The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Kieran Corcoran
MailOnline (UK), 21 April 2014
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Maple Leaf Gardens pedophile Gordon Stuckless pleads guilty to 100 more counts
A democracy cannot long survive when its citizens perceive the government to be against their best interests
Government = Protection Racket for the 1 Percent
BILL MOYERS and MICHAEL WINSHIP – Bill Moyers.com
EXTRACT
PewOur now infamous one percent own more than 35 percent of the nation’s wealth. Meanwhile, the bottom 40 percent of the country is in debt. Just this past Tuesday, the 15th of April – Tax Day – the AFL-CIO reported that last year the chief executive officers of 350 top American corporations were paid 331 times more money than the average US worker. Those executives made an average of $11.7 million dollars compared to the average worker who earned $35,239 dollars.
As that analysis circulated on Tax Day, the economic analyst Robert Reich reminded us that in addition to getting the largest percent of total national income in nearly a century, many in the one percent are paying a lower federal tax rate than a lot of people in the middle class. You may remember that an obliging Congress, of both parties, allows high rollers of finance the privilege of ‘carried interest,” a tax rate below that of their secretaries and clerks.
And at state and local levels, while the poorest fifth of Americans pay an average tax rate of over 11 percent, the richest one percent of the country pay – are you ready for this? – half that rate. Now, neither Nature nor Nature’s God drew up our tax codes; that’s the work of legislators – politicians – and it’s one way they have, as Chief Justice John Roberts might put it, of expressing gratitude to their donors: ‘Oh, Mr. Adelson, we so appreciate your generosity that we cut your estate taxes so you can give $8 billion as a tax-free payment to your heirs, even though down the road the public will have to put up $2.8 billion to compensate for the loss in tax revenue.”
Attached herewith is an important report in the Guardian. It places the deregulation of Wall Street during the Clinton Administration into a particularly smarmy perspective by examining documents just released by the Clinton library. Note the connections to players now in the Obama Administration.
This report paints a revealing albeit depressingly familiar portrait of how the iron triangle of individuals and money moving between government executive positions, and private sector, together with friendly legislators in Congress encourages corruption that leads ultimately to taxpayer bailouts. Consider please the following:
1. Note how the memos make it look like President Clinton was being rushed, implying a certain degree of passivity and manipulation by advisors. But before taking this at face value, bear in mind, Clinton was never a passive actor; quite the opposite, he was a highly energetic president. He set the tone, and he picked these advisors; he stayed with them; and he passed many of them on to President Obama.
2. Note that the repeal of Glass Steagall — Clinton’s signature deregulation of the financial markets and perhaps the major contributor to the rise of speculation that culminated in 2008 crash — was not a last minute affair. In fact, the memos show effort to repeal reaches bat to at least in February 1995 and May 1997 and the reference to eating the paper after you read it suggests a degree of malevolent cynicism.
3. Note the tight connection between the repeal Glass-Steagall and the pending Citigroup merger with Travelers Group, and particularly, the central the role played by Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin in the promotion of the of that repeal. Rubin was Secretary of the Treasury from 11 January 1995 to 2 July 1999 — the period covered by the memos contained in the Guardian report.
4. Finally, the reader should note that four months after leaving the Treasury Department, in Oct 1999, Rubin joined Citigroup. Here is a contemporary portrait painted by a 27 October 1999 report in the New York Times,
“Mr. Rubin, 61, a former top official of Goldman, Sachs & Company, said yesterday that he had joined Sanford I. Weill and John S. Reed, the chairmen and chief executives Citigroup, in what Mr. Reed described as a ”three-person office of the chairman” that will oversee what has become the first true American financial conglomerate since the Depression.
The appointment came less than a week after the Clinton Administration and Congress agreed on a compromise bill that would overhaul the laws that regulate the financial industry, a measure that removes many of the restrictions preventing banks, securities firms and insurance companies from buying one another or engaging in one another's businesses. Both Mr. Rubin and Citigroup strongly supported the bill, which would greatly benefit the company. Mr. Rubin said he played a role in arranging the final compromise that will probably lead to the repeal of the so-called Glass-Steagall legislation. But he said that had nothing to do with his decision to join the company.”
