Sunday, July 19, 2015

(No Conspiracies Aloud)   EU Continues to Pull in Victims - EU2 on Hold  (Soulless Economics Triumphs in the West?)  Iran, Ukraine, Greece, EU2, Oh My!  (Speculators Rally)



Obama Administration Finds New Way to Let Criminal Banks Avoid Consequences

Big Money Stalls Key Dodd-Frank Corporate Transparency Rule

Rick Perry and Scott Walker Are Putting Your Money to Good Use

Only “Lone Wolves” Commit Terror?
Hastings’ Lessons From the Grave — Have We Learned Anything?
Here is an interesting timeline:

April 15, 2013 - Boston bombing
May 20, 2013 - Edward Snowden goes to Hong Kong
June 7, 2013 - Michael Hastings last column is published at "Buzzfeed." The title is " Why Democrats Love to Spy on Americans."
June 18, 2013 - Michael Hastings was killed in car crash.
June 23, 2013 - Edward Snowden flew to Moscow.
Strange days we live in.
I think you would like to listen to the Jeff Rense interview of Kay Griggs on You Tube.... she tells it like it is and most people in this country just don't have a clue.
It's important to remember the uproar around John Brennan's confirmation as DCI. Despite the vigorous opposition, he was confirmed anyway. Before that, he was the man who sat at President Obama's side one day a week to help him choose who would be extra-judicially executed by drone overseas. A number of death-dealing "accidents" have been so classified and turned out to be foul play. I offer one example:  Enrico Mattei (hope I've spelled his last name correctly). He headed the post WW II Italian oil company and had managed it so well that there was a danger of competition with the Seven Sisters. Take a look at his Wikipedia page. An investigation decades later showed that his plane was sabotaged. Some of the investigators also lost their lives when they uncovered the truth.
There will not be an investigation.
Take a good look at the car... there is a very clear message there for any who dare.
Oh, and his wife completely changed her story (tap on the shoulder perhaps) after coming out swinging immediately after the crash.

Continued Destruction of Earth’s Plant Life Places Humankind in Jeopardy
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

The US and its proxies continue to murder people over a large area of the earth. Clearly Obama is not a man of peace, and neither are his European enablers and the United Nations. So what is the reason for the accommodation with Iran after many years of rabid demonization of a country for no other reason than the country insisted on its rights to nuclear energy granted by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

Everything the Obama administration does internationally cannot be a conspiracy (or any worse a conspiracy than what the guy ahead of him partook in anyway). At least when the big conspiracy theories like Scientology, the War on ISIL (or orthodox Judaism, for that matter) were revealed in all their fullness, everyone didn't keep saying how much sense they always thought they made (no, they just vanished from the conversation of sensible people). Funny, almost, how any event can start to look suspicious when you know enough about it. I know I'm still applauding that mad agreement to actually stop pretending that Iran was desperately working to build a nuclear device with which it could blow itself and its neighbors up. Yay. Now, as to that Greek one . . . .

The Real Reasons For the Iran Agreement

July 18, 2015

Paul Craig Roberts

Obama is being praised as a man of peace for the nuclear agreement with Iran. Some are asking if Obama will take the next step and repair US-Russian relations and bring the Ukrainian imbroglio to an end?

If so he hasn’t told Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland or his nominee as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Paul Selva, or his nominee as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Joseph Dunford, or his Secretary of the Air Force, Deborah Lee James.

The other day on Ukrainian TV Victoria Nuland declared that if Russia does not “fulfill its obligations,” by which she means to turn all of Ukraine over to Washington including Crimea, a historical Russian province, “we’re prepared to put more pressure on Russia.” During the past week both of Obama’s nominees to the top military positions told the US Senate that Russia was the main threat to the US, an “existential threat” even. With this level of war rhetoric in play, clearly Obama has no interest in reducing the tensions that Washington has created with Russia.

In my last column I wrote that the agreement with Iran does not mean much, because Washington can renew the sanctions at any time merely by making false charges against Iran. Obama knows this even if Lindsey Graham and John McCain pretend that they don’t know it.

