Mile-Wide Asteroid Might Hit Earth In 2019

(For The Best News of the Day):

From Newshoggers.com:

By Steve Hynd
Worried about American imperialist adventures abroad, or the rising deficit, or erosion of American democracy?None might matter much longer.

An asteroid more than a mile wide is heading for earth, posing the greatest threat yet by an object approaching the planet, scientists have warned.
The asteroid – called 2002 NT7 – was spotted only three weeks ago, but could strike on 1 February 2019, the US space agency Nasa said. Itis the first asteroid to rank positive on Nasa's Palermo scale, which combines the urgency of the object's threat with its potential effect. All other known objects have had negative values.
Bennt Peiser of John Moores University in Liverpool said the 1.2 mile-wide object had become "the most threatening object" in the short history of asteroid detection.
Gerrit Verschuur, an astrophysicist and radio astronomer at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, said the impact would create a fireball so intense it would kill anyone who could see it, after which material thrown into the air would shower half the world with flaming debris. "It would be as if the sky itself had caught fire," he said.
The heat would set fire to forests and cities, after which dust would fill the atmosphere, obscuring the sun for a month. That in turn would kill plants and animals, so that only creatures that lived underground would have a strong chance of survival.
But there are still large uncertainties about the asteroid's orbit. Dr Andrew Coates of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory in London said: "Most likely it will not hit us, but it's the highest-risk of any object that we know of at the moment." But Donald Yeomans of Nasa told the BBC that the margin of error in the predicted orbit might be "several tens of millions of kilometres".

So, no need to panic and start digging just yet...

...but then again, 2019 is about as far in the future as the invasion of Afghanistan is in the past. We haven't been able to solve the Afghan problem since 2002, and an endevour like working out how to deflect or stop a huge hunk of rock, millions of miles into space, then implementing that solution has got to be somewhere up there on a scale of difficulty.

So sure, keep worrying about those overseas occupations (however rebranded) and keep worrying about all the other terrestial things we have to worry about. But we really do need to find some resources and some time to worry about future bolts from the blue too - to say nothing of other major challenges like global climate change.

Trouble is, those resources are tied up in deficit spending and runaway military budgets, while the time will be carved up into the usual short-termist chunks between elections. And if by some cosmic chance that big hunk of rock heads our way...

Here we are, with the "serious people" worrying about the cost of weapons that suck hundreds of billions of budget dollars and the entire budget for finding and dealing with such asteroids is a measly$4 million a year.

Iran discovers 13 oil fields in 1 year

(Lots more incentives for another biblical carnage):

Press TV - August 30, 2010 

Iran has discovered 13 new oil and gas fields with in-place reserves of 14 billion barrels of oil and 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas within the past 12 months. 

The Islamic Republic has also exported around 2,200,600 barrels of oil per day in the past year, according to a report published on the Oil Ministry's SHANA news agency. 

The report added that Iran's revenue from oil exports during the past year reached $69.1 billion. 

Earlier this year, National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) director of exploration Mahmoud Mohaddes announced plans to explore new reserves of 500 million barrels of oil and 5 trillion cubic feet of gas per year during a five year plan. 

Mohaddes said that during the course of Iran's fourth five-year development plan (2005-2010), the country has discovered 19 new oil fields and eight new gas reserves. 

Iran is OPEC's second-largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia. In 2009, Iran's crude production stood approximately at 3.8 million barrels per day. The Persian Gulf country sits on the world's second-largest gas reserves after Russia. 


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Related: So, Who Won the War in Iraq? Iran.

Uhm: China rumors oh the Central Bank chie's defection

China: Rumors of the Central Bank Chief's Defection 
STRATFOR - August 30, 2010 

Rumors have circulated in China that People’s Bank of China (PBC) Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan may have left the country. The rumors appear to have started following reports on Aug. 28 which cited Ming Pao, a Hong Kong-based news agency, saying that because of an approximately $430 billion loss on U.S. Treasury bonds, the Chinese government may punish some individuals within PBC, including Zhou. Although Ming Pao on Aug. 30 published a report on its website indicating that the prior report was fabricated by a mainland news site that had attributed the false information to Ming Pao, rumors of Zhou’s defection have spread around China intensively, and Zhou’s name has been blocked from Internet search engines in China. 

