Junk Science: Democrats in Virginia are trying to stop their attorney general from probing climate fraud carried out by university researchers at taxpayer expense. Are they afraid of finding the inconvenient truth? It's not the crime, it's the cover-up, as the saying goes. In the case of former University of Virginia climate scientist Michael Mann and his supporters, it may be both. Not only did Mann participate in perhaps the greatest scam of modern times, but he may have also have fraudulently used taxpayer funds to do so. At least Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli thinks so, and has been diligently trying to obtain from U.Va. documents and e-mails related to Mann's work there. Mann reportedly received around $500,000 from taxpayer-funded grants from the university for research there from 1999 to 2005. Cuccinelli is alleging a possible violation of a 2002 statute, the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act. The AG has said that he wants the documents, including grant applications and e-mails exchanged between Mann and 39 other scientists and university staffers, to help determine whether Mann committed fraud by knowingly manipulating data as he sought the taxpayer-funded grants for his research. Mann was at the heart of the ClimateGate scandal when e-mails were unearthed from Britain's Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. In one e-mail sent to Mann and others by CRU director Philip Jones, Jones speaks of the "trick" of filling in gaps of data in order to hide evidence of temperature decline: "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." It was that attempt to "hide the decline" through the manipulation of data that brought down the global warming house of cards. Mann was the architect behind the famous "hockey stick" graph that was produced in 1999 but which really should be called the "hokey stick." Developed by Mann using manipulated tree-ring data, it supposedly proved that air temperatures had been stable for 900 years, then soared off the charts in the 20th century. Mann et al. had to make the Medieval Warm Period (about A.D. 800 to 1400) and the Little Ice Age (A.D. 1600 to 1850) statistically disappear. The graph relied on data from trees on the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia. Here, too, the results were carefully selected. Just 12 trees from the 252 cores in the CRU's Yamal data set were used. A larger data set of 34 tree cores from the vicinity showed no dramatic recent warming, and warmer temperatures in the middle ages. They were not included. Attempting to block Cuccinelli and rising to Mann's defense are Virginia state senators Chap Petersen and Donald McEachin. They are backing legislation that would strip the attorney general's office of its power to issue "civil investigative demands," otherwise known as subpoenas, under the 2002 statute. They claim they are defending academic freedom, but they are trying to hide what many consider academic fraud, work that found its way into the reports of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It led to Kyoto and Copenhagen, and formed the basis for the EPA's endangerment finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that needs to be regulated. After Mann left U.Va., he went to Penn State, which the Obama administration awarded with $541,184 in economic stimulus funds to save, according to recovery.gov, 1.62 jobs so that Professor Mann could continue his tree-ring circus fraudulently advancing the myth of man-made global warming that through equally bogus remedies like cap-and-trade and EPA regulations would bring the U.S. economy to its knees. In a glaringly arrogant e-mail, Mann said he was grateful to the legislators for pressing the issue and hoped the action would give Cuccinelli "some second thoughts about continuing to waste their time and resources attacking well-established science." Hide the decline, then hide the truth. We hope the legislation fails, the truth will come out and Mann et al. will be held accountable for engineering a scientific and economic fraud that would have made Bernie Madoff blush. ___________
On January 20, Al Jazeera headlined, "Baby Doc wants Haiti presidency," saying:
Despite his 15-year reign of terror and current corruption, embezzlement, money laundering, and perhaps assassination charges, he "retains ambitions of returning to the presidency," according to one of his lawyers, Reynold George saying:
"He is a political man. Every political man has political ambitions." Asked if he wishes to return to power, George replied, "That is right. Because under this new constitution, and let me tell you I am one of the persons who wrote that constitution, he has the right to do so (under) two mandates. Two!"
When asked about charges against Duvalier, George cited the statute of limitations expiring in 2006, saying:
"I am a lawyer, not a racketeer. I have to go by the law. And I have just told you what the law says about accusations. You have to make them in due time. After ten years? Shut up!"
