James Howard Kunstler Blog re Wile E. Coyote Nation
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 4:56 PM
Subject: James Howard Kunstler Blog re Wile E. Coyote Nation.
EXCERPT: "There's a particular moment known to all Baby Boomers when Wile E. Coyote, in a rapture of over-reaching, has run past the edge of the mesa and, still licking his chops and rubbing his front paws in anticipation of fricasseed roadrunner, discovers that he is suspended in thin air by nothing more than momentum. Grin becomes chagrin. He turns a nauseating shade of green, and drops, whistling, back to earth thousands of feet below, with a distant, dismal, barely audible thud at the end of his journey. We are Wile E. Coyote Nation.
Is there anyone in the known universe who thinks that the US financial system is not fifty feet beyond the edge of the mesa of credibility?" - James Howard Kunstler, July 14, 2008
fyi-janet
JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER: EVENT HORIZON
Monday, 14 July 2008
http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/
http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/585/1/
ORIGINAL BLOGPOST
There's a particular moment known to all Baby Boomers when Wile E. Coyote, in a rapture of over-reaching, has run past the edge of the mesa and, still licking his chops and rubbing his front paws in anticipation of fricasseed roadrunner, discovers that he is suspended in thin air by nothing more than momentum. Grin becomes chagrin. He turns a nauseating shade of green, and drops, whistling, back to earth thousands of feet below, with a distant, dismal, barely audible thud at the end of his journey. We are Wile E. Coyote Nation.
Is there anyone in the known universe who thinks that the US financial system is not fifty feet beyond the edge of the mesa of credibility?
Nothing will avail now. Not even if Sirhan Sirhan were paroled at noon today and transported directly to the West Wing with a .44 magnum in each hand (and a taxi driven by the Devil waiting outside to take him to the US Treasury and the offices of the Federal Reserve).
It's hard to imagine what kind of melodramas were unspooling on the Hamptons lawns this weekend, while everybody else in America was watching Nascar, or plying the aisles of BJs Discount Warehouse for next week's supply of mesquite-and-guacamole flavored Doritos, or having flames and chains tattooed on their necks, or lost in a haze of valium and methadrine.
With the death of the IndyMac Bank last week, and the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac laying side-by-side in the EMT van on IV drips, headed for the Federal Reserve's ever more crowded intensive care unit, there was a sense of the American Dream having passed through the event horizon that denotes the opening of a black hole.
What would happen if the US Government acted to bail out these feckless enterprises (and what if they don't)? Either way, it's not a pretty picture. If Mr. Bernanke does start shoveling loans into the GSE black hole, he'll further undermine the soundness of his own outfit and do nothing, really, to repair Fannie and Freddie's structural problem of having securitized too many loans that will never be paid back. If instead Fannie and Freddie are flat-out taken over entirely by the US government (and remember the Federal Reserve is not the government), then the national debt will roughly double overnight -- which will pound the US dollar down a rat-hole.
Meanwhile, the foreign holders of those decrepitating dollars might not rush to the redemption window, but they certainly would use them to buy up every oil futures contract on God's not-so-green Earth as fast as possible -- they'd be dumb not to -- which would leave American Happy Motorists with gasoline prices north of $5 a gallon, and possibly north of $10. (In that case, say goodbye to the airlines. In fact, say goodbye to what passes for the rest of the US economy, including especially the vaunted retail sector that supposedly counts for 70 percent of the action.)
If Fannie and Freddie are left to die out on the desert floor, say goodbye to the housing market, the major investment banks, countless regional banks, the retirement accounts of virtually everyone in America, the viability of all fifty states' governments, and the day-to-day operating ability of all their municipalities -- and very likely the current incarnation of the world banking system.
This process is really out of control now. The bottom line is the comprehensive bankruptcy of the United States. The Republican Party under George Bush will be known as the party that wrecked America (release 2.0). Painful as it is, Americans had better get a new "Dream" and fast. It better be a dream based on the way the universe actually works, which is to say an operating procedure run on earnest effort and truthfulness rather than merely trying to get something for nothing and wishing on stars. We might begin symbolically by evacuating Las Vegas and calling in an air strike on the loathsome place -- to register our new reality-based attitude adjustment.
After that, we've got to get to work re-tooling all the everyday activities of life, including the way we grow our food, the way we raise and deploy capital, the way we do trade and manufacturing, the way we go from point A to point B, the way we educate children, the way we stay healthy, and the way we occupy the landscape. I know, it sounds like a lot, maybe too much. But grok this: we don't have any choice if we want a plausible future on this portion of the North American continent.
Of course, none of that is likely to happen. Instead, and under the worst imaginable economic conditions, we'll probably embark on a campaign to prop up the un-prop-up-able and sustain the unsustainable -- that is, defend every status quo habit and behavior that we're used to, whether it can be salvaged or not. Of course, this would be a fatal squandering of our dwindling resources, but it it tends, historically, to be the last act of the melodrama in any faltering empire.
The result, pretty soon into that process, will be social breakdown and political upheaval. Every tattoo freak out there who has been prepping for his own starring role in some kind of comic book armageddon will finally get his chance to shine. Lots of people will get hurt and starve. Property will change hands in a disorderly way. And at the end of this process an American corn-pone Hitler may be waiting to set everything and everyone straight.
The markets open in about an hour. Good luck everybody.
Last Updated ( Monday, 14 July 2008 )
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James Howard Kunstler Blog re Wile E. Coyote Nation
by Oscar » Mon Oct 13, 2008 8:24 am
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
The Zone Die-It
by Oscar » Mon Oct 13, 2008 5:14 pm
The Zone Die-It
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 11:41 AM
Subject: Gulf [of Mexico] dead zone could be biggest ever [ thanks to mid-west flooding]
Thanks in large part to recent Midwest flooding, the oxygen-starved zone -- caused when fertilizer runoff from upstream ag(riculture) spurs growth of algae that suck oxygen as they decompose -- could measure 8,800 square miles, or about the size of New Jersey.
fyi-janet
============================
The Zone Die-It
http://www.grist.org/news/2008/07/15/de ... index.html
Gulf dead zone likely to be more gigantic than ever
The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico may be vaster than ever this year, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists predicted Tuesday. Thanks in large part to recent Midwest flooding, the oxygen-starved zone -- caused when fertilizer runoff from upstream ag spurs growth of algae that suck oxygen as they decompose - - could measure 8,800 square miles, or about the size of New Jersey.
The current dead-zone record holder is the 2002 zone, which was 8,481 square miles. The Gulf zone gets its "dead" moniker because it cannot support most marine life, and thus poses a great threat to the second-largest fishing industry in the country and the nation's biggest single source of shrimp and oysters -- not to mention general fishy happiness.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 11:41 AM
Subject: Gulf [of Mexico] dead zone could be biggest ever [ thanks to mid-west flooding]
Thanks in large part to recent Midwest flooding, the oxygen-starved zone -- caused when fertilizer runoff from upstream ag(riculture) spurs growth of algae that suck oxygen as they decompose -- could measure 8,800 square miles, or about the size of New Jersey.
fyi-janet
============================
The Zone Die-It
http://www.grist.org/news/2008/07/15/de ... index.html
Gulf dead zone likely to be more gigantic than ever
The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico may be vaster than ever this year, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists predicted Tuesday. Thanks in large part to recent Midwest flooding, the oxygen-starved zone -- caused when fertilizer runoff from upstream ag spurs growth of algae that suck oxygen as they decompose - - could measure 8,800 square miles, or about the size of New Jersey.
The current dead-zone record holder is the 2002 zone, which was 8,481 square miles. The Gulf zone gets its "dead" moniker because it cannot support most marine life, and thus poses a great threat to the second-largest fishing industry in the country and the nation's biggest single source of shrimp and oysters -- not to mention general fishy happiness.
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
Greed Without Accountability
by Oscar » Mon Oct 13, 2008 5:25 pm
Greed Without Accountability
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 7:25 AM
Subject: [Corporate] Greed Without Accountability, Economic Domino theory by Ralph Nader
The worst top management of giant corporations in American history is also by far the most hugely paid. ..The bosses of General Motors (GM) have presided over...the largest money losses and layoffs of tens of thousands of workers; yet these top executives are still in place and still receiving much more pay than their successful counterparts at Toyota...Then there are the financial companies. Top management on Wall Street has been beyond incompetent... The banks, investment banks and brokerage firms have tanked to levels not seen since the 1929-30 collapse of the stock market.....Fannie and Freddie were run into the ground by taking on very shaky mortgages under the command of CEOs and their top executives who paid themselves enormous sums.
There are ways to prevent such crashes. In the nineteen thirties, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose stronger regulation, creating the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and several bank regulatory agencies. He saved the badly listing capitalist ship.
Today, there is no real momentum in a frozen Washington, DC to bring regulation up to date.
Now the entire US economy is at risk. The domino theory is getting less theoretical daily. Without investors obtaining more legal authority as owners over their out of control company officers and Boards of Directors, and without strong regulation, corporate capitalism cannot be saved from its toxic combination of endless greed and maximum power - without responsibility.
fyi-janet
=====================
Greed Without Accountability
http://www.counterpunch.com/nader07022008.html
Counterpunch July 02 2008
Greed Without Accountability
Economic Domino Theory
by Ralph Nader
The worst top management of giant corporations in American history is also by far the most hugely paid. That contradiction applies as well to the Boards of Directors of these global companies.
Consider these illustrations:
The bosses of General Motors (GM) have presided over the worst decline of GM shares in the last fifty years, the lowering of GM bonds to junk status, the largest money losses and layoffs of tens of thousands of workers. Yet these top executives are still in place and still receiving much more pay than their successful counterparts at Toyota.
GM's stock valuation is under $7 billion dollars, while Toyota is valued at over $160 billion. Toyota, having passed GM in worldwide sales, is about to catch up with and pass GM in sales inside the United States itself!
GM's executives stayed with their gas guzzling SUVs way beyond the warning signs. Their vehicles were uninspiring and technologically stagnant in various ways. They were completely unprepared for Toyota's hybrid cars and for the upward spiral in gasoline prices. They're cashing their lucrative monthly checks with the regular votes of confidence by their hand-picked Board of Directors.
About the same appraisal can be made of Ford Motor Company, which at least brought in new management to try to do something about that once famous company's sinking status.
Then there are the financial companies. Top management on Wall Street
has been beyond incompetent. Wild risk taking camouflaged for years by multi-tiered, complex, abstract financial instruments (generally called collateralized debt obligations) kept the joy ride going and going until the massive financial hot air balloon started plummeting.
Finally told to leave their high posts, the CEOs of Merrill-Lynch and Citigroup took away tens of millions of severance pay while Wall Street turned into Layoff Street.
The banks, investment banks and brokerage firms have tanked to levels
not seen since the 1929-30 collapse of the stock market. Citigroup, once valued at over $50 per share is now under $17 a share.
Washington Mutual - the nation's largest savings bank chain was over $40 a share in 2007. Its reckless speculative binge has driven it down under $5 a share. Yet its CEO Kerry Killinger remains in charge, with the continuing support of his rubberstamp Board of Directors. A recent $8 billion infusion of private capital gave a sweetheart deal to these new investors at the excessive expense of the shareholders.
Countrywide, the infamous giant mortgage lender (subprime mortgages)
is about to be taken over by Bank of America. Its CEO is taking away a reduced but still very generous compensation deal.
Meanwhile, all these banks and brokerage houses' investment analysts are busy downgrading each others' stock prospects.
Over at the multi-trillion dollar companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the shareholders have lost about 75 percent of their stock value in one year. Farcically regulated by the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs, Fannie and Freddie were run into the ground by taking on very shaky mortgages under the command of CEOs and their top executives who paid themselves enormous sums.
These two institutions were set up many years ago to provide liquidity in the housing and loan markets and thereby expand home ownership especially among lower income families. Instead, they turned themselves into casinos, taking advantage of an implied US government guarantee.
The Fannie and Freddie bosses created another guarantee. They hired top appointees from both Republican and Democratic Administrations (such as Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick) and lathered them with tens of millions of dollars in executive compensation. In this way, they kept federal supervision at a minimum and held off efforts in Congress to toughen regulation. These executives are all gone now, enjoying their maharajan riches with impunity while pensions and mutual funds lose and lose and lose with no end in sight, short of a government-taxpayer bailout.
Over a year ago, leading financial analyst Henry Kaufman and very few others warned about "undisciplined" (read unregulated) and "mis-pricing" of lower quality assets. Mr Kaufman wrote in the Wall Street Journal of August 15 2007 that "If some institutions are really 'too big to fail', then other means of discipline will have to be found".
There are ways to prevent such crashes. In the nineteen thirties, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose stronger regulation, creating the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and several bank regulatory agencies. He saved the badly listing capitalist ship.
Today, there is no real momentum in a frozen Washington, DC to bring regulation up to date. To the contrary, in 1999, Congress led by Senator McCain's Advisor, former Senator Phil Gramm and the Clinton Administration led by Robert Rubin, Secretary of the Treasury, and soon to join Citibank, de-regulated and ended the wall between investment banks and commercial banking known as the Glass-Steagall Act.
Clinton and Congress opened the floodgates to rampant speculation without even requiring necessary and timely disclosures for the benefit of institutional and individual investors.
Now the entire US economy is at risk. The domino theory is getting less theoretical daily. Without investors obtaining more legal authority as owners over their out of control company officers and Boards of Directors, and without strong regulation, corporate capitalism cannot be saved from its toxic combination of endless greed and maximum power - without responsibility.
Uncle Sam, the deeply deficit ridden bailout man, may have another taxpayers-to-the-rescue operation for Wall Street. But don't count on stretching the American dollar much more without devastating consequences to and from global financial markets in full panic.
Consider the US dollar like an elastic band. You can keep stretching this rubber band but suddenly it BREAKS. Our country needs action NOW from Washington, DC.
Ralph Nader is running for president as an independent.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 7:25 AM
Subject: [Corporate] Greed Without Accountability, Economic Domino theory by Ralph Nader
The worst top management of giant corporations in American history is also by far the most hugely paid. ..The bosses of General Motors (GM) have presided over...the largest money losses and layoffs of tens of thousands of workers; yet these top executives are still in place and still receiving much more pay than their successful counterparts at Toyota...Then there are the financial companies. Top management on Wall Street has been beyond incompetent... The banks, investment banks and brokerage firms have tanked to levels not seen since the 1929-30 collapse of the stock market.....Fannie and Freddie were run into the ground by taking on very shaky mortgages under the command of CEOs and their top executives who paid themselves enormous sums.
There are ways to prevent such crashes. In the nineteen thirties, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose stronger regulation, creating the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and several bank regulatory agencies. He saved the badly listing capitalist ship.
Today, there is no real momentum in a frozen Washington, DC to bring regulation up to date.
Now the entire US economy is at risk. The domino theory is getting less theoretical daily. Without investors obtaining more legal authority as owners over their out of control company officers and Boards of Directors, and without strong regulation, corporate capitalism cannot be saved from its toxic combination of endless greed and maximum power - without responsibility.
fyi-janet
=====================
Greed Without Accountability
http://www.counterpunch.com/nader07022008.html
Counterpunch July 02 2008
Greed Without Accountability
Economic Domino Theory
by Ralph Nader
The worst top management of giant corporations in American history is also by far the most hugely paid. That contradiction applies as well to the Boards of Directors of these global companies.
Consider these illustrations:
The bosses of General Motors (GM) have presided over the worst decline of GM shares in the last fifty years, the lowering of GM bonds to junk status, the largest money losses and layoffs of tens of thousands of workers. Yet these top executives are still in place and still receiving much more pay than their successful counterparts at Toyota.
GM's stock valuation is under $7 billion dollars, while Toyota is valued at over $160 billion. Toyota, having passed GM in worldwide sales, is about to catch up with and pass GM in sales inside the United States itself!
GM's executives stayed with their gas guzzling SUVs way beyond the warning signs. Their vehicles were uninspiring and technologically stagnant in various ways. They were completely unprepared for Toyota's hybrid cars and for the upward spiral in gasoline prices. They're cashing their lucrative monthly checks with the regular votes of confidence by their hand-picked Board of Directors.
About the same appraisal can be made of Ford Motor Company, which at least brought in new management to try to do something about that once famous company's sinking status.
Then there are the financial companies. Top management on Wall Street
has been beyond incompetent. Wild risk taking camouflaged for years by multi-tiered, complex, abstract financial instruments (generally called collateralized debt obligations) kept the joy ride going and going until the massive financial hot air balloon started plummeting.
Finally told to leave their high posts, the CEOs of Merrill-Lynch and Citigroup took away tens of millions of severance pay while Wall Street turned into Layoff Street.
The banks, investment banks and brokerage firms have tanked to levels
not seen since the 1929-30 collapse of the stock market. Citigroup, once valued at over $50 per share is now under $17 a share.
Washington Mutual - the nation's largest savings bank chain was over $40 a share in 2007. Its reckless speculative binge has driven it down under $5 a share. Yet its CEO Kerry Killinger remains in charge, with the continuing support of his rubberstamp Board of Directors. A recent $8 billion infusion of private capital gave a sweetheart deal to these new investors at the excessive expense of the shareholders.
Countrywide, the infamous giant mortgage lender (subprime mortgages)
is about to be taken over by Bank of America. Its CEO is taking away a reduced but still very generous compensation deal.
Meanwhile, all these banks and brokerage houses' investment analysts are busy downgrading each others' stock prospects.
Over at the multi-trillion dollar companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the shareholders have lost about 75 percent of their stock value in one year. Farcically regulated by the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs, Fannie and Freddie were run into the ground by taking on very shaky mortgages under the command of CEOs and their top executives who paid themselves enormous sums.
These two institutions were set up many years ago to provide liquidity in the housing and loan markets and thereby expand home ownership especially among lower income families. Instead, they turned themselves into casinos, taking advantage of an implied US government guarantee.
The Fannie and Freddie bosses created another guarantee. They hired top appointees from both Republican and Democratic Administrations (such as Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick) and lathered them with tens of millions of dollars in executive compensation. In this way, they kept federal supervision at a minimum and held off efforts in Congress to toughen regulation. These executives are all gone now, enjoying their maharajan riches with impunity while pensions and mutual funds lose and lose and lose with no end in sight, short of a government-taxpayer bailout.
Over a year ago, leading financial analyst Henry Kaufman and very few others warned about "undisciplined" (read unregulated) and "mis-pricing" of lower quality assets. Mr Kaufman wrote in the Wall Street Journal of August 15 2007 that "If some institutions are really 'too big to fail', then other means of discipline will have to be found".
There are ways to prevent such crashes. In the nineteen thirties, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose stronger regulation, creating the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and several bank regulatory agencies. He saved the badly listing capitalist ship.
Today, there is no real momentum in a frozen Washington, DC to bring regulation up to date. To the contrary, in 1999, Congress led by Senator McCain's Advisor, former Senator Phil Gramm and the Clinton Administration led by Robert Rubin, Secretary of the Treasury, and soon to join Citibank, de-regulated and ended the wall between investment banks and commercial banking known as the Glass-Steagall Act.
Clinton and Congress opened the floodgates to rampant speculation without even requiring necessary and timely disclosures for the benefit of institutional and individual investors.
Now the entire US economy is at risk. The domino theory is getting less theoretical daily. Without investors obtaining more legal authority as owners over their out of control company officers and Boards of Directors, and without strong regulation, corporate capitalism cannot be saved from its toxic combination of endless greed and maximum power - without responsibility.
Uncle Sam, the deeply deficit ridden bailout man, may have another taxpayers-to-the-rescue operation for Wall Street. But don't count on stretching the American dollar much more without devastating consequences to and from global financial markets in full panic.
Consider the US dollar like an elastic band. You can keep stretching this rubber band but suddenly it BREAKS. Our country needs action NOW from Washington, DC.
Ralph Nader is running for president as an independent.
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
Worst-case scenario? Canadian hard assets would skyrocket
by Oscar » Mon Oct 13, 2008 5:31 pm
Worst-case scenario? Canadian hard assets would skyrocket
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 7:30 AM
Subject: Worst-case scenario? Canadian hard assets would skyrocket G&M July 18
Are there any winners in a financial market Armageddon? John Riley thinks there could be. And it turns out that we Canadians could be sitting in a (relatively) good place should the roof cave in.
Mr. Riley, president and chief investment strategist at Rhode Island-based financial advisory firm Cornerstone Investment Services, published a report yesterday entitled "Worst Case Scenario," which revolves around a major meltdown in the U.S. banking sector.
... a few assets would climb on top of the rubble. Gold, oil and agricultural commodities would likely "skyrocket," he says, as investors flee to hard assets. Eventually, foreign markets would prosper, as U.S. investors seek shelter from their plunging currency.
Oil? Gold? Agriculture? Commodities? Foreign? Few markets fit that profile better than Canada.
fyi-janet
=============
Worst-case scenario? Canadian hard assets would skyrocket
http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20080717.wparkinson0718/BNStory/SpecialEvents2/home
DAVID PARKINSON Globe and Mail Update
July 18, 2008 at 6:00 AM EDT
Are there any winners in a financial market Armageddon?
John Riley thinks there could be. And it turns out that we Canadians could be sitting in a (relatively) good place should the roof cave in.
Mr. Riley, president and chief investment strategist at Rhode Island-based financial advisory firm Cornerstone Investment Services, published a report yesterday entitled "Worst Case Scenario," which revolves around a major meltdown in the U.S. banking sector.
In this scenario, he envisages the U.S. Federal Reserve Board being forced into extreme action to stop the bleeding - including a "banking holiday," in which the banks are ordered to temporarily shut down, in conjunction with a multiday halting of stock and bond markets. The foreseen fallout? A stock market crash and the collapse of the U.S. dollar, as confidence in the very foundations of the U.S. financial system crumbles.
But a few assets would climb on top of the rubble. Gold, oil and agricultural commodities would likely "skyrocket," he says, as investors flee to hard assets. Eventually, foreign markets would prosper, as U.S. investors seek shelter from their plunging currency.
Oil? Gold? Agriculture? Commodities? Foreign? Few markets fit that profile better than Canada.
Mr. Riley admits the scenario is extreme - particularly on a day like
yesterday, when investors gave banking stocks a loud vote of confidence. It's hard to talk about major failures on a day when Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae rebound roughly 20 per cent, Bank of America jumps almost 17 per cent and JPMorgan Chase & Co. gains 13.5 per cent.
But while a couple of years ago guys like Mr. Riley were seen as Chicken Littles, now they are pragmatists. All you have to do is look at Bear Stearns, IndyMac Bancorp, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to see that what he's talking about is no longer so far-fetched.
"I've been jumping up and down about Fannie Mae for eight years. I've been talking about debt growth and I've been talking about derivatives for so long," Mr. Riley said in an interview yesterday. "It had been all theory up until now. Now, we're on the event horizon."
"We have the potential for a financial meltdown at any point now."
Even if the Fed and other government agencies can act to stanch the bleeding well before the worst case unfolds, Mr. Riley believes the U.S. stock market could be left with an outcome not much better: A long-term stagnation stemming from the financial hangover, much like markets suffered in the 1970s, or Japan for much of the past 20 years.
"What's more likely to happen is that we trudge along in a stop-and-start-type market," he said.
"My worst fear has always been a repeat of the 1970s, where we have a bear market and then a rally, then a bear market, then a rally."
If history is any guide, once again some key Canadian assets could look like an attractive option.
"Back then, commodities, hard assets did very well. Foreign assets did very well," he said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Riley doesn't buy into arguments commodities are poised for a tumble as a result of a global economic slowdown.
"The big worry is that if the U.S. is in recession, then that will theoretically give the rest of the world a cold, and everyone else will slow down and that will bring down the consumption of commodities. But I don't believe that's going to be true," he said, arguing that key emerging market economies should continue to expand internally regardless of what the U.S. economy does. "They're creating their own markets for things."
Regardless, he suggested that a deepening of the banking crisis would trump any commodity demand issues. In fact, that threat may already be keeping oil prices aloft.
"Under normal circumstances, we wouldn't be surprised to see oil pull back all the way down to $100 or so," he said. "But if we have a major financial crisis ... don't be surprised to see oil spike up."
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 7:30 AM
Subject: Worst-case scenario? Canadian hard assets would skyrocket G&M July 18
Are there any winners in a financial market Armageddon? John Riley thinks there could be. And it turns out that we Canadians could be sitting in a (relatively) good place should the roof cave in.
Mr. Riley, president and chief investment strategist at Rhode Island-based financial advisory firm Cornerstone Investment Services, published a report yesterday entitled "Worst Case Scenario," which revolves around a major meltdown in the U.S. banking sector.
... a few assets would climb on top of the rubble. Gold, oil and agricultural commodities would likely "skyrocket," he says, as investors flee to hard assets. Eventually, foreign markets would prosper, as U.S. investors seek shelter from their plunging currency.
Oil? Gold? Agriculture? Commodities? Foreign? Few markets fit that profile better than Canada.
fyi-janet
=============
Worst-case scenario? Canadian hard assets would skyrocket
http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20080717.wparkinson0718/BNStory/SpecialEvents2/home
DAVID PARKINSON Globe and Mail Update
July 18, 2008 at 6:00 AM EDT
Are there any winners in a financial market Armageddon?
John Riley thinks there could be. And it turns out that we Canadians could be sitting in a (relatively) good place should the roof cave in.
Mr. Riley, president and chief investment strategist at Rhode Island-based financial advisory firm Cornerstone Investment Services, published a report yesterday entitled "Worst Case Scenario," which revolves around a major meltdown in the U.S. banking sector.
In this scenario, he envisages the U.S. Federal Reserve Board being forced into extreme action to stop the bleeding - including a "banking holiday," in which the banks are ordered to temporarily shut down, in conjunction with a multiday halting of stock and bond markets. The foreseen fallout? A stock market crash and the collapse of the U.S. dollar, as confidence in the very foundations of the U.S. financial system crumbles.
