Tag Archives: corporations

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

No True Economic Recovery: Renowned Economist says this is totally the Banks’ fault, nothing can be done by governments, working class been paying for it, it’s called Deleveraging and it’s a sign we’re in a “Terminal Downturn”!

Steve Keen is Professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney, Australia.  He was named by Forbes as the most accurate economic forecaster in this economic disaster.  He received the Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review, also for his accurate predictions. He wrote the book Debunking Economics.

Now in a recent interview with former Wall Street broker, Timothy Maxwell “Max” Keiser, Keen says there is nothing governments can do to save the economy, because it is actually an inherent part of the banking system’s sinister operations!

No amount of tax increases, or government spending cuts (austerity), or government spending increases (Keynesian spending), or even corporate bailouts will help save the economy.  It’s called deleveraging: “The reason it hasn’t worked….this is massive deleveraging. The private sector has borrowed its way into enormous levels of debt over about 40, 50 year period….from owing about half a year’s GDP as the debt level in the 1950s to [owing] three years GDP now!”

I’ve already written about the IMF’s order to continue deleveraging of households (that’s you and me), Keen is saying this is part and parcel of the too big to fail banks policies.

Deleveraging (retracting credit) means the banks try to get rid of their debts.  Those debts include the mortgages and credit cards they’ve issued to the general public.

They deleverage households by calling in your chips, saying pay up now.  It doesn’t matter if you’re credit rating is good or not.  Many of the foreclosures involved people who had never missed payments, even people who had paid off their homes!  And deleveraging attacks corporations as well.

A recent case of deleveraging, involving a major corporation, was the shut down of Air Australia. The airline was shut down when it’s creditors (too big to fail banks) refused to leverage (issue credit) for Air Australia’s fuel purchases.

Steve Keen says the too big to fail banks are now deleveraging everyone because the too big to fail banks became addicted to debt themselves!  This goes back to the 1980s, and includes personalities like Alan Greenspan and Mitt Romney.

Keen says it’s the vulture capitalist mentality that is destroying the country: “…capitalists in euphoric states, and certainly finance capitalists…they borrow money, they gamble on asset prices, they’ll cause a bubble…of course the borrowing is badly thought out, projects don’t work, they’re ponzi schemes in many ways to begin with…you go through periods of ratcheting up levels of debt, until you get to the point that there’s so much debt the system simply can’t cope with it and you go into a terminal downturn, and that’s where we are right now.”

The 1980s saw the beginning of the trend of vulture capitalists, like Mitt Romney, using leverage (loans) to take over companies, carve them up and sell them off.  Not only did it make big money for people like Mitt Romney (while causing millions of U.S. workers to lose their jobs between the 1980s and now) it made big money for the too big to fail banks.

In steps Alan Greenspan.  The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the U.S.  It actually makes money off issuing loans to the too big to fail banks.  So, it is in the interest of the Federal Reserve to keep this game going.  It’s not about jobs at all, it’s about making money purely through loans.

Presidential candidate Ron Paul is correct about the Federal Reserve being part of the problem, because Keen says Greenspan is responsible for what is about to become the biggest depression ever: “…Alan Greenspan turned what would have been a garden variety small depression, back in 1987, into the biggest depression in human history by rescuing the financial industry from each of its mistakes.  Which simply meant that it [finance industry] would go looking for another social class to lend money to, expanding the level of debt…If the central banks hadn’t been trying to rescue us from each of the individual financial crisis we would’ve had a minor depression…we’re now in for the biggest of all time…now we’re dealing with the biggest financial crisis ever, and we can certainly blame the central banks for the scale of it.”

Keen also discovered, while working through his mathematical models, that when the shit hits the fan it’s not the banks and vulture capitalists who pay for the debt they themselves created, it’s the working class: “…So, as the level of debt rose, it wasn’t the capitalists who paid for it, even though they were the ones doing the borrowing, it was the workers in terms of their income share…the ones who are now paying for it through austerity actually are the ones who’ve been paying for it through a lower share of income, not the capitalists….” 

