BREAKING: New Evidence Suggests Cheney and/or CIA Had Advance Knowledge of 9/11 Attack And Covered It

If we are to ever close this chapter in our history, we MUST have another investigation, starting with the indictments of Dick Cheney, Rudy Guliani, George Tenet, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, Condoleeza Rice, and Larry Silverstein.



Charges must include obstruction of justice, treason, theft, destruction of evidence, destruction of private property, insurance fraud, tax evasion, and MURDER of 3000 Americans in NYC on 9/11, and the subsequent MURDER of Iraqi civilians in a false war to profit from the sale of oil contracts - War Profiteering.

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Marcus Aurelius: Richard Clark Slams CIA on 9/11 Categories: 07 Other Atrocities,09 Justice,Corruption,Government Marcus Aurelius Public Intelligence Net has consolidated two se

Public Intelligence Net has consolidated two separate items that I repeat below. Net interest is high, this consolidated version is more reliable.

Public Intelligence Net has consolidated two separate items that I repeat below. Net interest is high, this consolidated version is more reliable. Phi Beta Iota:  Worth a full read.  Comments at end below the line. Richard Clarke Richard Clarke Says CIA Tried to Recruit 9/11 Terrorists An Explosive New 9/11 Charge (Daily Beast): In a new documentary, former national-security aide Richard Clarke suggests the CIA tried to recruit 9/11

In a new documentary, former national-security aide Richard Clarke suggests the CIA tried to recruit 9/11 hijackers—then covered it up. Philip Shenon on George Tenet’s denial.

With the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks only a month away, former CIA Director George Tenet and two former top aides are fighting back hard against allegations that they engaged in a massive cover-up in 2000 and 2001 to hide intelligence from the White House and the FBI that might have prevented the attacks.

The source of the explosive, unproved allegations is a man who once considered Tenet a close friend: former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, who makes the charges against Tenet and the CIA in an interview for a radio documentary timed to the 10th anniversary next month. Portions of the Clarke interview were made available to The Daily Beast by the producers of the documentary.

In the interview for the documentary, Clarke offers an incendiary theory that, if true, would rewrite the history of the 9/11 attacks, suggesting that the CIA intentionally withheld information from the White House and FBI in 2000 and 2001 that two Saudi-born terrorists were on U.S. soil – terrorists who went on to become suicide hijackers on 9/11.

Clarke speculates – and readily admits he cannot prove — that the CIA withheld the information because the agency had been trying to recruit the terrorists, while they were living in southern California under their own names, to work as CIA agents inside Al Qaeda. After the recruitment effort went sour, senior CIA officers continued to withhold the information from the White House for fear they would be accused of “malfeasance and misfeasance,” Clarke suggests.

Clarke said that if his theory is correct, Tenet and others would never admit to the truth today “even if you waterboarded them.”

Clarke’s theory addresses a central, enduring mystery about the 9/11 attacks – why the CIA failed for so long to tell the White House and senior officials at the FBI that the agency was aware that two Al Qaeda terrorists had arrived in the United States in January 2000, just days after attending a terrorist summit meeting in Malaysia that the CIA had secretly monitored.

In a written response prepared last week in advance of the broadcast, Tenet says that Clarke, who famously went public in 2004 to blow the whistle on the Bush White House over intelligence failures before 9/11, has “suddenly invented baseless allegations which are belied by the record and unworthy of serious consideration.”

The CIA insisted to the 9/11 Commission and other government investigations that the agency never knew the exact whereabouts of the two hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, inside the U.S.—let alone try to recruit them as spies.

Joint Statement from George J. Tenet, Cofer Black and Richard Blee

Richard Clarke was an able public servant who served his country well for many years. But his recently released comments about the run up to 9/11 are reckless and profoundly wrong.

Clarke starts with the presumption that important information on the travel of future hijackers to the United States was intentionally withheld from him in early 2000. It was not. He wildly speculates that it must have been the CIA Director who could have ordered the information withheld. There was no such order. In fact, the record shows that the Director and other senior CIA officials were unaware of the information until after 9/11.

The handling of the information in question was exhaustively looked at by the 9/11 Commission, the Congressional Joint Inquiry, the CIA Inspector General and other groups.

The 9/11 Commission quite correctly concluded that “It appears no one informed higher levels of management in either the FBI or CIA about the case.”

In early 2000, a number of more junior personnel (including FBI agents on detail to CIA) did see travel information on individuals who later became hijackers but the significance of the data was not adequately recognized at the time.

Since 9/11 many systemic changes have been made to improve the watchlisting process and enhance information sharing within and across agencies.

Building on his false notion that information was intentionally withheld, Mr. Clarke went on to speculate–which he admits is based on nothing other than his imagination–that the CIA might have been trying to recruit these two future hijackers as agents. This, like much of what Mr. Clarke said in his interview, is utterly without foundation.

