The Money-Power: The Bankers That Rule The Economy

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A report in New Scientist (“Revealed: the Capitalist Network That Runs The World” October 24, 2011) confirms what honest observers of the system (often called banking conspiracy theorists) have said along – a small interlocking group of powerful banks rule the world economy. I blogged about this last year in “The 20..er…4..companies that rule the world” (October 28, 2011)

“An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study’s assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world’s transnational corporations (TNCs).

“Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it’s conspiracy theories or free-market,” says James Glattfelder. “Our analysis is reality-based.”

Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world’s economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy – whether it made it more or less stable, for instance.

The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company’s operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.

The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What’s more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world’s large blue chip and manufacturing firms – the “real” economy – representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

John Driffill of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, says the value of the analysis is not just to see if a small number of people controls the global economy, but rather its insights into economic stability.

Concentration of power is not good or bad in itself, says the Zurich team, but the core’s tight interconnections could be. As the world learned in 2008, such networks are unstable. “If one [company] suffers distress,” says Glattfelder, “this propagates.”

“It’s disconcerting to see how connected things really are,” agrees George Sugihara of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, a complex systems expert who has advised Deutsche Bank.

Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), warns that the analysis assumes ownership equates to control, which is not always true. Most company shares are held by fund managers who may or may not control what the companies they part-own actually do. The impact of this on the system’s behaviour, he says, requires more analysis.

Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power, the analysis could help make it more stable. By finding the vulnerable aspects of the system, economists can suggest measures to prevent future collapses spreading through the entire economy. Glattfelder says we may need global anti-trust rules, which now exist only at national level, to limit over-connection among TNCs. Sugihara says the analysis suggests one possible solution: firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity to discourage this risk.

One thing won’t chime with some of the protesters’ claims: the super-entity is unlikely to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. “Such structures are common in nature,” says Sugihara.

Newcomers to any network connect preferentially to highly connected members. TNCs buy shares in each other for business reasons, not for world domination. If connectedness clusters, so does wealth, says Dan Braha of NECSI: in similar models, money flows towards the most highly connected members. The Zurich study, says Sugihara, “is strong evidence that simple rules governing TNCs give rise spontaneously to highly connected groups”. Or as Braha puts it: “The Occupy Wall Street claim that 1 per cent of people have most of the wealth reflects a logical phase of the self-organising economy.”

So, the super-entity may not result from conspiracy. The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power. Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be one such common interest.

When this article was first posted, the comment in the final sentence of the paragraph beginning “Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power…” was misattributed.

The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies

1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc
21. Morgan Stanley
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
23. Northern Trust Corporation
24. Société Générale
25. Bank of America Corporation
26. Lloyds TSB Group plc
27. Invesco plc
28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA
30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company
31. Aviva plc
32. Schroders plc
33. Dodge & Cox
34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc*
35. Sun Life Financial Inc
36. Standard Life plc
37. CNCE
38. Nomura Holdings Inc
39. The Depository Trust Company
40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
41. ING Groep NV
42. Brandes Investment Partners LP
43. Unicredito Italiano SPA
44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan
45. Vereniging Aegon
46. BNP Paribas
47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc
48. Resona Holdings Inc
49. Capital Group International Inc
50. China Petrochemical Group Company

* Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used

Graphic: The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy

Comment

This shouldn’t come as a surprise for anyone who’s been reading this blog. I blogged about this in “Nightmare on Wall Street” (2008)

My earlier pieces on Goldman Sachs, were premised on research into this interlocking cartel.

For the power behind the banking cartel, see “The Invisible House of Rothschild” by Zahir Ebrahim.

See also my blog post “The Invisible Wealth Of The Rothschilds,” (2011) citing a piece by Markus Angelicus on the estimated wealth of the Rothschilds, “The Rothschilds, the LBMA and gold” (1997)

The numbers (hundreds of thousands of trillions of dollars) might seem outlandish, and they may well be,  but if you consider the estimate to include the entire holdings of the family in all its branches, and if you consider the family to be the head of what is really a banking syndicate that includes a network of other financial houses, then the figures become more plausible.

Still, other estimates I have seen are much more modest, ranging from a few trillion to a 300-500 trillion.

So that is quite a variance and none of this is documented scientifically. They are more or less speculative estimates based on published figures, since we have no public accounting for wealth held in family trusts or vaults. And they assume that these families’ holdings have not been wiped out, or eroded, as some of them claim.

Additionally, the Rothschilds are the bankers to the Crown and they have systematically intermarried with some members of the Royalty, so the total numbers would reflect the combined wealth of the ruling houses into which they married, as well as their own money.