But a few assets would climb on top of the rubble. Gold, oil and agricultural commodities would likely "skyrocket," he says, as investors flee to hard assets. Eventually, foreign markets would prosper, as U.S. investors seek shelter from their plunging currency.
Oil? Gold? Agriculture? Commodities? Foreign? Few markets fit that profile better than Canada.
Mr. Riley admits the scenario is extreme - particularly on a day like
yesterday, when investors gave banking stocks a loud vote of confidence. It's hard to talk about major failures on a day when Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae rebound roughly 20 per cent, Bank of America jumps almost 17 per cent and JPMorgan Chase & Co. gains 13.5 per cent.
But while a couple of years ago guys like Mr. Riley were seen as Chicken Littles, now they are pragmatists. All you have to do is look at Bear Stearns, IndyMac Bancorp, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to see that what he's talking about is no longer so far-fetched.
"I've been jumping up and down about Fannie Mae for eight years. I've been talking about debt growth and I've been talking about derivatives for so long," Mr. Riley said in an interview yesterday. "It had been all theory up until now. Now, we're on the event horizon."
"We have the potential for a financial meltdown at any point now."
Even if the Fed and other government agencies can act to stanch the bleeding well before the worst case unfolds, Mr. Riley believes the U.S. stock market could be left with an outcome not much better: A long-term stagnation stemming from the financial hangover, much like markets suffered in the 1970s, or Japan for much of the past 20 years.
"What's more likely to happen is that we trudge along in a stop-and-start-type market," he said.
"My worst fear has always been a repeat of the 1970s, where we have a bear market and then a rally, then a bear market, then a rally."
If history is any guide, once again some key Canadian assets could look like an attractive option.
"Back then, commodities, hard assets did very well. Foreign assets did very well," he said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Riley doesn't buy into arguments commodities are poised for a tumble as a result of a global economic slowdown.
"The big worry is that if the U.S. is in recession, then that will theoretically give the rest of the world a cold, and everyone else will slow down and that will bring down the consumption of commodities. But I don't believe that's going to be true," he said, arguing that key emerging market economies should continue to expand internally regardless of what the U.S. economy does. "They're creating their own markets for things."
Regardless, he suggested that a deepening of the banking crisis would trump any commodity demand issues. In fact, that threat may already be keeping oil prices aloft.
"Under normal circumstances, we wouldn't be surprised to see oil pull back all the way down to $100 or so," he said. "But if we have a major financial crisis ... don't be surprised to see oil spike up."
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
The Agreement on Internal Trade puts Quebec Model in jeopard
by Oscar » Mon Oct 13, 2008 5:42 pm
The Agreement on Internal Trade puts Quebec Model in jeopardy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2008 6:03 AM
Subject: TILMA e.g. The Agreement on Internal Trade[AIT] puts Quebec Model in jeopardy
The Premiers, i.e the Council of the Federation, have just wrapped up a three-day meeting in Quebec City, Friday, July 18, 2008. The CTV report while referring to their inconclusive negotiations on dealing with climate change, their meeting with Canada's top banker, Mark Carney, to discuss the country's economic situation and interest rates, there was no mention of trade and labour mobility discussions and agreement.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/
20080718/premiers_governor_080718/20080718?hub=TopStories
Manitoba Federation of Labour President Darlene Dziewit said "Up to now, the AIT was a political agreement based on the consensus of the parties involved with no binding settlement mechanisms or penalties.
The current negotiation would change that and open the door for corporations who might want to challenge a province or a municipality´s laws and regulations if they are deemed `barriers to trade´. This would import into Canadian domestic affairs the measures that now exist under NAFTA and the WTO."
The labour leaders [meeting alongside the Premiers] condemned the veil of secrecy that shrouds the discussions around the AIT, discussions that could well subvert the principles of federalism and governments´ ability to regulate in the public interest. They call on all parties concerned for public consultations on this matter in every jurisdiction.
http://uwfa.ca/2008/07/18/the-agreement ... -jeopardy/
FYI-Janet
p.s. More free market mechanisms imposed under a veil of secrecy at a time when the corporate economic globalization model with its emphasis on free trade agreements and free market measures such as the NAFTA dispute resolution mechanism are failing badly and regulation of the economy, trade and corporations and major about face shifts in the economic model must occur.
NAFTA was oversold, based on flawed assumptions and has failed to live up to its promises. In addition there are now calls from civil society, political parties, think tanks, policy centres and cross border coalitions to renegotiate NAFTA and in the US many States have oversight Commissions on Globalization, and free trade agreements because of their intrusion upon State and municipal sovereignty. The ongoing recalitrance and reactionary calls of Canada's political and corporate elite to extend NAFTA in this way must be challenged.
[For more on NAFTA Growing Resistance see
http://www.stopthehogs.com/pdf/nafta-resistance.pdf ]
-----------------------
The Agreement on Internal Trade puts Quebec Model in jeopardy
http://uwfa.ca/2008/07/18/the-agreement ... -jeopardy/
Date: July 17, 2008
To: All News Editors
From: Darlene Dziewit, President
Re: The Agreement on Internal Trade puts Quebec Model in jeopardy
"It looks increasingly like a present to big business at the expense of citizens and government´s ability to regulate." - Michel Arsenault, QFL President
Quebec - Could the rates charged by childcare centers, by Manitoba Hydro or the benefits paid by Manitoba Public Insurance be deemed unfair competition and lead to penalties by virtue of the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) now being discussed by the Premiers?
This could very well be the case according to the presidents of provincial and territorial labour federations now assembled in Quebec City in parallel to the meeting of the Provincial Premiers who make up the Council of the Federation. Quebec Federation of Labour President Michel Arsenault, speaking on behalf of his colleagues from the other provinces and territories said, "We observe a strong push by a powerful business lobby to deepen the AIT´s ambit and to institute a binding trade tribunal system that could impose fines on provinces.
"Premiers would abdicate significant authority to private interests. The Quebec Model itself could be challenged by the backdoor."
A powerful business lobby
In a recent letter to Quebec Premier Jean Charest, a powerful lobby of bankers, oil companies, chambers of commerce and manufacturers expressed satisfaction with the fact that "(...) ministers (reached a consensus)on an enforcement mechanism to resolve disputes, including a tiered approach to monetary penalties in the event of non-compliance."
Manitoba Federation of Labour President Darlene Dziewit said "Up to now, the AIT was a political agreement based on the consensus of the parties involved with no binding settlement mechanisms or penalties. The current negotiation would change that and open the door for corporations who might want to challenge a province or a municipality´s laws and regulations if they are deemed `barriers to trade´. This would import into Canadian domestic affairs the measures that now exist under NAFTA and the WTO."
Real issues are not being addressed
Arsenault said, "It is sad that the Premiers are wasting their time providing problematic solutions to the non-existent problem of trade barriers in Canada. Claims that trade barriers are costing up to .1 % of GDP are not credible, have never been substantiated and are just an excuse to put constraints on governments´ ability to regulate. The fact of the matter is that trade among Canadian provinces vastly outweighs that with the United States.
"It seems to us that instead of putting forward erroneous solutions to non-existent problems, the Premiers ought to address the real issues such as the job crisis in manufacturing, high gas and heating oil prices, and the need to improve public transportation."
A culture of secrecy
The labour leaders condemned the veil of secrecy that shrouds the discussions around the AIT, discussions that could well subvert the principles of federalism and governments´ ability to regulate in the public interest. They call on all parties concerned for public consultations on this matter in every jurisdiction.
-30-
For comment, contact Darlene Dziewit at 941-3111
List of the Federation and Territorial Presidents at the union meeting.
Michel Arsenault, Québec
Wayne Samuelson, Ontario
Reg Anstey, Newfoundland and Labrador
Darlene Dziewit, Manitoba
Jim Sinclair, British Columbia
Mary Lou Cherwaty, Northwest Territories and Nunavut
Larry Hubich, Saskatchewan
Alex Furlong, Yukon
Gil McGowan, Alberta
Carl Pursey, Prince Edward Island
Michel Boudreau, New Brunswick
Hassan Yussuff, Congrès du travail du Canada
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2008 6:03 AM
Subject: TILMA e.g. The Agreement on Internal Trade[AIT] puts Quebec Model in jeopardy
The Premiers, i.e the Council of the Federation, have just wrapped up a three-day meeting in Quebec City, Friday, July 18, 2008. The CTV report while referring to their inconclusive negotiations on dealing with climate change, their meeting with Canada's top banker, Mark Carney, to discuss the country's economic situation and interest rates, there was no mention of trade and labour mobility discussions and agreement.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/
20080718/premiers_governor_080718/20080718?hub=TopStories
Manitoba Federation of Labour President Darlene Dziewit said "Up to now, the AIT was a political agreement based on the consensus of the parties involved with no binding settlement mechanisms or penalties.
The current negotiation would change that and open the door for corporations who might want to challenge a province or a municipality´s laws and regulations if they are deemed `barriers to trade´. This would import into Canadian domestic affairs the measures that now exist under NAFTA and the WTO."
The labour leaders [meeting alongside the Premiers] condemned the veil of secrecy that shrouds the discussions around the AIT, discussions that could well subvert the principles of federalism and governments´ ability to regulate in the public interest. They call on all parties concerned for public consultations on this matter in every jurisdiction.
http://uwfa.ca/2008/07/18/the-agreement ... -jeopardy/
FYI-Janet
p.s. More free market mechanisms imposed under a veil of secrecy at a time when the corporate economic globalization model with its emphasis on free trade agreements and free market measures such as the NAFTA dispute resolution mechanism are failing badly and regulation of the economy, trade and corporations and major about face shifts in the economic model must occur.
NAFTA was oversold, based on flawed assumptions and has failed to live up to its promises. In addition there are now calls from civil society, political parties, think tanks, policy centres and cross border coalitions to renegotiate NAFTA and in the US many States have oversight Commissions on Globalization, and free trade agreements because of their intrusion upon State and municipal sovereignty. The ongoing recalitrance and reactionary calls of Canada's political and corporate elite to extend NAFTA in this way must be challenged.
[For more on NAFTA Growing Resistance see
http://www.stopthehogs.com/pdf/nafta-resistance.pdf ]
-----------------------
The Agreement on Internal Trade puts Quebec Model in jeopardy
http://uwfa.ca/2008/07/18/the-agreement ... -jeopardy/
Date: July 17, 2008
To: All News Editors
From: Darlene Dziewit, President
Re: The Agreement on Internal Trade puts Quebec Model in jeopardy
"It looks increasingly like a present to big business at the expense of citizens and government´s ability to regulate." - Michel Arsenault, QFL President
Quebec - Could the rates charged by childcare centers, by Manitoba Hydro or the benefits paid by Manitoba Public Insurance be deemed unfair competition and lead to penalties by virtue of the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) now being discussed by the Premiers?
This could very well be the case according to the presidents of provincial and territorial labour federations now assembled in Quebec City in parallel to the meeting of the Provincial Premiers who make up the Council of the Federation. Quebec Federation of Labour President Michel Arsenault, speaking on behalf of his colleagues from the other provinces and territories said, "We observe a strong push by a powerful business lobby to deepen the AIT´s ambit and to institute a binding trade tribunal system that could impose fines on provinces.
"Premiers would abdicate significant authority to private interests. The Quebec Model itself could be challenged by the backdoor."
A powerful business lobby
In a recent letter to Quebec Premier Jean Charest, a powerful lobby of bankers, oil companies, chambers of commerce and manufacturers expressed satisfaction with the fact that "(...) ministers (reached a consensus)on an enforcement mechanism to resolve disputes, including a tiered approach to monetary penalties in the event of non-compliance."
Manitoba Federation of Labour President Darlene Dziewit said "Up to now, the AIT was a political agreement based on the consensus of the parties involved with no binding settlement mechanisms or penalties. The current negotiation would change that and open the door for corporations who might want to challenge a province or a municipality´s laws and regulations if they are deemed `barriers to trade´. This would import into Canadian domestic affairs the measures that now exist under NAFTA and the WTO."
Real issues are not being addressed
Arsenault said, "It is sad that the Premiers are wasting their time providing problematic solutions to the non-existent problem of trade barriers in Canada. Claims that trade barriers are costing up to .1 % of GDP are not credible, have never been substantiated and are just an excuse to put constraints on governments´ ability to regulate. The fact of the matter is that trade among Canadian provinces vastly outweighs that with the United States.
"It seems to us that instead of putting forward erroneous solutions to non-existent problems, the Premiers ought to address the real issues such as the job crisis in manufacturing, high gas and heating oil prices, and the need to improve public transportation."
A culture of secrecy
The labour leaders condemned the veil of secrecy that shrouds the discussions around the AIT, discussions that could well subvert the principles of federalism and governments´ ability to regulate in the public interest. They call on all parties concerned for public consultations on this matter in every jurisdiction.
-30-
For comment, contact Darlene Dziewit at 941-3111
List of the Federation and Territorial Presidents at the union meeting.
Michel Arsenault, Québec
Wayne Samuelson, Ontario
Reg Anstey, Newfoundland and Labrador
Darlene Dziewit, Manitoba
Jim Sinclair, British Columbia
Mary Lou Cherwaty, Northwest Territories and Nunavut
Larry Hubich, Saskatchewan
Alex Furlong, Yukon
Gil McGowan, Alberta
Carl Pursey, Prince Edward Island
Michel Boudreau, New Brunswick
Hassan Yussuff, Congrès du travail du Canada
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
Police Spied on Activists In Md.
by Oscar » Mon Oct 13, 2008 5:50 pm
Police Spied on Activists In Md.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2008 6:29 AM
Subject: Police Spied on Activists In Md. Officers Infiltrated Groups WP July 18
Undercover Maryland State Police officers conducted surveillance on war protesters and death penalty opponents.... The 46 pages of single-spaced typed records were released this week to the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, which sued the state police in June, claiming that it had refused to release public documents that shed light on surveillance of peace activists. ...The records show that undercover agents collectively spent 288 hours on surveillance activities over 14 months from March 2005 until May 2006.
"To invest this many hours investigating the most all-American of activities without any scintilla of evidence there is anything criminal going on is shocking," ACLU lawyer David Rocah said at a news conference in Baltimore yesterday. "It's Kafkaesque."
State Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery), who teaches constitutional law at American University, called the surveillance "extremely dubious homeland security work." .... The ACLU asked [Gov] O'Malley to order any surveillance stopped and demand that the state police make public the full scope of the groups and activities monitored.
fyi-janet
==========================
Police Spied on Activists In Md.
Officers Infiltrated Groups During Ehrlich Years
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/07/17/AR2008071701287_pf.html
By Lisa Rein Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 18, 2008; A01
Undercover Maryland State Police officers conducted surveillance on war protesters and death penalty opponents, including some in Takoma Park, for more than a year while Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was governor, documents released yesterday show.
Detailed intelligence reports logged by at least two agents in the police department's Homeland Security and Intelligence Division reveal close monitoring of the movements as the Iraq war and capital punishment were heatedly debated in 2005 and 2006.
Organizational meetings, public forums, prison vigils, rallies outside the State House in Annapolis and e-mail group lists were infiltrated by police posing as peace activists and death penalty opponents, the records show. The surveillance continued even though the logs contained no reports of illegal activity and consistently indicated that the activists were not planning violent protests.
Then-state police superintendent Tim Hutchins acknowledged in an interview yesterday that the surveillance took place on his watch, adding that it was done legally. He said Ehrlich (R) was not aware of it. "You do what you think is best to protect the general populace of the state," said Hutchins, now a federal defense contractor.
The 46 pages of single-spaced typed records were released this week to the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, which sued the state police in June, claiming that it had refused to release public documents that shed light on surveillance of peace activists. The civil liberties group learned in 2004 that a state police intelligence unit was monitoring Baltimore peace groups that had protested at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade that year.
The records show that undercover agents collectively spent 288 hours on surveillance activities over 14 months from March 2005 until May 2006.
"To invest this many hours investigating the most all-American of activities without any scintilla of evidence there is anything criminal going on is shocking," ACLU lawyer David Rocah said at a news conference in Baltimore yesterday. "It's Kafkaesque."
The ACLU contends that the surveillance was illegal, even under broader powers the federal government gave law enforcement agencies after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But the police force defends its legality, and some legal experts said the program appears to be a constitutional tool available to authorities investigating threats to public safety.
"No illegal actions by State Police have ever been taken against any citizens or groups who have exercised their right to free speech and assembly in a lawful manner," Col. Terrence B. Sheridan, the state police superintendent appointed last year by Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), said in a statement. "Only when information regarding criminal activity is alleged will police continue to investigate leads to ensure the public safety."
State Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery), who teaches constitutional law at American University, called the surveillance "extremely dubious homeland security work." But he added that it is probably a constitutional use of police powers to conduct undercover work.
Henry Fawell, Ehrlich's spokesman, said: "State law enforcement uses a variety of means to keep its citizens safe. It would be inappropriate for me to discuss them publicly." While in office, Ehrlich supported both the Iraq war and the death penalty.
It was unclear yesterday whether the surveillance has continued during the O'Malley administration.
In a letter sent yesterday, the ACLU asked O'Malley to order any surveillance stopped and demand that the state police make public the full scope of the groups and activities monitored. O'Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said the letter has been referred to the governor's legal office. "The ACLU is making an allegation, and we're looking into it," he said.
Rocah, of the ACLU, said the decision to retain the surveillance logs years after the activists were monitored when no criminal activity was alleged is unlawful.
Reports of the surveillance were shared with numerous federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, including the National Security Agency and Anne Arundel County's police department.
The groups monitored include the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, which has many members from Takoma Park, and the Pledge of resistance-Baltimore, a peace group that has been vocal in opposing the Iraq war.
A well-known antiwar activist from Baltimore, Max Obuszewski, 63, was singled out by the undercover agents and entered into a "Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area" database. His entry indicates a "Primary Crime" of "Terrorism-anti-government" and a "Secondary Crime" of "Terrorism-Anti-War Protesters," according to the documents.
Obuszewski said he was approached by a woman he now believes was a police agent at a rally outside the Supermax Prison in Baltimore to plead for clemency for death row inmate Vernon Evans in 2006.
"She came up and introduced herself and said she'd like to get more involved," he recalled. He invited her to attend the next meeting of his group, and she became a regular presence. At another rally outside the State House, Obuszewski said he noticed the woman, known as "Lucy," sitting on the steps with a laptop computer. "She said, 'I'm just getting some work done right now.' "
"Why would someone come into a meeting deceitfully and claim to be someone else?" Obuszewski asked.
"Lucy" and at least one other agent recorded minutes of every meeting they attended: dates for meetings of "activist" events planned by Amnesty International and the Human Rights Letter Writing Campaign; war protests in Takoma Park; and a ceremony at Johns Hopkins University to commemorate the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki during World War II.
"The ceremony at the gazebo lasted approximately 161/27 hours with poetry readings and songs," reads the entry for that event.
In another log, an activist from Takoma Park is noted as a "socialist" and an "anarchist."
"We nonviolence types are so dangerous, aren't we?" joked Jane Henderson, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions, which is fighting to repeal the death penalty.
The agents appear to have come to the same conclusion, the documents show. They expressed concern over possible tensions at antiwar and anti-death penalty rallies but noted repeatedly that they led to no violence and minimal disruptions
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2008 6:29 AM
Subject: Police Spied on Activists In Md. Officers Infiltrated Groups WP July 18
Undercover Maryland State Police officers conducted surveillance on war protesters and death penalty opponents.... The 46 pages of single-spaced typed records were released this week to the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, which sued the state police in June, claiming that it had refused to release public documents that shed light on surveillance of peace activists. ...The records show that undercover agents collectively spent 288 hours on surveillance activities over 14 months from March 2005 until May 2006.
"To invest this many hours investigating the most all-American of activities without any scintilla of evidence there is anything criminal going on is shocking," ACLU lawyer David Rocah said at a news conference in Baltimore yesterday. "It's Kafkaesque."
State Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery), who teaches constitutional law at American University, called the surveillance "extremely dubious homeland security work." .... The ACLU asked [Gov] O'Malley to order any surveillance stopped and demand that the state police make public the full scope of the groups and activities monitored.
fyi-janet
==========================
Police Spied on Activists In Md.
Officers Infiltrated Groups During Ehrlich Years
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/07/17/AR2008071701287_pf.html
By Lisa Rein Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 18, 2008; A01
Undercover Maryland State Police officers conducted surveillance on war protesters and death penalty opponents, including some in Takoma Park, for more than a year while Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was governor, documents released yesterday show.
Detailed intelligence reports logged by at least two agents in the police department's Homeland Security and Intelligence Division reveal close monitoring of the movements as the Iraq war and capital punishment were heatedly debated in 2005 and 2006.
Organizational meetings, public forums, prison vigils, rallies outside the State House in Annapolis and e-mail group lists were infiltrated by police posing as peace activists and death penalty opponents, the records show. The surveillance continued even though the logs contained no reports of illegal activity and consistently indicated that the activists were not planning violent protests.
Then-state police superintendent Tim Hutchins acknowledged in an interview yesterday that the surveillance took place on his watch, adding that it was done legally. He said Ehrlich (R) was not aware of it. "You do what you think is best to protect the general populace of the state," said Hutchins, now a federal defense contractor.
The 46 pages of single-spaced typed records were released this week to the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, which sued the state police in June, claiming that it had refused to release public documents that shed light on surveillance of peace activists. The civil liberties group learned in 2004 that a state police intelligence unit was monitoring Baltimore peace groups that had protested at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade that year.
The records show that undercover agents collectively spent 288 hours on surveillance activities over 14 months from March 2005 until May 2006.
"To invest this many hours investigating the most all-American of activities without any scintilla of evidence there is anything criminal going on is shocking," ACLU lawyer David Rocah said at a news conference in Baltimore yesterday. "It's Kafkaesque."
The ACLU contends that the surveillance was illegal, even under broader powers the federal government gave law enforcement agencies after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But the police force defends its legality, and some legal experts said the program appears to be a constitutional tool available to authorities investigating threats to public safety.
"No illegal actions by State Police have ever been taken against any citizens or groups who have exercised their right to free speech and assembly in a lawful manner," Col. Terrence B. Sheridan, the state police superintendent appointed last year by Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), said in a statement. "Only when information regarding criminal activity is alleged will police continue to investigate leads to ensure the public safety."
State Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery), who teaches constitutional law at American University, called the surveillance "extremely dubious homeland security work." But he added that it is probably a constitutional use of police powers to conduct undercover work.
Henry Fawell, Ehrlich's spokesman, said: "State law enforcement uses a variety of means to keep its citizens safe. It would be inappropriate for me to discuss them publicly." While in office, Ehrlich supported both the Iraq war and the death penalty.
It was unclear yesterday whether the surveillance has continued during the O'Malley administration.
In a letter sent yesterday, the ACLU asked O'Malley to order any surveillance stopped and demand that the state police make public the full scope of the groups and activities monitored. O'Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said the letter has been referred to the governor's legal office. "The ACLU is making an allegation, and we're looking into it," he said.
Rocah, of the ACLU, said the decision to retain the surveillance logs years after the activists were monitored when no criminal activity was alleged is unlawful.
Reports of the surveillance were shared with numerous federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, including the National Security Agency and Anne Arundel County's police department.
The groups monitored include the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, which has many members from Takoma Park, and the Pledge of resistance-Baltimore, a peace group that has been vocal in opposing the Iraq war.
A well-known antiwar activist from Baltimore, Max Obuszewski, 63, was singled out by the undercover agents and entered into a "Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area" database. His entry indicates a "Primary Crime" of "Terrorism-anti-government" and a "Secondary Crime" of "Terrorism-Anti-War Protesters," according to the documents.
Obuszewski said he was approached by a woman he now believes was a police agent at a rally outside the Supermax Prison in Baltimore to plead for clemency for death row inmate Vernon Evans in 2006.
"She came up and introduced herself and said she'd like to get more involved," he recalled. He invited her to attend the next meeting of his group, and she became a regular presence. At another rally outside the State House, Obuszewski said he noticed the woman, known as "Lucy," sitting on the steps with a laptop computer. "She said, 'I'm just getting some work done right now.' "
"Why would someone come into a meeting deceitfully and claim to be someone else?" Obuszewski asked.
"Lucy" and at least one other agent recorded minutes of every meeting they attended: dates for meetings of "activist" events planned by Amnesty International and the Human Rights Letter Writing Campaign; war protests in Takoma Park; and a ceremony at Johns Hopkins University to commemorate the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki during World War II.
"The ceremony at the gazebo lasted approximately 161/27 hours with poetry readings and songs," reads the entry for that event.
In another log, an activist from Takoma Park is noted as a "socialist" and an "anarchist."
"We nonviolence types are so dangerous, aren't we?" joked Jane Henderson, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions, which is fighting to repeal the death penalty.
The agents appear to have come to the same conclusion, the documents show. They expressed concern over possible tensions at antiwar and anti-death penalty rallies but noted repeatedly that they led to no violence and minimal disruptions
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
Waldon Bello On The WTO - Developing Co. Concerns Re Financi
by Oscar » Mon Oct 13, 2008 6:00 pm
Waldon Bello On The WTO - Developing Co. Concerns Re Financial Services
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2008 6:05 AM
Subject: Waldon Bello on the WTO - developing co. concerns re financial services G&M July 21 Web Exclusive
While global attention has focused on the talks on agricultural subsidies and industrial tariffs, the U.S. and EU have made it clear they will not settle for a trade package that does not include an agreement on services....concern of the developing countries is their current lack of capacity to regulate transnational service providers.
Their fears have been fanned by the current troubles of the global financial system, which are traceable to the virtual absence of global regulation of developed country financial operators.
A global consensus is forming around strongly regulating the financial sector. But in disregard of this emerging consensus and the financial chaos around them, developed country negotiators at the WTO continue to press developing countries for a services agreement that would drastically liberalize their financial sectors. The developing countries should steer clear of the train wreck that will certainly ensue from the American and European determination to pursue global financial liberalization at any cost. They must not agree to a services deal that would compromise their ability to effectively regulate financial and other services.