Here’s what Keen had to say about the too big to fail banks: “Having a large financial sector is a sign of a sick economy.”  Because banks represent finance capital and “…finance capital doesn’t make money!”  Keen explained that banks are there to help true industries operate, and make money the old fashioned way, by earning it through providing products or services.  In other words you should not have too big to fail banks making up the majority of your country’s GDP, which is in fact what’s happening in the U.S.

Towards the end of Keen’s interview with Max Keiser, he predicted that Australia’s economy will begin to crash within six to 12 months, and he thinks the Australian government will attempt the same pro-bank, anti-worker, rescue policies as that of the United States.  Keen calls the U.S. policy “…rescuing the parasite [banks, Romney style capitalists, etc] rather than rescuing the host [true industries, working class].”

In the early 1990s Keen came up with an economic model that takes into account vulture capitalist debt financing.  He used mathematical chaos theory to prove what film maker Oliver Stone tried to warn about in his movie Wall Street: Mitt Romney style capitalism doesn’t work, and doesn’t create more jobs in the long run.  Back in 1993 Keen warned that any apparent tranquility caused by the out of control crony capitalist debt financing was actually “…the lull before the storm.” 

Check out debtdeflation.com

 

 

 

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Majority of U.S. citizens say Corporate America is to blame for bad economy. The bell tolls for Bank of America and Fox News?

In the latest survey by Harris Interactive, 78% of people blame the bad economy on Corporate America (and Corporate Britain).

The annual Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient poll is a measure of how consumers view corporations.  So far the main stream media has only mentioned the good points of the poll, like Apple surging ahead of Google regarding a positive image among consumers.

What the main stream corporate controlled media isn’t reporting is that only 22% of those surveyed have a overall good impression of Corporate America!

Also, the survey is a warning sign for major banks.  According to reports, AIG, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America are on the Harris poll’s critical list, because they ranked as low as Enron, Adelphia and WorldCom, right before those later companies went out of business.

Other companies that scored poorly were BP (British Petroleum), JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and News Corp (owners of Fox News).

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Rick Snyder proves who he works for; Corporate America, not you! Unemployed workers are screwed over while Corporations get more tax breaks!

Tied for “Most Unpopular Governor in the United States”, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, along with the State’s Legislature, proved who they really represent; Corporate America.

For 2011 Synder has signed into law, bills passed by Michigan’s lawmakers, which favor corporations and attack unemployed people!

Those laws cut unemployment assistance from a maximum of 26 weeks down to 20 weeks.  Some unemployed people will get only a maximum of 10 weeks of assistance!!!

At the same time corporations operating in Michigan now get at least $1.7 billion in new tax breaks!!!  That about $30 in new corporate tax breaks for every one dollar cut from Michigan’s social services.

If you think about it, how is cutting corporate taxes by far more than what you cut from government programs gonna help the state government’s budget problems?

 

 

Business/Economics, Opinion, U.S.

OWS, What Economic Recovery? U.S. houses burning down, and people dying, direct result of local government budget cuts and insurance policies! More reason to get rid of government and the insurance industry!

“To me, it’s not an issue. To me it’s like car insurance. If you have a car, you pay insurance. If you want protection, you pay the price.”-Benny McGuire, Obion County Mayor

If you listen to Mayor McGuire’s statement it sure sounds like extortion.

For the second time this year, Tennessee firefighters stood by and watched a families home burn to the ground. The latest fire burned down a home on December 5.  When Obion County firefighters arrived they were ordered not to put out the fire, because the family had not paid a $75 firefighting fee!

Homeowner, Vicky Bell, told KFVS TV that she and most of her neighbors have not paid the fee because they were told they are ineligible for firefighting service anyway, because they don’t have home insurance!

Back on October 4, another Tennessee home burned to the ground for the same reason.  But this time the home owner offered to pay right then and there. The fire didn’t even start in the home!  The firefighters refused, and the home burned down killing three dogs and a cat!

“They coulda’ been saved if they put water on it. But they didn’t do it!”-Gene Cranick, watched pets burned alive

Some Tea Party ass holes think this is they way things should be done. Bull Shit!  I’ve been in Third World Countries and that’s the way it’s done there.  So you Tea Party ass holes want the United States to revert to Third World status?  Don’t worry, I think you’ll get your wish for freakin’ Xmas!

