U.S. generals for auction

The corporate lobbying for government has become an old tune for the independent thinker. This lobbying is part of a machine which has stolen governments around the world. Brave thinkers have stood up against this machine even with criticism from their peers; however, a new threat looms over the horizon which threatens all people; the lobbying of the mass media.

    The independent thinker is immune to such tactics as long as the internet remains their sanctuary, but anyone who still trusts the mass media are at risk. Sabastian Jones, a writer for The Nation has already written brilliant work on this topic, and I encourage anyone to read this article [1], but this blog will focus on U.S. retired generals. The most recent issue is retired general McCaffrey who has been a returning correspondent on the mass media outlets. This last week the general held a meeting with CBS corporation executives. He made outlandish claims such as [2]:

“We should not view the Iranian rhetoric as empty threats. They are likely to further escalate. There is great opportunity for miscalculation on their part. . . . They will not under any circumstances actually be deterred from going nuclear. They will achieve initial nuclear capability within 60 months.”

“Israel would welcome such a confrontation. They have an existential threat to their survival looming in their very near future.”

“ The Israelis lack any credible conventional military power to counter Iranian threat. their forced option would be a pre-emptive nuclear strike”

“high risk situation--with a significant probability of Iranian escalation in the coming 90 days”

This meeting with CBS executives is only the tip of the iceberg, and general McCaffrey has been saying similar rhetoric to the American people since 2009. Well, the reader may be thinking; he is a former military general of the United States; it is not possible he would mislead the American people. Well, I will give you some facts the mass media neglected to divulge before his “neutral analyst” opinion.

    The good general is on the board of directors for an international corporation DynCorp International, and he is not the only retired military official on the board [3]:

General Barry R. McCaffrey, U.S. Army Retired
Admiral Joseph W. Prueher, U.S. Navy Retired
General Peter J. Schoomaker, U.S. Army Retired
Admiral Leighton W. Smith, Jr., U.S. Navy Retired

What does DynCorp do?

DynCorp is a United States based private military contractor, and 96% of their yearly revenues comes from U.S. military contracts [4]. Obviously, if America is not at war, their revenues take a landslide, and these poor retired military officials suffer the slump. It begs the question if general McCaffrey has personal interest embedded into his professional opinions; however, the groovy train does not end with DynCorp. In 2010, The equity investment group Cerberus Capital Management acquired DynCorp International [5]. This investment group has a history of buying assets, and they will build these assets with the intention of selling for a large profit margin. Now, If America is not at war, how can Cerberus Capital Management build DynCorp International?

This investment group has a history with CBS Corporation. A deal was made in 2007 for the acquisition of local media stations from CBS [6]. The group built capital with these stations, and they sold these stations for a profit margin. I find my self asking this question. What connections did Cerberus Capital Management make with CBS, so general McCaffery could hold a meeting with CBS executives? What other possible connections have they gained in the media?

I encourage the reader to keep an eye on the defense industry because DynCorp International is only one player. If Cerberus Capital group has connections with the mass media, it can only be assumed other members of the industry have similar connections.

Fed's socialized risk program for Isreal

On Wednesday, Fannie Mae told the federal reserve that they lost money in the fourth quarter, and they need 4.6 billion dollars in aid. I have had this itching question since 2008 about these bailouts. When did the American government become a socialized risk program for the rich? We have developed a casino style economy on Wallstreet, and these supposedly brilliant investment bankers keep coming back to the federal reserve with tails between their legs. I am under the impression that Wallstreet is filled with gambling addicts, and the federal reserve funds their uncontrollable gambling habits. If the reader had a relative with a known gambling addiction, would the family repeatedly loan money? If we keep giving these bankers money for poor decisions, they will not stop and continue digging our economic graves. I find this aid proposal and bailouts disheartening considering Greece's situation; I think it would be more prudent to give Greece the 4.6 billion dollars in aid.

