As readers may know by now, 49 of 50 states have agreed to join the so-called mortgage settlement, with Oklahoma the lone refusenik. Although the fine points are still being hammered out, various news outlets (New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal) have details, with Dave Dayen’s overview at Firedoglake the best thus far.
The Wall Street Journal is also reporting that the SEC is about to launch some securities litigation against major banks. Since the statue of limitations has already run out on securities filings more than five years old, this means they’ll clip the banks for some of the very last (and dreckiest) deals they shoved out the door before the subprime market gave up the ghost.
The various news services are touting this pact at the biggest multi-state settlement since the tobacco deal in 1998. While narrowly accurate, this deal is bush league by comparison even though the underlying abuses in both cases have had devastating consequences.
Washington has made tremendous preparations for a military assault on Iran. There is speculation that Washington has called off its two longest running wars–Iraq and Afghanistan–in order to deploy forces against Iran. Two of Washington’s fleets have been assigned to the Persian Gulf along with NATO warships. Missiles have been spread amongst Washington’s Oil Emirate and Middle Eastern puppet states. US troops have been deployed in Israel and Kuwait.
Washington has presented Israel a gift from the hard-pressed american taxpayers of an expensive missile defense system, money spent for Israel when millions of unassisted americans have lost their homes. As no one expects Iran to attack Israel, except in retaliation for an Israeli attack on Iran, the purpose of the missile defense system is to protect Israel from an Iranian response to Israeli aggression against Iran.
Phi Beta Iota: The meat is below the line, itemizing corporate misbehavior and political bribes in relation to awarded contracts, most of which do not produce needed capabilities that live up to their Powerpoint engineering.
For progressives and populists around the country who take an interest in Congressional races there are always a few good challengers we might hope to send to Washington. Incumbents, we assume, can take care of themselves.
But in Northern Ohio, redistricting has thrown two incumbents into one district. It's a heavily Democratic district created purposely to guarantee a number of other districts to Republicans. The incumbents are both Democrats, both white, both 65, and many imagine that they do similar work in Washington. In fact, they could not be more different. One of them does tremendous good for our national politics, working to move our government in a better direction from inside it, just as the rest of us do from the outside. We cannot afford to lose him. We would be obliged to work for his reelection even if his opponent were far above average. The record suggests something else.
A useful example to highlight the contrast between Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur is found in the funding of wars. Between 2001 and 2009, Congresswoman Kaptur voted for $545 billion in war funding, voting Yes over and over again for Bush's wars. Congressman Dennis Kucinich voted for a total of $17 billion. (See the chart below.)
According to the following article, this is the fifth time that the Minnesota Vikings have tried to shove a new $1 billion stadium down the throats of Minnesota taxpayers.
A fifth plan for a $1 billion stadium in downtown Minneapolis emerged Monday, with taxpayers shouldering a large chunk to aid a privately owned NFL team that hasn't had a winning season in two years and has never won a Super Bowl. The state would be responsible for at least $340 million and Minneapolis for more than $300 million, according to estimates in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The Vikings haven't pledged a dime. They promised $425 million for an earlier proposal in the suburb of Arden Hills. That was several plans ago.
Phi Beta Iota: The “1% is not located only at Wall Street” or on Capitol Hill. To appreciate the degree to which small town elites and corrupt government officials across the land are part of the “mini-me” 1%, read Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War.
However, a case can be made that in recent years, the greatest threat to this enduring component of global stability arises from within the United States itself — namely, a national security establishment intent on pressing the boundaries of this heretofore rather sacrosanct responsibility.
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But when you consider the developments of the past three years under President Barack Obama, several of which admittedly represent continuity from the Bush-Cheney period, it is clear that the current administration is guilty of resuscitating and even accelerating this disturbing trend along several lines.
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If any other great power killed its enemies around the world at will, it would be called a “state-sponsor of terrorism” of the most destabilizing sort.
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In a world relatively freer of conflict than at any other point in human history, and while otherwise reducing military spending, the Pentagon is busy gearing up its AirSea Battle Concept, with China as its obvious target. Meanwhile, our new national cyber-security strategy equates Chinese military-industrial snooping with an act of war and advocates the right to strike back kinetically at equivalent Chinese facilities — in effect, pre-approving China for immediate state-of-war conditions. The parallel with America claiming the right to summarily execute anyone, anywhere in the world, after unilaterally deciding it is at war with them is striking.
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What puzzles me most is why no one else is asking these questions, because it’s happening right under all of our noses.