The US and its proxies continue to murder people over a large area of the earth. Clearly Obama is not a man of peace, and neither are his European enablers and the United Nations. So what is the reason for the accommodation with Iran after many years of rabid demonization of a country for no other reason than the country insisted on its rights to nuclear energy granted by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

If you can free yourself from the brainwashing from the presstitute media, three BIG reasons jump out at you. One is that the neoconservatives’ perception of the threat has shifted from “Muslim terrorists” to Russia and China. Unlike Muslim terrorists, both Russia and China are constraints on Washington’s unilateralism. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington has grown accustomed to being the Uni-Power, able to exercise its will unchallenged in the world. The rise of Russian strength under Putin and Chinese strength under the new policy has destroyed Washington’s Uni-Power privilege. Washington wants the privilege back.

Washington is not in good shape, economically or militarily. According to Nobel Economist Joseph Stieglitz and Harvard University budget expert Linda Bilmes, Washington has wasted at least $6 trillion dollars in its 14-year old wars in the Middle East. Despite the extraordinary cost, Washington has been defeated, and is now faced with the Islamic State, a new entity arising out of Washington’s mistakes that is creating a new country partly out of Iraq and partly out of Syria.

Despite its gigantic hubris, Washington has figured out that the US cannot simultaneously take on Russia, China, Iran, and the Islamic State. This realization is one reason for the nuclear agreement with Iran. It removes Iran from the mix.

A second reason for the agreement is that Iran is opposed to the Islamic State and can be employed as an American proxy against the Islamic State, thus freeing Washington for conflict with Russia and China.

A third reason for Washington’s agreement with Iran is Washington’s concern with Europe’s energy dependence on Russia. This dependence is inconsistent with the EU going along with Washington’s sanctions against Russia and with NATO’s military moves against Russia. Washington wants to end this dependence and has hopes that money can bring Iran into becoming a supplier of natural gas and oil to Europe.


The explanation I have provided is realism, not cynicism. All that the agreement with Iran means is that Washington has belatedly realized that the concocted Iranian and Muslim threats are using up time, energy, and resources that Washington needs to apply to Russia and China. Moreover, there were too many threats for the American people to know which was paramount.

One of the reasons that Greece has to be destroyed is to block the entry of Russian natural gas into Europe from the Russian pipeline into Turkey.

Washington has US troops in Ukraine training the Ukrainian military how to subdue the break-away provinces, and the stooge Ukrainian government has taken no steps to comply with the Minsk Agreement. Clearly Washington intends that peace is not in the cards in Ukrainian-Russian relations.

At some point Russia will have to accept defeat or else stop contributing to its own defeat. On more than one occasion when the Russian break-away provinces had the Ukrainian military totally defeated, the Russian government intervened and prevented the collapse of the Ukrainian military. For its consideration, Russia has been rewarded with more demonization and with US aid to the Ukrainian military. When hostilities resume, which they will, Russia and the break-away Russian provinces will find themselves in a worsened position.

The Russian government cannot pursue peace when Washington is pursuing War.


And on the latest Grecian formula, Penny offers insight into the backdoor efforts to create EU and EU2. Or didn't you know?

Greece & EU:  There is NO Agreement. EU and EU2?


Flashback: Greece :  The Straw that Breaks the Euro Area - Full Integration or an Amicable Split

Concluding
 Can't be sure. However, I'm sticking with what I see at this time. Greece (Tsipras) is being used to put pressure on the EU to fully and completely integrate or split into two factions. EU  & EU 2 the poor cousins
 Continuing:

 No Agreement, still - Only an agreement to negotiate. Tsipras doesn't 'believe' in this deal. Schauble doesn't believe in the deal. The IMF, of all entities, does not support this deal. Still thinking this has all been designed to fail. Not sure why the talking heads are leading the audience to believe there is a deal pushed on Greece by Germany - As of yet, there is no agreement, no deal.


Europe has given its consent for formal talks on a third Greek bail-out package to begin

Greece news:  Europe gives go ahead for third Greek bail-out talks - As it happened 17 July 2015
Europe has given its consent for formal talks on a third Greek bail-out package to begin

2:37

Germany about to give approval to negotiate third Greek bail-out

After a few hours of speeches and debate, German politicians are now preparping to vote on whether to approve talks a third bail-out package for Greece.
They're expected to wave it through, and are the last European country needed to do so, after Austria gave its consent earlier today.

