They Do As They Please - No Needed Job Creation Awareness & More Social Security Lies (Lesson for the Masses) - The Shadow Elite Engage Even More?

Frank Rich in How to Lose an Election Without Really Trying has just about lost all hope for the Dims. Join the club, Frank, as this insanity-led country continues to drift away from its once-proud bearings of concern for the lot of its common people and proper regulation of those who benefit from fooling them (over and over - with very powerful MSM advertising thrown in for good measure). (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

Given this spectacle, Obama and the Democrats are, if anything, flattering the current G.O.P. by accusing it of being a carbon copy of Bush. But even if the Democrats sharpen their attack, they are doomed to fall short if they don’t address the cancer in the American heart — joblessness. This requires stunning emergency action right now, August recess be damned. Instead we get the Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, offering the thin statistical gruel that job growth has returned “at an earlier stage of this recovery than in the last two recoveries.”

. . . On the same day his essay appeared last week, The Times ran a front-page report on “99ers,” the growing band of desperate jobless Americans who have exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits.

The Democrats have already retreated from immigration and energy reform. If they can’t make the case to Americans . . . that they offer more hope for a job than a radical conservative movement poised to tear down what remains of the safety net, they deserve to lose.

(EXTRA: If anyone could make a contribution to my PayPal account (or otherwise - contact me for further info), it will be really, really, really appreciated as I'm in quite a pickle financially right now. I sincerely appreciate everything that my kind readers have done for me in the past financially and otherwise. Especially, otherwise, as the support group for this blog is beyond belief. My belief anyway. Again, my heartfelt thanks. . . and now . . . back to your regular viewing.)

One of the commenters on Paul Krugman's blog has one of the most intelligent takes I've seen yet on how to view the right-wing dominated clamor for continuing the Bush "Tax Cuts" (emphasis marks added and some editing was done to improve legibility):

I think we need to have a talk about these so called Bush "tax cuts."I'd like to make a point or two, if that's okay.

They would have been tax cuts if we were not in over 6 trillion dollars of debt when Bush made those revenue cuts. but they were not cuts - they were . . . loans.

Yes, Bush had to borrow money by selling treasury bonds, to cover these so called cuts - mostly to billionaires.

So what did these billionaires do with the money they were supposed to pay in taxes? They bought treasury bonds, of course. That way, the people who were supposed to pay taxes now earn interest at the expense of the rest of us.

I am amazed that little deal can be called a cut of any kind, when we pay $4.85 in interest for each dollar we borrow to keep these lowered tax revenues going.

Yes that's what I said, at 30 years, 5% interest, each borrowed dollar the government is spending is really costing us about 5 times as much as a dollar.

And people wonder why the economy is down the tubes. Those revenue cuts are sucking us all dry, and transferring the wealth all into the hands of the wealthy bond holders.

So OF COURSE we need to let those evil things lapse.

They're killing us. It is amazing just how much we'd be able to do if we didn't have to borrow $5 to spend $1. Seriously.

Hope that clears those silly advertising thoughts that we've been constantly bombarded with lately that taxes will increase on almost everyone if these "non-cuts" expire. They won't.

And now for the biggest lies out there in MSM America.

It was almost as if Goldman Sachs put it up on a billboard: "We’re ripping off our clients."

Amy Goodman interviews Dean Baker who tells us about the lies we are constantly being told by the Rethuglicans (as well as many of the Dimocrats (not even all of them Blue-Dog) about the unaffordability of Social Security.

And how they think they can get away with it (emphasis marks added - Ed.).

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined by Dean Baker, economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The big buzz is privatizing Social Security, that Social Security is what’s breaking us, it’s not affordable. Dean Baker, I’d like to ask you what I asked you during the broadcast, that it’s not affordable. Explain your response to this.

DEAN BAKER: Well, it’s really absurd on the face of it. I mean, the program has a separate stream of financing. We all pay a Social Security tax when we work, 6.2 percent of our wages, and employers contribute 6.2 percent on behalf of workers. And that actually has been running a surplus. We’ve been paying more into the program than benefits have been paid out. This was a design that was put in place by the '83 Greenspan Commission. They raised taxes. They also raised the retirement age. It is going up to sixty-seven, now sixty-six. And the result of that is that there's been this huge surplus run, over two-and-a-half trillion, over the last roughly twenty-five years. And the program is supposed to continue to run a surplus for a bit more than a decade, at which point we’re supposed start drawing down on the money in the trust fund, the money that we’ve accumulated.

So this idea that somehow we can’t afford this, we’ve actually been paying more than was needed for benefits, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, the program, as it currently stands, could pay all scheduled benefits through the year 2039 with no changes whatsoever.

Now, when you go further out—2049, '59, ’69—at some point you are going to be facing shortfalls. The main issue there is people are living longer. And at some point, you're either going to have to increase what you pay in, some source of revenue—you could raise the cap, there’s different ways you could do that—or some cut in benefits or raise the retirement age. But this is well into the future. So the idea that, you know, five years, ten years, fifteen years out, that we’re facing some crisis, that’s just simply not true. And everyone who’s familiar with the situation knows that.

AMY GOODMAN: Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has warned that entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare will have to face cuts. This is what he told the House Budget Committee last month.

BEN BERNANKE: The type of programs are not self-funded. They’re unfunded liabilities to a significant extent at this point. They are the biggest single component of spending, going forward.

Now, there are various ways to address this. You can restructure entitlement programs. You can cut other things. But at some point, you need to address the overall budgetary situation. If you don’t, you’ll get a picture like this one, where interest rates are rising, interest payments are rising, because the debt outstanding is growing exponentially, and at that point, things will come apart.

A famous economist once said, anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop. And this will stop, but it might stop in a very unpleasant way in terms of sharp cuts, a financial crisis, high interest rates that stop growth, continued borrowing from abroad. So, clearly we need to get control of this over the medium term, and we’re certainly going to have to look at entitlements, because that’s a very big part of the obligations of the federal government, going forward.

AMY GOODMAN: Economist Dean Baker, your response?

DEAN BAKER: Well, this isn’t the first time Mr. Bernanke has misled Congress on something very important. You recall, he was a big factor in pushing for the TARP and fundamentally misrepresented the situation in financial markets to get Congress to approve it.

But he’s done the exact same thing here again. He uses the term "entitlements" a lot. People here in Washington do that. They know better. Again, the story with Social Security, we’re all looking at the same numbers. Ben Bernanke would not, if he had him here, tell you anything other than what I just told you, that the Congressional Budget Office says the program could pay all benefits through the year 2039 with no changes whatsoever.

Relatively minor changes would keep it fully solvent decades more into the future. The bigger problem is Medicare and Medicaid. But again, Mr. Bernanke knows full well, it’s not that those programs are out of control; it’s that our healthcare costs are out of control. So the real problem is that we have to fix our healthcare system. We pay more than twice as much for our healthcare per person as people do in Germany, in Italy, France, Canada, whatever country you choose to pick.

If our per-person healthcare costs were the same as what they are in those countries, we would be looking at enormous budget surpluses for the indefinite future, rather than deficits.

The problem is that people like Mr. Bernanke don’t want us to challenge the insurance industry, the highly paid medical specialists, the pharmaceutical companies. Instead, they’re saying cut Medicare, Medicaid for the elderly. So it’s just really a dishonest story. The issue here is healthcare. That’s what we should be talking about.

. . . AMY GOODMAN: Do you see a different trend under President Obama than under President Bush in terms of what will happen to Social Security? Ultimately, President Bush didn’t succeed in cutting it.

DEAN BAKER: Well, I worry about what will happen under President Obama. You go back to when President Clinton was in the White House, President Clinton proposed cuts to Social Security.