Phi Beta Iota: Mr. Barnett has been a fully-entrenched apologist for the very people he condemns now. While we welcome him to the real world, and empathize with his discovery that all his “mentors” are completely lacking in ethics, the fact is that quite a few of us have been asking these questions since 1994, the most diplomatic being full-time employees of the U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) such as Dr. Col Max Manwaring, and Dr. Steve Metz, with such iconoclasts and loyal dissenters as Robert Steele publishing frequently in the 1990's, less so after 2000 when it became clear Washington was no longer interested in truthful intelligence. Lies kill. We've been saying that for some time now, and welcome those who are, while late, badly needed reinforcements as we seek to restore America the Beautiful, beginning with the restoration of the integrity of the government. No question about it…INTEGRITY is now back in style by public demand.
Circulating today in the New York Times and Armed Forces Journal is a remarkable exposure of what is occurring today in Afghanistan–a situation not accurately reported to the American public, and of course Congress. Col. Danny Davis (USA) is the officer making this exposure possible. It will not surprise some, but it will also come as news to many, perhaps because they have consciously or unconsciously chosen to accept a more comforting view of the un-remedial situation in Afghanistan after 10 years of American conflict there. To Col. Davis we all owe a debt of thanks and support.
The exposure also involves subjects every bit as important as the insights about the war in Afghanistan. As you read Col. Davis' article in Armed Forces Journal, take note of what he says about the technology the Army has been pursuing for more than a decade. Note also that, as Col. Davis' insights make clear, it is the moral factors that decide wars, not the technological ones: a lesson that was all too vivid after the Vietnam War where America had a gigantic technological edge and lost because of the moral and ethical issues in both Vietnam and the United States. It is remarkable how Afghanistan is unfolding the same way, especially regarding the hollow, corrupt husk of a government in Afghanistan and the misleading picture of the war created out of whole cloth in the US from the assertions of those whose political and bureaucratic careers are committed to it.
With Col. Davis' permission, I am distributing his letter to others (below): it provides an excellent introduction to what he is doing, why, and the content. His letter also links to today's New York Times article and the Armed Forces Journal article, which I especially urge you to read.
My Dearest Friends,I haven't talked to many of you in awhile, but so the rest of this makes sense, i was deployed to Afghanistan for a year between November 2010 and October 2011. i saw many things during that deployment – the fourth combat deployment of my career – that i found disturbing. eventually i felt morally obligated to do something about what i saw to such an extent that i was incapable of notacting. here's what i've done and things that are being done as a result:Scott Shane from the New York Times will publish a story on the actions i've taken, and the Armed Forces Journal will simultaneously publish an article i've written explaining why i submitted a Department of Defense Inspector General complaint against select senior leaders of the Armed Forces for so being so deceptive to the US Congress and American people that the truth is no longer recognizable – and the biggest bill-payer for this deception has been the lives and bodies of America's service men and women. additionally i have briefed three members of the House (Jones, Garamendi, and McGovern), four Senators (Merkley, Bennet, Tom Udall, and Manchen) as well as 18 other Senate staffers representing numerous other offices. this briefing included a classified and unclassified portion (and the DoD IG complaint also included a classified and unclassified component), and was also submitted in the form of a request for Congress to investigate my allegations.
Supposedly, the three House members are planning on going to the House floor on Tuesday with up to 10 other Members to speak on the matter and demand an investigation and hearings (or whatever they do on the floor!); the Senators suggested they are considering similar action.
Part of my AFJ article includes a link to a web site i set up for the purpose of hanging the unclassified report for everyone to see (the AFJ article is only 2,400 words, while the unclass report is 86 pages; the classified report is 58 pages). however, there is a battle within the Army Public Affairs on releasing the document, which i submitted for review on 20 January – the same day i disclosed to the Army's senior leaders and my chain of command what was coming. officers from the Army Media Relations department tried to pry it loose on Friday because they believe it is the right thing to do, but someone – they didn't tell me who – overruled them and said it would take longer still…
in case you'd like to read the Armed Forces Journal article i wrote to see what exactly i witnessed, the article has just been posted on their web site.
The New York Times will publish the story on my actions in their Monday paper edition, but an online version has also just been published at:
once i became aware of the truth on the ground, i could no longer rationalize inaction on my part. essentially, i would have had to keep my mouth shut and thus not risk running afoul of the Army's senior leaders – but turned a blind eye to the thousands of combat troops who continue risking their lives each and every day they go outside the wire while i lived comfortably in the safety and security of America. once i looked at it in those terms, i was compelled to act…
anyway, thought you'd like a little heads up!
