UN is Signaling the Economic Hitmen to Target the Developing World's Young #nwo #ehm

Just focus on the title: UN: World will miss economic benefit of 1.8 billion young people, unless of course the developing world continues down the path of infinite growth leveraged on the debt backs of the G20 that is hopelessly in debt and crumbling while the supranational banks who have no national identity or loyalty continue to make trillions.



End the Debt. End the Fed. End the World Bank. End the IMF.

Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk

UN: World will miss economic benefit of 1.8 billion young people

Population report says lack of education, infrastructure and jobs will mean a generation's potential will be wasted • Write a letter to the 7 billionth person

The world is in danger of missing a golden opportunity for development and economic growth, a "demographic dividend", as the largest cohort of young people ever known see their most economically productive years wasted, a major UN population report warned on Wednesday.

The potential economic benefits of having such a large global population of young people will go unfulfilled, as a generation suffers from a lack of education, and investment in infrastructure and job creation, the authors said.

"When young people can claim their rights to health, education and decent working conditions, they become a powerful force for economic development and positive change. "This opportunity [for] a demographic dividend is a fleeting moment that must be claimed quickly or lost," said the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), in its Global Population Report, published just days before the UN forecasted the world population will pass 7 billion. Of this 7 billion, 1.8 billion are aged between 10 and 24, and 90% of those live in the developing world.

The report also reveals average life expectancy across the globe has risen by 20 years since the 1950s, from 48 to 68, as healthcare and nutrition have improved, while infant mortality has fallen fast, from 133 deaths per 1,000 births in the 1950s to 46 per 1,000 today.

These successes area a cause to celebrate, the United Nations said. Fertility has also halved, from 6 births per woman to 2.5 over the same period, though there are stark regional differences – fertility is 1.6 births per woman in east Asia but 5 per woman in some parts of Africa.

The report found a "vicious cycle" of extreme poverty, food insecurity and inequality leading to high death rates, that in turn encourages high birth rates. Only by investing in health and education for women and girls can countries break the cycle, as improving living conditions will allow parents to be more confident that their children will survive, and therefore have smaller families.

Crucial to this will be allowing women and girls greater freedom and equality, in order to make their own choices about fertility. Hundreds of millions of women would prefer to have smaller families, but are unable to exercise this preference owing to a culture of repression.

"Governments that are serious about eradicating poverty should also be serious about providing the services, supplies and information that women need to exercise their reproductive rights," said Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the UNFPA. On the empowerment of woman, he said at a press conference in London: "we have come a long way, but we are not there yet. There is no group that gives up power voluntarily. Men will not give up power to women voluntarily. Women have to fight. Women need to work together."

One way of doing so highlighted in the report is to provide a good level of sex education to adolescents, and access to modern methods of contraception.

The report said: "When women have equal rights and opportunities in their societies and when girls are educated and healthy, fertility rates fall ... the empowerment of women is not simply an end in itself, but also a step towards eradicating poverty."

The difference between a future of high fertility rates and one where people are better able to choose is stark: if fertility rates in areas of high population growth come down towards the global average, the world will reach a global population of about 9.3bn in 2050, and about 10bn in 2100. But if fertility rates remain high in the most populous countries, the 2100 population will be more than 15bn.

Osotimehin said countries must do more to help themselves: "It is unacceptable for countries to rely on donor money for reproductive health. The welfare of their people is their mandate." He said it would cost only $2bn to give access to family planning to the 250 million women who would like it but lack access. "The budget of the average developing country does not give enough money to issues of women and reproductive health. That has to change. If it does not change, it becomes unsustainable."

But he also said donors were failing to make sufficient commitments. "Family planning has not been funded as it should have been. Donors need to provide resources ... there has been a reduction [in money made available]."

Osotimehin also said at the press conference that the opportunity had been missed to educate people on reproductive health and family planning, during a drive to prevent HIV infection, echoing comments he made to the Guardian earlier in the month.

With high population growth, many scientists predict thatthe pressure on food and agricultural productivity and other natural resources may become intolerable, and conditions for the poorest people will deteriorate further, rather than improving.

John Cleland, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "The escape from poverty and hunger is made more difficult by rapid population growth."

Rapid growth will also exacerbate the impact of other global problems, such as climate change and other environmental impacts. Steven Sinding, a population expert at Columbia University, said: "The pace of growth poses enormous challenges for many of the poorest countries, which lack the resources not only to keep up with demand for infrastructure, basic health and education services and job opportunities for the rising number of young people, but also to adapt to climate change."