10:42

Time for another change in Greek Government

Alexis Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister, managed to survive Wednesday's vote on tougher austerity measures. They were passed, but he's not been left unscathed.
Many of his own cabinet rebelled, and he's now expected to shake things up.
In total, 38 of his own party dissented to vote against him, including his energy and welfare ministers. A reshuffle is now expected in the next three days.

Still not comprehending the excuse making on behalf of duplicitous Tsipras. That's how I see his actions. He should not have gone back to the EU to grovel after all his inspirational but misleading talk. Instead he Sacks His Own Party Rebels in Shuffle

"rebels"?
 ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras sacked left-wing Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and two deputy ministers on Friday as he reshuffled his cabinet following a party revolt against a tough new bailout deal adopted this week.

The 40 year-old prime minister moved to clear out the rebels after 39 Syriza hardline lawmakers refused to back the government over the measures, which were demanded by European partners as a pre-condition for beginning talks over a new bailout.

The main economic ministries remain unchanged, with Euclid Tsakalotos remaining in place at the finance ministry and George Stathakis staying at the economy ministry.

But Labor Minister Panos Skourletis, one of Tsipras' closest allies, will replace Lafazanis in the key energy portfolio, where he will be responsible for sensitive privatization dossiers
 Alongside Lafazanis, leader of Syriza's Left Platform, a faction that was bitterly opposed to the bailout, Deputy Labor Minister Dimtris Stratoulis and Deputy Defense Minister Costas Isychos also lost their jobs.

Stratoulis was replaced by Pavlos Chaikalis, a former comic actor from Syriza's right-wing coalition partners, the Independent Greeks, in a slightly reworked portfolio.
Flashback:  There is No Greek Deal ? Will the Greek government fall?
 Is a coup by any other name ("national unity government") still a coup?
Tsipras 'shuffles" Here come the technocrats?
 Former Deputy Finance Minister Nadia Valavani, another bailout opponent who resigned earlier this week before the vote, was replaced by Tryfon Alexiadis, a leading member of Greece's tax experts' union.

Christoforos Vernardakis, an academic, will become deputy defense minister
Any NATO affiliations for the academic? I wonder.
 The new ministers are expected to be sworn in on Saturday.

Tsipras has ruled out immediate early elections before a bailout deal is actually agreed, but Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis said this week that elections may come in September or October.
 From the No Greek Deal etc post - " A coalition of national unity, led by Tsipras, is likely to emerge by the end of the week with new elections in the autumn" Reads as if the new unity government is coming to fruition.

Finally:
 German finance minister backs Grexit before Bundestag vote on bailout deal that no one believes in
Days after Greece appeared to escape crashing out of the euro, hawkish German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has put Grexit back on the political agenda, raising tensions in Berlin and across the EU.

Speaking before a key Bundestag vote on Friday, Mr Schäuble said voluntary departure from the eurozone “could perhaps be a better way” for Greece than a proposed €86bn bailout package, which was painfully assembled at a marathon eurozone summit in Brussels over the weekend.
EU and EU2 the poor cousins - eventually taking in Portugal, Spain, Italy, likely Ireland. The private bankers can live with that.
Best case scenario, in my opinion, for all nations - Go your own way, because this economic bankers union can't work/won't work without substantial harm to all the people concerned - Definitely not worth the trouble.


Earlier today:

“Villain" Angela Merkel," Victim" 10 Year Old & Hashtag Manipulation


Dr. Paul Craig Roberts affords us a few choice words on Greece's current situation.

He's not a conspiracist.

More a realist.


Lost Chance In Greece


July 15, 2015

Syriza turned its back to the opportunity to save Greece by removing the country from the EU. The cost of this failure goes far beyond Greece and is political as well as economic. Syriza’s failure threatens the sovereignty of EU member states as well as their social welfare systems. More importantly, an opportunity to avoid World War III by unraveling NATO was thrown away.

The collapse of Syriza one week after receiving the strong support of the Greek people in the referendum vote awaits explanation. I doubt Syriza would have stood up to the pressure as long as it did if the prime minister intended to join previous Greek governments in selling out the people. It makes no sense for Syriza to sell out on the heels of a referendum victory that greatly strengthened its position in its confrontation with the Troika, especially with one member of the Troika, the IMF, expressing doubts about the Troika’s hardline position. Possibly threats were issued that neutered the voice of the Greek people.

