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Thursday, October 15, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Troop Request Exceeds 60,000
By PETER SPIEGEL and YOCHI DREAZEN
Wall Street Journal
The request for troops sent to President Barack Obama by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan includes three different options, with the largest alternative including a request for more than 60,000 troops, according to a U.S. official familiar with the document.
Although the top option is more than the 40,000 soldiers previously understood to be the top troop total sought by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. officer in Kabul, 40,000 remains the primary choice of senior military brass, including Gen. McChrystal, the official said.
The details of the three scenarios were first reported by ABC News and confirmed by the U.S. official. The third option presented to Mr. Obama would be only a small increase that would keep U.S. forces largely at their year-end levels of 68,000 troops.
The troop request is expected to be deliberated today at Mr. Obama’s fifth cabinet-level meeting of his war council amid indications of growing official unease about such a significant escalation.
Although most requests for forces include only a single troop figure, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that Gen. McChrystal’s request was unusual given the continuing review of Afghan strategy. It is rather common in military planning, however, to discuss three different scenarios in order to illustrate why the middle option is preferable option.
Gen. McChrystal has warned that the U.S. faces possible “mission failure” in Afghanistan unless it quickly sends large numbers of forces there. But the Obama administration faces growing hurdles even if it decides to go with a buildup of tens of thousands of troops.
Senior Army officers acknowledged in interviews, for instance, that the U.S. doesn’t have nearly enough helicopters in Afghanistan to meet the current demand for safe movement of troops around the country. And U.S. forces are just beginning to receive new vehicles meant to function better on Afghanistan’s poor roads.
Separately, a recent study by the Institute for the Study of War — a Washington, D.C., think tank headed by Kimberly Kagan, a military analyst who worked on Gen. McChrystal’s assessment team — suggested it would be difficult to move enough troops from other posts to deploy anywhere close to 40,000 troops before next summer at the earliest.
The military agrees with the institute’s overall findings, although has identified different units it could deploy over the course of the next year.
White House officials acknowledged that Mr. Obama’s review is centering on ensuring the war is focused on preventing al Qaeda’s return to Afghanistan — a narrower objective that could require fewer, if any, new American troops. The officials acknowledged that the administration’s strategic review no longer sees the U.S.’s primary mission in Afghanistan as completely defeating the Taliban or preventing the armed Islamist group from any involvement in the country’s future.
Despite the narrowed focus, several White House officials said the administration’s broad review is ongoing and that the president hasn’t made any decisions. They said Mr. Obama wants to decide on what military strategy to pursue before approving or rejecting Gen. McChrystal’s request.
Still, focusing the U.S. mission in Afghanistan solely on destroying al Qaeda could make it easier for Mr. Obama to make a public case for giving Gen. McChrystal the lowest end of his three options, which would amount to only a small increase.
Political support for the war has been rapidly eroding among the public and on Capitol Hill, even as Gen. McChrystal and the nation’s top military personnel argue for a counterinsurgency strategy designed to protect Afghan civilians.
At the center of the ongoing deliberations, according to officials involved in and briefed on the White House sessions, is an emerging belief that a broad effort to defeat the Taliban and shore up Afghanistan’s weak central government may not be necessary to counter the threat posed by al Qaeda.
White House officials familiar with deliberations said that while some elements of the Taliban were inclined to harbor al Qaeda, which operated freely in Afghanistan through 2001, other members were focused on Afghanistan’s internal politics and much less likely to support the international terror group.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Thursday that al Qaeda has focused on hitting the U.S., while danger posed by the Taliban “was somewhat different” and less threatening.
The argument that a return of some Taliban elements would not directly threaten U.S. security has been pushed by allies of Vice President Joe Biden, who has argued against a major increase in force levels. The distinction Mr. Biden draws is shared by Barnett Rubin, a top aide to the administration’s special representative to the region, Richard Holbrooke.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, arguably the central player in the deliberations, is one of the officials who appears to most strongly disagree with that assessment. Earlier this week, the defense chief said that a Taliban takeover of wide swaths of Afghanistan would allow al Qaeda to “strengthen itself” by creating new havens for the terrorist group.
But participants in the current review said that neither Mr. Gates, who picked Gen. McChrystal for his job, nor Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have yet made clear what strategy they favor in Afghanistan or what forces should be sent there.
The Institute for the Study of War report detailed how the White House must grapple with the fact that the stretched U.S. military has only limited troops ready for deployment, which could mean that many forces might not reach the war zone until the summer of 2010.
The study concluded that the U.S. has only three Army and Marine brigades — about 11,000 to 15,000 troops — capable of deploying to Afghanistan this year. An additional four brigades, or potentially as many 20,000 troops, could deploy by the summer of 2010, the think tank concluded.
Lt. Col. Lee Packnett, an Army spokesman, said that the Army wanted to only send units to Afghanistan that have had at least 12 months back in the U.S. between overseas deployments.
But Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that Mr. Obama could force the military’s hand if he decides winning the war requires a quick infusion of large numbers of reinforcements. “In the real world you do what you need to do,” he said. “You don’t tailor the war to maintain peacetime readiness. You maintain peacetime assets precisely so you can consume them in war.”
Lack of helicopters and other equipment problems could present a more intractable problem for a bigger force trying to reach Afghanistan’s key battle zones. The country is mountainous and lacks reliable roads, so most troops and supplies are ferried to their bases aboard helicopters rather than on trucks or other ground vehicles.
Last summer, the Army deployed a second combat aviation brigade to Afghanistan, doubling the number of Army helicopters there from 114 to about 228. But with U.S. troop levels almost doubling in 2009, senior Army officers acknowledge that the U.S. still doesn’t have nearly enough. “Simply put, we just don’t have enough birds,” one officer said in an interview this week. “The Taliban have made more and more of the roads inaccessible to us, so the need for helicopters keeps growing.”
The military has also found that the signature vehicle of the Iraq war — the giant armored trucks known as the “mine resistant, ambush protected” vehicles, or MRAPs — don’t function well on Afghanistan’s poor roads. The Pentagon is in the process of purchasing hundreds of second-generation armored vehicles that are specially designed to function off-road or on dirt or gravel paths, but the first of the new vehicles only began arriving in Afghanistan in recent days.
Wall Street Journal
The request for troops sent to President Barack Obama by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan includes three different options, with the largest alternative including a request for more than 60,000 troops, according to a U.S. official familiar with the document.
Although the top option is more than the 40,000 soldiers previously understood to be the top troop total sought by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. officer in Kabul, 40,000 remains the primary choice of senior military brass, including Gen. McChrystal, the official said.
The details of the three scenarios were first reported by ABC News and confirmed by the U.S. official. The third option presented to Mr. Obama would be only a small increase that would keep U.S. forces largely at their year-end levels of 68,000 troops.
The troop request is expected to be deliberated today at Mr. Obama’s fifth cabinet-level meeting of his war council amid indications of growing official unease about such a significant escalation.
Although most requests for forces include only a single troop figure, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that Gen. McChrystal’s request was unusual given the continuing review of Afghan strategy. It is rather common in military planning, however, to discuss three different scenarios in order to illustrate why the middle option is preferable option.
Gen. McChrystal has warned that the U.S. faces possible “mission failure” in Afghanistan unless it quickly sends large numbers of forces there. But the Obama administration faces growing hurdles even if it decides to go with a buildup of tens of thousands of troops.
Senior Army officers acknowledged in interviews, for instance, that the U.S. doesn’t have nearly enough helicopters in Afghanistan to meet the current demand for safe movement of troops around the country. And U.S. forces are just beginning to receive new vehicles meant to function better on Afghanistan’s poor roads.
Separately, a recent study by the Institute for the Study of War — a Washington, D.C., think tank headed by Kimberly Kagan, a military analyst who worked on Gen. McChrystal’s assessment team — suggested it would be difficult to move enough troops from other posts to deploy anywhere close to 40,000 troops before next summer at the earliest.
The military agrees with the institute’s overall findings, although has identified different units it could deploy over the course of the next year.
White House officials acknowledged that Mr. Obama’s review is centering on ensuring the war is focused on preventing al Qaeda’s return to Afghanistan — a narrower objective that could require fewer, if any, new American troops. The officials acknowledged that the administration’s strategic review no longer sees the U.S.’s primary mission in Afghanistan as completely defeating the Taliban or preventing the armed Islamist group from any involvement in the country’s future.
Despite the narrowed focus, several White House officials said the administration’s broad review is ongoing and that the president hasn’t made any decisions. They said Mr. Obama wants to decide on what military strategy to pursue before approving or rejecting Gen. McChrystal’s request.
Still, focusing the U.S. mission in Afghanistan solely on destroying al Qaeda could make it easier for Mr. Obama to make a public case for giving Gen. McChrystal the lowest end of his three options, which would amount to only a small increase.
Political support for the war has been rapidly eroding among the public and on Capitol Hill, even as Gen. McChrystal and the nation’s top military personnel argue for a counterinsurgency strategy designed to protect Afghan civilians.
At the center of the ongoing deliberations, according to officials involved in and briefed on the White House sessions, is an emerging belief that a broad effort to defeat the Taliban and shore up Afghanistan’s weak central government may not be necessary to counter the threat posed by al Qaeda.
White House officials familiar with deliberations said that while some elements of the Taliban were inclined to harbor al Qaeda, which operated freely in Afghanistan through 2001, other members were focused on Afghanistan’s internal politics and much less likely to support the international terror group.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Thursday that al Qaeda has focused on hitting the U.S., while danger posed by the Taliban “was somewhat different” and less threatening.
The argument that a return of some Taliban elements would not directly threaten U.S. security has been pushed by allies of Vice President Joe Biden, who has argued against a major increase in force levels. The distinction Mr. Biden draws is shared by Barnett Rubin, a top aide to the administration’s special representative to the region, Richard Holbrooke.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, arguably the central player in the deliberations, is one of the officials who appears to most strongly disagree with that assessment. Earlier this week, the defense chief said that a Taliban takeover of wide swaths of Afghanistan would allow al Qaeda to “strengthen itself” by creating new havens for the terrorist group.
But participants in the current review said that neither Mr. Gates, who picked Gen. McChrystal for his job, nor Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have yet made clear what strategy they favor in Afghanistan or what forces should be sent there.
The Institute for the Study of War report detailed how the White House must grapple with the fact that the stretched U.S. military has only limited troops ready for deployment, which could mean that many forces might not reach the war zone until the summer of 2010.
The study concluded that the U.S. has only three Army and Marine brigades — about 11,000 to 15,000 troops — capable of deploying to Afghanistan this year. An additional four brigades, or potentially as many 20,000 troops, could deploy by the summer of 2010, the think tank concluded.
Lt. Col. Lee Packnett, an Army spokesman, said that the Army wanted to only send units to Afghanistan that have had at least 12 months back in the U.S. between overseas deployments.
But Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that Mr. Obama could force the military’s hand if he decides winning the war requires a quick infusion of large numbers of reinforcements. “In the real world you do what you need to do,” he said. “You don’t tailor the war to maintain peacetime readiness. You maintain peacetime assets precisely so you can consume them in war.”
Lack of helicopters and other equipment problems could present a more intractable problem for a bigger force trying to reach Afghanistan’s key battle zones. The country is mountainous and lacks reliable roads, so most troops and supplies are ferried to their bases aboard helicopters rather than on trucks or other ground vehicles.
Last summer, the Army deployed a second combat aviation brigade to Afghanistan, doubling the number of Army helicopters there from 114 to about 228. But with U.S. troop levels almost doubling in 2009, senior Army officers acknowledge that the U.S. still doesn’t have nearly enough. “Simply put, we just don’t have enough birds,” one officer said in an interview this week. “The Taliban have made more and more of the roads inaccessible to us, so the need for helicopters keeps growing.”
The military has also found that the signature vehicle of the Iraq war — the giant armored trucks known as the “mine resistant, ambush protected” vehicles, or MRAPs — don’t function well on Afghanistan’s poor roads. The Pentagon is in the process of purchasing hundreds of second-generation armored vehicles that are specially designed to function off-road or on dirt or gravel paths, but the first of the new vehicles only began arriving in Afghanistan in recent days.
