Mr Fahours Best Friends at Citibank - are bombing Syria. His Homeland.
I have no idea whether Fahour's mum and dad are still alive - but if they are, I bet they are really fucking thrilled seeing this shit on the TV - Ahmed's best friends in the USA - are laying waste to his homeland for fun and profit....Creating even more dead people in the middle east, Syria - and more refugees to come to Australia - just like little Ahmed when he was 3, with his mum and dad.
It's fun finding out that Ahmed Farhour is "besties" with the pricks in Goldman Sachs and Citibank etc., who organise through their puppet presidents of the USA, and the CIA and US military - for invasions, occupations and wars against the people of the world, that they can exploit their oil and uranium, gold, etc., etc., etc...
Then the cretin donates "A few mil" to the Islamic Friendship Museum in Australia - that he appears to have a vested interest in - more like a tax wrought than anything.......
While his buddies are killing millions of muslims (people) in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc., etc., etc.
So I will go the jugular on this issue - because I have an intense dislike of bullshit artists, murdering millions in imperialist wars of occupation and theft - for nothing more than easy profit.
Ahmed Fahour doesn't have a conscience about any of this, he is too stupid for that.
I can't retell all the detail, but I will include the information that does - and your going to have to pay real attention.... words, phrases and snippetts of information...
Blink and you miss it kinds of stuff - and lots of it.
So as the "Blogger format" has limitations as to the amount of text it can hold, as well as the amount of embedded videos it can host - I will generally have to post article extracts and webpage links or links to the videos.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/07/02/369579/moderate-opposition-us-cover-for-war/
US covering up support for war on Syria: Analyst
Last Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington hopes to enlist so-called “moderate” Syrian militants in the battle against terrorists in neighboring Iraq.
A day earlier, President Barack Obama requested USD 500 million from Congress to train and arm militants fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“This was just an extension, the newest phase, in the West’s basic global war on brown people that goes back to the British Empire,” said Welch.
A decade after Iraq’s security was shaken by the US-led invasion, the country is fighting with Takfiri militants from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who have been trained and armed by the US in Syria.
KA/HMV/SS
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/08/in-syria-follow-the-money-to-find-the-roots-of-the-revolt.html
Syria under Bashar al-Assad’s rule tried very hard to join the World Trade Organization. When the U.S. lifted its opposition, the World Trade Organization’s 153 members granted the Syrian government an observer status. Although the state was still the main economic generator, privatization was encouraged; foreign entities such as private banks, joint Saudi-French bank of Bimo, Fransabank, Bank of Jordan-Syria, and the Saudi Islamic bank, joined the Syrian market. The road also began opening for other credible international banks such as Citibank and HSBC to come to Syria and lend money at higher interest rates.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-syrian-conflict-the-lies-of-our-government-and-corporate-media/5347403
The U.S.-Iraq War as precedent:
The U.S.-Iraq War was an illegal invasion based on lies that killed over a million innocent Iraqi people.
The real purpose was to control Iraqi natural resources (both oil resources and strategic regional geography), for globalist exploitation – so that corporations like JPMorgan Chase, CitiBank, Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell Oil Company, etc., etc., could enrich themselves to even greater heights.
This reality is both an egregiously immoral and unethical event as well as a violent horror that has destroyed millions of lives and left a country, Iraq, in shambles and at even greater mercy to the evil globalist forces that do not care about humanity, but base all their values on profit over people.
It is good to remember a little of the actual history here as well, since lack of this type of knowledge is part what makes the public at large so susceptible to government and corporate media lies, shaping what is politically viable by the establishment of disinformation.
Firstly, we need to remember that in general most of the Middle East as most of the rest of the developing world during the 20th century was under European and American colonization – essentially brutal standards that denied indigenous people their basic rights.
Part of that story is how Saddam Hussein came to power in Iraq. The CIA had hired him when he was in his early twenties to assassinate Qasim, a reformist leader that led a rebellion against the British puppet monarchy that was used to oppress the Iraqi people.
Saddam Hussein’s assassination attempt failed and he was whisked to safely by back-up CIA forces to hide in Egypt for two years, until continued efforts to kill Qasim were finally successful.
Once returned to Iraq, Saddam Hussein was set-up, again by the CIA, as head of Iraqi Intelligence. During this time the CIA taught him everything he was to learn to become a brutal murderous dictator. During that time, under his command (under the tutelage of the CIA), Iraqi society was purged of many different types of Iraqi citizens (constitutionalists, socialists, communists, democrats, etc.), that wanted to create a fairer society that allowed for more democratic participation.
“Purged” is of course a euphemism for murdered. It is difficult to know exactly how many, but at least hundreds of thousands of innocent people Iraqis were “purged”.
Over time The CIA found other uses for Saddam Hussien. One recently confirmed project was to supply him with chemical weapons of mass destruct (Sarin Gas) to be used against our “enemies” – the Iranians.
Ironically The Iranians were unhappy with the U.S. because America had previously done the same thing to Iran (Operation Ajax) – deposing a democratically elected moderate reformist (Mohammad Mosaddegh) with the reinstated Shah of Iran. The Shah then went on to torture and kill his own citizens to make sure his country was open to globalist exploitation – for sure, he was personally well compensated.
In 1980 there was a revolution in Iran, a hostage taking at the American Embassy – the Iranians were ready to kill Americans because they felt just in wanting a society free of American colonial rule.
So, Iranian Revolution against U.S. oppression, Saddam Hussein was employed with the task of gassing the Iranian Army, and the U.S. was more than just passingly complicit. (Saddam also had the idea to gas Iraqi Kurds who were independently fighting his dictatorial rule on his domestic front.)
The problem was that even Saddam Hussein became tired of U.S. oppression. The war he had been instigated to press against Iran left Iraq bankrupt and he started to flex his military muscles to express that Iraq wanted to be free from the oppression of U.S. Empire.
Big mistake on his part. Once you join this criminal gang of globalists and do a lot of their dirty work you are not allowed to then just walk away from them. The result of his rebellion was that he went from being a “public darling” of the U.S. (doing all the globalists dirtiest work of political purging) to suddenly being a “terrorist” – he became a threat to corporate profit centers.
Back to center stage today; Iraq’s neighbor, Syria and its President Bashar Assad:
While Assad may not be someone you and I might vote for, the U.S. has no business, no right, deposing him just because he does not play ball with our murderous globalists.
Plus, as independent forces in the Middle East, Syria is understandably now aligned with Iran, which continues to be the perverse target of U.S. aggressions. As Prof. Chossudovsky has said, “the road to Teheran goes through Damascus.”