As previously stated, even if the home owners could afford the extortion fee of $75 , if they did not have insurance, which most home owners don’t have once they reach a certain point on making their mortgage payments (or they’ve paid off their home) because they can’t afford the insurance, they do not qualify to pay the extortion fee!!!

By the way, this is why you should not call a firefighter, EMT or cop, a hero.  Hero’s don’t require payment!!!

Oh, now I’ll get to the guy who died why public servants literally stood by and wrung their hands.

“I thought it was kind of weird that they weren’t going out to bring the guy in, you know, he was out there, his head was above water, he was looking at everybody, there was plenty of time for them to react.”-Perry Smith, witness

On May 30, a distraught man drowned after treading water for more than an hour.  It happened in daylight, on Alameda Beach in California, in front of dozens of people, including emergency personnel.  The beach goers all thought the paid emergency personnel were going to take care of it, they were wrong, and many are shocked: “It’s horrible. How can we let that happen? How can our emergency personnel allow that to happen? I don’t get it, I don’t understand it.”-Gary Barlow, witness

The Coast Guard said they didn’t have a boat that could reach him where he was, and their helicopters were busy!  Police said it’s not their job: “We’re not trained to go into the water, obviously the type of gear that we have on, we don’t have the type of equipment that you would use to go into the water.”-Joe McNiff, Alameda Police Department

What about firefighters?  “…I would have to stay within our policies and procedures because that’s what’s required by our department to do.”– Ricci Zombeck, Alameda Fire Division Chief

Those policies don’t allow firefighters to go into the water.  In fact, it was a woman, a civilian, a true hero, who went in, albeit too late (the man died), and recovered the body.  The taxpayer paid emergency personnel were not even going to recover the body!

The ‘hero’ division fire chief admitted they should have done something, and “…that we’re going to evaluate our response protocols.”

The next day it was revealed that the city had quietly stopped funding their water rescue program, back in 2009, in an attempt to save the city some money.  On top of that the city’s firefighters were ordered to stay out of the water.

To prove the point that paid emergency personnel are not heros, here’s what the interim fire chief of Alameda had to say: “I know that yesterday, those crews, it was killing them to stand on those shores and not be able to do anything. But under the circumstance and because of the policy, they really didn’t have a choice.”-Michael D’Orazi, Interim Fire Chief

Notice; “…because of the policy…”.  The ultimate concern of emergency personnel is not violating their policies (for cops it’s a different story, so many of them violate their own policies all the time, but in a bad way)!

I had a lot of bad experiences with emergency personnel, and cops, and this was decades back when the economy was good!  So pardon me if I seem upset!

For you Tea Party ass holes who’d like to see the U.S. turn into a Third World Country, there’s a saying that should be applied to you: “Git a rope.”

However, if people can’t work together and overthrow their oppressive governments and corporations, and create a better system, then let Anarchy reign!!!


Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Government & Farmer Incompetence: Apples and Rice poisoned by farm chemicals, FDA tries to blow it off! EPA has known since before 2007! Just more reasons for the coming global food crisis!

I’ve already criticized the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its handling of radiation contamination, now there’s evidence they’re ignoring arsenic poisoning of apples, rice, and other food due to farm chemicals.

In one study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S. women who ate half a cup of cooked rice, ingested an amount of poisonous arsenic equivalent to drinking four and a quarter cups of water with the maximum allowable level of arsenic.

“The large and statistically significant association we observed between rice consumption and urinary arsenic, in addition to earlier reports of elevated arsenic concentrations in rice, highlights the need to regulate arsenic in food.”

But that’s not all.  Consumer Reports, and the TV show Dr. Oz, discovers that apple juice is also contaminated with arsenic.  Several brands of apple and grape juice were found to have arsenic levels exceeding Federal safe limits (max 10 parts per billion).

“Roughly 10% of our juice samples, from five brands, had total arsenic levels that exceeded federal drinking-water standards. Most of that arsenic was inorganic arsenic, a known carcinogen.”– Consumer Reports

Notice “inorganic arsenic”, that means it’s not naturally occurring arsenic in the soil, it’s coming from the chemicals used on farms!