NYC CAN Verdict: 80,000 Silenced by State Supreme Court
NYCCAN.org
Once Again, The Will of the Voters Is Denied
Yesterday afternoon, Justice Edward Lehner of the State Supreme Court rubberstamped Referee Louis Crespo’s recommendation that the decision to establish a local commission to investigate the events of September 11th not be put before the voters on November 3rd.
After showing interest in weighing both sides’ arguments in the hearing, the Judge’s short decision gives no indication of having considered the arguments put forth in the Petitioners’ memorandum of law, nor any acknowledgement of the need for a new investigation, which the City of New York callously dismissed as “irrelevant”.
On a dark day for democracy, the patriotic call for answers by hundreds of 9/11 families, first responders and survivors has been stifled, and the will of the people of New York City once again denied.
Judge Lehner ruled that modifying the petition to make it “legally permissible” would result in it being “inconsistent with the law sought by the signatories of the Petition” despite the fact that all 80,000 signatories agreed by signing the Petition that “If any provision of this law is held to be unconstitutional or invalid for any reason, the remaining provisions shall be in no manner affected thereby but shall remain in full force and effect.”
The deadline for inclusion on the ballot falls just before the election, making it possible to appeal Judge Lehner’s decision. NYC CAN is weighing all options and will make an announcement early next week on this issue, as well as on how it will be moving forward on other fronts. Regardless of the outcome in court, the quest for answers continues full throttle.
This fight is only the beginning.
Friday, October 9, 2009
VIDEO - Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize??
Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize?? I try not to curse on my blog, but what the fuck? This is a disgrace!
HE'S IN WAR! HE JUST SENT MORE TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN... HE'S A WAR PRESIDENT WHO'S ENGAGED IN 2 WARS AND HE'S NOT FOR PEACE!
Giving the peace prize to him (especially this early) is a complete dichotomy and goes against everything the award stands for!
He should win an Oscar actually for fooling the American people with his slick acting skills.
HE'S IN WAR! HE JUST SENT MORE TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN... HE'S A WAR PRESIDENT WHO'S ENGAGED IN 2 WARS AND HE'S NOT FOR PEACE!
Giving the peace prize to him (especially this early) is a complete dichotomy and goes against everything the award stands for!
He should win an Oscar actually for fooling the American people with his slick acting skills.
Chuck Norris vs The Federal Reserve
A Force of One: The Federal Reserve
Chuck Norris
Creators.com
I agree with Judge Andrew Napolitano, who said last week, "We know more about the CIA than we do about the Federal Reserve."
The Federal Reserve is the Freemasonry of government agencies. It is a virtual secret society unto itself — a group of unelected brokers who hold the value of our dollar in the palms of their hands. This one agency, with its power to raise and lower interest rates, has exercised more control over the economy than any other government body.
So with that type of single-handed power, why should we be surprised that the U.S. Senate blocked a bill last week to audit the Federal Reserve? 'Tis true! Rep. Ron Paul and more than half of his colleagues in the House co-sponsored the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, HR 1207, which they hope to have hearings on soon. On the Senate side, Sens. Jim DeMint, Mike Crapo and David Vitter co-sponsored S 604, companion legislation introduced by Bernie Sanders. But it was stopped cold before even being introduced on the floor on "procedural grounds."
So why does this federal agency need a complete auditing? It's very simple: America is in the worst economic situation since the Great Depression; the value of the dollar is tanking on the world market; and the Federal Reserve wields the greatest power to control it, with virtually no accountability — let alone that the American people and even Congress have virtually no knowledge of what those inside are doing day to day.
The way I see it, there are two primary problems with the Federal Reserve. First, its very existence is a sheer contradiction of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. As Ron Paul explained last week: "Our Founding Fathers never intended for a single entity such as the Federal Reserve to have this much power. In fact, there is no authority in the Constitution for the federal government to create a central bank, to enact legal tender laws, or to print paper money. The Tenth Amendment is quite clear that 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Secondly, the Federal Reserve is flat-out bad for the economy in the long run because it creates false fronts or temporary escalations in the free market, which eventually cycle around and lead to downturns or more need for other Fed fixes. Even if it creates several cycles of credit rushes (which it deems as "signs of prosperity"), sooner or later, the false foundation crumbles and we find ourselves in an economic hole that the Fed can't bail us out of — which is exactly where we are now in this recession.
The fact is the Federal Reserve is one of the best examples of government control run amok and its oppression over its people.
It rules by dangling carrots, cheap rates and loans before the American public, which in turn oppresses people by their inability to resist further debt. The Fed is the dealer in greed and debt, and its drugs are easy money and credit. Under the Federal Reserve System, Americans and our economy have to return to the Federal Reserve for repeated fixes like a drug addict. Otherwise everything goes into the tank.
If we can get the flow of the Federal Reserve under control, others drawing from its wells will become more manageable and accountable. Its open market operations and dealings with central banks and foreign powers at the very least must have oversight!
But you can bet that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are going to fight to prevent the passing of any legislation that regulates the Federal Reserve, because they are in cahoots with the White House and also don't want the trade secrets of the Federal Reserve revealed nor its power restricted. Why? Because its power benefits them, plain and simple. It is being used right now by the Obama administration and the Democratic majority in Congress for political expedience and special interests.
Henry Ford was probably right when he said, "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
That's why I believe, along with Ron Paul and others, that the Federal Reserve needs to be abolished. The U.S. ran just fine without it — before its inception, in 1913. We had financial crises before its existence and after it, but its intervention has been proved historically only to make things worse. Our Founders never would have tolerated its abusive power or methods of bribery. It is a detriment to not only the economy but also the very existence of a representative form of government and all Americans who want to experience true freedom.
In the meantime, however, until some act of God or the people do away with that self-regulating and fraudulent government agency, the least we can do is get the Federal Reserve under control by passing HR 1207 in the House and S 604 in the Senate. Write today to demand that your representatives support the bills that require an audit of the Federal Reserve.
VIDEO - Former Lieutenant Colonel Sues Florida Over Forced Vaccination Policy
A former lieutenant colonel who almost died from taking a smallpox shot is suing the state of Florida over a law that allows the government to forcibly vaccinate the public in the event of a pandemic.
Carmen Reynolds claims that the vaccinations she was forced to take during her 20-year military career destroyed her body-builder physique and also wrecked her internally, causing excruciating pain and permanently damaging her immune system.
The Florida law mandating forcible vaccinations in the event of a public health emergency makes no exceptions for religion objections or health conditions and allows for police force to be used to quarantine individuals who refuse to take the shot, or even forcibly inject them at gunpoint if necessary.
“I refuse to be killed by another vaccine,” stated Reynolds, who is suing Florida’s governor, attorney general and surgeon general over the law.
“I served my country for 22 years not to be told that I am a criminal, a 2nd degree misdemeanor offender because I raised my hand and said this isn’t right. I don’t want toxins in my body because it jeopardizes my health,” Reynolds told ABC 3 News.
At a court hearing in Milton this week, Reynolds was granted a continuance until December 1st to find an attorney, but the Attorney General’s office has filed a notion to dismiss the case, arguing that Reynolds has not been directly affected by the law.
Similar laws are on the books across America and could easily be enforced should the swine flu pandemic return in the form of a deadlier mutation, as officials have been saying is likely to happen.
The United States Of America Is A Corporation Owned By Foreign Interests
US Code:
(15) ``United States'' means--
(A) a Federal corporation
(B) an agency, department, commission, board, or other entity of the United States
(C) an instrumentality of the United States.
http://www.law.cornell.edu...
garsoor.wordpress.com
Below are two articles covering the fact that, since the Act of 1871 which established the District of Columbia, we have been living under the UNITED STATES CORPORATION which is owned by certain international bankers and aristocracy of Europe and Britain.
In 1871 the Congress changed the name of the original Constitution by changing ONE WORD — and that was very significant as you will read.
Some people do not understand that ONE WORD or TWO WORDS difference in any “legal” document DO make the critical difference. But, Congress has known, and does know, this.
I’m told this corporation, established in 1871, will be cancelled by NESARA and NESARA will also restore the ORIGINAL Constitution which assists in restoring our Constitutional Rights and the Bill of Rights and our rights as described in the Declaration of Independence.
1871, February 21: Congress Passes an Act to Provide a Government for the District of Columbia, also known as the Act of 1871*
With no constitutional authority to do so, Congress creates a separate form of government for the District of Columbia, a ten mile square parcel of land (see, Acts of the Forty-first Congress,” Section 34, Session III, chapters 61 and 62).
The act — passed when the country was weakened and financially depleted in the aftermath of the Civil War — was a strategic move by foreign interests (international bankers) who were intent upon gaining a stranglehold on the coffers and neck of America.
Congress cut a deal with the international bankers (specifically Rothschilds of London) to incur a DEBT to said bankers. Because the bankers were not about to lend money to a floundering nation without serious stipulations, they devised a way to get their foot in the door of the United States.
The Act of 1871 formed a corporation called THE UNITED STATES. The corporation, OWNED by foreign interests, moved in and shoved the original Constitution into a dustbin. With the Act of 1871, the organic Constitution was defaced — in effect vandalized and sabotage — when the title was capitalized and the word “for” was changed to “of” in the title.
* Info from yet unpublished book, “Pentimento: Freedom Revisited.” As you will see when reading, just as much of my knowledge of the Trading with the Enemy Act came from Gene Schroder, et al. this, too, came from elsewhere — from Lisa Guilian of Babel Magazine, whom I first “met” by way of an article by Patrick Bellringer. So, we cooperate as we study and learn the truth. C. E.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is the constitution of the incorporated UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
It operates in an economic capacity and has been used to fool the People into thinking it governs the Republic. It does is not!
Capitalization is NOT insignificant when one is referring to a legal document. This seemingly “minor” alteration has had a major impact on every subsequent generation of Americans.
What Congress did by passing the Act of 1871 was create an entirely new document, a constitution for the government of the District of Columbia, an INCORPORATED government. This newly altered Constitution was not intended to benefit the Republic. It benefits only the corporation of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and operates entirely outside the original (organic) Constitution.
Instead of having absolute and unalienable rights guaranteed under the organic Constitution, we the people now have “relative” rights or privileges. One example is the Sovereign’s right to travel, which has now been transformed (under corporate government policy) into a “privilege” that requires citizens to be licensed.
By passing the Act of 1871, Congress committed TREASON against the People who were Sovereign under the grants and decrees of the Declaration of Independence and the organic Constitution.
[Information courtesy of Lisa Guliani, www.babelmagazine.com. The Act of 1871 became the FOUNDATION of all the treason since committed by government officials.]
The UNITED STATES Isn’t a Country – It’s a Corporation!
In preparation for stealing America, the puppets of Britain’s banking cabal had already created a second government, a Shadow Government designed to manage what the common herd believed was a democracy, but what really was an incorporated UNITED STATES. Together this chimera, this two-headed monster, disallowed the common herd all rights of sui juris. [sovereignty]
Congress, with no authority to do so, created a separate form of government for the District of Columbia, a ten-mile square parcel of land. WHY and HOW did they do so? First, Lisa Guliani of Babel Magazine, reminds us that the Civil War was, in fact, “little more than a calculated front
with fancy footwork by backroom players.” Then she adds:
“It was also a strategic maneuver by British and European interests (international bankers) intent on gaining a stranglehold on the coffers of America. And, because Congress knew our country was in dire financial straits, certain members of Congress cut a deal with the international bankers (in those days, the Rothschilds of London were dipping their fingers into everyone’s pie). . . . . There you have the WHY, why members of Congress permitted the international bankers to gain further control of America. . . . . .
“Then, by passing the Act of 1871, Congress formed a corporation known as THE UNITED STATES. This corporation, owned by foreign interests, shoved the organic version of the Constitution aside by changing the word ‘for’ to ‘of’ in the title. Let me explain: the original Constitution drafted by the Founding Fathers read: ‘The Constitution for the united states of America.’ [note that neither the words 'united' nor 'states' began with capital letters] But the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA’ is a corporate constitution, which is absolutely NOT the same document you think it is. First of all, it ended all our rights of sovereignty [sui juris]. So you now have the HOW, how the international bankers got their hands on THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”
To fully understand how our rights of sovereignty were ended, you must know the full meaning of sovereign:
SOVEREIGN
“Chief or highest, supreme power, superior in position to all others; independent of and unlimited by others; possessing or entitled to; original and independent authority or jurisdiction.”