Separately on Wednesday, the Official for National Statistics forecast that the UK population would grow to 70 million by 2020, up from 62.3 million in 2010. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

 

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Africa the Next Target by the Economic Hitmen - Permanent Debt #ehm #ows #nwo

Why does Namibia have a deficit and why would they sell a $500M USD-based bond? Probably because the bankers needed something to help pay their bonuses. Meanwhile they are about to embark on a journey of perpetual debt.



Leaders of Africa, read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and speak with leaders of Argentina, Iceland, Ireland, and Greece before you go any further.



This is driven by predatory capitalism.

Amplify’d from www.bloomberg.com

Namibia Said to Sell Debut Eurobond to Fund Budget Deficit

Namibia is selling a debut $500 million international bond to help finance its budget deficit, according to three people familiar with the transaction.

The 10-year dollar-denominated securities are being sold to investors in Europe and the U.S., said an official from the central bank, who declined to be identified because the sale hasn’t been completed. The bond may be priced to yield between 5.75 percent and 6 percent, according to an investor and banker, who declined to be identified for the same reason.

Namibia, the world’s biggest miner of offshore diamonds and the fourth-largest producer of uranium, has a credit rating of BBB- from Fitch Ratings and Baa3 from Moody’s, the lowest investment-grade levels. The southern African nation, which borders South Africa, Botswana and Angola, follows Nigeria, sub- Saharan Africa’s second-largest economy, which sold its first dollar-denominated debt in January.

“It sounds relatively attractive compared to African peers,” Stuart Culverhouse, the chief economist at investment bank Exotix Ltd., said in a phone interview from London today. “It’s a relatively unknown name and may have to stimulate interest through the pricing.”

Bids received for the bond exceeded the amount on offer by six times, according to the investor. Barclays Capital and Standard Bank Group Ltd. are selling the bond on behalf of the government, according to the banker.

Budget Deficit

The government is raising funds to help finance a budget deficit that’s forecast to widen to 9.8 percent of gross domestic product in the year through March 2012 from 7 percent last year.

Namibia has a higher credit rating than sovereign debt issued by sub-Saharan African nations, excluding South Africa. Gabon’s dollar-denominated bonds due 2017 yielded 5.117 percent today, while Ghana’s $750 million of 8.5 percent international bonds due 2017 yielded 6.152 percent. Nigeria’s $500 million Eurobonds due 2021 yield 5.965 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, at 3:52 p.m. in London.

Namibia has “a similar rating to South Africa and obviously very closely tied to the South African economy,” said Culverhouse. “If you look at it from that perspective it’s about 200 basis points over the equivalent South African Eurobond. From both sides of the argument, it’s a fairly attractive deal.”

Kenya, Angola, Zambia and Rwanda are also planning to tap international debt markets to finance rail, power and other infrastructure projects.

To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Kay in Abuja at ckay5@bloomberg.net; Nasreen Seria in Johannesburg at nseria@bloomberg.net Read more at www.bloomberg.com

 

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New Money Paradigm Needed ASAP #ows #EndtheFed #EndtheIMF #EndtheWB #ehm

So the banks create a whole new market of derivatives and send the world into massive debt while evading taxes and flooding the market with USD through their wholly owned subsidiary THE FEDERAL RESERVE and other CENTRAL BANKS and then once everything has exploded and the credit tightens up, the money supply is tightened after 1) they have bought all our assets at deflated prices, 2) we are in debt up to our ears, and 3) our WAGES DECLINE because of long term systemic UNEMPLOYMENT.



Then it will be time to increase the money supply again and inflate all the assets and pay themselves great bonuses for advising their clients to buy and sell and buy and sell. And we will be stuck with PERMANENTLY LOWER WAGES.



Watch "The Money Masters", "Collapse" and Elizabeth Warren's "The Coming Collapse of the (American) Middle Class" and tell me I am not spot on.



Up and down, up and down. They win either way on their model.



Oh then the USA will be looking for World Bank and IMF funding and the economic hitmen will set the interest rate and the size of the project just right so we can never pay it back. Read the "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"