He added that Duvalier "has no intention of leaving Haiti. We want to answer all the requisitions of justice because we want to be cleared."
On January 20, Gervais Charles, another Duvalier lawyer, told Radio Canada that charges of crimes against humanity were invalid because "it is a principle that does not exist" in Haitian law. He also stressed that in 25 years of exile, no complaints were lodged against him.
Asked about Duvalier's arrest, Master Ronald Charles, Dean of the Bar of Jacmel, said doing so is illegal and arbitrary. Legal procedures weren't followed. "(G)overnment commissioner of Port-au-Prince, Master Augustus Aristides, after all the tests, had to issue a warrant before his arrest," adding that Haiti's 1987 Constitution doesn't recognize Duvalier's exile.
If so, it's also true for Aristide, but Charles stopped short of explaining. However, he said it's possible for Haitian authorities to issue proper complaints.
The Collaborative Haiti (CPH), a group of Quebec organizations and individual members in solidarity with Haiti's people denounced Duvalier's return, citing specific concerns including:
-- Haiti's lack of separation of powers;
-- poor security for judges, commissioners, police officers, victims, and witnesses; and
-- massive corruption infecting the entire state apparatus, besides others compromising Haiti's judicial system.
As a result, CPH wants a special independent tribunal established to try Duvalier, among other charges, for crimes against humanity for which he's indisputably guilty, regardless of what complicit lawyers say.
Prosecutions of Nazi, Japanese, and more recent war and crimes against humanity offenders weren't constrained by sovereign laws. Under international law, universal principles take precedence, especially for murder, genocide, and crimes or war and against humanity under the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.
In addition, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court's (ICC) Article 29 states crimes of war and against humanity "shall not be subject to any statute of limitations." Moreover, all crimes considered exceptionally grievous are included, including murder, and capital or first-degree murder (killing with intent or malice).
Clearly Duvalier's lawyers haven't checked the laws or don't wish to for obvious reasons. However, anyone can read and understand them.
Does Duvalier, in Fact, Seek Power?
On January 20, Miami Herald writer Jacqueline Charles headlined, "Duvalier: I have no presidential ambitions," saying:
He "disputed reports by one of his lawyers and a former government functionary (claiming) he had presidential ambitions." In a prepared statement, he said, "I formally deny all political statements, vague or otherwise that are attributed to me," stopping short of specifically denying he'll run for president, apparently permitted under Haiti's Constitution even for a former despot.
What's ahead is anyone's guess, but some issues are clear. Duvalier faces no serious prosecution threat. At most, he'll be hand-slapped, perhaps agree to return pennies on the dollars he stole, but be able to stay or leave as he wishes and remain free in luxury until all issues against him are resolved.
In a January 21 email, Law Professor Francis Boyle commented on his arrival, saying:
"No way Baby Doc could have returned without connivance/permission by Obama and Sarkozy. Obviously, they plan to reinstall (him) as Dictator and Front-Man. And Obama/Sarkozy have denied the right of President Aristide to return. But I am confident that the Haitians have such a great revolutionary tradition that they will find another Toussaint L'Overture to throw out Baby Doc/Obama/Sarkozy - just as they threw out Napoleon supported by Thomas Jefferson, the slave-owner. In that regard, Obama is a 'worthy' successor to Jefferson - denying the Haitians their Right to Self-Determination" as he did by refusing recognition, fearing US slaves also might seek freedom.
Other Developments
Al Jazeera reports that four Haitians, including a former UN spokeswoman for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Michele Montas, filed criminal charges of torture and other abuses against Duvalier with a Port-au-Prince prosecutor.
According to Montas:
"We have lodged lawsuits for arbitrary detention, exile, destruction of private property, torture and moral violation of civil and political rights. There are grounds not only to judge him for economic crimes but also for human rights abuses."