The current insurgents that make up the Syrian opposition are 95% non-Syrian, in fact many al Qaeda groups are present and fighting Assad. (The al Qaeda were themselves originally organized and funded by the CIA. They were Mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan were brought together, fanaticized, militarized even further, and trained to be the terrorists we are supposed to be at war with today.
On Thursday evening, 29 August 2013, President Obama, addressed the latest conflict-flares in Syria, paving the road to military attacks on Syria, again based on lies and disinformation, but also, inadvertently, admitting to the total illogic of America’s desire for war with Syria to depose President Bashar Assad.
The President actually said that the greatest threat to America stems from the fact that Syrian stores of chemical weapons might fall into the hands of the Syrian-opposition fighters, who are known to be terrorist that have attacked the U.S. in the past! – namely, al Qaeda.
It is hard to understand that the total absurd illogic to all of this is supposed to convince the American people to actually go along with this agenda – but it could! And, it could because of how the greater body of information in general is handled by corporate media.
The greater body of corporate propaganda never honestly questions that Assad’s military forces committed the recent and previous Sarin gas attacks in this conflict, but the most likely candidates, just as a matter of first consideration, for who may have used these weapons of mass destruction are in fact the oppositional al Qaeda forces that the U.S. is supporting!
Now President Obama is worried that Syrian opposition forces (al-Qaeda) if they get hold of Syria’s stores of chemical weapons will use them against us – it’s actually the only part of his analysis that makes any sense at all.
So what does Obama want to do? He wants to weaken the Assad regime, with all the risk that implies!!! Is this treason?
Meanwhile, in balance, U.S. foreign policy does not have any great problems with the atrocities that Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bahrain, and other client states are engaged in domestically or abroad.
I can imagine the bombing starting against Syria from the naval vessels that have been dispatched to the region, and the probable follow-up with ground troops.
One thinks of Nazi Germany and Poland. …
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Business/Local-boy-comes-back-home-to-cleaning-job-at-NAB/2005/01/10/1105206052017.html
Driving through the suburb of Port Melbourne, Ahmed Fahour, National Australia Bank's new head of Australian operations, often remembers how his immigrant parents struggled for finance to start a business.
Port Melbourne was the disembarkation point in 1969 for three-year-old Fahour, the eldest of three children, and his parents, when they migrated from Lebanon (on the way from Syria).
Fahour's father, an artist, got a job in the paints division of Holden and a home in pre-yuppie Carlton to house a family that rapidly grew to four brothers and three sisters.
Thirty years later, after spending four years in Manhattan as a senior vice-president managing $112 billion for Citigroup, the world's largest financial services company, Fahour decided to return his three children and wife to Australia and, ultimately, to his home town of Melbourne.
What makes Fahour more interesting than other bright and fabulously paid bankers is his central role in rebuilding an Australian institution after one of the most traumatic periods of its 147-year history.
It is also a bank that, one way or the other, affects most borrowers and savers through its interest rates, while its corporate performance, and share price, affect the fortunes of millions of investors.
"I think [NAB chief executive] John Stewart was interested in me because I had lived through some of the things he wants me to do here: the cross-selling, the integration, the market turbulence, the company under a regulatory spotlight," Fahour says. "I just did it for four years [at Citigroup]."
Sitting at the head desk on the sixth floor of NAB's state-of-the-art office complex in Melbourne's Docklands, Fahour has abandoned an executive suite for an open-plan design where his top executives are clustered together in work stations.
The new headquarters, two interconnected low-rise buildings set around light-filled atriums, have no offices and are meant to reflect NAB's new collaborative, open approach to banking, reminiscent of the trading floor.
Fahour is one of the most closely watched businessmen in the nation. Along with Stewart and chief financial officer Michael Ullmer, he is devising the bank's drive to rethink, reshape and re-energise both its structure and its culture.
Still only 38, he brings to the job a golden academic record, fierce intellect, mastery of the bullet-point presentation and a successful career banker's ability to schmooze with his corporate superiors and clients. (others may think, "Full of shit and incompetent)
He is also notorious for being brusque with colleagues who do not make the mark - an issue some attribute to his relative youth and inexperience in hands-on management.
While he would appear to be a shoo-in for the top job when Stewart sets sail for his home in Meopham, Kent, there are those who believe Fahour's management style could stop him from getting the nod - though it's a promotion that Fahour claims is "not on his radar".
What Stewart wants from Fahour is what was demanded by Sanford "Sandy" Weill, the controversial Wall Street titan who built Citigroup into the top dog in global finance.
Fahour, headhunted from a private equity operation to Citigroup in 2000, found himself having to rehabilitate undervalued companies, strip away overheads and mesh them with a growing financial machine, a process of which Weill was considered a master.
This was at a time when Citigroup had run foul of prosecutors and regulators, with a star analyst forced to quit, Weill under intense scrutiny (but never charged), and the bank's culture forced to change.
Add to that the trauma of the September 11 terrorist attack on New York, the bursting of the internet bubble and the Wall Street recession of 2001-02 and even Weill was under pressure to do what he had always done best: deliver strong financial results.
"Beginning to sound familiar?" asks Fahour, who runs NAB's day-to-day banking operations and is bringing the Australian bank and MLC wealth business under the same management umbrella.
Fahour still counts Weill among his friends as well as his former deputy, Robert Rubin, a former boss of investment bank Goldman Sachs and Bill Clinton's secretary of state for treasury.
"I don't mind giving my opinion. When debating with these guys you want to be very clear in your thoughts," he says.
By 2004, Fahour was occupying Weill's son's former office on the fourth floor of global headquarters, running a division whose annual profits had increased sevenfold to more than $262 million.
"I was very close to Sandy and Rubin. Nobody could ever understand why a snotty-nosed 33-year-old from Australia could possibly be on the management committee," he says.
Four horrible New York winters, a yearning to come home and a restructuring of Citigroup's Australian operation created the circumstances for his return to Sydney as chief executive, whence he was poached by NAB.
Fahour hopes his arrival will herald a new era, just as his short time as a player for the Carlton Football Club in the 1980s coincided with one of the most successful periods in the club's history.
Fahour spent his first 11 years close to Princes Park, attending local schools and enjoying typical winter weekends playing footy and watching his beloved Blues.
Broad-shouldered and athletic, the schoolboy ruck-rover discovered to his horror that he was zoned to play for Collingwood because his family had moved from Carlton to Preston when he was 14.
"Can you imagine what it was like for a Carlton supporter to have to pull on a Collingwood jumper? I could not do this, so I went down to Carlton," he said.
Playing half-back flank for two games in the Blues Under-19 team, he was in the shadow of future Blues legends such as Stephen "Sos" Silvani, Mil Hanna and coach Geoff Southby, and quickly saw the writing on the scoreboard.
