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Occupy London Sets Out Agenda On How It Wants To Change The Economic World

November 28, 2011 By 1 Comment

Campaigners’ policy statement calls for an end to tax havens and tax avoidance

The Occupy London movement has agreed its first specific set of proposals about corporations, just over six weeks since it first set up camp outside St Paul’s cathedral to campaign against the perceived excesses and injustices of the global financial system.

While the protest has gathered considerable publicity and expanded to three sites – as well as St Paul’s, there are offshoot camps in Finsbury Square, further east, and inside a vacant office complex nearby owned by the Swiss bank USB – it has faced criticism about a lack of concrete demands. Agreeing these has proved a complicated process, as all decision are reached by consensus at mass meetings.

The first policy statement on corporations calls for an end to tax havens and tax avoidance, more transparency over business lobbying, and legal reforms to make individual executives more liable for the consequences of their decisions.

“Globally, corporations deprive the public purse of hundreds of billions of pounds each year, leaving insufficient funds to provide people with fair living standards. We must abolish tax havens and complex tax avoidance schemes, and ensure corporations pay tax that accurately reflects their real profits,” the statement said.

On lobbying, it calls for laws to ensure “full and public transparency of all corporate lobbying activities”. Finally, the statement argues that executives must be “personally liable for their role in the misdeeds of their corporations and duly charged for all criminal behaviour”.

Soon after the first camp was set up on the western edge of St Paul’s, after police prevented activists basing themselves near the headquarters of the London Stock Exchange, the group issued general proposals, calling the current economic system “unsustainable” and opposing public spending cuts. The only other such statement called for more transparency and democracy within the Corporation of London, the governing authority within the City district, which owns some of the land adjoining St Paul’s and which is taking legal action to evict the campers.

“From the moment the Occupy London Stock Exchange occupation started, in the full glare of the media and in the court of public opinion, we have continually been asked, ‘What do you want?’ “What are your demands?’” said Jamie Kelsey, a member of the corporations policy group.

“We are calling time on a system where corporates and their employees pursue profit at all costs. Just as corporates have played their role in the iniquities of the current system, they are also part of the solution and we invite them to join this important conversation.”

Source:

https://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/28/occupy-london-policy-vision-corporations

Filed Under: Banks, Corporations, Corruption, Economy, Income Inequality, Occupy, United Kingdom

The Jobs Crisis: What Did Roosevelt Do That Obama Should?

November 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The nation is experiencing the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression. Princeton economist and former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, Alan Blinder, calls the current crisis a “national jobs emergency.”

The official unemployment rate in September was 9.1 percent - nearly twice the rate a decade ago - leaving 14 million people out of work.

It’s not just the financial meltdown of 2008 and the Great Recession. The American economy has been underperforming for years. Business Week calls 1999-2009 “The Lost Decade for Jobs” as private-sector employment grew by a paltry net 1.1 percent - the lowest increase for any ten-year period since the 1930s.

The original version of President Obama’s increasingly embattled jobs plan aimed to provide a much-needed extension of unemployment benefits and a payroll tax cut for working Americans, but outlined only scarce measures to dent the catastrophic rate of unemployment. What we need today is a massive jobs program like the Works Progress Administration (WPA) launched by President Franklin Roosevelt. The WPA put millions of people back to work in the midst of the Great Depression, restoring their dignity, putting money in their pockets and quite literally saving lives.

Also see: Put 15 Million Back to Work Fixing $2.2 Trillion in Infrastructure: Resurrect the Works Progress Administration

The crisis is much worse than most of us think. According to the US Department of Labor, the underemployment rate is 16.5 percent, if you count part-time workers who want full-time jobs and discouraged workers who have simply stopped looking. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reports that the number of long-term unemployed, meaning those unemployed for more than six months, hovers at a postwar record level of 45 percent. All these figures are much higher for black and Latino workers.

No one is insulated. Workers at every educational level have seen their unemployment rates double since 2007 - high school graduates, college graduates and even those with graduate degrees. The severity of the crisis has overturned conventional wisdom that higher education is a cure for joblessness. The unemployed do not need more education - they need work.

What Did Roosevelt Do That Obama Is Not Doing?

In the winter of 1933, with unemployment reaching 25 percent, Roosevelt established the Civil Works Administration, an emergency jobs program that put 4.2 million unemployed to work within six months. He also started the Civilian Conservation Corps to employ a half-million young men with minimal skills in useful work in the nation’s parks, forests and rangelands. Meanwhile, Roosevelt launched the Public Works Administration, which funded long-term infrastructure projects such as highways, bridges, dams and public buildings.

The WPA followed in 1935, employing 8.5 million more between 1935 and 1943. It put those men and women to work on projects requested by state and local governments, such as roads, schools, sewers and airports, and operated local arts, educational and media programs.

Once the New Deal was launched in 1933, the US economy began to grow again by leaps and bounds - at a rate of nearly 10 percent per year. By 1937, production had doubled and the unemployment rate had dropped by half. By 1941, before the war began, the economy was back where it would have been had the Depression never happened. With the wartime build-up, mass unemployment became a distant memory.

To tackle our current unemployment crisis, the federal government should spend $500 billion a year over the next three years on emergency jobs programs like those of the New Deal. The first step would be to give every state and local government the funds to restore their budgets. The loss of 680,000 teaching, police, transit, and other public-sector jobs over the last three years has contributed measurably to the downturn.

The second step would be direct programs to create new full-time jobs for the unemployed - at the median wage of $16.27 an hour - in areas where the need is obvious: in schools (e.g., teachers, school maintenance and enrichment programs); human services (e.g., child care, home care and health care); and energy conservation (e.g., retrofitting homes and public buildings).