by John Perkins

Amplify’d from www.reuters.com

Nightmare scenario: U.S. deflation risks rising

(Reuters) - Risks are rising that a moribund job market and potentially steep drop in inflation could push the United States into a downward spiral of falling wages and prices. That nightmare scenario of deflation might seem remote considering a recent rebound in growth, and the Federal Reserve would almost certainly try to head it off, probably well before prices started to fall. But some investors and economists say the risk is real. Inflation is expected to more than halve over the next year as a spike in prices for goods like oil and grains unwinds. Unemployment, meanwhile, will likely hold at nearly double its pre-recession level well into next year, keeping incomes under pressure. If forecasts are correct, that could present a dangerous combination the Fed might not allow to brew for very long. "You run the models and that all points to deflation," said Joshua Dennerlein, an economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. "Without some kind of monetary policy help you would definitely get deflation." Already, many forecasts for price increases are lower than they were a year ago when the Fed announced it would pump $600 billion into the banking system to boost growth and counter fears of deflation, which were growing at the time. The inflation rate, which hit a three-year high of 3.9 percent in September, could fall to 1.3 percent by October 2012, according to a measure of expectations calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. That would leave the rate below the U.S. central bank's 1.7 percent to 2 percent comfort zone. FOUNDATION FOR ACTION With this year's inflation surge as a backdrop, the Fed is not expected to make any move at its policy meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. But looking to mid-2012, when the central bank's current stimulus program known as "Operation Twist" is due to expire, a high jobless rate and slowing inflation could look worrisome, especially if inflation expectations decline further. "That would provide more of a foundation for action both to try to reduce the probability of slipping into deflation and to try to provide some more support for economic growth," said Randall Kroszner, an economist at the University of Chicago who served on the Fed's board until 2009. When Kroszner was a policymaker, deflation fears were perhaps their highest since the Great Depression, the last time U.S. prices and incomes sank in a vicious, self-feeding cycle. To counter inflation, central banks can always raise interest rates. But the Fed's normal tool kit for countering falling prices is limited since it has already cut short-term borrowing costs nearly to zero. The key would be to find a way to ensure a deflationary psychology does not take hold. If consumers and businesses put off purchases because they could be cheaper down the road, that could undercut the economy and push prices down further. While growth likely accelerated to around a 2.5 percent annual pace in the third quarter, nearly double the second-quarter rate, several Fed officials have continued to talk about steps they could take to spur a stronger recovery. Some of the third quarter's relative strength reflects a one-time bounceback from shocks caused by a spike in oil prices and an earthquake in Japan that disrupted manufacturing. And dark clouds remain. Economists say a worsening of Europe's debt crisis could easily send the United States back into recession, further increasing deflation risks. MONEY PRINTING Already, nearly one fifth of Americans believe their family incomes will fall during the next six months, the highest level of wage pessimism since October 2009, according to data released on Tuesday by the Conference Board. At the same time, consumer expectations for long-term inflation, as measured by a Thomson-Reuters/University of Michigan survey, fell this month to the lowest level since the Fed was readying a $600 billion bond-buying plan a year ago. Growth in wages has slowed markedly since the recession and they could eventually start falling if the unemployment rate remains high, said Paul Ashworth, and economist at Capital Economics in Toronto. A Reuters poll of economists expects the jobless rate to edge down to just 9 percent in the second quarter of 2012 from 9.1 percent now. Some analysts think the Fed's extraordinary actions to help the economy -- it has already pumped $2.3 trillion into the banking system -- make it nearly impossible for a sustained deflation to take hold. While much of that money has not seeped into the wider economy because of weak demand and tighter lending standards, eventually it will, greasing the gears of growth and fueling inflation, said Richard Burdekin, an economist at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. "There is a legitimate concern about deflation," he said. "But to have a deflation when you have the sort of money growth we're seeing would be unprecedented." Yet investors who believe most ardently that deflation is coming see evidence in the declines in the values of a number of asset classes. U.S. housing prices have fallen about a third since their pre-recession peak, while the Standard & Poor's stock index is down about a fifth. The Reuters-Jefferies CRB commodities index has also dropped about a third since its 2008 peak, and nearly 15 percent since April of this year. "When you have deflation in all these other areas, it's kind of difficult to see how goods and services are going to resist the trend," said Gary Shilling, who formerly worked on the staff of the San Francisco Fed and as an economist at several Wall Street firms. Read more at www.reuters.com

 

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Obama Clearly Works for the Banks, Not the People #ows

The Obama healthcare plan did not address the costs, it simply expanded coverage to more people.  Arguably better than what we had before.  However, the true cost increases to healthcare are in medical liability insurance, super leveraged medical institutions increasing the price of service with new technology, the cost of real estate for hospitals and clinics, the cost of drugs to treat, and the big one is the 30-40% administrative overhead created by the PPO processes.

The banking regulations have yet to put any prominent bankers in jail for FRAUD.  Sidelines folks such as Bernie Madoff could no longer be ignored.

The HAMP and homeowners refinancing plans allow homeowners who are underwater to REFINANCE, creating additional interest charges and INCREASING the overall cost of the home.  This way the banks don't have to take writedowns.  With no prospects for growth in the economy, the value of the homes will not grow in the near future so what's the point of owning? At the same time the mortgage interest deduction is slated for elimination.