STRATFOR has received no confirmation of the rumor, and reports by state-run Chinese media appeared to send strong indications that Zhou is in no trouble at the moment. However, the release of this rumor and its dispersion throughout the public is significant, particularly as the Communist Party of China (CPC) is preparing for a leadership transition in 2012. 

Chinese state-run media and official government websites have run several high-profile reports about Zhou, which should be seen as a move to refute the rumors. The PBC website published two articles on its homepage reporting on Zhou’s meeting with visiting Japanese Financial Services Minister Shozaburo Jimi during the third China-Japan high-level economic dialogue as well as a meeting with an Italian delegation. Xinhua news agency reported that Zhou told the PBC Party Committee Enlargement Meeting on Aug. 30 it should “continue to implement justice, and strengthen legislative work in financial system.” Prior to this news, Zhou appeared at the 2nd annual conference of the heads of the Chinese, Japanese and Korean central banks held on Aug. 3, and his most recent public appearance was Aug. 10 for China’s Financial System Anti-corruption Construction Exhibition. 


Zhou is known to have lofty political ambitions and is believed to be a close ally to former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, as well as a core figure for Jiang’s “Shanghai Gang.” There has been no shortage of rumors about Zhou’s possible dismissal in the past five years, as he is believed to be associated with several high-level financial scandals. For example, Zhou was rumored to be under “shuanggui,” a form of house arrest administered by the CPC, during the massive crackdown of Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Liangyu in 2006, which was perceived in the country as a crackdown of the Shanghai Gang and part of Hu’s effort to consolidate power ahead of the 2007 power transition. There was also a rumor that he might have been detained following the investigation and arrest of Wang Yi, the vice governor of the China Development Bank, along with several other officials in the financial circle. Currently, several financial scandals are still under investigation, and it is likely that Zhou, as PBC governor and one of the most powerful economic players in the country, could be associated with some cases. Therefore, whether or not the rumor is true at this time, the leaking of this news is very likely to be associated with a power struggle within the Communist Party’s economic hierarchy. 

[WTF] Department of Justice Lists Survivalists, Constitutionalists in Extremism Guide

From PubliC Intelligence

24 AUGUST 2010 

Public Intelligence

A recent Department of Justice guide for investigators of criminal and extremist groups lists “constitutionalists” and “survivalists” alongside organizations like Al-Qaeda and the Aryan Brotherhood.  The 120-page, “Law Enforcement Sensitive” guide to “Investigating Terrorism and Criminal Extremism – Terms and Concepts” describes itself as “a glossary designed primarily as a tool for criminal justice professionals to enhance their understanding of words relating to extremist terminology, phrases, activities, symbols, organizations, and selected names that they may encounter while conducting criminal investigations or prosecutions of members of extremist organizations.”

Constitutionalist, defined by Random House’s 2010 Dictionary as an “adherent or advocate of constitutionalism or of an existing constitution”, is described in the report as a “generic term for members of the ‘patriot’ movement”.  Survivalists are described in the document as fearing a “coming collapse of civilization” and are trying to prepare themselves for this collapse.  Such individuals are said to have “typically stockpiled food, water, and weapons, especially the latter, and instructed themselves on topics ranging from first aid to childbirth to edible plants”.

The guide defines the term “New World Order” as being “used by conspiracy theorists to refer to a global conspiracy designed to implement worldwide socialism”.  The Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, and Council on Foreign Relations are described as organizations “targeted by right-wing extremists for conspiring to dominate the world”.  The guide also defines “One World Government” as the “concept that there will ultimately be a single governing body that will control the world”, adding that “some right-wing extremists fear this occurring, believing that white people will be in the minority, with Jewish people ultimately controlling the world”.

While the document’s introduction does state that “the fact that an entry appears in this publication does not imply a connection to illegal activity”, it goes on to say that the guide consists of “terms that may be germane to members of an extremist movement” or are “singularly employed by specific extremist groups”.  The obvious result of the inclusion of terms such as “Bilderberg Group” and “Trilateral Commission” in a report titled “Investigating Terrorism and Criminal Extremism” is that law enforcement officials unaware of these groups will tend to associate legitimate discussion as “extremist” speech.  This diminishes the credibility of any person attempting to rationally discuss such groups and fosters a perception that any discussion of such groups could be associated with a supposedly “extremist” ideology.

