Take a real good look as the corporately-selected field of candidates
narrows down to McCain, Romney, Clinton and Obama. And then ask
yourself what 2 things they all have in common.
One, they are all going to vastly increase the number of foreign visa
holders that are allowed into this country, each year, to take YOUR
jobs. Two, they are all going to give Amnesty to 10 to 30 million
Illegal Aliens that are walking over American Citizens as if they were
door mats.
And what is becoming transparently clear is this is all being
orchestrated by a Corporate and Media elite who are, in fact, one and
the same thing. So for the next 8 months YOU will get to decide
which of these assholes you dislike the least. Some democracy we
have, is it not?
And I hope you're at least as befuddled as I. After all, the
American People rose up in the last 2 years to soundly defeat 2 attempts
by Congress to implement an "Illegal Amnesty" Bill that would have given
up to 30 million Illegal Aliens US Citizenship. Yet here we are
approaching the 2008 Presidential Election without a single viable
candidate that will put a stop to both Legal and Illegal Immigration.
And this is all happening as we find ourselves in one of the most
precarious economic situations we have endured since the Great
Depression.
It makes one mad enough to either grab a bottle of Jack Daniels or a
Shotgun. Well, I for one, am not an advocate for violence but I
can see that our options are quickly thinning.
At any rate I'm just recovering from the flu at the moment. In
the meantime please read through the archives: especially the "January
08" edition. [January
08, 2008]
In addition watch the following videos on Hillary Clinton's cozy
relationship with the elite. After watching through these videos I
feel both Clintons don't belong back in the Whitehouse -- they belong in
a prison cell:
Comment: If you think
Obama is actually better than Hillary or McCain let me disabuse you of
that notion. This little Globalist "Oreo Cookie" is now supporting
the "Global Poverty Act" which will ban the ownership of guns and impose
a 846 Billion UN Tax. Just what we need futhermucker. Of
course this means there are no viable candidates worth voting for this
November. Of course, many of you have already figured that one
out.
Obama Pushes Bill That Would Mandate Global Tax
Senate to vote on legislation that would cost U.S. $845 billion, also
enables UN to implement gun bans
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Thursday, February 14th, 2008
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/february2008/021408_global_tax.htm
Presidential frontrunner Barack Obama is pushing a bill that will lead
to the implementation of a UN global tax, costing the U.S. at least $845
billion dollars over thirteen years in the name of fighting worldwide
poverty, as well as banning "small arms and light weapons".
The "Global Poverty Act," which is sponsored by Obama, is up for a
Senate vote today, and if passed would mandate the U.S. to spend 0.7
percent of the gross national product on foreign aid, on top of the
money being sent out of the country already.
The bill passed the House by a voice vote last year because most members
failed to read what was actually in it. The words "global" and "poverty"
in the title were presumably enough to convince them that it must be
good.
In reality, the bill also "Commits nations to banning "small arms and
light weapons" and ratifying a series of treaties, including the
International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming
treaty), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the
Convention on the Rights of the Child," writes Cliff Kincaid.
"Jeffrey Sachs, who runs the U.N.'s "Millennium Project," says that the
U.N. plan to force the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of GNP in increased
foreign aid spending would add $65 billion a year to what the U.S.
already spends. Over a 13-year period, from 2002, when the U.N.'s
Financing for Development conference was held, to the target year of
2015, when the U.S. is expected to meet the "Millennium Development
Goals," this amounts to $845 billion. And the only way to raise that
kind of money, Sachs has written, is through a global tax, preferably on
carbon-emitting fossil fuels."
A UN controlled global tax has long been a cherished goal of the elite
and they have attempted to piggy-back it on numerous different pretexts,
most recently via a global carbon tax on fuel, a move that was advanced
at the recent summit in Bali.
During the summit, over one hundred prominent scientists signed a letter
dismissing the move as a futile bureaucratic scheme which will diminish
prosperity and increase human suffering.
In 2005, former French President Jacques Chirac called for the
imposition of a global tax to finance the fight against AIDS.
Perfectly happy with giving Bush carte blanche to continue illegal
spying on American citizens with the passage of this week's telecom
immunity bill, the Senate seems destined to rubber stamp legislation
that would lead to a global carbon tax.
President Bush has overseen the biggest increase in foreign aid since
the Marshall Plan and is highly unlikely to veto the bill if it is
passed.
Contact the Senate and voice your opposition to this bill. Call the
switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and asked to be connected to the office of
your Senator.
I think the following article
helps explain why this is so important, especially right now:
Evan Bayh, the Indiana Democrat and chairman of the Senate’s banking
subcommittee on security and international trade and finance, this week
urged Congress to enact formal rules on sovereign wealth funds.
Sovereign funds -- money pools controlled by foreign governments -- have
made billions of investments in U.S. banks and corporations in recent
months.
Now bigger than hedge funds, 28 countries control now more than $2.8
trillion. Investment banks estimate that figure could reach $12 trillion
-- nearly the size of the entire U.S. economy -- in eight years.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Bayh argued that while foreign
investment is important to America, the lack of regulation is a huge
risk that the country cannot continue to run.
Bayh pointed out that the idea of our own government buying up bank
stocks would be shocking, even called "socialism,” yet we seem less
concerned about foreign governments, some of them nominally communist,
owning large chunks of major Wall Street banks.
"As Americans, we realize the folly of allowing our government to own
our private companies, yet paradoxically, some appear far less alarmed
by the prospect of another country's government doing the same,” Bayh
wrote.
Bayh wrote that foreign investment has been a key driver of economic
developing since the first British colony at Jamestown, in 1606, before
the country’s founding.
The forefathers understood the importance of welcoming outside financial
support.
"It would be folly to prohibit these investments. Allowing funds to be
reinvested in America mitigates the consequences of transferring so much
wealth abroad for energy and consumption,” Bayh wrote.
"It also strengthens our economy, creates jobs, improves productivity
and keeps interest rates low,” the senator wrote.
Yet now it is governments, not companies, making the investments, a
crucial difference, Bayh wrote.
Meanwhile, the current atmosphere of low regulation and massive
sovereign investments into U.S. companies raises serious questions –-
questions almost no one seems willing to ask.
It’s a serious risk, Bayh wrote.
"Sovereign nations have interests other than maximizing profits and can
be expected to pursue them with every tool at their disposal, including
financial power,” the senator wrote.
"For this reason, Congress must establish standards for transparency and
behavior now to prevent unwarranted interference in our economy by
foreign governments,” Bayh wrote.
Waiting for a world agency to step in would be a mistake. Bayh wrote.
The United States must promulgate and enforce its own rules.
"It would be a mistake to give a multinational organization like the
International Monetary Fund responsibility for oversight, because the
IMF lacks enforcement power and has proven ineffective in discharging
many of its current responsibilities,” Bayh wrote.
The answer, Bayh wrote, is to require government-run investment funds to
invest "passively,” without taking management roles or board seats in
the companies in which they chose to invest, as Gulf oil states have
long done.
Of particular concern are the rising profiles of formerly or nominally
communist nations now investing heavily or about to invest in U.S.
corporations.
"Russia's recent behavior and China's drive for economic advantage -–
including rampant intellectual property theft, currency manipulation and
subsidies for manufacture and export -– raise serious concerns about how
sovereign funds might be used,” Bayh wrote.
Bayh noted that there are rules regarding investment review, but that
they are normally triggered at the level of 10 percent ownership.
And, he wrote, influence over a company can be had simply by being a
large shareholder without necessarily controlling board seats -– if the
company is desperate enough for cash.
"If sovereign wealth funds become the global investor of last resort,
recipients of their largess in times of distress will have enormous
incentives to comply with all manner of requests,” Bayh warned.
"American business often works in this informal way, and we should
anticipate that deals involving foreign governments will be no
exception,” he wrote.
Bayh is not against globalization of capital. The freer movement of
money bring benefits, including to the U.S. economy.