The student loan deal actually took the banks out of education costs so that was good for us, but what about the trillion dollar education debt bubble that is ALREADY out there.  With no prospects for growth, jobs are slim, but student debt cannot be avoided.

Can anyone point to ANY Obama legislation that actually REDUCED the debt burden or inflationary burden the American middle class is facing?

Scientific Proof the 1% "Bilderberg" Control the World's Wealth #nwo #infowars #ows

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.



Cross reference this with the TARP bailout

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/200904_CREDITCRISIS/recipients.html



Conspiracy theorists have called this the Bilderberg Group

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bilderberg_participants

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/bilderberg

Amplify’d from www.newscientist.com

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world

AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).

"Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based."

The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy. Superconnected companies are red, very connected companies are yellow. The size of the dot represents revenue (Image: PLoS One)

Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy - whether it made it more or less stable, for instance.

The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.

The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

John Driffill of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, says the value of the analysis is not just to see if a small number of people controls the global economy, but rather its insights into economic stability.

Concentration of power is not good or bad in itself, says the Zurich team, but the core's tight interconnections could be. As the world learned in 2008, such networks are unstable. "If one [company] suffers distress," says Glattfelder, "this propagates."

"It's disconcerting to see how connected things really are," agrees George Sugihara of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, a complex systems expert who has advised Deutsche Bank.

Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), warns that the analysis assumes ownership equates to control, which is not always true. Most company shares are held by fund managers who may or may not control what the companies they part-own actually do. The impact of this on the system's behaviour, he says, requires more analysis.

Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power, the analysis could help make it more stable. By finding the vulnerable aspects of the system, economists can suggest measures to prevent future collapses spreading through the entire economy. Glattfelder says we may need global anti-trust rules, which now exist only at national level, to limit over-connection among TNCs. Sugihara says the analysis suggests one possible solution: firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity to discourage this risk.

One thing won't chime with some of the protesters' claims: the super-entity is unlikely to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. "Such structures are common in nature," says Sugihara.

Newcomers to any network connect preferentially to highly connected members. TNCs buy shares in each other for business reasons, not for world domination. If connectedness clusters, so does wealth, says Dan Braha of NECSI: in similar models, money flows towards the most highly connected members. The Zurich study, says Sugihara, "is strong evidence that simple rules governing TNCs give rise spontaneously to highly connected groups". Or as Braha puts it: "The Occupy Wall Street claim that 1 per cent of people have most of the wealth reflects a logical phase of the self-organising economy."

So, the super-entity may not result from conspiracy. The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power. Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be one such common interest.

When this article was first posted, the comment in the final sentence of the paragraph beginning "Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power…" was misattributed.

The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies 1. Barclays plc 2. Capital Group Companies Inc 3. FMR Corporation 4. AXA 5. State Street Corporation 6. JP Morgan Chase & Co 7. Legal & General Group plc 8. Vanguard Group Inc 9. UBS AG 10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 11. Wellington Management Co LLP 12. Deutsche Bank AG 13. Franklin Resources Inc 14. Credit Suisse Group 15. Walton Enterprises LLC 16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp 17. Natixis 18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc 19. T Rowe Price Group Inc 20. Legg Mason Inc 21. Morgan Stanley 22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc 23. Northern Trust Corporation 24. Société Générale 25. Bank of America Corporation 26. Lloyds TSB Group plc 27. Invesco plc 28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA 30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company 31. Aviva plc 32. Schroders plc 33. Dodge & Cox 34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc* 35. Sun Life Financial Inc 36. Standard Life plc 37. CNCE 38. Nomura Holdings Inc 39. The Depository Trust Company 40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance 41. ING Groep NV 42. Brandes Investment Partners LP 43. Unicredito Italiano SPA 44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan 45. Vereniging Aegon 46. BNP Paribas 47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc 48. Resona Holdings Inc 49. Capital Group International Inc 50. China Petrochemical Group Company * Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used Read more at www.newscientist.com

 

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Map the Fall of Predatory Capitalism in Europe #ows

Remember the fall of western Communism in 1989-1991? USSR fell after the Cold War. Eastern Europe was on fire then.



Now its western Europe and the US that's on fire.



Oh and the middle east and Africa, they were on fire in the 1960's and 1970's after we created their nation states after WW1.



And Europe can pretty much blame the US government and US banks and the Federal Reserve for their misery. That is the root cause of this crisis.

Amplify’d from twitpic.com

@LeilaLaTresSage Leïla la très sage October 14, 2011

See more at twitpic.com

 

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FBI Announces Gangs Have Infiltrated Every Branch Of The Military

Think this will lead to more drugs and weapons flooding the streets? Think this has anything to do with the drug war in Mexico? Think this will go ignored like the 9/11 warnings the FBI provided the Whitehouse and the CIA?