Examples of “Extremist” Terminology: visit the U.S. Department of Justice Terrorism and Criminal Extremism Terms 2005-2009.
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Related: Dear Southern Poverty Law Center and Department of Justice - Re: SPLC list of “Active Patriot Groups” and DOJ’s “Criminal Extremist List”

Do You Support the Constitution? YOU'RE A TERRORIST SUSPECT!

From those same lovable folks who brought you the crimes and abuses of COINTELPRO comes the following brochure, printed at taxpayer expense by the FBI and intended to be issued to law enforcement, requesting that the Joint Terrorism Task Force be called in the event suspicious behavior is witnessed.
And what is "suspicious behavior"? Defending the Constitution!


Obama's Department of Justice puts out master patriot hit list! 

Creating New Money (2000) by James Robertson

From Bill Totten:

A Book Review
by Alistair McConnachie
Prosperity (August 2000)

Many people today think that the State creates all the money in
circulation. It doesn't. Almost all money in circulation, around 97%,
is created by the banking sector "out of nothing" and circulates as
electronic and cheque book money - see Prosperity, April 2000 for the
process by which money comes into circulation:
http://www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/articles/moneymake.html

The three per cent created by the State is the notes and coins, and the
only cost to the taxpayer is the relatively insignificant cost of
minting. However, taxpayers benefit directly because an amount
equivalent to the face value of those notes and coins is spent by the
State, into the economy, as a direct, debt-free input.

It would not be practical to return to a state of affairs where
everyone dealt in cash. But if the State can issue money debt-free in
the form of cash then it can extend that principle and issue electronic
money in the same way also.

This would mean that when the State found itself short of money raised
from taxes then - instead of printing Treasury Bonds, selling them to
the banking and non-banking sector in order to raise money, and then
having to pay them back when they become due, and with interest
attached, and with money that has been raised from taxpayers and the
sale of even more Bonds - it could simply create the money required
"out of nothing", in the way that banks create money today, and spend
it into society as public revenue.

Instead of the benefits of our money system accruing to banking
interests, it would accrue to the whole of society. That is a just and
democratic goal worth aiming for.

A new and valuable book from the New Economics Foundation entitled
Creating New Money: A Monetary Reform for the Information Age, by
Joseph Huber and James Robertson, makes the case that the value created
by issuing new money should be a common, not a private, resource. New
money should be put into circulation as public spending, not as profit
making loans by commercial banks, and that the result would be
equivalent to twelve per cent off income tax.

The authors term this seigniorage reform and it is twofold:

1. A Central Bank should create the amount of new non-cash money (as
well as cash) it decides is needed to increase the money supply. It
should credit it to the government as public revenue. Government should
then put it into circulation as public spending. In deciding how much
new money to create, a central bank should operate with a high degree
of independence from the government.

2. It should be illegal for anyone else to create new money denominated
in the official currency. Commercial banks will then be excluded from
money creation. They will be limited to credit-broking as other
financial intermediaries are - borrowing, but no longer creating, the
money they need to lend.

This reform will restore seigniorage, that is, the prerogative of the
State to issue money, and to capture the value that arises from issuing
it, and use it as public revenue.

This reform will mean that the whole stock of national currency
circulating in the economy will have been issued by the central bank,
including all money in everyone's current accounts, together with
everyone's cash.

They argue that this reform will not only bring benefits in terms of
increased public revenue, but will also bring lower interest rates and
lower inflation.

It will create greater economic stability, by enabling the central bank
to smooth out the peaks and troughs of business cycles more effectively
than it does today.

It will have administrative benefits also, as it will be easy to
calculate how much money there is. Instead of monetary statistics such
as M0, M1, M2, M3, M3 extended, and M4, there will simply be one amount
of plain money M.

It will make the system more understandable and transparent and will
make it easier for more people to participate in economic policy debate.

The book is a very thorough presentation of the authors' case including
chapters on implications for public finance, banking, and, especially
useful, replies to suggested objections. At only 92 pages, it is also
easily and quickly read.

