May 21, 2013

Iceland Was Right, We Were Wrong: The IMF

Originally posted by Jeff Neilson for thestreet.com on August 15, 2012

VANCOUVER (Silver Gold Bull) — For approximately three years, our governments, the banking cabal, and the Corporate Media have assured us that they knew the appropriate approach for fixing the economies that they had previously crippled with their own mismanagement. We were told that the key was to stomp on the Little People with “austerity” in order to continue making full interest payments to the Bond Parasites — at any/all costs.

Following three years of this continuous, uninterrupted failure, Greece has already defaulted on 75% of its debts, and its economy is totally destroyed. The UK, Spain and Italy are all plummeting downward in suicide-spirals, where the more austerity these sadistic governments inflict upon their own people the worse their debt/deficit problems get. Ireland and Portugal are nearly in the same position.

Now in what may be the greatest economic “mea culpa” in history, we have the media admitting that this government/banking/propaganda-machine troika has been wrong all along. They have been forced to acknowledge that Iceland’s approach to economic triage was the correct approach right from the beginning.

What was Iceland’s approach? To do the exact opposite of everything the bankers running our own economies told us to do. The bankers (naturally) told us that we needed to bail out the criminal Big Banks, at taxpayer expense (they were Too Big To Fail). Iceland gave the banksters nothing.

The bankers told us that no amount of suffering (for the Little People) was too great in order to make sure that the Bond Parasites got paid at 100 cents on the dollar. Iceland told the Bond Parasites they would get what was left over, after the people had been taken care of (by their own government).

The bankers told us that our governments could no longer afford the same education, health care and pension systems which our parents had taken for granted. Iceland told the bankers that what the country could no longer afford was to continue to be blood-sucked by the worst financial criminals in the history of our species. Now, after three-plus years of this absolute dichotomy in economic policymaking, a clear picture has emerged (despite the best efforts of the propaganda machine to hide the truth).

In typical fashion, the moment that the Corporate Media is forced to admit that it has been serially misinforming us for the past several years; the Revisionists are immediately deployed to rewrite history, as shown in this Bloomberg Businessweek excerpt:

…the island’s approach to its rescue led to a “surprisingly” strong recovery, the International Monetary Fund’s mission chief to the country said.

In fact, from the moment the Crash of ’08 was orchestrated and our morally bankrupt governments began executing the plans of the bankers, I have written that the only rational strategy was to put People before Parasites. While I wouldn’t expect national policymakers to take their cues from my writing, when I wrote out my economic prescriptions for our economies I didn’t base my views on compassion, or simply “doing the right thing.”

Rather, I have consistently argued that it was a matter of simple arithmetic and the most-elementary principles of economics that “the Iceland approach” was the only strategy which could possibly succeed. When Plutarch wrote 2,000 years ago “an imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all Republics,” he was not parroting socialist dogma (1,500 years before the birth of Socialism).

Plutarch was simply expressing the First Principle of economics; something on which all of the modern capitalist economists who followed in his footsteps have based their own theories. When modern economists produce their own jargon, such as the Marginal Propensity to Consume; it is squarely based on the wisdom of Plutarch: that an economy will always be healthier with its wealth in the hands of the poor and the Middle Class instead of being hoarded by rich misers (and gamblers).

So when the Bloomberg Revisionists attempt to convince us that Iceland’s strong (and real) economic recovery was a “surprise”; this could only be true if none of our governments, none of the bankers and none of the media’s precious “experts” understood the most-elementary principles of arithmetic and economics. Is this the message the media wants to convey?

What is even more disingenuous here is the congratulatory tone in this exercise in Revisionism, since nothing could be further from the truth. As I detailed in a four-part series one year ago, the campaign of “economic rape” perpetrated against the governments of Europe over the past two and half years (in particular) has been expressly designed to take away “the Iceland option” for Europe’s other governments.