He was recently on a panel here at a program put on by the Peterson Foundation, and he just got right up, and he said, "I wanted to cut Social Security, but, you know, they wouldn’t let me." Dick Gephardt, you know, at that time the leader of the Democrats in the House, and he said Dick Armey also opposed it. He goes, "They wouldn’t let me, but I wanted to do it."

You know, he just said that in very open terms, which is something we knew back in the '90s, those of us who were fighting against it. But it was just quite striking that this was one of the regrets of his presidency, that he wasn't able to cut Social Security.

And you have a lot of the same people that were in the Clinton administration who are back working with President Obama, and I do worry very much that many of them want to cut Social Security.

One of the things that I — you know, I’m not longing for President Bush to be back in the White House, but, you know, there was a relatively unified stand among Democrats against President Bush’s plan to cut Social Security. And that made it more difficult for him to get very far, and of course he never actually introduced a plan. Nothing ever got voted on by Congress. It didn’t come that close to being done.

When you have a Democrat in the White House and he says he wants to cut Social Security, or at least people close to him say that, then it becomes much more difficult, because it’s not clear how you organize against that, because certainly you will have Democrats who want to support their president.

So, again, I find it very worrisome that — you know, you’re looking at his deficit commission, he appoints his two top appointees, the Republican and Democrat co-chair, who he picked. Both were quite explicit: they want to cut Social Security. So I do think we have to be very worried about cuts to the program under — during the Obama administration.

Now why would this be true? Is it because the previous wars (massive military spending) and Bush tax cuts for the rich were off-the-books and now need the lower classes to pay for them?

Only if you think this is the only type of government obligation that applies. All apply. It's not a pick-and-choose proposition. It is, however, a move-the-dime-under-the-hat one (when it comes to talking about paying the freight - do you remember anyone even mentioning - let alone caring about - who paid the freight for those infamous tax cuts for the wealthy?).

People like the author below, Allen Smith, have become famous by forgetting the first and concentrating on the second. Also you might like to try to keep in mind that Social Security taxes (FICA) were paid only by the working classes - not a dime came out of those who live by investments - they've always gotten off scott-free and live free of taxes (except for any that they deign to declare) in this once-great country. And as you read further, try to remember back to when you heard about Al Gore's idea of the "lock box" for Social Security contributions (emphasis marks added - Ed.).

The rationale for cutting Social Security seems to be that, during such difficult economic times, everything should be a candidate for the chopping block, and that the public should support such cuts out of a sense of patriotism.

The flaw in this argument is that Social Security has not contributed a dime to the budget deficits or the soaring national debt. Social Security is funded exclusively by payroll taxes (also known as FICA taxes), paid into the fund by working Americans. In 1983, the payroll tax was increased substantially in response to the recommendations, the previous year, of the Greenspan Commission on Social Security Reform.

Prior to 1983, Social Security had operated on a “pay-as-you-go” basis with each generation responsible for paying for the benefits of the generation that preceded them. The 1983 legislation changed the nature of Social Security funding. In addition to paying for the benefits of the preceding generation, as was customary, the baby boomers were also required to pay additional taxes to partially pre-fund their own retirement. The net result is that the baby boomers have paid more into Social Security than any other generation. Yet they are often made scapegoats and blamed for the Social Security funding problem. I am not a baby boomer, but I am very sympathetic to them. They are getting a bum rap.

The intent of the 1983 legislation was to generate large Social Security surpluses for the next 30 years that were supposed to be saved and invested, in order to build up a large reserve in the trust fund that could later be drawn down to pay benefits to the baby boomers. The 1983 payroll tax hike has generated more than $2.5 trillion that is supposed to be in the trust fund. If the trust fund actually held this amount in real assets, full Social Security benefits could be paid until at least 2037 without any changes. Unfortunately, none of the surplus revenue was saved or invested in anything. It was all spent by the government on wars and other government programs without making any provisions for repaying the money. Over the past 25 years, five presidents, and the members of Congress, have participated in the great Social Security scam. All Social Security contributions made by working Americans, except the amount which was needed to pay current retirement benefits, has been funneled into the general fund and used for non-Social Security purposes. Some like to say that the government just “borrowed” the money during the time period when it was not needed to pay benefits. But borrowing implies repayment, and no provisions for repayment have been made.

The government did not enact future tax increases that would automatically kick in when the Social Security money was needed. Neither did they enact legislation that would end other spending programs once the Social Security money was needed so the money could be transferred to the trust fund. The government spent the Social Security money, pure and simple, without making any provisions for future repayments. The IOUs in the trust fund are not marketable, and they could not be sold to anyone even for a penny on the dollar. The Social Security trustees confirmed the worthlessness of the IOUs in the 2009 Social Security Trustees Report with the following words:

Neither the redemption of trust fund bonds, nor interest paid on those bonds, provides any new net income to the Treasury, which must finance redemptions and interest payments through some combination of increased taxation, reductions in other government spending, or additional borrowing from the public.

In order for Social Security to pay full benefits after 2016, it will be necessary for the government to begin repaying the money it has spent on other things. This will mean increased taxes and/or additional borrowing. Neither of these is politically popular, and there is no assurance that future politicians will be willing to raise taxes to pay for the irresponsible behavior of past politicians. If the money is not repaid in full, with interest, it will have been stolen by the government from working Americans who paid into the fund.

Since Social Security would be fully funded until at least 2037 if the government had not used the money for other things, the only reason that politicians are advocating cuts in Social Security benefits is the fact that the government does not have the money with which to pay its debt to Social Security. Given the fact that Section 13301 of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 made it a violation of federal law to use Social Security revenue for non-Social Security purposes, it is hard to justify using the word “borrow” to refer to any of the Social Security money spent after 1990, even if it is eventually paid back.

Dr. Allen W. Smith is a Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Eastern Illinois University. He is the author of seven books and has been researching and writing about Social Security financing for the past ten years. Read other articles by Allen, or visit Allen's website.

Oh, and on another informative note, I have absolutely no faith in anything those reporters from the Washington Post say about how they knew nothing, nothing about the following until recently.

Right.

Cause they are disengenuous informers after the fact. Everyone knew - in D.C. anyway.

Wonder how long they worked on this before they understood the implications? Maybe, oh, yesterday? And what caused them to just discover this?

July 19, 2010 "Washington Post" - The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work. And you don't even wanna go here:

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: War With Iran

We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. This would likely lead to a wider war.

Israel’s leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically untenable for you to give anything less than unstinting support to Israel, no matter how the war started, and that U.S. troops and weaponry would flow freely. Wider war could eventually result in destruction of the state of Israel.

This can be stopped, but only if you move quickly to pre-empt an Israeli attack by publicly condemning such a move before it happens.

We believe that comments by senior American officials, you included, reflect misplaced trust in Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu.

Actually, the phrasing itself can be revealing, as when CIA Director Panetta implied cavalierly that Washington leaves it up to the Israelis to decide whether and when to attack Iran, and how much “room” to give to the diplomatic effort.

On June 27, Panetta casually told ABC’s Jake Tapper, “I think they are willing to give us the room to be able to try to change Iran diplomatically … as opposed to changing them militarily.”

Similarly, the tone you struck referring to Netanyahu and yourself in your July 7 interview with Israeli TV was distinctly out of tune with decades of unfortunate history with Israeli leaders.

“Neither of us try to surprise each other,” you said, “and that approach is one that I think Prime Minister Netanyahu is committed to.” You may wish to ask Vice President Biden to remind you of the kind of surprises he has encountered in Israel.

And it continues.

