Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth – Page 32

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends

I asked my good friend Marshall Auerback, an investment advisor and lawyer by training and a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, to evaluate Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s claim that TARP has been a stunning success. Geithner made this claim in a 10 October op-ed in the Washington Post, entitled, “Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tackles five myths about TARP,” which is contained below as Attachment 2 beneath Auerback’s critique [Attachment 1]. To those of you who would sanitize these loose ends as a lingering “moral hazard,” I would urge you to think again.

Chuck Spinney
Carloforte, Sardinia
——–[Attachment 1]——–

The Auerback Critque:Four Realities Debunk Geithner’s Five Myths

Marshall Auerback

We have left frauds in charge of failed banks and covered up their losses.
Continue reading “Journal: Five Myths Debunked–Treasury Run by Crooks”

2010/09/272010/09/27

“The Century of the Self”: Must-See Documentary on Psychology, Advertising, Consumerism and Control

03 Economy, 04 Education, 07 Health, Academia, Civil Society, Commerce, Corporations, Corruption, Ethics, Government, Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, True Cost, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

FULL VIDEO HERE

Century of the Self (ADAM CURTIS)

DOCUMENTARY DESCRIPTION
Episode 1: Happiness Machine
Episode 2: The Engineering of Consent
Episode 3: There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed
Episode 4: Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

CENTURY OF THE SELF asks the deep questions about the roots and methods of consumerism and representative democracy and the implications of the two. The foundation of this documentary is the idea that public relations and politicians have used the theories of Sigmund Freud to engineer a society of consent.

This series is about how those in power have used Freud s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy. Adam Curtis

For more information about this series, visit its Wikipedia page.

Keywords from imdb.com: Propaganda, Public Relations, Consumerism, Capitalism, Media, Advertising

Related:
Documentary – “The Corporation” (full movie in 23 parts at YouTube)

2010/09/13

Inside the iPhone Maker, the Man Who Makes Your iPhone & the Human Costs

01 Poverty, 07 Other Atrocities, Civil Society, Commerce, Corporations, Media, Mobile, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Technologies, True Cost

The Man Who Makes Your iPhone

September 9, 2010
By Frederik Balfour and Tim Culpan

Foxconn founder Terry Gou might be regarded as Henry Ford reincarnated if only a dozen of his workers hadn't killed themselves this year. An exclusive look inside a postmodern industrial empire. On a crushingly hot mid-August day at Foxconn's Longhua factory campus in Shenzhen—where a dutiful army of 300,000 employees eats, sleeps, and churns out iPhones, Sony PlayStations, and Dell computers—workers indulged in a rare moment of celebration. First, there was a parade, an Alice in Wonderland spectacle of floats, blaring vuvuzelas, and workers dressed up as Victorian ladies, geishas, cheerleaders, and Spider-Men. This was followed by a two-hour rally inside a vast sports stadium featuring acrobats, musical performances, fireworks, and life-affirming testimonials punctuated by chants of “treasure your life” and “care for each other to build a wonderful future.”

Inside the iPhone Maker

By Frederik Balfour

Foxconn Gives Bloomberg Businessweek Unprecedented Access

Foxconn, the secretive Taiwanese company that produces Apple's iPhone and iPad, the Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii, and Dell computers, was forced into the limelight in May 2010 after a dozen employees committed suicide, most by jumping from company dormitories. As part of a much needed public relations effort, Foxconn granted Bloomberg Businessweek unprecedented access to the company's factory floors, worker dorms, suicide helpline operators, and the company's charismatic chairman and founder, 59-year-old Terry Gou. Here are some images of its sprawling facility in Longhua, a suburb of Shenzhen, China, where more than 300,000 migrant laborers work.

2010/08/192010/08/19

Banking with “Enemies”

Commerce, Corruption, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth

According to court documents, from as early as the mid-1990s until September 2006, Barclays knowingly and willfully moved or permitted to be moved hundreds of millions of dollars through the U.S. financial system on behalf of banks from Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma, and persons listed as parties or jurisdictions sanctioned by OFAC in violation of U.S. economic sanctions.