Finally, here is a report that the Rockefeller and Rothschild families have joined in a business merger:

Rockefeller and Rothschild Dynasties Join Forces, Deal Book, NY Times, May 30, 2012.

The End Of Chinese Manufacturing?

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Vivek Wadhwa at Forbes:

The End of Chinese manufacturing?

“There is great concern about China’s real-estate and infrastructure bubbles.  But these are just short-term challenges that China may be able to spend its way out of. The real threat to China’s economy is bigger and longer term: its manufacturing bubble.

By offering subsidies, cheap labor, and lax regulations and rigging its currency, China was able to seduce American companies to relocate their manufacturing operations there. Millions of American jobs moved to China, and manufacturing became the underpinning of China’s growth and prosperity. But rising labor costs, concerns over government-sponsored I.P. theft, and production time lags are already causing companies such as Dow Chemicals, Caterpillar, GE, and Ford to start moving some manufacturing back to the U.S. from China. Google recently announced that its Nexus Q streaming media player would be made in the U.S., and this put pressure on Apple to start following suit.

But rising costs and political pressure aren’t what’s going to rapidly change the equation. The disruption will come from a set of technologies that are advancing at exponential rates and converging.

These technologies include robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing, and nanotechnology. These have been moving slowly so far, but are now beginning to advance exponentially just as computing does.  Witness how computing has advanced to the point at which the smart phones we carry in our pockets have more processing power than the super computers of the ’60s—and how the Internet, which also has its origins in the ’60s, went on an exponential growth path about 15 years ago and rapidly changed the way we work, shop, and communicate.  That’s what lies ahead for these new technologies.

The robots of today aren’t the Androids or Cylons that we used to see in science-fiction movies, but specialized electro-mechanical devices that are controlled by software and remote controls. As computers become more powerful, so do the abilities of these devices. Robots are now capable of performing surgery, milking cows, doing military reconnaissance and combat, and flying fighter jets. And DIY’ers are lending a helping hand. There are dozens of startups, such as Willow Garage, iRobot, and 9th Sense, selling robot-development kits for university students and open-source communities. They are creating ever more-sophisticated robots and new applications for these. Watch this video of the autonomous flying robots that University of Pennsylvania professor Vijay Kumar created with his students, for example.

The factory assembly that the Chinese are performing is child’s play for the next generation of robots—which will soon become cheaper than human labor. Indeed, one of China’s largest manufacturers, Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group, announced last August that it plans to install one million robots within three years to do the work that its workers in China presently do. It found Chinese labor to be too expensive and demanding. The world’s most advanced car, the Tesla Model S, is also being manufactured in Silicon Valley, which is one of the most expensive places in the country. Tesla can afford this because it is using robots to do the assembly.

Then there is artificial intelligence (AI)—software that makes computers do things that, if humans did them, we would call intelligent. We left AI for dead after the hype it created in the ‘80s, but it is alive and kicking—and advancing rapidly. It is powering all sorts of technologies. This is the technology that IBM’s Deep Blue computer used in beating chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997and that enabled IBM’s Watson to beat TV-show Jeopardy champions in 2011. AI is making it possible to develop self-driving cars, voice-recognition systems such as Apple’s Siri, and the face-recognition software Facebook recently acquired. AI technologies are also finding their way into manufacturing and will allow us to design our own products at home with the aid of AI-powered design assistants.

How will we turn these designs into products? By “printing” them at home or at modern-day Kinko’s: shared public manufacturing facilities such as TechShop, a membership-based manufacturing workshop, using new manufacturing technologies that are now on the horizon.

A type of manufacturing called “additive manufacturing” is making it possible to cost-effectively “print” products.  In conventional manufacturing, parts are produced by humans using power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, to physically remove material to obtain the shape desired. This is a cumbersome process that becomes more difficult and time-consuming with increasing complexity. In other words, the more complex the product you want to create, the more labor is required and the greater the effort.

In additive manufacturing, parts are produced by melting successive layers of materials based on 3D models—adding materials rather than subtracting them. The “3D printers” that produce these use powered metal, droplets of plastic, and other materials—much like the toner cartridges that go into laser printers.  This allows the creation of objects without any sort of tools or fixtures. The process doesn’t produce any waste material, and there is no additional cost for complexity. Just as, in using laser printers, a page filled with graphics doesn’t cost much more than one with text, in using a 3D printer, we can print sophisticated 3D structures for about the cost of a brick.