Many years after testifying himself at length before the 9/11 Commission but making no mention of his wild theory, Mr. Clarke has suddenly invented baseless allegations which are belied by the record and unworthy of serious consideration.

We testified under oath about what we did, what we knew and what we didn’t know. We stand by that testimony.

Phi Beta Iota:  George Tenet is a known intellectual prostitute and Cofer Black is a known blow-hard and opportunist.  Richard Clark, on the other hand, has a track record close to Charlie Allen’s, with integrity.  This story should be read in tandem with the allegations that General Keith Alexander destroyed ABLE DANGER and withheld information from the FBI that would have stopped 9/11.  On balance we continue to maintain:

1)  9/11 was not investigated properly.  Dick Cheney, Rudy Guliani, and Larry Silverstein should be indicted and professionally interrogated (e.g. Col Stu Herrington brought out of retirement for this national mission).

2)  9/11 was known to be occurring by Dick Cheney and a handful of others, at least three months in advance.  This allowed the scheduling of the nation-wide exercise that permitted Cheney to assure it went down as planned, while allowing Rumsfeld and others to augment it with a false-flag attack on the Pentagon that ostensibly destroyed the computers holding the forensic evidence on the missing 2.3 trillion.

3)  Incompetence and hubris were Dick Cheney’s best allies.  The FBI had two walk-ins prior to 9/11, one in Orlando and one in Newark, and blew both of them off.

In our view, Richard Clarke is now breaking ranks and putting his Oath to the Constitution ahead of the emphasis Washington places on “civility” (code for mutual protection society).  CIA is known to have lied to Presidents, the Department of Justice is known to have lied to the Courts, the bottom line here is one of character.  Richard Clarke has it, George Tenet and Cofer Black do not. Read more at www.phibetaiota.net

 

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Slims Loses $11.6B in July and America Movil Bonds Are Rated Higher than the Mexican Government

You read that correctly. Even the wealthy are taking a beating.

Amplify’d from www.bloomberg.com

Related News: Bonds  · Corporate Bonds  · Emerging Markets  · Latin America Want to save this for later? Add it to your Queue! Slim Bonds Beating Government Notes on Push for Safest Debt: Mexico Credit Q By Jonathan J. Levin - Aug 9, 2011 5:14 AM PT

America Movil SAB’s bond yields are falling faster than Mexico’s as more investors turn to the wireless carrier controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim for refuge from the global sell-off than the government.

The yield on America Movil’s dollar bonds due in 2020 fell 51 basis points, or 0.51 percentage point, in the past month to 3.66 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Yields on Mexico’s notes due the same year dropped 35 basis points in the same period to 3.61 percent, while borrowing costs for the country’s companies overall fell one. Global investment-grade corporate debt yields sank 18 basis points in the past month to 3.57 percent, Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data show.

America Movil is luring investors seeking the safest assets as slowing global growth and Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating spark a rout in global equity markets. The Mexico City-based company, which has $7.5 billion of cash on hand, is rated A2 by Moody’s Investors Service, five levels above speculative grade and two steps higher than the Mexican government.

“There’s a substantial fear in the market in relation to the sovereign debt of a lot of developed countries, obviously Europe and now the U.S.,” Eduardo Cortes, who helps manage $1.5 billion of debt at Gia Partners LLC in New York, said in a telephone interview. “One of the big question marks for investors is: Where do you go? America Movil is one of the preeminent credits in a region that would be considered to be in good shape.”

Yields on America Movil’s $2.1 billion of 5 percent notes due in 2020 fell to 3.57 percent on Aug. 4, the lowest level since the company issued the securities in July 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

U.S. Downgrade

An America Movil official who asked not to be identified in accordance with company policy declined to comment.

U.S. stocks sank the most since December 2008 yesterday, while Treasuries rallied and gold surged to a record, as S&P’s reduction of the nation’s credit rating to AA+ fueled concern the economic slowdown will worsen. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 634.76 points as about $2.5 trillion was erased from global equities.

Mexico’s IPC stock index fell the most in almost three years yesterday, while yields on the benchmark peso bonds due in 2024 rose the most since June. Mexico sends about 80 percent of its exports to the U.S.

America Movil, the biggest wireless carrier in the Americas, is “still one of the most solid telecom companies in the world,” Mark Christensen, who helps manage $500 million in emerging-market debt at Doubleline Capital LP in Los Angeles, said in a telephone interview. “You’re seeing a very solid blue-chip, low-yielding bond trading lockstep with Treasuries.”

Default Swaps

A press official at the Finance Ministry didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

The extra yield investors demand to hold Mexican government dollar bonds instead of U.S. Treasuries fell 10 basis points to 160 as 8:11 a.m. New York time, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The peso fell 1 percent to 12.4484 per dollar.