America's socialized risk program expands to Israel today.  The Bank of Israel announced it will begin a pilot program to invest its U.S. currency for U.S. equity:

"The investment, which in the initial phase will amount to 2 percent of the $77 billion reserves, or about $1.5 billion, will be made through UBS AG and BlackRock Inc. (BLK), Bank of Israel spokesman Yossi Saadon said in a telephone interview today. At a later stage, the investment is expected to increase to 10 percent of the reserves." 

So, what happens if Israel makes a bad investment like Fannie Mae? Well, we have already repeatedly seen the Federal Reserve response to poor investing; they print more money for rich investors, so we will now cover any risk Isreal makes on U.S. equities. If Isreal's pilot program works, we could see many other foreign central banks making the same investments on U.S. equities, so the United States will be covering risks of many foreign countries in future bailouts; however, there may be a silver lining for America if foreign central banks follow Isreal.With the weakening petrodollar, foreign banks are slowly removing USD from their reserve, but if they begin these kind of programs, they may have new interest for the USD in their reserves. The United States could replace the Petrodollar with the Gambledollar.

United States enables Isreal to atack Iran

I do not support a USreal war on Iran. This war would be costly on lives, economics, and integrity of the two countries. The Israeli prime minister has been very fixated on a war with Iran. If Isreal attacks Iran and Iran fights back, The United States will back Isreal. Fortunately, technological and logistics challenges has been preventing such attacks on Iran; however, I found this stement disturbing:

"U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz said Wednesday that Washington has prepared military options to strike Iran's nuclear sites should conflict erupt, Bloomberg reported." 

Isreal also stated it will not warn the United States if it decides to attack Iran. I am not happy with Isreal's "loose cannon" approach to Iran, and the United State's choice to still support their war hunger; however,  The chairman of the joint chief of staff General Dempsy stated that Iran is a "rational actor." This means the US's top military leader does not believe a war with Iran is prudent, but I am afraid this statement will not be enough to deter Americans from another war. A 2010 poll showed that 70% of Americans believed Iran already has nuclear weapons, and 58% of Americans believed military action is necessary against Iran. If president Obama can not get prime minister Netanyahu under control, the United States could be forced into another war; it does not want to fight, especially with Afghanistan and Iraq in recent history. Also, the developing countries India and China have close interests in Iran for its oil, so a war with Iran will cause international conflicts for the United States with these rising super powers.

Sources

U.S. has military plan should Iran conflict erupt, says air force chief
CNN Poll: American believe Iran has nuclear weapons
U.S. intelligence official: Israel will not warn U.S. on Iran strike

USD weakens over horizon

A not for profit research group American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) has determined that consumer prices have gone up this past year. This group claims that if you remove the big one time purchases made in this country such as houses, cars, furniture, etc. AIER states these big ticket items attenuates the results of inflation's "Sticker Shock" effect; in other words, the average items citizens buy to sustain their welfare. When this group removed these items from calculations, they found an increase  of 8% for the consumer price index. These kind of price increases on essential goods will place greater weight on families. More specific details from the AIER group:

"Motor fuel and transportation costs are up 21.06 percent from year-ago levels. The cost of food, prescription drugs, and tobacco also have increased faster than the government's inflation measure, rising 3.56 percent, 4.21 percent, and 3.4 percent, respectively."

These prices increases sound depressing for the consumer; unfortunately, it gets worse for the USD. An article from Xinhaunet from March of 2011:

"The amount of foreign exchange reserves should be restricted to between 800 billion to 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars, Tang told a forum in Beijing, saying that the current reserve amount is too high.
China's foreign exchange reserves increased by 197.4 billion U.S. dollars in the first three months of this year to 3.04 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of March." 

 If the Chinese remove these funds, this money will return to the federal reserve in the U.S.  This decrease in USD reserve in the Chinese central banks will add to our inflation problems in the coming years. The problems continue for the USD with a statement from central bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani:

"In its trade transactions with other countries, Iran does not limit itself to the U.S. dollar, and the country can pay using its own currency." 