Just as they must say no to agricultural and industrial tariff agreements loaded down with inequitable conditions, they must also not be party to a services agreement that would have no other effect but to continually drag them into the terrifying maelstroms of unregulated global finance.
Walden Bello is visiting professor of international development studies at St. Mary's University in Halifax, professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines, and senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, a research institute at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
fyi-janet
=====================
Waldon Bello On The WTO - Developing Co. Concerns Re Financial Services
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20080720.wcomment0720/BNStory/specialComment/home
Web-exclusive comment At your service?
WALDEN BELLO
Special to Globe and Mail Update - July 20, 2008 at 6:49 PM EDT
Pascal Lamy, head of the World Trade Organization, may be desperate to reach a global trade deal, but developing countries have rightly been concerned about agreeing to texts that promise illusory reductions in agricultural subsidies in the European Union and the United States while requiring them to cut their industrial tariffs proportionally more than the developed countries. They should also not allow themselves to be snookered into a bad agreement on services.
While global attention has focused on the talks on agricultural subsidies and industrial tariffs, the U.S. and EU have made it clear they will not settle for a trade package that does not include an agreement on services.
As U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab bluntly stated in a recent opinion piece, Washington "will not support a Doha package unless it includes an ambitious outcome on services that delivers commercially meaningful results." While Ms. Schwab portrays the services talks as the poor cousin of the agriculture and industry negotiations, an equally possible outcome is a services agreement unaccompanied by deals in industrial tariffs and agriculture.
With the North-South polarization in agriculture and industry, salvaging Doha with a deal in services, which are said to account for 50 per cent to 60 per cent of economic activity in most developing countries, might become an increasingly attractive option to the U.S. and EU.
Media coverage of developing country concerns in services has mostly centred on the movement of "natural persons." Much resentment has been expressed with a multilateral system that facilitates the movement of capital and goods into developing country markets but severely limits the entry into developed country markets of labour from the developing countries.
But an equal, if not greater, concern of the developing countries is their current lack of capacity to regulate transnational service providers.
Their fears have been fanned by the current troubles of the global financial system, which are traceable to the virtual absence of global regulation of developed country financial operators. While financial services are just one of many services covered by the General Agreement on Trade in Services, the U.S. and EU have made a liberalized financial sector their main demand on developing countries. The EU, for example, has demanded that some developing countries eliminate regulations that cover the activities of hedge funds, and has insisted that Mexico open up its market to trade in derivatives, the slippery financial instruments that have played such a key role in the current financial chaos.
Most developing countries welcome foreign capital, but they have learned the hard way that a strong foreign financial presence demands a strong regulatory regime tailored to a particular country's needs and capacities. It was the indiscriminate elimination of capital controls across the region at the behest of the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury Department that brought on the devastating Asian financial crisis a decade ago. With practically all capital controls lifted and investment rules liberalized, some $100-billion flowed into the key Asian economies between 1993 and 1997, with the money gravitating toward areas of high and quick return, such as the stock market and real estate. With few controls on where the funds went, overinvestment soon swamped the stock and housing markets, causing prices to collapse and triggering follow-on dislocations in the exchange rate, the balance of payments, and the balance of trade.
Gripped by panic, speculators scampered toward the exit. With both entry and exit rules liberalized, there was no way for governments - except for Malaysia, which defied the IMF and imposed capital controls - to stop the stampede, and the $100-billion that fled the region in a few short weeks in the summer of 1997 brought economic growth to a screeching halt from Korea to Indonesia.
Capital account and financial liberalization was also a key demand pushed on Argentina in the 1990s by developed countries. Buenos Aires complied, prompting Larry Summers, then U.S. treasury secretary, to claim that the end result of foreign interests controlling 50 per cent of the banking sector and 70 per cent of private banks was a "deeper, more efficient market and external investors with a greater stake in staying put." Mr. Summers was dead wrong.
Foreign control aggravated the financial crisis into which Argentina was plunged in 2002, with the foreign-controlled banks ceasing to lend to local governments and businesses and, instead, sending capital out of the country. With no credit, small and medium enterprises, and not a few big ones, closed down, throwing thousands out of work as the country spiralled into depression.
After all this, one would have thought that developed countries would put the emphasis on seriously regulating the activities of global financial actors. Global finance, however, resisted any move toward effective regulation.
While there were calls for controls on proliferating financial instruments such as derivatives, these got nowhere. Assessment and regulation of derivatives were to be left to market players who had access to sophisticated quantitative "risk assessment" models that were being developed.
Moreover, the so-called Basel II process focused not on disciplining financial institutions in developed countries - which had actually triggered the Asian crisis - but on standardizing developing country financial institutions and processes along the weakly regulated "Anglo-American" financial model that had already been implicated in scores of crises since the 1980s.
Having been burned by the consequences of financial deregulation, many developing countries were not surprised when "self-regulation" led to the massive housing bubble whose bursting has brought the global financial system to the edge of collapse.
A global consensus is forming around strongly regulating the financial sector. But in disregard of this emerging consensus and the financial chaos around them, developed country negotiators at the WTO continue to press developing countries for a services agreement that would drastically liberalize their financial sectors. The developing countries should steer clear of the train wreck that will certainly ensue from the American and European determination to pursue global financial liberalization at any cost. They must not agree to a services deal that would compromise their ability to effectively regulate financial and other services.
Just as they must say no to agricultural and industrial tariff agreements loaded down with inequitable conditions, they must also not be party to a services agreement that would have no other effect but to continually drag them into the terrifying maelstroms of unregulated global finance.
Walden Bello is visiting professor of international development studies at St. Mary's University in Halifax, professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines, and senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, a research institute at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2008 6:05 AM
Subject: Waldon Bello on the WTO - developing co. concerns re financial services G&M July 21 Web Exclusive
While global attention has focused on the talks on agricultural subsidies and industrial tariffs, the U.S. and EU have made it clear they will not settle for a trade package that does not include an agreement on services....concern of the developing countries is their current lack of capacity to regulate transnational service providers.
Their fears have been fanned by the current troubles of the global financial system, which are traceable to the virtual absence of global regulation of developed country financial operators.
A global consensus is forming around strongly regulating the financial sector. But in disregard of this emerging consensus and the financial chaos around them, developed country negotiators at the WTO continue to press developing countries for a services agreement that would drastically liberalize their financial sectors. The developing countries should steer clear of the train wreck that will certainly ensue from the American and European determination to pursue global financial liberalization at any cost. They must not agree to a services deal that would compromise their ability to effectively regulate financial and other services.
Just as they must say no to agricultural and industrial tariff agreements loaded down with inequitable conditions, they must also not be party to a services agreement that would have no other effect but to continually drag them into the terrifying maelstroms of unregulated global finance.
Walden Bello is visiting professor of international development studies at St. Mary's University in Halifax, professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines, and senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, a research institute at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
fyi-janet
=====================
Waldon Bello On The WTO - Developing Co. Concerns Re Financial Services
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20080720.wcomment0720/BNStory/specialComment/home
Web-exclusive comment At your service?
WALDEN BELLO
Special to Globe and Mail Update - July 20, 2008 at 6:49 PM EDT
Pascal Lamy, head of the World Trade Organization, may be desperate to reach a global trade deal, but developing countries have rightly been concerned about agreeing to texts that promise illusory reductions in agricultural subsidies in the European Union and the United States while requiring them to cut their industrial tariffs proportionally more than the developed countries. They should also not allow themselves to be snookered into a bad agreement on services.
While global attention has focused on the talks on agricultural subsidies and industrial tariffs, the U.S. and EU have made it clear they will not settle for a trade package that does not include an agreement on services.
As U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab bluntly stated in a recent opinion piece, Washington "will not support a Doha package unless it includes an ambitious outcome on services that delivers commercially meaningful results." While Ms. Schwab portrays the services talks as the poor cousin of the agriculture and industry negotiations, an equally possible outcome is a services agreement unaccompanied by deals in industrial tariffs and agriculture.
With the North-South polarization in agriculture and industry, salvaging Doha with a deal in services, which are said to account for 50 per cent to 60 per cent of economic activity in most developing countries, might become an increasingly attractive option to the U.S. and EU.
Media coverage of developing country concerns in services has mostly centred on the movement of "natural persons." Much resentment has been expressed with a multilateral system that facilitates the movement of capital and goods into developing country markets but severely limits the entry into developed country markets of labour from the developing countries.
But an equal, if not greater, concern of the developing countries is their current lack of capacity to regulate transnational service providers.
Their fears have been fanned by the current troubles of the global financial system, which are traceable to the virtual absence of global regulation of developed country financial operators. While financial services are just one of many services covered by the General Agreement on Trade in Services, the U.S. and EU have made a liberalized financial sector their main demand on developing countries. The EU, for example, has demanded that some developing countries eliminate regulations that cover the activities of hedge funds, and has insisted that Mexico open up its market to trade in derivatives, the slippery financial instruments that have played such a key role in the current financial chaos.
Most developing countries welcome foreign capital, but they have learned the hard way that a strong foreign financial presence demands a strong regulatory regime tailored to a particular country's needs and capacities. It was the indiscriminate elimination of capital controls across the region at the behest of the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury Department that brought on the devastating Asian financial crisis a decade ago. With practically all capital controls lifted and investment rules liberalized, some $100-billion flowed into the key Asian economies between 1993 and 1997, with the money gravitating toward areas of high and quick return, such as the stock market and real estate. With few controls on where the funds went, overinvestment soon swamped the stock and housing markets, causing prices to collapse and triggering follow-on dislocations in the exchange rate, the balance of payments, and the balance of trade.
Gripped by panic, speculators scampered toward the exit. With both entry and exit rules liberalized, there was no way for governments - except for Malaysia, which defied the IMF and imposed capital controls - to stop the stampede, and the $100-billion that fled the region in a few short weeks in the summer of 1997 brought economic growth to a screeching halt from Korea to Indonesia.
Capital account and financial liberalization was also a key demand pushed on Argentina in the 1990s by developed countries. Buenos Aires complied, prompting Larry Summers, then U.S. treasury secretary, to claim that the end result of foreign interests controlling 50 per cent of the banking sector and 70 per cent of private banks was a "deeper, more efficient market and external investors with a greater stake in staying put." Mr. Summers was dead wrong.
Foreign control aggravated the financial crisis into which Argentina was plunged in 2002, with the foreign-controlled banks ceasing to lend to local governments and businesses and, instead, sending capital out of the country. With no credit, small and medium enterprises, and not a few big ones, closed down, throwing thousands out of work as the country spiralled into depression.
After all this, one would have thought that developed countries would put the emphasis on seriously regulating the activities of global financial actors. Global finance, however, resisted any move toward effective regulation.
While there were calls for controls on proliferating financial instruments such as derivatives, these got nowhere. Assessment and regulation of derivatives were to be left to market players who had access to sophisticated quantitative "risk assessment" models that were being developed.
Moreover, the so-called Basel II process focused not on disciplining financial institutions in developed countries - which had actually triggered the Asian crisis - but on standardizing developing country financial institutions and processes along the weakly regulated "Anglo-American" financial model that had already been implicated in scores of crises since the 1980s.
Having been burned by the consequences of financial deregulation, many developing countries were not surprised when "self-regulation" led to the massive housing bubble whose bursting has brought the global financial system to the edge of collapse.
A global consensus is forming around strongly regulating the financial sector. But in disregard of this emerging consensus and the financial chaos around them, developed country negotiators at the WTO continue to press developing countries for a services agreement that would drastically liberalize their financial sectors. The developing countries should steer clear of the train wreck that will certainly ensue from the American and European determination to pursue global financial liberalization at any cost. They must not agree to a services deal that would compromise their ability to effectively regulate financial and other services.
Just as they must say no to agricultural and industrial tariff agreements loaded down with inequitable conditions, they must also not be party to a services agreement that would have no other effect but to continually drag them into the terrifying maelstroms of unregulated global finance.
Walden Bello is visiting professor of international development studies at St. Mary's University in Halifax, professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines, and senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, a research institute at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
IMF ripe for shakeup, Paul Martin says
by Oscar » Mon Oct 13, 2008 6:08 pm
IMF ripe for shakeup, Paul Martin says
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2008 6:35 AM
Subject: IMF ripe for shakeup. Paul Martin says richer nations lack moral authority to guide world economy unchallenged G&M July 21, 2008
The credit crisis will spark a long-awaited overhaul of the International Monetary Fund by forcing nations such as the United States and Britain to acknowledge they lack moral authority to guide the world economy unchallenged, former prime minister Paul Martin predicts. "The rich countries cannot claim any longer that they have a moral hold on virtue here. If the subprime crisis hasn't opened people's eyes, then nothing will." said Martin who made a rare public appearance at a conference on the IMF's future hosted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont., on Saturday.
The IMF's role as a lender of last resort has diminished because countries such as Argentina and Russia have paid off their debts. That leaves the fund's staff with little leverage to convince governments to follow their policy advice. Exacerbating the fund's struggle for legitimacy is the old world order's refusal to relinquish any material control to the emerging economic powers.
Fan He, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the conference that his country's government is tiring of IMF advice that does little more than echo U.S. complaints about how the Communist regime runs the world's fastest-growing major economy. "If the fund doesn't deliver, it will be marginalized, it will disappear," he said. That, too, was the view of representatives from Latin America, Central Asia and the Middle East.
fyi-janet
--------------------------------------------------------------
IMF ripe for shakeup, Paul Martin says
Former PM says credit crisis shows richer nations lack moral authority to guide world economy unchallenged
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... C.20080721.
RIMF21/TPStory/Business
KEVIN CARMICHAEL From Monday's Globe and Mail
July 21, 2008 at 3:39 AM EDT
WATERLOO, ONT. - The credit crisis will spark a long-awaited overhaul of the International Monetary Fund by forcing nations such as the United States and Britain to acknowledge they lack moral authority to guide the world economy unchallenged, former prime minister Paul Martin predicts.
Richer countries, especially those in Europe, have jealously guarded their controlling stake in the Washington-based IMF, even as emerging markets such as China and India have become bigger players in the global economy.
One argument for refusing to align management of international financial institutions with a world in which China has usurped Britain and France in economic might is that the sophisticated policy makers of the developed countries are best placed to keep the global financial system out of trouble.
But the credit crisis, rooted in the collapse of the loosely regulated market for U.S. subprime mortgages, robs the leading developed economies of that argument, said Mr. Martin, who made a rare public appearance at a conference on the IMF's future hosted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont., on Saturday.
U.S. and European banks gobbled up complex securities linked to subprime home loans, paying little heed to the fact that the borrowers were at high risk to miss their payments. By the middle of last year, foreclosures were at record levels, causing the market for subprime loans to collapse and making all those complex securities virtually worthless.
The IMF estimates that fallout from the credit crisis could approach $1-trillion (U.S.), causing many observers to draw parallels with the Asian financial crisis a decade ago, a calamity that the United States and other developed nations blamed on poor decisions by governments in Thailand and elsewhere.
In the latest crisis, U.S. and European policy makers were oblivious to the strains that U.S. subprime lending put on the financial system until it was too late. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and others are now scrambling to restore confidence in markets and forestall some of the world's biggest economies from sliding into recession.
"The rich countries cannot claim any longer that they have a moral hold on virtue here," Mr. Martin, who is using his status as a former leader of a developed country to lobby for institutional reform, said in an interview. "If the subprime crisis hasn't opened people's eyes, then nothing will."
Many observers see a role for the 184-member-nation IMF in sorting out the current crisis and avoiding a repeat, perhaps as an "apex" regulator overseeing work of smaller regional bodies or gathering information from national banking regulators to identify threats to the financial system. But some say that for that to happen the IMF must return to relevancy.
The conference's 40 participants agreed the IMF is at a crucial point in its history, and has only a few years to regain the confidence of developing countries before those nations establish competing institutions or opt to go it alone.
The IMF's role as a lender of last resort has diminished because countries such as Argentina and Russia have paid off their debts. That leaves the fund's staff with little leverage to convince governments to follow their policy advice.
Exacerbating the fund's struggle for legitimacy is the old world order's refusal to relinquish any material control to the emerging economic powers. A two-year debate on reallocating shares in the IMF ended in the spring with a formula that still left China with fewer votes than Saudi Arabia and Denmark. Belgium and the Netherlands retained more clout than India and Brazil.
The United States is the fund's largest shareholder, controlling about 17 per cent of the shares, or quota, which gives the world's largest economy an effective veto over all IMF decisions.
Fan He, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the conference that his country's government is tiring of IMF advice that does little more than echo U.S. complaints about how the Communist regime runs the world's fastest-growing major economy. "If the fund doesn't deliver, it will be marginalized, it will disappear," he said. His government has compiled international reserves of almost $2-trillion, at least in part to help survive another Asian crisis without having to worry about loans from Western powers. "We have the confidence to live without the fund."
That, too, was the view of representatives from Latin America, Central Asia and the Middle East. Conference organizers sought to limit the perspectives of the United States, Europe and Canada, arguing that those governments have little trouble influencing discussions on the subject.
"The debate has been about what the Group of Seven [industrialized nations] is prepared to give up," said Ngaire Woods, director of the Global Economic Governance Program at Oxford University. "Instead, it should be about what the monetary co-operation would have to look like in order to engage the rest of the world."
No confident answers emerged to that question.
John Murray, deputy governor at the Bank of Canada, suggested the IMF might surrender some of its authority to regional groups that would offer "peer review" of economic prescriptions devised by the PhDs in Washington. Others, including Randal Quarles, a former U.S. Treasury official, said the IMF's standing would improve if it offered policy advice other than that based on orthodoxy or fad.
Developing countries didn't escape criticism, including from some of their own. The governor of the Central Bank of Barbados, Marion Williams, said emerging market countries did little to block the changes in IMF governance that most at the conference ridiculed as inadequate. "How did this result happen? It is probably because the countries that had leverage did not use it," she said.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2008 6:35 AM
Subject: IMF ripe for shakeup. Paul Martin says richer nations lack moral authority to guide world economy unchallenged G&M July 21, 2008
The credit crisis will spark a long-awaited overhaul of the International Monetary Fund by forcing nations such as the United States and Britain to acknowledge they lack moral authority to guide the world economy unchallenged, former prime minister Paul Martin predicts. "The rich countries cannot claim any longer that they have a moral hold on virtue here. If the subprime crisis hasn't opened people's eyes, then nothing will." said Martin who made a rare public appearance at a conference on the IMF's future hosted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont., on Saturday.
The IMF's role as a lender of last resort has diminished because countries such as Argentina and Russia have paid off their debts. That leaves the fund's staff with little leverage to convince governments to follow their policy advice. Exacerbating the fund's struggle for legitimacy is the old world order's refusal to relinquish any material control to the emerging economic powers.
Fan He, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the conference that his country's government is tiring of IMF advice that does little more than echo U.S. complaints about how the Communist regime runs the world's fastest-growing major economy. "If the fund doesn't deliver, it will be marginalized, it will disappear," he said. That, too, was the view of representatives from Latin America, Central Asia and the Middle East.
fyi-janet
--------------------------------------------------------------
IMF ripe for shakeup, Paul Martin says
Former PM says credit crisis shows richer nations lack moral authority to guide world economy unchallenged
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... C.20080721.
RIMF21/TPStory/Business
KEVIN CARMICHAEL From Monday's Globe and Mail
July 21, 2008 at 3:39 AM EDT
WATERLOO, ONT. - The credit crisis will spark a long-awaited overhaul of the International Monetary Fund by forcing nations such as the United States and Britain to acknowledge they lack moral authority to guide the world economy unchallenged, former prime minister Paul Martin predicts.
Richer countries, especially those in Europe, have jealously guarded their controlling stake in the Washington-based IMF, even as emerging markets such as China and India have become bigger players in the global economy.
One argument for refusing to align management of international financial institutions with a world in which China has usurped Britain and France in economic might is that the sophisticated policy makers of the developed countries are best placed to keep the global financial system out of trouble.
But the credit crisis, rooted in the collapse of the loosely regulated market for U.S. subprime mortgages, robs the leading developed economies of that argument, said Mr. Martin, who made a rare public appearance at a conference on the IMF's future hosted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont., on Saturday.
U.S. and European banks gobbled up complex securities linked to subprime home loans, paying little heed to the fact that the borrowers were at high risk to miss their payments. By the middle of last year, foreclosures were at record levels, causing the market for subprime loans to collapse and making all those complex securities virtually worthless.
The IMF estimates that fallout from the credit crisis could approach $1-trillion (U.S.), causing many observers to draw parallels with the Asian financial crisis a decade ago, a calamity that the United States and other developed nations blamed on poor decisions by governments in Thailand and elsewhere.
In the latest crisis, U.S. and European policy makers were oblivious to the strains that U.S. subprime lending put on the financial system until it was too late. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and others are now scrambling to restore confidence in markets and forestall some of the world's biggest economies from sliding into recession.
"The rich countries cannot claim any longer that they have a moral hold on virtue here," Mr. Martin, who is using his status as a former leader of a developed country to lobby for institutional reform, said in an interview. "If the subprime crisis hasn't opened people's eyes, then nothing will."
Many observers see a role for the 184-member-nation IMF in sorting out the current crisis and avoiding a repeat, perhaps as an "apex" regulator overseeing work of smaller regional bodies or gathering information from national banking regulators to identify threats to the financial system. But some say that for that to happen the IMF must return to relevancy.
The conference's 40 participants agreed the IMF is at a crucial point in its history, and has only a few years to regain the confidence of developing countries before those nations establish competing institutions or opt to go it alone.
The IMF's role as a lender of last resort has diminished because countries such as Argentina and Russia have paid off their debts. That leaves the fund's staff with little leverage to convince governments to follow their policy advice.
Exacerbating the fund's struggle for legitimacy is the old world order's refusal to relinquish any material control to the emerging economic powers. A two-year debate on reallocating shares in the IMF ended in the spring with a formula that still left China with fewer votes than Saudi Arabia and Denmark. Belgium and the Netherlands retained more clout than India and Brazil.
The United States is the fund's largest shareholder, controlling about 17 per cent of the shares, or quota, which gives the world's largest economy an effective veto over all IMF decisions.
Fan He, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the conference that his country's government is tiring of IMF advice that does little more than echo U.S. complaints about how the Communist regime runs the world's fastest-growing major economy. "If the fund doesn't deliver, it will be marginalized, it will disappear," he said. His government has compiled international reserves of almost $2-trillion, at least in part to help survive another Asian crisis without having to worry about loans from Western powers. "We have the confidence to live without the fund."
That, too, was the view of representatives from Latin America, Central Asia and the Middle East. Conference organizers sought to limit the perspectives of the United States, Europe and Canada, arguing that those governments have little trouble influencing discussions on the subject.
"The debate has been about what the Group of Seven [industrialized nations] is prepared to give up," said Ngaire Woods, director of the Global Economic Governance Program at Oxford University. "Instead, it should be about what the monetary co-operation would have to look like in order to engage the rest of the world."
No confident answers emerged to that question.
John Murray, deputy governor at the Bank of Canada, suggested the IMF might surrender some of its authority to regional groups that would offer "peer review" of economic prescriptions devised by the PhDs in Washington. Others, including Randal Quarles, a former U.S. Treasury official, said the IMF's standing would improve if it offered policy advice other than that based on orthodoxy or fad.
Developing countries didn't escape criticism, including from some of their own. The governor of the Central Bank of Barbados, Marion Williams, said emerging market countries did little to block the changes in IMF governance that most at the conference ridiculed as inadequate. "How did this result happen? It is probably because the countries that had leverage did not use it," she said.
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
Health report to get 'low-profile' release
by Oscar » Mon Oct 13, 2008 6:16 pm
Health report to get 'low-profile' release
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 2:11 PM
Subject: Health report to get 'low-profile' release G&M July 23 [re harmful impact of climate change on health of Canadians]
The Conservative government is planning "low-profile release" on the Health Canada website, for a major Health Canada report that warns of the harmful impact of climate change on the health of Canadians, particularly the young, elderly and aboriginals. Should the department follow through with its communications plan, it will be the second time this year that the government has taken such an approach with a major climate-change study.
It is expected to warn of the health dangers of longer and hotter heat waves on the elderly and children.
fyi-janet
============================
Health report to get 'low-profile' release
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20080723.wclimate23/BNStory/National/home
BILL CURRY From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
July 23, 2008 at 4:30 AM EDT
OTTAWA - The Conservative government is planning a quiet release for a major Health Canada report that warns of the harmful impact of climate change on the health of Canadians, particularly the young, elderly and aboriginals.
Should the department follow through with its communications plan, it will be the second time this year that the government has taken such an approach with a major climate-change study.
Those involved with the report were informed in a July 3 conference call that the government is preparing a "low-profile release" on the Health Canada website, rather than launching the report with major media fanfare, sources told The Globe and Mail.
The Health Canada report is called Human Health in a Changing Climate: A Canadian Assessment of Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacity. It is more than 500 pages long and has been ready for several months.
McMaster University chemistry professor Brian McCarry, who chairs a group called Clean Air Hamilton, said the dangers of global warming and fossil fuels on human health deserve far more attention, not less.
"Certainly, the stance taken by this government has been to keep climate change in a low-profile format," he said. "Unfortunately, Canada and the U.S. are almost singular in the world now as being not quite climate-change deniers, but they're not putting much emphasis on [it.]"
Canadian scientists and climate experts worked for months on a similar major study last year for Natural Resources Canada called From Impacts to Adaptation, which warned of the specific impacts of climate change for each region of the country.
The release of that report was delayed for several months before being posted in a hard-to-find section of the Natural Resources Canada website. As a result, the report received little media coverage, frustrating many of the public servants, scientists and academics who worked on it. Similar frustration is now beginning to surface over the government's handling of the Health Canada study.