Yields on futures contracts for the 28-day TIIE interbank rate due in August fell four basis points yesterday to 5.02 percent yesterday, indicating traders expect the central bank will wait until that month to raise benchmark borrowing costs from a record low 4.5 percent.

The cost to protect Mexican debt against non-payment for five years rose 24 basis points yesterday to 153, according to CMA. Credit-default swaps pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or cash equivalent if the issuer fails to comply with debt agreements.

‘Double Dip’

America Movil’s bonds would slump if the U.S. economy relapses into recession, said Lazlo Belgrado, who helps manage 5 billion euros ($7.1 billion) of emerging-market debt, including America Movil securities, at KBC Asset Management SA in Luxembourg.

Concern the expansion in the world’s biggest economy is in jeopardy deepened last week after reports showed it grew less than forecast in the second quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. last week cut its growth forecast for Mexico.

“If this were to become a double dip, then even the safest things are way too tight right now,” Belgrado said in a telephone interview, referring to the possibility of another recession. “If that scenario happens, America Movil should widen as well.”

Debt sold by America Movil is gaining even after the company on Aug. 1 offered to buy the 40.4 percent of Telefonos de Mexico SAB it doesn’t already own for $6.5 billion, giving it full control of its former parent.

Stock Slump

“Yes, this could cause greater indebtedness,” said Mario Copca, an analyst at Vanguardia Casa de Bolsa SA in Mexico City. “But this is a company that generates greater sales than any other publicly traded company in Mexico. It gives you the security that they won’t have problems in the short-term.”

Sales at America Movil rose 7.8 percent to 160 billion pesos ($13 billion) in the second quarter. Net income climbed 14 percent to 24.2 billion pesos, the company said July 20.

The plan to acquire the remainder of Telmex, as the fixed- line company is known, has fueled a 7.8 percent decline in the company’s stock. Slim’s stock portfolio lost about $11.6 billion this month to $59.5 billion yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Slim was named the world’s richest man for a second year in a row by Forbes magazine in March.

Standard & Poor’s said on Aug. 3 it doesn’t expect the purchase of the stake in Telmex to affect America Movil’s A- rating. Moody’s confirmed its A2 rating and stable outlook on the company the same day.

America Movil is Mexico’s most-trusted corporate lender and will benefit from increased demand for higher-rated debt, said Alonso Madero, who helps manage about $5.5 billion, including America Movil bonds, at Mexico City-based Corp. Actinver SAB.

“Investors are running and grabbing onto whatever looks secure,” Madero said in a telephone interview. “Some would argue America Movil is a better credit than the federal government.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan J. Levin in Mexico City at jlevin20@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Papadopoulos at papadopoulos@bloomberg.net Read more at www.bloomberg.com

 

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Mexican Public University System Positioned to Be Better Than USA?

American universities will become completely unaffordable with the collapse of the US economy

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Chomsky: Public Education Under Massive Corporate Assault — What's Next?

By Noam Chomsky, AlterNet Posted on August 5, 2011, Printed on August 8, 2011 http://www.alternet.org/story/151921/chomsky%3A_public_education_under_massive_corporate_assault_%E2%80%94_what%27s_next

The following is a partial transcript of a recent speech delivered by Noam Chomsky at the University of Toronto at Scarborough on the rapid privatization process of public higher education in the United States. Read more at www.alternet.org

 

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Wall Street Waging Class War with S&P Downgrade?

S&P's Downgrade: Just More Corrupt Wall Street Insiders Waging Class War on America



Standard and Poor's decision to downgrade our public debt tells us absolutely nothing about the probability of the federal government meeting its future obligations. The move really only offers us some compelling evidence of the corruption eating away at the foundations of yet another key Wall Street institution.



I should say that it offers us additional evidence. According to a Senate investigation concluded earlier this year — a probe that was greeted with a collective "ho-hum" by the corporate media — S&P and Moody's, another leading agency, “issued the AAA ratings that made ... mortgage backed securities ... seem like safe investments, helped build an active market for those securities, and then, beginning in July 2007, downgraded the vast majority of those AAA ratings to junk status.” And when they did, it “precipitated the collapse of the [mortgage-backed securities] markets and, perhaps more than any other single event, triggered the financial crisis. (PDF)”



According to the Senate investigation, in the years leading up to crash, “warnings about the massive problems in the mortgage industry” — including internal warnings from their own analysts — had been ignored because of the “the inherent conflict of interest arising from the system used to pay for credit ratings” — the big “rating agencies were paid by the Wall Street firms” that were making a fortune selling that glossed-up garbage to credulous investors.



The almost surreal irony here is that it was the economic crisis that the ratings agencies facilitated which led to a massive drop in tax revenues, and it was that, more than any other single factor, which caused the large deficits the federal government has been running in recent years. In other words, the agencies themselves played a pivotal role in driving up the national debt. Yet, rather than doing the honorable thing and throwing themselves out of their high-rise windows in the wake of the crash, S&P's management had the nerve to start playing politics with that very same debt.