–Webster–
In short, our government, which was created by and for us as sovereigns — free citizens deemed to have the highest authority in the land — was stolen from us, along with our rights. Keep in mind that, according to the original Constitution, only We the People are sovereign. Government is not
sovereign. The Declaration of Independence says, “government is subject to the consent of the governed.” That’s us — the sovereigns. When did you last feet like a sovereign? As Lisa Guliani explained:
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or a constitutional historian to figure out that the U.S. Government has NOT been subject to the consent of the governed since long before you or I were born. Rather, the governed are subject to the whim and greed of the corporation, which has stretched its tentacles beyond the ten-mile-square parcel of land known as the District of Columbia. In fact, it has invaded every state of the Republic. Mind you, the corporation has NO jurisdiction beyond the District of Columbia. You just think it does.
“You see, you are ‘presumed’ to know the law, which is very weird since We the People are taught NOTHING about the law in school. We memorize obscure facts and phrases here and there, like the Preamble, which says, ‘We the People. establish this Constitution for the United States of America.’ But our teachers only gloss over the Bill of Rights. Our schools (controlled by the corporate government) don’t delve into the Constitution at depth. After all, the corporation was established to indoctrinate and ‘dumb-down’ the masses, not to teach anything of value or importance.
“Certainly, no one mentioned that America was sold-out to foreign interests, that we were beneficiaries of the debt incurred by Congress, or that we were in debt to the international bankers. Yet, for generations, Americans have had the bulk of their earnings confiscated to pay a massive debt that they did not incur. There’s an endless stream of things the People aren’t told. And, now that you are being told, how do you feel about being made the recipient of a debt without your knowledge or consent?
“After passage of the Act of 1871, Congress set a series of subtle and overt deceptions into motion, deceptions in the form of decisions that were meant to sell us down the river.
“Over time, the Republic took it on the chin until it was knocked down and counted out by a technical KO [knock out]. With the surrender of the people’s gold in 1933, the ‘common herd’ was handed over to illegitimate law. (I’ll bet you weren’t taught THAT in school.)
“Our corporate form of governance is based on Roman Civil Law and Admiralty, or Maritime, Law, which is also known as the ‘Divine Right of Kings’ and the ‘Law of the Seas’ — another fact of American history not taught in our schools. Actually, Roman Civil Law was fully established in the colonies before our nation began, and then became managed by private international law. In other words, the government — the government created for the District of Columbia via the Act of 1871 — operates solely under Private International Law, not Common Law, which was the foundation of our Constitutional Republic.
“This fact has impacted all Americans in concrete ways. For instance, although Private International Law is technically only applicable within the District of Columbia, and NOT in the other states of the Union, the arms of the Corporation of the UNITED STATES are called ‘departments’ –i.e., the Justice Department, the Treasury Department. And those departments affect everyone, no matter where (in what state) they live. Guess what? Each department belongs to the corporation — to the UNITED STATES.
“Refer to any UNITED STATES CODE (USC). Note the capitalization; this is evidence of a corporation, not a Republic. For example, In Title 28 3002 (15) (A) (B) (C), it is unequivocally stated that the UNITED STATES is a corporation. Translation: the corporation is NOT a separate and distinct entity; it is not disconnected from the government; it IS the government — your government. This is extremely important! I refer to it as the ‘corporate EMPIRE of the UNITED STATES,’ which operates under Roman Civil Law outside the original Constitution. How do you like being ruled by a
corporation? You say you’ll ask your Congressperson about this? HA!!
“Congress is fully aware of this deception. So it’s time that you, too, become aware of the deception. What this great deception means is that the members of Congress do NOT work for us, for you and me. They work for the Corporation, for the UNITED STATES. No wonder we can’t get them to do anything on our behalf, or meet or demands, or answer our questions.
“Technically, legally, or any other way you want to look at the matter, the corporate government of the UNITED STATES has no jurisdiction or authority in ANY State of the Union (the Republic) beyond the District of Columbia. Let that tidbit sink in, then ask yourself, could this deception have occurred without full knowledge and complicity of the Congress? Do you think it happened by accident? If you do, you’re deceiving yourself.
“There are no accidents, no coincidences. Face the facts and confront the truth. Remember, you are presumed to know the law. THEY know you don’t know the law or, for that matter, your history. Why? Because no concerted effort was ever made to teach or otherwise inform you. As a Sovereign, you are entitled to full disclosure of all facts. As a slave, you are entitled to nothing other than what the corporation decides to ‘give’ you.
“Remember also that ‘Ignorance of the law is no excuse.’ It’s your responsibility and obligation to learn the law and know how it applies to you. No wonder the corporation counted on the fact that most people are too indifferent, unconcerned, distracted, or lazy to learn what they need to know to survive within the system. We have been conditioned to let the government do our thinking for us. Now’s the time to turn that around if we intend to help save our Republic and ourselves — before it’s too late.
“As an instrument of the international bankers, the UNITED STATES owns you from birth to death. It also holds ownership of all your assets, of your property, even of your children. Think long and hard about all the bills taxes, fines, and licenses you have paid for or purchased. Yes, they had you by the pockets. If you don’t believe it, read the 14th Amendment. See how ‘free’ you really are. Ignorance of the facts led to your silence. Silence is construed as consent; consent to be beneficiaries of a debt you did not incur. As a Sovereign People we have been deceived for hundreds of years; we think we are free, but in truth we are servants of the corporation.
“Congress committed treason against the People in 1871. Honest men could have corrected the fraud and treason. But apparently there weren’t enough honest men to counteract the lust for money and power. We lost more freedom than we will ever know, thanks to corporate infiltration of our so-called ‘government.’
“Do you think that any soldier who died in any of our many wars would have fought if he or she had known the truth? Do you think one person would have laid down his/her life for a corporation? How long will we remain silent? How long will we perpetuate the MYTH that we are free? When will we stand together as One Sovereign People? When will we take back what has been as stolen from the us?
“If the People of America had known to what extent their trust was betrayed, how long would it have taken for a real revolution to occur? What we now need is a Revolution in THOUGHT. We need to change our thinking, then we can change our world. Our children deserve their rightful legacy — the liberty our ancestors fought to preserve, the legacy of a Sovereign and Fully Free People.” [Posted 8/27/02, www.babalmagazine.com/]
From a speech in Congress in The Bankruptcy of The United States United States Congressional Record, March 17, 1993 Vol. 33, page H-1303. Speaker-Rep. James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House:
“Prior to 1913, most Americans owned clear, allodial title to property, free and clear of any liens or mortgages until the Federal Reserve Act (1913) “Hypothecated” all property within the federal United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve – in which the Trustees (stockholders) held legal title. The U.S. citizen (tenant, franchisee) was registered as a “beneficiary” of the trust via his/her birth certificate. In 1933, the federal United States hypothecated all of the present and future properties, assets and labor of their “subjects,” the 14th Amendment U.S. citizen, to the Federal Reserve System.
In return, the Federal Reserve System agreed to extend THE FEDERAL United States CORPORATION [emphasis added] all the credit “money substitute” it needed. Like any other debtor, the federal United States government had to assign collateral and security to their creditors as a condition of the loan. Since the federal United States didn’t have any assets, they assigned the private property of their “economic slaves”, the U.S. citizens as collateral against the unpayable federal debt. They also pledged the unincorporated federal territories, national parks forests, birth certificates, and nonprofit organizations, as collateral against the federal debt. All has already been transferred as payment to the international bankers.
Unwittingly, America has returned to its pre-American Revolution, feudal roots whereby all land is held by a sovereign and the common people had no rights to hold allodial title to property. Once again, We the People are the tenants and sharecroppers renting our own property from a Sovereign in the guise of the Federal Reserve Bank. We the people have exchanged one master for another. .”
(15) ``United States'' means--
(A) a Federal corporation
(B) an agency, department, commission, board, or other entity of the United States
(C) an instrumentality of the United States.
http://www.law.cornell.edu...
garsoor.wordpress.com
Below are two articles covering the fact that, since the Act of 1871 which established the District of Columbia, we have been living under the UNITED STATES CORPORATION which is owned by certain international bankers and aristocracy of Europe and Britain.
In 1871 the Congress changed the name of the original Constitution by changing ONE WORD — and that was very significant as you will read.
Some people do not understand that ONE WORD or TWO WORDS difference in any “legal” document DO make the critical difference. But, Congress has known, and does know, this.
I’m told this corporation, established in 1871, will be cancelled by NESARA and NESARA will also restore the ORIGINAL Constitution which assists in restoring our Constitutional Rights and the Bill of Rights and our rights as described in the Declaration of Independence.
1871, February 21: Congress Passes an Act to Provide a Government for the District of Columbia, also known as the Act of 1871*
With no constitutional authority to do so, Congress creates a separate form of government for the District of Columbia, a ten mile square parcel of land (see, Acts of the Forty-first Congress,” Section 34, Session III, chapters 61 and 62).
The act — passed when the country was weakened and financially depleted in the aftermath of the Civil War — was a strategic move by foreign interests (international bankers) who were intent upon gaining a stranglehold on the coffers and neck of America.
Congress cut a deal with the international bankers (specifically Rothschilds of London) to incur a DEBT to said bankers. Because the bankers were not about to lend money to a floundering nation without serious stipulations, they devised a way to get their foot in the door of the United States.
The Act of 1871 formed a corporation called THE UNITED STATES. The corporation, OWNED by foreign interests, moved in and shoved the original Constitution into a dustbin. With the Act of 1871, the organic Constitution was defaced — in effect vandalized and sabotage — when the title was capitalized and the word “for” was changed to “of” in the title.
* Info from yet unpublished book, “Pentimento: Freedom Revisited.” As you will see when reading, just as much of my knowledge of the Trading with the Enemy Act came from Gene Schroder, et al. this, too, came from elsewhere — from Lisa Guilian of Babel Magazine, whom I first “met” by way of an article by Patrick Bellringer. So, we cooperate as we study and learn the truth. C. E.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is the constitution of the incorporated UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
It operates in an economic capacity and has been used to fool the People into thinking it governs the Republic. It does is not!
Capitalization is NOT insignificant when one is referring to a legal document. This seemingly “minor” alteration has had a major impact on every subsequent generation of Americans.
What Congress did by passing the Act of 1871 was create an entirely new document, a constitution for the government of the District of Columbia, an INCORPORATED government. This newly altered Constitution was not intended to benefit the Republic. It benefits only the corporation of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and operates entirely outside the original (organic) Constitution.
Instead of having absolute and unalienable rights guaranteed under the organic Constitution, we the people now have “relative” rights or privileges. One example is the Sovereign’s right to travel, which has now been transformed (under corporate government policy) into a “privilege” that requires citizens to be licensed.
By passing the Act of 1871, Congress committed TREASON against the People who were Sovereign under the grants and decrees of the Declaration of Independence and the organic Constitution.
[Information courtesy of Lisa Guliani, www.babelmagazine.com. The Act of 1871 became the FOUNDATION of all the treason since committed by government officials.]
The UNITED STATES Isn’t a Country – It’s a Corporation!
In preparation for stealing America, the puppets of Britain’s banking cabal had already created a second government, a Shadow Government designed to manage what the common herd believed was a democracy, but what really was an incorporated UNITED STATES. Together this chimera, this two-headed monster, disallowed the common herd all rights of sui juris. [sovereignty]
Congress, with no authority to do so, created a separate form of government for the District of Columbia, a ten-mile square parcel of land. WHY and HOW did they do so? First, Lisa Guliani of Babel Magazine, reminds us that the Civil War was, in fact, “little more than a calculated front
with fancy footwork by backroom players.” Then she adds:
“It was also a strategic maneuver by British and European interests (international bankers) intent on gaining a stranglehold on the coffers of America. And, because Congress knew our country was in dire financial straits, certain members of Congress cut a deal with the international bankers (in those days, the Rothschilds of London were dipping their fingers into everyone’s pie). . . . . There you have the WHY, why members of Congress permitted the international bankers to gain further control of America. . . . . .