Suzan _______________

FIGHT BACK? Wedding Blues - The New Superclass, Trends to Barbarism, Army Suicides Reach One a Day: Economic Recovery of the Few (Very Few) Poor Girls

(If throwing a contribution Pottersville2's way won't break your budget in these difficult financial times, I really need it, and would wholeheartedly appreciate it. Anything you can afford will make a huge difference in this blog's lifetime.)


I've been thinking for a long time now about the end of this blog's existence. This week I lost my last kind benefactor (probably due to economic or psychic pain - you choose), and see the endpoint much more clearly now. By the way, did you ever stop to realize that the dream of a strong American middle class died with those tax breaks for those at the top, the benefits of which were supposed to trickle down (gently, of course) on the rest of the country. Pretty silly country, eh?

Speaking of that most "wonderful" wedding for a poor little rich (only child) girl who actually had her parents' undivided attention throughout her life (well, as much as that were possible with two parents who worked in big-time, well-paid jobs), the thought that keeps reverberating through my head is how much more self-indulgent could this wedding event have been?

Let's look at the facts. Here are two people who came from modest means (Bill less than Hillary, of course), but both of whom were cosseted throughout their lives by powerful people around them who never faltered in their attentions, and their child of luxury who not only had the absolute best education possible, but was also gifted with plastic surgery to "correct" any minor physical deformities. Right. Like her club foot and harelip. I may seem a little bit bitter when I remember how her parents sold out our chances for real "change" during the 90's due to their own self indulgence (and all that free moolah), but really. A $5-million dollar wedding for these educated bumpkins? I'm guessing that just meeting David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger - let alone deciding to work towards their ultimate goals - does count for a little.

And the fact that they so kindly allowed you and me to give them a gift from the taxpayers amounting to $2 million dollars is just another bit of no-shame self indulgence from the crowd who has helped to bring you the future: your increasing pauperization. Enjoy that E- , Hollywood Tonight coverage! You helped pay for it. (Dr. Stuart Bramhall, a fantastic woman leader, has some well-chosen words (and her book is truly astounding about how the CIA chased her out of Seattle when she attempted to help some ex-Black Panthers start a museum) about the incredibly dark origins of our current President (and his subsequent acquisition by those CIA connections), and why it was so easy for him to break his campaign "promises." Yes. If it astounds me, who genuinely liked his persona (because you know how tough that's getting to be these days), you may also be interested in these facts.)

And, oh yes. It is definitely coming home to us from many other sources as well. From the horse's mouth (emphasis marks added - Ed.):

Coming Home

I would like to tell you that America, the nation you love and chose to serve, appreciates your sacrifices and honors your service. But in reality, those who oppose the war and occupation believe you are at best misguided, at worst, a murderer. For the rest, their gratitude and appreciation is all pretense, a charade choreographed by war criminals to further mislead an uninformed and apathetic citizenry of sheep in order to encourage their continued indifference and/or support for their agenda of killing and destruction. For most, members of the military are cannon fonder, an expendable commodity to be exploited when political leaders and corporate magnates believe it profitable and in their interest.

Henry Kissinger made this quite clear, “Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”

In addition, when you are no longer useful and have served their purpose, they will abandon you to face the demons of war alone, no longer a "hero" but a nuisance, a burden on the economy, and a reminder of a war America would rather forget.

Professor and ex- Asst. Treasury Secretary, Paul Craig Roberts, under Raygun says "Let them eat cake?" (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

Chelsea's Wedding

It is not unusual for members of the diminishing upper middle class to drop $20,000 or $30,000 on a big wedding. But for celebrities this large sum wouldn’t cover the wedding dress or the flowers. When country music star Keith Urban married actress Nicole Kidman in 2006, their wedding cost $250,000. This large sum hardly counts as a celebrity wedding. When mega-millionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump married model Melania Knauss, the wedding bill was $1,000,000. The marriages of Madonna and film director Guy Ritchie, Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren, and Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones pushed up the cost of celebrity marriages to $1.5 million. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes upped the ante to $2,000,000.

Now comes the politicians’s daughter as celebrity. According to news reports, Chelsea Clinton’s wedding to investment banker Mark Mezvinsky on July 31 is costing papa Bill $3,000,000. According to the London Daily Mail, the total price tag will be about $5,000,000. The additional $2,000,000 apparently is being laid off on US Taxpayers as Secret Service costs for protecting former president Clinton and foreign heads of state

. . . Before we attend to the poor political judgment of such an extravagant affair during times of economic distress, let us wonder aloud where a poor boy who became governor of Arkansas and president of the United States got such a fortune that he can blow $3,000,000 on a wedding. The American people did not take up a collection to reward him for his service to them.

Where did the money come from? Who was he really serving during his eight years in office? How did Tony Blair and his wife, Cherrie, end up with an annual income of ten million pounds (approximately $15 million dollars) as soon as he left office? Who was Blair really serving?

These are not polite questions, and they are infrequently asked. While Chelsea’s wedding guests eat a $11,000 wedding cake and admire $250,000 floral displays, Lisa Roberts in Ohio is struggling to raise contributions for her food pantry in order to feed 3,000 local people, whose financial independence was destroyed by investment bankers, job offshoring, and unaffordable wars. The Americans dependent on Lisa Roberts’ food pantry are living out of vans and cars. Those with a house roof still over their heads are packed in as many as 14 per household according to the Chillicothe Gazette in Ohio.

The Chilicothe Gazette reports that Lisa Roberts’ food pantry has “had to cut back to half rations per person in order to have something for everyone who needed it.”

Theresa DePugh stepped up to the challenge and had the starving Ohioans write messages on their food pantry paper plates to President Obama, who has just obtained another $33 billion to squander on a pointless war in Afghanistan that serves no purpose whatsoever except the enrichment of the military/security complex and its shareholders.

Does this strike you as funny? Rather odd priorities of someone supposedly from modest means himself?

The Guardian (UK) reports that according to US government reports, one million American children go to bed hungry, while the Obama regime squanders hundreds of billions of dollars killing women and children in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The Guardian’s reporting relies on a US government report from the US Department of Agriculture, which concludes that 50 million people in the US - one in six of the population - were unable to afford to buy sufficient food to stay healthy in 2008. US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that he expected the number of hungry Americans to worsen when the survey for 2010 is released.

Today in the American Superpower, one of every six Americans is living on food stamps.The Great American Superpower, which is wasting trillions of dollars in pursuit of world hegemony, has 22% of its population unemployed and almost 17% of its population dependent on welfare in order to stay alive. The world has not witnessed such total failure of government since the final days of the Roman Empire. A handful of American oligarchs are becoming mega-billionaires while the rest of the country goes down the drain.

And the American sheeple remain acquiescent.

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, How the Economy Was Lost, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com.

I think this next article will also curl your hair (whatever hair you've got left after this national hair-pulling decade). (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

Trends to Barbarism and Prospects for Socialism

By James Petras Western societies and states are moving inexorably toward conditions resembling barbarism; structural changes are reversing decades of social welfare and subjecting labor, natural resources and the wealth of nations to raw exploitation, pillage and plunder, driving living standards downward and provoking unprecedented levels of discontent.

We will proceed by outlining the economic, political, and military processes driving this process of decay and decomposition and follow with an account of the mass popular responses to their own deteriorating conditions. The deep structural changes accompanying the rise of barbarism become the basis for considering the prospects for socialism in the 21st century.

The Rising Tide of Barbarism

In ancient society ‘barbarism’ and its carriers ‘the barbarians’ were envisioned as threats by outside invaders from outlying regions descending on Rome or Athens. In contemporary Western societies, the barbarians came from within, among the elite of society, intent on imposing a new order which destroys the social fabric and productive base of society, converting stable livelihoods into insecure deteriorating conditions of daily life.