At the height of the debate over raising the debt ceiling, the elite ratings agency issued a remarkable warning: The firm said that it would downgrade U.S. treasuries even if the limit were raised. The only way the government could avoid such a move, the agency warned, was for Congress to rubber-stamp the ostensibly “balanced,” $4 trillion debt-reduction package — one that included largely unspecified “entitlement reforms” — that Barack Obama had offered the GOP (S&P insisted that it didn't favor any specific policy approach, but it did specify a “balanced approach” worth $4 trillion shortly after Obama floated the proposal).



Congress eventually raised the limit in exchange for a lesser figure of up to $2.7 trillion worth of deficit reduction, and late Friday, after the markets were safely closed and the world's traders had headed home for the weekend, S&P shot its hostage.



The downgrade itself is a ludicrous joke. Those Wall Street hotshots made a mathematical error that inflated our projected debt by $2 trillion — more than the amount of difference between the debt package they lusted after and the one eventually passed by Congress. “A judgment flawed by a $2 trillion error speaks for itself,” an unnamed Treasury spokeswoman told the New York Times. And can anyone seriously believe that the United States — the world's most powerful state — is less likely to meet its obligations than Hong Kong, a semiautonomous capitalist appendage of quasi-communist China?



S&P's decision to knock us down a peg wasn't based only on its economic analysis. Its primary reason for the move was our screwed up, tea party-stained political scene. And on that point, the firm's analysts are 100 percent correct. While the United States — which issues debt in its own currency and can always print more money — can't be forced to default on its debt by external circumstances, an unstable government made dysfunctional by a band of ideological zealots in control of one chamber of Congress could potentially choose voluntarily to default. We came close to seeing that scenario come to pass last week.



S&P noted that it no longer believed the “Bush tax cuts” — the single largest contributor to the public debt going forward — are not going to expire on schedule. “We have changed our assumption on this,” the agency wrote, “because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing” the deal.



Looking forward, it's also clear that the GOP will continue to take the American economy hostage if its ideological demands aren't met — party leaders have promised as much — and the Democrats haven't proven themselves to be very good at mounting rescue operations. So, while a Wall Street firm that specializes in analyzing the risk inherent in various securities may not have any business offering us its political analysis, if it had left it there, nobody could have argued with its conclusions. The United States government's actions have certainly become harder to predict.



But it didn't leave it there. It added some Fox News-quality economic nonsense to its decision, noting that the debt deal “fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently.”



Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee decisions on more comprehensive measures. It appears that, for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options. In addition, the plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key to long-term fiscal sustainability.



Most honest independent observers who know what they're talking about agree that Social Security hasn't added a penny to the national debt, is fully funded for the next 25 years — which is pretty “long-term” by most people's standards — and can pay out benefits higher than what retirees are getting today for the next 75 years, even without any adjustments to the program.



Messing around with the other “entitlements” will do nothing for our economic outlook because Medicare and Medicaid's problems are driven by one thing and one thing alone: the rapid increase in the cost of private sector healthcare — costs that burden American businesses as well as the government. Shifting more of the responsibility onto individuals might help the government's fiscal outlook, but it would only make the underlying problem worse. Why? Because healthcare costs are rising more slowly in our public health programs than they are in the private sector.



And even with healthcare costs rising, the Medicare “gap” — projected to hit 13 years from now — is equal to just one-fifth of the increase in defense spending since 9/11. It's worth noting, therefore, that there was no talk of downgrading our debt when we launched a couple of “wars of choice” that are projected to cost us at least $3 trillion when all is said and done.



These are all simple facts, and ignoring them should be the definition of “unserious” analysis. Or, as Paul Krugman put it, “Everything I’ve heard about S&P’s demands suggests that it’s talking nonsense about the U.S. fiscal situation.”



The agency has suggested that the downgrade depended on the size of agreed deficit reduction over the next decade, with $4 trillion apparently the magic number. Yet U.S. solvency depends hardly at all on what happens in the near or even medium term: An extra trillion in debt adds only a fraction of a percent of GDP to future interest costs, so a couple of trillion more or less barely signifies in the long term.



The downgrade may be silly, but it could hurt nonetheless. The agency may start downgrading other institutions that rely on public funds for their economic well-being; investors could start demanding more interest to entice them to buy U.S. treasuries. And even a small increase in interest rates could cost the government many billions in higher debt payments.