“Then, by passing the Act of 1871, Congress formed a corporation known as THE UNITED STATES. This corporation, owned by foreign interests, shoved the organic version of the Constitution aside by changing the word ‘for’ to ‘of’ in the title. Let me explain: the original Constitution drafted by the Founding Fathers read: ‘The Constitution for the united states of America.’ [note that neither the words 'united' nor 'states' began with capital letters] But the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA’ is a corporate constitution, which is absolutely NOT the same document you think it is. First of all, it ended all our rights of sovereignty [sui juris]. So you now have the HOW, how the international bankers got their hands on THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”
To fully understand how our rights of sovereignty were ended, you must know the full meaning of sovereign:
SOVEREIGN
“Chief or highest, supreme power, superior in position to all others; independent of and unlimited by others; possessing or entitled to; original and independent authority or jurisdiction.”
–Webster–
In short, our government, which was created by and for us as sovereigns — free citizens deemed to have the highest authority in the land — was stolen from us, along with our rights. Keep in mind that, according to the original Constitution, only We the People are sovereign. Government is not
sovereign. The Declaration of Independence says, “government is subject to the consent of the governed.” That’s us — the sovereigns. When did you last feet like a sovereign? As Lisa Guliani explained:
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or a constitutional historian to figure out that the U.S. Government has NOT been subject to the consent of the governed since long before you or I were born. Rather, the governed are subject to the whim and greed of the corporation, which has stretched its tentacles beyond the ten-mile-square parcel of land known as the District of Columbia. In fact, it has invaded every state of the Republic. Mind you, the corporation has NO jurisdiction beyond the District of Columbia. You just think it does.
“You see, you are ‘presumed’ to know the law, which is very weird since We the People are taught NOTHING about the law in school. We memorize obscure facts and phrases here and there, like the Preamble, which says, ‘We the People. establish this Constitution for the United States of America.’ But our teachers only gloss over the Bill of Rights. Our schools (controlled by the corporate government) don’t delve into the Constitution at depth. After all, the corporation was established to indoctrinate and ‘dumb-down’ the masses, not to teach anything of value or importance.
“Certainly, no one mentioned that America was sold-out to foreign interests, that we were beneficiaries of the debt incurred by Congress, or that we were in debt to the international bankers. Yet, for generations, Americans have had the bulk of their earnings confiscated to pay a massive debt that they did not incur. There’s an endless stream of things the People aren’t told. And, now that you are being told, how do you feel about being made the recipient of a debt without your knowledge or consent?
“After passage of the Act of 1871, Congress set a series of subtle and overt deceptions into motion, deceptions in the form of decisions that were meant to sell us down the river.
“Over time, the Republic took it on the chin until it was knocked down and counted out by a technical KO [knock out]. With the surrender of the people’s gold in 1933, the ‘common herd’ was handed over to illegitimate law. (I’ll bet you weren’t taught THAT in school.)
“Our corporate form of governance is based on Roman Civil Law and Admiralty, or Maritime, Law, which is also known as the ‘Divine Right of Kings’ and the ‘Law of the Seas’ — another fact of American history not taught in our schools. Actually, Roman Civil Law was fully established in the colonies before our nation began, and then became managed by private international law. In other words, the government — the government created for the District of Columbia via the Act of 1871 — operates solely under Private International Law, not Common Law, which was the foundation of our Constitutional Republic.
“This fact has impacted all Americans in concrete ways. For instance, although Private International Law is technically only applicable within the District of Columbia, and NOT in the other states of the Union, the arms of the Corporation of the UNITED STATES are called ‘departments’ –i.e., the Justice Department, the Treasury Department. And those departments affect everyone, no matter where (in what state) they live. Guess what? Each department belongs to the corporation — to the UNITED STATES.
“Refer to any UNITED STATES CODE (USC). Note the capitalization; this is evidence of a corporation, not a Republic. For example, In Title 28 3002 (15) (A) (B) (C), it is unequivocally stated that the UNITED STATES is a corporation. Translation: the corporation is NOT a separate and distinct entity; it is not disconnected from the government; it IS the government — your government. This is extremely important! I refer to it as the ‘corporate EMPIRE of the UNITED STATES,’ which operates under Roman Civil Law outside the original Constitution. How do you like being ruled by a
corporation? You say you’ll ask your Congressperson about this? HA!!
“Congress is fully aware of this deception. So it’s time that you, too, become aware of the deception. What this great deception means is that the members of Congress do NOT work for us, for you and me. They work for the Corporation, for the UNITED STATES. No wonder we can’t get them to do anything on our behalf, or meet or demands, or answer our questions.
“Technically, legally, or any other way you want to look at the matter, the corporate government of the UNITED STATES has no jurisdiction or authority in ANY State of the Union (the Republic) beyond the District of Columbia. Let that tidbit sink in, then ask yourself, could this deception have occurred without full knowledge and complicity of the Congress? Do you think it happened by accident? If you do, you’re deceiving yourself.
“There are no accidents, no coincidences. Face the facts and confront the truth. Remember, you are presumed to know the law. THEY know you don’t know the law or, for that matter, your history. Why? Because no concerted effort was ever made to teach or otherwise inform you. As a Sovereign, you are entitled to full disclosure of all facts. As a slave, you are entitled to nothing other than what the corporation decides to ‘give’ you.
“Remember also that ‘Ignorance of the law is no excuse.’ It’s your responsibility and obligation to learn the law and know how it applies to you. No wonder the corporation counted on the fact that most people are too indifferent, unconcerned, distracted, or lazy to learn what they need to know to survive within the system. We have been conditioned to let the government do our thinking for us. Now’s the time to turn that around if we intend to help save our Republic and ourselves — before it’s too late.
“As an instrument of the international bankers, the UNITED STATES owns you from birth to death. It also holds ownership of all your assets, of your property, even of your children. Think long and hard about all the bills taxes, fines, and licenses you have paid for or purchased. Yes, they had you by the pockets. If you don’t believe it, read the 14th Amendment. See how ‘free’ you really are. Ignorance of the facts led to your silence. Silence is construed as consent; consent to be beneficiaries of a debt you did not incur. As a Sovereign People we have been deceived for hundreds of years; we think we are free, but in truth we are servants of the corporation.
“Congress committed treason against the People in 1871. Honest men could have corrected the fraud and treason. But apparently there weren’t enough honest men to counteract the lust for money and power. We lost more freedom than we will ever know, thanks to corporate infiltration of our so-called ‘government.’
“Do you think that any soldier who died in any of our many wars would have fought if he or she had known the truth? Do you think one person would have laid down his/her life for a corporation? How long will we remain silent? How long will we perpetuate the MYTH that we are free? When will we stand together as One Sovereign People? When will we take back what has been as stolen from the us?
“If the People of America had known to what extent their trust was betrayed, how long would it have taken for a real revolution to occur? What we now need is a Revolution in THOUGHT. We need to change our thinking, then we can change our world. Our children deserve their rightful legacy — the liberty our ancestors fought to preserve, the legacy of a Sovereign and Fully Free People.” [Posted 8/27/02, www.babalmagazine.com/]
From a speech in Congress in The Bankruptcy of The United States United States Congressional Record, March 17, 1993 Vol. 33, page H-1303. Speaker-Rep. James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House:
“Prior to 1913, most Americans owned clear, allodial title to property, free and clear of any liens or mortgages until the Federal Reserve Act (1913) “Hypothecated” all property within the federal United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve – in which the Trustees (stockholders) held legal title. The U.S. citizen (tenant, franchisee) was registered as a “beneficiary” of the trust via his/her birth certificate. In 1933, the federal United States hypothecated all of the present and future properties, assets and labor of their “subjects,” the 14th Amendment U.S. citizen, to the Federal Reserve System.
In return, the Federal Reserve System agreed to extend THE FEDERAL United States CORPORATION [emphasis added] all the credit “money substitute” it needed. Like any other debtor, the federal United States government had to assign collateral and security to their creditors as a condition of the loan. Since the federal United States didn’t have any assets, they assigned the private property of their “economic slaves”, the U.S. citizens as collateral against the unpayable federal debt. They also pledged the unincorporated federal territories, national parks forests, birth certificates, and nonprofit organizations, as collateral against the federal debt. All has already been transferred as payment to the international bankers.
Unwittingly, America has returned to its pre-American Revolution, feudal roots whereby all land is held by a sovereign and the common people had no rights to hold allodial title to property. Once again, We the People are the tenants and sharecroppers renting our own property from a Sovereign in the guise of the Federal Reserve Bank. We the people have exchanged one master for another. .”
VIDEO - The Three City States That Rule The World Together
There are three cities (city-states) across this planet that share striking similarities and play a crucial role in the global governmental system we have long been living under. The three city-states (along with the role they serve) is as follows:
City of London (finance)
Washington DC (military)
Vatican City (religion)
The first is financial control over earth economy. The second is military control over the earth. And the third one is religious control over the earth. Together they make the very unholy trinity which forms the Egyptian pyramid that we can see on the back of the privately owned federal reserve note that is used as American dollar to maintain the colony in debt and under the Queen.
These city states are sovereign, corporate entities not connected to the nations they appear to be part of. In other words, the City of London (that is the square mile within Greater London) is not technically part of Greater London or England, just as Vatican City is not part of Rome or Italy. Likewise, Washington DC is not part of the United States that it controls.
These sovereign, corporate entities have their own laws and their own identities. They also have their own flags. Seen above is the flag of Washington DC. Note the three stars, representing the trinity of these three city-states, also known as the Empire of the City. (There is also high esoteric significance to the number 3.)
Many people realize that this mystifying situation, in which an alleged democratic and self-governing nation is actually controlled against the will of the people, is a clear indication that there must be a very powerful and well-financed occult organization which plans and directs world affairs, and for lack of a more specific identification the suspected secret organization is popularly referred to as the International Financiers, Banksters cartel or "The Crown corporation".
Urgent lawsuit filed against FDA to halt swine flu vaccines; claims FDA violated federal law
(NaturalNews)
Health freedom attorney Jim Turner is filing a lawsuit in Washington D.C. mid-day Friday in an urgent effort to halt the distribution of the swine flu vaccine in America. On behalf of plaintiffs Dr. Gary Null and other licensed health care workers of New York State, the lawsuit charges that the FDA violated the law in its hasty approval of four swine flu vaccines by failing to scientifically determine neither the safety nor efficacy of the vaccines.
"The suit will seek an injunction against the FDA from approving the vaccine," attorney Jim Turner told NaturalNews on Thursday evening's Natural News Talk Hour show. "And the core of the argument is that they have not done the proper safety and efficacy tests on the vaccine to allow it to be release at this time."
The suit seeks to not only nullify the FDA's unlawful "approval" of the four H1N1 influenza vaccines, but to also ask the court to issue an injunction that would halt any mandatory vaccination requirements.
"The FDA is required by law to establish that a vaccine is safe and effective before it can be given to the public," said Turner. "We are arguing that they did not establish that the vaccine was effective, and did not establish that it was safe. They are trying to get it on the market by a waiver."
Vaccine / adjuvant combination has never been properly tested
The vaccine / adjuvant combination being referred to as the "swine flu vaccine" has apparently never been safety tested or approved by the FDA. In fact, in many cases the vaccine is being sent to clinics, pharmacies and other health establishments separately from the adjuvant chemical, leaving it up to each local vaccine retailer to properly mix the vaccine with the adjuvant, according to information provided by Turner. With hundreds of millions of Americans potentially being targeted with this vaccine, the potential for improper mixing, improper dosages, and human error is alarming.
If the charges described in the lawsuit are true, it means the FDA has blatantly abandoned medical science and violated its own regulations in approving not only these four vaccines, but the potentially deadly adjuvant chemicals as well. To date, the FDA has produced absolutely no scientific evidence documenting safety tests for any of these swine flu vaccines. There are no published studies, no records of any clinical trials, and no publicly-available paper trail demonstrating that any safety testing was done whatsoever. There is no researcher who has publicly put their name on the record declaring the vaccines to be safe, and no FDA official has ever stated that scientifically-valid safety testing has ever been conducted on the vaccine / adjuvant combinations now being distributed across America.