IMF headquarters in Washington, DC

One of the reasons for Iceland being able to escape the choke-hold of the Western banking cabal is that its economy (and its people) still retained enough residual prosperity to tough it out — as the banking cabal tried to strangle Iceland’s economy as retribution for rejecting their Debt Slavery.

Thus, austerity has been nothing less than a deliberate campaign to destroy these European economies so that the Slaves would be too economically weak to be able to sever their own choke-holds. Mission accomplished!

One can only assume that neither the Corporate Media nor their Banker Masters would have allowed this clear acknowledgment that Iceland was right and we were wrong to appear within its own pages, unless it felt secure in the knowledge that all the remaining Debt Slaves had been crippled beyond their capacity to ever escape this economic oppression.

Indeed, for evidence of this we need only look to Greece: the one other European nation where there had been “rumblings” (i.e. riots) aimed at toppling the Traitor Government that served the banking cabal. After two elections, the combination of fear and propaganda bullied the long-suffering Greek people into choosing another Traitor Government — which had expressly pledged itself to reinforcing the bonds of economic slavery. When the Slaves vote for slavery, the Slave Masters can afford to gloat.

Here, the purpose of this Bloomberg propaganda was not to praise Iceland’s government (when both the bankers and Corporate Media despise Iceland with all of their considerable malice). Rather, the goal of this disinformation was to manufacture a new Big Lie.

Instead of the Truth: that from Day 1 Iceland’s approach was the only possible strategy which could have succeeded, while our own governments chose a strategy intended to fail; we get the Big Lie. Our Traitor Governments were acting honestly and honourably; and Iceland’s success and our failure was yet another “surprise which no one could have predicted.”

We saw precisely the same Revisionism following the Crash of ’08 itself, where the mainstream media trotted out all their expert-shills to tell us they had been “surprised” by this economic event; while those within the precious metals sector had been predicting precisely such a cataclysm, in ever more-assertive terms, for several years.

The real message here for readers is that when an economic strategy of People before Parasites succeeds that there is nothing the least-bit “surprising” about this. As with all the remainder of the world around us, promoting the health of Parasites is only good for the Parasites themselves.

Source:  http://www.thestreet.com/story/11665082/1/iceland-was-right-we-were-wrong-the-imf.html

Facebook court ruling: What you share on Facebook is admissible as evidence

Originally posted by tecca.com on August 15, 2012

Author: Fox Van Allen

Did you know that what you say on Facebook can be used against you in a court of law? If you’re sharing something with your friends, you may as well be sharing directly with the judge and jury: A recent ruling in a U.S. federal court says that if you post something on Facebook, your friend can share that information with the police — it’s not a violation of your privacy.

Accused gang member Melvin Colon had argued in court that investigators violated his constitutional right to privacy when they viewed his Facebook profile via one of his friends’ accounts. But US District Judge William Pauley III ruled that Colon’s messaged threats and posts about violent acts he committed were not private, and indeed fair game for prosecutors. To some extent, the ruling makes logical sense: When you say something publicly on Facebook, you’re often sharing a thought with hundreds, maybe even thousands of people. There’s not much that’s private about that.

Courts have settled a number of questions pertaining to Facebook and our legal system this year. Courts have ruled that it is improper to deliver a court summons via Facebook, even when it’s the best method of reaching someone. A court has also ruled that a Like on Facebook isn’t constitutionally protected free speech — something Facebook is vigorously appealing.

Source: http://www.tecca.com/news/2012/08/16/facebook-privacy-court-ruling/

First Amendment: Invalid – Anaheim Protesters Rights Violated

Editor’s note: In this article I am just going to bring up one example of how our first amendment rights are being violated. The one example is this: How every protest is being oppressed by authoritarian police state measures.

Right now in our once free and open America every plank of our first amendment is being violated by our corrupt government who is very obviously controlled by the banking mafia on Wall Street and the ruling class families.