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Barclays Bank PLC Agrees to Forfeit $298 Million in Connection with Violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act

WASHINGTON – Barclays Bank PLC, a United Kingdom corporation headquartered in London, has agreed to forfeit $298 million to the United States and to the New York County District Attorney’s Office in connection with violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA), announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., of the New York County District Attorney’s Office. The violations relate to transactions Barclays illegally conducted on behalf of customers from Cuba, Iran, Sudan and other countries sanctioned in programs administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

2010/08/102010/08/11

Video: MAD AS HELL (by the late Aaron Russo) about a Republic of Corporations, Banking, and the Dying Breed of Individual Freedom

Civil Society, Corporations, Corruption, Government, Media, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

This is the first video part of eleven parts on YouTube. This video (1990's) by the late Aaron Russo earned him a visit from Nicholas Rockefeller around the time Russo was running for governor of Nevada as stated in this video interview before he died in 2007. Part two reveals Russo's commentary on “totalitarianism” disguised as anti-terrorism long before 9/11 with the passage of the Clinton anti-terrorism bill in the 90's.

Continue reading “Video: MAD AS HELL (by the late Aaron Russo) about a Republic of Corporations, Banking, and the Dying Breed of Individual Freedom”

2010/08/092010/08/10

Smartphone Money (AT&T,Verizon) & Global Currency (IMF) Weak Signals

Corporations, Mobile, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Technologies

AT&T, Verizon to Target Visa, MasterCard With Smartphones

By Peter Eichenbaum and Margaret Collins – Mon Aug 02, 2010

AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile carriers, are planning a venture to displace credit and debit cards with smartphones, posing a new threat to Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., three people with direct knowledge of the plan said.The partnership, which also includes Deutsche Telekom AG unit T-Mobile USA, may work with Discover Financial Services and Barclays Plc to test a system at stores in Atlanta and three other U.S. cities that would let a consumer pay with the contactless wave of a smartphone, the people said. The carriers have been searching for a chief executive officer.The trial would be the carriers’ biggest effort to spur mobile payments in the U.S. and supplant more than 1 billion plastic cards in American wallets. Smartphones have encroached on tasks ranging from Web browsing to street navigation and now may help the phone companies compete with San Francisco-based Visa and MasterCard, the world’s biggest payments networks.“This is definitely a game-changer,” said industry consultant Richard Crone of San Carlos, California-based Crone Consulting LLC. The firm advises card networks, issuers and phone companies. The mobile carriers “are the biggest recurring billers in every market. They are experts at processing payments,” Crone said. Full article

Comment: We have been told that in Shanghai, it is common to see many instances of people–including children–using their cellphones to pay for goods and services, including mass-transit fares. Supposedly GlobalAgora was the first to penetrate the Chinese mobile market (2001) with the help of Nicholas Rockefeller.
Here it mentions a main technology was wireless internet WAP phones for mobile payments. On a wild side note, this video reveals interesting information from the now deceased Aaron Russo (film-maker of Trading Places, The Rose, Wiseguys, also managed Bette Midler) who was a former friend of Nick Rockefeller after Russo ran for governor of Nevada.

IMF blueprint for a global currency – yes really

Posted by Izabella Kaminska on Aug 04, 2010

FT Alphaville missed this IMF paper when it first came out in April, 2010.

Continue reading “Smartphone Money (AT&T,Verizon) & Global Currency (IMF) Weak Signals”

2010/07/23

Crises of Capitalism Audio + Animation

01 Brazil, 02 China, 03 Economy, 03 India, 08 Wild Cards, Audio, Civil Society, Commerce, Government, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

This is an audio presentation by David Harvey accompanied by an animation that shows an interesting series of recent historical and geographical connections in the global financial system. The speaker admits to not having any solutions, but only providing the overview of what has happened.

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