3,000 international investment treaties had been signed, leading to a surge in legal claims at international arbitration tribunals. The costs of these legal actions weigh on governments in the form of large legal bills, weakening of social and environmental regulation and increased tax burdens for people, often in countries with critical social and economic needs.
Yet while these financial and social costs have started to become ever more visible, one sector has remained largely obscured from public view and that is the legal industry that has profited from this litigation boom. This report seeks to address that by examining the key players in the investment arbitration industry for the first time. It seeks to shine a light on law firms, arbitrators and litigation funders that have profited handsomely from lawsuits against governments.
The report shows that the arbitration industry is far from a passive beneficiary of international investment law. They are rather highly active players, many with strong personal and commercial ties to multinational companies and prominent roles in academia who vigorously defend the international investment regime. They not only seek every opportunity to sue governments, but also have campaigned forcefully and successfully against any reforms to the international investment regime.
The international investment arbitration system was justified and put in place by Western governments with the argument that a fair and neutral dispute settlement system was needed to protect their corporations' investments from perceived bias and corruption within national courts. Investment arbitrators were to be the guardians and guarantors of this regime.
Yet rather than acting as fair and neutral intermediaries, it has become clear that the arbitration industry has a vested interest in perpetuating an investment regime that prioritises the rights of investors at the expense of democratically elected national governments and sovereign states. They have built a multimillion-dollar, self-serving industry, dominated by a narrow exclusive elite of law firms and lawyers whose interconnectedness and multiple financial interests raise serious concerns about their commitment to deliver fair and independent judgements. As a result, the arbitration industry shares responsibility for an international investment regime that is neither fair, nor independent, but deeply flawed and business-biased.
The number of investment arbitration cases, as well as the sum of money involved, has surged in the last two decades from 38 cases in 1996 (registered at ICSID, the World Bank's body for administering such disputes) to 450 known investor-state cases in 2011. The amount of money involved has also expanded dramatically. In 2009/2010, 151 investment arbitration cases involved corporations demanding at least US$100 million from states.
The boom in arbitration has created bonanza profits for investment lawyers paid for by taxpayers. Legal and arbitration costs average over US$8 million per investor-state dispute, exceeding US$30 million in some cases. Elite law firms charge as much as US$1,000 per hour, per lawyer – with whole teams handling cases. Arbitrators also earn hefty salaries, amounting up to almost US$1 million in one reported case. These costs are paid by taxpayers, including in countries where people do not even have access to basic services. For example, the Philippine government spent US$58 million defending two cases against German airport operator Fraport; money that could have paid the salaries of 12,500 teachers for one year or vaccinated 3.8 million children against diseases such as TB, diphtheria, tetanus and polio.
The international investment arbitration industry is dominated by a small and tight-knit Northern hemisphere-based community of law firms and elite arbitrators. a) Three top law firms – Freshfields (UK), White & Case (US) and King & Spalding (US) – claim to have been involved in 130 investment treaty cases in 2011 alone. b) Just 15 arbitrators, nearly all from Europe, the US or Canada, have decided 55% of all known investment-treaty disputes. This small group of lawyers, referred to by some as an 'inner mafia', sit on the same arbitration panels, act as both arbitrators and counsels and even call on each other as witnesses in arbitration cases. This has led to growing concerns, including within the broader legal community, over conflicts of interest.
Arbitrators tend to defend private investor rights above public interest, revealing an inherent pro-corporate bias. Several prominent arbitrators have been members of the board of major multinational corporations, including those which have filed cases against developing nations. Nearly all share businesses' belief in the paramount impor- tance of protecting private profits. In many cases concerning public interest decisions, such as measures taken by Argentina in the context of its economic crisis, arbitrators have failed to consider anything but corporations' claims of lost profits in their rulings. Many arbitrators vocally rejected a proposal by International Court of Justice Judge Bruno Simma to give greater consideration to international environmental and human rights law in investment arbitration.
Law firms with specialised arbitration departments seek out every opportunity to sue countries – encouraging lawsuits against governments in crisis, most recently Greece and Libya, and promoting use of multiple invest- ment treaties to secure the best advantages for corporations. They encourage corporations to use lawsuit threats as a political weapon in order to weaken or prevent laws on public health or environmental protection. Investment lawyers have become the new international 'ambulance chasers', in a similar way to lawyers who chase hospital wagons to the emergency room in search for legal clients.