Fahour has clearly made more of an impression with his brains than boots because neither Hanna nor Southby can recall him, though others do.
It was not the end of his connection to the club. Some years later as a consultant he tried to stop his club from kicking an own goal when he advised it not to build the ill-fated Legends Stand at Optus Oval. The president, John Elliot, ignored the recommendation. Too bad.
Still, Fahour's star rose rapidly. He was studying economics at La Trobe University, where he had caught the attention of Glen Withers, now professor of public policy at Australian National University, and Eric Jones, now adjunct professor at Melbourne University Business School.
"I stumbled across university teachers who were incredibly worldly, very interesting people. That started challenging me," he says. He earned first-class honours and won the Donald Whitehead prize for top third-year student.
Withers says Fahour was an academic all-rounder, as comfortable with statistics and economic analysis as researching history. He puts Fahour on his list of top students, a list that includes Westpac chief David Morgan and former ACTU boss and Reserve Bank board member Bill Kelty.
Employed to help Withers with some "drudge" research during his honours year, Fahour stunned him with a draft paper that was good enough to be a doctoral thesis, Withers recalls.
The way Fahour tells it, "I became very interested in the academic side of things. Glen said to be a very good academic you had to go into the real world and get a job and learn what it is like from the other side."
In this case the "other side" meant a one-month graduate trainee program at ANZ Bank and time in the branches as a junior teller, encountering a fearsome teller who considered any "f---ing graduate" a threat.
"I remember the first day, with a briefcase that only had my lunch in it. As a teller, why did I need a briefcase? At least I looked the part. It was really exciting, considering that, as an immigrant, when Dad was coming out of the factories and trying to start up a business, none of the banks would lend him a dime," he says.
The attractions of working in a branch quickly palled.
"I had coffee with Glen and asked what is the big deal about practical work experience: you are just a robot; you do a job, then you walk out; what is there to learn? Forget it, I am going back to higher education."
Withers says he continued to believe that Fahour's talents might be better suited to the private sector, particularly as a consultant where his personable manner could help him sell himself to senior executives.
He arranged an interview with George Pappas and Colin Carter, of management consultancy Pappas Carter Evans and Koop. Fahour said he did not realise it was a job interview.
Carter, now a successful author, remembers Fahour as being "extraordinarily bright and very commercial ... someone at the prodigious end of the spectrum".
Fahour turned down a job as a trader in the newly deregulated Australian dollar and chose consultancy at half the salary.
"I was interested in the whole financial world rather than one speciality," he says.
Fahour completed his master of business administration at Melbourne Business School in 1993, receiving the top prize for corporate finance while still working full-time for the consultancy, which by then had been taken over by Boston Consulting Group.
Top clients included Qantas, Lend Lease and ANZ. At Lend Lease, he worked on the divestment strategy that included MLC, now owned by NAB.
At ANZ, he was involved in the development of Australia's first and biggest co-branded loyalty card program, the Qantas-Telstra-Visa card.
He denies that the prospect of pocketing as much as $34 million over the next four years had anything to do with his final decision, claiming he could have easily made more money by staying with Citigroup.
Fahour names Stewart, Weill and Pappas as the three key influences of his professional life. But it is clear that his father's travails as a struggling immigrant have also left their mark.
"Where John [Stewart] and the firm had a little thing on me," says Fahour about what made him move from Citigroup to NAB, "was that it was my home town.
"As a little kid, I had been personally banking with the NAB for 10 years. I knew some of the branches very, very well. Dad, one of his many jobs ..."
Fahour pauses. He refuses to elaborate on how his immigrant father was employed at the bank but it's a certainty this Fahour generation will be taking a different sort of broom to the Australian operations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanford_I._Weill
After receiving $263.9 million from Citigroup for his 5.6 million shares, Citigroup and Smith Barney employees were encouraged to contribute up to 25% of their pay to purchase shares in Citigroup stock through the Capital Accumulation Plan.[11]
Employee funds which were voluntarily used to purchase Citigroup stock were restricted from being sold while they remained in the CAP plan. On June 1, 2009, the day Smith Barney employees (and their restricted stock) were released into the joint venture Morgan Stanley Smith Barney the stock had fallen to $3.71, a 92% discount to the price Weill received from the company.
On March 24, 2009, Citigroup employees who participated in the ailing company's stock purchase plan filed a suit in district court, charging that the financial services firm concealed its exposure to toxic subprime-related and other derivative products. The suit sought class action status.[12]
http://ssufacultyforqualityeducation.org/sandy-weill%E2%80%94the-new-philanthro-pirates/
By Danny Weil,
Ruben Armiñana, president/CEO for Sonoma State University bequeathed an honorary doctorate in May of 2012 on Sandy Weill for his $12 million gift to Sonoma State University (SSU). Activists and protestors called it a Day of Shame for SSU
Sanford “Sandy” Weill (as he likes to be known), is the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Citigroup (you might remember that you gave Citigroup $1.8 trillion in taxpayer bailouts in 2009). For years, Citigroup has been accused and likened to a criminal enterprise and bankster cartel. As CEO, Weill steered Citigroup into the world’s largest ‘financial cartel’ before the whole racketeering enterprise ended in the financial deliquescence in 2008. Ironically this is also the year Sandy Weill resigned from Citigroup, evidently to spend more time with his family. Timing is everything in the gaming racket — that and knowing when to hold them and fold them.
Since then and even before his retirement, Sandy has presented himself as a ‘philanthropist’, much like Bill Gates, the Walton Family members, Warren Buffet and a host of white collar delinquents who, having amassed huge fortunes due to their exploitation of workers, their failure to pay overtime, the copyright protection afforded to them, larceny, fraud and deregulation, now seek to present themselves to the public as philanthropists instead of the rapacious monopolists, fraudsters and banksters they really are.
According to the Sonoma State University website, May, 2012:
“Joan and Sanford “Sandy” Weill’s lives can be characterized by their extensive business and philanthropic work in myriad of areas with a dedicated personal focus on education, healthcare, culture, and the arts. They strongly believe that the arts are a very important part of the growth and understanding of young people, and should always be a part of the fabric of their lives. The Weill’s involvement, experience, and generous gifts have made that possible for many and they believe it can help bridge cultural divides that exist throughout the world” (http://www.sonoma.edu/uaffairs/commencement/honorary.html).
It is not unusual that a public service announcement favorable to the rich and famous and paid for by taxpayers would appear on the Sonoma State University website. Amongst the “generous gifts”, that “Sandy” and his wife, Joan gave to US society was $12 million in hard cash to the Sonoma State University for the ‘Green Music Center’ (GMC). When you give that kind of money to a California State University campus of only 8,500 students, you expect something in return and it’s more than just a handshake, a personalized license plate and your own parking space.
