JOHN BROWNE: ''The central bankers’ century''

From TribLive

''Some of the mainstream media have labeled the 20th century as “America’s Century.” In reality, it was the central bankers’ century.

Central banking began in England. After two failed attempts to establish an American central bank in the 19th century, the Federal Reserve Board, in reality a central bank, opened in 1914.

The Anglo-American-led central banks follow Keynesian economic theory. Since 1922, they have dominated world monetary affairs, first designating sterling and subsequently the U.S. dollar as fiat international reserve currencies.

Adopting Keynes’ debt-driven monetary policies, they have plunged the world’s two richest countries into chronic debt. In doing so, they have debased the U.S. dollar to the level of less than $0.02 in 1914 and sterling to under $0.005 in 1914. This represents a massive transfer of real wealth from the private sector to governments.''

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''The UN Wants its Own Drones?''

From Commentary Magazine


"The United Nations is weighing the possibility of using unmanned airplanes (drones) in intelligence operations and to searching for information… The issue was submitted to a committee of the UN General Assembly by the peacekeeping operations department, according to the organization’s official joint spokesman, Eduardo del Buey. Del Buey said that the United Nations is analyzing the potential use of that technology, including the support that the organization needs from the member countries if its use were recommended."


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''FEMA has refused financial and any aid to the town of Harrisburg Illinois, for low interest loans. They were wiped out completely by a tornado''

From Sherrie Questioning All

"FEMA is refusing to help U.S. citizens with low interest loans after they were completely wiped out by tornadoes. One town Harrisburg, Illinois was leveled by a tornado, there is nothing left there. Yet FEMA is refusing financial assistance due to "the damage not being bad enough throughout the state."

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Military Industrial Complex Threatens Congress: ''Lockheed Martin CEO Warns of Mass Layoffs''

From USNews

"The U.S. defense sector upped the ante Wednesday in its high-stakes standoff with Congress, warning lawmakers mass layoffs are coming unless lawmakers act quickly.

Another round of defense spending cuts would "dismantle" the U.S. defense and aerospace business sector, which for decades has been "the arsenal of democracy," Robert Stevens, CEO of Lockheed Martin, said Wednesday."

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''Slovakia Defies the Kochs and Cato''

From Consortium News

"For the past decade, the people of the small central European nation of Slovakia have suffered under a harsh and corrupt “privatization” scheme devised by the Koch Brothers’ Cato Institute. However, in weekend elections, they defied their oligarchs by voting for a left-of-center “populist” party, reports Mark Ames."

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''Pentagon To Put Budget Cuts On The Backs Of Soldiers Not M.I.C. War Profiteers!''

from mox news........

how about closing the 100 military bases in Italy?????

''Congress edges toward a compromise on spending''

read more.....from wapo........

"Put this in the “small accomplishments” category for an especially gridlocked Congress: It appears increasingly likely that, with little fuss, lawmakers will approve a bipartisan compromise in coming days that will keep government running past Friday, when a short-term funding measure that has kept the lights on expires.

Partisan clashes have brought the government to the brink of a shutdown three times in the past year. But this time, appropriators from the House and Senate have been quietly working toward the unveiling, expected late Monday, of a compromise spending measure that would outline how government agencies should spend nearly $1 trillion through Sept. 30, 2012."

''Supercommittee failure could trigger US credit downgrade, economists warn''

from the guardian....

"Economists are warning of dire consequences if US politicians fail to make progress this weekend in tense talks aimed at reducing America's massive deficit ahead of a Wednesday deadline.

The bi-partisan congressional super-committee is charged with drawing up plans for a $1.2tn reduction in the nation's deficit by the middle of next week. Failure to do so will trigger an automatic "sequester" that will make cuts of that size to defence and social welfare programmes starting in 2013. But the two sides seem far from finding a solution after clashing over tax revenues".....READ MORE

'People & Power - The Koch Brothers'

from aljazeera..........

'FTC accuses debt collection agency of abusive practices'

from california watch.......

"The Federal Trade Commission claims that Rincon Management Services LLC of Corona called consumers’ family and workplaces, falsely claiming that a lawsuit was being filed against them. Debt collectors told consumers that they would be served with legal papers, arrested, or even have their property or wages garnisheed if they did not call back promptly. In fact, none of the consumers had lawsuits filed against them, and the company was not authorized to serve legal papers, withhold wages or arrest anyone, according to the FTC"..........READ MORE

'US Military sexual assault and rape 'epidemic'

from aljazeera...........

"My experience reporting military sexual assault was worse than the actual assault," says Jessica (a pseudonym for her protection), a former marine officer and Iraq veteran who left the military because of her command's poor handling of her assault charges. "The command has so much power over a victim of sexual assault. They are your judge, jury, executioner and mayor: they own the law. As I saw in my case, they are able to crush you for reporting an assault."

Jessica is joining a civil lawsuit bringing claims against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, charging that under their watch the military failed to adequately and effectively investigate rapes and sexual assaults within the ranks"...........READ MORE

'Film Shows Epidemic of Cancer Downstream from Koch Industries Plant in Arkansas'

from firedoglake..........

A provocative new video from Brave New Films exposes what appear to be serious environmental crimes in Crossett, Arkansas, caused by waste product at a Georgia-Pacific plant. Georgia-Pacific is owned by Koch Industries.

In the video, the citizens of Penn Road, a residential neighborhood behind a channel into which the Georgia-Pacific plywood, paper mill, and formaldehyde resin plants are dumping their wastewater, are seen suffering from the effects of poor air quality and carcinogens in their environment. David Bouie, a pastor at the local church for 22 years in the area, says in the video. “We have 15 homes in this area, and maybe 11 people have died with cancer. Something is wrong on this street, Penn Road, where I live”...............READ MORE

'How the US government secretly reads your email'

the guardian.......

