Tag Archives: economy

Business/Economics, International

What Economic Recovery? & Corporate Evil: Nearly 1 million retirement plans destroyed, small companies could go bust

An investigation has revealed that investment firm, AIJ Investment Advisors Company, has lost most, or all, the money in retirement plans that affect more than 880,000 people!

More than half those plans are for people who’re still working.  The loss could actually force the companies they work for out of business!

Japan’s Labor Ministry says the Tokyo based investment firm lost the money belonging to 84 corporate retirement plans!  The majority of those plans  actually belong to medium and small businesses.

AIJ has been ordered to pay back those companies.  However, the Labor Ministry says if it can not, then under Japanese law those companies would have to come up with the retirement money on their own, and that could shut down some of the medium and small sized companies.

 

Fukushima

Official Independent Investigation proves Gross Government & Corporate Incompetence regarding Nuclear Safety in Japan!

“The direct causes of the nuclear accident were the unpreparedness of Tokyo Electric Power…and the government’s lack of a sense of responsibility.”-Kitazawa Koichi, lead investigator

A Japanese government sanctioned independent investigation has revealed gross incompetence in the wake of the March, 2011, nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi.  It also says that Tokyo Electric Power Company made the situation worse!

Six investigators interviewed more than 300 people, including Japanese and U.S. government officials.  However, officials at TEPCo refused to co-operate with the investigators! They have just published their findings, 28 February 2012.

The report calls government response “off the cuff”, and “too late” (as I was posting last year)!

The nuclear power plant operator, TEPCo, was ill prepared for a nuclear disaster, despite decades of telling locals they were prepared (as I posted last year).

The Japanese government, especially the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, failed to ensure the proper training for nuclear disaster response (as I posted last year).

The report also blames Japan’s complicated system of delegating authority and responsibility.  No one knew who was supposed to do what regarding the disaster; from top national government officials down to sub-contractors working for TEPCo (again, as I posted last year).

Things were so bad that local governments have been taking the initiative to try and deal with things like relocating residents, and decontamination efforts, with little help from the national government (again, I posted).

Also, many of the discoveries of radiation contamination came as a result of individuals and private groups, who took it upon themselves to pay for testing things like dirt, water, and even food, like beef, sold in grocery stores (again, I).

It was local governments who discovered farm crops to be contaminated (posted last year).

The report also says that information coming from the private sector to government officials was insufficient to make proper decisions. TEPCo officials simply dragged their feet when it came to dealing with specific issues, like cooling systems being shut down, and vents not being opened.

Not only did TEPCo drag their feet, but the investigators found that there was a back up cooling system that was functional, but TEPCo never used it!!!

Although Japan’s government has a crisis management policy, the investigators said it is totally useless!

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? S&P’s declares Greece in default of debt! Proof that re-negotiating your debt won’t save you!

February 27, 2012, Standard & Poor’s declares Greece to be in default!  S&P’s blamed it on the debt restructuring deal currently being negotiated.

Greek officials say they were expecting it. Other credit rating agencies are expected to do the same thing.  This makes Greece the first European Union member to default.

S&P’s explained that loan contracts state that loan restructuring is condition for default status: “As we have previously stated, we may view an issuer’s unilateral change of the original terms and conditions of an obligation as a de facto restructuring and thus a default by Standard & Poor’s published definition.”

Business/Economics, International

What Economic Recovery: British officials admit there is no more money!

Chancellor George Osborne admits: “The British government has run out of money because all the money was spent in the good years, the money and the investment and the jobs need to come from the private sector.”

“Any tax cut would have to be paid for. In other words there would have to be a tax rise somewhere else or a spending reduction.  In other words what we are not going to do in this budget is borrow more money to either increase spending or cut taxes.”

Foreign Minister Jeremy Browne said: “Britain’s market share in the world used to be dominant but is now in freefall compared with the soaring economies of Asia and South America. This situation has been becoming more acute for years. It is now staring us in the face. So we need to take action”

Business/Economics, International

What Economic Recovery: G20 says no more money for the IMF, until Greece makes even more draconian cuts! Wants U.S. to end Volcker Rules!

27 February 2012

The Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs, meeting in Mexico, said they will not provide the International Monetary Fund anymore money until Europe, specifically Greece, makes more even drastic government cuts.

This follows reports that the World Bank will issue a report warning China to privatize its remaning government held businesses.  Many analysts believe what the G20 really wants is total privatization of governments.

Yesterday I speculated that the problems of Greece are actually related to its lack of participation in the developing of the Leviathan gas and oil fields. Greece is also being pushed to privatize many government services.

The G20 also demanded that the United States back off of its Volcker banking rule, which was created to tighten the regulation of runaway too big to fail banks!  The Volcker rule is supposed to stop banks from using customer deposits to make investments strictly for the banks own profit! G20 officials claim the Volcker rule are interfering with international banking!

The Volcker rule doesn’t even go into effect until July, 2012!

 

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Global Economic War: World Bank threatens China, more proof of conspiracy to privatize world governments!