Weill, of course is best known, if known at all, for helping to engineer the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act. The repeal allowed investment bankers such as Weill to get his hands on depositor money so he could gamble it in the global casino markets. The story of the repeal of Glass-Steagal is not the subject of this article but it is essential in understanding just who Sandy Weill is and more importantly, allows readers to understand the grand corruption that is American politics and the economic structure that permits Wall Street ruffians like Weill and his cohorts to voraciously game the nation by turning the American economy into their own personal lavish casino and then get an honorary doctorate for their crimes.
These men teamed up with others to pressure Bill Clinton, then president of the US, to speed up the repeal process while they secretly and privately planned mergers and back room deals they knew would profit them handsomely once the fix was in.
In order to engineer the repeal of Glass-Steagal, Weill recruited ex-President Gerald Ford to the Board of Directors of Citigroup and also Robert Rubin (Secretary of Treasury during Democratic Clinton Administration and head of Goldman-Sachs). Weill was personally intimate with all of them and they worked assiduously to politically corrupt the process figuring that with both Democrats and Republicans on their side, President Clinton would be in a pickle; he would do what Wall Street wanted him to do.
They were right; the repeal of Glass-Steagal would be accomplished in less than 2 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanford_I._Weill). It would take a few more financial bubbles to create the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 but without Sandy Weill and his one percent gaggle of carnies and croupiers, the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world could never have been accomplished.
As to Bill Clinton, well he was just the courtier that enabled the neo-liberal state but for his drive, ambition and close ties to the banking syndicate. On December 21, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed a bill called the Commodities Futures Modernization Act. This law ensured that derivatives could not be regulated, setting the stage for the financial crisis. Just two months later, on February 5, 2001, Clinton received $125,000 from Morgan Stanley, in the form of a payment for a speech Clinton gave for the company in New York City. A few weeks later, Credit Suisse also hired Clinton for a speech, at a $125,000 speaking fee, also in New York
(http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/its-not-about-reelection-bill-clintons-80-million-payday.html).
It is reported that Clinton has now made over $80 million in speaking fees from where? Banks and Wall Street, of course this is how the kickback works.
Bill Clinton still goes to bat for the banking industry, hungrily looking for speaking fees. As recently as April 12, 2012 Clinton urged Congress to put aside partisan differences and reauthorize the nearly 80-year-old U.S. Export-Import Bank, Eximbank, which he said was key to helping the United States expand job-creating exports (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/12/usa-eximbank-idUSL2E8FC8JM20120412). Wonder what his fee was for that?
Alas, Weill’s Citigroup is no stranger to organized crime either, having paid huge fines for laundering drug money (http://globalorganizedcrime.foreignpolicyblogs.com/tag/citigroup/). Weill was the chief executive officer and chairman of Citigroup until October 1, 2003, and April 18, 2006, respectively, but officially retired in 2008.
On May 17, 2001, Michael Ruppert, a notable researcher and investigative journalist and a former LA cop, wrote:
“On May 17 Citigroup, America’s largest financial institution commanding some $700 billion in assets announced a $12.5 billion purchase of Banamex’s parent company controlling some $39 billion in assets. The move will place Citigroup in control of one of the major – and proven – money laundering institutions in Mexico and allow Citigroup (first time for a US company) to penetrate the Mexican stock market.
The Citigroup dirt descends to even the personal level as Marc Weill, 44, the son of Chairman Sandy Weill, was exposed in the AP last November as having a cocaine addiction which necessitated that he relinquish control of Citigroup’s $113 billion investment portfolio” (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/053101_Citigroupandasa.html
Even California’s Governor, Jerry Brown, who before occupying his current post as Governor was the California Attorney General felt compelled to write that Citigroup “knowingly stole from customers, mostly poor people and the recently deceased” (http://www.sonomastatestar.com/opinion/big-banker-sanford-weill-s-honorary-degree-1.2869781).
The malevolence of the corporation and its ill-gotten gains is legendary, well known to the political and corporate media class and obviously not in the target of prosecutors for if anything, only fines are paid.
According to the Press Democrat:
“The Weills, whose primary residence is New York City, bought a 362-acre estate in the hills west of Sonoma for nearly $31 million last year, believed to be a record price for a real estate deal in Sonoma County.
‘We love to be involved in the communities where we spend time,’ Sandy Weill said in an interview Tuesday on the concert hall stage.
When the couple first toured the Green Center late last year and heard a student piano, violin and cello performance, Sandy Weill said they were impressed by the ‘sound of the music filling the hall.’” (SSU gets $12 million donation for Green Music Center, March 22, 2011, GUY KOVNER, http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110322/ARTICLES/110329876).
How charming. Investigative journalist Will Parrish, writing for the Anderson Valley Advertiser (AVA) points out:
“The Weills purchased a grandiose $35 million, 362-acre estate in the hills west of Sonoma in 2010. The previous owners were a private equity investor family, the Shansbys, who had taken up tequila making as a hobby and who next wanted to become winemakers. The Shansbys eerily named their property Shanel, after the Shanel Pomo band who inhabited the area for many thousands of years. It’s no small irony that the Shanel Pomo were decimated first by the Spanish mission system, then by waves of Gold Rush-era settlers stricken with greed” (http://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/will-parrish-wine-countrys-dr-sociopath/).
Parrish described the Weill’s new crib as a “13,162 square foot main residence, two-bedroom guest house and pool/cabana area you find something akin to your own national park”. It also has seven fireplaces, a lake stocked with bass and trout and filled by a winter creek. The home is surrounded by miles of mountain trails as well as an equestrian center complete with four paddocks, an immaculate five-stall stable, tack room, office and his and her locker rooms” (where they can post their new honorary diplomas!). The home also comes complete with over 6,000 square foot covered riding arena (ibid).
Parrish hits the nail stunningly on the mark when he writes:
“It is an economy of millionaire owners, a landed class with mansions surrounded by a sea of grapes, served by an army of dispossessed waiters, baristas, cashiers, and clerks, not to mention grapevine pickers, pruners, and tenders. Sales of premium wines have correlated strongly with rising income inequality between the wealthy few and the indebted majority (not to mention their mostly immigrant Mexican workers). The wine industry’s power and prestige have grown in parallel with the increasing inequality fostered by this get-rich-quick economy” (ibid).
I suggest readers view more on the Bill Moyer’s Show on PBS where he spells out in stunning detail the actual malfeasance and the horrendous ramifications of the Weill hustle: (http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-how-big-banks-are-rewriting-the-rules-of-our-economy/).