Consumer Reports also added that other foods are contaminated with chemical arsenic, and that lead has been found in juices as well.

Dr. Oz questioned the FDA and they gave him the amazing response that most food born arsenic is “essentially harmless”!  He was also amazed to find out that the FDA has no criteria regarding lead in apple juice!

Inorganic (chemical) arsenic is absorbed by plant roots.  Inorganic arsenic gets into the soil because it’s part of the ingredients in the chemicals farmers use.  Over the decades those chemicals, including arsenic, has been building up in the farm soil, now it’s finally showing up in high levels in our food!

Researchers in Scotland found that most arsenic contamination can be found in U.S. states that used to grow cotton. Chemicals used on cotton plants had high levels of arsenic.  They also found that rice grown in those states had much higher levels of arsenic, than rice grown in California.

Andrew Meharg, of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, has been warning since before 2007 about arsenic contamination in rice!  He says it’s not just the U.S. and European rice crops, but rice grown in Asia (now you can add the radiation from Japan).

In fact, Meharg said the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) conducted a study and were concerned with the results: “…the risk assessment has been done for the U.S.A. by the U.S. EPA and they’ve actually found that there is a risk for the U.S. based population and that’s why the U.S. levels in water were reduced, because the risk from arsenic to the U.S. population was more perceptible, and above background, particularly for lung and bladder cancers and what we’re finding is that the levels of arsenic in rice for certain subpopulations exceed those current levels for safety and water. And eating high levels of rice, they’re actually well over what they should be consuming.”-from March, 2007 interview

Meharg said rice with the lowest levels of arsenic, according to his research, comes from India.

Don’t everybody rush for the ‘organically’ grown food, there just isn’t enough for all of us, just more reason there’s a coming global food crisis.  Grow your own!

Business/Economics, International, Technology

Government & Corporate Incompetence: TEPCo says new radiation leak is pouring Strontium into the Pacific Ocean

On December 4, Tokyo Electric says they found a leak in a desalinization unit.  It’s not a small leak, so far 45 tons of contaminated water has poured out.

What’s really interesting is that the de-salting unit is supposed to be treating water that had already had radioactive contaminants removed.  TEPCo is saying the water is contaminated with 130,000 becquerels per cubic centimeter of strontium!

Company officials say it is highly likely that the strontium contaminated water made it into the Pacific Ocean, because there is a drainage ditch nearby leading to the ocean.  It’s most likely strontium 90, which has a half life of 28.8 years, and causes many cancers including bone cancer.

TEPCo also made confusing statements; one said workers had checked the unit just 21 hours prior and found no signs of leaking, but then in another statement TEPCo officials admitted they did not act fast enough (a now typical trait of TEPCo management) as it was known that water was building up inside the unit, but they thought it would not leak out.

TEPCO says it will take them two weeks to improve their leak detection of the water treatment units.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

World War 3: Iran shoots down U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle, China says it will support Iran even if it means the Third World War, part of recent moves towards War

“Iran’s military has shot down an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran.”-Iranian government statement

In the early morning hours on December 4 (U.S. time), the Iranian military shot down a U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).  The U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone is used for intelligence, surveillance and for target acquisition.

An unnamed Iranian military official said Iran will take action against all foreign UAVs, even those outside Iran’s borders: “…the operational and electronic measures taken by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Armed Forces against invading aircraft will not remain limited to Iran’s borders.”

This is part of a quickening pace of actions on all sides that look like war is inevitable.

Just before Iran shot down the U.S. UAV, officials with the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University (China’s equivalent to any of the U.S. military academies) announced full military support of Iran: “China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a Third World War.”-Major General Zhang Zhaozhong

Just this past week the U.S. Treasury Department asked all nations to stop buying oil from Iran (a futile move I pointed out).  If anyone really knows the ‘why’ of why Japan attacked the United States on December 7, 1941, it is because the U.S. stopped all oil sales to Japan. At that time the U.S. was the world’s main supplier of oil.