We'll see how the markets react this week. A more likely scenario is captured by a joke that made the rounds over the weekend: Now that U.S. treasuries have been downgraded, spooked investors will run from the risk into ... U.S. treasuries. Our bonds are still rated AAA, after all — the other big ratings agencies, Fitch and Moody's, still consider our debt to be a risk-free investment. In all likelihood, investors will shrug and continue to pour money into U.S. treasuries, because, regardless of what S&P may think, they remain the safest investments in the world. As the Wall Street Journal points out, “There is little alternative to U.S. treasuries for investors who need deep liquid markets in which to park their holdings. The most obvious place, the euro, faces even deeper structural problems.”



That's essentially what happened when Japan's public debt was downgraded. As the Journal noted, after that move, “yields on Japanese government bonds had a muted reaction and 10-year government bonds remain around 1 percent today.” Unlike the yen, however, the dollar remains the reserve currency of the world — the federal government issues around 60 percent of all AAA-rated sovereign debt — and nobody is going to be eager to pull their cash out of treasuries now, in the middle of a global downturn.



A collective shrug from investors would be the best possible result of S&P's downgrade. Most people believe that the ratings agencies base their analyses on some set of cold, objective criteria, but that's not the case. A group of Wall Street analysts — none of whom are going to have to worry too much about the state of Medicare when they retire — get together and discuss various factors, including, in this case, the political scene, and come to a consensus. So it's possible that this downgrade will expose their ratings as subjective and ideologically informed — as just another product of rich, corrupt Wall Street insiders campaigning against “entitlements” as they are now the key front in their decades-long class war from above.



Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy: And Everything Else the Right Doesn't Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America. Drop him an email or follow him on Twitter.



© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/151935/



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Standard and Poor's: Just More Corrupt Wall Street Insiders Waging Class War on America

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet Posted on August 7, 2011, Printed on August 8, 2011 http://www.alternet.org/story/151935/standard_and_poor%27s%3A_just_more_corrupt_wall_street_insiders_waging_class_war_on_america Read more at www.alternet.org

 

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$2.5T in Global Wealth Wiped out in ONE WEEK

Amplify’d from www.theglobeandmail.com

The cost: $2.5-trillion wiped off world stocks

More than $2.5-trillion have been wiped off the value of world stocks this week on mounting concerns the global economy is heading towards another recession and Italy and Spain are being engulfed by the euro zone sovereign debt crisis.

The sum wiped off the MSCI All-Country World Index is almost equivalent to the size of the entire French economy.

The MSCI All-Country World Index is down 8.6 per cent this week, on track for its biggest weekly percentage fall since November 2008.

The U.S. S&P 500 index alone has lost more than $840-billion from its market capitalization this week, while European equities measured by the MSCI Europe have lost more than $817-billion.

“These are markets to be careful (in), not to try and be a hero,” Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive officer Stephen Hestor told reporters after the bank announced its first-half results.

Credit Suisse on Friday cut its year-end target for the S&P 500 to 1,350 points from a previous forecast of 1,450. The new estimate was still 11 per cent above Thursday’s close of 1,200.07.

The Swiss bank also cut its forecast for U.S. companies’ 2011 average earnings per share (EPS) to 12 per cent growth from 14 per cent and for firms in the euro zone to EPS growth of 7 per cent from a previous estimate of 12 per cent.

However, not all were bearish.

Ralf Groenemeyer of Silvia Quandt Research said authorities may act soon to arrest the slide.

“We expect governments and central banks to act over the weekend ... It should not be ruled out that some kind of ‘quantitative easing’ measures emerge,” Mr. Groenemeyer said. Read more at www.theglobeandmail.com

 

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Pentagon Budget Cuts Coming in 2012

This is a good thing.