Robert Scheer, former journalist for the Los Angeles Times and now founder and editor for Truthdig.com, has written a very good piece entitled, “For He’s a jolly good scoundrel” on Weill and the looting of the American economy. Scheer quite correctly points out that Weill also was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences for an “extraordinary accomplishment and a call to serve”
((http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/for_hes_a_jolly_good_swindler_20120418/). He is also on the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Hall and dozens more such boards (http://www.ssualumni.org/s/937/index.aspx?sid=937&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=1421&ecid=1421&ciid=3523&crid=0). While has been very busy inventing himself as a philanthropist, very busy indeed.
In an article in the New York Times back in 2005 correctly titled “Laughing all the way from the bank” we learn of “an enormous wooden plaque” in the bank’s headquarters that featured a likeness of Weill with the inscription “The Man Who Shattered Glass-Steagal.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/business/11citi.html).
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/27/1113009/-Libor-Sandy-Weill-and-Endless-Corruption
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/23/why-ex-citigroup-ceo-sandy-weill-is-a-worthless-human-being/
So Mr Ahmed Fahours - CEO of Australia Post - not only is he an incompetent CEO who can't do basic maths - he also works for the global banking network of organised criminals and now they are bombing the fuck out of his home land - so they can install another phoney puppet government - that will commit endless murders, like the Shah of Iran did etc., so they can steal oil and control another part of that region.
For Fun, Greed and Profit.
I bet your refugee mum and dad are fucking pleased.
http://www.citifmonline.com/2014/06/20/developing-countries-home-to-86-percent-of-worlds-refugees/
Developing countries, including many in Africa, now host 86 percent of the world’s refugees, up from 70 percent 10 years ago, says a new report released by the UN refugee agency on Thursday. Sub-Saharan Africa hosts one-quarter of all refugees in the world.
The UNHCR report shows that the number of refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced people worldwide has topped 50 million for the first time since World War II.
UNHCR’s annual Global Trends report, which is based on data compiled by governments, non-governmental partner organizations, and from the organization’s own records, shows 51.2 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2013, fully six million more than the 45.2 million reported in 2012.
This massive increase was driven mainly by the war in Syria, which at the end of last year had forced 2.5 million people into becoming refugees and made 6.5 million internally displaced. Major new displacement was also seen in Africa – notably in Central African Republic, and towards the end of 2013, in South Sudan too.
“We are seeing here the immense costs of not ending wars, of failing to resolve or prevent conflict,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. “Peace is today dangerously in deficit. Humanitarians can help as a palliative, but political solutions are vitally needed. Without this, the alarming levels of conflict and the mass suffering that is reflected in these figures will continue.”
The worldwide total of 51.2 million forcibly displaced represents a huge number of people in need of help, with implications both for foreign aid budgets in the world’s donor nations and the absorption and hosting capacities of countries on the front lines of refugee crises.
“The international community has to overcome its differences and find solutions to the conflicts of today in South Sudan, Syria, Central African Republic and elsewhere,” Guterres said. “Non-traditional donors need to step up alongside traditional donors. As many people are forcibly displaced today as the entire populations of medium-to-large countries such as Colombia or Spain, South Africa or South Korea,” added Guterres.
Refugees
Displacement data in the Global Trends report covers three groups – refugees, asylum-seekers, and the internally displaced. Among these, refugee numbers amounted to 16.7 million people worldwide, 11.7 million of whom are under UNHCR’s care and the remainder registered with our sister organization, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine.
Of these, 2.9 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa, coming primarily from Somalia (778,400), Sudan (605,400), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (470,300), the Central African Republic (251,900), Eritrea (198,700) and Mali (167,000).
These figures were compiled before fighting in South Sudan at the end of last year caused some 1.4 million people to flee, both inside the country (1,040,706) and to neighboring countries (367,260 as of 01 June).
At the end of 2013, three African countries were among the top 10 refugee-hosting countries in the world – Kenya (534,900 refugees), Chad (434,000) and Ethiopia (433,900). Pakistan tops the list, with 1.6 million refugees, primarily from Afghanistan.
In 2013, Somalia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Eritrea were among the top 10 refugee-producing countries. Overall, the biggest refugee populations under UNHCR care come from Afghanistan and Syria, with refugees from Somalia in third place.
*(All places the American War Profiteers are plundering - aka: Citibank and Co.)
By region, Asia and the Pacific had the largest refugee population overall at 3.5 million people. Sub-Saharan Africa had 2.9 million people, while the Middle East and North Africa had 2.6 million.
Asylum Seekers
In addition to refugees, 2013 saw 1.1 million people submitting applications for asylum, the majority of these in developed countries (Germany in 2013 became the largest single recipient of new asylum claims). A record 25,300 asylum applications were from children who were separated from or unaccompanied by parents. Syrians lodged 64,300 claims, more than any other nationality, followed by asylum seekers from Democratic Republic of the Congo (60,400) and Myanmar (57,400).
Internal Displacement
People who were forced to flee their homes but stayed within their own country totaled a record 33.3 million people, the largest increase of any group in the Global Trends report. For UNHCR and other humanitarian actors, helping these people represents a special challenge as many are in conflict zones, where getting to aid to them is difficult and where they lack the international protection norms afforded to refugees. Renewed fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic, Mali and the unstable security situation in the north east of Nigeria, all caused enormous numbers of civilians to leave their homes and seek refuge elsewhere within their own country.
Solutions for the individual
At the same time, some 68,400 refugees were able to return to their homes in DRC last year, according to these statistics. They were among the 414,600 refugees who went back to their homelands, the goal of most refugees and the UN refugee agency. When voluntary return home is not possible, UNHCR seeks long-term solutions for refugees through local integration or resettlement in third countries. During the year, UNHCR submitted 93,200 refugees for resettlement, and some 71,600 departed with UNHCR’s assistance.
Statelessness
The worldwide population of stateless people is not included in the figure of 51.2 million forcibly displaced people (since being stateless doesn’t necessarily correlate to being displaced). Statelessness remains hard to quantify with precision, both because of the inherent difficulties governments and UNHCR have in recording people who lack citizenship and related documentation, and because some countries do not gather data on populations they do not consider as their citizens. For 2013, UNHCR’s offices worldwide reported a figure of almost 3.5 million stateless people including 750,000 in West Africa; Cote D’Ivoire in situ stateless, Mauritanians in Mali and Senegal (refugees and stateless) and Liberian former refugees in ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African State) . However this is about a third of the number of people estimated to be stateless globally.