To this should be added a third step: financing large-scale public works programs to build schools, bridges, a “smart” electrical grid, zero-emission buses, high-speed rail, wind farms and affordable housing. The pathetic state of our national infrastructure has been decried for years by the American Society of Civil Engineers, which gives the country a D grade, and the United States ranks 32nd in the world in infrastructure, according to McKinsey Global Institute.

A substantial increase of government spending for public works will create expanded opportunity for youth, women and minority workers to enter state-certified apprenticeship programs in the construction trades and to earn a middle-class income.

How to Pay for Such a Jobs Program?

First, the federal government can run temporary deficits. While the federal deficit is relatively high at 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010, it is still dramatically lower than the peak of 30 percent of GDP during World War II. Contrary to popular thinking, government spending in a recession can lower the deficit by taking people off the unemployment roles and putting money in the hands of ordinary people to bolster consumer demand, which stimulates business and returns more tax revenues.

But since we are worried about the current federal deficit and the budget woes of state and local governments, we must heed investor Warren Buffett’s call to “stop coddling the rich” by raising taxes on millionaires and closing corporate loopholes.

The upper 1 percent’s share of national income increased from 9 percent in 1976 to 24 percent in 2007, according to a report by UC Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez. Nearly half of total income went to the upper 10 percent in 2007, compared to 33 percent 30 years earlier. The top income tax rate on the highest earners was 70 percent between 1940 and 1980 - when the economy was performing much better than it is today - and now it is just 35 percent.

Moreover, corporate profits increased at an annual rate of $1.6 trillion in 2010 - a record for the postwar period. The Tax Policy Center reports that federal revenue from corporate taxes has dropped by half over the last 60 years, while corporations like Verizon, Bank of America and General Electric pay essentially no taxes due to loopholes in the tax code.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a 5.6 percent surcharge on incomes exceeding $1 million, as proposed by the Obama administration, will raise $40 billion a year. Ending the Bush-era tax cuts for the upper 2 percent, set to expire in 2012, will generate more than $80 billion a year, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Economists Robert Pollin and Dean Baker estimate that a 0.5 percent transaction tax on the transfer of stocks and securities will yield $175 billion annually from the largest financial institutions and speculators. The Center for Tax Justice calculates that federal tax revenue will increase by $365 billion a year if corporate tax loopholes and subsidies are eliminated.

Republicans oppose taxing the rich, just as they did in the 1930s. It will take popular mobilization by labor, faith, civil rights, women’s and youth organizations to overcome such resistance - just as it did then. Occupy Wall Street may be the beginning of a movement for a new New Deal. Collective action worked in the 1930s and it could work again now.

Source: https://www.truth-out.org/jobs-crisis-and-new-new-deal-america/1321046261

Filed Under: Employment, Income Inequality, Occupy, Poverty, USA

The Police State vs. Occupy Wall Street: This is not going to end well for any of us

November 19, 2011 By 1 Comment
Right now, we are watching the early rounds of a heavyweight fight between two extremely determined opponents. Occupy Wall Street has no plans of losing this fight and neither do law enforcement authorities.

Perhaps those running the show actually believed that raiding Zuccotti Park and more than a dozen other “Occupy camps” around the nation would end these protests, but that is just not going to happen.

Whatever your opinion of Occupy Wall Street is, everyone should be able to agree that this is one dedicated bunch. They are absolutely obsessed with their cause and in response to the recent raid on Zuccotti Park organizers are calling for “a national day of direct action” on Thursday. But if Occupy Wall Street protesters want to take things to “the next level”, they should not underestimate the resolve of the police state. Over the past decade, the homeland security apparatus of the federal government has been slowly but surely turning this country into a “Big Brother” police state.

Today, our law enforcement authorities are obsessed with watching us, listening to us, tracking us, recording us, and gathering information on all of us. We are constantly reminded that we live in a prison grid (just think about what they do to you before you are allowed on an airplane) and they are not about to put up with anyone challenging their authority or their control. Have you even known parents that constantly feel the need to prove that they are “the boss” of their children? Well, that is essentially what the homeland security apparatus in this country has become.

All over the United States, law enforcement personnel are taught that every American is a potential terrorist and they are actually trained to “act tough”, to bark orders at us and to not let anyone question their authority. If Occupy Wall Street believes that it can get the police state to “back down”, they are sorely mistaken. Hopefully everyone will cool off a bit as the temperatures go down this winter. But if we do see a “cooling off”, it probably will not last for long. As the U.S. economy continues to get worse, these kinds of protests are going to keep growing and they will become even more intense. Eventually, mass civil unrest will cause the streets of many of our major cities to closely resemble war zones.

When it is all said and done, this is not going to end well for any of us.

The stunning police raid of Zuccotti Park at 1 AM on Tuesday morning made headlines around the world. Protesters were hauled off, tents were cut down and garbage trucks hauled off the personal possessions of those that had been encamped there. It was swift and it was brutal.

But it was just another in a long line of raids that we have seen over the past couple of weeks. Occupy camps in Portland, Oakland, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta and several other cities have also been raided.

There is an increasing body of evidence that these raids have been coordinated. For example, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan recently made the following statement during a recent interview about the Occupy movement….

I was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation

Does anyone want to guess who was running that conference call?

Heidi Bogosian, the executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, is convinced that the recent raids were coordinated at the federal level….