Just a few days ago the Japanese government responded to the current request from the U.S. Treasury by saying that out of necessity they can not stop buying Iranian oil.  Currently nearly 10% of the oil Japan gets comes from Iran. With more than 80% of their nuclear power plants off line, Japan’s need for petroleum is skyrocketing: “We need to be very careful in making such a decision, given that our priority is securing energy supply in the aftermath of the massive earthquake.”-statement from Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs

I also pointed out that the result of such an oil ban would actually hurt us little guys: “As soon as such an issue is raised seriously the oil price would soar to above $250 a barrel.”-Ramin Mehmanparast, Iran’s Foreign Ministry

Also in the past week, the United Kingdom cut off all diplomatic ties with Iran, after Iranian protestors took control of the British Embassy in Tehran (on November 29, U.S. time).  This despite the  fact that Iranian police arrested at least 12 of the protestors, and Iran officially apologized. Western governments, and media refused to report the apology but Spanish officials confirmed it:  “He said he was aware that it had violated the Vienna Convention and for that reason he was passing on to his apologies.”-Trinidad Jimenez, Foreign Minister of Spain

Even British officials admitted that Iran apologized, but said they didn’t care: “…this remains a very serious failure by the Iranian government.”-William Hague, Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom

U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden, said there’s no proof that the Iranian government was behind the U.K. embassy take over: “I don’t have any indication how and or if it was orchestrated.”

The U.K. has thrown out all Iranian diplomats in Britain, and Iran has now done the same with British diplomats.

Norway also closed their embassy in Tehran, temporarily. They re-opened their embassy on December 1.

On December 1, former Assistant Counsel of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Franklin Lamb, said Iran was being set up for inevitable war: “The other side (the UK) is provoking them (Iranian government). Hopefully the Tehran government will not fall in some of these traps that I think are being laid for it in a very dangerous way.”

On December 3, Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said he would not allow the U.S. to use Iraq as a base for attacking Iran: “Clearly we are no enemy to Iran and we do not accept that some who have problems with Iran would use us as a battlefield.”

Recently al-Maliki was the target of an assassination bomb.

On December 2, U.S. Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, said Iran is “a very grave threat to all of us”, and, any threat to the shipping of oil out of the Persian Gulf was the “red line” that would cause the U.S. to attack Iran.  Iran has warned that if they are threatened they will close the Strait of Hormuz, blocking all shipping from the Persian Gulf.

Also on Decmber 2, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, and current Security Council President, Vitaly Churkin, said the latest IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program was a trick, because Iran was actually cooperation on the nuclear issue: “We thought that we were on the verge of restarting those talks on the basis of our proposals, because we started receiving some encouraging signals, substantive signals from the Iranian side…”

On December 1, the U.S. Senate passed, yet again, new sanctions against Iran, this time targeting the banks of Iran, and any foreign or U.S. banks doing business with Iran.

Also on December 1, the European Union passed new sanctions against 37 Iranian individuals and 143 companies/organizations from Iran, or doing business with Iran.

In response to the latest sanctions, Russia and China warned the West: “We hope the countries involved will keep calm, rational and restrained to avoid emotional actions.”-Hong Lei, Chinese Foreign Ministry

“We speak out categorically against cranking up a spiral of tension and confrontation on issues linked with Iran. We believe that this…is fraught with severe consequences.”-Alexander Lukashevich, Russian Foreign Ministry

And all these statements and events took place in just the past week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fukushima

Corporate Incompetence: TEPCo admits lack of communication caused Reactor 1 to melt down and explode, evidence it was a man made disaster!

On 02 December 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Company officials admitted that lack of communication resulted in Fukushima Daiichi’s Reactor 1 melting down and exploding, on 12 March 2011.

Former plant manager, Yoshida Masao (who recently resigned due to health problems, which might be caused by exposure to radiation, which TEPCo denies) said he, and other officials, were not told that Reactor 1’s cooling system was manually shut down.  He realized the cooling system was not working a little more than six hours after it had been turned off. By then it was too late.

Just a few days ago TEPCo admitted, after an independent investigation, that 100% of the fuel rods in Reactor 1 melted.

The irony is that Reactor 1 had the only operable cooling system after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami hit the nuclear disaster reactor plant.  Reactors 2, 3 and 4 lost their connections to electrical power, but Reactor 1 was still connected.

This could add some fuel to the conspiracy theories out there (that it was intentional, after all, look how long they’ve dragged this out!).