Amplify’d from www.businessinsider.com

The FBI Announces Gangs Have Infiltrated Every Branch Of The Military

The FBI has released a new gang assessment announcing that there are 1.4 million gang members in the US, a 40 percent increase since 2009, and that many of these members are getting inside the military (via Stars and Stripes). The report says the military has seen members from 53 gangs and 100 regions in the U.S. enlist in every branch of the armed forces. Members of every major street gang, some prison gangs, and outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) have been reported on both U.S. and international military installations. From the report: Through transfers and deployments, military-affiliated gang members expand their culture and operations to new regions nationwide and worldwide, undermining security and law enforcement efforts to combat crime. Gang members with military training pose a unique threat to law enforcement personnel because of their distinctive weapons and combat training skills and their ability to transfer these skills to fellow gang members. The report notes that while gang members have been reported in every branch of service, they are concentrated in the U.S. Army, Army Reserves, and the Army National Guard. Many street gang members join the military to escape the gang lifestyle or as an alternative to incarceration, but often revert back to their gang associations once they encounter other gang members in the military. Other gangs target the U.S. military and defense systems to expand their territory, facilitate criminal activity such as weapons and drug trafficking, or to receive weapons and combat training that they may transfer back to their gang. Incidents of weapons theft and trafficking may have a negative impact on public safety or pose a threat to law enforcement officials. The FBI points out that many gangs, especially the bikers, actively recruit members with military training and advise young members with no criminal record to join the service for weapon access and combat experience. The full assessment is definitely worth checking out, if only for the pictures. Read more at www.businessinsider.com

 

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Confessions of an Economic Hitman (POTUS) #peakoil #energy #obama #EHM @collapsenet #OWS

Read the book entitled "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins and you will understand part of this. then listen to the lectures of Michael Klare and watch the documentary "Collapse" with Michael Ruppert.



Then once you've puked and recovered start paying attention to #OWS and @maxkeiser on the Keiser Report on RT.com.



Are the jackals at work in your hometown? If they fail, expect a visit from Special Forces. If they fail, expect the US Military to knock down your door because you are a TERRORIST and a THREAT to SOCIETY.



Bitter yet?

Amplify’d from twistedpolitix.blogspot.com

Oct 21 Letter from President Barack Obama - CEO of USA Energy Inc.

Good evening,

I'm writing to tell you that all US troops will return home from Iraq by the end of December. After nearly nine years, the American war in Iraq will end. It's not because we won necessarily but because we were thrown out.  Our servicemen and women will be with their families for the holidays.

The war in Iraq came with tremendous cost but also had its benefits for the military industrial complex that we are all familiar with. More than a million Americans served in Iraq, and nearly 4,500 gave their lives in service to the rest of us. Today, as always, we honor these patriots and servants of predatory capitalism.

When I came into office, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end. As Commander in Chief, I ended our combat mission last year and pledged to keep our commitment to remove all our troops by the end of 2011. To date, we’ve removed more than 100,000 troops from Iraq.

This is a significant moment in our history. For more information, including video, please visit WhiteHouse.gov/BringingTroopsHome.  The end of the war in Iraq reflects a larger trend of American imperialism around the world. The wars of the past decade are drawing to a close and we must move on to the next battlefield or the American economy will collapse.   You see, for many years we have been debasing our currency by printing trillions of dollars and spending it frivolously in order to create a new world order, one in which the wise capitalists that run our shadow government headquartered in the NY & Dallas Federal Reserves, have been able to consolidate their wealth.   We have been able to successfully distract the people from the real issues of global overpopulation and resource depletion with wars justified by acts of violence like 9/11, which we so cleverly disguised as a war with the middle eastern Islamic extremists.  Since they are so different from the rest of the capitalist gluttons, it was easy to place the blame on them while we continued to rape, pillage, and plunder the planet.  We even opened AFRICOM the Imperial military command post in Africa that will help us secure their resources for the next 30-40 years.

As we have removed troops from Iraq, we have refocused our fight against al Qaeda and secured major victories in taking out its leadership–including Osama bin Laden which has provided vital protection to our national interests in the area (oil). And we’ve begun a transition in Afghanistan, where there are trillions of dollars of virgin gold, silver, and mineral deposits.  Also, we must protect our vital national interests of the Caspian Sea, which are BP, Shell, and Unocal oil and natural gas.

On the first day of my Administration, roughly 180,000 troops were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. By the end of this year that number will be cut in half, and we’ll continue to draw it down.

As we welcome home our newest veterans, we’ll enlist their talents in meeting our greatest challenges as a nation—restoring our economic strength at home. Because after a decade of war, the nation that we need to build is our own.