The authors state that support for money reform will be needed from the
following helpful list:

- politicians and public officials, not necessarily connected with
banking and financial affairs;

- the banking industry itself, the central banks, and other national
and international monetary and banking institutions;

- the community of respected monetary academics, monetary historians
and other specialist monetary and banking experts;

- the wider community of individuals, NGOs [Non-Governmental
Organisations] and pressure groups, who are committed to the support of
proposals for greater economic efficiency which involve a fairer
sharing of resources, but who may as yet be unfamiliar with - the
relevance of monetary reform; and

- the community of already committed supporters of monetary reform.

Ed Mayo, the Executive Director of the New Economics Foundation writes
in his introduction, "We look forward to monetary reform moving to the
centre stage of public and policy debate in the way that eco-taxes,
stakeholding and debt cancellation have done".

This book is an immensely important and significant step towards that
goal.

See also James Robertson's articles:

Creating New Money: Some Frequently Asked Questions
http://www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/articles/cmfaqs.html

A Summary of Seigniorage Reform
http://www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/articles/sumsr.html

Creating New Money is available for GBP 7.95 from The New Economics
Foundation, 3 Jonathan Street, London, SE11 5NH. Tel: 0207 820 6300.

James Robertson's presentation at "The Alternative Mansion House Speech
2000", on 15 June 2000, entitled Financial and Monetary Policies for an
Enabling State, is on the web at www.neweconomics.org/mansionhouse.html

http://www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/revus/crnewm.html

Fresh Data On The Extreme American Inequality

From ZeroHedge:



America has long had a working group on financial markets (whose sole purpose some suggest is to keepstocks from plunging in times of turbulence), so why not have a working group on that other much more critical phenomenon of US society: a trend of unprecedented unequal wealth distribution, which can be summarized as simply as pointing out that 1% of US society holds more wealth (or 33.8% of total), than 90% of the remaining portion of America (26.0%), and also is in possession of more than half of all stocks, bonds and mutual fund holdings in the US. Well, there is, even if is not formally recognized, and made up of the same distinguished professionals as the PPT (Geithner, Bernanke, Gensler and Schapiro). Hereby we present some of the key findings of the Working Group on Extreme Inequality.

• Percentage of U.S. total income in 1976 that went to the top 1% of American households: 8.9.
  • Percentage in 2007: 23.5.
• Only other year since 1913 that the top 1 percent’s share was that high: 1928.
• Combined net worth of the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans in 2007: $1.5 trillion.
• Combined net worth of the poorest 50% of American households: $1.6 trillion.
• U.S. minimum wage, per hour: $7.25.
• Hourly pay of Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon, for an 80-hour week: $27,034.74.
• Average hourly wage in 1972, adjusted for inflation: $20.06
  • In 2008: $18.52.

A look at income data:

Median household income in 2008 was $50,303, according to Census data. Half of American households had income greater than this figure, half had less.

Between the end of World War II and the late 1970s, incomes in the United States were becoming more equal. In other words, incomes at the bottom were rising faster than those at the top. Since the late 1970s, this trend has reversed.

For example, data from tax returns show that the top 1% of households received 8.9% of all pre-tax income in 1976. In 2007, the top 1% share had more than doubled to 23.5%.


There is reason to suspect that this level of income inequality is dangerous to our economy. The only other year since 1913 that the wealthy claimed such a large share of national income was 1928, when the top 1% share was 23.9%. The following year, the stock market crashed, which led to the Great Depression. After peaking again in 2007, the U.S. stock market crashed in 2008, leading to what some are now calling the “Great Recession.”

Between 1979 and 2008, the top 5% of American families saw their real incomes increase 73%, according to Census data. Over the same period, the lowest-income fifth saw a decrease in real income of 4.1%.

In 1980, the average income of the top 5% of families was 10.9 times as large as the average income of the bottom 20 percent, according to Census data. In 2008, the ratio was 20.6 times.
The current recession has hit incomes hard across the board. Median household income declined 3.6% in 2008, the largest single-year decline on record. Adjusting for inflation, incomes reached their lowest point since 1997. (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of Census data).

Wealth Facts

Wealth is equivalent to “net worth,” which is equal to your assets minus your liabilities.

Examples of assets include checking and savings accounts, vehicles, a home that you own, mutual funds, stocks and bonds, real estate, and retirement accounts.

Examples of liabilities include a car loan, credit card balance, student loan, personal loan, mortgage, and other bills you still need to pay.

Median net worth in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available, was $120,300. Half of American households had net worth greater than this figure, half had less.