Business/Economics, Idaho, Technology, U.S.

Corporate Incompetence: Hewlett Packard gets downgraded, Idaho still waiting for official job layoffs announcement

“Major strategic reversals” is one reason why Standard & Poor’s just downgraded Hewlett Packard’s credit rating.

S&P’s also blamed HP’s inconsistent behavior: “We have concerns that HP’s inconsistent growth strategies and high levels of board of director and senior management turnover have elevated the level of operational and execution risk in the near term.”-Martha Toll-Reed, Standard & Poor’s

I’ve written about some of HP’s hypocritical behavior, like laying off hundreds of U.S. employees, buying back millions of dollars worth of their own stocks, then investing billions into their Taiwan operations, and hiring hundreds of employees in Taiwan.

Another dumb move was cancelling production of their TouchPad tablet. Turns out it was the number two selling tablet in the U.S.!

It’s been revealed that HP just spent U.S.$11.7 billion to buy a British software company called Autonomy.  $6 billion of that was in cash!!! Couldn’t HP have used that money to keep U.S. workers employed, or improve their products (they really need to)?

Back at the beginning of November someone at their Boise, Idaho, operation leaked that more layoffs were coming.  Officially HP is working on a press release to explain it. It’s the start of December now, and still no press release.

S&P’s has downgraded HP’s credit rating to BBB+.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Global Economic War: The big jumps in stock markets have nothing to do with economic recovery. It’s all part of the new way the Elite 1% make money.

“…the markets are basically run by algorithmic trading these days… Nobody’s making investments in the stock market thinking they’re getting a long term investment in the company that they’re buying a stock for. So all we’re looking at is trading on news.”-Catherine Mann, Brandeis University International Business School, and former member of the Federal Reserve bank Board of Governors

“…what you have right now is massive amount of liquidity around the world sitting on the sidelines with very cheap equity markets. So any time there’s a little bit of positive news, you see this explosion in stock markets, and because it’s so cheap and there’s so much money just sitting there ready to move.”-David Smick, economic policy strategist

PBS Newshour interviewed two ‘experts’ on why the stock markets are seeing huge swings up and down.  Both basically said it had nothing to do with economic recovery, it’s basically a war being fought with cash, and is the new way the 1% are making even more money. It’s being done without the labor or services of the 99%, by simply day trading on the World’s stock markets instead of creating new products or hiring more employees.  If you’re a rich bastard or bitch and you could make more money day trading than actually making a product or service (requiring you to spend money on employees and transportation and benefits and other costs associated with traditional enterprise) then why not?

“…that’s the way that banks fund themselves, is that they borrow in the overnight market from each other. And since the summer, we have been looking at the interest rate that they charge each other has been rising and rising and rising. It’s now at a level or was earlier today at the level right before the crisis with Lehman Brothers.”-Catherine Mann

“If you look at today and you say, when’s the last time that the global central banks got together, it was three days after the Lehman crisis in 2008.”  “The problem is…a solvency [the ability to pay your bills] problem in Europe, not a liquidity [cash, meaning the 1% have plenty of cash on hand] problem.”-David Smick

“…one of the downsides of this additional liquidity being put into the global marketplace is that it provides more ammunition for the traders in the marketplace who want to bet against the central bank, or against the European Central Bank in particular, or, want to bet against some of those sovereign governments in Europe that are running some difficulties.  So this excess liquidity, or a lot of liquidity, does have a downside. And I think that we aren’t thinking exactly how that ammunition is going to be used. We’re thinking it’s going to be used for good [like providing more jobs, creating new products and services, etc.], but there’s no guarantee that it’s going to be used for good.”  “…this intervention in Europe…doesn’t even come close to addressing the political problem that they face…National governments have spent too much money, they have borrowed too much over a long period of time.”-Catherine Mann

“It’s a little bit like the house is on fire, and…the pluming is backed up. Well, today, we took care of the plumbing [referring to the central banks of Europe, North America and Japan/Pacific Asia Group (the three member regions of the one world government seeking Trilateral Commission) agreeing to provide dirt cheap loans to the 1%] , but the house is still on fire.”-David Smick