3D printers can already create physical mechanical devices, medical implants, jewelry, and even clothing. The cheapest 3D printers, which print rudimentary objects, currently sell for between $500 and $1000. Soon, we will have printers for this price that can print toys and household goods. By the end of this decade, we will see 3D printers doing the small-scale production of previously labor-intensive crafts and goods. It is entirely conceivable that in the next decade we start 3D-printing buildings and electronics.”

Totalitarian Games: The London Summer Olympics, Z0iZ

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Dahlia Lithwick at The National Post describes the militarization of the creepy, totalitarian London Summer Olympics (July 27, 2012 – August 12, 2012):

“At the London Olympics, we’re seeing unprecedented restrictions on speech having anything to do with, erm, the Olympics. There are creepy new restrictions on journalists, with even nonsportswriters being told they should sign up with authorities……….

…Spectators have been warned they may not “broadcast or publish video and/or sound recordings, including on social networking websites and the Internet,” making uploading your video to your Facebook page a suspect activity. Be careful with your links to the official Olympic website as well.

..Know that wherever you go and whatever you do, you will enjoy, at the Olympics, “the biggest mobilization of military and security forces seen in the U.K. since the Second World War.” According to a report by Stephen Graham in the Guardian, “More troops — around 13,500 — will be deployed than are currently at war in Afghanistan. The growing security force is being estimated at anything between 24,000 and 49,000 in total.

Such is the secrecy that no one seems to know for sure.” There will be an aircraft carrier docked on the Thames, surface-to-air missile systems and a “thousand armed U.S. diplomatic and FBI agents and 55 dog teams will patrol an Olympic zone partitioned off from the wider city by an 11-mile, £80-million, 5,000-volt electric fence.”

Throw in the new scanners, biometric ID cards, number-plate and facial-recognition CCTV systems, and disease-tracking systems that will long outlast the games, and you have a sense of what’s to come in terms of big public events.

Protesters, participants and citizens aren’t parasites or background noise. Addressing threats of terror or real violence is one thing. Treating all speech and protest and media as inherently dangerous and violent is something entirely different. Brandishing the wrong sign in the wrong place isn’t protest, and brandishing the wrong French fry in the right place isn’t dangerous. Corporate cleanliness is just a short hop from corporate godliness, and by then it’s much too late for speech.”

Black-On-White Racist Violence Increasing

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From AIM.org, a report about black on white mob violence that looks instigated:

“What makes this even more startling is that it is just one of many examples of racial mob violence occurring around the country, without any comment from national figures such as President Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder. But if whites were attacking blacks in this manner, you can bet it would have already have become a national story worthy of comment from national political figures.

Consider these incidents:

  • At the Wisconsin State fair, groups of black teens numbering anywhere from 25 to 100 “were targeting anyone who was white or appeared to look white,” and beating them, according to the local police chief. At least 18 people were injured, and 30 have been arrested.
  • In Denver, couples leaving restaurants were being attacked by a group of black men with baseball bats.
  • A young white man named Carter Strange had his skull fractured by a mob in South Carolina. He was attacked at random while jogging.
  • A young white man named Dawid Strucinski was beaten into a coma by a mob in Bayonne, NJ.
  • Anna Taylor, Emily Guendelsberger, and Thomas Fitzgerald were beaten to the ground and stomped in separate Philadelphia flash mobs.
  • “Every weekend in July,” according to local news, “police have battled large, flash-mob beatings and vandalism” in Greensboro, NC.
  • In a mostly-white suburb of Cleveland, witnesses reported large groups of young blacks walking through the streets, “shouting profanities and racial epithets,” and one man was viciously beaten while leaving a restaurant with his wife and friends.
  • A young white lady named Shaina Perry was taunted and beaten by a black mob in Milwaukee who remarked “Oh, white girl bleeds a lot.”

The similarities among these attacks point to a trend: First of all, these are not run-of-the-mill crimes. They typically involve group attacks against defenseless, random victims who have no means to resist and did nothing to provoke their attackers. These flash mobs often stomp their victims even after they are down, as most of the news reports describe.

Then there are the racial similarities: The attackers are invariably black. Philadelphia’s mayor conceded as much when he condemned flash mobs, addressing the rioters with the charge, “You damaged your own race.” The victims are usually not black. Several qualifications are in order: It is clear that only a small number of black teens take part in these attacks. Blacks are more likely to be victims of violent crime than any other group due to black-on-black crime. Also, interracial crime is a fraction of all crime, and hate crime is an even smaller fraction of that. Nonetheless, these flash mobs are a social problem that needs to be addressed. If the races were reversed, we would be witnessing an outpouring of guilt of biblical proportions. Instead, the victims are white and we get an outpouring of ignominious silence. So far, precious few leaders in academia, politics, the legal system, or the media have spoken out directly against this troubling trend.