The U.S. and U.N. trade embargo have created new stresses for Iran's economy which has forced the country to trade oil for gold or other curencies. If the Iranians have the audacity to trade oil for gold, this action will spell big trouble for the USD. The reason the federal researve can freely print trillions of dollars without inflation problems comes from the petrodollar. The petrodollar is a word which refers to all oil traded is in USD. This makes the USD an essential currency in the central banks of foreign countries. This fact gives the U.S. a huge amount of credit, and it ensures American military and economic dominance.  The biggest oil trade partners with Iran are China and India which are also the most rapidly developing counties, so they are hungry for oil and USD; however, if Iran begins trading in gold for oil, the confidence of the USD will decrease, and we will be seeing more USD returning to the states adding to our inflation problems.

Citations  

Inflation: Not as low as you think

 China should cap forex reserves at 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars: China banker 

Iran Is Happy to Sell You Its Embargoed Oil for Gold

Greek Crisis (Opinion)

If you look in the United States, the people fight a constant war with the federal government over taxes and socializd programs. The government continues to let the plutocrats get away with white collar crime while lowering their taxes as a reward, and the Federal government attempts to take away from the middle and lower classes social programs to balance the budget, so the plutocrats can continue their insane casino economy on Wallstreet.

How does this relate to Greece?

According to Athens news, Germany will be sending 160 tax collectors to Grecce, so they can fund their bail out plan [1]. The first insanity with this plan is the fact that technocrats were parachuted into this problem to find a bailout plan. When these technocrats found a plan the mass media praised the plan, stating it stops Greece from a economic meltdown. These technocrats are not elected officials, but people planted in from Wallstreet and central banks. The second insanity is the plan will not work, and they knew the plan would not work days before it was agreed [2]. 

So why go with the plan?

The Eurozone itself is in a debt crisis, and it has been building a debt firewall, and the EU is under continuous pressure to increase the firewall [3]. I find it interesting that a summit will be held to determine if Greece has followed its end of the deal for the bailout, but they are already sending tax collectors before the validity of the plan has been verified (austerity measures). People are getting the distinct feeling Greece is being used as a debt scape goat for the EU [4].

What else can Greece do?

The bottom line is this entire crisis has been a joke from the beginning. Greece has exemplified how ridiculous our debt banking system has become since the 1970's. They continue the insanity by finding a solution through more loans and austerity which will only cripple Greece's economic growth. More loans is not the solution; humanitarian aid will help Greece get back on track through creating socialized jobs. I am sure Greece's economy could benefit in the long run if they took advantage of the high unemployment rate combined with aid, so they could build a new economic infrastructure for the future. From what I can tell this is not legally possible, I believe Greece's best bet is to break away from the banking insanity, so they can qualify for aid. They can achieve this though leaving the European Union and bring back the drachma. This move would also make Greece's work force competitive on the global market. Is this a risky move? yeah, it is a very risky move because even with the debt crisis their currency is still back by the EU; however, the move is reasonable compared to the insanity being forced on the Greeks.

Sources

[1]German tax collectors in Athens

[2]Greek deal leaves Europe on the road to disaster

[3]Eurozone puts back talks on debt firewall boost

[4]The Greek bailout won't work, but will it buy Europe's banks the time they need?

 

Britain Out of Money

Well in the eve of Greece, Ireland, Porutgal, Spain, and Italy. The British government has officially announced it has run out of money before their projected recession.

He left David Laws, his successor, a one-line note saying: “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left”. 

The Institute of Fiscal Studies has urged him to consider emergency tax cuts in the Budget to reduce the risk of a prolonged economic slump. 

“Any tax cut would have to be paid for,” Mr Osborne told Sky News. “In other words there would have to be a tax rise somewhere else or a spending reduction.“In other words what we are not going to do in this Budget is borrow more money to either increase spending or cut taxes.”

I assume Mr. Osbourne has the memory of Greece's dependence on foreign creditors in his head in this statement. The statements from members of parliament and Mr. Osbourne show sharp contrasts on how to handle the matter. Personally, I do not blame UK with the exorbitant amount of debt being accumulated in the eurozone. One thing is clear:  

The Chancellor made it clear he was resisting pressure to hand over up to another £17.5billion in taxpayers’ money to help bail out struggling European Union countries.