According to Amnesty International (AI):
"If true justice is to be done in Haiti, the Haitian authorities need to open a criminal investigation into Duvalier's responsibility for the multitude of human rights abuses that were committed under his rule including torture, arbitrary detentions, rape, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions."
However, chances for that are virtually nil. Boyle is right. Duvalier's arrival wasn't happenstance. It was arranged by allies in high places, notably in Washington with French complicity, for what precisely will unfold ahead. The rhetoric about charges lodged will mostly disappear. Duvalier came for a purpose relating to power politics, not to visit or be charged.
As for Aristide's returning, State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said it's the "last thing Haiti needs (with) its hands full dealing with the current ongoing election process. And we do not think that any actions by an individual at this point that can only bring divisiveness to Haitian society is helping Haiti move forward - expressly because the Haitian people need the emergence of a new government that they believe, and have confidence, can lead Haiti to a more prosperous future."
Acting Deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner said focus should be on Haiti's future and resolving its election. Aristide "is not really part of that equation."
Of course, America fears Aristide's inspirational and stabilizing threat to destructive power, headquartered in Washington, using local and international satraps for enforcement.
Wishing only to return for health reasons and to help as a private citizen, his arrival would seem like the second coming for most Haitians who revere him and want him back. That's precisely why Washington prevented it since ousting him in February 2004.
Mid-January released WikiLeaks cables showed pressure exerted on Brazil in June 2005 to keep Aristide out. Then and now it headed the hated Blue Helmet occupiers Haitians want removed. Access the documents through the following links:
One portion showed President Lula da Silva's complicity, saying:
After US officials expressed "concerns" (read demands), "GOB (government of Brazil) officials made clear continued resolve to keep Aristide from returning to the country or exerting political influence, and reiterated Brazil's strategy that security, assistance and political dialogue should move in tandem as priorities in the international effort."
In other words, former President Lula, a supposed left of center leader and one time union leader, conspired against democracy for repressive occupation and denying Aristide his legal right of return as a Haitian citizen.
Washington pointedly "insiste(d) that all efforts must be made to keep (him) from returning to Haiti or influencing the political process...." Brazil agreed to help, Antonio de Agular Patriota, Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs of the Ministry of External Relations said:
"(T)he mere fact of Aristide's existence will always be problematic in terms of his influence on some elements of Haitian society, however much the international community works to isolate him. That said, the GOB had been encouraged by recent South African Government commitments to Brazil that the GSA would not allow Aristide to use his exile there to undertake political efforts. It always remains important to include in political dialogue those elements of Lavalas that are willing to 'leave Aristide behind them.' "
Obama embraces the same Bush agenda, flaunting international and US law, denying Haitians democratic freedoms, Aristide his right to return, and if Boyle is right, conspiring with France to reestablish Duvalier despotism, exacerbating Haiti's many other problems.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
Former Libertarian congressman Bob Barr, who helped "manage" the impeachment of Bill Clinton, has found his life's calling: He's assisting murderous ex-Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier in his bizarre return to the island, which Barr calls "a personal trip." More »
(I am not sure about the origin of the "revolution" in Tunisia, but for the rest I agree with Tarpley):
By Webster G. Tarpley TARPLEY.net - January 20, 2011
Obama White House NSC Russia Director Michael McFaul Deploying IMF Shock Therapist Boris Nemtsov as Wheelhorse of Feeble “Stop Putin in 2012″ Bid
Awareness is growing around the world that the Wikileaks-Julian Assange theater of the absurd is radically inauthentic – a psyop. Wikileaks and its impaired boss represent a classic form of limited hangout or self-exposure, a kind of lurid striptease in which the front organization releases doctored and pre-selected materials provided by the intelligence agency with the intent of harming, not the CIA, nor the UK, nor the Israelis, but rather such classic CIA enemies’ list figures as Putin, Berlusconi, Karzai, Qaddafi, Rodriguez de Kirchner, etc. In Tunisia, derogatory material about ex-President Ben Ali leaked by Wikileaks has already brought a windfall for Langley in the form of the rare ouster of an entrenched Arab government.