Today the United States moves forward, from a position of strength despite the fact that everyone says we lost the war.

Please honor our soldiers for they know not what our true objectives are.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama Read more at twistedpolitix.blogspot.com

 

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Letter from President Barack Obama - CEO of USA Energy Inc.

Good evening, I'm writing to tell you that all US troops will return home from Iraq by the end of December. After nearly nine years, the American war in Iraq will end. It's not because we won necessarily but because we were thrown out.  Our servicemen and women will be with their families for the holidays. The war in Iraq came with tremendous cost but also had its benefits for the military industrial complex that we are all familiar with. More than a million Americans served in Iraq, and nearly 4,500 gave their lives in service to the rest of us. Today, as always, we honor these patriots and servants of predatory capitalism. When I came into office, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end. As Commander in Chief, I ended our combat mission last year and pledged to keep our commitment to remove all our troops by the end of 2011. To date, we’ve removed more than 100,000 troops from Iraq. This is a significant moment in our history. For more information, including video, please visit WhiteHouse.gov/BringingTroopsHome.  The end of the war in Iraq reflects a larger trend of American imperialism around the world. The wars of the past decade are drawing to a close and we must move on to the next battlefield or the American economy will collapse.   You see, for many years we have been debasing our currency by printing trillions of dollars and spending it frivolously in order to create a new world order, one in which the wise capitalists that run our shadow government headquartered in the NY & Dallas Federal Reserves, have been able to consolidate their wealth.   We have been able to successfully distract the people from the real issues of global overpopulation and resource depletion with wars justified by acts of violence like 9/11, which we so cleverly disguised as a war with the middle eastern Islamic extremists.  Since they are so different from the rest of the capitalist gluttons, it was easy to place the blame on them while we continued to rape, pillage, and plunder the planet.  We even opened AFRICOM the Imperial military command post in Africa that will help us secure their resources for the next 30-40 years. As we have removed troops from Iraq, we have refocused our fight against al Qaeda and secured major victories in taking out its leadership–including Osama bin Laden which has provided vital protection to our national interests in the area (oil). And we’ve begun a transition in Afghanistan, where there are trillions of dollars of virgin gold, silver, and mineral deposits.  Also, we must protect our vital national interests of the Caspian Sea, which are BP, Shell, and Unocal oil and natural gas. On the first day of my Administration, roughly 180,000 troops were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. By the end of this year that number will be cut in half, and we’ll continue to draw it down.   As we welcome home our newest veterans, we’ll enlist their talents in meeting our greatest challenges as a nation—restoring our economic strength at home. Because after a decade of war, the nation that we need to build is our own. Today the United States moves forward, from a position of strength despite the fact that everyone says we lost the war.  Please honor our soldiers for they know not what our true objectives are. Thank you, President Barack Obama

Leveraged EFSF Violates Terms of Post WW2 Maastricht Treaty - Europe's Worst Nightmare

Remember hyperinflation lead to the rise of Hitler and the results were catastrophic. The ECB cannot print money like the US Federal Reserve has or the planet will be thrusted into WW3, making the current economic, trade, and currency wars look like piddlesticks.

Amplify’d from globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Leveraged EFSF Violates Maastricht Treaty; "Merkozy" Master Plan Comes Unglued

Steen Jakobsen, chief economist of Saxo Bank in Denmark just pinged me with the following email comments "Leveraged EFSF deemed violation of Maastricht. The Master Plan is coming apart!" Steen offers additional background:

AIDLER and CHARLES FORELLE BRUSSELS—European officials debating ways to increase the effectiveness of their bailout fund are focusing on using the fund to provide collateral to back up bond issues by troubled countries, according to people familiar with the matter. Lawyers for governments and European institutions have warned that using the bailout fund to provide direct guarantees would violate the European Union's restrictions on bailouts, pouring cold water on the widely circulated notion that the European Financial Stability Facility on its own could simply stand as a guarantor for euro-zone bond issues. Instead, under versions of the plan being discussed ahead of a critical weekend summit, these people said, countries who want to avail themselves of insurance would borrow an additional amount from the EFSF when they need to tap markets for financing. That extra amount would be kept aside to provide some compensation to creditors in the event of a default. The collateral scheme would serve a similar purpose as the direct guarantee might have: giving investors an incentive to buy bonds from potentially-wobbly countries that need financing. The difference is that it would increase the volume of borrowing that those countries need to do. An insurance plan of some variety would boost the effectiveness of the EFSF. That's because insuring, say, 20% of a country's bond issue consumes less of the EFSF's resources than buying 100% of the issue outright. Such a boost is a key pillar of a comprehensive package of crisis measures that European leaders are trying to forge at a meeting here this weekend. French President Nicolas Sarkozy flew Wednesday to Frankfurt to meet with his German counterpart and other top European officials to try to reach a consensus. France has favored a different method of boosting the fund—allowing it to act as a bank and finance itself through the European Central Bank. But the ECB and Germany have rejected that option. That leaves an insurance scheme as the main contender. The other major pillars of the weekend package are a new bailout for Greece and a broad call for recapitalization of European banks. The countries appear closer on the bank issue, but it is not clear that they'll be able to reach an accord on Greece. "Merkozy" Master Plan Comes Unglued The Merkel-Sarkozy "master plan" was nothing more than hot air all along. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy hoped to put together a big bazooka by October 23 that would shock-and-awe the world. However, that bazooka quickly turned into a pea shooter as noted in Bailout Campaign Bogs Down in Bickering; Dead Before Arrival? Assuming the "Leveraged EFSF" idea is now dead, not only is there no bazooka, there is no pea shooter either. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Read more at globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