–danny
Phi Beta Iota: Military / National Security Reform cannot be achieved without first restoring the integrity of the government (Electoral Reform, Intelligence Reform, Governance Reform). It's been lonely out here, not drinking the kool-aid. “Integrity” remains the most searched term on this website. We stood our ground and God Bless America, the calvary is coming over the hill. Colonel Danny Davis, USA is the first to truly break ranks and honor his oath to defend and support the Constitution of the United States of America instead of a corrupt, abysmally ignorant chain of command that will stop at nothing to keep their nests feathered (and their post-retirement sweetheart deals secure), never mind the cost in national blood, treasure, and tears. ARUGAH!
On Friday, the entire financial world celebrated when it was announced that the unemployment rate in the United States had fallen to 8.3 percent. That is the lowest it has been since February 2009, and it came as an unexpected surprise for financial markets that are hungry for some good news. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nonfarm payrolls jumped by 243,000 during the month of January. You can read the full employment report right here. Based on this news, pundits all over the world were declaring that the U.S. economy is back. Stocks continued to rise on Friday and the Dow is hovering near a 4 year high. So does this mean that our economic problems are over? Of course not. A closer look at the numbers reveals just how fraudulent these employment statistics really are.
Between December 2011 and January 2012, the number of Americans “not in the labor force” increased by a whopping1.2 million. That was the largest increase ever in that category for a single month. That is how the federal government is getting the unemployment rate to go down. The government is simply pretending that huge numbers of unemployed Americans don't want to be part of the labor force anymore. As you will see below, the employment situation in America is not improving. Yet everyone in the mainstream media is dancing around as if the economic crisishas been cancelled. I can't take it anymore! It is beyond ridiculous that so many intelligent people continue to buy in to such fraudulent numbers.
The truth is that the labor force participation rate declined dramatically in January. For those unfamiliar with this statistic, the labor force participation rate is the percentage of working age Americans that are either employed or that are unemployed and considered to be looking for a job.
As you can see from the chart posted below, the labor force participation rate rose steadily between 1970 and 2000. That happened because large numbers of women were entering the labor force for the first time.
The labor force participation rate peaked at a little more then 67 percent in the late 90s. Between 2000 and the start of the recent recession, it declined slightly to about 66 percent.
Since then, it has been dropping like a rock. The chart below does not even include the latest data. In January, the labor force participation rate was only 63.7 percent. That is the lowest that is has been since May 1983. So keep that in mind as you view the chart.
Click on Image to Enlarge
In reality, the percentage of men and women in the United States that would like to have jobs is almost certainly about the same as it was back in 2007 or 2008. There has been no major social change that would cause large numbers of men or women to want to give up their careers. So there is something very, very fishy with this chart….
The federal government has been pretending that millions of unemployed Americans have decided that they simply do not want jobs anymore.
This does not make sense at all.
The truth is that unemployment is not really declining at all. The percentage of Americans that are working is not increasing. The civilian employment-population ratio dropped like a rock during 2008 and 2009 and it has held very steady since that time.
In January, the civilian employment-population ratio once again held steady at 58.5 percent. This is about where it has been for most of the last two years….
Does that chart look like an “economic recovery” to you?
Of course not.
If the percentage of people that are employed is about the same as it was two years ago, does that represent an improvement?
Of course not.
If the employment situation in America was getting better, the civilian employment-population ratio would be bouncing back.
We should be thankful that our economy is not free falling like it was during 2008 and 2009, but we also need to understand why things have stabilized.
The federal government is spending money like there is no tomorrow. During 2011, the Obama administration stole an average of about 150 million dollars an hour from our children and our grandchildren and pumped it into the economy. Even though the Obama administration spent that money on a lot of frivolous things, it still got into the pockets of average Americans who in turn went out and spent it on food, gas, clothes and other things.
Without all of this reckless government spending, we would not be able to continue to live way above our means and our economic problems would be a lot worse.
But even with the federal government borrowing and spending unprecedented amount of money, and even with interest rates at record lows, our economy is still deeply struggling. Just consider the following facts….
-New home sales in the United States hit a brand new all-time record low during 2011.
-According to the Census Bureau, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that gets direct monetary benefits from the federal government. Back in 1983, less than a third of all Americans lived in a home that received direct monetary benefits from the federal government.
So let's not get too excited about the economy.
Yes, things have somewhat stabilized. The percentage of Americans that have jobs is about the same as it was two years ago. Considering how rapidly jobs are being shipped out of the United States, that is a good thing.
Enjoy this false bubble of hope while you can. Things are about to get a lot worse.
Do you remember how rapidly things fell apart after the financial crisis of 2008?
Well, another major financial crisis is on the way. This time it is going to be centered in Europe initially, but it is going to spread all around the globe just like the last one did.
As the charts above show, we have never even come close to recovering from the last recession, and another one is on the way.
So how bad are things going to get after the next wave of the financial crisis hits us?
That is something that we should all be thinking about.