However, oversight, Bayh wrote, is sorely lacking.
"Occasionally, foreign governments will have agendas different from our
own. They will pursue them using all resources at their disposal,
including financial levers,” Bay wrote.
"No great nation can permit such interference with its sovereignty.”
I've just started a new section of the NAC website: Dearborn-istan
This section of "New Age Citizen" will be dedicated to uncover
various issues concerning the Middle-Eastern (ME) community in Dearborn,
Dearborn Heights and the larger area of SE Michigan. While I
personally believe that most ME's are upstanding citizens of this great
republic it is also obvious that there is a minority that is defrauding
the system, is involved in organized crime and is pushing for the
"Islamification" of the United States.
"Dearborn-istan" is also consistent with 2 of the planks of the "New
Agenda for America":
Plank 2: A 20-year moratorium on all immigration into the
United States. Plank 5: A strict enforcement on issues of Separation of Church
and State.
As with the NAC homepage, we will be archiving the older articles and
listing the new stuff at this page. Hopefully, this will lead to
an integration of the ME community in a way that preserves the
inalienable rights to free speech as enumerated in the US Constitution
and Bill of Rights.
Burning Down The House:
Depression Looms
James Howard Kunstler Tuesday, 12 February 2008
http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/324/
This new depression, which I call The Long Emergency, will play out
against the background of a society that has pissed away its oil
endowment, bulldozed its factories, arbitraged its productive labor,
destroyed both family farms and the commercial infrastructure of main
street, and trained its population to become overfed diabetic TV zombie
"consumers" of other peoples' productivity, paid for by "money" they
haven't earned.
Behind all the blather and bullshit about the Federal Reserve's rescue
gambits and the machinations of the ratings agencies, and the wiles of
foreign sovereign wealth, and the incomprehensible mysteries of markets,
and the various weather forecasts of a gathering "recession" is the
simple fact that the USA is a way poorer nation than we imagined
ourselves to be six months ago. The American economy has been running on
the fumes of "creatively engineered" finance (i.e. new-and-improved
swindling) for years, and now these swindles are unraveling. In their
aftermath, they leave empty wallets, drained bank accounts, plundered
retirements funds, boiled away capital reserves, worthless stocks,
bankrupt companies, vandalized housing tracts, ruined families, and Wall
Street executives who are still pulling down multimillion-dollar pay
packages despite running their companies into the ground.
We're burning down the house and kidding ourselves that there is a
remedy for it. All the rate cuts and loans to big banks and bank-like
corporate organisms, and "monoline" bond insurers, and mortgage mills
amount to little more than a final desperate shell game to conceal the
radioactive pea of aggregate loss. The losses are everywhere, and when
you add up seven billion here and eleven billion there they probably
amount to something like a trillion dollars in sheer capital evaporation
-- not counting the abstract "positions" that the capital was leveraged
onto by the playerz and boyz who mistook algorithms for productive
activity.
The shell game may run a few more weeks but personally I believe the
timbers are burning. The losses are no longer "contained" or
concealable. A consensus has now formed that we're in for a "recession."
The idea is that, yes, this seems to be the low arc of the business
cycle. Fewer Hamptons villas will be redecorated in the interim. We'll
gird our loins and get through the bad weather and when the sun shines
again, we'll be ready with new algorithms for new sport-with-capital.
Uh-uh. Think again. This is not so much financial bad weather as
financial climate change. Something is happenin' Mr Jones, and you don't
know what it is, do ya? There has been too much misbehavior and it can
no longer be mitigated. We're not heading into a recession but a major
depression, worse than the fabled trauma of the 1930s. That one occurred
against the background of a society that had plenty of everything except
money. Back then, we had plenty of mineral resources, lots of
trained-and-regimented manpower, millions of productive family farms,
factories that were practically new, and more than 90 percent left of
the greatest petroleum reserve anywhere in the world. It took a world
war to get all that stuff humming cooperatively again, and once it did,
we devoted its productive capacity to building an empire of happy
motoring leisure. (Tragic choice there.)
This new depression, which I call The Long Emergency, will play out
against the background of a society that has pissed away its oil
endowment, bulldozed its factories, arbitraged its productive labor,
destroyed both family farms and the commercial infrastructure of main
street, and trained its population to become overfed diabetic TV zombie
"consumers" of other peoples' productivity, paid for by "money" they
haven't earned.
There is a theory (see Nouriel Roubini's blog) that a reform process
will now ensue in the financial realm, new regulation and oversight of
the same old familiar activities. This too, I'm afraid, will prove to be
wishful thinking. The financial system will not be reformed until it
lies in smoking wreckage, and when that "re-form" happens the armature
of the re-organizing society will barely resemble the one that the
previous burnt-down-house was designed to dwell in. Among other things,
it will not support capital enterprise at anything like the scale that
we became accustomed to lately. Globalism will be over. The great
nations of the world will be scrambling desperately for the world's
remaining oil supplies. It will not be a friendly contest, and anyone
who thinks that current trade relations and capital flows will continue
despite that is liable to be disappointed. (Are you reading this Tom
Friedman?)
Long before the mathematical projections of oil depletion play out, the
oil markets themselves -- and all the complex operations that they
comprise, such as drilling and exploration, and the movement of tankers
around the planet -- will destabilize and seize up. We will no longer be
any oil exporter's "favored customer." Many of the exporters will enjoy
watching us suffer. Contrary to the political platitude-du-jour, the USA
will never become "energy independent" in the way we currently imagine.
Rather we'll become energy independent by being deprived of imported
oil, and we'll be thrown back on our own dwindling supplies -- which
means that we're not going to run our system of daily life the way it
has been set up to run. When Americans can no longer run their cars on a
whim, they will simply go apeshit and you can kiss normal politics
goodbye.
The financial system that emerges from this cataclysm, and the economy
it serves (which is supposed to be the master of its capital deployment
"arm," not its servant) will likely be modest to a degree that will
shock and embarrass everyone currently connected with what we have
lately called finance. If it even trades in paper, that paper will have
to stand for something based in reality, either a productive activity or
a genuine asset. It may take decades for this society to even regain the
confidence necessary to operate such an elementary system -- or it may
not come back at all, at least as far as the horizon lies before us.
That's how bad the mischief and the damage has been.
It's not hard to understand why the Bernankes, Paulsons, Lawrence
Kudlows and other public representatives of capital keep pretending that
everything is under control. On the other side of their pretenses lies
disorder and hardship. One wonders, of course, what they really see in
their private minds' eyes. Do they actually believe that the statistics
issued by their serveling agencies amount to a plausible picture of
reality? Are they so lost in their fantasies of "management" that they
think they're controlling events?
My guess is that their credibility is spent. In the weeks ahead, nobody
will know who or what to believe. We may even run out of questions to
ask as we just all collectively stand there in a thrall of wonder and
nausea, watching the nation's financial house burn down.
11/02/08 "ICH" --- -- Low interest credit and “financial innovation” are
a deadly-combo. They've knocked the banking system for a loop, clogged
the credit markets with billions of dollars of subprime sludge, and left
the real estate market sprawling on the canvas. Still---even though $2
trillion of capitalization has been wiped-out from falling home prices;
and even though the financial system is in a terminal state of
paralysis---no one has been held accountable. In fact, not one trader,
mortgage lender, rating's-agency official, fund manager, or investment
banker has been indicted or charged with criminal wrongdoing.
NOT ONE. The system operates without rules or guard rails. It's the Wild
West!
The system is so thoroughly marinated in corruption, that every trace of
regulatory-oversight has been removed. The SEC is little more than a
public relations sham loaded with business-friendly sycophants who try
to sustain the publics confidence while kow-towing to their corporate
paymasters. It's a complete hoax. Last week, the Chairman of the SEC,
Christopher Cox, gave a speech at the Ronald Reagan Building. He said:
"We’ve already launched an initiative in this area to investigate
possible fraud or breaches of fiduciary duty involving collateralized
debt obligations. Among the issues confronting us this year will be
determining whether bank holding companies and securities firms made
proper disclosure in their filings and public statements of what they
knew about their CDO portfolios and their valuations. We’ll determine
whether brokers carefully followed suitability requirements when they
sold complex debt-related derivatives that shortly afterward went bad.