Net worth is even more unequal than income in the United States.

In 2007, the latest year for which figures are available from the Federal Reserve Board, the richest 1% of U.S. households owned 33.8% of the nation’s private wealth. That’s more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent.

The top 1% also own 50.9% of all stocks, bonds, and mutual fund assets.

Retirement accounts like 401(k)s are more equally distributed. The top 1% owns only 14.5% of all retirement account assets, while the bottom 90% owns 40.5%.

The total inflation-adjusted net worth of the Forbes 400 rose from $502 billion in 1995 to $1.6 trillion in 2007 before dropping back to $1.3 trillion in 2009.

Net Worth is highly unequal when it comes to race. In 2004, the latest year for which Federal Reserve figures are available, the typical white household had a net worth about seven times as large as the typical African American or Hispanic household.
Since the 1980s, Americans have spent more and more of their income on expenses, leaving less for savings. The U.S. Personal Savings Rate declined from 10.9 percent in 1982 to 1.4 percent in 2005 before rising to 2.7 percent by 2008.

Facts on CEO Pay:

From 2006 through 2008, the top five executives at the 20 banks that have accepted the most federal bailout dollars since the meltdown averaged $32 million each in personal compensation. One hundred average U.S. workers would have to work over 1,000 years to make as much as these 100 executives made in three years. (Institute for Policy Studies, Executive Excess 2009)

Since January 1, 2008, the top 20 financial industry recipients of bailout aid have together laid off more than 160,000 employees. In 2008, the 20 CEOs at these firms each averaged $13.8 million, for a collective total of over a quarter-billion dollars in compensation. (Institute for Policy Studies, Executive Excess 2009)

These Top 20 Financial Bailout CEOs averaged 85 times more pay than the regulators who direct the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. These two agencies, many analysts agree, have largely lacked the experienced and committed staff they need to protect average Americans from financial industry recklessness. (Institute for Policy Studies, Executive Excess 2009)

And lastly, wage facts:

Between 1972 and 1993, the average hourly wage dropped from $20.06 to $16.82 in 2008 dollars. Since 1993, the average hourly wage has regained only a part of the ground lost, rising to $18.52. Adjusted for inflation, the average wage in 2008 was still lower than it was in 1979.

So now that we know that the US middle class is making less than it did in 1970 in real terms, that the uber-rich control the majority of America's wealth, and control more net income that 90% of society, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer (and in general all of society is starting to read like a skewed non-Gaussian distribution curve comparable to something one would find in a Taleb novel), it is more than clear that the US middle class is now on the endangered species list. And while the slow by sure decline of that social buffer that has kept the civil peace within American society for so many years is a fact, it is no surprise that pundits like Jim O'Neill is suggesting to forget the historical driver of 70% of US GDP (and 30% of the world's), and focus on those up and coming societies whose middle class still has at least a fighting chance.


Full working group presentation

Make Sure the Bunker is Well Stocked

Mike Whitney
Information Clearing House
August 29, 2010

Robert Herz was forced to resign from his job as as chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) because he insisted that the banks assign a fair value to their assets. That’s not what you’ll read in the papers, but it’s true just the same. Herz was a major proponent of mark-to-market accounting, a simple means of determining the value of a bond or security by comparing the price of similar assets sold at market. In other words, Herz is a defender of universally-accepted accounting principles, which is why he was terminated, er, I mean, resigned. According to the Wall Street Journal:

“A new front has opened up in the war over mark-to-market accounting. Suddenly banks find themselves with an unexpected advantage in the fight over how they should value their vast holdings of financial instruments…

Mr. Herz had backed a recent proposal to expand the use of market-value accounting to banks’ loan books….Now, with Mr. Herz out of the picture, the future of the rule change may be in doubt.”