Normally, when a pharmaceutical achieves "FDA approved" status, there is a considerable paper trail of scientific scrutiny, peer review, clinical trials and other supporting evidence. To our knowledge, no such documents exist for the swine flu vaccines. The FDA's approval of these vaccines appears to be based entirely on a whim.
"What has been tested?" asked attorney Jim turner. "Where has it been tested? Who reviewed the test? Who looked at the test and said yes they proved safety and efficacy? There is no record that we can find that shows these things have been done."
By approving the four vaccines in the absence of such safety testing, the FDA itself stands in direct violation of federal law. "There is a law that they're supposed to follow and they are not following it," Turner added.
Billions of dollars are at stake
Why, then, did the FDA apparently violate the law and push these vaccines into full public distribution without securing the safety testing required by law? Turner suspects a profit motive may be involved: "They're charging $24.95 to get a vaccine. Multiplied by 100 million people, that's a lot of money. If you do the whole society, you're talking about several billion dollars."
In fact, the U.S. vaccination push could ultimately target over 200 million Americans, generating nearly $5 billion in vaccine-related revenues. Cashing in on those revenues, however, requires three things:
1) Spreading fear about H1N1 swine flu by exaggerating its dangers.
2) Quickly making a vaccine available for sale, even if it has never been thoroughly tested for safety and efficacy.
3) Aggressively marketing the vaccines before the H1N1 swine flu fizzles out and can no longer be hyped up as "highly virulent."
All three of these conditions are now being pushed aggressively in the U.S. by pharma-influenced health authorities at both the state and federal level. There is a mad, cult-like rush under way to vaccinate American citizens with an unproven, untested chemical that was thrust into distribution in apparent violation of federal law. And if this vaccine is not stopped, the price that may ultimately be paid in terms of lost lives could be quite dire.
It all harkens back to 1976 when a previous formulation of the swine flu vaccine paralyzed and killed thousands of Americans. Turner was one of the attorneys instrumental in halting that vaccine, and he fears a repeat situation could potentially recur today. He told NaturalNews, "[In 1976] they were intending to inoculate 200 million people. We stopped them... and somewhere between 40 and 50 million people were vaccinated. What ultimately brought it down is that a substantial number of people got 'French Polio' [Guillain-Barre syndrome], a paralysis that goes... through the body, and if it goes far enough you die."
Health freedom attorney Jim Turner is filing a lawsuit in Washington D.C. mid-day Friday in an urgent effort to halt the distribution of the swine flu vaccine in America. On behalf of plaintiffs Dr. Gary Null and other licensed health care workers of New York State, the lawsuit charges that the FDA violated the law in its hasty approval of four swine flu vaccines by failing to scientifically determine neither the safety nor efficacy of the vaccines.
"The suit will seek an injunction against the FDA from approving the vaccine," attorney Jim Turner told NaturalNews on Thursday evening's Natural News Talk Hour show. "And the core of the argument is that they have not done the proper safety and efficacy tests on the vaccine to allow it to be release at this time."
The suit seeks to not only nullify the FDA's unlawful "approval" of the four H1N1 influenza vaccines, but to also ask the court to issue an injunction that would halt any mandatory vaccination requirements.
"The FDA is required by law to establish that a vaccine is safe and effective before it can be given to the public," said Turner. "We are arguing that they did not establish that the vaccine was effective, and did not establish that it was safe. They are trying to get it on the market by a waiver."
Vaccine / adjuvant combination has never been properly tested
The vaccine / adjuvant combination being referred to as the "swine flu vaccine" has apparently never been safety tested or approved by the FDA. In fact, in many cases the vaccine is being sent to clinics, pharmacies and other health establishments separately from the adjuvant chemical, leaving it up to each local vaccine retailer to properly mix the vaccine with the adjuvant, according to information provided by Turner. With hundreds of millions of Americans potentially being targeted with this vaccine, the potential for improper mixing, improper dosages, and human error is alarming.
If the charges described in the lawsuit are true, it means the FDA has blatantly abandoned medical science and violated its own regulations in approving not only these four vaccines, but the potentially deadly adjuvant chemicals as well. To date, the FDA has produced absolutely no scientific evidence documenting safety tests for any of these swine flu vaccines. There are no published studies, no records of any clinical trials, and no publicly-available paper trail demonstrating that any safety testing was done whatsoever. There is no researcher who has publicly put their name on the record declaring the vaccines to be safe, and no FDA official has ever stated that scientifically-valid safety testing has ever been conducted on the vaccine / adjuvant combinations now being distributed across America.
Normally, when a pharmaceutical achieves "FDA approved" status, there is a considerable paper trail of scientific scrutiny, peer review, clinical trials and other supporting evidence. To our knowledge, no such documents exist for the swine flu vaccines. The FDA's approval of these vaccines appears to be based entirely on a whim.
"What has been tested?" asked attorney Jim turner. "Where has it been tested? Who reviewed the test? Who looked at the test and said yes they proved safety and efficacy? There is no record that we can find that shows these things have been done."
By approving the four vaccines in the absence of such safety testing, the FDA itself stands in direct violation of federal law. "There is a law that they're supposed to follow and they are not following it," Turner added.
Billions of dollars are at stake
Why, then, did the FDA apparently violate the law and push these vaccines into full public distribution without securing the safety testing required by law? Turner suspects a profit motive may be involved: "They're charging $24.95 to get a vaccine. Multiplied by 100 million people, that's a lot of money. If you do the whole society, you're talking about several billion dollars."
In fact, the U.S. vaccination push could ultimately target over 200 million Americans, generating nearly $5 billion in vaccine-related revenues. Cashing in on those revenues, however, requires three things:
1) Spreading fear about H1N1 swine flu by exaggerating its dangers.
2) Quickly making a vaccine available for sale, even if it has never been thoroughly tested for safety and efficacy.
3) Aggressively marketing the vaccines before the H1N1 swine flu fizzles out and can no longer be hyped up as "highly virulent."
All three of these conditions are now being pushed aggressively in the U.S. by pharma-influenced health authorities at both the state and federal level. There is a mad, cult-like rush under way to vaccinate American citizens with an unproven, untested chemical that was thrust into distribution in apparent violation of federal law. And if this vaccine is not stopped, the price that may ultimately be paid in terms of lost lives could be quite dire.
It all harkens back to 1976 when a previous formulation of the swine flu vaccine paralyzed and killed thousands of Americans. Turner was one of the attorneys instrumental in halting that vaccine, and he fears a repeat situation could potentially recur today. He told NaturalNews, "[In 1976] they were intending to inoculate 200 million people. We stopped them... and somewhere between 40 and 50 million people were vaccinated. What ultimately brought it down is that a substantial number of people got 'French Polio' [Guillain-Barre syndrome], a paralysis that goes... through the body, and if it goes far enough you die."
VIDEO - The Ring Of Power
MUST-SEE!!
I recommend everyone see this, even if you're already awake!
From the mystery religions of ancient Egypt to the Zionist role in 9/11, "Ring Of Power" unrevises 4000 years of revisionist human history with never - before - seen revelations. "Ring Of Power" puzzles together the pieces of a giant puzzle into one BIG PICTURE documentary series.
The Producer is an experienced, award winning documentary filmmaker who, as a child, learned that her father was a member of the secretive cult of Freemasonry. She recalls many arguments between her parents over her father's secret meetings and the exclusion of women from the brotherhood. The Masonic ring that her father wore had been passed down from father to son over the generations. When she asked her father about the meaning of the letter "G" and the compass and square on his ring, she got no response. As an adult, she decided to investigate. That investigation grew into four years of intensive research into the identity and history of the diabolical globalists who she calls the "Ring Of Power". Their goal is one World Empire and one world ruler.
I recommend everyone see this, even if you're already awake!
From the mystery religions of ancient Egypt to the Zionist role in 9/11, "Ring Of Power" unrevises 4000 years of revisionist human history with never - before - seen revelations. "Ring Of Power" puzzles together the pieces of a giant puzzle into one BIG PICTURE documentary series.
The Producer is an experienced, award winning documentary filmmaker who, as a child, learned that her father was a member of the secretive cult of Freemasonry. She recalls many arguments between her parents over her father's secret meetings and the exclusion of women from the brotherhood. The Masonic ring that her father wore had been passed down from father to son over the generations. When she asked her father about the meaning of the letter "G" and the compass and square on his ring, she got no response. As an adult, she decided to investigate. That investigation grew into four years of intensive research into the identity and history of the diabolical globalists who she calls the "Ring Of Power". Their goal is one World Empire and one world ruler.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The White House Putting The Smackdown On FOX?
I guess Obama has to send his goon squad to regulate when the media gets out of control. A cup of free press anyone?
By MIKE ALLEN
POLITICO
At a time of tension between their organizations, White House senior adviser David Axelrod met with Fox News chairman and chief executive officer Roger Ailes two weeks ago, sources tell POLITICO.
The two met privately in Manhattan during the president’s visit to the United Nations.
The two discussed news coverage and the relationship between the organizations.
An FNC spokesperson tells POLITICO that Ailes and Axelrod had a “cordial conversation” over coffee while the president was in town.
Ailes is the founder of Fox News. A key part of Axelrod’s portfolio is the president’s image and broad message.
White House officials have expressed pique with what they consider heavy coverage of Obama critics by opinion shows on the news channel.
Obama aides showed their displeasure by omitting “Fox News Sunday” when the president granted interviews last month to the other Sunday shows.
Noting coverage on cable’s Fox News Channel, the Fox broadcast network declined to carry Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress, or his most recent prime-time news conference. White House officials did not like that, but say it is not their primary problem with Fox.
Suzanne Somers: Patrick Swayze Was Poisoned By Chemotherapy
As a former cancer survivor, Susan Somers believes that Patrick Swayze would still be alive today if only he would of tried natural methods instead of the poisonous cancer treatments he received. She is a SURVIVOR who didn't take chemo or cancer drugs, but cured herself naturally. Why isn't this opinion getting more positive coverage? Why is everyone in the media saying that she shouldn't of said that? Gee let me think....
Surely enough the title of the NYPOST is Holistic hoo-ha!
NYPOST
Suzanne Somers, a cancer survivor herself, thinks Patrick Swayze was killed by chemotherapy. "They took a beautiful man" and "put poison in his body," the "Three's Company" star told columnist Shinan Govani at the party for Tom Ford's movie, "A Single Man," at the Toronto Film Festival. While Julianne Moore, Naomi Watts, Clive Owen and Colin Firth made chitchat, Somers, who has a book about cancer coming out next month, said: "Why couldn't they have built him up nutritionally and got ten rid of the toxins? . . . I hate to be this controversial . . . but I have to speak out."
Surely enough the title of the NYPOST is Holistic hoo-ha!
NYPOST
Suzanne Somers, a cancer survivor herself, thinks Patrick Swayze was killed by chemotherapy. "They took a beautiful man" and "put poison in his body," the "Three's Company" star told columnist Shinan Govani at the party for Tom Ford's movie, "A Single Man," at the Toronto Film Festival. While Julianne Moore, Naomi Watts, Clive Owen and Colin Firth made chitchat, Somers, who has a book about cancer coming out next month, said: "Why couldn't they have built him up nutritionally and got ten rid of the toxins? . . . I hate to be this controversial . . . but I have to speak out."
Researcher For Cervical Cancer Vaccines Has Gone Public About Their Safety And Effectiveness
(NaturalNews)
One of the key researchers involved in the clinical trials for both Gardasil and Cevarix cervical cancer vaccines has gone public with warnings about their safety and effectiveness. This highly unusual warning against these vaccines by one of Big Pharma's own researchers surfaced in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express in the UK over the last few days. There, Dr. Diane Harper openly admitted the vaccine doesn't even prevent cervical cancer, stating, "[The vaccine] will not decrease cervical cancer rates at all."
This is astonishing news. The whole push behind the cervical cancer vaccines is based on the belief that they prevent cervical cancer. That belief, it turns out, is a myth.
Dr. Harper also warned that the cervical cancer vaccine was being "over-marketed" and that parents should be warned about the possible risk of severe side effects from the vaccine. She even concluded that the vaccine itself is more dangerous than the cervical cancer it claims to prevent!
Hysteria over genital warts?