And in this area, as elsewhere, we’ll be investigating whether
unscrupulous insiders used non-public information to bail out of these
securities or to sell them short, in violation of the securities laws.”
Huh? So, after 6 years of sitting on the sidelines watching the fat-cat
investment banks and hedge funds sell dodgy securities, (comprised of
mortgages from unemployed thrift-store workers with bad credit) Cox has
finally decided to “to investigate possible fraud or breaches of
fiduciary duty.”
What a joke. Trillions of dollars have been lost, the financial system
is reeling, and the nation is headed into recession. We want
scalps---not excuses!
Did Cox know that the CDOs, the MBSs, the ABCP and the rest of the
alphabet soup of “structured investments” were unalloyed garbage?
Yes, of course, he did. Everyone knew. But they were making so much
money selling snake oil to credulous investors they couldn't help
themselves. They went ape. Two week's ago TV investment guru, Jim
Cramer, even admitted that he and his business buddies used to call the
investors who bought these sketchy “debt pools” “morons” and Bozos”.
That says it all, doesn't it?
Does Cox expect us to believe that he and his Keystone Cops at the SEC
didn't know what was going on?
Bullshoes!
Here's a video clip from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart with CNN's
personal finance editor, Gerri Willis. Willis explains in simple terms
how the subprime fiasco evolved. She acknowledges that the loans were
made to “people who really couldn't afford to pay them off” and that
when “Wall Street saw how successful they were, they decided to sell
them as investments all around the world”. Good thinking, eh? She even
admits that the sellers knew that the investments were rotten but duped
their customers by saying “Trust us” . Unfortunately, the naive
investors found out later that “they were sold swampland in Texas”.
(Watch the whole video at: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=148477&title=gerri-willis)
This is a great summary of a how millions of investors were ripped off
in broad daylight by crafty junk-bond salesmen while the SEC looked the
other way. It may turn out to be the biggest heist of the century.
Trillions of dollars were raked in on complex investments that
(apparently) everyone in the industry knew were worthless. This is fraud
on an industrial-scale.
And that's just the beginning. The same gaggle of investment sharpies
who cooked up the subprime swindle are putting the final touches on a
plan to off-load hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage-backed slop
onto the American taxpayer. If they succeed, the country's biggest GSE's---Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac---will be crushed by the expanded debt-load and
probably go belly-up within the year.
Don't believe me?
Bush's new “Stimulus Package will allow Fannie and Freddie to raise
their loan limits from $417,000 to $729,750.The idea is to keep interest
rates as low as possible on new mortgages in order to revive the
moribund California and New York housing markets. Jumbo loans—mortgages
that are over $417, 000—-are nearly impossible to get now that the
market for mortgage-backed securities (MBS) has dried up and the banks
have tightened up their lending standards. Sales in California have
dropped 40% or more for the last 4 months. Price declines are in double
digits. It is a housing Depression.
Still, there's no guarantee that the plan will work. After all, Fannie
Mae requires a substantial down payment as well as documentation of
earnings and a good credit record. The whole lending environment has
changed dramatically in the last year. It's gotten a lot tougher and the
pool of potential loan applicants has shrunk considerably. Besides, how
many people are going to plunk down $700,000 for a home in a falling
market? That same MacMansion might dip to $625,000 by the end of the
year. No one wants to take a bath like that.
More importantly, why should taxpayers have to guarantee a $700,000 loan
just so some brandy-swindling tycoon can get a better deal on his
mortgage? That's nuts.
Here's how Sean Olender sums it up in an article in the SF Gate:
“Thanks to Congress, junk bond investors will be able to pawn off their
bad debt to Fannie and Freddie, instead of suing the big investment
houses for ripping them off. This shift will certainly doom Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac, so don't be surprised if we, the taxpayers, have to
bail out poor Fannie and Freddie - to the tune of more than $1
trillion....Why more than $1 trillion? If Goldman Sachs is correct in
its recent projections that home prices in California are going to drop
35 to 40 percent, the state's losses alone would top $2 trillion,
because California has a disproportionate number of jumbo
loans.”(”Stimulus Plan a Scam to Benefit the Rich”, Sean Olender)
Olender's right. It'll cost at least a trillion bucks; and for what? To
lend a hand to the bond-hucksters who misrepresented themselves so they
could pay off their vineyard in Provence? No way. This is all backwards.
It was the investment bankers who created this mess with their
mortgage-laundering” operation. They're the one's who should be cleaning
it up. They don't need a bail out; they need to go to jail.
Besides, as Olender points out, Fannie is already in financial trouble
and doesn't need more debt.
“Contrary to popular myth,” says Olender, “Fannie holds a lot of
subprime debt, option ARM debt and other dodgy securities. Fannie and
Freddie owned or guaranteed almost 45% of all mortgages in America last
year. BusinessWeek noted in 2007 that Fannie and Freddie have "moved
more prominently into low-documentation loans, which require little or
no proof of the borrower's income."
Presently, Fannie has nearly $3 trillion mortgages guaranteed, but only
$34 billion in capital reserves. If housing prices slide even 10%;
Fannie's is under-water and will probably have to file for bankruptcy.
So, why take the chance?
This week, CNNMoney.com reported:
"The increased share of housing debt taken on by Freddie Mac and Fannie
Mae during the housing slump has put the two government sponsored
enterprises at risk.” By “buying up mortages on the secondary market
that the banks are walking away from” Fannie and Freddie “are reducing
risks in the market, but concentrating mortgage risks on themselves.
These risks are beginning to take their toll," said James Lockhart,
director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO)
He spoke Thursday at a Senate Banking committee on regulatory reform.
Get the picture? If Fannie and Freddie take a swan dive the effects will
be felt through the entire financial system for years to come.
Naturally, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) are jazzed about
increasing the conforming loan limits to $729,000. They're even
predicting that it will boost sales by 300,000 homes. But that's just
more realator-hype. Look: the way we got into this mess was by
"artificially stimulating" the market with low interest credit from the
Fed. We're not going to get out of it by using the same strategy. The
government needs to stop meddling in the markets and let home prices
return to the mean. Then the buyers will reappear. The stimulus will
only prolong an already-painful contraction.
Of course, Congress has already rubber-stamped the “stimulus travesty”
and rushed off to the Senate where it will get a slight face-lift before
it's plopped on Bush's desk. Next week, there'll be a signing ceremony
in the Rose Garden, where Bush will be surrounded by a small army of
smiling bankers, nodding approvingly and patting themselves on the back
for sticking it to the American taxpayer one more time. What a triumph.
THE BANKER'S MASTERPLAN: "Dump the mortgage-backed junk on Uncle Sam"
Everyone should be aware of the massive fraud that is about to be
perpetrated on the nation to save a few shifty bankers from default. The
basic contours of the plan was laid out in an op-ed in the New York
Times last week by Howard P. Milstein, chairman of New York Private Bank
and Trust. Milstein made his pitch for a bailout in an article titled
“Give The Banks Some Credit”.
Milstein says:
“The health of the American — and indeed the global — economy depends on
having a financial system that is able to extend credit to businesses
and consumers. The losses that have been incurred as a result of the
excesses in subprime mortgage lending will take years to work their way
through the worldwide financial system, as dozens of banks act to
replenish their lost capital... Until the banks rebuild their capital,
they will not have the wherewithal to lend money and support economic
growth. If banks of all sizes could regain their capital immediately and
easily, it would be a tremendous benefit to the American economy."