The key to contemporary barbarism is found in the deep structures of the imperial state and economy. These include:

The ascendancy of a financial-speculative elite which has pillaged trillions of dollars from savers, investors, mortgage carriers, consumers and the state, siphoning enormous resources from the productive economy into the hands of a parasitic elite embedded in the state and paper economy. The militaristic political elite overseeing a state of permanent warfare since the middle of the last century. Endless wars, cross border assassinations, state terror and the suspension of traditional constitutional guarantees have led to the concentration of dictatorial powers, arbitrary jailing, torture and the denial of habeas corpus.

In the midst of a deep economic recession and stagnation, high levels of state spending on economic and military empire building at the expense of the domestic economy and living standards, reflects the subordination of the local economy to the activities of the imperial state. Corruption at the top in all aspects of state and business activity – from state procurement to privatization to subsidies for the super-rich – encourages the growth of international crime from top to bottom, the lumpenization of the capitalist class and a state where law and order have fallen into disrepute.

As a result of the high costs of empire building and the pillage by the financial oligarchy, the socio-economic burden has been placed directly on the shoulders of wage and salaried workers, pensioners and the self-employed resulting in long-term, large-scale downward mobility. With job losses and the disappearance of well paying jobs, home foreclosures skyrocket and the stable middle and working classes shrink and are forced to extend their hours of labor and years of work.

As imperial wars spread across the world targeting entire populations, via sustained bombings and clandestine terror operations, they generate opposing terrorist networks, which also target civilians in markets, transport and public spaces. The world resembles a Hobbesian world of ‘all against all’.

Please read on as it is quite specific about a whole host of events which no one among the sheeple of the U.S. cares to examine closely.

And, of course, the suicides rise - and that's just those suicides - I wonder if anyone's publicizing the number of suicides of those suffering from this economic catastrophe - like the MSM did with the fake numbers about the suicides of the bankers jumping out of Wall Street windows after 1929 (emphasis marks added - Ed.)?

Army Suicides Reach One a Day; Epidemic Spreads to National Guard and Reserves Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

Thursday, July 29, 2010 The U.S. Army, along with the National Guard and Army Reserves, averaged a suicide a day in June, making what already was a bad year even worse. Thirty-two soldiers, including 11 in the Guard and Reserve, killed themselves last month, a rate of suicide not seen since the Vietnam War. Seven of the suicides took place (in) Iraq or Afghanistan. During the first six months of 2010, 65 members of the Guard and Reserve took their own lives, compared with 42 for the same period in 2009. Although the strain of multiple deployments is often cited as a major cause in the rise in military suicides, this is only occasionally a factor in National Guard and Reserves cases. Some observers feel that the military suffers from a drastic shortage of mental health professionals.

National Guard and Reserve Suicide Rates Climbing (by David Goldstein, McClatchy Newspapers) Marine Corps Tries to Cope with Rising Suicide Rate (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov) Pentagon Begins Massive Suicide Study (by Jamie Mei Cheng, AllGov) More U.S. Soldiers This Year Have Died of Suicide than in Combat (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

And then we meet "The New Superclass!" Right. The people who totally outsmarted us (US). (And don't fear the source, kids, it's far more reliable than the MSM we've been paying attention to all our lives.)

The New Superclass

Video Report

Al Jazeera

A new breed has emerged; they set the global agenda, ride on Gulfstreams and manage the credit crunch in their spare time.

They are anything but elected; they are entrepreneurs and entertainers, media moguls and former politicians - the self-made super rich who are using their money to lay down a new set of global rules.

They have more in common with each other than with their countrymen, set apart by their ability to regularly influence the lives of millions of people around the globe.

So where did this new global aristocracy come from and who is keeping them in check?

Why should Oprah Winfrey have the ear of President Obama, and who gave Shakira the right to dictate education policy?

But then again, when you have as much money as Bill Gates and you are prepared to give it over to a good cause who is going to stop you?

It is all well and good until the revolving door spins in the wrong direction. Empire talks to Christopher Hitchens about Henry Kissinger and his life beyond elected power - it does not seem to have changed that much.

Is the world suffering from a global governance gap? Should we be worried that the superclass seems to have an ever-expanding reach that bypasses governments and remains unchecked?

Gee whiz. I certainly am. Be sure to read the comments below the article linked above, friends. They are pricelsss.

And did I already mention "recovery" for the few - very few - yet? Keep reading for the ever-present, upcoming New Deal (and not from the progressives this time).

Economic Recovery for the Few

Where is this elusive recovery? The banks, some say, have "recovered." Yet they remain dependent on Washington, they do not make the loans needed for a general recovery, and many medium and small banks keep collapsing. The stock market shows no recovery. The Dow index was 14,000 in late 2007 when capitalism hit the fan, and it is around 10,000 now. The Nasdaq market index was 2800 then and is 2300 now. Everywhere else - unemployment, foreclosures, bankruptcies, depressed housing market, and so on - no recovery in sight. Yet, my search finally found genuine recovery for one group, and its recovery offers a better policy to treat this crisis.

Every year, two major companies catering to rich investors co-author a survey of their clients. Capgemini and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management's World Wealth Report covers the two groups that interest them: High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) and Ultra-High Net Worth Individuals (Ultra-HNWIs).

The first group counts all individuals with at least $1 million of "investible assets" in addition to the values of their primary residence, art works, collectibles, etc. The second group includes individuals with at least $30 million of such investible assets.

Their latest Report, covering the year 2009, finds 10 million HNWIs in the world that year: 3.1 million in North America, while Europe and Asia-Pacific each had 3.0 million. The rest of the world had a mere 0.9 million of the rich and richer.

The 10 million HNWIs -- in a global population of 6.8 billion in 2009 -- amounted to 0.14 per cent of the earth's people. Together, they owned a total of $39 trillion in "investible assets."

To see what this means: in 2009, the US GDP (total output of goods and services) was $14.6 trillion. The combined GDPs of the world's 9 richest countries (US, Japan, China, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, and Spain) totaled less in 2009 than the investible assets of the world's HNWIs.

During 2009, as tens of millions lost their jobs, the number of HNWIs rose by 17.1 per cent and their combined wealth rose by 18.9 per cent.

They had a genuine "recovery."

HNWIs regained in wealth most of what they lost in 2008. No wonder they celebrate "recovery" while the rest of the world wonders (or rages at) what they are talking about.

In the US, for example, the HNWI population grew by 16.6 per cent in 2009 while the US GDP fell by 2.4 per cent.

Only 1 per cent of all HNWIs were Ultra-HNWIs, but what a group that was and is.

Ultra-HNWIs alone owned 35.5 per cent of the $39 trillion owned by all 10 million HNWIs. And they recovered more during 2009 than their fellow HNWIs.

Does this tell you anything? Read on for the rest of the sickening news. Here are a few more revolting tidbits:

. . . What notions of fairness, decency, ethics, or democracy could justify such economic performance, especially in a time of global economic crisis? Recall as well that these same rich and richer people contributed so significantly (as industrial employers, bankers, and investors) to generating that global economic crisis.

Let's now concentrate on the HNWIs in just the US (including its Ultra-HNWIs). They numbered 2.9 million in 2009: well under 1 per cent of US citizens. Their investible assets totaled $12.09 trillion. For 2009, the total US budgetary deficit was $1.7 trillion. Had the US government levied an economic emergency tax of a modest 15 per cent on only the HNWI's investible assets, it could have erased its entire 2009 deficit. Over 99 per cent of US citizens would have been exempted from that tax.

The European, Japanese, and other governments could have treated the crisis likewise in their countries. Then governments would not have had to borrow trillions. They would instead have taxed the super rich tiny minority a small portion of its immense wealth. Those governments would not then have had to turn to lenders (often those same super rich).