Amplify’d from www.bloomberg.com

Pentagon Grocery Stores, Troops May Lose in $825 Billion Cuts

The Pentagon’s chain of subsidized grocery stores to major weapons systems and troop strength may be on the chopping block to pay for as much as $825 billion in budget reductions that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said would inflict “real damage” on the U.S. military. The Defense Department is facing the largest reduction in spending since the end of the Cold War, when military budgets declined by about 35 percent in constant dollar terms between 1985 and 1998, according to Pentagon data. To meet its targets, the Pentagon may have to consider cuts in a range of programs, from the number of F-35 fighter jets to the $9 billion in subsidies for the Defense Commissary Agency, which operates 252 grocery stores around the world. Reducing the size of the 1.43 million active duty forces may yield the most savings. President Barack Obama signed a measure Aug. 2 raising the $14.3 trillion U.S. debt ceiling until 2013 and reducing $2.4 trillion in spending over the next decade. The deal requires $325 billion reduction in the defense budget in the first phase over 10 years. Officials would begin by eliminating $28 billion from the 2012 budget request. Another $500 billion in military spending may be cut over the next decade, for a total of $825 billion, if a special committee of lawmakers can’t agree by November on $1.2 trillion in deficit savings. That spending reduction would “trigger a round of dangerous across-the-board defense cuts” that may do “real damage” to the U.S. military, Panetta said, calling it a “doomsday mechanism.” Menu of Options The Pentagon already is conducting a review to identify programs that will meet the $325 billion goal, he said. Cutting another half a trillion dollars would produce an outcome that “would be completely unacceptable” and no contingency plans to do so are under consideration, Panetta said yesterday at a news conference. Still, as the Defense Department is forced to excise programs, it has a menu of options that several studies have identified over the years, said Gordon Adams, a professor at the American University in Washington. The choices range from about $31.2 billion in weapons cuts identified in November by former Senator Alan Simpson and former White House Official Erskine Bowles, co-chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, to $1 trillion in reductions that Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, laid out in his July report “Back in Black.” ‘Done this before’ Defense spending typically declines when wars end, Adams said. In constant dollars, the Pentagon’s budget declined 40 percent between 1952 and 1958 after the Korean War buildup, according to Defense Department data. “We have done this before,” said Adams, a former official in the White House Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton administration. “Even at $800 billion below what is currently forecast for defense, the sky does not fall and the U.S. military will survive.” Defense spending, including war costs, rose to $717 billion in fiscal year 2010, or a 92 percent increase from 1998. From that peak, an $825 billion reduction in projected spending over the next 10 years would approximately amount to an 18 percent decline in nominal terms or 34 percent in constant dollars, according to a Bloomberg Government analysis. The projections don’t include future war-related spending while the White House estimates include $50 billion annually for conflicts through to 2021. The cuts may mean the Pentagon has to scale back its strategy for fighting two conventional wars as well as worldwide counterinsurgency missions, Adams said. Troop Strength The U.S. has about 1.43 million active duty military personnel, including 570,719 in the Army, 335,038 in the Air Force, 328,227 in the Navy and 201,466 in the Marine Corps, according to the Pentagon. For every reduction of 10,000 military personnel the U.S. saves about $1 billion annually, said Adams. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates in January said the Army strength will be reduced by 27,000 starting in 2015 and the Marines’ head count will decline by about 20,000. Both services may have to cut more, Adams said. Reforming the Pentagon’s health care and military compensation system may yield additional savings, Adams said. Still, lawmakers shy away from the measure because it reduces benefits, Adams said. “That’s the third rail.” The Congressional Budget Office in a June 2009 report said reforming the military’s Tri-Care health-care system could save as much as $60 billion by 2020. F-35 Jets Reducing the military’s strength may allow the Pentagon to avoid buying new weapons and equipment needed for a larger force. Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT)’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon’s largest program at $382 billion, is in the crosshairs of several deficit-reduction studies. None of them have been endorsed by the Pentagon. Canceling or delaying the U.S. Air Force version of the F- 35 jet and replacing it with a more modern version of the F-16 plane, also made by Lockheed, would save about $47.9 billion, according to “Debt, Deficits, & Defense,” published in June 2010. The report was prepared by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, whose members were drawn from 14 think tanks including the Cato Institute, the New America Foundation and Taxpayers for Common Sense. The Pentagon plans to buy 2,443 F-35 planes whose development has been delayed and costs have grown. V-22 Osprey The Task Force and the Bowles-Simpson proposals also recommended eliminating the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle developed by General Dynamics Corp. (GD) for the Marine Corps. Gates agreed, cutting it out of the Pentagon’s 2012 budget proposal that is awaiting congressional approval. Both panels proposed capping production of the V-22 Osprey, a Marine Corps tilt-rotor aircraft made by Boeing and Textron Inc. (TXT), at 288 planes. Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.’s MH-60 Black Hawks could be substituted, they said. Halting V-22 production would save as much as $12 billion, the Debt, Deficits & Defense study said. The Pentagon intends to buy another 122 V-22s valued at about $8 billion in addition to the 174 already on contract, Sean Stackley, the Navy’s top weapons buyer said. The number of Navy aircraft carriers may also decline from the current 11. Spending cuts may extend beyond people and weapons to other expenditures not directly tied to military operations. Grocery Stores If the Defense Commissary Agency were a private corporation, it would be one of the largest grocery-store chains with about $6 billion in annual sales, Coburn said in his report. Previous administrations have attempted to eliminate the subsidy and failed because retirees including military chiefs of staff are loath to give up that benefit, Adams said. Reducing overhead costs alone may contribute as much as $120 billion of defense spending, Gates said on his last day in office. Such costs were $212 billion in the 2010 fiscal year, larger than the gross domestic product of Israel, a July 2010 report prepared by the Defense Business Board said. Its members include management consultants, former executives of defense contractors and retired defense officials. The group, whose annual operating cost is about $750,000, advises the defense secretary about “best business practices,” according to its website. If the overhead cost was a “separate country, it would rank 49th in GDP” among the world’s nations, the advisory board said. To contact the reporter on this story: Gopal Ratnam in Washington at gratnam1@bloomberg.net. Read more at www.bloomberg.com

 