Milstein continues:
"The federal government could make this happen by entering into an
arrangement with American banks that hold subprime mortgages, in which
homeowners typically pay a low interest rate for two or three years then
face much higher payments. Here’s how it would work: The government
would guarantee the principal of the mortgages for 15 years. And in
exchange the banks would agree to leave their “teaser” interest rates on
those loans in effect for the entire 15 years. This would instantly give
the lending banks new capital.”
Wait a minute. If “the government guarantees the principal of the
mortgages” then there's no risk for the banks. If that's the case then
why should they be paid anything, even the “teaser rates”. Investment is
risk and risk is investment---Get used to it. What Comrade Milstein is
requesting is “nationalizing” the banking system to protect his indolent
friends from loss or default. This could have been written by Chairman
Mao.
Milstein continues:
“As these mortgages would be guaranteed by the Treasury, they would
suddenly be assessed, on bank balance sheets, at their original value —
and a significant amount of the banks’ lost capital would be restored.
Plus, the banks would receive, from most of the homeowners with subprime
mortgages, up to 15 years of teaser-rate payments.”
Unbelievable! So the bank takes NO risk on the investment but---at the
same time---is allowed to add the full value of the mortgage to its
capital reserves? And, Milstein doesn't even want to reduce the value of
the mortgage to current housing prices. He thinks it should be recorded
at its "original value" so it can beef up the bank's dwindling capital.
What kind of rubbish is that? Real estate prices have plummeted in the
last year and (and so have subprime "structured investments") the banks
assets should reflect those losses. Tough luck, Milstein. Your buddies
cooked up this scam. Now take your lumps like a man.
Milstein continues:
“By solving the bank capital crisis immediately, this strategy would
ensure that fewer families would lose their homes”...blah, blah, blah.
It would “be good for our economy.” Blah, blah, blah.
Then Milstein adds this tidbit:
"Under this arrangement, American banks would have an incentive to buy
back the subprime debt now being held by foreign banks and other
financial institutions. American banks could buy the securities at a
discount to face value (reflecting the continued low teaser rates) and
then, thanks to the government guarantee, hold them as capital assessed
at their full value. That, in turn, would allow the other financial
institutions to reinvest in other sectors of our economy.”
Ah-ha! So the foreign banks and investors are finally waking up to the
fact that they were ripped-off and they want their money back. It's
about time. They were defrauded and they deserve restitution. The first
article about the impending tidal wave of subprime litigation appeared
earlier in the week on FOX Business.com "Lawsuits Begin to Spill Out of
Subprime Mess" http://www.foxbusiness.com/article/lawsuits-begin-spill-subprime-mess_460851_55.html
The subprime boondoggle will play out in courts for years to come.
But, back to Milstein. What does he want? He wants to buy back the
subprime debt that was sold to gullible foreign banks "at a discount"
but then record it on the banks' balance sheets at full value.
Whoa. Now, there's a neat trick. In other words, he wants to pay a
nickel for the "debt", but then record it as a dollar to meet his
capital requirements.
Is this really how bankers think?
Oh---and by the way---he also wants the American taxpayer to guarantee
the debt in case the nickel loses some of its value. Nice touch, eh?
Milstein adheres to the old adage, "Privatize the profits, socialize the
losses."
Finally, Milstein adds that his only interest is his “concern for the
health of the global financial system.”
Can you feel the love?
The tragedy of the stimulus charade is that some variation of Milstein's
proposal is sure to be enacted. Otherwise it wouldn't have shown up in
the NY Times. The Times frequently uses the op-ed page to put up trial
balloons for changes in policy. It's the same here. The banking
establishment and the administration have finally settled on a 'bail out
plan' and "We the People" are going to foot the bill. Congress is
already on board and Bush is just a swipe-of-the-pen away from another
trillion dollar giveaway to big business. The banks and money-lenders
always get their pound of flesh while the rest of us get screwed. Some
things never change.
Expect Fannie and Freddie to collapse within the year.
Vulnerable regions of the world face the risk of famine over the next
three years as rising energy costs spill over into a food crunch,
according to US investment bank Goldman Sachs.
"We've never been at a point in commodities where we are today," said
Jeff Currie, the bank's commodity chief and closely watched oil guru.
Global oil output has been stagnant for four years, failing to keep up
with rampant demand from Asia and the Mid-East. China's imports rose
14pc last year. Biofuels from grain, oil seed and sugar are plugging the
gap, but drawing away food supplies at a time when the world is adding
more than 70m mouths to feed a year.
"Markets are as tight as a drum and now the US has hit the stimulus
button," said Mr Currie in his 2008 outlook. "We have never seen this
before when commodity prices were already at record highs. Over the next
18 to 36 months we are probably going into crisis mode across the
commodity complex.
"The key is going to be agriculture. China is terrified of the current
situation. It has real physical shortages," he said, referencing China
still having memories of starvation in the 1960s seared in its
collective mind.
While the US housing crash poses some threat to the price of metals and
energy, the effect has largely occurred already. The slide in crude
prices over the past month may have been caused by funds liquidating
derivatives contracts to cover other demands rather than by recession
fears. Goldman Sachs forecasts that oil will be priced at $105 a barrel
by the end of 2008.
The current "supercycle" is a break with history because energy and food
have "converged" in price and can increasingly be switched from one use
to another.
Corn can be used for ethanol in cars and power plants, for plastics, as
well as in baking tortillas. Natural gas can be made into fertiliser for
food output. "Peak Oil" is morphing into "Peak Food".
Land use for biofuels has shot up from 12m to more than 80m hectares
worldwide over six years. Biofuel provides 3pc of global energy needs,
which will rise to an estimated 10.6pc by 2030.
In a pure market, sugar cane would be the only viable biofuel with a
cost of $35 a barrel (oil equivalent). The others are sugar beet ($103),
corn ($81), wheat ($145), rapeseed ($209), soybean ($232), cellulose
($305).
Subsidies drive the business. The US offers tax relief of $1 a gallon
for biodiesel. The EU has a 10pc biofuel target by 2010.
The crop switch comes just as China and India make the leap to an
animal-based diet, replicating the pattern seen in Japan and Korea,
where people raised their protein intake nine-fold as they became rich.
It takes 8.3 grams of soya or corn feed to produce a 1g weight gain in
cattle - compared with 3.1g for pigs, 2g for chicken and 1.5g for fish.
Mr Currie said investment cycles in energy typically last about 10 to 12
years as producers struggle to catch up with demand. However, this cycle
has been short-circuited by politicians after barely six years.
"The political environment is extremely hostile. The world is looking
like the 17th century under mercantilism when countries saw economics as
a zero-sum game. They exported as much as they could to get gold, and
erected enormous barriers. China looks like that, so does Russia, the
Mid-East and most of Africa and Latin America," he said.
While the West has much of the skill for developing energy projects, it
is blocked by nationalist petro-states from investing directly.
A growing chorus of voices is screaming for the United States to
undertake a Manhattan Project-type program to wean America off its oil
dependency. But as Charles T. Maxwell, the "dean" of Wall Street's
energy analysts, looks into the future, he deeply fears that Washington
won't do anything to head off the oil crisis he sees rapidly developing
starting in 2010. He says this will make the financial crisis he fears
even worse. Also, because Washington will be seen by angry voters (who
will be paying $12 to $15 for a gallon a gas) as the cause of their
"Nightmare on Main Street," Maxwell sees the American political system
being shaken to its roots.
Princeton and Oxford-educated Maxwell believes that if the Democrats are
in power, their core constituencies - farmers, workers and intellectuals
- will be ranged against one another, resulting in an impasse. If the
Republicans are in power, he expects whatever "solution" they come up
with to be politically untenable because it will be premised on people
with money continuing to consume as before, with the have-nots expected
to do without.
Seeing no chance of a timely political response to America's looming oil
calamity, Maxwell, senior energy analyst at Weeden & Co., expects an
oil-induced financial crisis to start somewhere in the 2010 to 2015
timeframe. He said that, unlike the recession the U.S. appears to be in
today, "This will not be six months of hell and then we come out of it."