Health Minister Tony Clement's press secretary, Laryssa Waler, issued a brief response yesterday to questions about the department's communications plan. "Health Canada is preparing the report for release. Once it's ready, it will be released," she said in an e-mail.
Peter Berry, Health Canada's senior policy analyst for climate change and health, who was on the July 3 conference call discussing the communications plan for releasing the report, offered an outline of the study during a February presentation to Clean Air Hamilton.
At that time, Dr. Berry said the report would be released in the spring. It is expected to warn of the health dangers of longer and hotter heat waves on the elderly and children, while saying that changing vegetation will affect the traditional ways of northern aboriginals.
Dr. Berry's presentation included a quotation about how society will only act to avoid the effects of climate change if it is aware of the possible negative consequences.
Environmentalist Dale Marshall of the David Suzuki Foundation, who has been critical of what he describes as the Conservative Government's "weak" climate-change policies, offered an exasperated sigh yesterday when told of the government's plans.
"If this government cared about climate change," he said, "then it would highlight these reports and use them as a way of engaging Canadians on the importance of addressing the issue."
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 2:11 PM
Subject: Health report to get 'low-profile' release G&M July 23 [re harmful impact of climate change on health of Canadians]
The Conservative government is planning "low-profile release" on the Health Canada website, for a major Health Canada report that warns of the harmful impact of climate change on the health of Canadians, particularly the young, elderly and aboriginals. Should the department follow through with its communications plan, it will be the second time this year that the government has taken such an approach with a major climate-change study.
It is expected to warn of the health dangers of longer and hotter heat waves on the elderly and children.
fyi-janet
============================
Health report to get 'low-profile' release
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20080723.wclimate23/BNStory/National/home
BILL CURRY From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
July 23, 2008 at 4:30 AM EDT
OTTAWA - The Conservative government is planning a quiet release for a major Health Canada report that warns of the harmful impact of climate change on the health of Canadians, particularly the young, elderly and aboriginals.
Should the department follow through with its communications plan, it will be the second time this year that the government has taken such an approach with a major climate-change study.
Those involved with the report were informed in a July 3 conference call that the government is preparing a "low-profile release" on the Health Canada website, rather than launching the report with major media fanfare, sources told The Globe and Mail.
The Health Canada report is called Human Health in a Changing Climate: A Canadian Assessment of Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacity. It is more than 500 pages long and has been ready for several months.
McMaster University chemistry professor Brian McCarry, who chairs a group called Clean Air Hamilton, said the dangers of global warming and fossil fuels on human health deserve far more attention, not less.
"Certainly, the stance taken by this government has been to keep climate change in a low-profile format," he said. "Unfortunately, Canada and the U.S. are almost singular in the world now as being not quite climate-change deniers, but they're not putting much emphasis on [it.]"
Canadian scientists and climate experts worked for months on a similar major study last year for Natural Resources Canada called From Impacts to Adaptation, which warned of the specific impacts of climate change for each region of the country.
The release of that report was delayed for several months before being posted in a hard-to-find section of the Natural Resources Canada website. As a result, the report received little media coverage, frustrating many of the public servants, scientists and academics who worked on it. Similar frustration is now beginning to surface over the government's handling of the Health Canada study.
Health Minister Tony Clement's press secretary, Laryssa Waler, issued a brief response yesterday to questions about the department's communications plan. "Health Canada is preparing the report for release. Once it's ready, it will be released," she said in an e-mail.
Peter Berry, Health Canada's senior policy analyst for climate change and health, who was on the July 3 conference call discussing the communications plan for releasing the report, offered an outline of the study during a February presentation to Clean Air Hamilton.
At that time, Dr. Berry said the report would be released in the spring. It is expected to warn of the health dangers of longer and hotter heat waves on the elderly and children, while saying that changing vegetation will affect the traditional ways of northern aboriginals.
Dr. Berry's presentation included a quotation about how society will only act to avoid the effects of climate change if it is aware of the possible negative consequences.
Environmentalist Dale Marshall of the David Suzuki Foundation, who has been critical of what he describes as the Conservative Government's "weak" climate-change policies, offered an exasperated sigh yesterday when told of the government's plans.
"If this government cared about climate change," he said, "then it would highlight these reports and use them as a way of engaging Canadians on the importance of addressing the issue."
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
Downsizing government to death
by Oscar » Mon Oct 13, 2008 6:25 pm
Downsizing government to death
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 10:16 AM
Subject: Downsizing government to death -Thanks to 'E. coli conservatism" + Comment on the SPP & Cons. economic doublespeak
Last week, consumers were worried about salmonella in their fresh tomatoes. Before that, it was E. coli in their spinach. Something is wrong. ...But the problem isn't so much farmers. It's ideology. Historian Rick Perlstein, author of "Nixonland," calls it "E. coli conservatism" ..Once in power, E. coli conservatives shrink government .. weaken rules that protect people, slash the budgets of consumer agencies and appoint industry friends to oversight commissions. .. E. coli conservatism is not limited to the food supply. Before the salmonella outbreak, there were major recalls of pet food (contaminated by melamine) and toys (lead paint).
There are many other examples of E. coli conservatism at work...energy deregulation in California opened the door for Enron and similar companies to artificially limit the supply of electricity to the state, driving up prices and creating rolling blackouts and financial deregulation helped create the housing bubble...
Instead of talking about the size of government, we should be debating how to make our government more effective. How many more people have to get sick before the government reclaims its mission to serve the people? - Eric Lotke, research director for the Campaign for America's Future, a research and policy organization.
fyi-janet
p.s
All the more reason to reject the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North American (the SPP) , its ideological underpinnings, and its on-going 'harmonization' of our health, safety, environmental and food regulations. Not only is the SPP diminishing the regulations put in place to protect us and the environment by virtue of hard won gains of progressive legislators over many years but the SPP is moving us toward integration, i.e assimilation into a regime with even less surveillance capacity than the already degraded Canadian inspection systems.
But then why worry - as NAFTA and NAFTA champions note , with their use of 'Conservative economic doublespeak' these differences are but 'trade irritants' that we must move beyond and as the proponents of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) claim, harmonization is simply about eliminating the "tyranny of small differences" among the three NAFTA countries . And as Michael Hart, a former senior Canadian trade official and one of the North America Free Trade Agreement negotiators argued with almost childish 'doublespeak' last May, 'we need an international agreement between Canada and the United States where we agree to move seriously and aggressively towards reducing all those "silly little things" that keep the border in place'.
jme
--------------------------
Downsizing government to death - Thanks to 'E. coli conservatism,' weakened government watchdogs have put us all at risk.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la- ... 8019.story
By Eric Lotke July 20, 2008
Last week, consumers were worried about salmonella in their fresh tomatoes. Before that, it was E. coli in their spinach. Something is wrong. Eating a salad is not supposed to be a high-risk activity
But the problem isn't so much farmers. It's ideology. Historian Rick Perlstein, author of "Nixonland," calls it "E. coli conservatism" -- government shrinks and shrinks until people get sick.
"Government is not the solution to our problem," President Reagan famously declared in his inaugural address in 1981. "Government is the problem."
Many conservatives have gone far beyond that. Their traditional embrace of small government has been replaced with outright disdain for it. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, doesn't just want to shrink government. To use his words, he wants government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
Once in power, E. coli conservatives shrink government by hamstringing it. They weaken rules that protect people, slash the budgets of consumer agencies and appoint industry friends to oversight commissions. The result: Some government regulatory agencies that we trust to protect us have shrunk to insignificance or serve private industry rather than consumers.
The Food and Drug Administration's seeming ineptness in finding the source of a salmonella outbreak, which has poisoned more than 1,200 people in 42 states, is case in point. What's especially troubling is that even before this episode, the Government Accountability Office had officially designated "federal oversight of food safety as a high-risk area."
The FDA first thought that tomatoes -- either grown in Florida or imported from Mexico -- were the culprit. After weeks of trying to trace the source of the salmonella, with domestic farmers bulldozing crops they weren't allowed to sell and taking a $100-million hit, the agency on Thursday ruled out tomatoes. It's now on the trail of jalapeno peppers.
What's clear, though, is that imports of agricultural products have increased by 78% since 1973, but inspections of those products have decreased by 78% over the same period, according to the Coalition for a Stronger FDA, whose membership includes former chiefs of the Department of Health and Human Services, of which the FDA is a part.That's a problem because the FDA itself says pesticide violations or infectious disease occur three times more often in imported foods than in domestic foods. In 1991, there were 1.5 inspections for each $1 million worth of imported agriculture commodities; in 2006 there were only 0.4.
In a 2007 interview in USA Today, William Hubbard, a former FDA associate commissioner, admitted that food safety had become a crap shoot: "The FDA has so few resources, all it can do is target high-risk things, give a pass to everything else and hope it is OK. ... The public probably has the perception ... that they're more protected than they really are."
The agency's decline started when Reagan was president. FDA food inspections plummeted from 29,355 in 1980 to 7,668 in 1989. They stayed flat during Bill Clinton's years in the White House, then jumped past 11,000 after 9/11, amid fears that the nation's food was vulnerable to terrorist attack. Food inspections have now, however, fallen to levels below that number.
But E. coli conservatism is not limited to the food supply. Before the salmonella outbreak, there were major recalls of pet food (contaminated by melamine) and toys (lead paint). The agency that's supposed to protect us from toxic toys is the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a job made tougher because its resources have been cut. The commission's 2007 budget was half its 1974 budget in real dollars. Staffing is in free fall, dropping from 978 in 1980 to 420 in 2007. The testing labs have not been modernized since 1975, and the 2008 budget request removed the reduction of childhood drowning deaths as a strategic goal because of "resource limitations." The agency's entire toy-testing department last year consisted of one man who dropped toys on his office floor to see if they broke.
People cannot test toys for lead on their own. That's why Congress created the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1972 "to protect the public against unreasonable risks of injury associated with consumer products" by giving the agency the authority to set safety standards, require labeling, order recalls, ban dangerous products and collect death and injury data. People count on it to do its job.
In the era of globalization, the job is more important than ever. When the commission was created, toys were primarily manufactured in the U.S. under American-set safety standards. Now they are mostly imported from low-wage producers in countries not subject to U.S. rules. The Toy Industry Assn. estimates that 80% of the toys that Americans buy are made in China. Last year, more than 20 million of them were recalled because of lead paint or other hazards. The U.S. banned the use of lead paint 30 years ago.
After the 2006 election, the new Democratic Congress recognized the dangers and offered additional resources. The commission chair, Nancy Nord, resisted. The appointee of President Bush, said fears about not
protecting consumers were overstated and that modest oversight plus commercial self-interest were sufficient to achieve the agency's goals.
There are many other examples of E. coli conservatism at work. In 2000-2001, energy deregulation in California opened the door for Enron and similar companies to artificially limit the supply of electricity to the state, driving up prices and creating rolling blackouts. Financial deregulation helped create the housing bubble by allowing companies to sell mortgages to people who couldn't afford the payments. The surging commodities markets and the swooning stock markets are in part caused by rule changes, made in the name of deregulation, that make it easier to speculate on price swings. It was recently learned that the three main credit-rating agencies -- Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings -- failed to rein in conflicts of interest in their ratings practices.
Among the problems: Companies issuing securities were paying the ratings agencies for their rating.
Enough. Instead of talking about the size of government, we should be debating how to make our government more effective. How many more people have to get sick before the government reclaims its mission to serve the people?
Eric Lotke is research director for the Campaign for America's Future, a research and policy organization.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 10:16 AM
Subject: Downsizing government to death -Thanks to 'E. coli conservatism" + Comment on the SPP & Cons. economic doublespeak
Last week, consumers were worried about salmonella in their fresh tomatoes. Before that, it was E. coli in their spinach. Something is wrong. ...But the problem isn't so much farmers. It's ideology. Historian Rick Perlstein, author of "Nixonland," calls it "E. coli conservatism" ..Once in power, E. coli conservatives shrink government .. weaken rules that protect people, slash the budgets of consumer agencies and appoint industry friends to oversight commissions. .. E. coli conservatism is not limited to the food supply. Before the salmonella outbreak, there were major recalls of pet food (contaminated by melamine) and toys (lead paint).
There are many other examples of E. coli conservatism at work...energy deregulation in California opened the door for Enron and similar companies to artificially limit the supply of electricity to the state, driving up prices and creating rolling blackouts and financial deregulation helped create the housing bubble...
Instead of talking about the size of government, we should be debating how to make our government more effective. How many more people have to get sick before the government reclaims its mission to serve the people? - Eric Lotke, research director for the Campaign for America's Future, a research and policy organization.
fyi-janet
p.s
All the more reason to reject the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North American (the SPP) , its ideological underpinnings, and its on-going 'harmonization' of our health, safety, environmental and food regulations. Not only is the SPP diminishing the regulations put in place to protect us and the environment by virtue of hard won gains of progressive legislators over many years but the SPP is moving us toward integration, i.e assimilation into a regime with even less surveillance capacity than the already degraded Canadian inspection systems.
But then why worry - as NAFTA and NAFTA champions note , with their use of 'Conservative economic doublespeak' these differences are but 'trade irritants' that we must move beyond and as the proponents of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) claim, harmonization is simply about eliminating the "tyranny of small differences" among the three NAFTA countries . And as Michael Hart, a former senior Canadian trade official and one of the North America Free Trade Agreement negotiators argued with almost childish 'doublespeak' last May, 'we need an international agreement between Canada and the United States where we agree to move seriously and aggressively towards reducing all those "silly little things" that keep the border in place'.
jme
--------------------------
Downsizing government to death - Thanks to 'E. coli conservatism,' weakened government watchdogs have put us all at risk.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la- ... 8019.story
By Eric Lotke July 20, 2008
Last week, consumers were worried about salmonella in their fresh tomatoes. Before that, it was E. coli in their spinach. Something is wrong. Eating a salad is not supposed to be a high-risk activity
But the problem isn't so much farmers. It's ideology. Historian Rick Perlstein, author of "Nixonland," calls it "E. coli conservatism" -- government shrinks and shrinks until people get sick.
"Government is not the solution to our problem," President Reagan famously declared in his inaugural address in 1981. "Government is the problem."
Many conservatives have gone far beyond that. Their traditional embrace of small government has been replaced with outright disdain for it. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, doesn't just want to shrink government. To use his words, he wants government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
Once in power, E. coli conservatives shrink government by hamstringing it. They weaken rules that protect people, slash the budgets of consumer agencies and appoint industry friends to oversight commissions. The result: Some government regulatory agencies that we trust to protect us have shrunk to insignificance or serve private industry rather than consumers.
The Food and Drug Administration's seeming ineptness in finding the source of a salmonella outbreak, which has poisoned more than 1,200 people in 42 states, is case in point. What's especially troubling is that even before this episode, the Government Accountability Office had officially designated "federal oversight of food safety as a high-risk area."
The FDA first thought that tomatoes -- either grown in Florida or imported from Mexico -- were the culprit. After weeks of trying to trace the source of the salmonella, with domestic farmers bulldozing crops they weren't allowed to sell and taking a $100-million hit, the agency on Thursday ruled out tomatoes. It's now on the trail of jalapeno peppers.
What's clear, though, is that imports of agricultural products have increased by 78% since 1973, but inspections of those products have decreased by 78% over the same period, according to the Coalition for a Stronger FDA, whose membership includes former chiefs of the Department of Health and Human Services, of which the FDA is a part.That's a problem because the FDA itself says pesticide violations or infectious disease occur three times more often in imported foods than in domestic foods. In 1991, there were 1.5 inspections for each $1 million worth of imported agriculture commodities; in 2006 there were only 0.4.
In a 2007 interview in USA Today, William Hubbard, a former FDA associate commissioner, admitted that food safety had become a crap shoot: "The FDA has so few resources, all it can do is target high-risk things, give a pass to everything else and hope it is OK. ... The public probably has the perception ... that they're more protected than they really are."
The agency's decline started when Reagan was president. FDA food inspections plummeted from 29,355 in 1980 to 7,668 in 1989. They stayed flat during Bill Clinton's years in the White House, then jumped past 11,000 after 9/11, amid fears that the nation's food was vulnerable to terrorist attack. Food inspections have now, however, fallen to levels below that number.
But E. coli conservatism is not limited to the food supply. Before the salmonella outbreak, there were major recalls of pet food (contaminated by melamine) and toys (lead paint). The agency that's supposed to protect us from toxic toys is the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a job made tougher because its resources have been cut. The commission's 2007 budget was half its 1974 budget in real dollars. Staffing is in free fall, dropping from 978 in 1980 to 420 in 2007. The testing labs have not been modernized since 1975, and the 2008 budget request removed the reduction of childhood drowning deaths as a strategic goal because of "resource limitations." The agency's entire toy-testing department last year consisted of one man who dropped toys on his office floor to see if they broke.
People cannot test toys for lead on their own. That's why Congress created the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1972 "to protect the public against unreasonable risks of injury associated with consumer products" by giving the agency the authority to set safety standards, require labeling, order recalls, ban dangerous products and collect death and injury data. People count on it to do its job.
In the era of globalization, the job is more important than ever. When the commission was created, toys were primarily manufactured in the U.S. under American-set safety standards. Now they are mostly imported from low-wage producers in countries not subject to U.S. rules. The Toy Industry Assn. estimates that 80% of the toys that Americans buy are made in China. Last year, more than 20 million of them were recalled because of lead paint or other hazards. The U.S. banned the use of lead paint 30 years ago.
After the 2006 election, the new Democratic Congress recognized the dangers and offered additional resources. The commission chair, Nancy Nord, resisted. The appointee of President Bush, said fears about not
protecting consumers were overstated and that modest oversight plus commercial self-interest were sufficient to achieve the agency's goals.
There are many other examples of E. coli conservatism at work. In 2000-2001, energy deregulation in California opened the door for Enron and similar companies to artificially limit the supply of electricity to the state, driving up prices and creating rolling blackouts. Financial deregulation helped create the housing bubble by allowing companies to sell mortgages to people who couldn't afford the payments. The surging commodities markets and the swooning stock markets are in part caused by rule changes, made in the name of deregulation, that make it easier to speculate on price swings. It was recently learned that the three main credit-rating agencies -- Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings -- failed to rein in conflicts of interest in their ratings practices.
Among the problems: Companies issuing securities were paying the ratings agencies for their rating.
Enough. Instead of talking about the size of government, we should be debating how to make our government more effective. How many more people have to get sick before the government reclaims its mission to serve the people?
Eric Lotke is research director for the Campaign for America's Future, a research and policy organization.
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
WTO Doho: Seeking a trade deal
by Oscar » Mon Oct 13, 2008 6:31 pm
WTO Doha: Seeking a trade deal
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 10:36 AM
Subject: WTO Doha: Seeking a trade deal [international trade talks collapse] G&M Editorial J30
G&M Editorial Excerpts:
The goal of the Doha round was fairly straightforward: Europe and the United States were to cut tariffs and subsidies on agricultural products, and in return, key developing countries such as China and India would trim tariffs on manufactured goods. Established countries would get new buyers for their products and, more importantly, the developing world would get better access to wealthy markets.
But ..the talks apparently foundered when the Americans refused to go along with the details of a clause that would have allowed poor countries to boost tariffs temporarily, if there was a surge in imports or a rapid change in commodity prices.
It could be years before there is any attempt to breathe new life into the Doha round. In a few months, there will be a new government in the United States, and it will clearly have new policies and priorities. ... The Canadians who participated in the Doha process.. say they will now turn to negotiating bilateral agreements with individual countries. That is a smart decision, and a first priority should be to get an agreement in place with the European Union.
--- Globe and Mail Editorial, July 30
fyi-janet
============
WTO Doha: Seeking a trade deal
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20080731.wedoha0731/BNStory/specialComment/home
From Thursday's Globe and Mail July 31, 2008 at 9:17 AM EDT
With an agreement so tantalizingly close, it was a major disappointment that the latest round of international trade talks collapsed this week.
Delegates at the World Trade Organization meeting in Geneva failed to reach a deal after nine days of discussions, which followed seven years of on-and-off negotiations since the Doha round began in Qatar in 2001.
It is especially unfortunate that the collapse came at a time when the price of food is soaring around the world and many economies are in the doldrums. While the agreement would have taken years to put in place, a successful conclusion would have provided an emotional spark to international trade, even before the real impact was felt. While the full consequences of an agreement are not clear, estimates of the boost to international trade ranged as high as $100-billion.
The goal of the Doha round was fairly straightforward: Europe and the United States were to cut tariffs and subsidies on agricultural products, and in return, key developing countries such as China and India would trim tariffs on manufactured goods. Established countries would get new buyers for their products and, more importantly, the developing world would get better access to wealthy markets.
But in a complex deal with many players at the table, the devil was in the details. Despite the willingness of the Americans and Europeans to make compromises and cut subsidies, they dug in their heels on other concessions. The talks apparently foundered when the Americans refused to go along with the details of a clause that would have allowed poor countries to boost tariffs temporarily, if there was a surge in imports or a rapid change in commodity prices.
It could be years before there is any attempt to breathe new life into the Doha round. In a few months, there will be a new government in the United States, and it will clearly have new policies and priorities, along with a new cast of characters at the negotiating table. There will also be major personnel changes among trade bureaucrats in other countries. This is a significant issue, as negotiators carry around many of the convoluted technical details of the world of trade in their heads.
The Canadians who participated in the Doha process, including Trade Minister Michael Fortier, say they will now turn to negotiating bilateral agreements with individual countries. That is a smart decision, and a first priority should be to get an agreement in place with the European Union. Canada has been a laggard in negotiating trade and investment deals with other countries, and we need to catch up.
But we also must fully support any attempt to restart multilateral talks, as these broad agreements have the potential for the greatest positive impact on the economies of the world. The progress made in the Doha round is certainly worth preserving.
To gain credibility on the international trade scene, Canada must also rethink its position on supply management, our outdated system of marketing boards that provide protection for domestic producers of eggs, poultry and dairy products. It undermines our position when we call for tariff reductions elsewhere but maintain our own protectionist measures.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 10:36 AM
Subject: WTO Doha: Seeking a trade deal [international trade talks collapse] G&M Editorial J30
G&M Editorial Excerpts:
The goal of the Doha round was fairly straightforward: Europe and the United States were to cut tariffs and subsidies on agricultural products, and in return, key developing countries such as China and India would trim tariffs on manufactured goods. Established countries would get new buyers for their products and, more importantly, the developing world would get better access to wealthy markets.
But ..the talks apparently foundered when the Americans refused to go along with the details of a clause that would have allowed poor countries to boost tariffs temporarily, if there was a surge in imports or a rapid change in commodity prices.
It could be years before there is any attempt to breathe new life into the Doha round. In a few months, there will be a new government in the United States, and it will clearly have new policies and priorities. ... The Canadians who participated in the Doha process.. say they will now turn to negotiating bilateral agreements with individual countries. That is a smart decision, and a first priority should be to get an agreement in place with the European Union.
--- Globe and Mail Editorial, July 30
fyi-janet
============
WTO Doha: Seeking a trade deal
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20080731.wedoha0731/BNStory/specialComment/home
From Thursday's Globe and Mail July 31, 2008 at 9:17 AM EDT
With an agreement so tantalizingly close, it was a major disappointment that the latest round of international trade talks collapsed this week.
Delegates at the World Trade Organization meeting in Geneva failed to reach a deal after nine days of discussions, which followed seven years of on-and-off negotiations since the Doha round began in Qatar in 2001.
It is especially unfortunate that the collapse came at a time when the price of food is soaring around the world and many economies are in the doldrums. While the agreement would have taken years to put in place, a successful conclusion would have provided an emotional spark to international trade, even before the real impact was felt. While the full consequences of an agreement are not clear, estimates of the boost to international trade ranged as high as $100-billion.
The goal of the Doha round was fairly straightforward: Europe and the United States were to cut tariffs and subsidies on agricultural products, and in return, key developing countries such as China and India would trim tariffs on manufactured goods. Established countries would get new buyers for their products and, more importantly, the developing world would get better access to wealthy markets.
But in a complex deal with many players at the table, the devil was in the details. Despite the willingness of the Americans and Europeans to make compromises and cut subsidies, they dug in their heels on other concessions. The talks apparently foundered when the Americans refused to go along with the details of a clause that would have allowed poor countries to boost tariffs temporarily, if there was a surge in imports or a rapid change in commodity prices.
It could be years before there is any attempt to breathe new life into the Doha round. In a few months, there will be a new government in the United States, and it will clearly have new policies and priorities, along with a new cast of characters at the negotiating table. There will also be major personnel changes among trade bureaucrats in other countries. This is a significant issue, as negotiators carry around many of the convoluted technical details of the world of trade in their heads.
The Canadians who participated in the Doha process, including Trade Minister Michael Fortier, say they will now turn to negotiating bilateral agreements with individual countries. That is a smart decision, and a first priority should be to get an agreement in place with the European Union. Canada has been a laggard in negotiating trade and investment deals with other countries, and we need to catch up.
But we also must fully support any attempt to restart multilateral talks, as these broad agreements have the potential for the greatest positive impact on the economies of the world. The progress made in the Doha round is certainly worth preserving.
To gain credibility on the international trade scene, Canada must also rethink its position on supply management, our outdated system of marketing boards that provide protection for domestic producers of eggs, poultry and dairy products. It undermines our position when we call for tariff reductions elsewhere but maintain our own protectionist measures.
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
Neuroscience, National Security & the "War on Terro
by Oscar » Sat Oct 18, 2008 6:34 pm
Neuroscience, National Security & the "War on Terror"
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 8:41 AM
Subject: Neuroscience, National Security & the "War on Terror" [July 29 globalresearch.ca]
Operating with little ethical oversight, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been tapping cutting-edge advances in neuroscience, computers and robotics in a quest to build the "perfect warfighter."
Dovetailing precisely with other projects to "dominate" the urban "battlespace" of global south and "homeland" cities, DARPA researchers are stretching moral boundaries where clear distinctions between "human" and "machine" are being consciously blurred....