“We definitely feel, especially in a movement like this that has arisen so quickly in a number of cities, that there will be a coordinated national effort to try and shut it down”

Someone probably thought that cracking a few skulls and cutting up a few tents would probably make the hippies go away.

Yes, that might have worked in 1991.

But this is 2011. Whether you agree with Occupy Wall Street or not, one thing that should be clear to all of us is that these boys and girls are deadly serious.

In response to the recent raids, organizers have declared “a national day of direct action” on Thursday.

One of the “major actions” being planned is a “shut down” of Wall Street.

Of course that will not happen because thousands of law enforcement personnel will be dispatched to protect Wall Street if necessary.

But what does seem clear is that Occupy Wall Street seems determined to take things to the next level.

In this video, a wild-eyed protester can be seen making the following statement….

“On the 17th, we gonna burn this city to the ************* ground.”

Later on in the video, the same protester makes an even more inflammatory statement….

“No more talking. They’ve got guns, we’ve got bottles. They’ve got bricks, we’ve got rocks…in a few days you’re going to see what a Molotov cocktail can do to Macy’s.”

That is a very frightening statement.

As I noted the other day, one recent survey found that 31 percent of all Occupy Wall Street protesters “would support violence to advance their agenda”.

Let us hope that cooler heads prevail and that we don’t see outbreaks of violence.

If we do see violence in the coming days, it will just give law enforcement authorities an excuse to crack down even harder.

Up to this point, local law enforcement authorities have been advised to seek “legal reasons” for evicting Occupy protesters.

Since just about everything is illegal in America today, that has not been too difficult. So far “zoning laws”, “curfew rules” and regulations that target homeless people have been used as justifications to evict Occupy protesters.

In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has said that protesters can gather in Zuccotti Park, but that “the rules” do not allow them to have tents, sleeping bags or any sort of heavy equipment.

So will the protesters go along with this, or will this turn into a prolonged struggle over Zuccotti Park?

It is hard to say, but one thing is for sure - police all over the nation have already shown that they are prepared to use brutal force against these protesters in order to get their way.

We have seen tear gas used, we have seen pepper spray cannons used, we have seen rubber bullets used and we have seen flash-bang stun grenades used.

And they are just warming up. When it comes to protecting “national security”, there is a vast array of technologies and weapons that law enforcement authorities have at their disposal.

Many Americans are cheering the crackdown on these protesters, but we all should remember that real people are getting seriously injured. For example, just check out this photo of 84-year-old Dorli Rainey after pepper spray was blasted directly into her face.

Rainey and several other Occupy Seattle protesters are still in the hospital.

We all need to realize that these confrontations are not just a bunch of “fun and games”.

A lot of people have been sent to the hospital already, and this is just the beginning.

One of the key things that the American people will need to understand is that they don’t have to pick sides.

When law enforcement authorities commit atrocities, we should denounce them.

When Occupy Wall Street protesters commit acts of violence or vandalism, we should denounce them.

It would be nice if all Occupy Wall Street protests would be 100% non-violent.

It would be nice if the police would be reasonable and would carry out their duties with gentleness and respect.

But sadly, those things are probably not going to happen.

The civil unrest we are seeing now is only the beginning.

Things are going to get a lot worse.

If things keep getting escalated to “the next level”, eventually we will see martial law imposed in some of our largest cities.

Don’t think that it can’t happen.

The United States is increasingly becoming a very unstable place.

As America comes apart at the seams, this is not going to end well for any of us.

 

Source: https://beforeitsnews.com/story/1387/785/The_Police_State_Vs._Occupy_Wall_Street:_This_Is_Not_Going_To_End_Well_For_Any_Of_Us.html?currentSplittedPage=0

Filed Under: Banks, Capitalism, Censorship, Consumerism, Corporations, Corruption, Economy, Education, Federal Reserve, Income Inequality, Justice, Law, Martial Law, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Rights, Surveillance, Symbolism, Taxes, USA

Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia

November 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Recently, the dictator Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (who for the traditional media remains as a democratic and righteous king) granted in an absolutely benevolent form the right to vote being passed for the women of his country.

The treatment of Abdullah goes together with the sympathy shown by the media to the dictator - or “president” - of Yemen, Ali Saleh, who has not fallen out of favor with the U.S., the parameter for media likes or dislikes. Treatment differs from that given to Bashar al Assad and Qaddafi, who quickly turned to bloody dictators for the media.

Palms and celebrations of the press, praise from allies and, of course, effusive congratulations from the U.S., who insist on bringing democracy to their enemies, but never to friends.

Is there indeed a difference in the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia? Did it change or will anything change in … 2015, when will the elections come? As a matter of fact, which elections?

The country is a dictatorship where the “King,” is in charge, simple as that. Municipal elections take place soon, but of course this is not real benevolence that will now cost while the people must “be used” by the news. Read: it is necessary to cool enthusiasm and mask the inefficiency or inability to implement the decision broadly.

In addition to performing in local elections (half of whose members are elected and half appointed, but in the end have almost no power), women may also be part of the Shura, something like the national parliament. But this does not even come close to the popular vote, which is fully nominated by the “king.” That is, women can enter only if the king wants! They have to be a friend of the king, or the king’s woman …

It will be interesting in a country run by laws dictated by the mullahs that do not even allow women to drive. Women are dictated to by ruling mullahs, in a form hardly apparent, without effective powers.

It seems counter-intuitive. One sees how cosmetic the permission is from benevolent King Abdullah. Women can compete, but compete for what?

The issue goes even further. The king is not stupid, he doesn’t remain in power for decades without a modicum of intelligence (oil, wealth and being good friends with Yankees helps, of course). The idea is to give women a false power. Give them something that ultimately makes no difference outside of on paper.