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Currency Wars During Global Slump

Amplify’d from globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Global Currency Wars Enter New Stage; Brazil Calls Off Truce, South Korea Reviews "All Possibilities", Philippines Threatens "Prudential Limits"

Fighting the Fed has reached a new stage: all out currency wars. The Fed is desperate to tank the US dollar to stimulate exports and further fuel a stock market that is clearly back in bubble territory. However, central bankers in other countries have had enough. Japan and Switzerland intervened heavily in the forex markets on Wednesday. Other countries, fed up with Fed policies and a weak dollar now threaten to do the same. For a recap Wednesday's intervention news, please see

Quantitative Easing Begins in Switzerland to Counteract Soaring Swiss Franc, Central Bank "Aims to Bring 3-Month LIBOR to 0%"; Gold Soars

Japan Intervenes, Yen Plunges; What's Next?

“We seem to be entering a new stage of the currency wars where it’s not just the emerging markets that are responding to broad dollar weakness,” said Callum Henderson, global head of currency research at Standard Chartered Plc in Singapore, who has written books on currency markets. “Expect much more intervention in the future and further acrimony in terms of how the U.S. dollar is doing.”

Brazil Calls Off Truce, South Korea Reviews "All Possibilities", Philippines Threatens "Prudential Limits"

Japan sold yen today, causing the currency to weaken as much as 3.1 percent against the dollar after rising 5 percent last month. Brazil’s Mantega said Nov. 30 that his nation’s currency was trading at a reasonable level as Europe’s worsening debt crisis brought a “temporary truce” to a global currency war. Since then, the real has gained about 10 percent against the dollar, and Mantega said last month that the so-called “war” was still on. South Korea’s government is reviewing “all possibilities” on curbing capital inflows, Finance Minister Bahk Jae Wan told reporters in Seoul today, adding that he’s “closely monitoring” the situation, while declining to comment on the impact of Japan’s intervention. The Philippines is prepared to impose controls to cap volatility in the peso after its currency rose to a three-year high this week, central bank Governor Amando Tetangco said in an e-mail late yesterday. The bank “will not go against the fundamental currency trend but will not hesitate to use tools, including imposing prudential limits on certain transactions of banks,” he said.

sia-Pacific Reversal Asia-Pacific Equity Markets initially responded to the intervention in a positive manner. That action has now reversed. Bloomberg reported "Yen Slumps After Japan Intervenes to Curb Rise; Most Asian Stocks Advance" but "Most Asian Stocks Advance" is now missing from the title. Asia-Pacific Snapshot Australia, South Korea, and Taiwan are all down well over 1% each. Nothing is up by even .25%. US S&P 500 futures we up over 10 points but are now slightly red although Europe is slightly green. To update the chart click on Yahoo Finance Major World Indices Time For Decisive Action At times like these, there is only one thing to do: Call out Tim Geithner for a reiteration of the "US Strong Dollar Policy". Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Read more at globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

 

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Everybody is Tied In - globalization and consumption

It will be extremely hard for us, humans, Americans, citizens, employees, employers, etc to drop our addiction to consumption enabled by globalization and oil.  That's our greatest enemy, our greatest peril, ... ourselves.

Efficiency Didn't Solve Our Consumption Addiction

Joseph Tainter PhD
anthrpologist, historian
author, The Collapse of Coplex Societies

Jevins paradox. William Henry Jevins - incr effi in use of the resource, ultim more gets used than ever before.

After the oil shocks of the 1970's, energy efficiency increased dramatically with innovation and technology, and hard work, and effort.  However, then in the 1980's the price came down and we increased our consumption again.  Like an addict with no discipline. Like an adult with bad habits.

Peak oil crisis. Find a transition liquid fuels.. growing gap, etc.

TV made it look exciting and fun.  Celebrities did the same.  And all our friends

Oil and auto companies spent a lot of money trying to convnince us there are no pollution issues with autos and petroleum related health issues.

The oil pollution

The more time you spend in traffic, the dumber you are to this obvious fact.  Either in the air, on the ground, in your car, on a plane, train or any automibile in a crowded city.

Even if we believe in a miracle to bail us out, we dont plan for the earth taking action itself.  Earthquakes.  Tornadoes.

Wild dislocation creates recession and inflation, STAGFLATION.  Classic economic policy making fails when both a reciession and inflation meet at the same time.

Catch 22: there are too many people on the planet overconsuming and we need to fix the problem immediately they need to volunteer into the solutions.  They cannot be forced.  For that you have to have faith that if they are educated, if they are told the truth, they will learn to handle it.  Remeber it will take time.  Just as we cannot put the whole story into a single 2 hr movie, the same person who is veiwing the movie wont get the whole message.

Hierarchy is the patterm played out across 500 years and the melding of coirporation and state power with violence.  this ia fascism.  That is our culture.  Not just our governmnt, not just our corporations, the whole thing put together.