Not only is the right to "liberty, autonomy, and privacy" being undermined by militarizing the life sciences, but the legal system itself is ill-equipped to deal with advances--and emerging threats--to "cognitive liberty" as America's corporatist surveillance state seek new means to elicit compliance and control over individuals as biological science is securitized under the rubric of "national security."
The potential of neurologically interactive technologies to "enhance" human capabilities, indeed to invade the privacy of human thought, and infringe on the independence of our minds for "reasons of state," transform biological/medical research into a subset of weapons development.
In the final analysis, DARPA, the Pentagon agency that brought us the internet, are now searching for the means to militarize the human mind itself, viewed as the ultimate platform for imperialist domination and social control.
fyi-janet
A short list of DARPA's Defense Sciences Office (DSO) projects, and the Augmented Cognitive research program are outlined in the article below.
=========
Neuroscience, National Security & the "War on Terror"
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... a&aid=9701
by Tom Burghardt
Global Research, July 29, 2008
Antifascist Calling...
Operating with little ethical oversight, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been tapping cutting-edge advances in neuroscience, computers and robotics in a quest to build the "perfect warfighter."
Dovetailing precisely with other projects to "dominate" the urban "battlespace" of global south and "homeland" cities, DARPA researchers are stretching moral boundaries where clear distinctions between "human" and "machine" are being consciously blurred. (see "Simulating Urban Warfare" and "America's Cyborg Warriors")
As the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics warns, The right of a person to liberty, autonomy, and privacy over his or her own intellect is situated at the core of what it means to be a free person. This principle is what gives life to some of our most well-established and cherished rights. Today, as new drugs and other technologies are being developed for augmenting, monitoring, and manipulating mental processes, it is more important than ever to ensure that our legal system recognizes and protects cognitive liberty as a fundamental right. (CCLE, "Frequently Asked Questions," September 15, 2003)
Not only is the right to "liberty, autonomy, and privacy" being undermined by militarizing the life sciences, but the legal system itself is ill-equipped to deal with advances--and emerging threats--to "cognitive liberty" as America's corporatist surveillance state seek new means to elicit compliance and control over individuals as biological science is securitized under the rubric of "national security."
In Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense (Dana Press, 2006), bioethicist Jonathan Moreno lays out a frightening scenario where various Pentagon agencies with DARPA leading the charge, have been funding neuroscientific and biological research in the following areas:
Mind-machine interfaces, also called "neural prosthetics." Living robots" whose movements can be controlled via brain implants. Research has successfully been carried out on "roborats" and "robodogs" for mine clearing and other dubious purposes. "Cognitive feedback helmets" that provide commanders or their medical surrogates the ability to remotely view an individual soldiers' mental state.
MRI and fMRI technologies for what has been called "brain fingerprinting" as an interrogation tool or airport screening for "terrorists." So-called "non-lethal" pulse weapons and other neurodisruptors for deployment in global south or "homeland" cities as "riot control" tools. "Neuroweapons" that use biological agents to stimulate the release of neurotoxins. Research into concocting new pharmaceuticals that inhibit the urge to eat, sleep, suppress fear, or repress psychological inhibitions against killing.
With a multibillion dollar budget and dozens of projects in the pipeline, DARPA's Defense Sciences Office (DSO) are looking for newer and ever-more insidious means "to harness biology" for military applications. A short list of DSO projects include the following:
* Biological Sensory Structure Emulation (BioSenSE), a program "designed around the concept of understanding biological sensory structures through advanced characterization and emulating, or transferring, this knowledge to the creation of superior synthetic sensors." The majority of biological stimuli are deemed of "great military relevance" by Darpacrats.
* Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System (CTTWS), the intent of which is to integrate "advances in technology and biology" for a "soldier-portable" visual threat detection device that will utilized "cognitive visual processing algorithms" and "operator neural signature detection."
* Fundamental Laws of Biology (FLB), is described as a mathematical modeling program that "will impact DoD and national security by developing a rational and predictive basis for doing biological research to combat bioterrorism, maintain healthy personnel, and discover new vaccines and medicines"--or to facilitate the design of new biological weapons.
* Nano Air Vehicle (NAV), described by program managers as as a project that "will develop and demonstrate an extremely small (less than 7.5 cm), ultra-lightweight (less than 10 grams) air vehicle system with the potential to perform indoor and outdoor military missions. The program will explore novel, bio-inspired, conventional and unconventional configurations to provide the warfighter with unprecedented capability for urban mission operations." Paging John Anderton, white courtesy telephone!
* Neovision "will pursue an integrated approach to the object recognition pathway in the brain. This fundamental biological research will be accomplished using methods intentionally geared toward computational and modeling approaches that are amenable to hardware- and software-based implementations."
* Peak Soldier Performance (PSP) is designed to "create technologies that allow the warfighter to maintain peak physical and cognitive performance despite the harsh battlefield environment." In other words, develop drugs and nutrients for a "more efficient" soldier.
* Preventing Sleep Deprivation (PSD) is described as seeking to "enhance operational performance," under harsh conditions. Current approaches "under investigation" include "novel pharmaceuticals that enhance neural transmission, nutraceuticals that promote neurogenesis, cognitive training, and devices such as transcranial magnetic stimulation."
* Training Superiority (DARWARS), a suite of programs directly tying the military-industrial and entertainment complexes together into a seamless web. DARWARS seeks to provide "continuously available, on-demand, mission-level training for all forces at all echelons. Specifically, the program is developing, in areas of high military importance, new kinds of cognitive training systems that include elements of human-tutor interactions and the emotional involvement of computer games coupled with the feedback of Combat Training Center learning." Continuous "on-demand training anywhere, anytime, for everyone."
As with all dual-use research conducted by the agency, military relevance trump all other considerations. One need only examine the use of psychological research in the "war on terror" for some very troubling analogies.
AugCog
If behavioral psychology was handmaid to the horrors perpetrated at Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and CIA transnational "black sites," what new nightmares are in store for humanity when advances in neuroscience, complex computer algorithms and a secretive national security state enter stage (far) right? Let's take a look.
Amy Kruse, Ph.D., is described on DARPA's website as the creator of the concept of "operational neuroscience," designing programs that "are helping transform neuroscience from a laboratory discipline to one that is doing advanced research to deliver revolutionary capabilities important to our warfighters."
DSO's "Training and Human Effectiveness" brief claims this suite of programs is "revolutionizing training...for everyone, anywhere, and at any time." Kruse's area of expertise is "AugCog" or augmented cognition, a subset of neuroscientific research seeking models for a "brain-machine interface." Described by the Augmented Cognition International Society (ACI) as an emerging field of science that seeks to extend a user's abilities via computational technologies, which are explicitly designed to address bottlenecks, limitations, and biases in cognition and to improve decision making capabilities.
The goal of AugCog science and technology is to develop computational methods and neurotech tools that can account for and accommodate information processing bottlenecks inherent in human-system interaction (e.g., limitations in attention, memory, learning, comprehension, visualization abilities, and decision making). ("What is Augmented Cognition?" ACI, no date) [emphasis added]
According to DARPA's description of the program, Improving Warfighter Information Intake Under Stress (AugCog):
Military operators must frequently perform cognitively demanding tasks in stressful environments. The AugCog Program has developed technologies to mitigate sensory or cognitive overload and restore operational effectiveness by extending the information management capacity of the warfighter. This is accomplished through closed-loop computational systems that adapt to the state of the warfighter and thereby significantly improve performance.
The exploitation of human and other biological systems by DARPA raise profoundly troubling questions of how these security-related applications will be used by the United States to achieve global dominance at any and all cost. A recent article in Military Geospatial Technology reveal the technophilic preoccupations that obsess securocrats.
Imagine a computer that can read human brain waves to assess the lay of the land. It might seem futuristic, but that's what the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency [NGA] had partially in mind when they awarded contracts under DARPA's Urban Reasoning and Geospatial Exploitation Technology (URGENT) program. (Cheryl Gerber, "Seeing with Your Brain," Military Geospatial Technology, Vol. 6, Issue 3, June 5, 2008)
One of URGENT's "prime contractors, major defense grifter Lockheed Martin, call their "approach to the program Object Recognition via Brain-inspired Technology," (ORBIT). In conjunction with DARPA's URGENT program, the AugCog project is based on brain-inspired software that seeks to merge neuroscience with computers to create a technology that promises to deliver "situational awareness" to the "warfighter." But building complex 3-D mapping systems is merely the initial jump-off point for what may come once "brain-inspired" algorithms are "perfected."
One "product" that currently aids the "warfighter" and "counterterrorist" officials is called Signature Analyst, designed by corporate grifter SPADAC, a McClean, Virginia defense contractor with close ties to the Department of Homeland Security and the the NGA. According to SPADAC's website, Signature Analyst delivers enhanced objectivity by discerning subtle yet powerful and actionable insights, maximizing likelihood of success. Combining predictive analytics with spatial information as well as human terrain and social networking elements, the solution delivers effective consequence modeling and improved confidence in decisions for a range of global operational and business challenges.
The program claims it provides "situational awareness" by "finding commonalities" and "relationships" in distinct, seemingly disparate data sources, including past events, as well as "human terrain" and "social networking" information. As we have described previously, Scaleable Social Network Analysis was a data-mining tool designed by DARPA's Total Information Awareness office that worked in tandem with the National Security Agency's illegal spying programs.
One shudders to imagine what "consequences" DARPA and their corporate "partners" are "modeling." A commercial version of the "product" is in the works. One "benefit" of the Signature Analyst Software trumpeted by SPADAC is that will "allow fewer analysts to evaluate more data in less time." Why its the perfect "predictive" tool for
the current capitalist downturn!
Carrying the mechanistic human/machine model a step further, Lockheed
Martin and their "partner" Numenta, a California-based software company, are working on applications for the Defense Department. According to Numenta's website, company founder Jeff Hawkins, author of the 2004 book On Intelligence, has "a deep interest in neuroscience and theories of the neocortex." We bet he does!
Indeed, Hawkins' team has designed a suite of software applications, the Numenta Platform for Intelligent Computing (NuPIC), based on what it calls "hierarchical temporal memory (HTM)," a "computing paradigm" that mimics the structure and function of the human neocortex, the area of the brain that handles high-level thought.
John Darvill ORBIT's chief investigator described Lockheed's relationship with Numenta to Military Geospatial Technology thusly: "Lockheed has been involved with Numenta technology for two years and is a member of the Numenta Partner Program for technical interchange. We have a collaborative technical relationship with Numenta. We use their technology, modify it and apply it."
How? According to Numenta CEO Donna Dubinsky, HTM is designed to "be good at what the human brain can do--inference and pattern recognition even in the presence of noise." In a similar fashion, HTM "learns a model of the world" Dubinsky elaborated, "by exposure through its senses. In the same way, our software is self-learning and has to be exposed to the material that it has to learn. So we train the software. For example, we expose it to a lot of tanks so it learns tank-ness."
And if the software could be applied to an interrogation archetype, will it then "self-learn" how to "model" a sensory deprivation or psychological torture regimen, individually tailored to an "illegal enemy combatant" after it has been "exposed to the material"? Will the software in other words, be exposed "to a lot of torture so it learns torture-ness"?
Technological dual-use is a slippery slope towards atrocity and unimaginable horror, especially if left in the hands of American militarists.
Back to the Future
Here precisely, lies the crux of the problem of exploiting neuroscience and robotics in a quest for newer and ever more insidious military applications. The potential of neurologically interactive technologies to "enhance" human capabilities, indeed to invade the privacy of human thought, and infringe on the independence of our minds for "reasons of state," transform biological/medical research into a subset of weapons development.
To be sure, science, and in particular the cognitive sciences, have been seduced by the Pentagon and the CIA in the past. The literature on unethical CIA and Army research into quixotic quests for "mind control" over "enemy" agents and "target" populations--MKULTRA and their perverse offspring--are replete with the horror stories of their abused victims. Indeed, MKULTRA became the ideologically-charged basis for current interrogation and torture practices by the CIA, the military and their "outsourced" partners.
A perusal of the Company's seminal interrogation manuals, KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation and the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual-1983 drew liberally from the most up-to-date cognitive research of its time. Indeed, many of the sources cited in KUBARK and HRE were leading behavioral psychologists and psychiatrists "under contract" to the CIA, as documented by historians and researchers John Marks (The Search for the Manchurian Candidate), Alfred W. McCoy (A Question of Torture) and Christopher Simpson (Science of Coercion).
Indeed, as Simpson avers in Science of Coercion, the Human Ecology Fund, a CIA cut-out funneling money to prestigious academics such as Albert Biderman, underwrote research on "captivity behavior" and the efficacy "of drugs, electroshock, violence, and other coercive techniques during interrogation of prisoners."
Fast forward to the present. As anthropologist Hugh Gusterson writes regarding current Pentagon interest in neuroscientific research today,
individual scientists will tell themselves that, if they don't do the research, someone else will. Research funding will be sufficiently dominated by military grant makers that it will cause some scientists to choose between accepting military funding or giving up their chosen field of research. And the very real dual-use potential of these new technologies (the same brain implant can create a robosoldier or rehabilitate a Parkinson's disease sufferer) will allow scientists to tell themselves that they are "really" working on health technologies to improve the human lot, and the funding just happens to come from the Pentagon. ("The Militarization of Neuroscience," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 9 April 2007)
In the final analysis, DARPA, the Pentagon agency that brought us the internet, are now searching for the means to militarize the human mind itself, viewed as the ultimate platform for imperialist domination and social control.
Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly, Love & Rage and Antifa Forum, he is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press.
Tom Burghardt is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Tom Burghardt
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Please support Global Research
Global Research relies on the financial support of its readers.
Your endorsement is greatly appreciated
Subscribe to the Global Research E-Newsletter
Spread the word! Forward to a friend!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 8:41 AM
Subject: Neuroscience, National Security & the "War on Terror" [July 29 globalresearch.ca]
Operating with little ethical oversight, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been tapping cutting-edge advances in neuroscience, computers and robotics in a quest to build the "perfect warfighter."
Dovetailing precisely with other projects to "dominate" the urban "battlespace" of global south and "homeland" cities, DARPA researchers are stretching moral boundaries where clear distinctions between "human" and "machine" are being consciously blurred....
Not only is the right to "liberty, autonomy, and privacy" being undermined by militarizing the life sciences, but the legal system itself is ill-equipped to deal with advances--and emerging threats--to "cognitive liberty" as America's corporatist surveillance state seek new means to elicit compliance and control over individuals as biological science is securitized under the rubric of "national security."
The potential of neurologically interactive technologies to "enhance" human capabilities, indeed to invade the privacy of human thought, and infringe on the independence of our minds for "reasons of state," transform biological/medical research into a subset of weapons development.
In the final analysis, DARPA, the Pentagon agency that brought us the internet, are now searching for the means to militarize the human mind itself, viewed as the ultimate platform for imperialist domination and social control.
fyi-janet
A short list of DARPA's Defense Sciences Office (DSO) projects, and the Augmented Cognitive research program are outlined in the article below.
=========
Neuroscience, National Security & the "War on Terror"
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... a&aid=9701
by Tom Burghardt
Global Research, July 29, 2008
Antifascist Calling...
Operating with little ethical oversight, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been tapping cutting-edge advances in neuroscience, computers and robotics in a quest to build the "perfect warfighter."
Dovetailing precisely with other projects to "dominate" the urban "battlespace" of global south and "homeland" cities, DARPA researchers are stretching moral boundaries where clear distinctions between "human" and "machine" are being consciously blurred. (see "Simulating Urban Warfare" and "America's Cyborg Warriors")
As the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics warns, The right of a person to liberty, autonomy, and privacy over his or her own intellect is situated at the core of what it means to be a free person. This principle is what gives life to some of our most well-established and cherished rights. Today, as new drugs and other technologies are being developed for augmenting, monitoring, and manipulating mental processes, it is more important than ever to ensure that our legal system recognizes and protects cognitive liberty as a fundamental right. (CCLE, "Frequently Asked Questions," September 15, 2003)
Not only is the right to "liberty, autonomy, and privacy" being undermined by militarizing the life sciences, but the legal system itself is ill-equipped to deal with advances--and emerging threats--to "cognitive liberty" as America's corporatist surveillance state seek new means to elicit compliance and control over individuals as biological science is securitized under the rubric of "national security."
In Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense (Dana Press, 2006), bioethicist Jonathan Moreno lays out a frightening scenario where various Pentagon agencies with DARPA leading the charge, have been funding neuroscientific and biological research in the following areas:
Mind-machine interfaces, also called "neural prosthetics." Living robots" whose movements can be controlled via brain implants. Research has successfully been carried out on "roborats" and "robodogs" for mine clearing and other dubious purposes. "Cognitive feedback helmets" that provide commanders or their medical surrogates the ability to remotely view an individual soldiers' mental state.
MRI and fMRI technologies for what has been called "brain fingerprinting" as an interrogation tool or airport screening for "terrorists." So-called "non-lethal" pulse weapons and other neurodisruptors for deployment in global south or "homeland" cities as "riot control" tools. "Neuroweapons" that use biological agents to stimulate the release of neurotoxins. Research into concocting new pharmaceuticals that inhibit the urge to eat, sleep, suppress fear, or repress psychological inhibitions against killing.
With a multibillion dollar budget and dozens of projects in the pipeline, DARPA's Defense Sciences Office (DSO) are looking for newer and ever-more insidious means "to harness biology" for military applications. A short list of DSO projects include the following:
* Biological Sensory Structure Emulation (BioSenSE), a program "designed around the concept of understanding biological sensory structures through advanced characterization and emulating, or transferring, this knowledge to the creation of superior synthetic sensors." The majority of biological stimuli are deemed of "great military relevance" by Darpacrats.
* Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System (CTTWS), the intent of which is to integrate "advances in technology and biology" for a "soldier-portable" visual threat detection device that will utilized "cognitive visual processing algorithms" and "operator neural signature detection."
* Fundamental Laws of Biology (FLB), is described as a mathematical modeling program that "will impact DoD and national security by developing a rational and predictive basis for doing biological research to combat bioterrorism, maintain healthy personnel, and discover new vaccines and medicines"--or to facilitate the design of new biological weapons.
* Nano Air Vehicle (NAV), described by program managers as as a project that "will develop and demonstrate an extremely small (less than 7.5 cm), ultra-lightweight (less than 10 grams) air vehicle system with the potential to perform indoor and outdoor military missions. The program will explore novel, bio-inspired, conventional and unconventional configurations to provide the warfighter with unprecedented capability for urban mission operations." Paging John Anderton, white courtesy telephone!
* Neovision "will pursue an integrated approach to the object recognition pathway in the brain. This fundamental biological research will be accomplished using methods intentionally geared toward computational and modeling approaches that are amenable to hardware- and software-based implementations."
* Peak Soldier Performance (PSP) is designed to "create technologies that allow the warfighter to maintain peak physical and cognitive performance despite the harsh battlefield environment." In other words, develop drugs and nutrients for a "more efficient" soldier.
* Preventing Sleep Deprivation (PSD) is described as seeking to "enhance operational performance," under harsh conditions. Current approaches "under investigation" include "novel pharmaceuticals that enhance neural transmission, nutraceuticals that promote neurogenesis, cognitive training, and devices such as transcranial magnetic stimulation."
* Training Superiority (DARWARS), a suite of programs directly tying the military-industrial and entertainment complexes together into a seamless web. DARWARS seeks to provide "continuously available, on-demand, mission-level training for all forces at all echelons. Specifically, the program is developing, in areas of high military importance, new kinds of cognitive training systems that include elements of human-tutor interactions and the emotional involvement of computer games coupled with the feedback of Combat Training Center learning." Continuous "on-demand training anywhere, anytime, for everyone."
As with all dual-use research conducted by the agency, military relevance trump all other considerations. One need only examine the use of psychological research in the "war on terror" for some very troubling analogies.
AugCog
If behavioral psychology was handmaid to the horrors perpetrated at Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and CIA transnational "black sites," what new nightmares are in store for humanity when advances in neuroscience, complex computer algorithms and a secretive national security state enter stage (far) right? Let's take a look.
Amy Kruse, Ph.D., is described on DARPA's website as the creator of the concept of "operational neuroscience," designing programs that "are helping transform neuroscience from a laboratory discipline to one that is doing advanced research to deliver revolutionary capabilities important to our warfighters."
DSO's "Training and Human Effectiveness" brief claims this suite of programs is "revolutionizing training...for everyone, anywhere, and at any time." Kruse's area of expertise is "AugCog" or augmented cognition, a subset of neuroscientific research seeking models for a "brain-machine interface." Described by the Augmented Cognition International Society (ACI) as an emerging field of science that seeks to extend a user's abilities via computational technologies, which are explicitly designed to address bottlenecks, limitations, and biases in cognition and to improve decision making capabilities.
The goal of AugCog science and technology is to develop computational methods and neurotech tools that can account for and accommodate information processing bottlenecks inherent in human-system interaction (e.g., limitations in attention, memory, learning, comprehension, visualization abilities, and decision making). ("What is Augmented Cognition?" ACI, no date) [emphasis added]
According to DARPA's description of the program, Improving Warfighter Information Intake Under Stress (AugCog):
Military operators must frequently perform cognitively demanding tasks in stressful environments. The AugCog Program has developed technologies to mitigate sensory or cognitive overload and restore operational effectiveness by extending the information management capacity of the warfighter. This is accomplished through closed-loop computational systems that adapt to the state of the warfighter and thereby significantly improve performance.
The exploitation of human and other biological systems by DARPA raise profoundly troubling questions of how these security-related applications will be used by the United States to achieve global dominance at any and all cost. A recent article in Military Geospatial Technology reveal the technophilic preoccupations that obsess securocrats.
Imagine a computer that can read human brain waves to assess the lay of the land. It might seem futuristic, but that's what the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency [NGA] had partially in mind when they awarded contracts under DARPA's Urban Reasoning and Geospatial Exploitation Technology (URGENT) program. (Cheryl Gerber, "Seeing with Your Brain," Military Geospatial Technology, Vol. 6, Issue 3, June 5, 2008)
One of URGENT's "prime contractors, major defense grifter Lockheed Martin, call their "approach to the program Object Recognition via Brain-inspired Technology," (ORBIT). In conjunction with DARPA's URGENT program, the AugCog project is based on brain-inspired software that seeks to merge neuroscience with computers to create a technology that promises to deliver "situational awareness" to the "warfighter." But building complex 3-D mapping systems is merely the initial jump-off point for what may come once "brain-inspired" algorithms are "perfected."
One "product" that currently aids the "warfighter" and "counterterrorist" officials is called Signature Analyst, designed by corporate grifter SPADAC, a McClean, Virginia defense contractor with close ties to the Department of Homeland Security and the the NGA. According to SPADAC's website, Signature Analyst delivers enhanced objectivity by discerning subtle yet powerful and actionable insights, maximizing likelihood of success. Combining predictive analytics with spatial information as well as human terrain and social networking elements, the solution delivers effective consequence modeling and improved confidence in decisions for a range of global operational and business challenges.
The program claims it provides "situational awareness" by "finding commonalities" and "relationships" in distinct, seemingly disparate data sources, including past events, as well as "human terrain" and "social networking" information. As we have described previously, Scaleable Social Network Analysis was a data-mining tool designed by DARPA's Total Information Awareness office that worked in tandem with the National Security Agency's illegal spying programs.
One shudders to imagine what "consequences" DARPA and their corporate "partners" are "modeling." A commercial version of the "product" is in the works. One "benefit" of the Signature Analyst Software trumpeted by SPADAC is that will "allow fewer analysts to evaluate more data in less time." Why its the perfect "predictive" tool for
the current capitalist downturn!
Carrying the mechanistic human/machine model a step further, Lockheed
Martin and their "partner" Numenta, a California-based software company, are working on applications for the Defense Department. According to Numenta's website, company founder Jeff Hawkins, author of the 2004 book On Intelligence, has "a deep interest in neuroscience and theories of the neocortex." We bet he does!
Indeed, Hawkins' team has designed a suite of software applications, the Numenta Platform for Intelligent Computing (NuPIC), based on what it calls "hierarchical temporal memory (HTM)," a "computing paradigm" that mimics the structure and function of the human neocortex, the area of the brain that handles high-level thought.
John Darvill ORBIT's chief investigator described Lockheed's relationship with Numenta to Military Geospatial Technology thusly: "Lockheed has been involved with Numenta technology for two years and is a member of the Numenta Partner Program for technical interchange. We have a collaborative technical relationship with Numenta. We use their technology, modify it and apply it."
How? According to Numenta CEO Donna Dubinsky, HTM is designed to "be good at what the human brain can do--inference and pattern recognition even in the presence of noise." In a similar fashion, HTM "learns a model of the world" Dubinsky elaborated, "by exposure through its senses. In the same way, our software is self-learning and has to be exposed to the material that it has to learn. So we train the software. For example, we expose it to a lot of tanks so it learns tank-ness."
And if the software could be applied to an interrogation archetype, will it then "self-learn" how to "model" a sensory deprivation or psychological torture regimen, individually tailored to an "illegal enemy combatant" after it has been "exposed to the material"? Will the software in other words, be exposed "to a lot of torture so it learns torture-ness"?
Technological dual-use is a slippery slope towards atrocity and unimaginable horror, especially if left in the hands of American militarists.
Back to the Future
Here precisely, lies the crux of the problem of exploiting neuroscience and robotics in a quest for newer and ever more insidious military applications. The potential of neurologically interactive technologies to "enhance" human capabilities, indeed to invade the privacy of human thought, and infringe on the independence of our minds for "reasons of state," transform biological/medical research into a subset of weapons development.
To be sure, science, and in particular the cognitive sciences, have been seduced by the Pentagon and the CIA in the past. The literature on unethical CIA and Army research into quixotic quests for "mind control" over "enemy" agents and "target" populations--MKULTRA and their perverse offspring--are replete with the horror stories of their abused victims. Indeed, MKULTRA became the ideologically-charged basis for current interrogation and torture practices by the CIA, the military and their "outsourced" partners.