Why, women can now vote. But they still need permission from their husbands to leave the house to go out and vote. They need permission from their husbands to apply!

If women cannot even leave the house unaccompanied, how and why the heck will they compete for any political office or even vote? Only with permission of their husbands (or parents, fathers, brothers, a “responsible” man). Something for the majority that is the same as nothing. Will they remain cloistered and void?

In Saudi Arabia - the most undemocratic and dictatorial country in the world, but a good friend of America - women have the same relevance as a cocoa bush, they exist only to give pleasure, to be consumed while they have some gas and cannot leave their place alone

Yes, the comparison is bad, but I think I understand. But well, as one expects how can women apply for and be elected if they cannot leave the house? If you cannot drive a car, or are not entitled to anything as human beings?

Imagine if, by some miracle, the king selects a woman for the Shura. She will legislate over her husband, over other men, but to even to go to parliament she needs the permission of these same men. To simply go out of the house! If the woman does not live in Riyadh, the capital, she needs permission to travel!

Abdullah gave women a right they can hardly enjoy, but still managed to deceive half the world (at least the half that takes pleasure in being deceived).

Celebrating this “victory” is the same as celebrating the “victory” of the mighty Libyan “rebels,” and that hypocrisy. A “victory” in which the side will not be able to enjoy the prize, given that they need permission to do so and they lack even a political system capable of allowing the effort to be valid, any change that makes a difference.

 

Source: https://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/27-10-2011/119448-Womens_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia-0/

Filed Under: Banks, Campaigning, Censorship, Corruption, Human Rights, Imperialism, Income Inequality, Islam, Justice, Law, Martial Law, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Oil, Politicians, Politics, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Religion, Revolution, Rights, Royal Family, Sexism, Surveillance, USA, Weapons, Women

The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World

November 18, 2011 By 1 Comment
The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World was launched simultaneously on 11 November 2011 at several locations around the world.
Please sign and share widely. Thank you for your compassion and support.

The aim of this Charter is to create a worldwide movement to end violence in all its forms. The People’s Charter will give voice to the millions of ordinary people around the world who want an end to war, oppression, environmental destruction and violence of all kinds. We hope that this Charter will support and unite the courageous nonviolent struggles of ordinary people all over the world.

As you will see, The People’s Charter describes very thoroughly the major forms of violence in the world. It also presents a strategy to end this violence.

We can each play a part in stopping violence and in creating a peaceful and just world. Some of us will focus on reducing our consumption, some of us will parent our children in a way that fosters children’s safety and empowerment, some of us will use nonviolent resistance in the face of military violence. Everyone’s contribution is important and needed. We hope this Charter will be a springboard for us all to take steps to create a peaceful and just world, however small and humble these steps may be. By listening to the deep truth of ourselves, each other and the Earth, each one of us can find our own unique way to help create this nonviolent world.

Why did we choose 11 November as the date to launch The People’s Charter?

‘When I was a boy … all the people of all the nations which fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was at that minute in nineteen-hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields at that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.’
(Kurt Vonnegut Jr., an atheist humanist, in his novel Breakfast of Champions.

Organisation

So far, the organising groups in various locations have organised launch events in their localities around the world. Some groups are organising follow-up events so that other people have the chance to become involved in local, personal networks.

See ‘Future Events’ for information about the next public event nearest you.

Signing the Charter

The People’s Charter can be read and signed online: click on ‘Read Charter’ or ‘Sign Charter’ in the sidebar.

 

‘A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.’ Mohandas K. Gandhi

 

Source: https://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com/

Filed Under: Animal Rights, Banks, Campaigning, Censorship, Corporations, Corruption, Drugs, Economy, Education, Health, Human Rights, Imperialism, Income Inequality, Justice, Law, Martial Law, Media, Mental Health, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Nuclear, Occupy, Politics, Population, Poverty, Prison, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Radiation, Religion, Revolution, Rights, Science, Self-Sustainability, Spirituality, Suicide, Surveillance, Symbolism, Torture, War, Weapons

The large families that run the World

November 18, 2011 By 1 Comment
Some people have started realizing that there are large financial groups that dominate the world. Forget the political intrigues, conflicts, revolutions and wars. It is not pure chance. Everything has been planned for a long time.

Some call it “conspiracy theories” or New World Order. Anyway, the key to understanding the current political and economic events is a restricted core of families who have accumulated more wealth and power.

We are speaking of 6, 8 or maybe 12 families who truly dominate the world. Know that it is a mystery difficult to unravel.

We will not be far from the truth by citing Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers, Loebs Kuh and Lehmans in New York, the Rothschilds of Paris and London, the Warburgs of Hamburg, Paris and Lazards Israel Moses Seifs Rome.

Many people have heard of the Bilderberg Group, Illuminati or the Trilateral Commission. But what are the names of the families who run the world and have control of states and international organizations like the UN, NATO or the IMF?

To try to answer this question, we can start with the easiest: inventory, the world’s largest banks, and see who the shareholders are and who make the decisions.

The world’s largest companies are now: Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Let us now review who their shareholders are.

Bank of America:

State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock, FMR (Fidelity), Paulson, JP Morgan, T. Rowe, Capital World Investors, AXA, Bank of NY, Mellon.

JP Morgan:

State Street Corp., Vanguard Group, FMR, BlackRock, T. Rowe, AXA, Capital World Investor, Capital Research Global Investor, Northern Trust Corp. and Bank of Mellon.