Investment lawyers, including elite arbitrators, have aggressively promoted investment arbitration as a necessary condition for the attraction of foreign investment, despite evidence to the contrary. Risks to states of acceding to investor-state arbitration are downplayed or dismissed.
Investment lawyers have encouraged governments to sign investment treaties using language that maximises possibilities for litigation. They have then used these vaguely worded treaty provisions to increase the number of cases. Statistical study based on 140 investment-treaty cases shows that arbitrators consistently adopt an expansive (claimant-friendly) interpretation of various clauses, such as the concept of investment. Meanwhile arbitration lawyers have taken a restrictive approach in international law when it comes to human and social rights.
Arbitration law firms as well as elite arbitrators have used positions of influence to actively lobby against any reforms to the international investment regime, notably in the US and the EU. Their actions, backed by corporations, succeeded in preventing changes that would enhance government's policy space to regulate in the US investment treaties that had been proposed by US President Barack Obama when he came to office. Several arbitrators have also loudly denounced nations that have questioned the international investment regime.
There is a revolving door between investment lawyers and government policy-makers that bolsters an unjust investment regime. Several prominent investment lawyers were chief negotiators of investment treaties (or free trade agreements with investment protection chapters) and defended their governments in investor-state disputes. Others are actively sought as advisers and opinion-makers by government and influence legislation.
Investment lawyers have a firm grip on academic discourse on investment law and arbitration, producing a large part of the academic writings on the subject, controlling on average 74% of editorial boards of the key journals on investment law, and frequently failing to disclose the way they personally benefit from the system. This raises concerns over academic balance and independence.
The investment arbitration system is becoming increasingly integrated with the speculative financial world, with investment funds helping fund investor-state disputes in exchange for a share in any granted award or settlement. This is likely to further fuel the boom in arbitrations, increase costs for cash-strapped governments, and raises concerns of potential conflicts of interest because of a dense web of personal relationships that link financiers to arbitrators, lawyers and investors. Firms such as Juridica (UK), Burford (US) and Omni Bridgeway (NL) have already become an established part of international investment arbitration, in the absence of any regulation of their activities. This financialisation of investment arbitration has even extended to proposals to sell on packages of lawsuits to third parties, in the vein of the disastrous credit default swaps behind the global financial crisis.
Some countries have started to realise the injustices and inconsistencies of international investment arbitration and have initiated a retreat from the system. In spring 2011, the Australian government announced that it would no longer include investor-state dispute settlement provisions in its trade agreements. Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela have terminated several investment treaties and have withdrawn from ICSID. Argentina, which has been swamped with investor-claims related to emergency legislation in the context of its 2001-2002 economic crisis, refuses to pay arbitration awards. South Africa is engaged in a thorough overhaul of its investment policy to better align it with development considerations and has just announced that it will neither enter into new investment agreements nor renew old ones due to expire.
The backlash has not gone unnoticed by members of the investment arbitration industry. Some insiders are ready to confront the challenges with proposals for moderate reform, such as greater transparency. But these proposals do not address the inherent flaws and corporate bias of the investment arbitration system. We believe only systemic reform, based around principles that consider human rights and the environment as more important than corporate profits, can deliver necessary change. This must start with the termination of existing investment agreements and a moratorium on signing new ones.
Nevertheless even within the existing system, there are some steps that can be taken to help to roll back the power of the arbitration industry. This report calls for a switch to independent, transparent adjudicative bodies, where arbitrators' independence and impartiality is secured; the introduction of tough regulations to guard against conflicts of interest; a cap on legal costs; and greater transparency regarding government lobbying by the industry. These steps will not by themselves transform the investor-state arbitration system. Without governments turning away from investment arbitration, the system will remain skewed in favour of big business and the highly lucrative arbitration industry.
Errata: Originally we had reported that arbitrator Albert Jan van den Berg had acted as counsel in 1 case. This was a mistake. We rectify that there is no known case in which Mr van den Berg has fulfilled that role.