Remember when everyone thought the governments in Europe were boring?

I'm guessing no one's aching for the WW2 crowd to take over there again.

Just to liven things up, ya know.

Or is this comment a tad late?


Soulless Economics


July 16, 2015

'An allegedly impersonal economic structure, which quietly benefits the infinitesimally few who have far more than they need, is no foundation for our future,' the author writes.


A march against austerity in London. (Photo: Paul de Gregorio/flickr/cc)

Austerity, the tool of neoliberal capitalism, stands up to Greek democracy and stares it down. Oh well.

We’re remarkably comfortable with soulless economics.

Pope Francis, speaking this week in Paraguay, cried to the nations of Planet Earth:  “I ask them not to yield to an economic model . . . which needs to sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and profit.”

But we have yielded to this economic model, in thought, word and deed:

“At issue,” USA Today informs us, “is whether Greece has taken adequate steps to cut spending and raise taxes to deserve the new three-year, $59 billion infusion of funds it has requested, and whether it can be trusted to follow through on the austerity program it has proposed as the price for new loans.”

The pope’s words haven’t penetrated the pseudo-objective certainties of financial reporting, much less the dark sanctuaries of money and power. But they must. And eventually they will, or human evolution is dead. An allegedly impersonal economic structure, which quietly benefits the infinitesimally few who have far more than they need, is no foundation for our future.

This economic system is a relic of the Industrial Age, or perhaps it’s a relic of the Agricultural Revolution. It’s imbued with deep prejudices — human beings can be bought and sold, the nurturing of human life (women’s work) has no monetary value whatsoever — and reinforces our place outside the circle of life, separated from one another and from our deepest values.

Climate change and poverty are intertwined, the pope cries out in his stunning encyclical, “Laudato Si” — “Praised Be” — which reaches well beyond traditional Catholicism in its scope and message . . . and well beyond the parsimonious morality of global capitalism. We must, he declares, “look for solutions not only in technology but in a change of humanity” and “replace consumption with sacrifice, greed with generosity, wastefulness with a spirit of sharing.”

And we cannot bring about a change in humanity without a change in our economic system, which asks for sacrifice only from those who already have next to nothing and has no language that values generosity, except the sort that flows from the poor to the rich (but then it’s called “interest”). The present system does not acknowledge our connectedness to one another or to the planet or in any way understand that true, lasting prosperity emerges from sharing and giving, not exploitation.

“But the campaign of bullying — the attempt to terrify Greeks by cutting off bank financing and threatening general chaos, all with the almost open goal of pushing the current leftist government out of office — was a shameful moment in a Europe that claims to believe in democratic principles,” Paul Krugman wrote recently in the New York Times. “It would have set a terrible precedent . . . even if the creditors were making sense.

“What’s more, they weren’t. The truth is that Europe’s self-styled technocrats are like medieval doctors who insisted on bleeding their patients — and when their treatment made the patients sicker, demanded even more bleeding.”

The present system does not acknowledge our connectedness to one another or to the planet or in any way understand that true, lasting prosperity emerges from sharing and giving, not exploitation.What God are we worshipping?

In his book Sacred Economics, Charles Eisenstein writes “It is hugely ironic and hugely significant that the one thing on the planet most closely resembling the forgoing conception of the divine is money. It is an invisible, immortal force that surrounds and steers all things, omnipotent and limitless, an ‘invisible hand’ that, it is said, makes the world go ’round.”

And thus Greek ATMs have no euros to dispense. “Without more help from the European Central Bank,” the USA Today article continued, “the Greek banking system may soon run out of cash” — implying that cash has the same sort of objective existence as oil or wheat or diamonds. That’s absurd, of course. Its existence is purely symbolic:  an exchange medium with a commonly agreed-upon value backed by a government or central bank.

Krugman, describing the mysterious persistence of this medium, wrote that “if the money doesn’t start flowing from Frankfurt (the headquarters of the central bank), Greece will have no choice but to start paying wages and pensions with IOUs, which will de facto be a parallel currency — and which might soon turn into the new drachma.”

Money, in other words, is a function of social need. It is not an independent entity controlled solely by a financial priesthood, whose terms for its use — high interest rates, austerity, endless debt and poverty for some, endless freedom to exploit the human and environmental commons for others — are absolute.