Far from being isolated incidents, violent flash mobs are part of an emerging social problem that turns the traditional story of American racism on its head. If opinion makers reported accurately about these flash mobs, most Americans would probably alter their views about racism and conclude that these flash mobs are the worst form of racial violence in our nation today. Not all of the flash mobs meet the strict criteria of a hate crime. However, they do represent a growing wave of racial violence.

The national media should acknowledge what a serious and potentially widespread social problem they are, but instead the press has concealed the racial aspect of this problem.”

Comment:

I should add that black people are by far the biggest victims of violent crime (black-on-black). So this isn’t meant to suggest, as white nationalists do, that black-on-white crime is generally motivated by racial animosity. The evidence suggests it’s not usually so. [Correction: I should add, until recent years].

But, given that there was a program to stir racial tensions floating around in the summer of 2011 among some political and activist groups, and given that this administration has shown itself ready to frame the debate in that way, this new violence should be examined a bit more closely. There is a good chance it might be orchestrated, at some level.

Audit The Fed Wins House By Large Vote

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Audit the Fed

Posted by Lew Rockwell on July 25, 2012 01:31 PM

By a huge margin, Ron Paul’s bill to have the Government Accountability Office audit the Federal Reserve System swept the House today. Even Romney, Boehner, and Cantor backed it. Not that they and other bankster-owned members of the Establishment have to worry about the Senate or the president agreeing. But in Ron’s intellectual war against the Fed, this is a very significant development.”

Gangster Bankster Sandy Weill Comes To Jesus…Not

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Here is an example of why following politics is not about “what” but about “who”.

That means it’s imperative that names are named and context provided in as much detail as needed.

There are many people, including me, who blame the repeal of Glass-Steagall for enabling the financial crisis. Who lobbied for it? Sandy Weill, of Citibank, among others. The repeal profited Weill.

Now, ten years and counting after that heist, here comes Weill to co-opt, for his own motives, the perfectly legitimate demand to break up the banks.

Except, since it comes out of Weill’s mouth, it’s not longer a legitimate move to defend against financial terrorism against the population.

It will have to be rejected.

Naturally, those who are hip to this kind of thing (like the ever so sharp Bob English over at EPJ) then look like turn-coats or defenders of the status-quo.  Of course, they are not. They are just too clever to be played.

But you would need to know the concrete particulars of what’s happening to know that. You can’t just follow some ideological script.

Following the twists and turns takes unremitting hard work, which Mr. Wenzel and Mr. English  amply provide on their deservedly popular masculinist and finance-capital-friendly blog.

[They like to retweet Rupert Murdoch more than I would be happy to. But when they catch one of these kinds of moves, it’s worth putting up with Uncle Rupert…]

“Bob English emails to explain how Weill should make a few more bucks if the Return of Glass-Stegall [sic] comes to a bank near you:

This is like when Lord Evelyn  [Rothschild] condescends himself to an interview with the Money Honey. Something big is in the works and Weill is the oligarch delivering the message today. This is likely part of the battle for the new payments system. But, Weill, post-Citi, isn’t lobbying on behalf of the banks anymore. As you probably know, Weill is ex-AmEx, but he also now has links to MasterCard:

http://newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/mastercard-and-sonoma-state-university-unveil-long-term-relationship-in-support-of-the-performing-arts/

Someone has to take the fall as part of the generation of political will to enact drastic new legislation that splits retail and institutional banking (if not the currency system itself, per Mervyn King’s suggestion). This is far bigger than the pusillanimous Volcker Rule, and I think it will eventually involve the repeal or amendment of the BHC Act, as I alluded to on the last CA appearance. LIBOR would seem to be but one battle front against the banks (though a major one).”

None of the entrenched financial interests want to be left in the dust when tech is allowed to enter the field (especially, the CIA vis a vis AmEx and MC). So the Weill interview looks like the payment processors are throwing the banks under the bus to keep as much of the action as possible.”

The Truth About Dragan Mihailovich and Serbia’s Chetniks

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Statement by Richard L. Felman, USAF, in front of the Serb National Federation, on July 7, 1987 and entered into the Congressional Record on Draga Mihailovic and the Serb Chetniks on November 19, 1987

President Stone, Reverend Clergy, Distinguished quests, members of the SNF, and fellow Chetniks:

Moja braco i sestre, (“my brothers and sisters” in Serbian language)

May I first express my deep appreciation to President Stone and all members of the Serb National Federation for inviting me to your 3 Day Serbian Day Weekend. I know it is a most important event and I am delighted you have asked me to share it with you.