Pretty nifty, eh? As soon as Herz became a nuisance for the banks, he got his pink slip. Surprise, surprise. It’s just more evidence that the country is ruled by a Financial Mafia. Think of it like this: If you or I went to the bank to secure a loan using a dilapidated old bicycle and couple bags of empty cat food cans as collateral, we’d be ushered to the door by two beefy security guards who’d toss our sorry ass onto the street pronto. But when the banks use their putrid mortgage-backed sludge to borrow in the repo markets (or to conceal their true condition from investors), they get high-fives from bondholders and regulators alike. Herz threatened to blow the lid off the whole charade by exposing the extent to which the banks are doctoring their balance sheets and hiding the red ink on their books. Only he was sent packing (resigned?) before he got a chance to clean up the system. This is from the Huffington Post:

“…. Herz’s departure wasn’t expected; his current five-year term runs for another two years…Herz has been “an effective investor advocate to improve the quality of financial reporting standards around the world.” ….. Banks were forced in the aftermath of the financial crisis to write down trillions of dollars of securities tied to subprime mortgages, gutting their balance sheets even though the assets could eventually recover their value.” (Huffington Post)

“Recover their value”? Not bloody likely. These toxic turkeys will never recover their value because they were fraudulent loans made to people who don’t have the wherewithal to repay the balance. The whole thing was a scam from the get go, which is why Herz got the ax. Without “creative accounting” techniques (think Enron), the insolvency of the system would be exposed which, of course, the banksters cannot allow. Thus, Herz got the boot. End of story.

HIGH FREQUENCY CHICANERY: Update on the May 6 “Flash Crash”

Here’s something else to munch on from Dennis K. Berman of the Wall Street Journal:

“Today, small investors are fleeing the equities markets in droves, according to data from the Investment Company Institute, pulling out a net $34 billion from stock funds so far this year…..They say, “I still feel like someone is screwing me……trading feels different than it used to.”

Righto. Berman traces the problem to its source, the “inscrutable interplay between myriad exchanges and high-frequency traders, whose volume now accounts for an estimated two-thirds of all trading”…”a market that many perceive as tainted and prone to gaming by a cadre of insiders.”

That sounds like an admission that the market is rigged?

High-frequency trading (HFT) is algorithmic-computer trading that finds “statistical patterns and pricing anomalies” by scanning the various stock exchanges. It’s high-speed robo-trading that oftentimes executes orders without human intervention. HFT allows one group of investors to see the data on other people’s orders ahead of time and use their supercomputers to buy in front of them. It’s called frontloading, and it goes on every day right under the SEC’s schnoz.

In an interview on CNBC, market analyst Joe Saluzzi was asked if the big HFT players were able to see other investors orders (and execute trades) before them. Saluzzi said, “Yes. The answer is absolutely yes. The exchanges supply you with the data, giving you the flash order, and if your fixed connection goes into their lines first, you are disadvantaging the retail and institutional investor.”

Today’s market is configured in a way that the only reliable way to make money is by increasing volume and trading on myriad venues. We’re talking about gains of mere pennies per trade on zillions of trades. The problem is that–when there’s a glitch in the system–the high frequency bullyboys head for the exits taking an ocean of liquidity with them. That leads to a “Flash Crash” like the one on May 6 when the markets tumbled nearly 1,000 points in a matter of minutes. And, guess what; there’s nothing to prevent a similar cataclysm from taking place in the future, because nothing’s changed. Everything is exactly as it was before the crash, which makes another disaster a virtual certainty.

There appears to be general agreement about the nature of the problem. Here’s Berman again:

“When BlackRock Inc. surveyed 380 financial advisers earlier this summer about the flash crash, their perceptions said it all: The mayhem had been primarily caused by an “overreliance on computer systems and some types of high frequency trading” strategies that roam the market en masse, looking to pick off pennies of profit.” (“A Market Solution That Put Investors in a Fix”, Dennis K. Berman, Wall Street Journal)

No one wants to fix the problem, because then the big players would lose boatloads of money. So the vehicle continues to speed faster and faster down the mountain veering wildly from one side of the road to the other. How long before it jumps the guardrail and plunges to the bottom of the canyon? Stay tuned….

Capital Hill is awash in Wall Street’s filthy lucre, which means that congress will block any law that threatens the main profit-centers of the big banks or brokerage houses. HFT, complex derivatives, securitization and repo transactions will all be preserved in their present state until the next big tremor rumbles through lower Manhattan bringing the markets down in a thunderous roar. Make sure the bunker is well stocked.

Government has run amok since 9/11

by SHELDON RICHMAN

Gilmermirror

THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND the exploitative nature of big government suspected that the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks had little to do with the security of the American people and much to do with power and money. Still, the magnitude of the scam, as revealed by the Washington Post last month, is astonishing.