Imagine a currency that serves a humane, intelligently conceived economic system, one that has at its core an awareness that all life is sacred. Imagine this reality reflected, rather than spurned, in every financial transaction that takes place, no matter how small, no matter how large.
(Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His new book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound is now available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.)

And how about the "freedom" plans for Russia (and Ukraine and Crimea and . . . .).

Hang on to your wallets.

Greece’s Lesson For Russia


July 17, 2015

Paul Craig Roberts

“Greece’s debt can now only be made sustainable through debt relief measures that go far beyond what Europe has been willing to consider so far.” — International Monetary Fund

Greece’s lesson for Russia, and for China and Iran, is to avoid all financial relationships with the West. The West simply cannot be trusted. Washington is committed to economic and political hegemony over every other country and uses the Western financial system for asset freezes, confiscations, and sanctions.

Countries that have independent foreign policies and also have assets in the West cannot expect Washington to respect their property rights or their ownership. Washington freezes or steals countries’ assets, or in the case of France imposes multi-billion dollar fines, in order to force compliance with Washington’s policies. Iran, for example, lost the use of $100 billion, approximately one-fourth of the Iranian GDP, for years simply because Iran insisted on its rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Russian journalists are asking me if Obama’s willingness to reach a deal with Iran means there is hope a deal can be reached over Ukraine. The answer is No. Moreover, as I will later explain, the deal with Iran doesn’t mean much as far as Washington is concerned.
Three days ago (July 14) a high ranking military officer, Gen. Paul Selva, the third in about as many days, told the US Senate that Russia is “an existential threat to this nation (the US).” Only a few days prior the Senate had heard the same thing from US Marine commander Joseph Dunford and from the Secretary of the Air Force. A few days before that, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff warned of a Russian “hybrid threat.”
Washington is invested heavily in using Ukraine against Russia. All the conflict there originates with Washington’s puppet government in Kiev. Russia is blamed for everything, including the destruction of the Malaysian airliner. Washington has used false charges to coerce the EU into sanctions against Russia that are not in the EU’s interest.

As Washington has succeeded in coercing all of Europe to harm Europe’s political and economic relationships with Russia and to enter into a state of conflict with Russia, certainly Washington is not going to agree to an Ukrainian settlement.
Even if Washington wanted to do so, as Washington’s entire position rests on nothing but propaganda, Washington would have to disavow itself in order to come to an agreement.
Despite everything, Russia’s president and foreign minister continue to speak of the US and Washington’s EU vassal states as “our partners.” Perhaps Putin and Lavrov are being sarcastic. The most certain thing of our time is that Washington and its vassals are not partners of Russia.
The Wolfowitz doctrine, the basis of US foreign and military policy, declares that the rise of Russia or any other country cannot be permitted, because the US is the Uni-power and cannot tolerate any constraint on its unilateral actions.
As long as this doctrine reigns in Washington, neither Russia, China, nor Iran, the nuclear agreement not withstanding, are safe. As long as Iran has an independent foreign policy, the nuclear agreement does not protect Iran, because any significant policy conflict with Washington can produce new justifications for sanctions.
With the nuclear agreement with Iran comes the release of Iran’s $100 billion in frozen Western balances. I heard yesterday a member of the Council for Foreign Relations say that Iran should invest its released $100 billion in US and Europe companies. If Iran does this, the Iranian government is setting itself up for further blackmail. Investing anywhere in the West means that Iran’s assets can be frozen or confiscated at any time.
If Obama were to dismiss Victoria Nuland, Susan Rice, and Samantha Power and replace these neoconservatives with sane diplomats, the outlook would improve. Then Russia, China, and Iran would have a better possibility of reaching accommodation with the US on terms other than vassalage.
Russia and China, having emerged from a poorly functioning communist economic system, naturally regard the West as a model. It seems China has fallen for Western capitalism head over heels. Russia perhaps less so, but the economists in these two countries are the same as the West’s neoliberal economists, which means that they are unwitting servants of Western financial imperialism. Thinking mistakenly that they are being true to economics, they are being true to Washington’s hegemony.
With the deregulation that began in the Clinton regime, Western capitalism has become socially dysfunctional. In the US and throughout the West capitalism no longer serves the people. Capitalism serves the owners and managers of capital and no one else.
This is why US income inequality is now as bad or worse than during the “robber baron” era of the 1920s. The 1930s regulation that made capitalism a functioning economic system has been repealed. Today in the Western world capitalism is a looting mechanism. Capitalism not only loots labor, capitalism loots entire countries, such as Greece which is being forced by the EU to sell of Greece’s national assets to foreign purchasers.
Before Putin and Lavrov again refer to their “American partners,” they should reflect on the EU’s lack of good will toward Greece. When a member of the EU itself is being looted and driven into the ground by its compatriots, how can Russia, China, and Iran expect better treatment? If the West has no good will toward Greece, where is the West’s good will toward Russia?
The Greek government was forced to capitulate to the EU, despite the support it received from the referendum, because the Greeks relied on the good will of their European partners and underestimated the mendacity of the One Percent.