In a New York Times article published last year, Dr. Harper spoke about the fear-based marketing of Gardasil by Merck:
"'Merck lobbied every opinion leader, women's group, medical society, politicians, and went directly to the people -- it created a sense of panic that says you have to have this vaccine now..."
This behavior by drug companies -- using fear tactics to promote a particular disease in order to sell the "treatment" -- is called disease mongering. Most of the pharmaceutical profits generated today are based on precisely this tactic: Spread the fear, then sell the treatment. Read more about disease mongering here: http://www.naturalnews.com/disease_...
You can also toy around with the NaturalNews disease mongering engine, where you can invent your own diseases at the click of a button: http://www.naturalnews.com/disease-...
Why is disease mongering so important to the profits of the drug companies? They figured out many years ago that selling drugs only to those people who are sick was a very limited income opportunity. To rake in the real profits, they needed to devise a way to sell drugs to healthy people (i.e. people who don't need them). That's what cervical cancer vaccines really are: A scheme to sell vaccines to people who aren't suffering from any disease at all.
That one of the industry's own researchers is willing to speak out against this is not just highly unusual; it's also highly courageous. It makes you wonder: Who, exactly, is this Dr. Harper?
Dr. Diane Harper
Dr. Harper is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She studied additional courses at Stanford and received her medical degree from the University of Kansas. She was a key researcher in both Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines, and she's one of the most experienced researchers in the world on HPV-related diseases. She's done work for both Merck and GlaxoSmithKline.
Dr. Harper's warnings about cervical cancer vaccines are especially relevant considering her expertise in the cost/benefit analysis of vaccines. Her conclusion is that cervical cancer vaccines aren't worth the risks, nor are they worth all the effort being put into hyping them to the public. "This may not be the best use of our resources at this time," she said in a Washington Post article.
So why do cervical cancer vaccines continue to be pushed by doctors and health authorities across the US, UK and other first-world nations? Because Big Pharma is the great corporate puppeteer that's pulling the strings of legislators. With enough money and lobbyists, you can always overcome scientific thinking with fear-based marketing and under-the-table deal-making. Science-based medicine has no place in a world where disease is big business.
There's a ridiculous amount of money to be made by pushing vaccines onto people who don't need them. If I had ten bucks for every teenage girl that's been injected with a cervical cancer vaccine, I'd be... well... GlaxoSmithKline.
Sources for this story include:
UMKC
http://www.med.umkc.edu/informatic_...
Dartmouth Medical School
http://dms.dartmouth.edu/faculty/fa...
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...
Daily Express
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view...
One of the key researchers involved in the clinical trials for both Gardasil and Cevarix cervical cancer vaccines has gone public with warnings about their safety and effectiveness. This highly unusual warning against these vaccines by one of Big Pharma's own researchers surfaced in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express in the UK over the last few days. There, Dr. Diane Harper openly admitted the vaccine doesn't even prevent cervical cancer, stating, "[The vaccine] will not decrease cervical cancer rates at all."
This is astonishing news. The whole push behind the cervical cancer vaccines is based on the belief that they prevent cervical cancer. That belief, it turns out, is a myth.
Dr. Harper also warned that the cervical cancer vaccine was being "over-marketed" and that parents should be warned about the possible risk of severe side effects from the vaccine. She even concluded that the vaccine itself is more dangerous than the cervical cancer it claims to prevent!
Hysteria over genital warts?
In a New York Times article published last year, Dr. Harper spoke about the fear-based marketing of Gardasil by Merck:
"'Merck lobbied every opinion leader, women's group, medical society, politicians, and went directly to the people -- it created a sense of panic that says you have to have this vaccine now..."
This behavior by drug companies -- using fear tactics to promote a particular disease in order to sell the "treatment" -- is called disease mongering. Most of the pharmaceutical profits generated today are based on precisely this tactic: Spread the fear, then sell the treatment. Read more about disease mongering here: http://www.naturalnews.com/disease_...
You can also toy around with the NaturalNews disease mongering engine, where you can invent your own diseases at the click of a button: http://www.naturalnews.com/disease-...
Why is disease mongering so important to the profits of the drug companies? They figured out many years ago that selling drugs only to those people who are sick was a very limited income opportunity. To rake in the real profits, they needed to devise a way to sell drugs to healthy people (i.e. people who don't need them). That's what cervical cancer vaccines really are: A scheme to sell vaccines to people who aren't suffering from any disease at all.
That one of the industry's own researchers is willing to speak out against this is not just highly unusual; it's also highly courageous. It makes you wonder: Who, exactly, is this Dr. Harper?
Dr. Diane Harper
Dr. Harper is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She studied additional courses at Stanford and received her medical degree from the University of Kansas. She was a key researcher in both Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines, and she's one of the most experienced researchers in the world on HPV-related diseases. She's done work for both Merck and GlaxoSmithKline.
Dr. Harper's warnings about cervical cancer vaccines are especially relevant considering her expertise in the cost/benefit analysis of vaccines. Her conclusion is that cervical cancer vaccines aren't worth the risks, nor are they worth all the effort being put into hyping them to the public. "This may not be the best use of our resources at this time," she said in a Washington Post article.
So why do cervical cancer vaccines continue to be pushed by doctors and health authorities across the US, UK and other first-world nations? Because Big Pharma is the great corporate puppeteer that's pulling the strings of legislators. With enough money and lobbyists, you can always overcome scientific thinking with fear-based marketing and under-the-table deal-making. Science-based medicine has no place in a world where disease is big business.
There's a ridiculous amount of money to be made by pushing vaccines onto people who don't need them. If I had ten bucks for every teenage girl that's been injected with a cervical cancer vaccine, I'd be... well... GlaxoSmithKline.
Sources for this story include:
UMKC
http://www.med.umkc.edu/informatic_...
Dartmouth Medical School
http://dms.dartmouth.edu/faculty/fa...
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...
Daily Express
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view...
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Dollar tumbles on report of its demise
By Stephen Foley
The Independent
The price of gold is surging on world markets amid fears that the old economic order based on the supremacy of the US dollar could be breaking down.
A new spike has sent the cost of the precious metal to a level not seen before. The dollar slid sharply after yesterday's report in The Independent that Gulf Arab states are secretly planning to stop trading oil in dollars, and a senior UN official said that the US should be stripped of its position as the main source of currency reserves for other countries.
The developments come on top of speculation that the Obama administration is operating a policy of benign neglect of the dollar, engineering a devaluation that could help repair some of the economic damage caused by the recession.
Not since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 has gold been treated as the equivalent of a world currency, but The Independent reported that it could form part of a basket of currencies that would be used for oil trading by the end of the next decade.
Aram Shishmanian, the chief executive of World Gold Council, said: "The financial and economic instability of the past 18 months has brought gold's historical role into sharp focus and has continued to increase its prominence among policy advisers, central banks, and investors around the world.
Across the world, investors have been reaching for gold as an alternative to the dollar and to other US assets, fearing that the American currency is headed inexorably lower.
The dollar index – which measures the greenback against other currencies – fell 0.7 per cent yesterday and the dollar was lower against all major currencies except the British pound.
The US government's debt – which stands at $11.86 trillion (£7.45trn) after tax revenues collapsed with the recession and the Treasury spent billions on propping up the banking system – would be easier to repay if the value of the dollar was lower. Economists noted that the US resisted pressure to include a promise to protect the stability of world currencies in last weekend's communiqué from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), sparking growing concern that the Obama administration could be content to see the currency fall. That would make US exports more competitive and could spark a manufacturing jobs revival.
Overseas governments are in a bind because they hold trillions of dollars as reserves to protect them against a financial crisis. They are seeing the value of those reserves decline, but starting to swap them for gold or other currencies could deluge world markets with unwanted dollars and send the value of the greenback even lower. The situation is particularly sensitive for oil-producing nations, who are paid in dollars for their exports and therefore hold high dollar reserves.
Gulf Arabs have begun planning – with China, Russia, Japan and France – to move from dollar dealings for oil to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean oil will no longer be priced in dollars. The revelation was met with public denials yesterday. The Saudi central bank governor, Muhammad al-Jasser, said: "The future is in God's hands. Today, the conditions are good for the arrangement we have." The Japanese Finance Minister, Hirohisa Fujii, said he "doesn't know anything about it".
Dennis Gartman, the US investment guru who writes the daily Gartman Letter, said that no one should be surprised to hear denials. "We are certain that spokespeople for every single nation will be brought to the fore to deny that any such meetings have occurred, that no such decisions have been made, that it is not in anyone's interest to have held such meetings or made such decisions," he told clients as The Independent story broke. "The market will care not a whit."
Simon Johnson, the IMF's former chief economist, said the countries involved would calculate that it was not in their interests to drive the dollar down by eroding its position as the currency of international commodities trading and central bank reserves.
"It would only be great news for the US. The US would love a little bit of devaluation, even though they can't say it," he said. "They have to pay lip service to the strong dollar policy, but if someone else were to engineer a devaluation, that would be lucky break for the US."
The Independent
The price of gold is surging on world markets amid fears that the old economic order based on the supremacy of the US dollar could be breaking down.
A new spike has sent the cost of the precious metal to a level not seen before. The dollar slid sharply after yesterday's report in The Independent that Gulf Arab states are secretly planning to stop trading oil in dollars, and a senior UN official said that the US should be stripped of its position as the main source of currency reserves for other countries.
The developments come on top of speculation that the Obama administration is operating a policy of benign neglect of the dollar, engineering a devaluation that could help repair some of the economic damage caused by the recession.
Not since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 has gold been treated as the equivalent of a world currency, but The Independent reported that it could form part of a basket of currencies that would be used for oil trading by the end of the next decade.
Aram Shishmanian, the chief executive of World Gold Council, said: "The financial and economic instability of the past 18 months has brought gold's historical role into sharp focus and has continued to increase its prominence among policy advisers, central banks, and investors around the world.
Across the world, investors have been reaching for gold as an alternative to the dollar and to other US assets, fearing that the American currency is headed inexorably lower.
The dollar index – which measures the greenback against other currencies – fell 0.7 per cent yesterday and the dollar was lower against all major currencies except the British pound.
The US government's debt – which stands at $11.86 trillion (£7.45trn) after tax revenues collapsed with the recession and the Treasury spent billions on propping up the banking system – would be easier to repay if the value of the dollar was lower. Economists noted that the US resisted pressure to include a promise to protect the stability of world currencies in last weekend's communiqué from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), sparking growing concern that the Obama administration could be content to see the currency fall. That would make US exports more competitive and could spark a manufacturing jobs revival.
Overseas governments are in a bind because they hold trillions of dollars as reserves to protect them against a financial crisis. They are seeing the value of those reserves decline, but starting to swap them for gold or other currencies could deluge world markets with unwanted dollars and send the value of the greenback even lower. The situation is particularly sensitive for oil-producing nations, who are paid in dollars for their exports and therefore hold high dollar reserves.
Gulf Arabs have begun planning – with China, Russia, Japan and France – to move from dollar dealings for oil to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean oil will no longer be priced in dollars. The revelation was met with public denials yesterday. The Saudi central bank governor, Muhammad al-Jasser, said: "The future is in God's hands. Today, the conditions are good for the arrangement we have." The Japanese Finance Minister, Hirohisa Fujii, said he "doesn't know anything about it".
Dennis Gartman, the US investment guru who writes the daily Gartman Letter, said that no one should be surprised to hear denials. "We are certain that spokespeople for every single nation will be brought to the fore to deny that any such meetings have occurred, that no such decisions have been made, that it is not in anyone's interest to have held such meetings or made such decisions," he told clients as The Independent story broke. "The market will care not a whit."
Simon Johnson, the IMF's former chief economist, said the countries involved would calculate that it was not in their interests to drive the dollar down by eroding its position as the currency of international commodities trading and central bank reserves.
"It would only be great news for the US. The US would love a little bit of devaluation, even though they can't say it," he said. "They have to pay lip service to the strong dollar policy, but if someone else were to engineer a devaluation, that would be lucky break for the US."
The demise of the dollar
By Robert Fisk
The Independent
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."
This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region's conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.
The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.
Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.
China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.
Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China's growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China's reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.
Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.
The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."
Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.
The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.
"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."
Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.