At Foggy Bottom and Langley, a manic fit has been building since the flight of Ben Ali. US imperialist planners now believe they can re-launch their shopworn model of the color revolution, CIA people-power coup, or postmodern putsch against a whole series of countries in the Arab world and far beyond, including Italy. The color revolutions had been looking tarnished lately, as a result of the failure of the Twitter Revolution in Iran back in June 2009. Previously, the Cedars Revolution of 2005 had failed in Lebanon. The Orange Revolution in Ukraine had been rolled back with the ouster of NATO-IMF kleptocrats Yushchenko and Timoshenko. In Georgia, the Roses Revolution was increasingly discredited by the repressive and warmongering regime of fascist madman Saakashvili.
US Seeks to Mobilize a New Generation of Young Nihilists Across the Globe
But now, NSC, State, and CIA believe that the color revolution has a new lease on life, thanks to their estimate that the United States, because of Wikileaks and Assange, has captured the imagination of a new generation of young nihilists across the globe who are described as the post-9/11 generation, estranged from governments and opposition parties, and thus ready to follow Langley’s peroxide Pied Piper.
Assange started his intensive deployment phase this year with video of a Class A US war crime in Iraq, which was very graphic but which dealt with an incident which was already widely known. The second document dump focused on Iraq, but now the targeting had shifted to Prime Minister Maliki, and the Iranian asset whom the US by some strange coincidence was trying to oust as leader of Iraq in favor of the US puppet Allawi. With the third document dump, this time involving State Department cables, we found out much derogatory gossip about such classic CIA targets as Russian prime minister Putin, Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi, the Russian-Italian strategic alliance, President Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, and President Karzai of Afghanistan, along with jabs at supposed US allies who need to be kept off-balance and dependent, including the Saudi Arabian royal family, French President Sarkozy, and others. Wikileaks thus directs the vast majority of its fire against figures who are part of the CIA’s enemies list.
No Equal Time for CIA Covert Operations
Assange also provides a splendid pretext for draconian censorship and limitations on the freedom of the internet. The totalitarian liberal Senator Feinstein wants to bring back Woodrow Wilson’s infamous Espionage Act of 1917 in honor of Assange. Assange must be seen not as an activist, not as a journalist, and not as an entertainer, but rather as a spook. John Young of Cryptome, according to some reports, has denounced Wikileaks, to which he formerly belonged, as a CIA front. In a December 29 RT interview, Young described the internet as “a very large-scale spying machine.”1 The internet is indeed a vast battlefield, where the intelligence agencies of the US-UK, China, Israel, Russia, and many others clash every hour of the day, with commercial spies, hackers, anarchists, cultists, mercenary trolls, and psychotics all getting into the act as well. Intelligence agencies deliberately feed real and doctored material to various websites, sometimes using their own disgruntled employees as cutouts, conduits, and go-betweens. This means among other things that Bradley Manning cannot be taken at face value, although it is also clear that he like anyone else should not be tortured.
Assange is now famous, it might be argued. But the Wall Street controlled media can make anyone famous, from Lady Gaga to Justin Bieber to Snooki, and this is what they have done with Assange. It is wrong to capitulate to the demagogic power of these media by making it appear that there might be some legitimate value to Assange. Up to now, the CIA has been organizing color revolutions using Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and so forth as vehicles. Now they think they have a cult figure whom they can sell to the youth bulge in the Arab world and other developing countries, where most of the population is under 30. This is an operation which must be exposed.