You may be asking yourself how is it that our first amendment rights are being violated by a government we vote into office consecutively in hopes that they represent us? Well, the answer is quite simple. It comes down to the fact, as I said before, that our government is controlled by  the Wall Street banking mafia and ruling class families which don’t have any interest in the  us, the American people. However, one obvious interest they have in us is to oppress us with authoritarian police state/martial law measures.

A perfect example of this is the protests in Anaheim against the police shootings. Here is an excerpt from www.scpr.org describing the events:

Hundreds rallied Sunday to denounce two fatal police shootings and to issue a call for community peace, obstructing traffic in Anaheim.

Some 200 vocal protesters rallied in front of police headquarters while a separate group of about 100 people marched along a two-mile stretch of a main thoroughfare, The Orange County Register reported.

We are now seeing photos surface of the police militarized and dressed in military uniforms. They are as follows:

You see, this is just one example of the oppression our first amendment rights are/have been facing. I mean seriously do these people look like a threat to society and the police? I think not. They are just Americans pissed off about police brutality and who are now advocating community peace.

My question to you is: What will it take? What will it take for people to realize that when you have police militarized and dressed like military (or it could be the military playing the role as police officers) with weapons and armor/armored vehicles for a peaceful protest that you are NOT in a free society and open society any more. You are in fact are under authoritarian control!

So, please my fellow Americans. WAKE UP!

Related posts:

  1. Modern Warfare Three: Propaganda Exposed
  2. Supreme Court Forces U.S. To Take A Giant Step Toward A Totalitarian Socialist Government
  3. DHS emergency power extended, including control of private telecom systems
  4. Woman Convicted Of Battery For Pat Down Of TSA Worker
  5. It’s Official: Presidency Now a Dictatorship
  6. Rockefeller Foundation Predicts 13,000 Dead at London 2012 Olympics
  7. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Obamacare
  8. Martial Law Called For By U.S. Army Chief of Staff and CFR Member

Source: http://weare1776.org/1139/us-news/1139/

Republican presidential candidates slam SOPA, Protect IP

In response to question from CNN's John King, Republican presidential candidates find little to love in SOPA or Protect IP.

All four Republican presidential candidates today denounced a pair of controversial Hollywood-backed copyright bills, lending a sharp partisan edge to yesterday’s protest against the legislation by Wikipedia, Google, and thousands of other Web sites.

The bills are “far too intrusive, far too expensive, far too threatening (to) the freedom of speech and movement of information across the Internet,” former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said during tonight’s CNN debate in South Carolina.

Romney’s rivals offered similar criticisms of the Senate measure, Protect IP–scheduled for a floor vote next week–and the House bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich said that while he’s “weighing” the bills, having “the government start censoring the Internet on behalf of giant corporations” is exactly the wrong thing to do. Former senator Rick Santorum said that while there is a “role” for the government in protecting intellectual property, SOPA and Protect IP go “too far.”

Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning Texas Republican, publicly opposed SOPA long before nearly any other member of Congress, as CNET reported in November. Paul said tonight that “the Republicans unfortunately have been on the wrong side of this issue”–SOPA’s author is Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, Hollywood’s favorite Republican–and he’s glad to see that changing.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, calls Protect IP an “extremely important” piece of legislation, and is planning a floor vote for next Tuesday despite objections from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. The Kentucky Republican warned today that there are “serious issues” with the bill.

Wikipedia’s English-language pages went completely black on Wednesday with a splash page saying “the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet” and suggesting that readers contact members of Congress. (See CNET’s FAQ on the topic.)


Here’s an excerpt from the transcript of the debate, conducted by CNN’s John King:

KING: Let’s continue the economic conversation with some input from a question from Twitter. If you look up here you can see it, CNNDebate.

“What is your take on SOPA and how do you believe it affects Americans?”

For those who have not been following it, SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, a crackdown on Internet piracy, which is clearly a problem. But opponents say it’s censorship. Full disclosure, our parent company, Time Warner, says we need a law like this because some of its products, movies, programming, and the like, are being ripped off online.