Chetnik leader
General Draža Mihajlovi?

Before getting into my speech I would like to acknowledge how appreciated it is that today (July 17th) is the very day in 1946 that General Mihailovich lost his life to a Communist Firing Squad. I say it is appropriate because were it not for Draza Mihailovich and the Grace of God, I would not be shading here before you today. I have said it before and will say it again: I owe my very life to General Mihailovich, the Chetniks and the Serbian people and because of this whenever I get together with the Serbian people it is like a family reunion and fill me with much emotion. If I may state it as simply as possible: “OO MOM SERTZU YA SAM SERBEEN.” (This is the pronunciation script of “U mom srcu ja sam Srbin” – in Serbian or “In my heart I am a Serb” – in English.)

My feelings, however, go far deeper then just gratitude for saving my life. I say that because when I was shot down in Yugoslavia, I had the opportunity to know first hand what truly remarkable people the Serbians are … and the bond of brotherhood that we formed during the war continues to this day. In every Serb I met I always found a sense of honor and sense of freedom that is second to none … and in this day and age I feel privileged to know people who still maintain these values and have such a strong commitment to their God, their family and their heritage.

I was in England a while ago to celebrate the European Chetnik Congress and Karageorgevich Day. Needless to say the Serbian Hospitality and food were out of this world. But the outstanding part of my visit was meeting with the Serbian Youth and seeing how intense they were about carrying on their priceless heritage… Their parents told them about the American Airmen that Mihailovich had rescued but I was the first one they met and their questions were endless. I spent a great deal of time with them and came away inspired by their enthusiasm.

I am reminded of them as I see the young people in the audience today. If I may I would like to say to them: “Thank God you were blessed with such a proud heritage. I saw with my own eyes the blood shed by your parents and grandparents just so it could be passed on to you .. Be proud of this priceless treasure you have and preserve it the rest of your days… So many of today’s youth are troubled and searching for answers in many strange ways. You have all the answers you need right here in your own church and your own heritage.”

So much for the Sunday Sermon, and now I would like to tell you of my first introduction to the Serbian people an how I won my Ravna Gora Badge as an honorary Chetnik. The one good thing the Germans did during WWII was shoot me down, giving me a chance to meet the Serbian people. During World War II, I was returning from an air raid on the Ploesti oil fields in Roumania when my B-24 Bomber was attacked by German ME-109s over Yugoslavia. We managed to shoot down two of them before my pane caught fire and we were forced to bail out from 20,000 feet.

As soon as I landed I was immediately surrounded by about 20 Chetniks all shouting “Amerikanski”… Before I knew it they each took turns hugging and kissing me (only the men mind you, not the women). As my leg was bleeding, they carried me to a nearby kucha (house in Serbian) for treatment. They had no medical supplies, but they did have a bottle of slivovitza [Serbian plum brandy] and used it to clean my wound… Once that was done, we all sat around and drank what was left in the bottle.

Shortly after that, an elderly man about ninety motioned for me to follow him. I had no idea what he wanted but limped after him until we came to a small wooden chapel. He then got down on his knees, clasped his hand in prayer and motioned for me to kneel down beside him. It was a most unforgettable sight! Here we were: strangers from 2 different countries, we spoke two different languages and practiced two different religions. But in those few moments we were united as brothers kneeling to give thanks for my rescue to the one God we all worship: It was one of the most moving experiences of my life.

It would be impossible for me to relate all the many wonderful things the Chetniks and the Serbian people did for me and my fellow American fliers. As our numbers increased, each man would tell of his own personal experiences. They told how the people went hungry in order to give them what little food they had. How many of them slept on the floor so that the Airmen could have the comfort of their beds. How they risked their lives to protect us from the German patrols. Not once did I hear anything but the highest praise from the 500 Americans rescued by General Mihailovich………

….Before getting into the concluding part of my speech, I would like to make brief mention of a matter of a personal nature which is added reason for my admiration of the Serbian people.

Besides being one of the American Airmen rescued, by the Serbian people, I am also a Jew! It is a matter of historical fact that Serbia was one of the very few countries where anti-Semitism was not permitted.

In the old kingdom of Serbia, and later in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Jews were, by law, equal members of the community and enjoyed all the rights and privileges of other citizens. This is so very remarkable when you consider the persecution of the Jewish people throughout history.