Source: UNHCR
http://www.worldbeyondwar.org/citi-group-analysis-public-stopping-wars/
Ahmed Fahour's friends in Corporation USA, and it's Goldman Sachs and Citibank etc., have been murdering millions, all around the world, for a LONG TIME.
http://libya360.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/citibank-and-rwanda-congo-atrocities/
Citibank in Rwanda:Congo.mp3
OK to go back into deep history...
A rare kind of an excursion:
You will have to ride this out, as there is quite a lot I shall put on the table - and it's a fair bit to get through.
And there shall be repeats of some issues, in the core subject/s being presented in similar ways, but by different people and groups - thus adding a fuller picture, than the singular version of the matters raised.
But they all tie in together....
The simple-r fun flick. Explains it all nicely.
How the Rothschilds rule USA
The rothschild bank and how they basically run the royal families, and the banks and they run the governments, the corporations and the nations - and fuck everyone over and around - by money, profit and market manipulation. They stir up fights in one country or area (CIA speciality) and then lend them money to finance the wars, sell them the armaments, and then move in with a puppet government when both sides have slaughtered each other... = profit + profit + profit.... and more profit in the form of privatising all the countries infrastructure..... and selling the use of them back to the population.
A more comprehensive view. This is very good - about 2.5 hours.
I will add the core of this information and sort it's order out later... much to weave in.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLCbVv4l5Y
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/774302/posts
http://ssufacultyforqualityeducation.org/day-of-shame-on-sonoma-state-university-in-protest-of-sandy-weills-honorary-degree-may-12-2012/
(Petaluma 5/6/12) A recently organized coalition of Sonoma State faculty, students and local Occupy activists is calling for a public demonstration of outrage in response to the announcement that former Citigroup CEO Sanford Weill will receive an honorary degree at SSU’s graduation ceremony this year. People all over the country are invited to the Sonoma State campus for a “Day of Shame on Sonoma State University.” The protest begins at noon on Saturday, May 12, and does not intend in any way to disrupt graduation proceedings. On the contrary, this is an urgent call to defend the integrity of the ceremony and denounce the unacceptable insult that Mr. Weill’s dishonorable doctorate degree represents.
Sanford (Sandy) Weill was the driving force in shattering the Glass-Steagall Act, which for decades had prohibited Wall Street investment firms from gambling with their depositors’ money. Its reversal opened the gates for the housing crisis in 2008, the plague of foreclosures devastating our communities and the economic recession that has stolen our children’s future. Mr. Weill thus enabled the merger that created Citigroup, a major player in the criminal banking practices thereby unleashed. Given his unquestioned responsibility in this, Time Magazine recently included Weill’s name in its list of the “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis.”
A major purveyor of toxic subprime mortgages, Citigroup required $45 billion in government investment and a $300 billion guarantee of its bad assets to avoid bankruptcy; yet Sandy Weill retired an incredibly wealthy man shortly before the “banking collapse he helped engineer” required a tax-payer bail-out. Now Mr. Weill is being rewarded with a degree in Humane Letters for his donation of 12 million of his ill-gotten dollars to complete SSU’s construction of the controversial Green Musical Center. SSU Sociology Professor Peter Phillips asks, “Is this a doctorate honoring anything besides being the largest recent donor to the Green Music Center? It seems to smack of buying the honor instead of earning it.”
In fact, many of the students in the SSU graduating class this year are leaving school saddled with Citigroup student loans, all part of the trillion dollar student loan debt from which graduates across the nation will be struggling for years to escape. The courageous obligation to protest Weill’s honorary degree is made quite clear in graduating SSU student Melanie Sanders’ words: “I must now call my grandma and explain that I will be protesting at my graduation ceremony. I am personally offended that he will be at my graduation and receiving a degree.”
Many attribute this offensive gesture to the stewardship of SSU President Ruben Armiñana. They argue that, by honoring a man who, in the process of amassing his fortune, has inflicted so much suffering and destruction on countless lives – including many in this very graduating class – Armiñana has betrayed the integrity of the California State University system and its mission. The “Day of Shame on Sonoma State University” is an urgent action organized to give people an opportunity to demonstrate their outrage and publicly denounce the arrogance, greed and fraud that has inverted our social contract and hi-jacked the American Dream as the entitlement of the few, at the expense of the many.
According to organizer Shepherd Bliss, “Seating for 4,000 guests will be set up to accommodate those wanting to be present for 1000 graduates in the morning and another 1000 in the afternoon. This would be an important audience to educate and mobilize, helping them connect the necessary dots between a prominent one percenter and his victims.”
The “Day of Shame on Sonoma State University” starts at noon on the SSU campus at 1801 East Cotati Ave, Rohnert Park, on May 12, 2012. Please respect our commitment to non-violent assembly and protect the integrity of this graduation ceremony, deploying your creativity to inform and articulate compassionate resistance, and honoring the dignity of this treasured moment for students and their families by dressing appropriately in black.
For more extensive information on Sandy Weill’s background and the corporitization of SSU, visit:
http://shameonssu.org/
For interviews and additional information, contact:
Shepherd Bliss
707-829-8185
3sb@comcast.net
Susan Lamont
707-889-3021
peacenik@sonic.net
Melanie Sanders
707-228-6658
3belly@gmail.com
Peter Phillips
707-874-2695
peter.phillips@sonoma.edu
To sign a petition urging the CSU Board of Trustees to revoke Sandy Weill’s dishonorable degree:
http://shameonssu.org/get-involved/
“Day of Shame on Sonoma State University” http://shameonssu.org/ Demonstrate your Outrage on May 12, 2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
Smedley Darlington Butler[1] (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a United States Marine Corps major general, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Butler is well known for having later become an outspoken critic of U.S. wars and their consequences, as well as exposing the Business Plot, a purported plan to overthrow the U.S. government.
By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.
In 1933, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler selected to lead a march of veterans to become dictator, similar to other Fascist regimes at that time. The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot and the media ridiculed the allegations. A final report by a special House of Representatives Committee confirmed some of Butler's testimony.
In 1935, Butler wrote a book entitled War Is a Racket, where he described and criticized the workings of the United States in its foreign actions and wars, such as those he was a part of, including the American corporations and other imperialist motivations behind them. After retiring from service, he became a popular activist, speaking at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists, and church groups in the 1930s.
To skip to his book:
War Is a Racket is the title of two works, a speech and a booklet, by retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler. In them, Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests commercially benefit (war profiteering) from warfare.
After his retirement from the Marine Corps, Butler made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech "War is a Racket". The speech was so well received that he wrote a longer version as a small book with the same title that was published in 1935 by Round Table Press, Inc., of New York. The booklet was also condensed in Reader's Digest as a book supplement which helped popularize his message. In an introduction to the Reader's Digest version, Lowell Thomas, the "as told to" author of Butler's oral autobiographical adventures, praised Butler's "moral as well as physical courage".[1]
In War Is A Racket, Butler points to a variety of examples, mostly from World War I, where industrialists whose operations were subsidised by public funding were able to generate substantial profits essentially from mass human suffering.