The Greek government did not expect the merciless attitude of its fellow EU member governments. The Greek government actually thought that its expert analysis of the Greek debt situation and economy would carry weight in the negotiations. This expectation left the Greek government without a backup plan. The Greek government gave no thought to how to go about leaving the euro and putting in place a monetary and banking system independent of the euro. The lack of preparation for exit left the government with no alternative to the EU’s demands.
The termination of Greece’s fiscal sovereignty is what is in store for Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and eventually for France and Germany. As Jean-Claude Trichet, the former head of the European Central Bank said, the sovereign debt crisis signaled that it is time to bring Europe beyond a “strict concept of nationhood.” The next step in the centralization of Europe is political centralization. The Greek debt crisis is being used to establish the principle that being a member of the EU means that the country has lost its sovereignty.
The notion, prevalent in the Western financial media, that a solution has been imposed on the Greeks is nonsense. Nothing has been solved. The conditions to which the Greek government submitted make the debt even less payable.

In a short time the issue will again be before us. As John Maynard Keynes made clear in 1936 and as every economist knows, driving down consumer incomes by cutting pensions, employment, wages, and social services, reduces consumer and investment demand, and thereby GDP, and results in large budget deficits that have to be covered by borrowing. Selling pubic assets to foreigners transfers the revenue flows out of the Greek economy into foreign hands.
Unregulated naked capitalism, has proven in the 21st century to be unable to produce economic growth anywhere in the West. Consequently, median family incomes are declining. Governments cover up the decline by underestimating inflation and by not counting as unemployed discouraged workers who, unable to find jobs, have ceased looking. By not counting discouraged workers, the US is able to report a 5.2 percent rate of unemployment.

Including discouraged workers brings the unemployment rate to 23.1 percent. A 23 percent rate of unemployment has nothing in common with economic recovery.
Even the language used in the West is deceptive. The Greek “bailout” does not bail out Greece. The bailout bails out the holders of Greek debt. Many of these holders are not Greece’s original creditors. What the “bailout” does is to make the New York hedge funds’ bet on the Greek debt pay off for the hedge funds.

The bailout money goes not to Greece but to those who speculated on the debt being paid. According to news reports, Quantitative Easing by the ECB has been used to purchase Greek debt from the troubled banks that made the loans, so the debt issue is no longer a creditor issue.
China seems unaware of the risk of investing in the US. China’s new rich are buying up residential communities in California, forgetting the experience of Japanese-Americans who were herded into detention camps during Washington’s war with Japan. Chinese companies are buying US companies and ore deposits in the US. These acquisitions make China susceptible to blackmail over foreign policy differences.
The “globalism” that is hyped in the West is inconsistent with Washington’s unilateralism. No country with assets inside the Western system can afford to have policy differences with Washington. The French bank paid the $9 billion fine for disobeying Washington’s dictate of its lending practices, because the alternative was the close down of its operations in the United States. The French government was unable to protect the French bank from being looted by Washington.
It is testimony to the insouciance of our time that the stark inconsistency of globalism with American unilateralism has passed unnoticed.

Nyaah. I have to disagree.

Icky Vicky is undoubtedly exactly whom they want presiding.


2 comments:

TONY @oakroyd said...

Angela Merkel flew into Athens Airport. The immigration officer said:'Occupation?' She said 'No, just a visit'.

Cirze said...

Come on, T.

You know she said "Yes."