Most recently, Wikileaks has played a role in the CIA’s new “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia by publishing some State Department cables about the sybaritic luxury and lavish lifestyle of the Ben Ali clan, leading to the downfall of that regime. The CIA is now gloating that with the help of Wikileaks it can now topple all the Arab regimes at will, from Mubarak to Qaddafi to Bouteflika, and replace them with new and more pliable puppets eager to clash with Iran, Russia, and China
If Assange ever launches his much-touted doomsday machine against the Bank of America or some other financial institutions, we will be justified in asking that the Securities and Exchange Commission make public the extent of short interest in those stocks by certain hedge funds, especially those controlled by George Soros. And as far as Assange’s attacks on the Vatican are concerned, they fit neatly into four centuries of British intelligence warfare against the Holy See, going back to Guy Fawkes and Lord Robert Cecil’s Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and beyond. Not much new or radical here.
Wikileaks: No Serious Derogatory Information about US, UK, Israel
It is illuminating that none of Assange’s document dumps have revealed any notable scandals involving Great Britain or Israel. No US public figures have had to resign because of anything Wikileaks has done. No major ongoing covert operation or highly placed agent of influence has been blown. After all these months, there are still no US indictments against Assange, even though we know that a US grand jury will readily indict a ham sandwich if the US Attorney demands it. If the CIA had wanted to silence Assange, they could have subjected him to the classic kidnapping aka rendition, meaning that he would have been beaten, drugged, and carted off to wake up in a black site prison in Egypt, Poland, or Guantanamo Bay. Otherwise, the CIA could have had recourse to the usual extralegal wetwork. We must also assume that the new US Cybercommand with its vast resources would have little trouble shutting down the Wikileaks mirror sites, no matter how numerous they might be. The same goes for Anonymous and other flanking organizations of Wikileaks. But these considerations are purely fantastic. Assange emerges today as the pampered darling and golden boy of The New York Times, Der Spiegel. The Guardian, El Pais — in short, of the entire Anglo-American official media Wurlitzer. He reclines today in baronial splendor in the country house of a well-connected retired British officer who should be quizzed by the media about his ties to British intelligence. The radical-chic world, from Bianca Jagger to Michael Moore, is at Assange’s feet.
Cass Sunstein Present at the Creation of Wikileaks
Wikileaks was apparently founded in 2006. Originally, the group was programmed to attack China, and its board was heavily larded with fishy Chinese dissidents and “democracy” activists from the orbit of the Soros foundations. Interestingly, the first big publicity breakthrough for Wikileaks in the mainstream US media was provided by an infamous totalitarian liberal today ensconced in the Obama White House – none other than Cass Sunstein. In Sunstein’s op-ed published in the Washington Post of February 24, 2007 under the title “Brave new Wikiworld,” we read: “Wikileaks.org, founded by dissidents in China and other nations, plans to post secret government documents and to protect them from censorship with coded software.” How interesting that Sunstein was present at the creation of the new Wikileaks psywar operation!
This is the same Sunstein who today heads Obama’s White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. In his January 2008 Harvard Law School Working Paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories,” Sunstein infamously demanded that the United States government deploy groups of covert operatives and pseudo-independent agents of influence for the “cognitively infiltration of extremist groups” – meaning organizations, activists and Internet websites who espouse beliefs which Sunstein chooses to classify as “false conspiracy theories.”
Wikileaks = Cass Sunstein’s Program for Cognitive Infiltration In Action
It should be clear that Assange and Wikileaks are precisely the practical realization of Sunstein’s program for “cognitive infiltration” shock troops to counteract and overwhelm any real mass understanding of oligarchical domination in the modern world, and any discussion of what kind of economic policies are needed to secure a recovery from the present world depression.
In line with Sunstein’s recipe, Assange is a self-declared enemy of 9/11 truth. As Assange told Belfast Telegraph reporter Matthew Bell last July, “I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.” In other words, Assange argues that the truth about 9/11 truth is not nearly as radical as the various scandals which Wikileaks claims to expose. But the scandals Assange is offering target mostly the adversaries of the CIA.