Pushing the Plane tto the Tipping Point.

Rational and Meak People - Making Bad Decisions, Make Believe

Some are pretending its not real but thats because its the easiest way to be.

We think money and wealth is the most important thing.  Our institutions, our culture keep us locked into this trance.  Our economic stories.

fundamentla rethinging of eexxxx

David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World

Economic growth is really about rich people expropriating poor people's resources and property, turning itno garbage, to makes more money for rich people, which gives them more power relative to the people who do not have property, are not participants in the financial ownership, and the financial games that are played.

Depending on which economic story you believe in, you will pick sides.

The Quiet Revolution: Latin America Moving Away from Washington’s Influence | Oil Price.com

The Quiet Revolution: Latin America Moving Away from Washington’s Influence | Oil Price.com

The Quiet Revolution: Latin America Moving Away from Washington’s Influence

Written by John Daly

Monday, 01 August 2011 12:22

Message : Investors: Free Oil Industry Investment Report - Our Fracking industry guide shows you the strategies that will enable you to generate excellent returns in what will be one of the most profitable sectors of the energy industry. Click here for your Free report. Perhaps the biggest foreign-policy story of the past decade, thoroughly overlooked by the American media after 9/11 and its subsequent monomaniacal focus on terrorism, security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the fact that Latin America has essentially moved away from Washington's influence. This quiet revolution from below, in rejecting the Monroe Doctrine, first enunciated in 1823 whereby the U.S. essentially barred European powers from influence in Latin America, has essentially for nearly 200 years served as an ideological platform for countless U.S. interventions south of the border but has yet to register on the radar the politicians in Washington. From Ecuador to Paraguay, Venezuela to Brazil, governments increasingly composed of representatives of the indigenous people, are more and more rebuffing Washington's advice as they seek to determine their countries’ futures without undue interference from their giant North American neighbor. Nowhere is this more evident than in Brazil, which after suffering decades of corrupt government and intermittent military dictatorship in 2003 elected Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president, who’s adroit and progressive policies until he relinquished the proposed last year have laid the foundations for the dramatic rise of Brazil's economy. President Lula focused on social equality and improving the lot of the nation's poor, and that and other policies such as reining in the rampant inflation that ravaged the country when he took office, saw him leave the presidency with an approval rating of 80 percent, a political achievement unmatched in any other country. Lula put Brazil’s economic interests first and foremost, and spoke his mind prior to a G20 summit in March 2009, when in Brasilia, with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown squirming uncomfortably beside him, he addressed the issue of the global recession which had begun the previous year by telling reporters, "This crisis was caused by no black man or woman or by no indigenous person or by no poor person. This crisis was fostered and boosted by irrational behavior of some people that are white, blue-eyed. Before the crisis they looked like they knew everything about economics, and they have demonstrated they know nothing about economics." Challenged about his claims, Lula responded: "I only record what I see in the press. I am not acquainted with a single black banker." Indirectly addressing the West’s and in particular the United States' obsession with security against terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Lula continued, "We do not have the right to allow this crisis to continue for long. We are determined to make sure the world financial system is vigorously regulated. You go to a shopping mall and you are filmed. You go to the airport and you are watched. I can't imagine that only the financial system has no surveillance at all." Last July while visiting Zambia Lula noted, “We had a debt of $30 billion to the International Monetary Fund but when I took office, we repaid the IMF and we don’t owe anymore to the IMF. On the contrary, the IMF owes us $14 billion. We have $250 billion in our currency reserves.” Now the crown jewel in Brazil's economy, the government-managed Petrobras energy company is to build on Lula's sound fiscal foundation and stated that it intends to double its output within the next four years. Furthermore, echoing Lula's reluctance to rely on foreign financial funding, Petrobras said that its plan to more than double oil output will boost the company's cash flow and eliminate the need to tap debt markets in less than a decade, as profits from oil sales will be enough to cover both operating and debt costs, according to Petrobras Chief Financial Officer Almir Barbassa. Earlier this week Petrobras announced its plans to invest $224.7 billion in increasing production through 2015, more than any other major oil producer in the world, as it develops some of the world’s largest discoveries in three decades outside of the Caspian basin. Barbassa said modestly, “Cash flow will be enough to pay debt amortizations and the investments we will have. Few companies in the world can say this.” A government focused both on social reform and prudent economic policy while the country's largest company purchases a policy of minimizing foreign borrowing through a pay-as-you-go policy – what radical concepts. It would seem that the future of Petrobras is quite bright, and if Washington bothers to listen to its rising southern economic superpower hemispheric neighbor it might even learn a few things about fiscal accountability, if the Republicans in Congress can be momentarily dissuaded from their efforts to drive America’s international credit ratings over a cliff. By. John C.K. Daly of OilPrice Next >