A perusal of the Company's seminal interrogation manuals, KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation and the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual-1983 drew liberally from the most up-to-date cognitive research of its time. Indeed, many of the sources cited in KUBARK and HRE were leading behavioral psychologists and psychiatrists "under contract" to the CIA, as documented by historians and researchers John Marks (The Search for the Manchurian Candidate), Alfred W. McCoy (A Question of Torture) and Christopher Simpson (Science of Coercion).
Indeed, as Simpson avers in Science of Coercion, the Human Ecology Fund, a CIA cut-out funneling money to prestigious academics such as Albert Biderman, underwrote research on "captivity behavior" and the efficacy "of drugs, electroshock, violence, and other coercive techniques during interrogation of prisoners."
Fast forward to the present. As anthropologist Hugh Gusterson writes regarding current Pentagon interest in neuroscientific research today,
individual scientists will tell themselves that, if they don't do the research, someone else will. Research funding will be sufficiently dominated by military grant makers that it will cause some scientists to choose between accepting military funding or giving up their chosen field of research. And the very real dual-use potential of these new technologies (the same brain implant can create a robosoldier or rehabilitate a Parkinson's disease sufferer) will allow scientists to tell themselves that they are "really" working on health technologies to improve the human lot, and the funding just happens to come from the Pentagon. ("The Militarization of Neuroscience," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 9 April 2007)
In the final analysis, DARPA, the Pentagon agency that brought us the internet, are now searching for the means to militarize the human mind itself, viewed as the ultimate platform for imperialist domination and social control.
Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly, Love & Rage and Antifa Forum, he is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press.
Tom Burghardt is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Tom Burghardt
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Please support Global Research
Global Research relies on the financial support of its readers.
Your endorsement is greatly appreciated
Subscribe to the Global Research E-Newsletter
Spread the word! Forward to a friend!
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
Has America become Fascist?
by Oscar » Sat Oct 18, 2008 7:00 pm
Has America become Fascist?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Saturday, August 02, 2008 11:13 AM
Subject: Has America become Fascist? [globalresearch.ca Aug 2 ]
Excerpts:
If it hasn´t gone the way of Mussolini´s Italy and Hitler´s Germany, it sure is teetering on the brink. America is a nation in deepening crisis, a nation whose leaders repeatedly plunge their citizens into, and make them pay for, serial wars abroad, while stealing their liberties at home. USA has become a country that trashes its citizens (New Orleans), tortures its enemies (Abu Ghraib), threatens other nations with nuclear fire (Iran), flouts international treaties (UN Charter re Iraq), and spies on (FISA), and intimidates, its critics (No Fly)....
As Naomi Wolf writes in "The End of America" (Chelsea Green) the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill´s Section 333 allows the president "to declare martial law and take charge of the National Guard troops ....." and to "send the guard into our streets during a public health emergency, terrorist attack or `other condition.´
"The enabling crowbar was the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It gives the president authority to set up his own system for bringing alien combatants to trial while denying them protection of the Geneva Conventions. "The president and his lawyers now claim the authority to designate any American citizen he chooses as being an `enemy combatant,´" writes Wolf.
Wolf writes that dictators justify their usurpation of domestic liberties by raising the alarm of "terrorist" threats.
Wolf says another danger flag is the creation of paramilitary groups, ..." Mussolini had the blackshirts; Hitler the brownshirts; but whatever their dress, ,, in the U.S.- Blackwater ..the world´s largest private security force, that works closely with Halliburton, and is available for action outside the scrutiny of Congress," Wolf writes. Blackwater subcontractor Red Tactica, recruits former Chilean commandos," men "valued for their expertise in kidnapping, torturing and killing defenseless civilians"
Besides creating such "security" forces, dictators create secret prisons, as Bush has done....
Dictators hold power by instilling fear in their citizens. Since 2000, Wolf writes there has been "a sharp increase in U.S. citizen groups that are being harassed and infiltrated by police and federal agents, often in illegal ways.
To repeat the question, "Is America fascist?" the answer is that the machinery is in place for a totalitarian takeover at the direction of a tyrant. - Sherwood Ross, Miami-based writer who has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News......
fyi-janet
We must remind ourselves that Canada has marched lock , stock and barrel behind the Bush administration be it deeper North American trade and economic integration with the US in the driver's seat, deeper Security integration falling in line with the US 'Security Trumps all" policy shift to create a 'Fortress North America, or deeper military integration and foreign policy alignment regarding Afghanistan and behind the scenes in Iraq, in fighting a bogus war on terror which the RAND corporation, a Pentagon think tank, has just reported [no surprize] to be a futile approach to terrorism.
All this should be an election issue - there must be some accounting by not only the Harper Conservatives but by the Liberals who have gone along with US policy alignments be it signing us onto the SPP or their ongoing support of the mission in Afghanistan.
The Canadian public must become informed and engaged on these issues before and during the next election. We have been on the side of a regime that has taken America to the verge of 'fascism' as the following article based on Naomi Wolf's "End of America" avers. And behind the scenes lurks a neo-conservative regime that has diminished freedoms, progressive legislation and democratic traditions in this country.
We need to challenge the rationales and expose the doublespeak!
We need to reconsider - the time has come to rethink, redesign and Act!
janet
---------------------------------------
Has America become Fascist?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... a&aid=9723
August 2, 2008 - Latest News on Bush Impeachment
by Sherwood Ross Global Research, August 1, 2008
If it hasn´t gone the way of Mussolini´s Italy and Hitler´s Germany, it sure is teetering on the brink. America is a nation in deepening crisis, a nation whose leaders repeatedly plunge their citizens into, and make them pay for, serial wars abroad, while stealing their liberties at home. USA has become a country that trashes its citizens (New Orleans), tortures its enemies (Abu Ghraib), threatens other nations with nuclear fire (Iran), flouts international treaties (UN Charter re Iraq), and spies on (FISA), and intimidates, its critics (No Fly). Americans that can clearly see the totalitarian machinations of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Hu Jintao in China are blind to the fascism threatening to envelop them as well.
Webster´s defines fascism as "a totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism." A comparison of 20th century fascist and communist regimes with President Bush´s USA indicates the machinery for a full-blown totalitarian takeover is now in place, even if no coup has occurred. As Naomi Wolf writes in "The End of America" (Chelsea Green) the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill´s Section 333 allows the president "to declare martial law and take charge of the National Guard troops without the permission of a governor when `public order´ has been lost..." and to "send the guard into our streets during a public health emergency, terrorist attack or `other condition.´"...
The enabling crowbar was the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It gives the president authority to set up his own system for bringing alien combatants to trial while denying them protection of the Geneva Conventions. "The president and his lawyers now claim the authority to designate any American citizen he chooses as being an `enemy combatant,´" Wolf writes of power usurpation that characterized the post-World War One epoch in Europe and Asia.
Thus, Congress has empowered Bush just as Germany´s Reichstag empowered Hitler, Wolf writes, recalling Hitler´s boast, "Democracy will be overthrown with the tools of democracy." Hitler´s Interior Minister issued Clause 2 that gave police the power to hold people in custody indefinitely and without a court order, powers the U.S. Congress today has conferred upon "The Decider" in the White House. Mussolini´s used the less grandiose "Il Duce" or "The Leader."
According to Michael Ratner, director of the Center For Constitutional Rights, New York, "the president can...designate people enemy combatants and detain them for whatever reason he wants...there are no charges and prisoners have no lawyers, no family visits, no court reviews, no rights to anything, and no right to release until the mythical end to the `war on terror.´"
Wolf writes that dictators justify their usurpation of domestic liberties by raising the alarm of "terrorist" threats. Stalin, for example, used this very term in 1934 when he warned his public of a world-wide conspiracy by capitalists to overthrow the Soviet state. If there have been no mass arrests of native-born Americans it is only because the president has not chosen to exercise this authority.
If you think it can´t happen to you, recall that in September of 2003 the Army arrested 36-year-old American-born Muslim chaplain James Yee, a West Point graduate, allegedly for "espionage and possibly treason"---but more likely for calling for better conditions for Gitmo inmates. Wolf wrote: "He was blindfolded; his ears were blocked; he was manacled and then put into solitary confinement for 76 days; forbidden mail, television, or anything to read except the Koran. His family was not allowed to visit him. ...His lawyers were told he would face execution. (But)Within six months, the U.S. government had dropped all criminal charges against Yee." Yes, just as it has dropped charges against hundreds of Guantanamo prisoners earlier, men labeled by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld as "the worst of the worst" but against the overwhelming majority of whom the Bush regime apparently had no case whatever!
The treatment Yee got is typical of those who run afoul of the Bush regime: torture first, trial after...if there is a trial. And since his release, Yee has been denied his free speech right to discuss his ordeal---gagged by the Pentagon. Perhaps most incredible, even if a Guantanamo prisoner should be found innocent, the Pentagon says he might not be released anyway. This echoes Stalin´s practice of re-arresting Gulag prisoners after they had done their time. At one point, Stalin had eight million souls behind bars, even exceeding President Bush, currently the world´s Incarcerator-In-Chief.
Author Wolf says another danger flag is the creation of paramilitary groups, "aggressive men who have no clear, accountable relationship to the government or the party seeking power..." Mussolini had the blackshirts; Hitler the brownshirts; but whatever their dress, they were thugs. Wolf says that Moycock, N.C.-based Blackwater Worldwide stands ready "to deploy its unaccountable private army (35,000 men) in the U.S.---in the aftermath of natural disasters, and also in cases of `national emergency.´" With at least a half billion dollars in government contracts, "Blackwater is the world´s largest private security force, works closely with Halliburton, and is available for action outside the scrutiny of Congress," Wolf writes. The outfit raked in $73 million for patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And Blackwater subcontractor Red Tactica, recruits former Chilean commandos," men described by one Chilean sociologist that are "valued for their expertise in kidnapping, torturing and killing defenseless civilians," Wolf wrote.
Besides creating such "security" forces, dictators create secret prisons, as Bush has done, ranging from prison ships in the Indian Ocean to dungeons in Poland, where they can hide them from Red Cross scrutiny, as the CIA has done. "We should worry about the men held at Guantanamo because history shows that stripping prisoners of their rights is intoxicating not only to leaders but to functionaries at every level of society," Wolf writes. "Gitmo" is also an interrogation camp, an operation "that is completely and flatly illegal" and outlawed by the Geneva Conventions in 1949, she points out. Stalin also employed torture and in 1937 actually legalized its use in Soviet prisons. When he received his infamous "albums" with the names of those to be executed and imprisoned, next to some names he often wrote: "Beat! Beat! Beat!" And only months after taking power, Hitler "established a network of illegitimate prisons where torture took place" and where guards could murder inmates with "no chance of being punished," Wolf said. And like Stalin, The Decider has signaled his henchmen beatings are now the American Way.
Dictators hold power by instilling fear in their citizens. Since 2000, Wolf writes there has been "a sharp increase in U.S. citizen groups that are being harassed and infiltrated by police and federal agents, often in illegal ways." She pointed to a 2006 ACLU report that California police had infiltrated antiwar protests, political rallies, and other constitutionally protected gatherings and were secretly investigating them, even though the California state constitution forbids this. And prior to the 2004 Republican convention in New York, police department detectives infiltrated groups planning peaceful demonstrations. At the Federal level, Bush´s apparatchiks are compiling dossiers on law-abiding citizens. The Defense Department´s Talon program has created a database about peaceful antiwar and other groups and activists. As Jen Nessel of the Center for Constitutional Rights says, "We have absolutely moved over into a preventive detention model---you look like you could do something bad, you might do something bad, so we´re going to hold you."
Bush regime actions´ today recall how the Gestapo, NKVD, Stasi (East German secret police) and Red China´s Politburo "all requisitioned private data such as medical, banking, and library records," Wolf writes, because access to such private data "breaks down citizens´ sense of being able to act freely against those in power." And although the Department of Homeland Security´s TIPS scheme to get letter carriers and meter readers, etc., to report suspicious activities was met with derision and never funded, the ACLU noted it was merely absorbed in the Pentagon´s "black budget."
Privacy in America today as guaranteed by the Constitution is fast becoming a memory. The New York Times reported the government in 2005 was monitoring your e-mail and telephone talk without legal warrants and the following year the newspaper disclosed U.S. treasury officials, with CIA help, "were reviewing millions of private bank transactions without individual court-ordered warrants or subpoenas," Wolf pointed out.
One method of intimidation is to limit a citizen´s right to travel freely. The Bush regime has created "watch"(75,000 names) and "no fly"(45,000 names) lists that restrict individuals´ air travel--and those searched and/or stopped from flying can complain all they like because it won´t do them any good. Robert Johnson, an American citizen, Wolf reports, described the humiliation factor of being strip searched when he attempted to board an airplane: "I had to take off my pants. I had to take off my sneakers, then I had to take off my socks. I was treated like a criminal." This has now become a commonplace ordeal for thousands of Americans. Even at the height of World War Two, such invasions of personal rights would have been unthinkable.
Going back to Webster´s definition of fascism, USA today is the world´s runaway leader in "militarism." Forty-three percent of all U.S. tax dollars in 2007 went to feed the war machine, as the Pentagon believes security depends on operating more than 700 military bases in 130 countries overseas in addition to 1,000 at home. Bush has escalated its budget so that USA now spends nearly as much on arms as all the rest of the world combined. Uncle Sam is also the No. 1 private arms peddler to the world. By contrast, Iran, portrayed by the White House as a menace to the Middle East, has an annual military budget that is 1/100th of the Pentagon´s outlay.
Perhaps it would be a good exercise for Americans to read how Hitler emphasized nationalism and militarism. As he wrote in "Mein Kampf": "Instead of everlasting struggle the world preaches cowardly pacifism, and everlasting peace...There is only one right in this world and this right is one´s own strength." As for "reconciliation, understanding, world peace, the League of Nations, and international solidarity---we destroy these ideas." Hitler called for delivering Germans "from the hopeless confusion of international convictions" and educating them "consciously and systematically to fanatical nationalism." Armed with such views the fascist state thinks nothing of starting an aggressive war based on lies. In 1939, Hitler claimed he was attacked by Poland, igniting World War Two. Bush claimed that Iraq had nuclear and biological weapons to destroy America when, in fact, it was the United States that possessed those very weapons and it was Iraq that had none.
Bush nonetheless started a seemingly endless war that has by some estimates to date killed more than 1 million Iraqis, wounded perhaps 2 million more, forced a like number from their homes, ravished their country and its economy, touched off a civil war, forced 1 million Iraqis into foreign exile, and killed and wounded 35,000 American troops. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the Iraq war "illegal" but Bush, like Hitler, cares nothing for international treaties, even if those the U.S. has signed under our Constitution are the supreme law of the land. He has made a mockery to the anti-nuclear treaty, causing former President Carter to charge his own country has become the leader in nuclear proliferation. What´s more, Bush has spent about $50 billion on germ warfare "defense" with no known significant foreign threat to USA.
Americans may think that Webster´s view that fascism is often accompanied by racism doesn´t fit them. Indeed, USA´s strides to eliminate racism based on color in the last century are a societal marvel. But racism against African Americans has largely been replaced with the foolhardy notion that Americans are better than everybody else in the world and have the authority to set right any ruler they believe is in error. This view of their own superiority echoes Hitler´s "master race" view of the German people or the Tokyo militarists´ view in 1940 that a superior Japan was destined to rule "the eight corners of the world." In this sense, America is very "racist" indeed and the "aggressive nationalism" highlighted by Webster´s is apparent in the rhetoric of its public officials and the conduct of its foreign affairs.
Yet another characteristic of the fascist state is its leader´s use of arbitrary power. Note how Bush evades the will of Congress by tacking on "signing statements" to laws he doesn´t like, thus refusing to enforce them, putting himself above the will of Congress and the American people. Note how his aides refuse to respond to Congressional subpoenas to testify. Yet another example is how the Justice Department´s own internal investigators found Bush´s appointees filled nonpolitical posts with party hacks and then lied about what they had done. "Civil Service Laws Were Breached in Filling Nonpolitical Jobs" said a New York Times reported July 29th. It should be remembered Hitler followed a like policy when he purged Jews from their government posts. When tyrants rule, merit is ever subservient to loyalty.
Of course, Bush has not flung thousands of Americans into prison to torture and murder them as Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin did, but he has the power to do so, making the latter half of 2008 a time of danger for Americans. Wolf writes, "At a point in both Mussolini´s and Hitler´s takeovers, citizens witnessed a stunning series of quickly escalating pronunciamentos or faits accomplis. After each leader made his bids for power beyond what the Italian parliament and the German Reichstag allowed him, each abruptly started to claim all kinds of new rights that were extra-parliamentary; the right unilaterally to go to war, to annex territory, to veto existing laws, or to overrule the judiciary," etc.
To repeat the question, "Is America fascist?" the answer is that the machinery is in place for a totalitarian takeover at the direction of a tyrant. While it is true that the U.S. is not a one-party state (some will dispute this owing to the many similarities of the two major parties) like fascist Italy and Germany, and it does have free elections, for the first time in its history in 2000 and 2004 an ominous cloud of doubt has hung over the authenticity of the popular vote and a vast segment of the voting public today does not trust the election machinery to record their vote as they intend. There are no mass arrests and executions in the thousands and millions that typified the regimes of Hitler and Stalin (Stalin had 681,000 people executed in 1937-8 "Great Terror" alone); free speech still exists (under Stalin, a person could be imprisoned for making a Stalin
joke); and the government has not put its leaden hand on business as Putin has done although crony capitalism in the selection of defense contractors is rampant. These vital distinctions set America apart from the totalitarian society. Yet, with each passing day in its "War on Terror" the Bush regime tightens its hold on the machinery to establish totalitarian rule here.
Americans need to keep in mind that worse than anything President Bush has inflicted upon its own citizenry is what its wars of aggression have inflicted on innocent humanity abroad. A million dead Iraqis can´t give a damn by what terminology you describe the United States. If the American people allow their government to make criminal wars to deprive innocent foreigners of their lives and liberties they do not deserve to enjoy either at home.
Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based writer who has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News, a columnist for wire services, a news director for a large civil rights organization, and as a publicist for colleges, labor unions and entrepreneurial start-ups. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com Phone: 305-205-8281. The writer is indebted to Naomi Wolf for her book, "The End of America." Ms. Wolf is cofounder of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, New York, an organization that teaches young women how to assume leadership roles.)
Sherwood Ross is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Sherwood Ross
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Saturday, August 02, 2008 11:13 AM
Subject: Has America become Fascist? [globalresearch.ca Aug 2 ]
Excerpts:
If it hasn´t gone the way of Mussolini´s Italy and Hitler´s Germany, it sure is teetering on the brink. America is a nation in deepening crisis, a nation whose leaders repeatedly plunge their citizens into, and make them pay for, serial wars abroad, while stealing their liberties at home. USA has become a country that trashes its citizens (New Orleans), tortures its enemies (Abu Ghraib), threatens other nations with nuclear fire (Iran), flouts international treaties (UN Charter re Iraq), and spies on (FISA), and intimidates, its critics (No Fly)....
As Naomi Wolf writes in "The End of America" (Chelsea Green) the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill´s Section 333 allows the president "to declare martial law and take charge of the National Guard troops ....." and to "send the guard into our streets during a public health emergency, terrorist attack or `other condition.´
"The enabling crowbar was the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It gives the president authority to set up his own system for bringing alien combatants to trial while denying them protection of the Geneva Conventions. "The president and his lawyers now claim the authority to designate any American citizen he chooses as being an `enemy combatant,´" writes Wolf.
Wolf writes that dictators justify their usurpation of domestic liberties by raising the alarm of "terrorist" threats.
Wolf says another danger flag is the creation of paramilitary groups, ..." Mussolini had the blackshirts; Hitler the brownshirts; but whatever their dress, ,, in the U.S.- Blackwater ..the world´s largest private security force, that works closely with Halliburton, and is available for action outside the scrutiny of Congress," Wolf writes. Blackwater subcontractor Red Tactica, recruits former Chilean commandos," men "valued for their expertise in kidnapping, torturing and killing defenseless civilians"
Besides creating such "security" forces, dictators create secret prisons, as Bush has done....
Dictators hold power by instilling fear in their citizens. Since 2000, Wolf writes there has been "a sharp increase in U.S. citizen groups that are being harassed and infiltrated by police and federal agents, often in illegal ways.
To repeat the question, "Is America fascist?" the answer is that the machinery is in place for a totalitarian takeover at the direction of a tyrant. - Sherwood Ross, Miami-based writer who has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News......
fyi-janet
We must remind ourselves that Canada has marched lock , stock and barrel behind the Bush administration be it deeper North American trade and economic integration with the US in the driver's seat, deeper Security integration falling in line with the US 'Security Trumps all" policy shift to create a 'Fortress North America, or deeper military integration and foreign policy alignment regarding Afghanistan and behind the scenes in Iraq, in fighting a bogus war on terror which the RAND corporation, a Pentagon think tank, has just reported [no surprize] to be a futile approach to terrorism.
All this should be an election issue - there must be some accounting by not only the Harper Conservatives but by the Liberals who have gone along with US policy alignments be it signing us onto the SPP or their ongoing support of the mission in Afghanistan.
The Canadian public must become informed and engaged on these issues before and during the next election. We have been on the side of a regime that has taken America to the verge of 'fascism' as the following article based on Naomi Wolf's "End of America" avers. And behind the scenes lurks a neo-conservative regime that has diminished freedoms, progressive legislation and democratic traditions in this country.
We need to challenge the rationales and expose the doublespeak!
We need to reconsider - the time has come to rethink, redesign and Act!
janet
---------------------------------------
Has America become Fascist?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... a&aid=9723
August 2, 2008 - Latest News on Bush Impeachment
by Sherwood Ross Global Research, August 1, 2008
If it hasn´t gone the way of Mussolini´s Italy and Hitler´s Germany, it sure is teetering on the brink. America is a nation in deepening crisis, a nation whose leaders repeatedly plunge their citizens into, and make them pay for, serial wars abroad, while stealing their liberties at home. USA has become a country that trashes its citizens (New Orleans), tortures its enemies (Abu Ghraib), threatens other nations with nuclear fire (Iran), flouts international treaties (UN Charter re Iraq), and spies on (FISA), and intimidates, its critics (No Fly). Americans that can clearly see the totalitarian machinations of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Hu Jintao in China are blind to the fascism threatening to envelop them as well.
Webster´s defines fascism as "a totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism." A comparison of 20th century fascist and communist regimes with President Bush´s USA indicates the machinery for a full-blown totalitarian takeover is now in place, even if no coup has occurred. As Naomi Wolf writes in "The End of America" (Chelsea Green) the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill´s Section 333 allows the president "to declare martial law and take charge of the National Guard troops without the permission of a governor when `public order´ has been lost..." and to "send the guard into our streets during a public health emergency, terrorist attack or `other condition.´"...
The enabling crowbar was the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It gives the president authority to set up his own system for bringing alien combatants to trial while denying them protection of the Geneva Conventions. "The president and his lawyers now claim the authority to designate any American citizen he chooses as being an `enemy combatant,´" Wolf writes of power usurpation that characterized the post-World War One epoch in Europe and Asia.
Thus, Congress has empowered Bush just as Germany´s Reichstag empowered Hitler, Wolf writes, recalling Hitler´s boast, "Democracy will be overthrown with the tools of democracy." Hitler´s Interior Minister issued Clause 2 that gave police the power to hold people in custody indefinitely and without a court order, powers the U.S. Congress today has conferred upon "The Decider" in the White House. Mussolini´s used the less grandiose "Il Duce" or "The Leader."
According to Michael Ratner, director of the Center For Constitutional Rights, New York, "the president can...designate people enemy combatants and detain them for whatever reason he wants...there are no charges and prisoners have no lawyers, no family visits, no court reviews, no rights to anything, and no right to release until the mythical end to the `war on terror.´"
Wolf writes that dictators justify their usurpation of domestic liberties by raising the alarm of "terrorist" threats. Stalin, for example, used this very term in 1934 when he warned his public of a world-wide conspiracy by capitalists to overthrow the Soviet state. If there have been no mass arrests of native-born Americans it is only because the president has not chosen to exercise this authority.
If you think it can´t happen to you, recall that in September of 2003 the Army arrested 36-year-old American-born Muslim chaplain James Yee, a West Point graduate, allegedly for "espionage and possibly treason"---but more likely for calling for better conditions for Gitmo inmates. Wolf wrote: "He was blindfolded; his ears were blocked; he was manacled and then put into solitary confinement for 76 days; forbidden mail, television, or anything to read except the Koran. His family was not allowed to visit him. ...His lawyers were told he would face execution. (But)Within six months, the U.S. government had dropped all criminal charges against Yee." Yes, just as it has dropped charges against hundreds of Guantanamo prisoners earlier, men labeled by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld as "the worst of the worst" but against the overwhelming majority of whom the Bush regime apparently had no case whatever!
The treatment Yee got is typical of those who run afoul of the Bush regime: torture first, trial after...if there is a trial. And since his release, Yee has been denied his free speech right to discuss his ordeal---gagged by the Pentagon. Perhaps most incredible, even if a Guantanamo prisoner should be found innocent, the Pentagon says he might not be released anyway. This echoes Stalin´s practice of re-arresting Gulag prisoners after they had done their time. At one point, Stalin had eight million souls behind bars, even exceeding President Bush, currently the world´s Incarcerator-In-Chief.
Author Wolf says another danger flag is the creation of paramilitary groups, "aggressive men who have no clear, accountable relationship to the government or the party seeking power..." Mussolini had the blackshirts; Hitler the brownshirts; but whatever their dress, they were thugs. Wolf says that Moycock, N.C.-based Blackwater Worldwide stands ready "to deploy its unaccountable private army (35,000 men) in the U.S.---in the aftermath of natural disasters, and also in cases of `national emergency.´" With at least a half billion dollars in government contracts, "Blackwater is the world´s largest private security force, works closely with Halliburton, and is available for action outside the scrutiny of Congress," Wolf writes. The outfit raked in $73 million for patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And Blackwater subcontractor Red Tactica, recruits former Chilean commandos," men described by one Chilean sociologist that are "valued for their expertise in kidnapping, torturing and killing defenseless civilians," Wolf wrote.