Assange must also be seen as a deeply troubled individual and a possible psychopath. He has the ravaged emotional complexion that we might expect from an alumnus of one of the many MK-Ultra operations. He reportedly spent several years in the menticidal Anne Hamilton-Byrne cult (also known as The Family and Santiniketan) near Melbourne, Australia. Here little children were separated from their parents and made to ingest LSD, Anatensol, Diazepam, Haloperidol, Largactil, Mogadon, Serepax, Stelazine, Tegretol, Tofranil, and other potent psychopharmaca. Dozens of children were told that Hamilton-Byrne was their real mother, and had their hair dyed blond. Anne Hamilton-Byrne reportedly regarded blond hair as a sign of racial superiority. Careful observers will have noted that Assange’s hair is sometimes blond, sometimes more brownish, raising the question of whether his grooming practices are a residue of his time with Hamilton-Byrne, whom he says he does not remember. When other kids were getting cookies and milk, was Assange being lobotomized by LSD and other potent psychopharmaca dished up by Hamilton-Byrne? There is evidence pointing in that direction.
With Assange, we thus have the tragic spectacle of the emotionally mutilated product of a CIA (or MI-6) covert operation of 40 years ago, who has now been given a prominent role in a key counter-insurgency ploy of the present time. Will the youth of the world, already burned by their recent fatuous obsession with Obama, be duped again by such an impaired individual?
The Precedent: Pentagon Papers Whitewashed CIA, Blamed Army, Demonized Kennedy
Assange’s revelations mainly involve communications labeled Confidential or Secret, and which in reality would be over-classified if marked Official Use Only. In other words, Assange is in reality a purveyor of low level cable traffic, not of earth-shattering secrets. This reminds us of an earlier CIA limited hangout operation, the one known as the Pentagon Papers. This was a carefully screened selection of historical documents, supplemented by outright forgeries, relating to the Vietnam War and compiled by Morton Halperin and Leslie Gelb, both of whom have gone on to glittering careers in the imperialist foreign policy establishment – Gelb became president of the Council on Foreign Relations, while Halperin serves today as chief political officer of the Soros wolfpack of foundations. The papers were leaked by former RAND Corporation official Daniel Ellsberg, who had been a very bellicose hawk in Vietnam before a suspicious Damascus Road conversion to pacifism, and then published in the US establishment press – similarly to Assange today. There was nothing in the Pentagon papers which a casual reader of LeMonde or Corriere della Sera did not already know. But, as Mort Sahl later said, left liberals have generally had very few heroes, so they battened on to Ellsberg and lionized him – led by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and some others. (This is a syndrome which we see again today: at the moment when Obama’s treacherous sellout on the Bush tax cuts was providing a final disillusionment for many gullible left libs, Assange arrived on the scene as their new Savior. Not by chance, Ellsberg has now designated Assange as his own reincarnation, and thus surely the new Messiah.)
The Pentagon papers had been carefully selected by the CIA itself to cover up CIA war crimes in Vietnam, blaming these on the US Army wherever possible, while also obscuring the CIA’s massive program of drug production and narcotics smuggling. The Pentagon Papers systematically hid the salient political fact of the entire Vietnam era, which is that President John F. Kennedy before he was assassinated was preparing to end the de facto US combat role in that country. Instead, Kennedy was systematically demonized and smeared, emerging as the villain of the piece. Needless to say, the Pentagon papers throw no light whatsoever on the CIA role in the Kennedy assassination – in the same way that Assange’s various document dumps tell us nothing of importance about 9/11, the Rabin assassination, Iran-contra, the 1999 bombing of Serbia, the Kursk incident, the various CIA color revolutions, or many of the other truly big covert operations of the past decades.
The limited hangout is not new; it was described in a secret memorandum by Venetian intelligence chief Paolo Sarpi to the Venetian Senate in 1620 as the art of “saying something good about somebody while pretending to be saying something bad.” That is the common denominator of the CIA’s limited hangout operations from Ellsberg to Philip Agee to Assange, with so many other “former” CIA operatives turned “whistleblowers” along the way.