The speculators in Wallstreet, and the privatized health industry in America have been driving up costs for many socialized programs Eurozone supports. These costs have been placing greater pressure on socialism in Europe, and the constant investment and loans from external creditors have created a debt based socialist system. These external creditors have been pressuring countries like France, Spain, and Greece to impose austerity measures to stimulate economic growth; however, austerity measures have only ever exhibited opposite reactions to this claim. I am jumping to the worst possible scenario, so do not take this seriously. It's possible we will see spiraling decay of socialism in Europe forced from external creditors and the IMF. Eventually, we could start observing privatization in Europe for the sake of controlling debt and stimulating economic growth. This scenario would be an excellent opportunity for globalization front companies since Europe is an untapped market.

Source:

Britain has run out of money, Chancellor warns 

UN Interenet Authority

Today, The United Nations negotiates a new treaty which will destroy the internet for the people  beyond SOPA/PIPA and ACTA. The internet needs no introduction, but it has enlightened every aspect of our lives. It is information without borders, and it allows the people from all nations and cultures to begin to understand one another, for the people internet is a medium for the influence of thought; however, These wonders internet has provided both economically, socially, and culturally threatens the status quo of our central governments and corporations, which they sparked today's meeting in Geneva. The list of objectives for this treaty before today are as follows, directly from the FCC commissioner Robert McDowell [1]:

• Subject cyber security and data privacy to international control;
• Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for "international" Internet traffic, perhaps even on a "per-click" basis for certain Web destinations, with the goal of generating revenue for state-owned phone companies and government treasuries;
• Impose unprecedented economic regulations such as mandates for rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated traffic-swapping agreements known as "peering."
• Establish for the first time ITU dominion over important functions of multi-stakeholder Internet governance entities such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit entity that coordinates the .com and .org Web addresses of the world;
• Subsume under intergovernmental control many functions of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Society and other multi-stakeholder groups that establish the engineering and technical standards that allow the Internet to work;
• Regulate international mobile roaming rates and practices.

Dozen of countries including the powerhouse BRIC countries desire to establish international control of the internet through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). This will establish an international authority on the internet, and all DNS domains will be threatened in any country. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has not chosen a delegate, for this meeting; I assume the US will take the same stance as its stance with ACTA. The treaty is non-binding to the United States. The U.N. has also failed to issue a global tax to establish a global government, so the U.N. will not be an immediate threat to the internet since it has no financial infrastructure to enforce it on America. Why should this still concern Americans? The US debt to GDP is 102%, and the nations currency is supposed to be worthless when this debt reaches 100%; however, the reason why the United States has not experienced this tragedy is for two reasons. Our GDP increase by 4% every year because of the free-market we know as the internet. The second reason is the petrodollar, but it weakens every year because of decreasing confidence [2]; The second reason makes protection of our internet even more pressing. It's extremely important that we protect the internet not just because its a medium for absolute freedom of speech and expression. It's the only medium left in the world which has an Adam Smith free-market which stabilizes world economy. A simple example is this very blogspot with Google's adsense. Anyone is free to write and profit from a blog; however, the readers decide which blogs are worth attention. The readers have the freedom to decide what is relevant and interesting, and the worthy blogs rise to the top in readers and profits. Now imagine, Google decides to create a centralized editor for blogspot, so they can maximize profits from adsense. So, what happens? you have a small group of people in Google who decides what should be published on blogspot with only Google's interests in mind. You can generalize this thought experiment to ACTA, and the treaty from today's international conference. In essence, The free-market internet will be obliterated and centralized with only the interests of the plutocrats and central governments in mind. Rise up and protect the internet, Stop the Kraken!

Citations
[1] 
The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom



[2] 
 Dollar should be replaced as international standard, U.N. report says

China should cap forex reserves at 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars: China banker

 The Demise of the Petrodollar