There would be no current "sovereign debt crisis" in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, etc., and no need for the resulting austerities to satisfy those lenders. Republicans would have no "deficit, deficit" drum to beat hoping for election-day gains.

Taxing the HNWIs and Ultra-HNWIs would be the policy of governments responsive to the needs of their working-class majorities instead of their rich and super-rich patrons. Austerity is not the only policy. Modestly taxing the wealth of HNWIs is the far better policy choice.

The two wealth management companies that cater to HNWIs have kindly provided us all with the facts and figures needed to support the better policy.

. . . The business and political leaders generated by the last 30 years of neoliberal capitalism simply assumed that they could impose the costs of their crisis on their countries' people. That assumption is now being contested. The European people are beginning to fight back. And here, in the US?

Not so much.

Really.

And Just for Laughs (of course!):

Is this our Ken Starr?

Could someone, please, appoint a special prosecutor for these crimes? I hate Pete Peterson and those he represents more than almost anyone today (or anything/one I have ever hated). Cause I'm a lover, not a hater - usually. (Yes, emphasis marks added for your viewing convenience (and increase in levity) - Ed.)

In Retrospect, There Were A Bunch Of Things Accused Ponzi Schemer Kenneth Starr Didn’t See Coming

Say what you will about alleged Ponzi schemer Ken Starr, but the guy wasn’t stupid. He knew how to leverage his “friendship” with Blackstone co-founder Pete Peterson into big name clients for his scam operation and he kept them going for quite some time. Still, he apparently wasn’t the most perceptive guy in the bunch. As previously mentioned, he didn’t realize that obscenely flashy purchases and a high-profile, rather than laying low and not sticking out, might make people go, “hey wait a second…” and he apparently also didn’t realize that when you marry a stripper, known for her “pole-dancing prowess,” she might be proud of/want to publicly pat herself on the back over said skills.

Two days before his arrest for allegedly cheating clients out of $59 million, financial adviser Kenneth Starr presided at one of Harry Cipriani’s coveted front-room tables, with a view of the Plaza and Central Park, and grinned when his wife, Diane, protested, not very seriously, that she’d thought their third-anniversary dinner would be a private affair. Diane Passage, 34, was wearing a black Gucci dress with a scoop neck that kept slipping to expose more of her Brobdingnagian breasts than the designer had intended — only when she got home would she realize she had it on backward — but Starr, 66, was proud of his fourth wife’s provocative figure. He liked to brag about her pole-dancing prowess. Only when she brought up her past employment as a dancer at Scores strip club did he wince. Why, though? she would ask him. She had nothing to hide.

Yeah, and she’s probably pretty damn pleased with the fact that those moves were what landed her her big-shot husband in the first place. Think, Starr, think!

Diane and another dancer were approached at Scores, in Midtown Manhattan, one night in late 2004, she recounts, by a middle-aged couple enjoying a racy night out. Next thing they knew, Ken and Marisa Starr invited them to dinner. The dancers agreed — for $1,000 each — as long as dinner was the only thing on the menu. Soon thereafter the Starrs took them to the Four Seasons, Diane recalls, then to Bouley, then to Per Se: $1,000 for each dancer, each evening. (Marisa says she played no part in any such financial arrangements, and merely allowed Ken to take Diane to social events because her own declining health kept her increasingly housebound.)

For nearly a year, Diane relates, the $1,000 inner dates continued, though now just à deux: Ken and Diane. Oddly, says Diane, Marisa set up almost all the dates; she was in control. But Diane exercised a control of her own.

“During that whole year and into early the next year,” she says, “I never had sex with Ken.” Only when Starr moved to the Regency Hotel did Diane begin staying overnight with him, she says, while the Starrs negotiated their separation. She would have been happy, she says, to have Starr merely support her and her son. According to Diane, it was he who insisted on giving her a huge engagement ring, the Las Vegas wedding, the jewels and designer clothes. And it was he, she says, who pushed to buy a large, new apartment. “I had never owned anything in my life,” Diane says quietly, “so Ken said, ‘Let’s buy a condo.’ It was my dream place. Now it’s become a nightmare.”

Poor little rich girls.

"Once-Unthinkable Level of Economic Distress in the Process of Becoming the New Norm" - NeoCons RULE!!! Obamaniacs Exposed!! (Aren't We Happy NOW?)

And yes, of course, I'd much rather be talking about "Sarah Sightings," the "Clinton Wedding," my puppies and creating cutesy photoshoppies. Who wouldn't? I mean, can't we all just be friends?

a once-unthinkable level of economic distress is in the process of becoming the new normal

Sad to say (almost) but one of the most low-key, laid-back of all progressive economists (this means actually knowledgeable) finally sees the light on what the aristocracy (who proudly stole it!) has in store for the rest of us. And he's one of the minor elites, so don't minimize this realization on his part, and, please pardon me for running the entire article, but it's so important to read it NOW. (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

Defining Prosperity Down

By PAUL KRUGMAN

August 1, 2010

I’m starting to have a sick feeling about prospects for American workers — but not, or not entirely, for the reasons you might think.

Yes, growth is slowing, and the odds are that unemployment will rise, not fall, in the months ahead. That’s bad. But what’s worse is the growing evidence that our governing elite just doesn’t care — that a once-unthinkable level of economic distress is in the process of becoming the new normal.

And I worry that those in power, rather than taking responsibility for job creation, will soon declare that high unemployment is “structural,” a permanent part of the economic landscape — and that by condemning large numbers of Americans to long-term joblessness, they’ll turn that excuse into dismal reality.

Not long ago, anyone predicting that one in six American workers would soon be unemployed or underemployed, and that the average unemployed worker would have been jobless for 35 weeks, would have been dismissed as outlandishly pessimistic — in part because if anything like that happened, policy makers would surely be pulling out all the stops on behalf of job creation.

But now it has happened, and what do we see?

First, we see Congress sitting on its hands, with Republicans and conservative Democrats refusing to spend anything to create jobs, and unwilling even to mitigate the suffering of the jobless.

We’re told that we can’t afford to help the unemployed — that we must get budget deficits down immediately or the “bond vigilantes” will send U.S. borrowing costs sky-high. Some of us have tried to point out that those bond vigilantes are, as far as anyone can tell, figments of the deficit hawks’ imagination — far from fleeing U.S. debt, investors have been buying it eagerly, driving interest rates to historic lows. But the fearmongers are unmoved: fighting deficits, they insist, must take priority over everything else — everything else, that is, except tax cuts for the rich, which must be extended, no matter how much red ink they create.

The point is that a large part of Congress — large enough to block any action on jobs — cares a lot about taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population, but very little about the plight of Americans who can’t find work. Well, if Congress won’t act, what about the Federal Reserve? The Fed, after all, is supposed to pursue two goals: full employment and price stability, usually defined in practice as an inflation rate of about 2 percent. Since unemployment is very high and inflation well below target, you might expect the Fed to be taking aggressive action to boost the economy. But it isn’t.

It’s true that the Fed has already pushed one pedal to the metal: short-term interest rates, its usual policy tool, are near zero. Still, Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, has assured us that he has other options, like holding more mortgage-backed securities and promising to keep short-term rates low. And a large body of research suggests that the Fed could boost the economy by committing to an inflation target higher than 2 percent.

But the Fed hasn’t done any of these things. Instead, some officials are defining success down.

For example, last week Richard Fisher, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, argued that the Fed bears no responsibility for the economy’s weakness, which he attributed to business uncertainty about future regulations — a view that’s popular in conservative circles, but completely at odds with all the actual evidence. In effect, he responded to the Fed’s failure to achieve one of its two main goals by taking down the goalpost.

He then moved the other goalpost, defining the Fed’s aim not as roughly 2 percent inflation, but rather as that of “keeping inflation extremely low and stable.”