International Investment Regime and BITs 76 pages Helen Burley (eds.) Profiting from Injustice (pdf, 1.22MB) About the authors Cecilia Olivet Cecilia Olivet is a political scientist who has specialised in the European Union's trade and investment agenda, the international investment regime and regional integration issues. Cecilia is Uruguayan, has a BA degree in International Relations from Universidad de la República in Uruguay and an MA in International Politics and East Asia from Warwick University, UK. In 2005, she joined TNI where she contributes to the Economic Justice, Corporate Power and Alternatives team with research, analysis, campaigning and network facilitation. She coordinates the initiative People's Agenda for Alternative Regionalisms (PAAR) and is involved in the work of networks such as Seattle to Brussels (S2B), Our World is not for Sale (OWINFS) and Bi-regional Network Europe-Latin America Enlazando Alternativas.
BELOW YOU SEE WHO IS ON THESE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES WRITING THIS LEGISLATION. THEY WORK WITH A BROAD GROUP OF PEOPLE SO THEY AREN'T SOLELY RESPONSIBLE. NOTICE WHO THE DEMOCRATS ARE......SCHUMER OF NEW YORK WHO IS RANKED AS POSSIBLE SENATE LEADER AFTER HARRY REID......STABENOW OF MICHIGAN (YOU SEE NOW WHY THE UNIONS DIDN'T HAVE A CHANCE IN MICHIGAN ---THIRD WAY DEMOCRATS LEADING THE STATE)....WE SEE JOHN KERRY AND KNOW HOW HE WAS CHOSEN TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT. ALL OF THESE PEOPLE ARE ON THESE COMMITTEES BECAUSE THE ARE INTENT ON WRITING THESE BAD TRADE LAWS
United States Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness From Wikipedia,
The Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness is one of the six subcommittees within the Senate Committee on Finance
Members, 112th Congress The Subcommittee is chaired by Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon, and the Ranking Minority Member is Republican John Thune of South Dakota
Majority Minority
Ron Wyden, Oregon, Chairman
Jay Rockefeller, West Virginia
John F. Kerry, Massachusetts
Charles E. Schumer, New York
Debbie Stabenow, Michigan
Bill Nelson, Florida
Robert Menendez, New Jersey
John Thune, South Dakota, Ranking Member
Orrin G. Hatch, Utah
Chuck Grassley, Iowa
Mike Crapo, Idaho
Pat Roberts, Kansas
United States House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade
The House Way and Means Subcommittee on Trade is one of the six subcommittees within the House Ways and Means Committee
Jurisdiction From the House Rules:
The jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Trade shall include bills and matters referred to the Committee on Ways and Means that relate to customs and customs administration including tariff and import fee structure, classification, valuation of and special rules applying to imports, and special tariff provisions and procedures which relate to customs operation affecting exports and imports; import trade matters, including import impact, industry relief from injurious imports, adjustment assistance and programs to encourage competitive responses to imports, unfair import practices including anti-dumping and countervailing duty provisions, and import policy which relates to dependence on foreign sources of supply; commodity agreements and reciprocal trade agreements including multilateral and bilateral trade negotiations and implementation of agreements involving tariff and non-tariff trade barriers to and distortions of international trade; international rules, organizations and institutional aspects of international trade agreements; budget authorizations for the customs revenue functions of the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. International Trade Commission, and the U.S. Trade Representative; and special trade-related problems involving market access, competitive conditions of specific industries, export policy and promotion, access to materials in short supply, bilateral trade relations including trade with developing countries, operations of multinational corporations, and trade with non-market economies.
Members, 112th Congress Majority Minority
Kevin Brady, Texas, Chairman
Geoff Davis, Kentucky
Dave Reichert, Washington
Wally Herger, California
Devin Nunes, California
Vern Buchanan, Florida
Adrian Smith, Nebraska
Aaron Schock, Illinois
Lynn Jenkins, Kansas
Jim McDermott, Washington, Ranking Member
Richard Neal, Massachusetts
Lloyd Doggett, Texas
Joe Crowley, New York
John Larson, Connecticut
Dave Camp, Michigan
Sander Levin, Michigan
Charles B. Rangel, New York