Rather, Maxwell expects this financial crisis to last at least 10 or 12
years, as the world goes through a prolonged period of price-induced
rationing (eg, oil up to $300 a barrel and U.S. pump prices up to $15 a
gallon), while waiting for new technologies that can wean nations off
their oil dependency to take hold in the marketplace. (It will take time
to change over the world's one billion or so oil-consuming cars and
trucks.)
As this combined oil and financial crisis worsens, Maxwell would not be
surprised if the U.S. government started functioning the way it did in
World War II, when the democratic dialogue was often put on hold so that
unilateral decisions could be made by people given special powers. He
described them as little tyrants who will be able to cut off debate,
effectively weakening the democratic process. Not a pleasant prospect,
Maxwell emphasized, but one that may be unavoidable in the oil-scarce
world that's coming.
I just finished reading a great analysis of the Presidential
Candidate’s position on ‘tech issues’ (See, “In
'08 presidential race, who's the most tech-friendly?”
below). As a “fantasy write-in” candidate I also added my own positions
so you could see how my views compare.
Here's the chart with my positions added in the bottom row:
The first observation I would like to make is to point out that the
Corporate Controlled Media has done nothing that comes close to this
astute and concise “reality check” contained within this report. And the
bottom line is that – after reviewing their positions on Tech Issues
alone -- NONE of these candidates deserves the Presidency: and
unfortunately that includes Ron Paul.
The second observation I would like to focus on concerns Ron Paul’s
positions on “Net Neutrality” and “Increasing H1-B Visas.” If you look
at the chart (above) you will see that these are 2 “tech issues” where,
even I, must part company with Ron Paul.
The “Net” is both our modern day “Guttenberg Pres” as well as our
collective “Library of Alexandria.” With the media controlled by global
elites, this is the only bastion of free speech we have left. And this
is exactly why the elite is bribing the candidates, with campaign
contributions, to put an end to Net Neutrality. They are scared, out of
their greedy minds, that such a free flow of information is finally
exposing the “elite behind the curtain.” Ron Paul is unfortunately
clouded on this issue by his Libertarian-only world view. Believe me, I
quite aware of this as I ran for US Congress in 1996 as a Libertarian.
But, truth be told, I am really only a Civil Libertarian and not simply
a Non-Thinking Libertarian.
Ron Paul also appears to support an increase in the number of H1-B Visas
despite the fact that we cannot even generate enough jobs for our own
Legal American Citizens during this period of massive underemployment in
America. Furthermore he is completely oblivious to the real reasons for
the Visa program in the first place, which include (1) getting rid of
older workers in order to save on health care and other benefits and (2)
increasing the labor supply in order to more generally drive down the
cost of wages and benefits. I have recently cobbled together a video
where you can watch me enumerate arguments against ANY further H1-B’s at
the following link:
In addition to these arguments let us also consider how "H1-B" Visas
violate so many great traditions that are encapsulated in the following
definitions:
All of these terms were common among our Founding Fathers and
occupied the header on every page of my publication "New Age Patriot"
which I self-published between 1989 - 1997. But today, for some
strange reason, these great concepts are conspicuous by their absence in
the corporate controlled media.
So far I believe I have explained why none of the “likely”
candidates, including Ron Paul, are worth voting for on “Tech Issues”
alone. But I have supported Ron Paul, up until now, because he has
precipitated important debate and may have been a potent “wrench in the
works,” should he get elected. But it is getting clearer, by the day
that this is simply not in the cards. Still, for the time being I will
continue this “qualified” support.
Now onto my own “fantasy” candidacy for the 2008 Presidency. I say
“fantasy candidacy” because I’m quite cognizant of the fact I don’t have
a “snowball’s chance in hell” of winning a single percent of the vote at
this moment in time. But that is not why I am doing this. I’m running as
a “write-in” candidate in hopes that people will consider the “New
Agenda for America” that I have recently authored. Then, hopefully, the
ideas contained, within the “agenda,” will help us stop these corrupt
politicians from making further stupid decisions through direct citizen
involvement. A perfect example of how such direct citizen involvement
can succeed is exemplified, last year, when we stopped legislation that
would have granted Amnesty to as many as 30 Million Illegal Aliens.
Ironically, every one of these likely candidate will grant Amnesty to
all 30 Million Illegal Aliens . . . as soon as they walk in the front
door of the White House in 2009. Is that really what you want?
You can read more about the “New Agenda for America” – and watch a few
additional videos that I have prepared on this – at the following link:
What I am hoping is that we can take the “New Agenda for America” viral
over the next 8 months preceding the November election. I’m hoping that
I can interest both individuals and websites to copy the graphic icons,
which I have prepared, onto their Face Book pages and websites in order
to spread the “agenda” across the internet. I have prepared 2 initial
graphics which can be used as of this moment. Currently, you will find
these at my webpage below:
So that is all I have to offer you at the moment. You can sit there and
wine about how there is no one out there to vote for in 2008. Or you can
support me in hope that at least some of my ideas might pierce the armor
of these corporate scum bags, that presently comprise the 2008
Presidential field of candidates. About the only thing I can promise
you, is that if you do nothing, there will be nothing to vote for in
2008. That point is quite certain. Are you simply going to give up
your sovereignty without as much as a fight in 2008?
Finally, if you would like to view my Video Biography, you will find it
at the following link:
With the release of my 3rd video, on "The New Agenda for America," I
have decided to consolidate all related materials (videos, articles,
background information) onto a single page for easy reference.
Future videos will also be posted to this page.(Click Here)
For further background information on each plank I am also setting up
a "Resource Center." These references will be posted to this page.
(Click Here)
I'm hoping to start speaking publicly about the "New Agenda for
America" at small venues: Veterans Halls etc. in the next month or so.
But I was also thinking that anyone could throw together a small party
to promote the NAA. And it could be a great excuse for bringing
friends together.
In fact this "home party" idea could be used for any "grass roots"
initiative.
I'm thinking that you could probably have little parties to watch
the videos with groups of friends in order to send this thing "viral." I
actually think the internet has the potential to act as catalyst to a
massive "rising up" by the American people.
As far as the home parties. I've got to believe that anyone with a
laptop, wireless internet connectivity and a large screen TV could send
the signal from the laptop to the TV. This could easily allow up to 30
people to watch this together: and watching it together is extremely
important. Even today you could show the first 3 videos in this way:
(1) The Overview;
(2) Re-Legalizing Marijuana for Adult Americans and
(3) Stopping both Legal and Illegal Immigration.
These initial 3 videos are constantly accessible through the
following link:
It seems to me these first three videos could generate a lot of
conversation. And given the “density” of these talks these 30 minutes
might even be pushing it for a group presentation.
I also have hundreds of related videos available through my YouTube
account:
Basically you would bring up each video on your laptop in full screen
mode. Of course this assumes you can connect the laptop to the
internet via a router or physical connection. Then simply
reroute the signal to the "Big Screen" TV via cables, or possibly
through a Bluetooth connection. After the videos are played the
host could moderate informal discussion on the videos and future actions
on promoting the "New Agenda for America."
But then where does it go from there? More and more people start
discussing the merits of the various planks. People start asking the
2008 Presidential candidates where they stand on these various planks.
We record there answers and put them up on YouTube for the world to
hear.
Here are a few sample questions people might want to ask the 2008
Presidential Candidates:
* "With nearly 80% of the American People
wanting restrictions on Legal/Illegal Immigration . . . why is it none
of the major 2008 Presidential Candidates support their constituents?
Doesn't this basically belie the notion of a "Representative Democracy?"
And why should we consider voting for any of you "traitors to the
American People?"
* "Doesn't legalizing Marijuana for adults
actually make sense when you consider that it would deprive Mexican Drug
Cartels and local street gangs of their profits and would immediately
defund their operations? And besides, if you haven't noticed, Marijuana
prohibition has not worked real well anyway. So why do you continue to
support Marijuana prohibition? When are you going to stop supporting
Marijuana prohibition?"