 

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Global Opportunity for a Paradigm Shift #transition #ows #greece #germany #revolution #usa #china #russia

Does the world really have to be driven by megabanks and infinite growth without respect for the planet and its inhabitants (including the us, the 99%) in order to be considered successful and happy? Why can't we shift to localization without war and indentured servitude? Why does capitalism have to mean limitless expansion and growth? Why is our economic model predicated on never-ending consumption of the earth's finite resources?



What if we had more time to enjoy our lives and our families.

What if we had more time to participate in our democracies?

What if we had more time to contribute to our communities?

What if we had more time to exercise instead of working 40+ hrs a week?

What if we had more time to learn and teach others?



But we can't under the current model because we must WORK, PRODUCE and CONSUME until we are fat, stressed, and unhealthy, and in DEBT.



We must change the economic model NOW. Globally

Amplify’d from www.telegraph.co.uk

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Europe's lost decade as $7 trillion loan crunch looms

Europe’s banks face a $7 trillion lending contraction to bring their balance sheets in line with the US and Japan, threatening to trap the region in a credit crunch and chronic depression for a decade.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 8:30PM BST 16 Oct 2011 261 Comments

The risk is "Japanisation" without the benefits of Japan: without a single government, or a trade super-surplus, or 1pc debt costs, or unique social cohesion.

Even today, the jobless rate for youth is near 10pc in Japan. It is already 46pc in Spain, 43pc in Greece, 32pc in Ireland, and 27pc in Italy. We will discover over time what yet more debt deleveraging will do to these societies.

Stephen Jen from SLJ Macro Partners says the loan to deposit (LTD) ratio of Europe’s lenders is 1.2, much like Japanese banks in the early 1990s at the onset of the country’s Lost Decade (now two decades).

How Europe allowed this to happen will no doubt be the subject of many enquiries. Suffice to say that it was an intellectual failure by everybody: lenders, economists, regulators and the European Central Bank. The ECB misread the implications of the global capital surplus in the middle of the last decade (like the Fed) and gunned the M3 money supply at double-digit rates (like the Fed).

This great error further juiced the fatal flood of lending from North Europe to Club Med. Interestingly, it is what US lending did to Germany in the late 1920s. When the music stopped -- when Wall Street cut off loans, as Germany has now cut off loans to Spain -- trouble ensured within two years. Weimar limped on, but not for long.

The Japanese eventually trimmed their LTD ratio to the current safe level of 0.7pc, the same as US banks. It is a fair bet that new bank rules and market pressure will force Europe to do likewise. Mr Jen said this means slashing the loan book from $19 trillion to nearer $12 trillion, given the dearth of fresh deposits.

It will be an ice-cold douche for the world. European banks have $3.4 trillion of cross-border loans to emerging markets (BIS data), three-quarters of the total. They account for 46pc in Asia, 63pc in Latin America, and 90pc in Eastern Europe.

Either these banks will cut funding to Eastern Europe, or they will curtail loans at home. Most likely they will do both. Mr Jen said a lot of nasty "feedback loops" will blight the whole European region for a long time.

The sheer scale of Europe’s bank excesses -- roughly equal to Alan Greenspan’s household bubble in America -- shows what EU leaders are up against as they thrash out their latest "Grand Plan" to save Euroland.

Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have bowed to pressure from Washington and the International Monetary Fund for bank recapitalizations, by compulsion if necessary. Lenders must raise core Tier I capital ratios to 9pc or 10pc.

This is a wise precaution given that Germany plans to impose a Greek default on Europe’s banking system. But it is also "pro-cyclical". It tightens credit further. Lenders threaten to shrink their loan books to meet the target rather than dilute their share base by raising money in a hostile market.