In short, it’s all good. And I predict — having seen this movie before, in Japan — that if and when prices start falling, when below-target inflation becomes deflation, some Fed officials will explain that that’s O.K., too.

What lies down this path? Here’s what I consider all too likely: Two years from now unemployment will still be extremely high, quite possibly higher than it is now. But instead of taking responsibility for fixing the situation, politicians and Fed officials alike will declare that high unemployment is structural, beyond their control. And as I said, over time these excuses may turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the long-term unemployed lose their skills and their connections with the work force, and become unemployable.

I’d like to imagine that public outrage will prevent this outcome. But while Americans are indeed angry, their anger is unfocused. And so I worry that our governing elite, which just isn’t all that into the unemployed, will allow the jobs slump to go on and on and on.

Robert Redford sounds the alarm along the same lines about the artistocracy's view of their environment. We at last understand that they don't care about anyone except themselves (and even then . . . ?), and he's not happy to have to finally comment by pointing out that the other elites act like they own it now - solely. (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

A small minority of Senators robbed America of a cleaner, more prosperous future last week. In the middle of the biggest oil disaster in American history, the hottest summer on record, and a war with an oil-rich nation, this group of cynics blocked efforts to pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation. This was the moment brimming with potential for new jobs, a more robust economy and cleaner environment - this bill would have guided America down a profoundly safer and more productive path.

So therefore, the Senate is left to vote on an anemic energy bill of such remarkably limited scope that it could have been passed during the Bush era.

The elected officials who steered this turnaround have abdicated their responsibility to uphold our nation's best interests, and have shown us, and the world, an America woefully deficient in both leadership and ingenuity.

This was our moment to create two million clean energy jobs here in the United States. This was our moment to outpace China in the clean energy market that will dominate the 21st century. This was our time to slash our oil imports in half. This was our time to confront the perils of climate change, which despite head-in-the sand-denial, is in fact happening.

The American people wanted a home run, not a bunt. A recent CNN poll found that nearly 80 percent of voters believe that reducing oil use and shifting to cleaner energy would make life better for Americans, while a Wall Street Journal poll in June found that an overwhelming majority of people specifically support passing legislation to limit global warming pollution.

Yet a handful of politicians decided they didn't want to represent the will of the people. Given the chance to invest in American jobs and reduce dangerous pollution, they chose instead, to focus on their own interest and self-preservation.

Look Closely Now - These Are Not People Who Are Gifted or Smart - They Have Just Proven that They Will Follow Orders Without a Qualm

From the ever-reliable Sibel Edmonds at Boiling Frogs: Home of the Irate Minority we get the real inside info on exactly what has been happening since we elected our "change" candidate. Aren't you glad you knew these facts before you voted at the last election? (And did you ever wonder how the Clintons got so wealthy around the time that the PNAC became the all-powerful inside player?)

What I really enjoy at this point in my overeducated, unemployed existence is finally understanding (after all of my misbegotten, misspent time gaining the proper educational/employment background) how just being born correctly is the real credential for our now-present-with-worse-upcoming Brave New American World - who'd a thunk that royalty-envy would be the ultimate enabler in the good ole U.S. of A? (And speaking of famous weddings, don't you wish you had had enough monied connections to be at that wedding - although they surely know a lot more about the ins-and-outs of Azerbaijani politics (like exactly how to extract those resources) than most of us do; please read about all of the new ambassador's credentials as you really need the full flavor before you start digesting this poisonous aperitif.) (Also, you may now need to rethink your apologist attitude for why no trials or even serious commissions have been invoked about the Cheney/Bush years - they are terrifed they will include the Clinton years therein!) (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

Obama Appoints a Not-Too-Long-Ago-Hatched Neocon Larva

Matthew Bryza: Azerbaijan Ambassadorship & a Tangled Web of Conflicts

Tuesday, 27. July 2010

President Obama appears to have run out of Non-Neocon candidates to appoint for crucial positions. After one year with no ambassador to fill the position in Azerbaijan, the President reached out to and appointed a young neocon with a tangled web of conflicts.

I am talking about a neocon and his wife, a duo who for the last decade and a half have been attached to figures such as Michael Rubin, Barry Rubin, Daniel Pipes, Richard Perle, Robert Novak . . .

We have here a fairly young to-be-ambassador neocon, whose lavish wedding in Turkey could not have been possible without the generosity of those involved in the Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline projects, and corrupt figureheads in Azerbaijan politics…

This is about a shady neocon figure with a shadier role in the almost-forgotten Georgia-Russia incident a couple of years ago…We are talking about neocon Matt Bryza and his more-of-a-neocon think-tank damsel Zeyno Baran; President Obama’s choice for the ambassadorship in Azerbaijan.

Last Thursday Mr. Bryza was on the defensive when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. While the general MSM coverage placed its main focus on Bryza’s questionable actions, actually lack of actions, on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflicts and incidents involving the desecration of ancient Armenian gravesites in the town of Julfa in the Azerbaijani exclave of Naxcivan, very little coverage was given to his even greater baggage and background.

Here is one of those cursory coverages I’m talking about:

Bryza also pledged to not let his personal life affect his work. His wife, Zeyno Baran, is of Turkish origin, which some Armenian critics say leads to an anti-Armenian bias. Baran, who was present at the hearing, has also been cited as a source of potential conflict of interest for Bryza in terms of energy politics. She works for the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think-tank which receives funding from ExxonMobile and other energy companies. Azerbaijan is a key “southern corridor” country for planned increases in gas shipment from the Caspian region to Europe. … Bryza’s neocon damsel’s past and present, and her various business and close associations are only the tip of a gigantic iceberg. But rest assured, our media and Congress will not go ‘there’, of course, without being forced to do so, that is.

So who is this quietly conceived hatched Neocon Larva, Matt Bryza?

As before I am going to start with the common pedigree chosen by our shallow MSM journalist friends and the like; the type that doesn’t raise many (if any) flags, at first glance: Matthew J. Bryza is a diplomat who became Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in June 2005. Two months ago President Obama appointed him as the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan. Here is a canned description of his job as a ‘diplomat’:

In this capacity, he is responsible for policy oversight and management of U.S. relations with countries in the Caucasus and Southern Europe. He also leads U.S. efforts to advance peaceful settlements of the separatist conflicts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and works with the Special Negotiator for Eurasian Conflicts to advance a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Additionally, Bryza coordinates U.S. energy policy in the regions surrounding the Black and Caspian Seas. He also works with European countries on issues of tolerance, social integration, and Islam.

In April 2001, Bryza joined the National Security Council as Director for Europe and Eurasia, with responsibility for coordinating U.S. policy on Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Caspian energy.

Bryza served as the deputy to the Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy from July 1998 to March 2001. In this capacity, Bryza coordinated the U.S. Government’s inter-agency effort to develop a network of oil and gas pipelines in the Caspian region.

During 1997-1998, Bryza was special advisor to Ambassador Richard Morningstar, coordinating U.S. Government assistance programs on economic reform in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Bryza served at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during 1995-1997, first as special assistant to Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, then as a political officer covering the Russian Duma, the Communist Party, and the Republic of Dagestan in the North Caucasus. He worked on European and Russian affairs at the State Department during 1991-1995.

Bryza served in Poland in 1989-1991 at the U.S. Consulate in Poznań and the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, where he covered the Solidarity movement, reform of Poland’s security services, and regional politics.

