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