....................."government officials don't need a search warrant to access our digital data. Searching someone's home requires a warrant that can only be obtained by proving probable cause, but digital searches require no such burden of proof. Instead, officials essentially "self-certify" to a judge that the information they seek is, in their opinion, relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation. On this basis, Google and a small ISP called Sonic were made to hand over to the government all Appelbaum's email headers from the past two years.

Most people are not aware of the ease with which governments – free, open and so-called democratic – can access and peruse our private communications. This is because these court orders are commonly sealed. What is uncommon is for internet service providers to request the orders be unsealed so they can inform their customers, as Sonic and Google did in Appelbaum's case"............READ MORE 

'Cartels Chaining the Global Food Agenda'

from all africa.com.........

"It is not conspiracy theory, nor exchange within free markets, nor how they frame the debates. It is how they organise and plan, over years, for global dominance. The goals of the Global Agenda Council (GAC) for Food Security, an initiative of the Global Economic Forum (Davos), are available for all to see how food, chemical, and beverage cartels are planning 'the transformation of agriculture' among smallholder food producers across the continents, as a response to climate change.


To understand their preparations, the first acronym we must learn is BOP - their reference to the 'bottom of the pyramid', or what the rest of us would rather call the 'global majority' (54 per cent of the world's population). The GAC for Food Security cites 'BOP' as the 3.7 billion persons earning US$8 per day or less, largely excluded from formal markets. What the BOP represents to the cartels is an 'untapped market' of persons who spend 50 per cent of their income on food, or about US$1.3 trillion a year, for that expenditure occurs mainly in local markets, not linked to the global food chain. Those planning to tap this BOP market include sponsors such as Archer Daniels Midland, BASF, Bunge Limited, Cargill, The Coca-Cola Company, DuPont, General Mills, Kraft Foods, Monsanto Company, PepsiCo, SABMiller, Syngenta, Unilever, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, and Nestlé, encouraged by the Gates Foundation and its Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA).

'BofA debit card fee prompts animosity from coast to coast'

from latimes......

"Coming amid growing anti-Wall Street protests, BofA's new fee has become a focal point for anger and frustration about the flailing economy and Washington's attempts to help the nation recover from the financial crisis.

Some banks are testing similar, though lower, debit card fees. But BofA was the first major player to take the plunge. And since it is the nation's largest bank — as well as the beneficiary of one of the biggest taxpayer bailouts — the move has put a target on its red-white-and-blue logo"...........READ MORE

'Will the Super Committee Act Out of Fear?'

from frum forum.........

"First, the three trends: mounting anger at disparity of incomes and outcomes, exemplified in part first by the Tea Party movement and now by the growing “Occupy Wall Street” marches; widespread fear about job losses and another recession, revealed in every national poll in the past 18 months; and, the growing awareness in Congress that it is largely believed to be incompetent at best and venally so at worst.

So far, Wall Street and other elites have pooh-poohed the would-be occupiers as “hippies.” “silly students,” “union goons.” But members of Congress see none of those kinds of people—they see voters and they see headlines. Wall Street apparently believes that nothing will ultimately come of all this distraction and that Congress will surely ignore them. Wall Street may be right about Washington, D.C., for once".........READ MORE

'Buffalo NY Housing Project Turned Asbestos Nightmare'

from asbestos.net.........

"After state and city officials along with asbestos abatement contractors were indicted on 23 different felony charges a couple of months ago in Buffalo, New York, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is slapping Buffalo’s Housing Authority with fines'...........READ MORE

'Harry Reid outlines plans for millionaire surtax'

from las vegas sun........

"Senate Democrats intend to jettison provisions that President Barack Obama recommended to pay for his jobs bill and substitute a tax surcharge on millionaires, officials said Tuesday, hoping to unify the party for a protracted political struggle with Republicans.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid outlined plans for a 5 percent surcharge in a closed-door meeting with the rank and file, according to participants in the session, as Obama traveled to Texas to deliver his most caustic challenge yet to House Republicans who have not allowed a vote on the legislation unveiled nearly a month ago"................READ MORE

'Cozy relationships and ‘peer benchmarking’ send CEOs’ pay soaring'

from wapo..........

"This is how it’s done in corporate America. At Amgen and at the vast majority of large U.S. companies, boards aim to pay their executives at levels equal to or above the median for executives at similar companies.

The idea behind setting executive pay this way, known as “peer benchmarking,” is to keep talented bosses from leaving.

But the practice has long been controversialbecause, as critics have pointed out, if every company tries to keep up with or exceed the median pay for executives, executive compensation will spiral upward, regardless of performance. Few if any corporate boards consider their executive teams to be below average, so the result has become known as the “Lake Wobegon” effect"..............READ MORE

'Saving the Rich and Losing the Economy'

from paul craig roberts and foreignpolicyjournal..........

"Economic policy in the United States and Europe has failed, and people are suffering.

Economic policy failed for three reasons:  (1) policymakers focused on enabling offshoring corporations to move middle class jobs, and the consumer demand, tax base, GDP, and careers associated with the jobs, to foreign countries, such as China and India, where labor is inexpensive; (2) policymakers permitted financial deregulation that unleashed fraud and debt leverage on a scale previously unimaginable; (3) policymakers responded to the resulting financial crisis by imposing austerity on the population and running the printing press in order to bail out banks and prevent any losses to the banks regardless of the cost to national economies and innocent parties"..............READ MORE