At first glance the above description is about a good ole boring tie-wearing State Department bureaucrat who was docile and boring enough to last through four administrations: Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., and now, Obama; that and the fact that the guy has been climbing the ladder steadily and rather quickly. Taking a closer look, if we have enough interest and if we are paying attention, our man’s operational file stands out a bit:

Caucasus, Central Asia, Eurasia, Caspian Sea, Turkey, Russia, Dagestan, Georgia…

Look just a little bit closer and you’ll notice even more important key works associated with key operations falling within the real interest of the key people: Caspian Basin, Caspian Energy, Energy Diplomacy, Islam, Oil & Gas Pipelines…

You and I know that ‘they’ don’t put just any good ole boring bureaucrat in positions dealing with the above key regions and dealing with the above key operations and issues. Right? Right. So back to the real question: who is this Matt Bryza? How did he get his start? Whose protégé was he to make it this far this fast? Who are his buddies? The answers to some of these questions take time and real effort to discover, since you won’t find them by browsing through MSM news archives or biographical synapses posted here and there…

Let’s start with the key person leading to Bryza’s acceptance and entry as a larva into the nest of the major neocon players, and his speedy ascent thereafter:

Richard Morningstar & His Closeted Neocon Status

From Morningstar’s commonly cited pedigree sheet we know that he and Bryza collected degrees from Stanford University, which later led to their mentor-protégé relationship. In 1997 Bryza became special advisor to Ambassador Richard Morningstar, coordinating U.S. Government assistance programs on economic reform in the Caucasus and Central Asia during 1997-1998.

Digging a little bit more: In 1998 Bryza was Morningstar’s chief lieutenant in managing U.S. Caspian Sea energy interests as Deputy to the Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy, where he remained until March of 2001, and he worked on developing what are now U.S. and Western plans to circumvent Russia and Iran and achieve dominance over the delivery of energy supplies to Europe.

Interestingly, last year, one year before Obama appointed Bryza as an Ambassador to Azerbaijan, on April 20, 2009, Morningstar was appointed to the role of supporting U.S. energy goals in the Eurasian region. Morningstar was special advisor to the Clinton administration on Caspian energy; time to reunite the old mentor and his protégé for the next attempt on the Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline.

Morningstar’s status as one of the power player neocons has been long closeted.. During the 90s he was working with and serving one of the main agendas of Neocon players such as Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Frank Gaffney, Paul Wolfowitz … People tend to pay attention only to the top 25 signatories and contributors of Project for the New American Century-PNAC. Yes, that infamous list also includes the Neocons shining star for Central Asia & the Caucasus, Mr. Richard L. Morningstar.

Conn Halinan’s Counterpunch article in 2004 aptly highlights an important fact when it comes to the Halliburtons, Perles and Wumsers and their Project for the New American Century (PNAC) as it relates to Central Asia:

The recent move of oil companies and the U.S. military into Central Asia is a case in point. It was President Bill Clinton, not George W. Bush, who crafted that strategy. It was not the Republicans who brought Halliburton and Cheney into the Caspian region, but Clinton advisor Richard Morningstar, now a John Kerry point man. Halinan is right on target:

Clinton appointee Morningstar paved the way for Dick Cheney’s Halliburton’s positioning in Central Asia, and did darn many other good deeds for the main signatories of the Neocon Wet Dream in that region. Morningstar is also known as one of those who take their allegiances to Israel above anything else. You may remember the questions surrounding Douglas Feith’s and Rahm Emanuel’s Israel citizenship status. I haven’t seen anyone questioning Mr. Morningstar’s status in Israel; at least not on the record, but Morningstar and his family are known as staunch supporters of Israel with close ties over there. Morningstar’s mother’s, the late Jane Morningstar, obituary in the Boston Globe provides only a little initial glimpse; others with far deeper knowledge of Morningstar’s real Israel connections would currently rather whisper…Time may raise the volume on these closeted facts, or may not.

The latest articles regarding Matt Bryza’s connection to the Neocons are limited to his connection through his wife, Zeyno Baran. Either intentional censorship or ignorance glosses over his close neocon ties which started long before his marriage, going back to his early years under his mentor Morningstar, and accelerating steadily, assisting his speedy career ascent. Just check out his event calendar to see how his name pairs up with neocon brand names when it comes to functions, speeches, think-tank gatherings…

Matt Bryza & His Neocon Damsel - In 2007 Matt Bryza married Zeyno Baran, a Turkish-American neocon who’s been working for the Hudson Institute and before that for the Nixon Center. Here are a few of her titles and areas of expertise highly valued and marketed by her current neocon mentors and bosses such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Conrad Black, Abram Shulsky . . . Director of the Center for Eurasian Policy, Director of International Security and Energy Programs, Director of the Caucasus Project.

Baran and her colleagues and mentors are closely associated with the Turkish Ultra-Nationalist (Ulusalcis) movement and figures, including the military figures involved in the Ergenekon scandal: The think tanks actively engaging the Turkish Ulusalcıs are AEI, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Hudson Institute.

So, I'm guessing this is where the "Iran Has Nuclear Weapons (And If Not Now, Then Soon!)" furor emanates. And talk about Shock and Awe! Thanks, Tee! We may not like the idea that the "aristocracy" (self-proclaimed, of course) doesn't care about the rest of the population's welfare, but when you consider this type history, it gets a lot easier to understand. (I actually was already aware of the broad strokes here, but how does it make all those still-loyal Bush voters feel, I wonder (because it all comes out eventually, doesn't it?)? (Emphasis marks and some editing added - Ed.))

Bush Family Nazi Fortune Confirmed

I came across this article a few years ago while doing research for my book titled Shock and Awe on America. I was intrigued by the hard hitting article and today I present it to you, so the chain of Truth, Justice and "Payback is a Bitch" will not be broken... John Loftus, is a former U.S. Department of Justice Nazi War Crimes prosecutor, the President of the Florida Holocaust Museum and the highly respected author of numerous books on the CIA-Nazi connection including The Belarus Secret and The Secret War Against the Jews, both of which have extensive material on the Bush-Rockefeller-Nazi connection.

For the Bush family, it is a lingering nightmare. For their Nazi clients, the Dutch connection was the mother of all money laundering schemes. From 1945 until 1949, one of the lengthiest and, it now appears, most futile interrogations of a Nazi war crimes suspect began in the American Zone of Occupied Germany. Multibillionaire steel magnate Fritz Thyssen - the man whose steel combine was the cold heart of the Nazi war machine - talked and talked and talked to a joint US-UK interrogation team. For four long years, successive teams of inquisitors tried to break Thyssen's simple claim to possess neither foreign bank accounts nor interests in foreign corporations, no assets that might lead to the missing billions in assets of the Third Reich. The inquisitors failed utterly.

Why? Because what the wily Thyssen deposed was, in a sense, true. What the Allied investigators never understood was that they were not asking Thyssen the right question. Thyssen did not need any foreign bank accounts because his family secretly owned an entire chain of banks.

He did not have to transfer his Nazi assets at the end of World War II, all he had to do was transfer the ownership documents - stocks, bonds, deeds and trusts - from his bank in Berlin through his bank in Holland to his American friends in New York City: Prescott Bush and Herbert Walker.

Thyssen's partners in crime were the father and father-in-law of a future President of the United States.The allied investigators underestimated Thyssen's reach, his connections, his motives, and his means. The web of financial entities Thyssen helped create in the 1920's remained a mystery for the rest of the twentieth century, an almost perfectly hidden underground sewer pipeline for moving dirty money, money that bankrolled the post-war fortunes not only of the Thyssen industrial empire...but the Bush family as well.

It was a secret Fritz Thyssen would take to his grave.

It was a secret that would lead former US intelligence agent William Gowen, now pushing 80, to the very doorstep of the Dutch royal family. The Gowens are no strangers to controversy or nobility. His father was one of President Roosevelt's diplomatic emissaries to Pope Pius XII, leading a futile attempt to persuade the Vatican to denounce Hitler's treatment of Jews. It was his son, William Gowen, who served in Rome after World War II as a Nazi hunter and investigator with the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps. It was Agent Gowen who first discovered the secret Vatican Ratline for smuggling Nazis in 1949.