The historical goodwill between the Serbs and the Jews does not seem strange when you consider the many parallels in our history. We both suffered cruel persecution, both have been driven from our homeland and today we are both dispersed throughout the world.

One other amazing similarity is that both our peoples fought battles to the death for their belief in the freedom and dignity of man. The Jews at Masada and the Serbs in Kosovo.

In keeping with this same love of freedom, many Serbs risked their lives during World War II to save countless Jews from Nazi death camps. This is something we can never forget and for which I and The Jewish People will always be grateful……

Permit me to read what President Truman had to say in awarding him the highest combat award our nation can bestow on a foreign national:

“LEGION OF MERIT – CHIEF COMMANDER: General Dragoljub Mihailovich distinguished himself in an outstanding manner as Commander-in-Chief of the Yugoslavian Army Forces and later as Minister of War by Organizing and leading important resistance forces against the enemy which occupied Yugoslavia, from December 1941 to December 1944. Through the undaunted efforts of his troops, many United States airmen were rescued and returned safely to friendly control. General Mihailovich and his forces, although lacking adequate supplies, and fighting under extreme hardships, contributed materially to the Allied cause, and were instrumental in obtaining a final Allied victory. March 29, 1948. Harry S. Truman.”

We now know that from this day forward there is a symbol on American soil that established a permanent bond between Gen. Mihailovich, President Truman and 500 grateful Americans… and it is here for all the world to see!

Since the end of WWII we have made great strides in trying to repay our debt of honor to the man who saved our lives. Permit me to read just a partial list of those who have joined us in support of General Mihailovic:
Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan;
The United States Senate;
hundreds of United States Congressmen;
the Secretary of the Air Force, Thomas Reed;
The Department of Interior;
The National Capital Memorial Advisory Committee;
the United States Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Laurence Silberman;
the Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Clement Zablocki;
a United States Commission of Inquiry;
the Arizona State Senate;
the governors of Alaska, Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Texas;
the mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley;
Bishops Firmilian, Iriney and Manning;
John Wayne;
The American Legion;
Polish War Veterans;
George Meany and the AFL-CIO;
the Teamsters Union;
The Heritage Foundations;
The Coalition for America;
The New Your Times;
Washington Post and Washington Times,
Toronto Sun, Christian Science Monitor, etc., etc…

And this is only a partial list. Incredible as it may sound, the only ones in the entire world who have not supported and continue to oppose us are the Communist Government of Yugoslavia and our own State Department….

..  What is even more bizarre is that our own State Department chose to take sides against us (its own combat veterans) and side with a Communist government that openly supports and justifies international terrorism.[LR: Tito’s government]

Bob Stone was there in the hearing room and I’m sure he can tell you more about the most incredible alliance of opponents American ever had to face in their own country. Had this been a court of law, the opposition would have been thrown out as completely irrelevant – but this was the political arena where truth takes a back seat to what is politically expedient.

If even the slightest semblance of doubt existed as to what the truth was, it was exploded beyond all recognition when the Encyclopedia Britannica published its revised account of Gen. Mihailovich and the CIA released (under the Freedom of Information Act) the previously unpublished top secret intelligence file on the activities of all parties in Yugoslavia during WWII. Here was the on-the-scene American intelligence reports to the President of the United States exposing all the propaganda lies that have stood in our way since 1944. If ever there was a smoking gun, this was it. And those who still insist on the propaganda fairy tale about Mihailovich’s collaboration, I suggest they join hands with those who believe in the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny and the flat earth theory.

Now that we have the top secret CIA Intelligence File an the same opposition continues to stand in our way, the American Airmen are publicly offering to pay the sum of $100,000 to the United States Government if the State Department or any of Mihailovich’s political opponents can prove in an American court of law the treacherous lies they continue to make against him in opposing our petition before Congress.

What’s more, if they have any respect for the service to the United States of America, the American Veteran represents, I suggests they should speak up now or forever hold their peace. We do not have another 40 years. You can bet your life we are justifiably outraged and fighting mad. Quite frankly, even if our offer were for ten times that amount, we have no fear it will ever be accepted. Under the close scrutiny of an American Court, the facts contained in the CIA file would prove to be an embarrassment and even humiliation to all those parties who continue to oppose us…..”

Richard L. Felman is president of the National Committee of American Airmen Rescued by General Mihailovich).

Iceland Versus The Banksters

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Political Vel Craft.org wrote on June 9, 2012

No one, except the Icelanders, have to been the only culture on the planet to carry out this successfully. Not only have they been successful, at overthrowing the corrupt Gov’t, they’ve drafted a Constitution, that will stop this from happening ever again.