Let me start with you, Mr. Speaker. There’s two competing ends, two engines, even, of our economy here at on this.

How do you deal with it?

GINGRICH: Well, you’re asking a conservative about the economic interests of Hollywood.

(APPLAUSE)

GINGRICH: And I’m weighing it. I’m weighing it. I’m not rushing in. I’m trying to think through all of the many fond left- wing people who are so eager to protect.

On the other hand, you have virtually everybody who is technologically advanced, including Google and YouTube and Facebook and all the folks who say this is going to totally mess up the Internet. And the bill in its current form is written really badly and leads to a range of censorship that is totally unacceptable.

Well, I favor freedom. And I think that if you — I think we have a patent office, we have copyright law. If a company finds that it has genuinely been infringed upon, it has the right to sue. But the idea that we’re going to preemptively have the government start censoring the Internet on behalf of giant corporations, economic interests, strikes me as exactly the wrong thing to do.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: Mr. Speaker, Governor Romney, these companies complain — some of them are based in Hollywood, not all of them are — that their software, that their publishing, that their movies, that their shows are being ripped off.

ROMNEY: I think he got it just about right. The truth of the matter is that the law, as written, is far too intrusive, far too expensive, far too threatening, the freedom of speech and movement of information across the Internet. It would have a potentially depressing impact on one of the fastest growing industries in America, which is the Internet, and all those industries connected to it.

At the same time, we care very deeply about intellectual content that’s going across the Internet. And if we can find a way to very narrowly, through our current laws, go after those people who are pirating, particularly those from off shore, we’ll do that.

But a very broad law which gives the government the power to start stepping into the Internet and saying who can pass what to whom, I think that’s a mistake. And so I’d say no, I’m standing for freedom.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: I mean, it’s a big issue in the country right now.

Congressman Paul and Senator Santorum, your views on this one quickly.

PAUL: I was the first Republican to sign on with a host of Democrats to oppose this law. And we have worked –

(APPLAUSE) PAUL: We have had a concerted effort, and I feel like we’re making achievement. This bill is not going to pass. But watch out for the next one.

And I am pleased that the attitude has sort of mellowed up here, because the Republicans unfortunately have been on the wrong side of this issue. And this is a good example on why it’s good to have somebody that can look at civil liberties and work with coalitions and bring people together. Freedom and the Constitution bring factions together. I think this is a good example.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: Those who support the law, Senator, argue tens of thousands of jobs are at stake.

SANTORUM: I don’t support this law. And I agree with everybody up here that is goes too far. But I will not agree with everybody up here that there isn’t something that can and should be done to protect the intellectual property rights of people.

The Internet is not a free zone where anybody can do anything they want to do and trample the rights of other people, and particularly when we’re talking about — in this case, we’re talking about entities offshore that are doing so, that are pirating things. So, the idea that the government — that you have businesses in this country, and that the government has no role to try to protect the intellectual property of people who have those rights in this country from people overseas pirating them and then selling them back into this country, it’s great.

I mean, I’m for free, but I’m not for people abusing the law. And that’s what’s happening right now, and I think something proper should be done. I agree this goes too far.

But the idea that, you know, anything goes on the Internet, where did that come from? Where in America does it say that anything goes? We have laws, and we respect the law. And the rule of law is an important thing, and property rights should be respected.

KING: All right.

Gentlemen, I want to thank you.

Source:

Photo credit: CNN

Senators Demand the Military Lock Up American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window

While nearly all Americans head to family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself. 

Senators need to hear from you, on whether you think your front yard is part of a “battlefield” and if any president can send the military anywhere in the world to imprison civilians without charge or trial.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.

The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.

I know it sounds incredible. New powers to use the military worldwide, even within the United States? Hasn’t anyone told the Senate that Osama bin Laden is dead, that the president is pulling all of the combat troops out of Iraq and trying to figure out how to get combat troops out of Afghanistan too? And American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now?