Gold Prices Soar to Record High on Report of Secret Plan to Dethrone the Dollar
By Jason Simpkins
Managing Editor
Money Morning
Gold prices surged to record high $1,045 an ounce yesterday (Tuesday), after a report surfaced that global oil producers are planning to stop using the U.S. dollar for oil trade.
“There’s no telling the veracity of these reports, but the general trend has been going in this direction anyway: a weaker dollar and rising gold,” Brien Lundin, editor of the Gold Newsletter told MarketWatch.
Finance ministers and central bank governors from China, Russia, Japan, Brazil, and Middle Eastern oil producers met to discuss plans to stop using the U.S. dollar for oil trade, The Independent reported. The dollar would be replaced by a basket of currencies that includes gold, which could be a big reason behind the precious metal’s recent run-up in price.
The dollar has been the world’s main reserve currency since the end of World War II, but its volatility and its vulnerability have made it a burdensome barrier to global trade. Developing nations such as Brazil, India, and China have had to purchase dollars to pay for oil and oil producing nations in the Middle East have accumulated vast reserves of dollar holdings. Meanwhile, the dollar’s precipitous decline has eroded the value of these holdings and the recent financial turmoil has cast doubt over the dollar’s reliability.
The new plan allegedly being hatched would end the dollar’s role in oil trade and replace it with a basket of currencies that includes the Japanese yen, Chinese yuan, the euro, gold, and a new unified currency that would be shared by nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The GCC includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Together, these Gulf nations hold more than $2 trillion in U.S. dollar reserves.
In addition to being a part of the currency basket that’s on deck to replace the dollar, gold also may serve as a transitional currency in the shift, Chinese banking sources told The Independent.
“News on gold’s expected future role in oil transactions between these trading partners has sent the price past $1,020,” Peter Spina, chief investment analyst at GoldSeek.com, told MarketWatch.
Trading gold and other currencies in exchange for oil would “establish gold as a recognized medium of exchange, returning it a step closer to its role as money on a world trade system,” Spina noted, while the dollar would be further removed.
“Really, it has been the pricing of oil in dollars for trade that has given it a huge boost in its demand globally,” he said. “If [other countries] switch away from the U.S. buck, then all that demand disappears, the need for the U.S. dollar diminishes, and its value should reflect this.”
The plan to shift away from the dollar, which The Independent confirmed with both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources, would take effect by 2018.
“These plans will change the face of international financial transactions,” one Chinese banker told the British paper. “America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate.”
The story was indeed denied by officials in Kuwait and Qatar.
“We have never heard of this or discussed this, not even secretly,” Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiya told Zawya Dow Jones.
However, such denials are being drowned out by the dollar’s very vocal critics who have painted the backdrop of the financial crisis with fiery rhetoric. China, which alone holds more than $1 trillion in dollar-denominated assets, has led the charge displacing the U.S. currency.
Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBC), in March released an essay entitled “Reform of the International Monetary System” on the PBC Web site.
Without explicitly mentioning the U.S. dollar, Zhou asked what kind of international reserve currency the world needs to secure global financial stability and facilitate economic growth.
Zhou called for the “re-establishment of a new and widely accepted reserve currency with a stable valuation” to replace the U.S. dollar – a credit-based national currency. The central bank governor noted that the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Special Drawing Right (SDR) should be given special consideration.
That kind of criticism led to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s first official trip to China where policymakers expressed “justifiable confidence in the strength and resilience and dynamism of the American economy.”
“I wish to tell the U.S. government: ‘Don’t be complacent and think there isn’t any alternative for China to buy your bills and bonds,’” Yu Yongding, a former central bank adviser who interviewed Geithner for the China Daily newspaper, told Bloomberg News. “The euro is an alternative. And there are lots of raw materials we can still buy.”
Brazil and India have often joined China in the chorus of complaints about the dollar, and along with Russia, issued their first-ever joint communiqué ahead of a spring meeting between G-20 finance ministers.
In July, Treasury Secretary Geithner took to the road again to assure Saudi Arabia of its investment in the dollar in a visit that seemed to foreshadow this latest report of the dollar’s undoing. But that may have been too little, too late.
Last week, IMF figures showed that the dollar’s share of total reserves has fallen to its lowest level since 1995.
“The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency,” Robert Zoellick, a former U.S. trade representative who now heads the World Bank, recently told the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. “One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations.”
Skeptics argue that the dollar is far too entrenched in its position as the world’s main reserve currency to be dislodged, and that at the moment, there is no viable alternative.
However, Iran, the second largest producer the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has already stopped taking oil payments in dollars and has encouraged other oil producers to do the same.
“Iran did this about three years ago,” Ali Khatibi, Iran’s OPEC governor told Dow Jones. “We replaced dollars with other valuable, stable currencies including the euro and yen for our oil income and we are very happy and not sorry we did this because the dollar is becoming weaker. If anybody wants to use our experience we will be happy to help.”
Managing Editor
Money Morning
Gold prices surged to record high $1,045 an ounce yesterday (Tuesday), after a report surfaced that global oil producers are planning to stop using the U.S. dollar for oil trade.
“There’s no telling the veracity of these reports, but the general trend has been going in this direction anyway: a weaker dollar and rising gold,” Brien Lundin, editor of the Gold Newsletter told MarketWatch.
Finance ministers and central bank governors from China, Russia, Japan, Brazil, and Middle Eastern oil producers met to discuss plans to stop using the U.S. dollar for oil trade, The Independent reported. The dollar would be replaced by a basket of currencies that includes gold, which could be a big reason behind the precious metal’s recent run-up in price.
The dollar has been the world’s main reserve currency since the end of World War II, but its volatility and its vulnerability have made it a burdensome barrier to global trade. Developing nations such as Brazil, India, and China have had to purchase dollars to pay for oil and oil producing nations in the Middle East have accumulated vast reserves of dollar holdings. Meanwhile, the dollar’s precipitous decline has eroded the value of these holdings and the recent financial turmoil has cast doubt over the dollar’s reliability.
The new plan allegedly being hatched would end the dollar’s role in oil trade and replace it with a basket of currencies that includes the Japanese yen, Chinese yuan, the euro, gold, and a new unified currency that would be shared by nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The GCC includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Together, these Gulf nations hold more than $2 trillion in U.S. dollar reserves.
In addition to being a part of the currency basket that’s on deck to replace the dollar, gold also may serve as a transitional currency in the shift, Chinese banking sources told The Independent.
“News on gold’s expected future role in oil transactions between these trading partners has sent the price past $1,020,” Peter Spina, chief investment analyst at GoldSeek.com, told MarketWatch.
Trading gold and other currencies in exchange for oil would “establish gold as a recognized medium of exchange, returning it a step closer to its role as money on a world trade system,” Spina noted, while the dollar would be further removed.
“Really, it has been the pricing of oil in dollars for trade that has given it a huge boost in its demand globally,” he said. “If [other countries] switch away from the U.S. buck, then all that demand disappears, the need for the U.S. dollar diminishes, and its value should reflect this.”
The plan to shift away from the dollar, which The Independent confirmed with both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources, would take effect by 2018.
“These plans will change the face of international financial transactions,” one Chinese banker told the British paper. “America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate.”
The story was indeed denied by officials in Kuwait and Qatar.
“We have never heard of this or discussed this, not even secretly,” Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiya told Zawya Dow Jones.
However, such denials are being drowned out by the dollar’s very vocal critics who have painted the backdrop of the financial crisis with fiery rhetoric. China, which alone holds more than $1 trillion in dollar-denominated assets, has led the charge displacing the U.S. currency.
Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBC), in March released an essay entitled “Reform of the International Monetary System” on the PBC Web site.
Without explicitly mentioning the U.S. dollar, Zhou asked what kind of international reserve currency the world needs to secure global financial stability and facilitate economic growth.
Zhou called for the “re-establishment of a new and widely accepted reserve currency with a stable valuation” to replace the U.S. dollar – a credit-based national currency. The central bank governor noted that the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Special Drawing Right (SDR) should be given special consideration.
That kind of criticism led to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s first official trip to China where policymakers expressed “justifiable confidence in the strength and resilience and dynamism of the American economy.”
“I wish to tell the U.S. government: ‘Don’t be complacent and think there isn’t any alternative for China to buy your bills and bonds,’” Yu Yongding, a former central bank adviser who interviewed Geithner for the China Daily newspaper, told Bloomberg News. “The euro is an alternative. And there are lots of raw materials we can still buy.”
Brazil and India have often joined China in the chorus of complaints about the dollar, and along with Russia, issued their first-ever joint communiqué ahead of a spring meeting between G-20 finance ministers.
In July, Treasury Secretary Geithner took to the road again to assure Saudi Arabia of its investment in the dollar in a visit that seemed to foreshadow this latest report of the dollar’s undoing. But that may have been too little, too late.
Last week, IMF figures showed that the dollar’s share of total reserves has fallen to its lowest level since 1995.
“The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency,” Robert Zoellick, a former U.S. trade representative who now heads the World Bank, recently told the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. “One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations.”
Skeptics argue that the dollar is far too entrenched in its position as the world’s main reserve currency to be dislodged, and that at the moment, there is no viable alternative.
However, Iran, the second largest producer the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has already stopped taking oil payments in dollars and has encouraged other oil producers to do the same.
“Iran did this about three years ago,” Ali Khatibi, Iran’s OPEC governor told Dow Jones. “We replaced dollars with other valuable, stable currencies including the euro and yen for our oil income and we are very happy and not sorry we did this because the dollar is becoming weaker. If anybody wants to use our experience we will be happy to help.”
UN calls for new reserve currency
Breitbart
The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the "privilege" of building a huge trade deficit.
"Important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the reserve currency country?s 'privilege' to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity," UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang, said.
Speaking at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Istanbul, he said: "It is timely to emphasise that such a system also creates a more equitable method of sharing the seigniorage derived from providing global liquidity."
He said: "Greater use of a truly global reserve currency, such as the IMF?s special drawing rights (SDRs), enables the seigniorage gained to be deployed for development purposes," he said.
The SDRs are the asset used in IMF transactions and are based on a basket of four currencies -- the dollar, euro, yen and pound -- which is calculated daily.
China had called in March for a new dominant world reserve currency instead of the dollar, in a system within the framework of the Washington-based IMF.
The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the "privilege" of building a huge trade deficit.
"Important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the reserve currency country?s 'privilege' to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity," UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang, said.
Speaking at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Istanbul, he said: "It is timely to emphasise that such a system also creates a more equitable method of sharing the seigniorage derived from providing global liquidity."
He said: "Greater use of a truly global reserve currency, such as the IMF?s special drawing rights (SDRs), enables the seigniorage gained to be deployed for development purposes," he said.
The SDRs are the asset used in IMF transactions and are based on a basket of four currencies -- the dollar, euro, yen and pound -- which is calculated daily.
China had called in March for a new dominant world reserve currency instead of the dollar, in a system within the framework of the Washington-based IMF.
***MESSAGE FROM ADMIN*** Blog Changes...
Dear reader,
First of all, I would like to thank you for your continued interest in the content presented on this blog. As you probably know I do this without monetary rewards or financial gain of any kind. The way I see it... the more voices this movement has, the better chance we have of waking people up and making a difference. This blog, along with all the other alternative news blogs and websites out there, are indeed affecting the status quo. Together we can bring change!
I will be making a slight change in the way you will receive my future postings. From now on, I will be sending only 1 daily update. In that update I will include all the postings or headlines for that day. This will cut back on the many emails you receive.
As always your comments on postings or feedback on blog content is always appreciated.
Z
First of all, I would like to thank you for your continued interest in the content presented on this blog. As you probably know I do this without monetary rewards or financial gain of any kind. The way I see it... the more voices this movement has, the better chance we have of waking people up and making a difference. This blog, along with all the other alternative news blogs and websites out there, are indeed affecting the status quo. Together we can bring change!
I will be making a slight change in the way you will receive my future postings. From now on, I will be sending only 1 daily update. In that update I will include all the postings or headlines for that day. This will cut back on the many emails you receive.
As always your comments on postings or feedback on blog content is always appreciated.