Citigroup:
State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock, Paulson, FMR, Capital World Investor, JP Morgan, Northern Trust Corporation, Fairhome Capital Mgmt and Bank of NY Mellon.

Wells Fargo:
Berkshire Hathaway, FMR, State Street, Vanguard Group, Capital World Investors, BlackRock, Wellington Mgmt, AXA, T. Rowe and Davis Selected Advisers.

We can see that now there appears to be a nucleus present in all banks: State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock and FMR (Fidelity). To avoid repeating them, we will now call them the “big four”

Goldman Sachs:

“The big four,” Wellington, Capital World Investors, AXA, Massachusetts Financial Service and T. Rowe.

Morgan Stanley:


“The big four,” Mitsubishi UFJ, Franklin Resources, AXA, T. Rowe, Bank of NY Mellon e Jennison Associates. Rowe, Bank of NY Mellon and Jennison Associates.

We can just about always verify the names of major shareholders. To go further, we can now try to find out the shareholders of these companies and shareholders of major banks worldwide.

Bank of NY Mellon:

Davis Selected, Massachusetts Financial Services, Capital Research Global Investor, Dodge, Cox, Southeatern Asset Mgmt. and … “The big four.”

State Street Corporation (one of the “big four”):
Massachusetts Financial Services, Capital Research Global Investor, Barrow Hanley, GE, Putnam Investment and … The “big four” (shareholders themselves!).

BlackRock (another of the “big four”):
PNC, Barclays e CIC.
Who is behind the PNC? FMR (Fidelity), BlackRock, State Street, etc.
And behind Barclays? BlackRock

And we could go on for hours, passing by tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Monaco or the legal domicile of Shell companies in Liechtenstein. A network where companies are always the same, but never a name of a family.

In short: the eight largest U.S. financial companies (JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, U.S. Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon and Morgan Stanley) are 100% controlled by ten shareholders and we have four companies always present in all decisions: BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity.

In addition, the Federal Reserve is comprised of 12 banks, represented by a board of seven people, which comprises representatives of the “big four,” which in turn are present in all other entities.

In short, the Federal Reserve is controlled by four large private companies: BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity. These companies control U.S. monetary policy (and world) without any control or “democratic” choice. These companies launched and participated in the current worldwide economic crisis and managed to become even more enriched.

To finish, a look at some of the companies controlled by this “big four” group

Alcoa Inc.

Altria Group Inc.

American International Group Inc.

AT&T Inc.

Boeing Co.

Caterpillar Inc.

Coca-Cola Co.

DuPont & Co.

Exxon Mobil Corp.

General Electric Co.

General Motors Corporation

Hewlett-Packard Co.

Home Depot Inc.

Honeywell International Inc.

Intel Corp.

International Business Machines Corp

Johnson & Johnson

JP Morgan Chase & Co.

McDonald’s Corp.

Merck & Co. Inc.

Microsoft Corp.

3M Co.

Pfizer Inc.

Procter & Gamble Co.

United Technologies Corp.

Verizon Communications Inc.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.


Time Warner

Walt Disney

Viacom

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.,

CBS Corporation

NBC Universal

 

The same “big four” control the vast majority of European companies counted on the stock exchange.

In addition, all these people run the large financial institutions, such as the IMF, the European Central Bank or the World Bank, and were “trained” and remain “employees” of the “big four” that formed them.

The names of the families that control the “big four”, never appear.

 

Source: https://english.pravda.ru/business/finance/18-10-2011/119355-The_Large_Families_that_rule_the_world-0/

Filed Under: Banks, Big Pharma, Biotechnology, Campaigning, Capitalism, Codex Alimentarius, Consumerism, Corporations, Corruption, Employment, Imperialism, Income Inequality, Law, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Oil, Politicians, Politics, Population, Poverty, Prison, Propaganda, Rights, Science, Symbolism, USA, War, Weapons

Bloomberg: Occupy Wall St assaults on Police officers will not be tolerated

November 18, 2011 By 5 Comments
Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a press conference at Bellevue Hospital this afternoon, targeting any protesters guilty of assaulting police.

NEW YORK — New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly spoke outside Bellevue Hospital today, referring to the protesters that “deliberately pursued violence” at the Day of Action rally held by Occupy Wall Street protesters.

The location, at one of Manhattan’s downtown hospitals, was chosen because an injured police officer was admitted there due to a wound sustained during the protests. According to Kelly, the unidentified officer is 24 years old and has been on the job for about a year. He was injured when a glass object was thrown, and he blocked it with his hand.

He has been admitted to Bellevue for lacerations to the hand.”Make no mistake about it, if anyone’s actions cross the line…we will respond accordingly,” Bloomberg told reporters at the conference.Bloomberg said that while everyone has the right to protest and will be allowed to do so, if the protests continue to get rowdy, police officers have the right to respond as they see fit.

“Those that break the law, those that try to assault people, particularly our first responders, will be arrested,” said Bloomberg at the conference. “It will not be tolerated.”

Kelly said that there are now 177 reported arrests, mostly due to resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. However, of those 177, five were arrested for second degree assault. Seven police officers have been injured, five due to an unidentified liquid thrown in their faces and the sixth currently at Bellevue. The officers doused with liquid said it caused a “burning sensation to the face,” and it was immediately flushed out of their eyes at the scene.

Bloomberg also pointed out that the protesters were not as strong in numbers as had been expected. New York City public transportation will continue throughout the day, although some delays may occur on lines that run through downtown Manhattan. The mayor believed there are less than 1,000 people in total protesting, although it has been hard to officially determine since they are spread out in different areas.