Besides creating such "security" forces, dictators create secret prisons, as Bush has done, ranging from prison ships in the Indian Ocean to dungeons in Poland, where they can hide them from Red Cross scrutiny, as the CIA has done. "We should worry about the men held at Guantanamo because history shows that stripping prisoners of their rights is intoxicating not only to leaders but to functionaries at every level of society," Wolf writes. "Gitmo" is also an interrogation camp, an operation "that is completely and flatly illegal" and outlawed by the Geneva Conventions in 1949, she points out. Stalin also employed torture and in 1937 actually legalized its use in Soviet prisons. When he received his infamous "albums" with the names of those to be executed and imprisoned, next to some names he often wrote: "Beat! Beat! Beat!" And only months after taking power, Hitler "established a network of illegitimate prisons where torture took place" and where guards could murder inmates with "no chance of being punished," Wolf said. And like Stalin, The Decider has signaled his henchmen beatings are now the American Way.
Dictators hold power by instilling fear in their citizens. Since 2000, Wolf writes there has been "a sharp increase in U.S. citizen groups that are being harassed and infiltrated by police and federal agents, often in illegal ways." She pointed to a 2006 ACLU report that California police had infiltrated antiwar protests, political rallies, and other constitutionally protected gatherings and were secretly investigating them, even though the California state constitution forbids this. And prior to the 2004 Republican convention in New York, police department detectives infiltrated groups planning peaceful demonstrations. At the Federal level, Bush´s apparatchiks are compiling dossiers on law-abiding citizens. The Defense Department´s Talon program has created a database about peaceful antiwar and other groups and activists. As Jen Nessel of the Center for Constitutional Rights says, "We have absolutely moved over into a preventive detention model---you look like you could do something bad, you might do something bad, so we´re going to hold you."
Bush regime actions´ today recall how the Gestapo, NKVD, Stasi (East German secret police) and Red China´s Politburo "all requisitioned private data such as medical, banking, and library records," Wolf writes, because access to such private data "breaks down citizens´ sense of being able to act freely against those in power." And although the Department of Homeland Security´s TIPS scheme to get letter carriers and meter readers, etc., to report suspicious activities was met with derision and never funded, the ACLU noted it was merely absorbed in the Pentagon´s "black budget."
Privacy in America today as guaranteed by the Constitution is fast becoming a memory. The New York Times reported the government in 2005 was monitoring your e-mail and telephone talk without legal warrants and the following year the newspaper disclosed U.S. treasury officials, with CIA help, "were reviewing millions of private bank transactions without individual court-ordered warrants or subpoenas," Wolf pointed out.
One method of intimidation is to limit a citizen´s right to travel freely. The Bush regime has created "watch"(75,000 names) and "no fly"(45,000 names) lists that restrict individuals´ air travel--and those searched and/or stopped from flying can complain all they like because it won´t do them any good. Robert Johnson, an American citizen, Wolf reports, described the humiliation factor of being strip searched when he attempted to board an airplane: "I had to take off my pants. I had to take off my sneakers, then I had to take off my socks. I was treated like a criminal." This has now become a commonplace ordeal for thousands of Americans. Even at the height of World War Two, such invasions of personal rights would have been unthinkable.
Going back to Webster´s definition of fascism, USA today is the world´s runaway leader in "militarism." Forty-three percent of all U.S. tax dollars in 2007 went to feed the war machine, as the Pentagon believes security depends on operating more than 700 military bases in 130 countries overseas in addition to 1,000 at home. Bush has escalated its budget so that USA now spends nearly as much on arms as all the rest of the world combined. Uncle Sam is also the No. 1 private arms peddler to the world. By contrast, Iran, portrayed by the White House as a menace to the Middle East, has an annual military budget that is 1/100th of the Pentagon´s outlay.
Perhaps it would be a good exercise for Americans to read how Hitler emphasized nationalism and militarism. As he wrote in "Mein Kampf": "Instead of everlasting struggle the world preaches cowardly pacifism, and everlasting peace...There is only one right in this world and this right is one´s own strength." As for "reconciliation, understanding, world peace, the League of Nations, and international solidarity---we destroy these ideas." Hitler called for delivering Germans "from the hopeless confusion of international convictions" and educating them "consciously and systematically to fanatical nationalism." Armed with such views the fascist state thinks nothing of starting an aggressive war based on lies. In 1939, Hitler claimed he was attacked by Poland, igniting World War Two. Bush claimed that Iraq had nuclear and biological weapons to destroy America when, in fact, it was the United States that possessed those very weapons and it was Iraq that had none.
Bush nonetheless started a seemingly endless war that has by some estimates to date killed more than 1 million Iraqis, wounded perhaps 2 million more, forced a like number from their homes, ravished their country and its economy, touched off a civil war, forced 1 million Iraqis into foreign exile, and killed and wounded 35,000 American troops. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the Iraq war "illegal" but Bush, like Hitler, cares nothing for international treaties, even if those the U.S. has signed under our Constitution are the supreme law of the land. He has made a mockery to the anti-nuclear treaty, causing former President Carter to charge his own country has become the leader in nuclear proliferation. What´s more, Bush has spent about $50 billion on germ warfare "defense" with no known significant foreign threat to USA.
Americans may think that Webster´s view that fascism is often accompanied by racism doesn´t fit them. Indeed, USA´s strides to eliminate racism based on color in the last century are a societal marvel. But racism against African Americans has largely been replaced with the foolhardy notion that Americans are better than everybody else in the world and have the authority to set right any ruler they believe is in error. This view of their own superiority echoes Hitler´s "master race" view of the German people or the Tokyo militarists´ view in 1940 that a superior Japan was destined to rule "the eight corners of the world." In this sense, America is very "racist" indeed and the "aggressive nationalism" highlighted by Webster´s is apparent in the rhetoric of its public officials and the conduct of its foreign affairs.
Yet another characteristic of the fascist state is its leader´s use of arbitrary power. Note how Bush evades the will of Congress by tacking on "signing statements" to laws he doesn´t like, thus refusing to enforce them, putting himself above the will of Congress and the American people. Note how his aides refuse to respond to Congressional subpoenas to testify. Yet another example is how the Justice Department´s own internal investigators found Bush´s appointees filled nonpolitical posts with party hacks and then lied about what they had done. "Civil Service Laws Were Breached in Filling Nonpolitical Jobs" said a New York Times reported July 29th. It should be remembered Hitler followed a like policy when he purged Jews from their government posts. When tyrants rule, merit is ever subservient to loyalty.
Of course, Bush has not flung thousands of Americans into prison to torture and murder them as Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin did, but he has the power to do so, making the latter half of 2008 a time of danger for Americans. Wolf writes, "At a point in both Mussolini´s and Hitler´s takeovers, citizens witnessed a stunning series of quickly escalating pronunciamentos or faits accomplis. After each leader made his bids for power beyond what the Italian parliament and the German Reichstag allowed him, each abruptly started to claim all kinds of new rights that were extra-parliamentary; the right unilaterally to go to war, to annex territory, to veto existing laws, or to overrule the judiciary," etc.
To repeat the question, "Is America fascist?" the answer is that the machinery is in place for a totalitarian takeover at the direction of a tyrant. While it is true that the U.S. is not a one-party state (some will dispute this owing to the many similarities of the two major parties) like fascist Italy and Germany, and it does have free elections, for the first time in its history in 2000 and 2004 an ominous cloud of doubt has hung over the authenticity of the popular vote and a vast segment of the voting public today does not trust the election machinery to record their vote as they intend. There are no mass arrests and executions in the thousands and millions that typified the regimes of Hitler and Stalin (Stalin had 681,000 people executed in 1937-8 "Great Terror" alone); free speech still exists (under Stalin, a person could be imprisoned for making a Stalin
joke); and the government has not put its leaden hand on business as Putin has done although crony capitalism in the selection of defense contractors is rampant. These vital distinctions set America apart from the totalitarian society. Yet, with each passing day in its "War on Terror" the Bush regime tightens its hold on the machinery to establish totalitarian rule here.
Americans need to keep in mind that worse than anything President Bush has inflicted upon its own citizenry is what its wars of aggression have inflicted on innocent humanity abroad. A million dead Iraqis can´t give a damn by what terminology you describe the United States. If the American people allow their government to make criminal wars to deprive innocent foreigners of their lives and liberties they do not deserve to enjoy either at home.
Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based writer who has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News, a columnist for wire services, a news director for a large civil rights organization, and as a publicist for colleges, labor unions and entrepreneurial start-ups. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com Phone: 305-205-8281. The writer is indebted to Naomi Wolf for her book, "The End of America." Ms. Wolf is cofounder of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, New York, an organization that teaches young women how to assume leadership roles.)
Sherwood Ross is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Sherwood Ross
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AMI Conference on usury + essay on oil speculation as attack
by Oscar » Sat Oct 18, 2008 7:15 pm
AMI Conference on usury + essay on oil speculation as attack on humanity
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 7:21 AM
Subject: AMI Conference on usury + essay on oil speculation as attack on humanity [American Monetary Institute]
Two items below from American Monetary Institute.
[1] AMI [American Monetary Institute] 2008 Monetary Reform Conference
at Roosevelt University, in Chicago, Sept. 25-28, 2008
One Theme of the Conference: Usury
The present false definition of usury as excessive interest, was foisted on economics by Jeremy Bentham, who also devised utilitarianism - dropping morality in favor of supposed results. But the real concept of usury is the anti-social misuse of the money mechanism for private gain. The conference aims to help revive this classical concept of usury and relate it to how our present privatized monetary system malfunctions, for example in creating the present banking crisis."
[2] Essay - from AMI "Front running Humanity" which identifies speculation in oil as an "Enron like" attack against humanity, and describes how easy it would be for Congress to bring the nonsense to an end.
"There´s no reason to allow speculators to position themselves between the world´s limited oil supplies, and those who have to use that oil to keep the world economy functioning. Such speculation leads directly to hardship, starvation, death and warfare.
If this scenario is so clear and harsh, how could the Senate refuse to act? Are they a gang of demons?" No, but something potentially worse -we´re confronted with a bad idea that many people believe in - the sanctity of markets! ....
The Senators are not demonic, but their ideology, summarized as "Market worship," which ignores the human part of the resulting tragedies, certainly is.
fyi-janet
========================
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Organization: American Monetary Institute
From: AMI <ami@taconic.net>
Date sent: Sun, 03 Aug 2008 01:10:01 -0500
Subject: [toeslist] Usury Question revived at AMI COnference
Send reply to: toeslist@yahoogroups.com
Dear Friends of the American Monetary Institute:
Please forward this to your friends and email lists.
First, attached is an essay called "Front running Humanity" which identifies speculation in oil as an "Enron like" attack against humanity, and describes how easy it would be for Congress to bring the nonsense to an end. It is copied below and can also be viewed at our website, at:
http://www.monetary.org/frontrunninghumanity.html
Second, the question of usury will be a central theme of our 4th Annual AMI Monetary Reform Conference at Roosevelt University in Chicago, September 25-28th. We're devoting an entire afternoon of expert speakers to usury, who approach it from a philosophical, religious and empirical standpoint. Here is how it appears in our conference brochure:
Two Themes of the Conference: Usury and Warfare
"First, This conference will examine the problem of usury. What is it exactly? Is it a necessary part of 'free market economics,' or is it a destroyer of nations, or is it both? How does monetary reform remove this problem? The present false definition of usury as excessive interest, was foisted on economics by Jeremy Bentham, who also devised utilitarianism - dropping morality in favor of supposed results. But the real concept of usury is the anti-social misuse of the money mechanism for private gain. The conference aims to help revive this classical concept of usury and relate it to how our present privatized monetary system malfunctions, for example in creating the present banking crisis." (see http://www.monetary .org/2008conference.html
We thank Bill Moyers and Bill Greider for moving towards the correct definition of usury on a recent Bill Moyer's Journal.
For a color schedule of speakers topics, photos and bios, including the developing Usury examination, please see
http://www.monetary.org/2008schedule.html
Thanks for your attention friends, and consider participating in the Conference September 25-28th. Clean, safe accommodations are available next door to Roosevelt for $31 per night! But act soon.
----------------------------------------------------
Stephen Zarlenga
Ami
"Front running"Against Humanity in the Oil Markets
"Front-Running" is an insiders´ term for an often illegal, always immoral practice in commodity and other markets. Here´s what happens: A broker holding a client´s order to buy at a certain price, instead buys for himself just in "front" of it. The clients order isn´t filled and the broker has an unfair advantage over other traders because he controls the client´s order which will buy the position back from him and protect his trade from a loss.
The client loses the opportunity to gain, where his order is never filled if the market moves away from his order point. If some participants can trade with little or no risk, over time everyone else is hurt.
Because Exchange Members´margin requirements are only about 1%, the front running brokers have a possibility of great gain quickly with almost no risk of loss.
Why is this important to "public policy?"
"Front running" is one way to view what criminal Enron executives did to California. They had the client´s non cancellable, inelastic "orders" to buy electricity and they grabbed the available supply in front of that, restricted the delivery process and extorted higher prices; blaming price rises on "market forces." Enron was bad enough, and Sarbanes-Oxley was passed to hold corporate officers criminally liable - a good law as judged by the corporate types screaming for its repeal. But apparently it didn´t go far enough as judged by the present bold attack against humanity taking place.
The manipulation of energy markets has widened from cheating the people of California, to a deadly attack on all humanity. That´s what allowing speculation in oil futures is doing today. These markets aren´t providing "price discovery" as apologists like to claim.
They´ve driven the price of oil to destructive levels. The damage has already been immense.
We´ve seen the devastating effects oil prices have had on airlines; trucking; food delivery and production; on average families trying to keep up with living costs; on restaurants and hotels Americans can no longer afford. Add your examples. It´s the speculation and hoarding that does it. Exxon couldn´t grab 12 $billion record 2nd quarter profits if their costs of obtaining oil were rising.
And so I put aside an outline for this paper when it appeared Congress would do its job -rescue the world economy from this pernicious vandalism, by limiting speculation in oil futures to a few contracts per account. That´s all it would take to stop the nonsense.
There´s no reason to allow speculators to position themselves between the world´s limited oil supplies, and those who have to use that oil to keep the world economy functioning. Such speculation leads directly to hardship, starvation, death and warfare. "Congress will finally fulfill its responsibility to act." I thought, but the measure failed in the Senate with 50 for, 43 against, and 7 not voting!
Why didn´t Congress act?
If this scenario is so clear and harsh, how could the Senate refuse to act? Are they a gang of demons?" No, but something potentially worse -we´re confronted with a bad idea that many people believe in - the sanctity of markets!
The vote exposes a faulty methodology - an ideology based on false axioms; a false view of markets that´s been strongly promoted, not questioned; with its negative effects not understood; that view gives markets a sacred character:
Don´t try to legislate against what the market does - market forces will crush your laws. (its omnipotent!)
Don´t try to instruct market behavior; it has inputs from millions of participants and knows more than your regulators ever could! (Its Omniscient.)
Do the right things and the market will reward you; misbehave and you will be punished! (Its benevolent.)
Well, omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence are attributes of a god, and Senators don´t often fight with god!
What´s sorely missing from these beliefs and assumptions is evidence!
Where´s the evidence that removing regulation from the airline industry had good effects?
Where´s the evidence that removing FCC restrictions on media ownership had good effects?
Where´s the evidence that removing government regulation from any industry has had good effects?
Of course it´s worse than that. It goes beyond a lack of evidence because there´s plenty of evidence to the contrary! Holding those beliefs requires ignoring loads of evidence: ignoring the damage done to the airlines by deregulation; the damage done by media concentration; the continuing damage done to America´s middle class; ignoring: (insert your favorite)
How can proponents of unregulated markets justify ignoring the facts? Its crazy, but it´s also a necessary part of their false methodology which loves theory but avoids experience - the facts. One of their leading "lights." economist Ludwig Von Mises, carries it to extreme levels actually claiming that facts cannot disprove his theories! So we are dealing with momentous errors of judgment and methodology. Though these men are in the U.S. Senate, they are thinking like scared children. But such errors belong in children´s sand boxes, not our nation´s halls of power.
This battle over methodology is an old fight. We even see it in our nation´s beginnings. Ben Franklin´s 1729 essay "The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency" gave the correct methodology when he summarized the ideas used to help Pennsylvania set up its paper money system in 1723 rescuing her from a prolonged usury crisis. Franklin told the world:
"Experience, more prevalent than all the logic in the world has fully convinced us all that paper money has been of the greatest benefit to the country."
Maybe as some Senators voted against stopping oil speculation, perhaps a more human inner voice rebelled against what they did. Was that voice stifled by an unholy combination of greed & selfishness, assuaged by their comforting though unsupported belief in the utility of unbridled selfishness and greed? The false notion that selfishness "works?"
The Senators are not demonic, but their ideology, summarized as "Market worship," which ignores the human part of the resulting tragedies, certainly is.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 7:21 AM
Subject: AMI Conference on usury + essay on oil speculation as attack on humanity [American Monetary Institute]
Two items below from American Monetary Institute.
[1] AMI [American Monetary Institute] 2008 Monetary Reform Conference
at Roosevelt University, in Chicago, Sept. 25-28, 2008
One Theme of the Conference: Usury
The present false definition of usury as excessive interest, was foisted on economics by Jeremy Bentham, who also devised utilitarianism - dropping morality in favor of supposed results. But the real concept of usury is the anti-social misuse of the money mechanism for private gain. The conference aims to help revive this classical concept of usury and relate it to how our present privatized monetary system malfunctions, for example in creating the present banking crisis."
[2] Essay - from AMI "Front running Humanity" which identifies speculation in oil as an "Enron like" attack against humanity, and describes how easy it would be for Congress to bring the nonsense to an end.
"There´s no reason to allow speculators to position themselves between the world´s limited oil supplies, and those who have to use that oil to keep the world economy functioning. Such speculation leads directly to hardship, starvation, death and warfare.
If this scenario is so clear and harsh, how could the Senate refuse to act? Are they a gang of demons?" No, but something potentially worse -we´re confronted with a bad idea that many people believe in - the sanctity of markets! ....
The Senators are not demonic, but their ideology, summarized as "Market worship," which ignores the human part of the resulting tragedies, certainly is.
fyi-janet
========================
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Organization: American Monetary Institute
From: AMI <ami@taconic.net>
Date sent: Sun, 03 Aug 2008 01:10:01 -0500
Subject: [toeslist] Usury Question revived at AMI COnference
Send reply to: toeslist@yahoogroups.com
Dear Friends of the American Monetary Institute:
Please forward this to your friends and email lists.
First, attached is an essay called "Front running Humanity" which identifies speculation in oil as an "Enron like" attack against humanity, and describes how easy it would be for Congress to bring the nonsense to an end. It is copied below and can also be viewed at our website, at:
http://www.monetary.org/frontrunninghumanity.html
Second, the question of usury will be a central theme of our 4th Annual AMI Monetary Reform Conference at Roosevelt University in Chicago, September 25-28th. We're devoting an entire afternoon of expert speakers to usury, who approach it from a philosophical, religious and empirical standpoint. Here is how it appears in our conference brochure:
Two Themes of the Conference: Usury and Warfare
"First, This conference will examine the problem of usury. What is it exactly? Is it a necessary part of 'free market economics,' or is it a destroyer of nations, or is it both? How does monetary reform remove this problem? The present false definition of usury as excessive interest, was foisted on economics by Jeremy Bentham, who also devised utilitarianism - dropping morality in favor of supposed results. But the real concept of usury is the anti-social misuse of the money mechanism for private gain. The conference aims to help revive this classical concept of usury and relate it to how our present privatized monetary system malfunctions, for example in creating the present banking crisis." (see http://www.monetary .org/2008conference.html
We thank Bill Moyers and Bill Greider for moving towards the correct definition of usury on a recent Bill Moyer's Journal.
For a color schedule of speakers topics, photos and bios, including the developing Usury examination, please see
http://www.monetary.org/2008schedule.html
Thanks for your attention friends, and consider participating in the Conference September 25-28th. Clean, safe accommodations are available next door to Roosevelt for $31 per night! But act soon.
----------------------------------------------------
Stephen Zarlenga
Ami
"Front running"Against Humanity in the Oil Markets
"Front-Running" is an insiders´ term for an often illegal, always immoral practice in commodity and other markets. Here´s what happens: A broker holding a client´s order to buy at a certain price, instead buys for himself just in "front" of it. The clients order isn´t filled and the broker has an unfair advantage over other traders because he controls the client´s order which will buy the position back from him and protect his trade from a loss.
The client loses the opportunity to gain, where his order is never filled if the market moves away from his order point. If some participants can trade with little or no risk, over time everyone else is hurt.
Because Exchange Members´margin requirements are only about 1%, the front running brokers have a possibility of great gain quickly with almost no risk of loss.
Why is this important to "public policy?"
"Front running" is one way to view what criminal Enron executives did to California. They had the client´s non cancellable, inelastic "orders" to buy electricity and they grabbed the available supply in front of that, restricted the delivery process and extorted higher prices; blaming price rises on "market forces." Enron was bad enough, and Sarbanes-Oxley was passed to hold corporate officers criminally liable - a good law as judged by the corporate types screaming for its repeal. But apparently it didn´t go far enough as judged by the present bold attack against humanity taking place.
The manipulation of energy markets has widened from cheating the people of California, to a deadly attack on all humanity. That´s what allowing speculation in oil futures is doing today. These markets aren´t providing "price discovery" as apologists like to claim.
They´ve driven the price of oil to destructive levels. The damage has already been immense.
We´ve seen the devastating effects oil prices have had on airlines; trucking; food delivery and production; on average families trying to keep up with living costs; on restaurants and hotels Americans can no longer afford. Add your examples. It´s the speculation and hoarding that does it. Exxon couldn´t grab 12 $billion record 2nd quarter profits if their costs of obtaining oil were rising.
And so I put aside an outline for this paper when it appeared Congress would do its job -rescue the world economy from this pernicious vandalism, by limiting speculation in oil futures to a few contracts per account. That´s all it would take to stop the nonsense.
There´s no reason to allow speculators to position themselves between the world´s limited oil supplies, and those who have to use that oil to keep the world economy functioning. Such speculation leads directly to hardship, starvation, death and warfare. "Congress will finally fulfill its responsibility to act." I thought, but the measure failed in the Senate with 50 for, 43 against, and 7 not voting!
Why didn´t Congress act?
If this scenario is so clear and harsh, how could the Senate refuse to act? Are they a gang of demons?" No, but something potentially worse -we´re confronted with a bad idea that many people believe in - the sanctity of markets!
The vote exposes a faulty methodology - an ideology based on false axioms; a false view of markets that´s been strongly promoted, not questioned; with its negative effects not understood; that view gives markets a sacred character:
Don´t try to legislate against what the market does - market forces will crush your laws. (its omnipotent!)
Don´t try to instruct market behavior; it has inputs from millions of participants and knows more than your regulators ever could! (Its Omniscient.)
Do the right things and the market will reward you; misbehave and you will be punished! (Its benevolent.)
Well, omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence are attributes of a god, and Senators don´t often fight with god!
What´s sorely missing from these beliefs and assumptions is evidence!
Where´s the evidence that removing regulation from the airline industry had good effects?
Where´s the evidence that removing FCC restrictions on media ownership had good effects?
Where´s the evidence that removing government regulation from any industry has had good effects?
Of course it´s worse than that. It goes beyond a lack of evidence because there´s plenty of evidence to the contrary! Holding those beliefs requires ignoring loads of evidence: ignoring the damage done to the airlines by deregulation; the damage done by media concentration; the continuing damage done to America´s middle class; ignoring: (insert your favorite)
How can proponents of unregulated markets justify ignoring the facts? Its crazy, but it´s also a necessary part of their false methodology which loves theory but avoids experience - the facts. One of their leading "lights." economist Ludwig Von Mises, carries it to extreme levels actually claiming that facts cannot disprove his theories! So we are dealing with momentous errors of judgment and methodology. Though these men are in the U.S. Senate, they are thinking like scared children. But such errors belong in children´s sand boxes, not our nation´s halls of power.
This battle over methodology is an old fight. We even see it in our nation´s beginnings. Ben Franklin´s 1729 essay "The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency" gave the correct methodology when he summarized the ideas used to help Pennsylvania set up its paper money system in 1723 rescuing her from a prolonged usury crisis. Franklin told the world:
"Experience, more prevalent than all the logic in the world has fully convinced us all that paper money has been of the greatest benefit to the country."
Maybe as some Senators voted against stopping oil speculation, perhaps a more human inner voice rebelled against what they did. Was that voice stifled by an unholy combination of greed & selfishness, assuaged by their comforting though unsupported belief in the utility of unbridled selfishness and greed? The false notion that selfishness "works?"
The Senators are not demonic, but their ideology, summarized as "Market worship," which ignores the human part of the resulting tragedies, certainly is.
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9102
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
Economic Free Fall?
by Oscar » Sat Oct 18, 2008 7:33 pm
Economic Free Fall?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 8:21 AM
Subject: Economic Free Fall?
By William Greider/July 30, 2008/August 18, 2008
The bailouts are rewarding the very people and institutions whose reckless behavior caused this financial mess. Yet government demands nothing from them in return...... Washington ought to compel the financial players to rein in their appetite for profit in order to help save the country from a far worse fate: a depressed economy that cannot regain its normal energies.
The nation, meanwhile, is flirting with historic catastrophe. Nobody yet knows how bad it is ...The comparison may sound farfetched now, but US policy-makers and politicians are putting us at risk of historic deflationary forces that, once they take hold, are very difficult to reverse.