It was also the same William Gowen who began to uncover the secret Dutch pipeline for smuggling Nazi money in 1999.

A half-century earlier, Fritz Thyssen was telling the allied investigators that he had no interest in foreign companies, that Hitler had turned on him and seized most of his property. His remaining assets were mostly in the Russian Occupied Zone of Germany (which he knew were a write-off anyway). His distant (and disliked) relatives in neutral nations like Holland were the actual owners of a substantial percentage of the remaining German industrial base.

As innocent victims of the Third Reich, they were lobbying the allied occupation governments in Germany, demanding restitution of the property that had been seized from them by the Nazis.

Under the rules of the Allied occupation of Germany, all property owned by citizens of a neutral nation which had been seized by the Nazis had to be returned to the neutral citizens upon proper presentation of documents showing proof of ownership. Suddenly, all sorts of neutral parties, particularly in Holland, were claiming ownership of various pieces of the Thyssen empire.

In his cell, Fritz Thyssen just smiled and waited to be released from prison while members of the Dutch royal family and the Dutch intelligence service reassembled his pre-war holdings for him.

The British and American interrogators may have gravely underestimated Thyssen but they nonetheless knew they were being lied to. Their suspicions focused on one Dutch Bank in particular, the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart, in Rotterdam.

This bank did a lot of business with the Thyssens over the years. In 1923, as a favor to him, the Rotterdam bank loaned the money to build the very first Nazi party headquarters in Munich. But somehow the allied investigations kept going nowhere, the intelligence leads all seemed to dry up.

If the investigators realized that the US intelligence chief in postwar Germany, Allen Dulles, was also the Rotterdam bank's lawyer, they might have asked some very interesting questions. They did not know that Thyssen was Dulles' client as well. Nor did they ever realize that it was Allen Dulles's other client, Baron Kurt Von Schroeder who was the Nazi trustee for the Thyssen companies which now claimed to be owned by the Dutch.

The Rotterdam Bank was at the heart of Dulles' cloaking scheme, and he guarded its secrets jealously.

Several decades after the war, investigative reporter Paul Manning, Edward R. Murrow's colleague, stumbled across the Thyssen interrogations in the US National Archives. Manning intended to write a book about Nazi money laundering. Manning's manuscript was a dagger at Allen Dulles' throat: his book specifically mentioned the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart by name, albeit in passing.

Dulles volunteered to help the unsuspecting Manning with his manuscript, and sent him on a wild goose chase, searching for Martin Bormann in South America.

Without knowing that he had been deliberately sidetracked, Manning wrote a forward to his book personally thanking Allen Dulles for his "assurance that I was "on the right track, and should keep going.'"

Dulles sent Manning and his manuscript off into the swamps of obscurity. The same "search for Martin Bormann"scam was also used to successfully discredit Ladislas Farago, another American journalist probing too far into the laundering of Nazi money. American investigators had to be sent anywhere but Holland.

And so the Dutch connection remained unexplored until 1994 when I published the book "The Secret War Against the Jews."As a matter of historical curiosity, I mentioned that Fritz Thyssen (and indirectly, the Nazi Party) had obtained their early financing from Brown Brothers Harriman, and its affiliate, the Union Banking Corporation.

Union Bank, in turn, was the Bush family's holding company for a number of other entities, including the "Holland American Trading Company."

It was a matter of public record that the Bush holdings were seized by the US government after the Nazis overran Holland. In 1951, the Bush's reclaimed Union Bank from the US Alien Property Custodian, along with their "neutral" Dutch assets.

I did not realize it, but I had stumbled across a very large piece of the missing Dutch connection. Bush's ownership of the Holland-American investment company was the missing link to Manning's earlier research in the Thyssen investigative files.

In 1981, Manning had written: "Thyssen's first step in a long dance of tax and currency frauds began [in the late 1930's] when he disposed of his shares in the Dutch Hollandische-Amerikanische Investment Corporation to be credited to the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart, N.V., Rotterdam, the bank founded in 1916 by August Thyssen Senior."

In this one obscure paragraph, in a little known book, Manning had unwittingly documented two intriguing points: 1) The Bush's Union Bank had apparently bought the same corporate stock that the Thyssens were selling as part of their Nazi money laundering, and 2) the Rotterdam Bank, far from being a neutral Dutch institution, was founded by Fritz Thyssen's father.

In hindsight, Manning and I had uncovered different ends of the Dutch connection.This is just part of the original article, to read the full article use th(is) link: http://www.rense.com/general26/dutch.htm

Teeluck's Note . . . Allen Dulles went on to become the Chief Advisor to Republican Nominee Thomas E. Dewey and later under President Eisenhower he was appointed the Director of the CIA.

Under Dulles's direction, the CIA created MK-Ultra, a top secret mind control research project which was managed by Sidney Gottlieb. Dulles also personally oversaw Operation Mockingbird, a program which influenced American media companies as part of the "New Look".

This other link is a news story run by The Guardian, a reputable and sound News Media Giant, whose story parallels the above article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

Their opening salvo is thus...How Bush's Grandfather Helped Hitler's Rise To Power.

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

Please click on the links above to read the whole article.

P.S. I was shown some of these files back in the 80's by a librarian at the National Archives who knew of my perverse interest in exactly how Bush, who was the CIA Director before Reagan chose him as his Vice President (after Bush had had no support - waaah! - to run for President himself), became entrenched in power through the influence of his father, Prescott, former U.S. Senator, and bankers such as J.P. Morgan and his own grandfather Herbert Walker (and many, many other wealthy players). Just sayin'!

And in much more recent news (cause I just love to be current or au courant for my international readers), we learn that (as if we had no idea before . . . ) (and, yes, there are emphasis marks added by yours truly):

Mainstream Media Helps BP Pretend There's No Oil

With BP's broken well in the Gulf of Mexico finally capped, the focus shifts to the surface clean-up and the question on everyone's lips is: where is all the oil?"

NEW ORLEANS (Mother Jones) – I don't know who the fuck these everyones are, but I'm happy to help out them, and ABC, and this AFP reporter writing that due to BP's stunningly successful skimming and burning efforts, "the real difficulty now is finding any oil to clean up."

I sent one text message to Bloomberg's Lizzie O'Leary, who's standing on Grand Isle, Louisiana, right now, asking how the beach looks. "Lower part past the barrier untouched with globs of oil that washed up last night," she said.

By "untouched," she means by cleanup crews, and that "barrier" she's talking about is the one the press isn't allowed past. I sent another text to Drew Wheelan, who's also in Southwestern Louisiana, doing bird surveys for the American Birding Association, asking him how big the biggest tar mat on Grand Terre — the scene of those now famous horrifying oiled-bird photos — is. "20 feet by 15," he said. "But bigger ones submerged slightly."

If I managed to find that much oil with my BlackBerry without getting dressed or leaving the house, let's hope Thad Allen, who is quoted in the article as saying, "What we're trying to figure out is where is all the oil at and what can we do about it," can locate some more with the staff and craft of the United States Coast Guard at his disposal.

As for the reporter's alarmingly unsubstantiated claim that "The beaches should be relatively painless to mop up," I can't even count the number of correspondents down here who've pointed out that digging a finger under the surface of supposedly clean sand turns up crude, or the number of cleanup workers who've said cleanup efforts are strictly cosmetic, or that no matter what they do the contamination just keeps bubbling up.

It's BP's job to whitewash this story and make it easier to indulge the desire to forget about the scope of the devastation, guys. Not the media's.

What media? Is there any unbought media there left? Suzan _____________