___________________________ 1John Young of Cryptome, “‘Internet a very large-scale spying machine’ – info leaking site co-founder,” RT, 29 December, 2010, athttp://rt.com/news/cryptome-classified-secret-wikileaks/
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Competitive Currency Appreciation … spiking food prices will likely cause competitive currency appreciation. Foreign exchange reserves exist for just this time of emergency. Central banks around the world will lower domestic food pricesby either directly selling off their reserves to appreciate their currencies or by using them to purchase grain on the world market. Appreciating a currency is the fastest way to control food inflation. A more valuable currency allows a nation to monopolize more global resources (ie: the overvalued dollar allows the US to consume 25% of the world's oil despite having only 4% of the world's population). If China were to selloff its US reserves, its enormous population would start sucking up the world's food supply like the US has been doing with oil.
On the flip side, when a nation appreciates its currency and starts consuming more of the world's resources, it leaves less for everyone else. So when china appreciates the yuan, food shortages worldwide will increase and prices everywhere else will jump upwards. As there isNOTHING THAT BREEDS SOCIAL UNREST LIKE SOARING FOOD PRICES,nations around the world,from Russia, to the EU, to Saudi Arabia, to India, will sell off their foreign reserves to appreciate their currencies and reduce the cost of food imports. In response to this, China will sell even more of its reserves and so on. That is competitive currency appreciation. When faced with competitive currency appreciation, you do NOT want to be the world's reserve currency. The dollar is likely to do very poorly as central banks competitively appreciate their currencies by selling off their US holdings.
My reaction: Countries around the world now have the choice between waiting for food riots to turn into violent revolution (as has already happened in Tunisia) or selling off their foreign reserves to lower food prices. Not much of a choice.
Soon central banks around the world will be competing to liquidate hundreds of billions of treasury holdings in a desperate bid for domestic stability. The process has already begun. Example of competitive currency appreciation: ALGERIA
The Wall Street Journal reports that Algeria Seeks to End Food Riots.
JANUARY 10, 2011, 5:26 A.M. ET Algeria Seeks to End Food Riots But 14 Die in TunisiaBy MARGARET COKER, BENOIT FAUCON and SUMMER SAID The Algerian government over the weekend said it will reduce tax and import duties on some staples in a bid to end days of deadly clashes between police and rioters protesting food prices in the North African country.
…
Despite the recent unrest, analysts say THE GOVERNMENT'S HEALTHY FOREIGN-EXCHANGE RESERVES, estimated at about $150 BILLION,would allow it the flexibility that poorer countries lack, including THE ABILITY TO BOOST ALREADY-HEFTY FOOD-PRICE SUBSIDIES. Indeed, Algeria's cabinet met Saturday and agreed to "temporary and exceptional exemptions" on import duties, value-added tax and corporate tax for sugar and food oils. A statement issued by Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said THE NEW MEASURES ARE AIMED AT CUTTING PRICES MORE THAN 40%.
…
My reaction: Two key points from extract above:
1) Algeria is boosting food-price subsidies by tapping its foreign-exchange reserves.Algeria's $150 billion worth of US treasuries are being sold to lower food prices.
2) Algeria's moves to reduce domestic food cost will increase its food imports, driving up prices for the rest of the world and increasing pressure on other nations to follow suit.
Conclusion: With food prices still spiralling higher, there is nothing that can save the dollar from the imminent mass liquidationof foreign exchange reserves.
State comedians talk about the "Social Security Trust Fund" as if it were something tangible. There's nothing there. It's just a stack of paper IOUs. There are no real assets.
Social Security is a huge cash cow for the State. For nearly every year of Social Security's existence, "Social Security taxes collected" exceeded "benefits paid plus expenses". Like all Ponzi scams, Social Security was tremendously profitable initially.
In 2010, for the first time, "Social Security payouts" exceeded "taxes collected". The "Social Security crisis" is not deferred to the future, when the "trust fund" is exhausted. The crisis is in the present, because State thugs are no longer profiting from the Social Security Ponzi scam. There will be increasing inflation as the "trust fund" is paid out.