* "Our founding fathers were opposed to a Central Bank, yet in 1913 they
created one through the establishment of the Federal Reserve. Many other
presidents, including JFK, thought that the Federal Reserve should be
eliminated. Where do you stand on this issue? Does it bother you that
the Federal Reserve is neither a federal entity, and is run by global
elites that have little regard for the welfare of the American people?”
* "There are only 150,000 jobs created each year that require various
college degrees, yet there 450,000 people graduating with these degrees
each year: meaning that 300,000/year are not finding jobs. In light of
this shouldn't you be eliminating the H1-B, and other visa programs,
rather than pushing to raise the annual number of H1-B's from 65,000 to
200,000 a year?”
* "You were finally pressured into voting for a fence along the
Mexican-American border but then never provided the money to build it.
Why should we believe that you are not serving the interests of
Multi-National Corporations that are purposely trying to drive down
wages by allowing waves of Illegal Aliens to enter this country? Why
should I consider voting for you?"
Well, those were just some sample questions off the top of my head.
I’m quite certain many people think the “New Agenda for America” is
crazy. In my defense let me just remind you of the alternative. Right
now China, through it’s exploitation of “slave labor” and Saudi Arabia,
through its control of the world’s lifeblood (oil), is buying big chunks
of America right out from under our feet. We are being colonized by
global wealth and should we allow this to continue, will be left
literally destitute.
Just as Thomas Paine wrote “Common Sense” to stop the colonization of
America by Great Britain I am promoting the “New Agenda for America” to
stop this Global Elite from throwing the America Working Class to the
curb. It may be crazy but I’m just not ready to accept the alternative.
These are the first graphic files (*.jpg) that I've put together to help
the NAA go "Viral" through the internet.
This is the graphic I think most people would like to initially post
at their websites:
Let me make clear that I have no fantasy that I could ever command
enough votes to win the 2008 Presidency. But the "presidential
graphic" puts a face on the "agenda" and hopefully helps promote the
live talks I want to give to promote the agenda. In point of fact
my preferred candidate at this moment is still Ron Paul.
Instructions for
inserting graphic link onto your website:
(1) Just Copy/Paste one/both of the above
graphics onto your web page.
(2) Then "Right Click" on the image and enter the following links into
the hyperlink property field:
Now these are some additional notes that outline my intended
strategy, for promoting the "New Agenda for America" over the next few
months:
* None of the likely candidates for President (2008) will meet the
needs of the American People on a variety of essential issues (e.g.,
restricting either Legal or Illegal Immigration and other issues covered
within the planks of the NAA).
* The "New Agenda for America" is intended to force discussion on
obvious solutions to various social problems on behalf of the
fast-dwindling field of Democratic/Republican candidates.
* We need to put an immediate stop to the millions of foreclosures that
are set to occur as the economy slows in order to preserve the social
fabric of the American family. I am thinking about joining a "Tax Day"
Protest (April 15th Calling for and end to the Federal Reserve), through
a protest at Ford World Headquarter (Dearborn, MI) in order to (1)
promote the NAA and (2) to challenge the Presidential Candidates to
offer a better solution. It needs to happen now, before the damage
escalates.
* Sending Illegal's back home (Illegal Aliens and Visa Overstays) would
create immediate openings for US workers to fill. Again, this needs to
happen now!
* Knowing full well that I don't have a snowballs chance in hell -- of
actually winning the 2008 Presidency -- I start promoting myself as a
"write in" candidate. Hopefully "internet viral" techniques are picked
up by the "web community" to send it viral: thus, promoting discussion
of the 9 current planks of the NAA. I do think it important to
attach a personality to the NAA. And, after all, I did conceive of
the agenda and am the presenter of the first 3 videos concerning the
NAA.
* If we succeed it forces the 2008 Presidential Candidates to admit that
they really have no intention of doing the American People's will (e.g.,
putting an immediate stop to foreclosures and also putting a stop to all
further visas). After all, if we cannot even employ all of our own
people, we have no business bringing in additional workers.
That is the initial strategy. The reality is that this present economic
system is quite literally FUBAR (Fouled Up Beyond Any Recovery). We need
a period of years to assess who is responsible for this betrayal of the
American Working Class; to determine what will be required to facilitate
normalcy to Legal US workers during this period and finally, to
determine a future path to sustainability and balance. The system is
about to crash.
The global elites want to kick the American Working Class to the curb
and unfortunately they have also selected the Presidential Candidates
for 2008. All these initiatives are intended to "bum rush" the American
people with an onslaught of younger Legal and Illegal Immigrants. Deals
amongst the global elite have already guaranteed the colonization of
America by foreign elites: should we not act now. The American People
simply have no realistic choice other that Ron Paul . . . and that is no
sure thing. Furthermore, things (above) really need to start happening
right away.
At any rate, just looking for feedback here.Groups can now post the
files with manually attached hyperlinks to www.newagecitizen.com or sub
pages. Yes, I am cognizant that these initial graphics have room
for improvement. Yes, I am cognizant that there are better methods
for doing this.
Now, posting these graphic links to a 'Face Book" page is not a big
deal. But I do realize the sensitivity of such a commitment for
websites that only address a single issue . . . and are concerned about
"turning off" some of their members with a broad, controversial agenda..
One suggestion I would offer is not to endorse it, but rather just say.
"Hey, we admit we only support the Immigration Plank of the NAA.."
But we including the graphic link, at our website, because we believe a
true discussion of these issues, by the Presidential Candidates, IS
required. And we do agree that the NAA is worthy of debate and
discussion, in any case.
That way you don't have to commit to supporting the "New Agenda for
America" I am also thinking of setting up a page of links, to the
webpage that decide to run either of these graphic links.
Mexican President Calderon is coming to U.S.A. to start advertising
campaign in favor of illegals & against activists! Valentine's Protest!
5 Cities: Chicago, L.A., Seattle, a city in Arizona to be announced, and
maybe Boston & Houston!
I've just exceeded 300 viewings of this video in the first two weeks
which is not bad. In
this video I explain how exponential population growth is the most
important argument for a 20-year moratorium on both Legal and Illegal
Immigration. I've gotten some nasty mail from foreign Visa holders
who just can't believe anyone would be against more of them coming over
here and taking what few good jobs still exist in the United States.
I think what they are really mad at is the fact that we are beginning to
wake up and finally put an end to this bullshit.
Pat Condell is irreverent, humorous and right on the mark when it
comes to Islam. As I've said many times before, I have nothing
against Muslims that recognize the wisdom of the separation between
church and state. But any American Muslim that believes in Islam
(e.g., a global theocratic Islamic state) should be kicked out of the
United States yesterday. I've never tolerated intolerance and that
is exactly what Islam is truly about.
04/02/08 "The Nation" -- -- Remember the "ownership society," fixture of
major George W. Bush addresses for the first four years of his
presidency? "We're creating...an ownership society in this country,
where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where
they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of
property," Bush said in October 2004. Washington think-tanker Grover
Norquist predicted that the ownership society would be Bush's greatest
legacy, remembered "long after people can no longer pronounce or spell
Fallujah." Yet in Bush's final State of the Union address, the
once-ubiquitous phrase was conspicuously absent. And little wonder:
rather than its proud father, Bush has turned out to be the ownership
society's undertaker.
Well before the ownership society had a neat label, its creation was
central to the success of the right-wing economic revolution around the
world. The idea was simple: if working-class people owned a small piece
of the market--a home mortgage, a stock portfolio, a private
pension--they would cease to identify as workers and start to see
themselves as owners, with the same interests as their bosses. That
meant they could vote for politicians promising to improve stock
performance rather than job conditions. Class consciousness would be a
relic.