The work is divided into five chapters:
The war on democracy by John Pilger
War Made Easy - How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death
Robert Newman - History of Oil
Fahrenhheit 911 - good movie.
Capitalism: A love story.
And to take a huge swipe at the jew cults. Namely judaeism, islam and christianity - all NASTY cults - A bunch of dead beats lived in Babylon, they ripped off King Hammurubi's city / state laws, by taking the cover off the book, so to speak and then slapping their own cover on it, and saying "we said that god said - so therefor you must obey him, going by what we tell you"
I published this about 20 years ago, that the first 6 or 8 books of the old testament (jew cult book) were word for word rip offs, of the Code of Hammurubi.
A jew prick by the name of Abrham sold this to a dead beat called Mohammed, who invented islam. Then this bullshit evolved into some 37 thousand branches of christianity - which is also a bogus cult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_code_of_Hammurabi.pdf
The jew bibles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Bible
http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Bible_King_James_Version.pdf
http://www.jewfaq.org/torah.htm
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Bible/jpstoc.html
And the quran...
https://www.alislam.org/quran/Holy-Quran-English.pdf
http://www.torahzone.net/FREE-PDF-DOWNLOADS/
See I like all people, from all around the world. But the religious? I won't accept being told what to think, by anyone, for any reasons.
See the jews were monkey descendants like the rest of us - there is no fairy stories about the garden of eden or how they were magical monkeys made from dirt, while the rest of us migrated out of Afrika.
I won't accept crap that it took Moses and 2 million fuckwits, 40 years to travel from Egypt to Syria - when the distance is 130Km or so and that is about 4 or 5 days walk - and there are Egyptian garrisons stationed all along the route...
Moses the fuckwit tourguide, with it's god magically air lifting in rations along the way for the idiot ingrates... as if.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmaelhttp://www.mostmerciful.com/js-md1.htm
Yeah so anyway - ALL religion is bullshit. It's poison. Jew, islam, christianity, buddism, a million and one dieties, semi-demi and other gods, and assorted grades of angels and demons - all fucking bullshit.
A billion and one silly texts, a billion and one silly preachers, a billion and one silly rituals, a billion and one silly ways to dress, a billion and one opionions about a billion and one other opinions, and a billion and one silly arguments over who's prophet meant what, and why you have to live by what we say.
All bullshit.
So I do not support any religion and it's proponents of brainwashing.
The religious also have a tendancy to be just as corrupt and weak minded and as prone to brokering corrupt deals as the imperialist forces they are out to evict - the jews, the moslems and the christians - all as ignorant and biggotted as each other.
All into doing dirty deals with and against each other.
This is the nature of people.
But I do support the people of the middle east, eradicating and eliminating the influences and control of the British, American and their other imperialist forces of occupation, from their lives, minds and countries.
And Ahmed Fahour - has the biggest crooks in the banking business as is best friends.
http://www.photius.com/flags/usa_flag_burning_map.html
This map shows the countries of the world where the USA flag desecration incidents illustrated in the photo archive took place.
It is easy to spot the countries not represented in the archive, which are primarily in Africa and central Asia, as well as some others, including North Korea, Myanmar, Cuba, Belarus and Papua New Guinea.
Maybe There are good people everywhere - when it comes down to it, that is all we have. Each other. There is no where else to go - but there are a whole heap of unrepentant cunts in amongst us... They should be helped to move else where.
It's fun finding out that Ahmed Farhour is "besties" with the pricks in Goldman Sachs and Citibank etc., who organise through their puppet presidents of the USA, and the CIA and US military - for invasions, occupations and wars against the people of the world, that they can exploit their oil and uranium, gold, etc., etc., etc...
Then the cretin donates "A few mil" to the Islamic Friendship Museum in Australia - that he appears to have a vested interest in - more like a tax wrought than anything.......
While his buddies are killing millions of muslims (people) in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc., etc., etc.
Butch Cole - Australia Post Greed (a Facebook page)
September 15, 2013 ·
Given that Ahmed Fahour is the most prominent Syrian immigrant in Australia, I find it incredible that he has not spoken out publicly about the slaughter and suffering of his fellow countrymen. Why? Is he mates with President Assad?
So I will go the jugular on this issue - because I have an intense dislike of bullshit artists, murdering millions in imperialist wars of occupation and theft - for nothing more than easy profit.
Ahmed Fahour doesn't have a conscience about any of this, he is too stupid for that.
I can't retell all the detail, but I will include the information that does - and your going to have to pay real attention.... words, phrases and snippetts of information...
Blink and you miss it kinds of stuff - and lots of it.
So as the "Blogger format" has limitations as to the amount of text it can hold, as well as the amount of embedded videos it can host - I will generally have to post article extracts and webpage links or links to the videos.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/07/02/369579/moderate-opposition-us-cover-for-war/
US covering up support for war on Syria: Analyst
The US government’s allegations of assisting “moderate opposition” in Syria are a cover for Washington’s support for war on Damascus, an analyst tells Press TV.
“There is no moderate opposition. There is a foreign-led jihadist war against the Syria sovereign government,” Daniel P. Welch told Press TV in an interview.He said Washington's use of the term “moderate opposition” is a “smokescreen,” adding, “The moderate opposition thing was just to get out of the realization that came up very quickly that they were funding al-Qaeda and the offshoots of al-Qaeda.”Welch added that Washington wants to “continue to destabilize and eradicate all regimes that they deem non-compliant.”
Last Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington hopes to enlist so-called “moderate” Syrian militants in the battle against terrorists in neighboring Iraq.
A day earlier, President Barack Obama requested USD 500 million from Congress to train and arm militants fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Welch said Kerry’s reported admission that the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq was a mistake is an attempt to cover up US war crimes, adding, “Again, he is confusing criminal activity – war crimes – with so-called mistakes. It’s like someone running over your kid and then saying sorry for the misunderstanding.”The analyst stated that the US attack on Iraq was part and parcel of Washington’s imperialistic foreign policy.
“This was just an extension, the newest phase, in the West’s basic global war on brown people that goes back to the British Empire,” said Welch.
A decade after Iraq’s security was shaken by the US-led invasion, the country is fighting with Takfiri militants from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who have been trained and armed by the US in Syria.