If governments are forced to step in, it will not be much prettier. The IMF pitches fresh capital needs at €200bn, but what if Credit Suisse is nearer the mark at €400bn? Such sums would push the public debt of several states over the danger line, intensifying the vicious circle as banks and sovereigns drag each other down.

Indeed, it you look at each component of the Grand Plan, every one creates a secondary chain of consequences that may ultimately prove self-defeating. It is why I fear there may be no plausible solution to Europe’s crisis. The structural damage has already gone too far.

We are told the Franco-German plan will offer Greece debt-relief worth having, perhaps a 50pc haircut for banks. Investors are understandably furious. This unpicks the voluntary accord for 21pc haircuts agreed in July. "A deal is a deal," said Charles Dallara from the Institute of International Finance (IIF). Moreover, 50pc is not enough. It creates a banking panic without actually solving Greece’s problem.

A third of Greece’s €364bn debt is owed to the IMF, EU, and ECB. That is deemed untouchable. Angela Merkel has so far managed to deflect popular anger over bail-out loans by insisting that they have not cost German taxpayers one Pfennig.

Stephane Deo from UBS said Greece might have to "repudiate its debt entirely" with a 100pc haircut for banks to give itself enough oxygen to breathe again. This would be an earthquake.

No sane investor believes this will stop with Greece. Portugal is in much the same trouble, despite the heroic austerity drive of premier Pedro Passos Coelho -- a latter day Marques de Pombal. The country’s total debt will top 360pc of GDP next year, and its current account deficit is stuck near 10pc of GDP. This mix is worse than in Greece. It is untenable.

We all told too that the EU’s €440bn bail-out fund (EFSF) -- at last approved after high drama in Slovakia -- will be ramped up with "leverage". It is assumed that German lawmakers will tamely go along with this, a mere three weeks after finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble seemed to promise that no such that leverage would occur.

The proposal du jour is Allianz’s "Achleitner Plan", letting the EFSF guarantee the first tranche of losses on bonds: 40pc for Greece, Portugal, and Ireland; 25pc for Italy and Spain. This would boost coverage to nearly €3 trillion of debt issuance.

This plan is dangerous. It concentrates risk, like a Lloyds spiral syndicate, or the "CDOs" and other instruments of legerdemain in the US subprime bubble. There is a high chance that this bluff would be called if Europe tips into a double-dip recession.

Credit markets have already begun to issue their verdict. Yield spreads on the EFSF’s 10-year bonds have almost doubled over Bunds since July. French spreads jumped last week to a post-EMU record of 92 points. Remember that France’s banking liabilities are 409pc of GDP (ECB data), compared to 338pc for Spain, 331pc for Germany, 250pc for Italy, 213pc for Greece.

Any such leverage must inevitably cost France its `AAA’ rating, with parallel effects in Austria as it struggles with a wave of fresh woes in Hungary, Ukraine, and the Balkans. This sets off its own treacherous dynamic.

Even if the IMF and the China-led `BRICS’ were to step with in half a trillion or so, this would create a fresh problem. Foreign purchases of EMU bonds would force up the value of the euro. The effect would tighten the trade noose even further on Spain, Italy, and France. Perhaps that is why Brazil’s Guido "currency war" Mantega likes the idea. It is exchange manipulation behind diplomatic cover.

There is much talk of EMU fiscal union, most recently the "Soros Plan". But what Germany means by EU economic government is better policing of Club Med budgets, not debt-pooling or eurobonds. It should be clear after the ruling of the German constitutional court last month and the fiery debates in the Bundestag that Berlin will not alienate its sovereign fiscal powers to the EU.

Merkozy’s Grand Plan may buy time. It may shift the stress point from one part of the unworkable structure to another. But it cannot conjure away the 30pc gap in competitiveness between Germany and Latin Europe that has built up over fifteen years. It is this intra-EMU currency misalignment that is asphyxiating Club Med and destroying the banks.

The ECB can of course save Euroland, if it is willing to launch stimulus a l’outrance with bond purchases near 20pc of GDP -- like the Bank of England. A reflation policy would undoubtedly lift the South off the reefs, perhaps by targeting M3 growth of 5pc in Italy and Spain for three years. It would allow EMU laggards to claw their way to back to viability.

Any such attempt to correct North-South imbalances from both ends requires an inflationary boom in Germany. That is the price that Germany must pay. But as events have made all too clear over recent months, this runs smack into German ideology and the Teutonic granite of the Bundesbank.

So perhaps there is no solution for EMU after all. Kultur is the ultimate economic fundamental. Read more at www.telegraph.co.uk

 

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