That’s not the best part… The best part, is that they have arrested ALL Rothschild/Rockefeller banking puppets, responsible for the Country’s economic Chaos and meltdown.

Last week 9 people were arrested in London and Reykjavik for their possible responsibility for Iceland’s financial collapse in 2008, a deep crisis which developed into an unprecedented public reaction that is changing the country’s direction.”

And more:

“Returning to the tense situation in 2010, while the Icelanders were refusing to pay a debt incurred by financial sharks without consultation, the coalition government had launched an investigation to determine legal responsibilities for the fatal economic crisis and had already arrested several bankers and top executives closely linked to high risk operations.

Interpol, meanwhile, had issued an international arrest warrant against Sigurdur Einarsson, former president of one of the banks. This situation led scared bankers and executives to leave the country en masse.

In this context of crisis, an assembly was elected to draft a new constitution that would reflect the lessons learned and replace the current one, inspired by the Danish constitution.

To do this, instead of calling experts and politicians, Iceland decided to appeal directly to the people, after all they have sovereign power over the law. More than 500 Icelanders presented themselves as candidates to participate in this exercise in direct democracy and write a new constitution. 25 of them, without party affiliations, including lawyers, students, journalists, farmers and trade union representatives were elected.

Among other developments, this constitution will call for the protection, like no other, of freedom of information and expression in the so-called Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, in a bill that aims to make the country a safe haven for investigative journalism and freedom of information, where sources, journalists and Internet providers that host news reporting are protected.

The people, for once, will decide the future of the country while bankers and politicians witness the transformation of a nation from the sidelines.”

Comment:

Reporter Wayne Madsen, among others, has found connections between the IMMI and the elites.

Others have found them, as well. But since I periodically have doubts about all my judgments and want to refine them in light of new evidence, new research, additional epiphanies and/or rude awakenings, I plan on taking a second look at the IMMI.

Privacy versus transparency might be another of those binaries we need to surmount with creative intelligence.

Why Obama Would Love Running Against Romney

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Update (July 26): I’m adding this to make it clear that I think the elites want Obama to win. So, when Ron Paul enables a Romney victory (whether he endorses him officially or not is less important), he has in effect helped Obama.

ORIGINAL POST

It’s a black-and-white thing……literally and figuratively.

Figuratively, Romney is Mr. Wall Street. He’s mixed up with the Stanford Ponzi (directly), with Goldman Sachs (directly), with private equity and vulture funds. Good luck with trying to run a candidate like that in post-2008 America.  Romney’s also got money in off-shore havens. There may be nothing wrong with those havens, in the minds of Austrian economists. We’re talking public perception.

Literally, Obama’s people have been salivating to play the race card, documentably since 2008, and recently just before 2011. OccupyWallStreet which I’ve dubbed on this blog an Obama re-election strategy is deliberately geared toward polarizing race tensions.

I collected a lot of research to that effect last year in September, but decided against putting it up, in case it was seen as adding to racial tensions.

Romney, for any PC people out there who claim not to notice such things, is white. He’s also a very good looking guy, with a very good-looking family. All this will provoke visceral reactions from the majority white population, and ditto from minorities.

Romney is on top of all that a Mormon. Mormonism, a British Israelite related heterodox Christianity, is racist in its original dogmas. More explicitly and more recently than other religions.

Romney was preaching those dogmas at the time he was a missionary. I would love to see how he is going to explain that in public. It doesn’t matter that Romney has stood up to racism. Or that he is not personally a racist.  A campaign has to deal with how other people see things, not with just how you really are.

Maybe, Rand is counting on that.

Maybe he wants to turn the race card against the left and talk black racism. Maybe it will work.

Maybe both sides think a divide like this will be helpful.

Personally, I think this is a plot from the elites to prevent people thinking about the money-supply and financial crime. They want them thinking instead about blood and soil.

Blood and soil will trump money every time.

Especially, when the colored populations that are being bombed and threatened start fighting back even more.

Their fights and Occupy Wall Street’s fight will be conflated. They are already conflated.

Someone’s conflating them intentionally. Conflation will lead to conflagration. Only a matter of time.

The lines will be drawn black and white and straight through, all though they are actually every shade and as muddled as can be.

Black-and-white thinking  is us-and-them thinking. It’s flight-and-fight thinking. It’s the mob. The lizard brain.

America will not flee, even when she doesn’t know who the enemy is exactly. She will fight.  That has been her nature these many years.

We will have capitalists, whites, the West, and Romney on one side. Everyone else will have to move over to the other side.

You see what happens?