Bloomberg and Kelly only allowed about five questions from the media before ending the conference. They did not reference the injured protester who left the scene with a bloody head, as reported by both The New York Times and New York Daily News.

“It is not an overwhelming number, the police were able to handle it and people were able to go about their business,” said Bloomberg. “The NYPD has trained for this kind of event, they will keep the city safe.”

 

Source: https://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/111117/bloomberg

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Occupy Wall Street: The hidden meaning behind protests

November 18, 2011 By 1 Comment
For nearly our entire history as a country, Americans have shared a social contract.

As police crack down on protests in New York City and elsewhere, what does OWS say about America?

It went something like this:

One of the cultural characteristics that makes America great is the fact that we celebrate winners in our society. We look at people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and we say to ourselves, “If I work hard enough, I can be like them.”

So we look in the mirror each morning and ask, “How am I doing? Am I working hard enough? Do I have the right education, skills and talent to succeed in this country?”

We don’t blame the rich for their successes, this cultural norm goes, because we know they worked hard and got what they deserved.

Instead, Horatio Alger-like, we turn these impulses inward in the name of self-improvement. We turn the success of others into models for our own behavior. We do not direct our personal frustrations and hostilities onto others.

This cultural reality in the US — this shared belief that hard work leads to economic success — has helped promote political stability and propel economic growth through the decades.

This idea has helped hard-working Americans grow richer, regardless of where they started and is perhaps the most important economic contribution the US has made to human society.

The critical assumption here, of course, is that the system needs to be fair. The rules of the game need to apply to all.

And that’s where the trouble starts.

The Occupy Wall Street movement represents a reversal of this largely unstated social contract in this country.

Right on cue, protesters nationwide are reacting to this change in this longstanding social contract. They are massing. They are demanding change. They are standing up to what has become — to the perceptions of far too many Americans — a rigged game.

A glance at the many protest signs from around the country makes the point:

“Robin Hood was right.”

“This country was built by men in denim and will be destroyed by men in suits”

“I am a human being, not a commodity”

“I can’t afford a lobbyist. I am the 99 percent”

In short, the social contract in America is broken. The optimistic glue that has successfully held together so much diversity, so many disparate dreams, for so long, is coming undone.

This is the unspoken message behind the Occupy Wall Street movement — in New York, Boston, Oakland, Portland and in all the other unhappy cities around the US. Its echoes can be heard around the world, from Tahrir Square, to London, to Tokyo, to every other place where economic inequality is today rearing its ugly head.

This is the larger point that so many people are trying to make, in so many different places.

Understanding this root cause is critical to addressing the problem, and finding a potential solution.

Unfortunately, the 99 percent and the 1 percent appear to be miles apart, and this is particularly true in the US right now.

Read the following statement attributed to Dennis Gartman, author of the popular financial industry newsletter the Gartman Letter, that was published Thursday on the FT Alphaville blog:

“We celebrate income disparity and we applaud the growing margins between the bottom 20% of American society and the upper 20% for it is evidence of what has made America a great country. It is the chance to have a huge income… to make something of one’s self; to begin a business and become a millionaire legally and on one’s own that separates the US from most other nations of the world. Do we feel bad for the growing gap between the rich and the poor in the US? Of course not; we celebrate it, for we were poor once and we are reasonably wealthy now. We did it on our own, by the sheet dint of will, tenacity, street smarts and the like. That is why immigrants come to the US: to join the disparate income earners at the upper levels of society and to leave poverty behind. Income inequality? Give us a break? God bless income disparity and those who have succeeded, and shame upon the OWS crowd who take us to task for our success and wallow in their own failure. Income disparity? Feh! What we despise is government that imposes rules that prohibit or make it difficult to make even more money; to employ even more people; to give even more sums to the charities of our choice. That is what we despise.”

Yes, Gartman is tapping into this rags to riches tradition in America. But his argument — which is a common refrain among those fighting for the staus quo — ignores what every child on every playground in the US intuitively knows: the rules of the game have to be fair.

Prior to this chaotic moment in our history, most Americans could turn their personal frustrations into productive energy. They could work harder. They could plot, plan and dream about riches. And, god bless America, millions succeeded in these endeavors.

But this social contract only worked if there was reasonable hope that these human energies would produce results. This only worked, in other words, if fairness was the norm.

This is also the larger point that Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman — the heavyweight champion of the world of free markets — made regularly.

In his seminal 1960 work Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman wrote the following:

“The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the “rules of the game” and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.

In 1970, Friedman was at it again, this time on the social responsibilities of business as it relates to profit:

“There is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

So long as it stays within the rules of the game, Friedman believed, business was the best mechanism for producing social harmony.

According to most OWS protesters, this is precisely the problem: the American system is no longer free or fair (bankers win). The rules of the game no longer apply equally to all (lobbyists hired by the most powerful write the laws). The government’s umpire role is non-existent (Washington is staffed with former Goldman Sachs CEOs who bail out banks instead of helping “regular people”).

Of course, Friedman was the first to argue — highly effectively — that less government is better. Smaller and more efficient government is better for the economy, better for people and better for society. Anyone who has waited hours in line for a driver’s license or any other government service can attest to that.

But goverment has a role to play, even if it’s a limited one, of allowing a sense of fairness back into the American story.

Vitriolic rampage against government only creates more division. Vilification of the less well-off is no answer to this country’s rising inequality problems. Triumphalism from society’s winners breeds abhorrence from the rest.

Taken together this toxic mix of anger, frustration, and rising contempt by all threatens everything that America — the most successful economic engine the world has ever produced — once represented for all.