Suppose government bureaucrats printed $1T of money and stored it in a warehouse. Would there be inflation? No. If they spent that $1T, then there would be $1T inflation.
Suppose the government collects $1T in taxes and stores that $1T in a warehouse. What would happen? There would be $1T of deflation.
The US government has debts in its own money. The US government's Social Security trust fund is denominated in its own money. A budget deficit is inflationary, with inflation equal to the amount of deficit. A budget surplus is deflationary, with deflation equal to the surplus.
The Social Security Trust Fund is deflationary. It allows inflation to occur elsewhere, without people noticing. As the Social Security Trust Fund is spent, this will cause inflation.
If any private insurance business operated like Social Security, they would be shut down for fraud.
Social Security payments are a tax. There is no contract between taxpayer and State. At any time, Social Security benefits could be reduced. A benefit cut via inflation is guaranteed.
The "Social Security Crisis" is not 10+ years in the future, when the "trust fund" is exhausted. The crisis is right now, because payouts exceed revenue. Social Security is no longer a cash cow for State parasites.
The bank bailout law was "bipartisan". Most voters opposed it, but politicians from both parties voted for it anyway. They said "Nyah! Nyah! We're smarter than you! It's an emergency! If you don't like it, that's too bad! I'm the master and you're the slave!"
Similarly, suppose politicians from both parties supported slashing Social Security and Medicare. Elderly voters would be SOL, even if they were willing to vote as a bloc to keep it.
Why are Social Security and Medicare politically untouchable? It isn't because politicians fear reprisal from elderly voters. It isn't because they feel obligated to keep their promise. It isn't because they care what happens to elderly people.
Social Security and Medicare are a huge cash cow for the State. That's the reason they're politically untouchable. If elderly voters got robbed, then current workers would say "WTF? Why am I paying these huge Social Security taxes? If my parents got robbed, I'm certainly getting nothing."
Politicians get to appoint their friends/donors to high-paying jobs administering Social Security. There are Social Security offices in every state, so there's plenty of pork to distribute!
I did an interesting calculation. I calculated my personal Social Security taxes paid. I calculated my parents' benefit. The Social Security taxes I have paid are more than my parents' benefit! If I cut out the middleman of the State, I could directly pay for my parents' retirement, and have money left over!
If I didn't have to pay a crushing tax burden, I could more easily save for my own retirement. Without a crushing tax burden, I could easily save salary to raise seed capital for a new business. I estimate that the State steals my savings via inflation almost as fast as I accrue new savings!
Social Security is a tax. It is not a contract with government bureaucrats, where they promise future payouts. They can change the benefit anytime, either outright or via inflation. A default is statistically guaranteed.
Social Security and Medicare are a huge cash cow for the State. Like all Ponzi scams, it will have an ugly end. A default is guaranteed. It might be a gradual default via 20-30% inflation, or an outright default.
Social Security and Medicare are treated as sacred. Current workers would refuse to pay, if current retirees got cheated. The Federal government probably isn't going to exist 20 years from now. Current workers 50 and younger will probably never get anything. The inflation-adjusted return of a Social Security "investment" is really lousy.
Social Security isn't an investment. It's a tax that you must pay or people with guns will come to kidnap and torture you.
Looks like the US is ready for cyberwar. A hacker put up a storefront to sell access to sites, which is not very unusual (sadly) these days, but also to military, government and university (.mil, .gov and .edu) sites, which is more so.
What's crazy about this is the brazenness of it all: the hacker basically put up an online storefront, like any e-commerce site, except instead of buying shoes and books, you're buying government sites.
So for example, for just $499, you can buy root access (full control) to cecom.army.mil, a site whose stated purpose is “to develop, acquire, provide and sustain world-class…systems and Battle Command capabilities for the joint warfighter.”
Interestingly, the hacker doesn't accept credit cards but accepts the virtual currency Liberty Reserve.