The Wall Street Journal says a report titled China 2030, to be released on February 27, indicates that China’s booming economy will soon go bust if it doesn’t implement radical reforms.

The report comes from the World Bank, and a think tank supposedly connected to the Chinese government.

The China 2030 report will be released in China on Monday.  It calls for the officially communist Chinese government to sell off the last of its state owned businesses, possibly including its four major banks.

Allegedly the China 2030 report says China’s economy will begin to go bust by 2015, if it does not fully privatize its industries.

 

 

 

International

Red Horse, Leviathan & World War 3: It’s about the Oil & Gas, huge reserves found off the coast of Cyprus, Gaza, Greece, Egypt, Israel, Libya, Lebanon, Turkey & Syria. The real reason for War with Iran!

“…its gas resources are bigger than anything we have assessed in the United States!”-Brenda Pierce, U.S. Geological Survey, statement about the Levant Basin Province (aka Leviathan)

The discovery of huge natural gas reserves in the Mediterranean Sea is the true cause of warmongering between the United States, Europe, Cyprus (which is divided into Greek and Turkish halves), Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Iran and Palestinian Gaza Strip.

In 2009, Texas U.S.A. based Noble Energy (formerly known as Noble Affiliates, and not to be confused with Nobel Energy Management) discovered a huge gas field while under hire by Israel.  It was the biggest gas field discovery of 2009, called Tamar.

Image via Noble Energy.

In October 2010, Noble Energy discovered an even bigger gas field. Israel declared the area an Exclusive Economic Zone.  It’s part of an even bigger area known as the Leviathan Gas Field. The problem is that Lebanon says the field extends into its territory and on August 2010, almost two months before the second discovery by Noble Energy, petitioned the United Nations to protect their rights.

Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker, Nabih Berri, said Israel is “…ignoring the fact that according to the maps the deposit extends into Lebanese waters.”

Lebanon is justified, as Israel (along with the United States) never ratified the 1982 UN Convention on Law of the Sea.  Under that law Lebanon has a right to the gas, in the field called Tamar.

Israeli officials responded with threats of war: “We will not hesitate to use our force and strength to protect not only the rule of law but the international maritime law.”-Uzi Landau, Minister of National Infrastructure of Israel

Note how Israeli officials always make claims of enforcing international laws, yet they have refused to sign onto most of those laws!

In fact Israel periodically sends military aircraft into Lebanon’s air space, and even drops a few bombs now and again.

But, the Leviathan Gas Field doesn’t involve just Israel and Lebanon. In December 2011, NATO-Turkish warships began firing on an area of the Mediterranean where Cyprus had just discovered an extension of the Leviathan Gas Field.  Cyprus declared the area an Exclusive Economic Zone, it is also known as Block-12 of the Leviathan Gas Field.

Greek Cypriot officials issued not only words of war, but threats of Ethnic Cleansing: “If Turkey does not change its gunboat diplomacy and stop playing the part of regional police officer, there will be consequences which, for sure, will not be good, either for the whole region or the Turkish people and first and foremost for Turkish Cypriots.”-Dimitris Christofias, Greek President of Cyprus

For some reason the Western media has not reported much of anything about the disputes over the Leviathan Gas Field.

2011 was also the year that NATO-Turkey went from being Israel’s only ally in the region, to becoming an enemy.  Turkey officially blamed it on Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid ships to Gaza, but it looks like it’s really about the gas.  By the end of 2011, Israel canceled a $90-million military contract with Turkey, because Israeli officials felt Turkey was after their portion of the gas field.

Israel has allied itself with Greek Cyprus, when it comes to extracting the natural gas.  While Noble Energy is officially a Houston, Texas, company, most of the company stocks are actually held by petroleum companies of Greek Cyprus (Cypriot national energy company) and Israel (Delek Drilling LP & Avner Oil Exploration LLP).

Noble Energy claims there is 33-trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Leviathan fields, enough to provide Israel with 100 years worth!  In fact, the United States government is so interested that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was sent in to confirm its size.

You might remember that, in 2011, for a short time it looked like Israeli-U.S. relations were deteriorating. Again, the Western media failed to report that U.S. officials told Lebanese officials that the U.S. supported their claim to the Tamar gas  fields!

The U.S. mended their relations with Israel, by taking a stand against Turkey’s desire to control a portion of Leviathan.  U.S. officials did this by supporting Israel’s new ally Greek Cyprus.

U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, told the Greek Cyprus Foreign Minister, Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, to go full bore on drilling their gas field.     Kozakou-Marcoullis told a crowd at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars that Turkey was “the neighborhood bully”, and that the United States was fully supporting Greek Cyprus (thus, in a round-a-bout way Israel) in their gas field operations.

February 16, 2012, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a historic first time visit to Greek Cyprus.  He called the new alliance a “natural relationship”, and added:  “I came here to develop our bilateral ties, our economic ties and ties in the field of energy.”

Oh, but wait, Turkey now looks to be Israel’s ally again. In fact Turkey has switched from supporting Syria to supporting military action against Syria!   What happened?