 

Source: https://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business-tech/111117/occupy-wall-street-the-hidden-meaning-behind-protests

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Depression in Women doubles since 1970s

November 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Women have taken on more responsibilities and challenges over the years, such as handling a family and working simultaneously. Along with these responsibilities came feelings of depression and unhappiness, researchers say.

While women used to be the happy ones, the tables have turned, with women being the unhappy gender in today’s world. Women reported being much happier and less stressed decades ago compared to recent years. Since the 1970′s, depressive episodes have doubled, with further increasing up until the 1990′s. Since then, the amount of depression women face has stagnated, with it leveling off in recent years.

A Daily Mail Online reporter writes the following:

Researchers who have studied the extent of mental health problems across Europe say rates of depression in women have doubled since the 1970s.

They found that women are most at risk from the age of 16 to 42, when they tend to have children.

These age groups have between 10 and 13.4 per cent chance of developing depression – twice as high as men in the same age bracket.

Professor Hans-Ulrich Wittchen, who led the study, said: ‘In depression you see this 2.6 times higher rate amongst females.

‘There are clusters in the reproductive years between the ages of 16 to 42.

‘In females you see these incredibly high rates of depressive episodes at the time when they are having babies, where they raise children, where they have to cope with the double responsibilities of having a job and a family.

‘This is what is causing the tremendous burden.

‘It’s the effect on the females who can’t care any more for their family and are trying to be active in their profession, which is one of these major drivers of these higher rates.

‘We have seen compared to the 1970s a doubling of depressive episodes amongst females.

‘It happened in the 1980s and 1990s, there are no further increases now.

‘It’s now levelling off, it’s pretty much stabilised but it’s much much higher than the 1970s.’

The German researchers looked at the extent of mental health problems including dementia, eating disorders and even insomnia across the continent using previous studies and surveys.

Their work, which is published in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology, found that 38 per cent of people are suffering from some form of mental illness. The most common of these are depression, insomnia, phobias and dementia in old age.

Just last month American researchers found that ‘supermums’ – women who try to juggle careers and families – are far more likely to be depressed.

Their study of 1,600 young women was carried out at the University of Washington.

It concluded that the women who try to do it all are more likely to feel like failures.

But other experts said men are just as likely to suffer from depression.

The difference is that men tend not to admit it so they are often never diagnosed, researchers say.

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity SANE, said: ‘The reason we believe that depression is twice as common amongst women than men is that women are more prepared to talk about it.

‘Men can find it more difficult to describe their feelings of anxiety, depression or loneliness and may lack the language to express their inner feelings.’

 

Source: https://naturalsociety.com/depression-in-women-doubles-since-1970s/

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Four ways the poor get screwed that everyone takes for granted

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Even if we’re not in the 1%, lots of us still benefit every day from policies that burden the less financially fortunate.

I’m not in the 1%. At the lower end of what I think of as the upper middle class, I nevertheless take daily advantage of a raft of systems intended to ensure that people who have less money than I do pay more than I do. Since my economic advantages result from public policy, it’s fair to call them taxes, levied on people least able to afford them and applied upward for the benefit of people like me. Since the glory days of feudalism are long over, and we don’t like to revel in high position, matters are arranged to keep me and people like me from noticing the systemic nature of our economic advantage.

Here, therefore, are four quotidian things we deal with half-consciously every day that move money upward and keep it there:

1. ATM’s. Some readers have reason to think the lowest amount that can be withdrawn from an ATM is a twenty-dollar bill. Others have reason to know that in less privileged parts of town, ATM companies set the machines to dispense ten-dollar bills, with ads calling attention to the fact. The reason is fairly obvious: many people’s balances and obligations don’t permit them to withdraw $20 at one time, and ATM companies and storeowners don’t want to miss out on collecting fees in such a large — and these days, and in those neighborhoods, such a growing — population.

The up-front fee for withdrawing $10 is the same as the up-front fee for withdrawing other amounts. That gives me a distinct, recurring financial advantage over less well-off neighbors. This morning, for example, on my way to the subway, I withdrew $120 at a local ATM, paying $1.75 on the transaction — around 1.5%, a reasonable fee for the convenience. I usually take out as much cash as I can when using an ATM not at my bank. It saves money. And if I keep a certain balance in my account, I pay no transaction fee to my own bank for using the ATM.

An up-against-it neighbor, by contrast, made a ten-dollar withdrawal, paying the $1.75 fee too. Where my cost was less than 2%, his was 17.5%. If his bank account is less “preferred” than mine, he’s paying his bank a fee on the transaction too, a fee not announced at the ATM. The act of taking out cash costs him proportionally more than ten times what it costs me, and possibly far more. Because I can afford it, my money is cheap to get. Because he can’t, his is expensive.

Changing that situation would require a law changing how ATM fees work. That law’s nonexistence is an act of financial-regulation policy. I’m not in the 1%, but that famous — or infamous — banking-government connection is operating to my financial benefit.

2. Subway Cards. My pockets full of cheaply accessed folding money, I proceeded this morning to the subway station to buy a MetroCard, which is how we pay for public-transportation in New York City. When you put more than $10 on a MetroCard, you receive a 7% bonus. I put $80 on the card, the maximum. That way I get what I think of as two free rides, plus part of another one.

The fantasy that I’m getting nearly three free rides, on top of 35.5 rides that I think I purchased for $80, is predicated on the false premise, advertised by the Metropolitan Transit Association, that subway fare is $2.25 per ride. In reality, the fare is capped at $2.25 per ride for a round trip — but it isn’t set there. Nothing’s free: the fare per ride varies, of course, depending on how much you put on the card.