A more aggressive response from Washington would address the real economy's troubles as seriously as it does Wall Street's. ... Wall Street cannot get well this time if the economy remains stuck in the ditch. Washington needs to revive the "animal spirits" of the nation at large.
An agenda of deeper reforms can boost public confidence even as it undoes a lot of the damage caused by the financiers and bankers. Some suggestions:
§ Nationalize Fannie Mae and other government-supported enterprises instead of coddling them.
§ Resolve the democratic contradiction of "too big to fail" bailouts by dismantling the firms that are too big to fail--especially the newly created banking conglomerates that have done so much harm. Restore the boundaries between commercial banking and investment banking.....
§ Assign the Federal Reserve's regulatory role to a new public agency that is visible and politically accountable. Make the Fed a subsidiary agency of the Treasury Department ...
§ Begin the hard task of re-creating a regulated financial system Americans can trust, one that recognizes its obligations to the broad national interest. ..
§ Re-enact the federal law against usury. ... this would be a meaningful first step toward restoring moral obligations in the financial sector... Maybe in the deepening crisis, Washington will begin to grasp that money is also a moral issue.
fyi-janet
--------------------
Economic Free Fall?
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/greider
By William Greider/July 30, 2008/August 18, 2008
edition of The Nation.
Washington can act with breathtaking urgency when the right people want something done. In this case, the people are Wall Street's titans, who are scared witless at the prospect of their historic implosion. Congress quickly agreed to enact a gargantuan bailout, with more to come, to calm the anxieties and halt the deflation of Wall Street giants. Put aside partisan bickering, no time for hearings, no need to think through the deeper implications. We haven't seen "bipartisan cooperation" like this since Washington decided to invade Iraq.
In their haste to do anything the financial guys seem to want, Congress and the lame-duck President are, I fear, sowing far more profound troubles for the country. First, while throwing our money at Wall Street, government is neglecting the grave risk of a deeper catastrophe for the real economy of producers and consumers. Second, Washington's selective generosity for influential financial losers is deforming democracy and opening the path to an awesomely powerful corporate state. Third, the rescue has not succeeded, not yet.
Banking faces huge losses ahead, and informed insiders assume a far larger federal bailout will be needed--after the election. No one wants to upset voters by talking about it now. The next President, once in office, can break the bad news. It's not only about the money--with debate silenced, a dangerous line has been crossed. Hundreds of billions in open-ended relief has been delivered to the largest and most powerful mega-banks and investment firms, while government offers only weak gestures of sympathy for struggling producers, workers and consumers.
The bailouts are rewarding the very people and institutions whose reckless behavior caused this financial mess. Yet government demands nothing from them in return--like new rules for prudent behavior and explicit obligations to serve the national interest. Washington ought to compel the financial players to rein in their appetite for profit in order to help save the country from a far worse fate: a depressedeconomy that cannot regain its normal energies. Instead, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the Democratic Congress and of course the Republicans meekly defer to the wise men of high finance, who no longer seem so all-knowing.
Let's review the bidding to date. After panic swept through the global financial community this spring, the Federal Reserve and Treasury rushed in to arrange a sweetheart rescue for Bear Stearns, expending $29 billion to take over the brokerage's ruined assets so JPMorgan Chase, the prestigious banking conglomerate, would agree to buy what was left. At the same time, the Fed and Treasury provided a series of emergency loans and liquidity for endangered investment firms and major banks. Investors were not persuaded. Their panic was not "mental," as former McCain adviser Phil Gramm recently complained. The collapse of the housing bubble had revealed the deep rot and duplicity within the financial system. When investors tried to sell off huge portfolios of spoiled financial assets like mortgage bonds, nobody would buy them. In fact, no one can yet say how much these once esteemed "safe" investments are really worth.
The big banks and investment houses are also stuck with lots of bad paper, and some have dumped it on their unwitting customers. The largest banks and brokerages have already lost enormously, but lending portfolios must shrink a lot more--at least $1 trillion, some estimate. So wary shareholders are naturally dumping financial-sector stocks.
Most recently, the investors' fears were turned on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the huge quasi-private corporations that package and circulate trillions in debt securities with implicit federal backing.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (formerly of Goldman Sachs) boldly proposed a $300 billion commitment to buy up Fannie Mae stock and save the plunging share price--that is, save the shareholders from their mistakes. So much for market discipline. For everyone else, Washington recommends a cold shower.
Talk about warped priorities! The government puts up $29 billion as a "sweetener" for JP Morgan but can only come up with $4 billion for Cleveland, Detroit and other urban ruins. Even the mortgage-relief bill is a tepid gesture. It basically asks, but does not compel, the bankers to act kindlier toward millions of defaulting families.
A generation of conservative propaganda, arguing that markets make wiser decisions than government, has been destroyed by these events. The interventions amount to socialism, American style, in which the government decides which private enterprises are "too big to fail." Trouble is, it was the government itself that created most of these mastodons--including the all-purpose banking conglomerates. The mega-banks arose in the 1990s, when a Democratic President and Republican Congress repealed the New Deal-era Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented commercial banks from blending their business with investment banking. That combination was the source of incestuous self-dealing and fraudulent stock valuations that led directly to the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed.
Even before Congress and Bill Clinton repealed the law, the Federal Reserve had aggressively cleared the way by unilaterally authorizing Citigroup to cross the line. Wall Street proceeded, with accounting tricks described as "modernization," to re-create the same scandals from the 1920s in more sophisticated fashion. The financial crisis began when these gimmicky innovations blew up.
Democrats who imagine they can reap partisan advantage from this crisis don't know the history. The blame is bipartisan; so also is the disgrace. In 1980, before Ronald Reagan even came to town, Democrats deregulated the financial system by repealing federal interest-rate ceilings and other regulatory restraints--a step that doomed the savings and loan industry and eliminated a major competitor for the bankers. Democrats have collaborated with Republicans on behalf of their financial patrons every step of the way.
The same legislation also repealed the federal law prohibiting usury--the predatory practices that ruin debtors of modest means by lending on terms that ensure borrowers will fail. Usurious lending is now commonplace in America, from credit cards and "payday loans" to the notorious subprime mortgages. The prohibition on usury really involves an ancient moral principle, one common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam: people of great wealth must not be allowed to use it to ruin others who lack the same advantages. A decent society cannot endure it.
The fast-acting politicians may hope to cover over their past mistakes before the public figures out what's happening (that is, who is screwing whom). But the Federal Reserve has a similar reason to move aggressively: the Fed was a central architect and agitator in creating the circumstances that led to the collapse in Wall Street's financial worth. The central bank tipped its monetary policy hard in one direction--favoring capital over labor, creditors over debtors, finance over the real economy--and held it there for roughly twenty-five years.
On one side, it targeted wages and restrained economic growth to make sure workers could not bargain for higher compensation in slack labor markets. On the other side, it stripped away or refused to enforce prudential regulations that restrained the excesses of banking and finance. In The Nation a few years back, I referred to Alan Greenspan as the "one-eyed chairman" [September 19, 2005] who could see inflation in
the real economy--even when it didn't exist--but was blind to the roaring inflation in the financial system.
The Fed's lopsided focus on behalf of the monied interests, combined with its refusal to apply regulatory laws with due diligence, eventually destabilized the overall economy. Trying to correct for previous errors,
the Fed, with its overzealous free-market ideology, swung monetary policy back and forth to extremes, first tightening credit without good reason, then rapidly cutting interest rates to nearly zero. This erratic behavior encouraged a series of financial bubbles in interest-sensitive assets--first the stock market, during the late 1990s tech-stock boom, then housing--but the Fed declined to do anything or even admit the bubbles existed. The nation is now stuck with the consequences of its blindness.
The Federal Reserve's dereliction of duty is central to the financial failures. It betrayed the purpose for which the central bank was first created, in 1913, abandoning the sense of balance the Fed had long pursued and that Congress requires. Most politicians, not to mention the press, are too intimidated to question the Fed's daunting power, but their ignorance is about to compound the problem. Instead of demanding answers, the political system is about to expand the Fed's governing powers--despite its failure to protect us. Treasury Secretary Paulson proposed and Democratic leaders have agreed to make the insulated Fed the "supercop" that oversees not only commercial banks and banking conglomerates but also the largest investment houses or anyone else big enough to destabilize the system. This "reform" would definitely reassure club members who are already too cozy with the central bankers. Everyone else would be left deeper in the dark.
The political system, once again, is rewarding failure. The Fed is an unreliable watchdog, ideologically biased and compromised by its conflicting obligations. Is it supposed to discipline the big money players or keep them afloat? Putting the secretive central bank in charge, with its unlimited powers to prop up troubled firms, would further eviscerate democracy, not to mention economic justice.
If Congress enacts this concept early next year, the privileged group of protected financial interests is sure to grow larger, because other nonfinancial firms could devise ways to reconfigure themselves so they too would qualify for club membership. A very large manufacturing conglomerate--General Electric, for instance--might absorb elements of banking in order to be covered by the Fed's umbrella (GE Capital is already among the largest pools of investment capital). Private-equity firms, with their buccaneer style of corporate management, are already trying to buy into banking, with encouragement from the Fed (the Service Employees International Union has mounted a campaign to stop them). A new President could stop the whole deal, of course, but John McCain has surrounded himself with influential advisers who were co-architects of this financial disaster. For that matter, so has Barack Obama.
The nation, meanwhile, is flirting with historic catastrophe. Nobody yet knows how bad it is, but the peril is vastly larger than previous episodes, like the savings and loan bailout of the late 1980s. The dangers are compounded by the fact that the United States is now utterly dependent on foreign creditors--Japan and China lead the list--who have been propping us up with their lending. Thanks to growing trade deficits and debt, foreign portfolio holdings of US long-term debt securities have more than doubled since 1994, from 7.9 percent to 18.8 percent as of June 2007. If these countries get fed up with their losses and pull the plug, the US economy will be a long, long time coming back. The gravest danger is that the national economy will weaken further and spiral downward into a negative cycle that feeds on itself: as conditions darken, people hunker down and wait for the storm to pass--consumers stop buying, banks stop lending, producing companies cut their workforces. That feeds more defaulted loan losses back into the banking system's balance sheets. This vicious cycle is essentially what led to the Great Depression after the stock market crash of 1929. I offer not a prediction but a warning. The comparison may sound farfetched now, but US policy-makers and politicians are putting us at risk of historic deflationary forces that, once they take hold, are very difficult to reverse.
A more aggressive response from Washington would address the real economy's troubles as seriously as it does Wall Street's. Financial firms have lost capital on a huge scale--more of them will fail or be bought by foreign investors. But Wall Street cannot get well this time if the economy remains stuck in the ditch. Washington needs to revive the "animal spirits" of the nation at large. The $152 billion stimulus package enacted so far is piddling and ought to be three or four times larger. Instead of sending the money to Iraq, we should be spending it here on getting people back to work, building and repairing our tattered infrastructure, investing in worthwhile projects that can help stimulate the economy in rough weather.
An agenda of deeper reforms can boost public confidence even as it undoes a lot of the damage caused by the financiers and bankers. Some suggestions:
§ Nationalize Fannie Mae and other government-supported enterprises instead of coddling them. Restore them to their original status as nonprofit federal agencies that provide a valuable service to housing and other markets. Make the investors eat their losses. Buy the shares at 2 cents on the dollar. Without a federal guarantee, these firms are doomed anyway.
§ Resolve the democratic contradiction of "too big to fail" bailouts by dismantling the firms that are too big to fail--especially the newly created banking conglomerates that have done so much harm.
Restore the boundaries between commercial banking and investment banking. In any case, market pressures are likely to shrink those behemoths as banks sell off their parts to survive. For the remaining big boys, revive antitrust enforcement. Set stern new conditions for emergency lending from government--supervised receivership, stricter lending rules to prevent recidivism and severe penalties for greed-crazed shareholders and executives.
§ Assign the Federal Reserve's regulatory role to a new public agency that is visible and politically accountable. Make the Fed a subsidiary agency of the Treasury Department and reform its decision-making on money and credit to restore an equitable balance between competing goals and interests--seeking full employment but also stable money and moderate inflation.
§ Begin the hard task of re-creating a regulated financial system Americans can trust, one that recognizes its obligations to the broad national interest. This requires regulatory reforms to cover moneypots like private-equity funds and to clear away the blatant conflicts of interest and double-dealing on Wall Street, and also to give responsible shareholders, workers and other interests a greater voice in corporate management and greater protection against rip-offs of personal savings.
§ Re-enact the federal law against usury. The details are difficult and can follow later, but this would be a meaningful first step toward restoring moral obligations in the financial sector. People would understand it, and so would a lot of the money guys. Maybe in the deepening crisis, Washington will begin to grasp that money is also a moral issue. Copyright © 2008 The Nation
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet M Eaton" <jmeaton@ns.sympatico.ca>
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 8:21 AM
Subject: Economic Free Fall?
By William Greider/July 30, 2008/August 18, 2008
The bailouts are rewarding the very people and institutions whose reckless behavior caused this financial mess. Yet government demands nothing from them in return...... Washington ought to compel the financial players to rein in their appetite for profit in order to help save the country from a far worse fate: a depressed economy that cannot regain its normal energies.
The nation, meanwhile, is flirting with historic catastrophe. Nobody yet knows how bad it is ...The comparison may sound farfetched now, but US policy-makers and politicians are putting us at risk of historic deflationary forces that, once they take hold, are very difficult to reverse.
A more aggressive response from Washington would address the real economy's troubles as seriously as it does Wall Street's. ... Wall Street cannot get well this time if the economy remains stuck in the ditch. Washington needs to revive the "animal spirits" of the nation at large.
An agenda of deeper reforms can boost public confidence even as it undoes a lot of the damage caused by the financiers and bankers. Some suggestions:
§ Nationalize Fannie Mae and other government-supported enterprises instead of coddling them.
§ Resolve the democratic contradiction of "too big to fail" bailouts by dismantling the firms that are too big to fail--especially the newly created banking conglomerates that have done so much harm. Restore the boundaries between commercial banking and investment banking.....
§ Assign the Federal Reserve's regulatory role to a new public agency that is visible and politically accountable. Make the Fed a subsidiary agency of the Treasury Department ...
§ Begin the hard task of re-creating a regulated financial system Americans can trust, one that recognizes its obligations to the broad national interest. ..
§ Re-enact the federal law against usury. ... this would be a meaningful first step toward restoring moral obligations in the financial sector... Maybe in the deepening crisis, Washington will begin to grasp that money is also a moral issue.
fyi-janet
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Economic Free Fall?
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/greider
By William Greider/July 30, 2008/August 18, 2008
edition of The Nation.
Washington can act with breathtaking urgency when the right people want something done. In this case, the people are Wall Street's titans, who are scared witless at the prospect of their historic implosion. Congress quickly agreed to enact a gargantuan bailout, with more to come, to calm the anxieties and halt the deflation of Wall Street giants. Put aside partisan bickering, no time for hearings, no need to think through the deeper implications. We haven't seen "bipartisan cooperation" like this since Washington decided to invade Iraq.
In their haste to do anything the financial guys seem to want, Congress and the lame-duck President are, I fear, sowing far more profound troubles for the country. First, while throwing our money at Wall Street, government is neglecting the grave risk of a deeper catastrophe for the real economy of producers and consumers. Second, Washington's selective generosity for influential financial losers is deforming democracy and opening the path to an awesomely powerful corporate state. Third, the rescue has not succeeded, not yet.
Banking faces huge losses ahead, and informed insiders assume a far larger federal bailout will be needed--after the election. No one wants to upset voters by talking about it now. The next President, once in office, can break the bad news. It's not only about the money--with debate silenced, a dangerous line has been crossed. Hundreds of billions in open-ended relief has been delivered to the largest and most powerful mega-banks and investment firms, while government offers only weak gestures of sympathy for struggling producers, workers and consumers.
The bailouts are rewarding the very people and institutions whose reckless behavior caused this financial mess. Yet government demands nothing from them in return--like new rules for prudent behavior and explicit obligations to serve the national interest. Washington ought to compel the financial players to rein in their appetite for profit in order to help save the country from a far worse fate: a depressedeconomy that cannot regain its normal energies. Instead, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the Democratic Congress and of course the Republicans meekly defer to the wise men of high finance, who no longer seem so all-knowing.
Let's review the bidding to date. After panic swept through the global financial community this spring, the Federal Reserve and Treasury rushed in to arrange a sweetheart rescue for Bear Stearns, expending $29 billion to take over the brokerage's ruined assets so JPMorgan Chase, the prestigious banking conglomerate, would agree to buy what was left. At the same time, the Fed and Treasury provided a series of emergency loans and liquidity for endangered investment firms and major banks. Investors were not persuaded. Their panic was not "mental," as former McCain adviser Phil Gramm recently complained. The collapse of the housing bubble had revealed the deep rot and duplicity within the financial system. When investors tried to sell off huge portfolios of spoiled financial assets like mortgage bonds, nobody would buy them. In fact, no one can yet say how much these once esteemed "safe" investments are really worth.
The big banks and investment houses are also stuck with lots of bad paper, and some have dumped it on their unwitting customers. The largest banks and brokerages have already lost enormously, but lending portfolios must shrink a lot more--at least $1 trillion, some estimate. So wary shareholders are naturally dumping financial-sector stocks.
Most recently, the investors' fears were turned on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the huge quasi-private corporations that package and circulate trillions in debt securities with implicit federal backing.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (formerly of Goldman Sachs) boldly proposed a $300 billion commitment to buy up Fannie Mae stock and save the plunging share price--that is, save the shareholders from their mistakes. So much for market discipline. For everyone else, Washington recommends a cold shower.
Talk about warped priorities! The government puts up $29 billion as a "sweetener" for JP Morgan but can only come up with $4 billion for Cleveland, Detroit and other urban ruins. Even the mortgage-relief bill is a tepid gesture. It basically asks, but does not compel, the bankers to act kindlier toward millions of defaulting families.
A generation of conservative propaganda, arguing that markets make wiser decisions than government, has been destroyed by these events. The interventions amount to socialism, American style, in which the government decides which private enterprises are "too big to fail." Trouble is, it was the government itself that created most of these mastodons--including the all-purpose banking conglomerates. The mega-banks arose in the 1990s, when a Democratic President and Republican Congress repealed the New Deal-era Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented commercial banks from blending their business with investment banking. That combination was the source of incestuous self-dealing and fraudulent stock valuations that led directly to the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed.
Even before Congress and Bill Clinton repealed the law, the Federal Reserve had aggressively cleared the way by unilaterally authorizing Citigroup to cross the line. Wall Street proceeded, with accounting tricks described as "modernization," to re-create the same scandals from the 1920s in more sophisticated fashion. The financial crisis began when these gimmicky innovations blew up.
Democrats who imagine they can reap partisan advantage from this crisis don't know the history. The blame is bipartisan; so also is the disgrace. In 1980, before Ronald Reagan even came to town, Democrats deregulated the financial system by repealing federal interest-rate ceilings and other regulatory restraints--a step that doomed the savings and loan industry and eliminated a major competitor for the bankers. Democrats have collaborated with Republicans on behalf of their financial patrons every step of the way.
The same legislation also repealed the federal law prohibiting usury--the predatory practices that ruin debtors of modest means by lending on terms that ensure borrowers will fail. Usurious lending is now commonplace in America, from credit cards and "payday loans" to the notorious subprime mortgages. The prohibition on usury really involves an ancient moral principle, one common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam: people of great wealth must not be allowed to use it to ruin others who lack the same advantages. A decent society cannot endure it.
The fast-acting politicians may hope to cover over their past mistakes before the public figures out what's happening (that is, who is screwing whom). But the Federal Reserve has a similar reason to move aggressively: the Fed was a central architect and agitator in creating the circumstances that led to the collapse in Wall Street's financial worth. The central bank tipped its monetary policy hard in one direction--favoring capital over labor, creditors over debtors, finance over the real economy--and held it there for roughly twenty-five years.
On one side, it targeted wages and restrained economic growth to make sure workers could not bargain for higher compensation in slack labor markets. On the other side, it stripped away or refused to enforce prudential regulations that restrained the excesses of banking and finance. In The Nation a few years back, I referred to Alan Greenspan as the "one-eyed chairman" [September 19, 2005] who could see inflation in
the real economy--even when it didn't exist--but was blind to the roaring inflation in the financial system.
The Fed's lopsided focus on behalf of the monied interests, combined with its refusal to apply regulatory laws with due diligence, eventually destabilized the overall economy. Trying to correct for previous errors,
the Fed, with its overzealous free-market ideology, swung monetary policy back and forth to extremes, first tightening credit without good reason, then rapidly cutting interest rates to nearly zero. This erratic behavior encouraged a series of financial bubbles in interest-sensitive assets--first the stock market, during the late 1990s tech-stock boom, then housing--but the Fed declined to do anything or even admit the bubbles existed. The nation is now stuck with the consequences of its blindness.
The Federal Reserve's dereliction of duty is central to the financial failures. It betrayed the purpose for which the central bank was first created, in 1913, abandoning the sense of balance the Fed had long pursued and that Congress requires. Most politicians, not to mention the press, are too intimidated to question the Fed's daunting power, but their ignorance is about to compound the problem. Instead of demanding answers, the political system is about to expand the Fed's governing powers--despite its failure to protect us. Treasury Secretary Paulson proposed and Democratic leaders have agreed to make the insulated Fed the "supercop" that oversees not only commercial banks and banking conglomerates but also the largest investment houses or anyone else big enough to destabilize the system. This "reform" would definitely reassure club members who are already too cozy with the central bankers. Everyone else would be left deeper in the dark.
The political system, once again, is rewarding failure. The Fed is an unreliable watchdog, ideologically biased and compromised by its conflicting obligations. Is it supposed to discipline the big money players or keep them afloat? Putting the secretive central bank in charge, with its unlimited powers to prop up troubled firms, would further eviscerate democracy, not to mention economic justice.
If Congress enacts this concept early next year, the privileged group of protected financial interests is sure to grow larger, because other nonfinancial firms could devise ways to reconfigure themselves so they too would qualify for club membership. A very large manufacturing conglomerate--General Electric, for instance--might absorb elements of banking in order to be covered by the Fed's umbrella (GE Capital is already among the largest pools of investment capital). Private-equity firms, with their buccaneer style of corporate management, are already trying to buy into banking, with encouragement from the Fed (the Service Employees International Union has mounted a campaign to stop them). A new President could stop the whole deal, of course, but John McCain has surrounded himself with influential advisers who were co-architects of this financial disaster. For that matter, so has Barack Obama.
The nation, meanwhile, is flirting with historic catastrophe. Nobody yet knows how bad it is, but the peril is vastly larger than previous episodes, like the savings and loan bailout of the late 1980s. The dangers are compounded by the fact that the United States is now utterly dependent on foreign creditors--Japan and China lead the list--who have been propping us up with their lending. Thanks to growing trade deficits and debt, foreign portfolio holdings of US long-term debt securities have more than doubled since 1994, from 7.9 percent to 18.8 percent as of June 2007. If these countries get fed up with their losses and pull the plug, the US economy will be a long, long time coming back. The gravest danger is that the national economy will weaken further and spiral downward into a negative cycle that feeds on itself: as conditions darken, people hunker down and wait for the storm to pass--consumers stop buying, banks stop lending, producing companies cut their workforces. That feeds more defaulted loan losses back into the banking system's balance sheets. This vicious cycle is essentially what led to the Great Depression after the stock market crash of 1929. I offer not a prediction but a warning. The comparison may sound farfetched now, but US policy-makers and politicians are putting us at risk of historic deflationary forces that, once they take hold, are very difficult to reverse.
A more aggressive response from Washington would address the real economy's troubles as seriously as it does Wall Street's. Financial firms have lost capital on a huge scale--more of them will fail or be bought by foreign investors. But Wall Street cannot get well this time if the economy remains stuck in the ditch. Washington needs to revive the "animal spirits" of the nation at large. The $152 billion stimulus package enacted so far is piddling and ought to be three or four times larger. Instead of sending the money to Iraq, we should be spending it here on getting people back to work, building and repairing our tattered infrastructure, investing in worthwhile projects that can help stimulate the economy in rough weather.
An agenda of deeper reforms can boost public confidence even as it undoes a lot of the damage caused by the financiers and bankers. Some suggestions:
§ Nationalize Fannie Mae and other government-supported enterprises instead of coddling them. Restore them to their original status as nonprofit federal agencies that provide a valuable service to housing and other markets. Make the investors eat their losses. Buy the shares at 2 cents on the dollar. Without a federal guarantee, these firms are doomed anyway.
§ Resolve the democratic contradiction of "too big to fail" bailouts by dismantling the firms that are too big to fail--especially the newly created banking conglomerates that have done so much harm.
Restore the boundaries between commercial banking and investment banking. In any case, market pressures are likely to shrink those behemoths as banks sell off their parts to survive. For the remaining big boys, revive antitrust enforcement. Set stern new conditions for emergency lending from government--supervised receivership, stricter lending rules to prevent recidivism and severe penalties for greed-crazed shareholders and executives.
§ Assign the Federal Reserve's regulatory role to a new public agency that is visible and politically accountable. Make the Fed a subsidiary agency of the Treasury Department and reform its decision-making on money and credit to restore an equitable balance between competing goals and interests--seeking full employment but also stable money and moderate inflation.
§ Begin the hard task of re-creating a regulated financial system Americans can trust, one that recognizes its obligations to the broad national interest. This requires regulatory reforms to cover moneypots like private-equity funds and to clear away the blatant conflicts of interest and double-dealing on Wall Street, and also to give responsible shareholders, workers and other interests a greater voice in corporate management and greater protection against rip-offs of personal savings.
§ Re-enact the federal law against usury. The details are difficult and can follow later, but this would be a meaningful first step toward restoring moral obligations in the financial sector. People would understand it, and so would a lot of the money guys. Maybe in the deepening crisis, Washington will begin to grasp that money is also a moral issue. Copyright © 2008 The Nation
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