Turkey has realized that by connecting a relatively short pipeline to Leviathan, they could potentially become self sufficient in natural gas, and maybe even oil.  This would end their current dependence on petroleum from the Black Sea (Russia, Romania), and make it no longer a necessity to connect to the planned pipeline coming from Iran.

What about NATO-Greece? Ever notice how this economic disaster just keeps dragging on? It could be because Greece is a transit rout for oil and gas pipelines coming from the Caspian Sea, and Middle East (namely Iran).  These so called bail out negotiations are more likely efforts to get Greece to join Leviathan.

The problem for Greece is that it would need a very long expensive pipeline to connect to the known gas/oil reserves of Leviathan, meaning it’s still cheaper to get their petroleum from the Middle East!  It’s also still cheaper to continue getting their petroleum from the Middle East, than to buy it from those countries (Israel, Cyprus, etc) that are planning to mine Leviathan for everything it’s got.

This is the real reason Greece is being run into the ground.

By the way, want to know what the USGS found when they explored the Eastern Mediterranean?  Potentially, 345-trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 3.4-billion barrels of oil!!!

This sheds new light on the real reasons for the 2011 overthrow of the Egyptian and Libyan governments in North Africa!  The people of those countries were justified, but look what it’s got them; increasing instability in Libya, and a pro-U.S.-Israel military government in Egypt.

And what about the almost daily Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip, for the past two years, that the Western-NATO news-media is not reporting!?  The latest attack, on February 26, saw Israeli planes bomb a cement factory.  The week prior saw Israeli forces cut off electrical power to Gaza.  On and on.  Yet barely any mention in Western mainstream news-media.

What countries surround the Eastern Mediterranean?  Cyprus, Gaza, Greece, Egypt, Israel, Libya, Lebanon, Turkey and Syria!!!

And what about this urgent need to go to war with Iran? It’s not about anything nuclear!  Lebanon & Syria (Eastern Mediterranean countries) and Iraq & Iran are a few years away from completing the largest natural gas pipeline in the Middle East.  It would rival anything that could be immediately extracted from Leviathan.

“A trilateral agreement between the three countries on the transit of gas has been reached….The first official contract is ready to be signed soon…We plan to transit gas from the South Pars field through Iraq, Syria and then Lebanon to the Mediterranean area and Europe.”-Javad Oji, National Iranian Gas Company

The pipeline from Iran could carry 110-million cubic meters of natural gas per day, for the next 80 years (Iran has the world’s second largest reserves of natural gas)!  If this was completed, then it would make developing the Leviathan (new drilling rigs, pipelines, etc) a waste of money.  And, the money made off the Iranian dominated pipeline would not be going to the West (ie no benefit to the U.S./U.K./Saudi Arabian U.S. PetroDollar monopoly)!

It would also destroy Israel’s hopes of finally joining the petroleum club.

The other factor, that has most of the European Union in favor of Leviathan (except Greece, by the way some NATO-German officials are now saying Greece needs to get out of the EU), is the fact that current eastern European pipeline projects are turning out to be more expensive than first thought.  So much so that some reports (including reports by British Petroleum [BP]) say it would be cheaper to dump those projects in favor of developing Leviathan.  But of course, that’s only if Leviathan didn’t have to compete with the huge pipeline coming from Iran.

In fact, as of February 26, Leviathan now has to compete with several gas lines coming from Iran. Iranian gas officials announced they are now building secondary pipelines to Iraq, Syria and on to Europe!

Because the Western media does not report what’s really going on regarding the recently discovered Eastern Mediterranean oil and gas fields, and only reports propagandist lies meant to rally people in support of unjust wars for the benefit of the oil industry,  it shows that the Western news media is a tool of deceit for the Red Horseman.

“Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other.”-Revelation 6:4

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

College student? Need Job? Japan needs You!

On February 25, 2012, a record number of Japanese companies held a conference to hire foreign college students.

145 companies held a conference in Tokyo, which attracted more than 3,000 students from China, South Korea and other Asian countries.

A rep for an auto parts maker said his company wants half of its new workers to be international students, especially since it is planning to increase operations outside of Japan.

Many hopeful college students were told that they should learn honorific Japanese expressions which are essential for conducting business in Japan.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Global Economic War: CELAC & BRICS tells IMF no more money until you reform, no help for Europe until IMF reforms

“The emerging markets will only help once two conditions are met…they reinforce the firewall, which means doing more than what they’re doing with the European fund of stability… and on top of that….they carry out the reform of the International Monetary Fund.”-Guido Mantega, Finance Minister of Brazil

CELAC (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños, or Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are telling the U.S. based IMF that if it wants any more money to help Europe, it needs to clean up its act!

One of the reforms CELAC & BRICS are demanding is that they have more say in how the IMF is managed.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

World War 3: France announces the European Union will steal the money from Syria’s Central Bank

“Starting from Monday, we will take new strong measures, notably a freezing of the assets of the Syrian Central Bank.”-Alan Juppe, Foreign Minister of France

Another “unbiased” announcement made as the Friends of Syria conference commenced: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is calling on all countries to steal Syrian assets and boycott oil from the country.