The lines are drawn so sharply, so bitterly, it will justify global war.

If whites feel that the defense of their culture is tied up with the defense of Capitalism and the defense of the Anglo-Jewish establishment, they will lose their antiwar fervor and vote for war. Or, not care enough not to vote for it.

That is why it was a terrible strategy to focus on the Federal Reserve alone instead of the crimes of Wall Street as well.  They could have tied the two together and directed the anger in the right direction.

By doing that, the right lost the high ground they had seized in 2008. They let the left direct the anger the way they wanted to.

The right might still win.

But it will be on low ground.  They will have to use race as well.

Reagan Revisionism From The Left

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The Daily Bell has a good piece by Paul Craig Roberts about the continual historical revisionism that blames everything on Reagan.

Salient points excerpted:

1. Reagan most certainly is not to blame for the financial crisis or for the neoconservative wars for American hegemony.

The Reagan administration’s interventions in Grenada and Nicaragua were not, as is sometimes claimed, precursors to Clinton’s war on Serbia and the Bush and Obama wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, with more waiting in the wings. Reagan saw his interventions in the context of the Monroe Doctrine, not as an opening bid for world hegemony.

The purpose of Reagan’s interventions was to convince the Soviets that there would be no more territorial gains for communism. The interventions were part of Reagan’s strategy of bringing the Soviets to the table to negotiate the end of the cold war.

2. When Reagan understood what the Israelis had lured him into in Lebanon, he pulled out. Reagan opposed war as an instrument of American hegemony. It is the neoconservatives who use war to achieve hegemony. Reagan was not a neoconservative.

3. The first business of the new Reagan administration was to complete the Carter administration’s plan to save autoworker jobs by imposing quotas on imports of Japanese cars. Reagan did this even though it demoralized his conservative free trade supporters. Reagan got no thanks from the left who denounced him instead for bailing out his Republican buddies in the auto business.

4. I still hear from readers hostile to Reagan that Reagan’s firing of the illegally striking air traffic controllers is proof that he was a “union buster.” One sometimes feels sorry for people who have so little grasp of politics. For a new president to let himself be rolled up by a poorly-advised, illegally-striking public sector union would have rendered Reagan impotent and without the power to achieve his ambitious agenda of changing the economic and foreign policies of the US. Even Reagan’s court historians do not realize Reagan’s extraordinary achievements in economic and foreign policy.

5. It wasn’t Reagan’s agenda that was anti-left; it was the rhetoric Reagan used in order to keep the conservative base in line. Conservatives did not understand supply-side economics any better than did the economics profession and Wall Street. Conservatives wanted a balanced budget, which is their solution to every economic problem. Reagan was talking about a 30% reduction in marginal tax rates (the rate of tax applied to increases in income) and about faster depreciation schedules for capital investments.

What this meant to conservatives was more budget deficits. Wall Street never lobbied me to repeal Glass-Steagall, but Wall Street did lobby me to water down the Reagan tax rate reductions.

[LR: exactly. The financial world is left-oriented because they benefit most from finagling money/banking and not from tax reductions aimed at the manufacturing and non-financial business sector]

5. On the cold war front, conservatives were very suspicious of negotiating with the Soviets. Some conservatives put out the story that Gorbachev was the anti-christ, that he would take Reagan to the cleaners and we would all end up living under the red flag of communism.

[LR: Well, they got that half right]

6. Reagan did not cut back government or abolish the welfare state.

7.  If all the uninformed people who ranted about “Reagan deficits” and “tax cuts for the rich” had bothered to educate themselves about the policy that they so desperately wanted to demonize, a wider understanding of the Reagan era might have created an audience among Washington policymakers for writings by myself and others who stressed, to no effect, the adverse impact of jobs offshoring on the economy. Instead, this cancer, masquerading as the benefits of free trade, has gone untreated for 20 years.

8. The Presidents Working Group on Financial Markets, created in the last year of the Reagan administration, was labeled the “plunge protection team” by the Washington Post. The Working Group consists of the Treasury Secretary, Federal Reserve Chairman, and the financial regulators….. If speculators were indeed gaming the market at the expense of pension funds, IRAs, and long term investors, the government might have felt obliged to come up with new regulations or to use moral suasion or even direct intervention in order to protect legitimate investors from the greed of speculators. If speculators short the market and the Federal Reserve buys long, the shorts don’t pan out for the speculators.

How the Working Group has evolved since 1988 I do not know.

However, it is absurd to blame Reagan for the Federal Reserve’s different use or misuse of the Working Group twenty-four years later, if that is indeed what is occurring.