Z
VIDEO - CNN: THE FREEMASONS IN CONGRESS
Although this piece is all fluff and doesn't even begin to scratch the surface, it's still pretty surprising to see it on CNN.
The IMF Catapults From Shunned Agency to Global Central Bank
Ellen Brown
Huffington Post
“A year ago,” said law professor Ross Buckley on Australia’s ABC News last week, “nobody wanted to know the International Monetary Fund. Now it’s the organiser for the international stimulus package which has been sold as a stimulus package for poor countries.”
The IMF may have catapulted to a more exalted status than that. According to Jim Rickards, director of market intelligence for scientific consulting firm Omnis, the unannounced purpose of last week’s G20 Summit in Pittsburgh was that “the IMF is being anointed as the global central bank.” Rickards said in a CNBC interview on September 25 that the plan is for the IMF to issue a global reserve currency that can replace the dollar.
“They’ve issued debt for the first time in history,” said Rickards. “They’re issuing SDRs. The last SDRs came out around 1980 or ‘81, $30 billion. Now they’re issuing $300 billion. When I say issuing, it’s printing money; there’s nothing behind these SDRs.”
SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights, are a synthetic currency originally created by the IMF to replace gold and silver in large international transactions. But they have been little used until now. Why does the world suddenly need a new global fiat currency and global central bank? Rickards says it because of “Triffin’s Dilemma,” a problem first noted by economist Robert Triffin in the 1960s. When the world went off the gold standard, a reserve currency had to be provided by some large-currency country to service global trade. But leaving its currency out there for international purposes meant that the country would have to continually buy more than it sold, running large deficits; and that meant it would eventually go broke. The U.S. has fueled the world economy for the last 50 years, but now it is going broke. The U.S. can settle its debts and get its own house in order, but that would cause world trade to contract. A substitute global reserve currency is needed to fuel the global economy while the U.S. solves its debt problems, and that new currency is to be the IMF’s SDRs.
That’s the solution to Triffin’s dilemma, says Rickards, but it leaves the U.S. in a vulnerable position. If we face a war or other global catastrophe, we no longer have the privilege of printing money. We will have to borrow the global reserve currency like everyone else, putting us at the mercy of the global lenders.
To avoid that, the Federal Reserve has hinted that it is prepared to raise interest rates, even though that would mean further squeezing the real estate market and the real economy. Rickards pointed to an oped piece by Fed governor Kevin Warsh, published in The Wall Street Journal on the same day the G20 met. Warsh said that the Fed would need to raise interest rates if asset prices rose – which Rickards interpreted to mean gold, the traditional go-to investment of investors fleeing the dollar. “Central banks hate gold because it limits their ability to print money,” said Rickards. If gold were to suddenly go to $1,500 an ounce, it would mean the dollar was collapsing. Warsh was giving the market a heads up that the Fed wasn’t going to let that happen. The Fed would raise interest rates to attract dollars back into the country. As Rickards put it, “Warsh is saying, ‘We sort of have to trash the dollar, but we’re going to do it gradually.’ . . . Warsh is trying to preempt an unstable decline in the dollar. What they want, of course, is a stable, steady decline.”
What about the Fed’s traditional role of maintaining price stability? It’s nonsense, said Rickards. “What they do is inflate the dollar to prop up the banks.” The dollar has to be inflated because there is more debt outstanding than money to pay it with. The government currently has contingent liabilities of $60 trillion. “There’s no feasible combination of growth and taxes that can fund that liability,” Rickards said. The government could fund about half that in the next 14 years, which means the dollar needs to be devalued by half in that time.
The Dollar Needs to be Devalued by Half?
Reducing the value of the dollar by half means that our hard-earned dollars are going to go only half as far, something that does not sound like a good thing for Main Street. Indeed, when we look more closely, we see that the move is not designed to serve us but to serve the banks. Why does the dollar need to be devalued? It is to compensate for a dilemma in the current monetary scheme that is even more intractable than Triffin’s, one that might be called a fraud. There is never enough money to cover the outstanding debt, because all money today except coins is created by banks in the form of loans, and more money is always owed back to the banks than they advance when they create their loans. Banks create the principal but not the interest necessary to pay their loans back.
The Fed, which is owned by a consortium of banks and was set up to serve their interests, is tasked with seeing that the banks are paid back; and the only way to do that is to inflate the money supply to create the dollars to cover the missing interest. But that means diluting the value of the dollar, which imposes a stealth tax on the citizenry; and the money supply is inflated by making more loans, which adds to the debt and interest burden that the inflated money supply was supposed to relieve. The banking system is basically a pyramid scheme, which can be kept going only by continually creating more debt.
The IMF’s $500 Billion Stimulus Package:
Designed to Help Developing Countries or the Banks?
And that brings us back to the IMF’s stimulus package discussed last week by Professor Buckley. The package was billed as helping emerging nations hard hit by the global credit crisis, but Buckley doubts that that is what is really going on. Rather, he says, the $500 billion pledged by the G20 nations is “a stimulus package for the rich countries’ banks.”
Why does he think that? Because stimulus packages are usually grants. The money coming from the IMF will be extended in the form of loans.
These are loans that are made by the G20 countries through the IMF to poor countries. They have to be repaid and what they’re going to be used for is to repay the international banks now. . . . [T]he money won’t really touch down in the poor countries. It will go straight through them to repay their creditors. . . . But the poor countries will spend the next 30 years repaying the IMF.
Basically, said Professor Buckley, the loans extended by the IMF represent an increase in seniority of the debt. That means developing nations will be even more firmly locked in debt than they are now.
At the moment the debt is owed by poor countries to banks, and if the poor countries had to, they could default on that. The bank debt is going to be replaced by debt that’s owed to the IMF, which for very good strategic reasons the poor countries will always service. . . . The rich countries have made this $500 billion available to stimulate their own banks, and the IMF is a wonderful party to put in between the countries and the debtors and the banks.
Not long ago, the IMF was being called obsolete. Now it is back in business with a vengeance; but it’s the old unseemly business of serving as the collection agency for the international banking industry. As long as third world debtors can service their loans by paying the interest on them, the banks can count the loans as “assets” on their books, allowing them to keep their pyramid scheme going by inflating the global money supply with yet more loans. It is all for the greater good of the banks and their affiliated multinational corporations; but the $500 billion in funding is coming from the taxpayers of the G20 nations, and the foreseeable outcome will be that the United States will join the ranks of debtor nations subservient to a global empire of central bankers.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Roubini Sees Stock Declines as Soros Warns on Economy
By Shamim Adam and Francine Lacqua
(Bloomberg)
New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini said stock markets may drop and billionaire George Soros warned the “bankrupt” U.S. banking system will hamper its economy, highlighting doubts about the sustainability of the global recovery.
“Markets have gone up too much, too soon, too fast,” Roubini, who accurately predicted the financial crisis, said in an interview in Istanbul on Oct. 3. U.S. stocks may suffer a “major decline” after climbing to the highest levels in almost a year two weeks ago, according to technical analyst Robert Prechter, founder of Elliott Wave International Inc.
Stocks have surged around the world in the past six months as evidence mounts that the economy is emerging from its deepest recession since the 1930s. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has soared 51 percent from a 12-year low in March while Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is up 48 percent. The euphoria contrasts with warnings from policy makers and investors like Soros, who said today that the U.S. economic recovery will be “very slow.”
U.S. consumers are “overdebted” and the country’s banking system has been “basically bankrupt,” Soros said in Istanbul today. “The United States has a long way to go.”
Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers also struck a cautious tone after meeting on the shores of the Bosporus over the weekend, saying the prospects for growth “remain fragile.”
‘Barely Recovering’
“The real economy is barely recovering while markets are going this way,” Roubini said. “I see the risk of a correction, especially when the markets now realize that the recovery is not rapid and V-shaped, but more like U-shaped. That might be in the fourth quarter or the first quarter of next year.”
U.S. and European stocks gained today after reports showed service industries expanded on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Stocks are very overvalued,” Prechter, who advised betting against U.S. equities three months before the market peaked in October 2007, said in an Oct. 1 telephone interview. “Stocks peaked in September and are back in a bear market.”
The S&P 500 will probably fall “substantially below” 676.53, the 12-year low reached on March 9, he said. His projection implies a drop of more than 34 percent from last week’s close of 1025.21. It rose to 1031.77 at 10:05 a.m. in New York.
Valuations
Gains in the index have pushed valuations to more than 19 times reported operating profits from the past year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s near the most expensive level since 2004.
U.S. stocks fell last week after manufacturing expanded less than anticipated and unemployment climbed to a 26-year high of 9.8 percent. In the 16-nation euro region, the jobless rate is at 9.6 percent, the highest in more than a decade.
HSBC Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer Michael Geoghegan fears there will be a second global economic slump, the Financial Times reported today, citing an interview. Geoghegan forecast a W-shaped recovery and said the “reality is that profits will be quite reduced,” the newspaper reported.
The International Monetary Fund predicts the global economy will expand 3.1 percent in 2010, led by growth in Asia, after a 1.1 percent contraction this year. That is still “anemic” and “very weak,” Roubini said.
If growth doesn’t rebound rapidly, “eventually markets are going to flatten out and correct to valuations that are justified,” he said. “I see a growing gap between what markets are doing and the weaker real economic activities.”
Creating Bubbles
Stocks will continue to advance, according to Byron Wien, vice chairman of Blackstone Group LP. The S&P 500 is poised for its biggest fourth-quarter rally in a decade as the economy recovers and earnings exceed analysts’ forecasts, Wien said in an interview on Sept. 28.
The global equity rally has added about $20.1 trillion to the value of stocks worldwide since this year’s low on March 9. Governments have poured about $2 trillion of stimulus into the global economy while central banks have cut interest rates to close to zero in efforts to revive growth.
“In the short run we need monetary and fiscal stimulus to avoid another tipping point and to avoid deflation, but now this easy money has already started to create asset bubbles in equities, commodities, credit and emerging markets,” Roubini said. “For the sake of achieving growth stability again and avoiding deflation, we may be planting the seeds of the next cycle of financial instability.”
Monday, October 5, 2009
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past
By Damien McElroy and Ahmad Vahdat
Telegraph
A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.
A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.
The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.
The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad's birthplace, and the name derives from "weaver of the Sabour", the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran's Ministry of the Interior.
Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad's track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.
Ali Nourizadeh, of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies, said: "This aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad's background explains a lot about him.
"Every family that converts into a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith.
"By making anti-Israeli statements he is trying to shed any suspicions about his Jewish connections. He feels vulnerable in a radical Shia society."
A London-based expert on Iranian Jewry said that "jian" ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews.
"He has changed his name for religious reasons, or at least his parents had," said the Iranian-born Jew living in London. "Sabourjian is well known Jewish name in Iran."
A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London said it would not be drawn on Mr Ahmadinejad's background. "It's not something we'd talk about," said Ron Gidor, a spokesman.
The Iranian leader has not denied his name was changed when his family moved to Tehran in the 1950s. But he has never revealed what it was change from or directly addressed the reason for the switch.
Relatives have previously said a mixture of religious reasons and economic pressures forced his blacksmith father Ahmad to change when Mr Ahmadinejad was aged four.
The Iranian president grew up to be a qualified engineer with a doctorate in traffic management. He served in the Revolutionary Guards militia before going on to make his name in hardline politics in the capital.
During this year's presidential debate on television he was goaded to admit that his name had changed but he ignored the jibe.
However Mehdi Khazali, an internet blogger, who called for an investigation of Mr Ahmadinejad's roots was arrested this summer.
Mr Ahmadinejad has regularly levelled bitter criticism at Israel, questioned its right to exist and denied the Holocaust. British diplomats walked out of a UN meeting last month after the Iranian president denounced Israel's 'genocide, barbarism and racism.'
Benjamin Netanyahu made an impassioned denunciation of the Iranian leader at the same UN summit. "Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium," he said. "A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies the murder of six million Jews while promising to wipe out the State of Israel, the State of the Jews. What a disgrace. What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations."
Mr Ahmadinejad has been consistently outspoken about the Nazi attempt to wipe out the Jewish race. "They have created a myth today that they call the massacre of Jews and they consider it a principle above God, religions and the prophets," he declared at a conference on the holocaust staged in Tehran in 2006.
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