It was always tempting to dismiss the ownership society as an empty
slogan--"hokum" as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich put it. But the
ownership society was quite real. It was the answer to a roadblock long
faced by politicians favoring policies to benefit the wealthy. The
problem boiled down to this: people tend to vote their economic
interests. Even in the wealthy United States, most people earn less than
the average income. That means it is in the interest of the majority to
vote for politicians promising to redistribute wealth from the top down.
So what to do? It was Margaret Thatcher who pioneered a solution. The
effort centered on Britain's public housing, or council estates, which
were filled with die-hard Labour Party supporters. In a bold move,
Thatcher offered strong incentives to residents to buy their council
estate flats at reduced rates (much as Bush did decades later by
promoting subprime mortgages). Those who could afford it became
homeowners while those who couldn't faced rents almost twice as high as
before, leading to an explosion of homelessness.
As a political strategy, it worked: the renters continued to oppose
Thatcher, but polls showed that more than half of the newly minted
owners did indeed switch their party affiliation to the Tories. The key
was a psychological shift: they now thought like owners, and owners tend
to vote Tory. The ownership society as a political project was born.
Across the Atlantic, Reagan ushered in a range of policies that
similarly convinced the public that class divisions no longer existed.
In 1988 only 26 percent of Americans told pollsters that they lived in a
society bifurcated into "haves" and "have-nots"--71 percent rejected the
whole idea of class. The real breakthrough, however, came in the 1990s,
with the "democratization" of stock ownership, eventually leading to
nearly half of American households owning stock. Stock watching became a
national pastime, with tickers on TV screens becoming more common than
weather forecasts. Main Street, we were told, had stormed the elite
enclaves of Wall Street.
Once again, the shift was psychological. Stock ownership made up a
relatively minor part of the average American's earnings, but in the era
of frenetic downsizing and offshoring, this new class of amateur
investor had a distinct shift in consciousness. Whenever a new round of
layoffs was announced, sending another stock price soaring, many
responded not by identifying with those who had lost their jobs, or by
protesting the policies that had led to the layoffs, but by calling
their brokers with instructions to buy.
Bush came to office determined to take these trends even further, to
deliver Social Security accounts to Wall Street and target minority
communities--traditionally out of the Republican Party's reach--for easy
homeownership. "Under 50 percent of African Americans and Hispanic
Americans own a home," Bush observed in 2002. "That's just too few." He
called on Fannie Mae and the private sector "to unlock millions of
dollars, to make it available for the purchase of a home"--an important
reminder that subprime lenders were taking their cue straight from the
top.
Today, the basic promises of the ownership society have been broken.
First the dot-com bubble burst; then employees watched their stock-heavy
pensions melt away with Enron and WorldCom. Now we have the subprime
mortgage crisis, with more than 2 million homeowners facing foreclosure
on their homes. Many are raiding their 401(k)s--their piece of the stock
market--to pay their mortgage. Wall Street, meanwhile, has fallen out of
love with Main Street. To avoid regulatory scrutiny, the new trend is
away from publicly traded stocks and toward private equity. In November
Nasdaq joined forces with several private banks, including Goldman
Sachs, to form Portal Alliance, a private equity stock market open only
to investors with assets upward of $100 million. In short order
yesterday's ownership society has morphed into today's members-only
society.
The mass eviction from the ownership society has profound political
implications. According to a September Pew Research poll, 48 percent of
Americans say they live in a society carved into haves and have-nots--nearly
twice the number of 1988. Only 45 percent see themselves as part of the
haves. In other words, we are seeing a return of the very class
consciousness that the ownership society was supposed to erase. The
free-market ideologues have lost an extremely potent psychological
tool--and progressives have gained one. Now that John Edwards is out of
the presidential race, the question is, will anyone dare to use it?
David Sirota on Lou Dobbs. Democratic leaders are working on a secret
"Free Trade" deal with the Bush administration that is sure to
negatively impact American workers, who are already struggling as a
result of the trade policies that have been in place for over a decade.
Jack Rasmus, author, The War at Home: The Corporate Offensive from
Reagan to Bush, describes corporate strategy during a keynote address to
the Labor and Sustainability Conference in St. Paul, MN.
“In the pages that follow, The War At Home unapologetically attempts to
describe and analyze the major elements of that class war being waged
today in the U.S. against American workers and their unions.” [from the
Author’s Preface] Its ten chapters cover the current Jobs Crisis,
offshoring, Free Trade and the collapse of manufacturing, declining
wages and workers’ incomes, the great American Tax Shift, attacks on
Pensions and Social Security, the pending privatization of Medicare, the
health care costs crisis, the transformations of the Republican and
Democratic parties, the decline of union membership and bargaining
power, the pending split in the AFL-CIO, and the origin and evolution of
the corporate offensive from Reagan through George W. Bush. “Did you
like Howard Zinn's A People’s History of the United States? If so, you
are going to love the new book by Jack Rasmus, The War At Home. Rasmus
effectively picks up the story where Zinn leaves off….His book is an
excellent complement and companion to Zinn’s popular work…It is a
sobering and path-breaking effort to ‘put it all in one place’.” [Harvey
Schwartz, Curator, ILWU Oral History Collection]
This book is neither typical contemporary literary journalism nor a
passion-less, dry academic treatise. Unlike the former, which today are
works of little more than opinion, based on few verifiable facts, and
characterized by cheering to the crowd of 'true believers', whether left
or right, THE WAR AT HOME provides a virtual mountain of referenceable
material from government and other reputable sources; and unlike the
latter, it is written in a lively, readable prose devoid of arcane
theory and refuses to eschew partisan argument in the name of a false
claim to objectivity. The book's themes include explaining why 60
million Americans no longer have regular, permanent full time jobs, why
$11.6 trillion in taxes is being shifted from the middle class to the
wealthiest 10%, how more than $4 trillion has been permanently siphoned
off from the Social Security Trust Fund by politicians, what caused
97,000 pension plans to go bust, why 46 million Americans today have no
health insurance and why out-of-pocket medical expenses will double in
the next few years, why eight million quality jobs in the U.S. have been
lost due to Free Trade, and why millions more jobs will continue to be
rapidly exported to China, India and Latin America.
Where future corporate and Bush administration policies are headed in
George W. Bush’s second term and beyond are further topics of
discussion—as well as the political restructuring that has been
occurring in parallel with the corporate-driven economic restructuring
of the last quarter century. How both the Republican and Democratic
parties have fundamentally changed, prospects for election outcomes in
2006 and 2008, and how the economic and political restructuring since
1980 led to the recent split in the AFL-CIO, and what next for organized
Labor in America, are additional topics also addressed.
This is actually from a "Disk Web" of all the archived files from
"New Age Patriot" magazine which Bruce Cain edited and authored between
1989 and 1987. While many of the videos are grainy they show how
prescient and consistent Bruce Cain's views on drug policy remain.
While much of what he believes seems "common sense" today, it should be
remembered that, at the time these views were being publicly advocated,
his views were thought to be very controversial. Some might argue
that, at least some of his views, are still controversial today.
Copy the "New Agenda for America"
planks onto a piece of paper and put it in your wallet, so it is always
available.
New Agenda for America:
Help Influence the 2008 Presidency
(1) Universal Health Care for All
American Citizens
(2) A 20-year moratorium on all immigration into the United States
(3) Legal Marijuana for all Adults and Medical Patients
(4) An immediate reversal to the Offshoring and Inshoring of American
Jobs
(5) A strict enforcement on issues of Separation of Church and State
(6) An immediate move from so-called Free Trade Agreements to Bilateral
Trade agreements
(7) A major R&D project to bring energy independence to the United
States and the World through recycling, reuse, ending hyper-consumerism
and investing in the development of sustainable energy sources (e.g.,
solar, photovoltaic, wind, geothermal)
(8) No further ownership of US Assets (businesses, homes, ports, stock
exchanges) by foreign governments or individuals!