The answer on why now is nothing more than election season politics. The White House, the Secretary of Defense, and the Attorney General have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act are harmful and counterproductive. The White House has even threatened a veto. But Senate politics has propelled this bad legislation to the Senate floor.

But there is a way to stop this dangerous legislation. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is offering the Udall Amendment that will delete the harmful provisions and replace them with a requirement for an orderly Congressional review of detention power. The Udall Amendment will make sure that the bill matches up with American values.

In support of this harmful bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield” and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial “American citizen or not.” Another supporter, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because “America is part of the battlefield.”

The solution is the Udall Amendment; a way for the Senate to say no to indefinite detention without charge or trial anywhere in the world where any president decides to use the military. Instead of simply going along with a bill that was drafted in secret and is being jammed through the Senate, the Udall Amendment deletes the provisions and sets up an orderly review of detention power. It tries to take the politics out and put American values back in.

In response to proponents of the indefinite detention legislation who contend that the bill “applies to American citizens and designates the world as the battlefield,” and that the “heart of the issue is whether or not the United States is part of the battlefield,” Sen. Udall disagrees, and says that we can win this fight without worldwide war and worldwide indefinite detention.

The senators pushing the indefinite detention proposal have made their goals very clear that they want an okay for a worldwide military battlefield, that even extends to your hometown. That is an extreme position that will forever change our country.

Now is the time to stop this bad idea. Please urge your senators to vote YES on the Udall Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.

Source: http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/senators-demand-military-lock-american-citizens-battlefield-they-define-being

Supreme Court To Decide Whether Lawsuits Require Harm

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a dispute pitting big business against consumer groups, the Supreme Court hears arguments Monday on whether a person has to suffer legal harm to sue a company over an alleged kickback it got.

Cleveland home buyer Denise Edwards sued her title insurance company under a 1974 federal real estate settlement law that bars kickbacks and certain referral fee arrangements. 

At issue is whether Edwards has the legal right to sue, even though she does not claim the alleged kickback affected the price, quality or any other aspects of her real estate settlement service.

Edwards paid First American Financial Corp $455 for title insurance as part of a home purchase in 2006 while the seller paid an additional $273.

She alleges that First American had an arrangement with her Ohio settlement agency to refer title insurance business exclusively to First American — the alleged kickback.

Her attorneys argued that Congress in adopting the 1974 law created a sufficient basis for her to sue and that courts have long recognized an individual’s interest to receive services free of kickbacks or other conflicts of interest.

Edwards has the support of 11 states, the National Consumers League and the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen.

Backing the title company are organizations representing home builders, title insurance companies, mortgage bankers, Realtor and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

BROAD OR NARROW?

Kevin Walsh, a University of Richmond assistant law professor, said the arguments could provide clues on whether the justices are likely to rule broadly or narrowly.

“A broad ruling could either vindicate or constrict statutory damages provisions in laws designed to protect information privacy, to regulate debt collection and to set standards for credit reporting,” he said, citing some other laws that could be affected.

A narrow ruling based on the history of legal regulation of conflicts of interest would not necessarily affect other laws, he said.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case after conflicting rulings by U.S. appeals courts on the issue.

Celeste Hammond, director of the Center for Real Estate Law at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, said in a written preview of the case for the American Bar Association that both sides viewed the dispute as significant for two reasons.

The first is whether an individual home buyer has the legal right or standing to sue for three times the charges paid for settlement services without alleging specific injury, she said.

Second, if Edwards can sue, then the case goes back to lower courts in California to determine if it can proceed as a class action, she said. The Supreme Court is not considering the class-action issue.

The Supreme Court case is First American Financial Corp v. Edwards, No. 10-708.

(Reporting by James Vicini, Editing by Howard Goller)

Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/26/supreme-court-to-decide-whether-lawsuits-require-harm