Fares go down for those who can afford more, up for those who can afford less. If you can afford only a round-trip card, your fare will indeed be $2.25 each way. If you put a large amount on the card — and, a key consideration, if you can tolerate the concomitant risk of losing that card — you can get your subway fare down to about $2.00 per ride.

In other words, after some hasty scribbling, I find that a 7% bonus for those with the most to spend equates with a 12.5% extra charge for those with the least. The rationale for this policy, I think, is that the bonus “incentivizes” me to use public transportation (though not being in the 1%, I have no helicopter), to keep living in the city, to support the tax base, etc. Various choices I’m described as enjoying make me eligible, as a matter of public policy, for programmatic benefits not granted those with fewer choices.

I know there are reduced-fare subway programs, which, along with other relief programs like food stamps, give people with fewer resources ways of getting easier terms on essential goods and services. You have to apply for such government programs, and at first glance that seems natural enough. Yet the program I’m in, every bit as much a government program as the relief one — the program that charges poorer people to benefit me — requires no application.

3. American Express. When I was buying that MetroCard this morning, I decided not to use the cash I was lucky enough to withdraw from my ATM at such a comparatively low discount. I used my American Express card instead.

Many of us who are not in the 1% have American Express cards. They cost money to own, since the financial advantages of owning them are tangible. My neighbor — the same one who withdrew money from the ATM at more than ten times my cost, and then spent 12.5% more per subway ride than I did — had to take the money to pay for his MetroCard out of his pocket, or out of his bank account via debit, right there at the point of purchase.

But no money came out of my pocket or account when I bought my MetroCard. That money won’t leave my virtual coffers until I get the AmEX bill and get around to paying it, and until my check then clears. So if my money is in a money market, for example, it’s actually making me yet more money while my AmEx bill waits to be paid. The “float” on my single MetroCard purchase may be negligible — but the more times and ways I postpone payment this way, the more money I keep, in the short term, to grow for the long term.

Plus I am “awarded” “points” by American Express for every dollar I’ve thus postponed spending. That makes it cheaper for me than for those who can’t afford the card to fly in a plane, to rent a car, etc. Membership has its privileges: nonmembers paying more.

And AmEx is a service I pay for, not a line of high-interest credit I access. Should that neighbor of mine, when buying his MetroCard, decide he needs to hold onto his expensive cash withdrawal, and not further lower his precarious balance via debit, and should he therefore use a credit card for his subway ride, he will pay up to another 20% more on the subway fare than I do.

4. Sales and Sin Taxes. As the MetroCard bonus is framed not as a tax on those who can’t afford it but as a benefit for those who can, sales taxes and sin taxes go the other way: they admit to being taxes, but they don’t admit to being overwhelmingly for the benefit of the better-off.

Sales tax is a “flat” tax, like the ATM fee, notoriously regressive. Government’s dunning the buyer of a $60 pair of jeans with a 5% sales tax, say, regardless of whether the buyer makes $20,000 or $2,000,0000 per year, places a disproportionately greater responsibility on the poorer buyer for contributing to the public revenue. In New York, therefore, the state doesn’t tax the purchase of essential items like clothing priced under $55. And the same percentage is charged for a $60 or a $600 pair of jeans — so the person who can afford a more expensive pair does therefore pay more. You have to be buying something like a yacht to see the rate itself go up, and not being in the 1%, I’m not buying one of those. Sales taxes thus benefit me in ways not immediately obvious when paying them.

The tobacco excise, too – a “sin” tax — should be seen as a regressive tax that masquerades as something else. The tobacco excise comes cloaked in concern for the health and welfare of smokers: the tax is rationalized as a disincentive, in this case, from doing something bad for health.

But in New York City, the price of a pack of cigarettes can exceed $15.00, and New York State collected $10 billion in tobacco taxes over the last six years. It’s no secret that at this point long-term smokers come in large numbers from the disadvantaged; it’s no secret that they’re not indulging a luxurious habit out of some perverse choice but feeding a flat-out addiction. If they buy cartons, they can save, but buying cartons, like putting $80 on a MetroCard or beating down the ATM discount, takes cash flow.

They could quit, of course, and it’s easy enough to say they should — but can anyone seriously believe that if smoking hadn’t become, partly through public policy efforts, overwhelmingly a behavior of people with lower incomes, and if the upper middle class were still chain-smoking like it’s 1962, that taxes on cigarettes would be anywhere near where they are now? The regressive taxation involved in tobacco has made the hard core of low-income smokers’ quitting economically undesirable for everyone else.

That situation works out well for me financially. Because I don’t smoke, I rely on a large group of underclass addicts with little real choice in the matter to pay a significant portion of the revenue that funds civil services I use. If people who are now shelling out the cigarette tax were to stop smoking — or if we banned the sale of this product we claim to find so destructive — I’d be paying more.

That’s not likely to happen. Once again, those with less money are paying more of theirs so that I can keep and grow more of mine.

I don’t own that helicopter or that yacht.

And I’ve seen the graphs.

I’ve seen that line representing possession and growth turn vertiginously upward when it gets above my level and enters the 1%.

I can only imagine what goes on up there, so far over my head.

Here in the upper parts of the 99%, government and the financial industry work together to keep me only dimly aware of the persistent economic edge they give me every day.

 

Source: https://www.alternet.org/economy/153043/4_Ways_the_Poor_Get_Screwed_That_Everyone_Takes_for_Granted/?page=entire

 

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