(9) Replacement of the "Federal Reserve" with a "People's Reserve" which
has Congressional oversight.
I am also providing the link (below) to a Word Document that contains
8 copies of the "New Agenda for America" per page. Soon I will
also release a *.pdf version of this file. If you are reading this
from the homepage of my website (www.newagecitizen.com)
you will see what a single copy of this printed listing of the "New
Agenda for America" looks like:
Here is the link to the "New Age Agenda"
mini-flyer Word document:
Please make additional copies to share with your friends. Just
follow these steps:
(1) Print of a few copies (8 mini-flyers per page)
(2) Cut them into individual flyers with a pair of scissors
(3) Put them where they are easily accessible (e.g., your wallet or
purse)
(4) Share them with any eligible American voter.
Then
start sharing. Share the agenda with your friends, your family,
with the local policeman. If you call into a "talk show" or attend
a political debate read off the list and ask, after each policy plank is
read: will you promise to support this? IF a politician says NO to
anything on this agenda, that you support, respectfully tell them that they are NOT GETTING
YOUR VOTE.
Your can also get involved by joining the NAC discussion group
or viewing the expanding library of NAC and other videos:
================================================
If you would like to discuss aspects of the "New Agenda for America" let
me invite you to join my discussion group:
These two links are extensions to my website: www.newagecitizen.com
================================================
We have 14 months to change the course of the country by changing the
agenda for the 2008 Presidential Election.
What would you rather have: the same old Corporate Presidential
Agenda or "The New Agenda for America"?
I just think NAA makes too much sense to be ignored. It could be our
last best chance to put this country back on track towards a sustainable
future for our children.
Yours in Freedom,
Bruce W. Cain
Editor, New Age Citizen
www.newagecitizen.com
The current mission of New Age Citizen is
really quite simple: I want to push forward the "New Agenda for America
(NAA)" in order to rejuvenate this once-great republic. To do this
I intend to lecture publicly; run as a "write-in" presidential candidate
and force this agenda down the throats of all 2008 Presidential
Candidates. I have absolutely no illusions of winning and -- in
point of fact -- will never officially run. But I think such a
prank could very well garner attention and therefore, more consideration
of the NAA. It is so critical that this nation chart a different
course in the very immediate future.
If you are new to this website I ask but one
initial consideration:
Please don't reach any conclusions about New
Age Citizen until you have done the following:
I am confident that, having read some of this
pertinent background material, you will understand that New Age Citizen
is not interested in either racism or xenophobia. We really want
to leave the United States, and the rest of the planet, in better shape
than we found it when we arrived. But to do this effectively we
also need to understand things as they are and not how we would prefer
these things to be.
For the last few years I have
assembled a number of policy planks and packaged them under the title
"New Agenda for America." Here is the current set of planks:
(1) Universal Health Care for All
American Citizens
(2) A 20-year moratorium on all immigration into the United States
(3) Legal Marijuana for all Adults and Medical Patients
(4) An immediate reversal to the Offshoring and Inshoring of American
Jobs
(5) A strict enforcement on issues of Separation of Church and State
(6) An immediate move from so-called Free Trade Agreements to Bilateral
Trade agreements
(7) A major R&D project to bring energy independence to the United
States and the World through recycling, reuse, ending hyper-consumerism
and investing in the development of sustainable energy sources (e.g.,
solar, photovoltaic, wind, geothermal)
(8) Increasing the "minimum wage" to a "living wage"
(9) Replacement of the "Federal Reserve" with a "People's Reserve" which
has Congressional oversight.
Between now and the next
presidential election (November 4, 2008) I am planning to take this
agenda on the road by presenting it live through a series of lectures.
The main purpose will be to pressure the main party candidates to
embrace and endorse all political planks. I may also run as a
"write-in" candidate though I have absolutely no serious illusion that
there is any chance of me winning.
If you agree with most of the
agenda I encourage you to share my website with you friends and
families. Specifically, I would recommend that they all get on our
mailing list so that we can alert them to new content at our website.
We are in the midst of the destruction of the American Middle Class by a
powerful group of Global Elitists. It is not happening through
some hidden conspiracy. Rather it is happening right before our
eyes through various forms of social engineering that are being
orchestrated by the world's largest banks and corporations. The
most visible manifestation of this can be observed by reading about the
North America Union that is being implemented below the media radar
stream and is being implemented with total disregard of Constitutional
process. In addition it is being pushed forward by our
Congressional representatives that are committing treason through their
continued silence.
The following YouTube Video
has the Editor of New Age Citizen, Bruce W. Cain, describing an overview
to the "New Agenda for America": [originally referred to as the "New Age
Agenda"]:
"New Agenda for America" will
become a slogan for referring to the set of policy positions that NAC
will be promoting in the coming years. It refers to a disturbing
trend whereby our elected representatives appear to be increasingly at
odds with the values of the founding fathers of this country (e.g.,
Washington, Franklin, Jefferson) and the American people.
To get this off the ground I
am creating a frames based page which will allow my visitors to both
understand the rational behind New Age Citizen as well as the
preliminary agenda for "New Agenda for America." I will place a link to
this at the top right hand corner of the homepage for now. You can
take a quick look by clicking below:
The Editor of New Age Citizen, is
considering giving a series of lectures that challenge the current
"Demopublican" plutocracy with policy alternatives that are more to the
interests of the American working class. The first lecture in the
series will most likely address the current Immigration Reform measures
that are being debated both in Congress and on the streets of America.
I may even bring my guitar to break things up a bit. Expect this
to happen around January 2008.
Lecture #001: No More Immigration: Legal or Illegal
This lecture will address the virtual propaganda surrounding the
current immigration debate. It will expose the larger agenda that
is intent on destroying the middle class by attempting to merge the
United States into a "North American Union" consisting of Mexico, Canada
and the United States. The primary argument against immigration focuses
on the inability of the United States to provide adequate sustainable
resources for the 200 million additional immigrants that will exceed the
carrying capacity of this great country by 2050. The lecture will
conclude that the best interests of legal American citizens will be
served by implementing mandatory employer Social Security checks;
punishing employers with extreme prejudice and putting an end to all
Legal/Illegal immigration until the real wages of Americans is at or
beyond what they were at their apex in 1973. If you live in SE
Michigan and are interesting in attending one of these activist lectures
please send an email to get on our lecture list.
In addition to these lectures I am considering staging a
demonstration against further immigration and Bush's agenda to destroy
the American working class. More on that in the near future.
Lastly, if you know of any Anti-Immigrant Demonstrations, anywhere in
the US, let me know. I will begin to post these on the website.
Also, please read this article if you have not already done so. Very
illuminating stuff.
Please support our efforts to allow a form of Marijuana
Re-Legalization where personal cultivation is neither taxed or regulated
by any government agencies. For more information please read the
following articles regarding the Marijuana Re-Legalization Policy (MRP)
Project:
We encourage those, that agree
with our goals, to support our efforts by purchasing the NAC Multi-media
CD which comes with a annual membership to New Age Citizen. Click
below to get more information:
To simplify the ordering process
please print yourself off an order form by clicking on the hover button
below..
[Please
Note: (1) You need to have the free
Adobe
Acrobat Reader installed before you can print the order form; (2) This
form also has occasional problems when viewed through the AOL browser.
If it takes more that 2 minutes to bring up the form we suggest using the
Internet Explorer (IE) browser].
Thanks for your Activism and Support,
Bruce W. Cain,
Editor of New Age Patriot Magazine(1989 - 1997)
Webmaster for New Age Citizen (2000 - End of the Drug War)
Anything purchased,
through the links in this column, generate revenue for New Age Citizen
and will help us achieve the policy goals discussed at this website.
In addition to the book links is the "New Age Emporium" link below.
This will take you to our comprehensive digital storefront where you can
purchase anything from books, to DVD's, to computers. This allows
you to purchase things you actually need, while helping New Age Citizen
achieve needed social change. We appreciate your support.