Naturally, the politicians justify the growth in intelligence operations on national security grounds. To make sure such attacks never happen again, they said, new powers, agencies, personnel, and facilities were imperative.

Now the truth is out: the post–9/11 activity has been an obscene feeding frenzy at the public trough. Any resemblance to efforts at keeping Americans safe is strictly coincidental.

“The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work” the Post’s Dana Priest and William Arkin write. “After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.”

IT WOULD BE a mistake to chalk up the government’s conduct to bureaucratic bumbling. This is not bumbling. It is highway robbery. Everyone who was well connected, either in government or the “private” sector, wanted a piece of the action, and chances are that he — and many others — got it. It doesn’t matter that multiple agencies do the same work and keep their findings secret from one another. It doesn’t matter that the volume of paperwork is beyond anyone’s capacity to absorb it. What matters is money, power and prestige. This is the mother of all boondoggles.

Chew on some of the numbers from the Post investigation and see if it sounds as though protection of American society was a national-intelligence priority:

• “Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.”

• “An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.”

• “In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings — about 17 million square feet of space.”

Moreover, the Post writes, “51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks,” and “Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year — a volume so large that many are routinely ignored” (emphasis added).

Since 9/11 no fewer than 263 intelligence and counterterrorism organizations have been “created or reorganized.”

And what about cost?

“The U.S. intelligence budget is vast, publicly announced last year as $75 billion, 2 1/2 times the size it was on Sept. 10, 2001. But the figure doesn’t include many military activities or domestic counterterrorism programs.” In other words, no one knows how much the whole thieving operation costs.

According to Priest and Arkin, “[Many] officials who work in the intelligence agencies say they remain unclear about what the [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] is in charge of.”

It comes as no surprise that the mega-bureaucracy isn’t even much help fighting wars: “When Maj. Gen. John M. Custer was the director of intelligence at U.S. Central Command, he grew angry at how little helpful information came out of the [National Counterterrorism Center]. In 2007, he visited its director at the time, retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, to tell him so. ‘I told him that after 4 1/2 years, this organization had never produced one shred of information that helped me prosecute three wars!’ he said loudly, leaning over the table during an interview” (emphasis added).

These revelations should have any professed opponent of big government screaming bloody murder. So far the silence from conservatives has been deafening.
Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freeman magazine. Visit his blog “Free Association” at www.sheldonrichman.com.

Report Calls for “Infiltration” of 9/11 Sites

August 29, 2010

Source: 9/11 Truth News

A new report released by a think tank called Demos warns of the hazardous effects of conspiracy theories on society and recommends strategies for governments to mitigate these effects, including the infiltration of websites.

The report, called The Power of Unreason: Conspiracy Theories, Extremism and Counterterrorism, says “most notoriously and influentially, the ‘9/11 truth movement’ has questioned the official accounts of 9/11 and has become a large and growing political force.”

The authors note that the 9/11 truth movement is “peaceful”, but make no distinction between the legitimate questioning of the official account of 9/11 and any number of unrelated, and often racist, conspiracy theories.

The Demos report acknowledges that “some conspiracies have turned out to be true. Our institutions and governments have deceived the population to advance hidden and unstated interests”, and goes on to cite Operations Northwoods, the Joint Chief of Staff’s unimplemented plan to stage a false flag Cuban terror attack in 1963, as well as the CIA’s involvement in the Chilean coup of 1973.

But the report is only concerned with limiting the effects of conspiracy theories on operations of the state, not with justice or the accuracy of the historical record. It states:

More broadly, conspiracy theories drive a wedge of distrust between governments and particular communities. Conspiracy theories – such as those that claim 7/7 or 9/11 were ‘inside jobs’ – demolish the mutuality and trust that people have in institutions of government, with social and political ramifications that we still don’t fully understand. This can especially hinder community-level efforts to fight violent extremism.

Demos makes a number of recommendations for governments to combat conspiracy theories, including a call for more government openness.

The report also cites the writings of Cass Sunstein, an Obama appointee who recently called for the “cognitive infiltration” of 9/11 truth groups. The Demos paper in turn calls for government agents to “openly infiltrate” websites and chatrooms in order offer “alternative information” and “plant seeds of doubt”.

The Demos report can be downloaded here.
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More: The United Kingdoms Cass Sunstein? Dangerous Conspiracy Theorists Oh My!