By 2007 Rubin was Chairman of Citigroup. And in 2008, nine years after the repeal of Glass Steagall, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression hit Wall Street to trigger the worst and longest recession since the Great Depression. That crisis, among other things, collapsed the stock markets, destroyed retirement nest eggs, wrecked the housing markets, and put millions of people out of work — and our nation has still not recovered. Then the “best government money can buy” added insult to injury by bailing out of the banks that created the mess, while ducking the issue of re-regulating their behaviour with anything close to proven power of defunct Glass-Steagall Act. Some observers are now warning the government’s failure to reign in speculative behaviour is setting the stage for yet another crash (e.g., here and here)
And what about Rubin’s role? According to information in Wikipedia, on 3 December 2008, shortly after the financial collapse, the Wall Street Journal characterized Rubin’s mix of oversight and management responsibilities at Citigroup “murky.” In an interview with the Journal, Rubin defended himself, saying: “I think I've been a very constructive part of the Citigroup environment.”But, the Journal reported that Citigroup shareholders suffered losses of more than 70 percent since Rubin joined the firm and that he encouraged changes that led the firm to the brink of collapse.[23] Investors filed a lawsuit in December contending that Citigroup executives, including Rubin, sold shares at inflated prices while concealing the firm’s risks. A Citigroup spokesman said the lawsuit was without merit.[24].
But what happened to Rubin personally? According to a 20 September 2012 report in Bloomberg, Rubin received a total compensation of $126,000,000 from Citigroup between 1999 and 2009. Among other things, the former eagle scout is now co-chairman of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations.
Chuck Spinney
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Wall Street deregulation pushed by Clinton advisers, documents reveal
Previously restricted papers reveal attempts to rush president to support act, later blamed for deepening banking crisis
Huh?
Uniforms with dogs without a clue. Protesters without a clue as well.
34,286 Views Militant call to arms including plans to use force.
22,267 Views White woman, “people are getting fed up” — group going into DC on May 16th.
15,460 Views Alex Jones' version of what is going on.
Continue reading “Mini-Me: Nevada Stand-Off YouTubes from 773,010 Views On Down”
Note this comment after a recent article on this in Alex Jones:
“When the pigs start killin…..the state of Nevada will ignite…..no cop anywhere will be safe, black, white, whatever….we all know who the MAN is, and we will unite and we will strike back, everywhere……”
What is most striking to me in the videos of the defenders of Cliven Bundy is their intense, near-savage anger. And not just any typical anti-government anger, but an anger erupting volcano-like from an enormous well of frustration at the government combined with an acute sense of personal sufferings from whatever cause. The specific frustrations, angers and fears they have appear to be metastasizing into a kind of seething mass forming into a toxic projectile in search of a target that is or merely looks like government and business authority. For the the fascist nexus of government and business, this is just another routine land-grab and power play done at the expense of one typical group of victims, white poor and proles. Nothing special about it, all done in a day's work. And it could have been done against any other disenfranchised group, whether black, brown, yellow, whatever color. Doesn't matter. The money they rip off from a diversity of social, religious, ethnic groups is still green. But the gov-bus fascists and crony capitalists may have underestimated their would-be victims this time, as the signs are emerging in their sheer numbers they are not “taking it” any more. Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins is very representative of the mega-arrogance and mega-ignorance of the crony-fascist cabals that put such people into positions of authority in order to represent their interests. This arrogance and ignorance always blinds them to essential facets of their own self-interest. As an example of the blindness and lack of imagination of these pathologically self-interested fascists, we notice that when Collins says the defenders of Bundy “better have funeral plans”, it never occurs to him and his fascist backers the blistering rancor they have ignited among the militias members – who have guns and know how to use them – may require Collins and his henchmen to begin plans for their own funeral.
County Commissioner Says Bundy Supporters “Better Have Funeral Plans”
Bunkerville, Nevada: the 21rst Century Lexington, MA?
The Feds may have bit off more than they can chew if the number of militia members – 5,000, outnumbering by a wide margin the number of federal law enforcers – in article and video is correct. This might be the place where the Second American Revolution against the 1% starts, unless Obama's BLM storm troopers back off:
“An area just outside of the little town of Bunkerville, Nevada, with a population of around a thousand people, may go down in history. This little spot in the desert may be compared with Lexington, Massachusetts, the site of the “shot heard round the world” – the first shot fired in the American Revolution. Because it looks like the second American Revolution may start there…and soon.