KA/HMV/SS
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/08/in-syria-follow-the-money-to-find-the-roots-of-the-revolt.html
Syria under Bashar al-Assad’s rule tried very hard to join the World Trade Organization. When the U.S. lifted its opposition, the World Trade Organization’s 153 members granted the Syrian government an observer status. Although the state was still the main economic generator, privatization was encouraged; foreign entities such as private banks, joint Saudi-French bank of Bimo, Fransabank, Bank of Jordan-Syria, and the Saudi Islamic bank, joined the Syrian market. The road also began opening for other credible international banks such as Citibank and HSBC to come to Syria and lend money at higher interest rates.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-syrian-conflict-the-lies-of-our-government-and-corporate-media/5347403
The Syrian Conflict: The Lies of our Government and Corporate Media
The lies that our government and corporate media are telling us could end up costing the lives of millions of innocent civilians once again.
The U.S.-Iraq War was an illegal invasion based on lies that killed over a million innocent Iraqi people.
The real purpose was to control Iraqi natural resources (both oil resources and strategic regional geography), for globalist exploitation – so that corporations like JPMorgan Chase, CitiBank, Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell Oil Company, etc., etc., could enrich themselves to even greater heights.
This reality is both an egregiously immoral and unethical event as well as a violent horror that has destroyed millions of lives and left a country, Iraq, in shambles and at even greater mercy to the evil globalist forces that do not care about humanity, but base all their values on profit over people.
It is good to remember a little of the actual history here as well, since lack of this type of knowledge is part what makes the public at large so susceptible to government and corporate media lies, shaping what is politically viable by the establishment of disinformation.
Firstly, we need to remember that in general most of the Middle East as most of the rest of the developing world during the 20th century was under European and American colonization – essentially brutal standards that denied indigenous people their basic rights.
Part of that story is how Saddam Hussein came to power in Iraq. The CIA had hired him when he was in his early twenties to assassinate Qasim, a reformist leader that led a rebellion against the British puppet monarchy that was used to oppress the Iraqi people.
Saddam Hussein’s assassination attempt failed and he was whisked to safely by back-up CIA forces to hide in Egypt for two years, until continued efforts to kill Qasim were finally successful.
Once returned to Iraq, Saddam Hussein was set-up, again by the CIA, as head of Iraqi Intelligence. During this time the CIA taught him everything he was to learn to become a brutal murderous dictator. During that time, under his command (under the tutelage of the CIA), Iraqi society was purged of many different types of Iraqi citizens (constitutionalists, socialists, communists, democrats, etc.), that wanted to create a fairer society that allowed for more democratic participation.
“Purged” is of course a euphemism for murdered. It is difficult to know exactly how many, but at least hundreds of thousands of innocent people Iraqis were “purged”.
Over time The CIA found other uses for Saddam Hussien. One recently confirmed project was to supply him with chemical weapons of mass destruct (Sarin Gas) to be used against our “enemies” – the Iranians.
Ironically The Iranians were unhappy with the U.S. because America had previously done the same thing to Iran (Operation Ajax) – deposing a democratically elected moderate reformist (Mohammad Mosaddegh) with the reinstated Shah of Iran. The Shah then went on to torture and kill his own citizens to make sure his country was open to globalist exploitation – for sure, he was personally well compensated.
In 1980 there was a revolution in Iran, a hostage taking at the American Embassy – the Iranians were ready to kill Americans because they felt just in wanting a society free of American colonial rule.
So, Iranian Revolution against U.S. oppression, Saddam Hussein was employed with the task of gassing the Iranian Army, and the U.S. was more than just passingly complicit. (Saddam also had the idea to gas Iraqi Kurds who were independently fighting his dictatorial rule on his domestic front.)
The problem was that even Saddam Hussein became tired of U.S. oppression. The war he had been instigated to press against Iran left Iraq bankrupt and he started to flex his military muscles to express that Iraq wanted to be free from the oppression of U.S. Empire.
Big mistake on his part. Once you join this criminal gang of globalists and do a lot of their dirty work you are not allowed to then just walk away from them. The result of his rebellion was that he went from being a “public darling” of the U.S. (doing all the globalists dirtiest work of political purging) to suddenly being a “terrorist” – he became a threat to corporate profit centers.
Back to center stage today; Iraq’s neighbor, Syria and its President Bashar Assad:
While Assad may not be someone you and I might vote for, the U.S. has no business, no right, deposing him just because he does not play ball with our murderous globalists.
Plus, as independent forces in the Middle East, Syria is understandably now aligned with Iran, which continues to be the perverse target of U.S. aggressions. As Prof. Chossudovsky has said, “the road to Teheran goes through Damascus.”
The current insurgents that make up the Syrian opposition are 95% non-Syrian, in fact many al Qaeda groups are present and fighting Assad. (The al Qaeda were themselves originally organized and funded by the CIA. They were Mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan were brought together, fanaticized, militarized even further, and trained to be the terrorists we are supposed to be at war with today.
On Thursday evening, 29 August 2013, President Obama, addressed the latest conflict-flares in Syria, paving the road to military attacks on Syria, again based on lies and disinformation, but also, inadvertently, admitting to the total illogic of America’s desire for war with Syria to depose President Bashar Assad.
The President actually said that the greatest threat to America stems from the fact that Syrian stores of chemical weapons might fall into the hands of the Syrian-opposition fighters, who are known to be terrorist that have attacked the U.S. in the past! – namely, al Qaeda.
It is hard to understand that the total absurd illogic to all of this is supposed to convince the American people to actually go along with this agenda – but it could! And, it could because of how the greater body of information in general is handled by corporate media.
The greater body of corporate propaganda never honestly questions that Assad’s military forces committed the recent and previous Sarin gas attacks in this conflict, but the most likely candidates, just as a matter of first consideration, for who may have used these weapons of mass destruction are in fact the oppositional al Qaeda forces that the U.S. is supporting!
Now President Obama is worried that Syrian opposition forces (al-Qaeda) if they get hold of Syria’s stores of chemical weapons will use them against us – it’s actually the only part of his analysis that makes any sense at all.
So what does Obama want to do? He wants to weaken the Assad regime, with all the risk that implies!!! Is this treason?
Meanwhile, in balance, U.S. foreign policy does not have any great problems with the atrocities that Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bahrain, and other client states are engaged in domestically or abroad.
I can imagine the bombing starting against Syria from the naval vessels that have been dispatched to the region, and the probable follow-up with ground troops.
One thinks of Nazi Germany and Poland. …
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Business/Local-boy-comes-back-home-to-cleaning-job-at-NAB/2005/01/10/1105206052017.html
Driving through the suburb of Port Melbourne, Ahmed Fahour, National Australia Bank's new head of Australian operations, often remembers how his immigrant parents struggled for finance to start a business.
Port Melbourne was the disembarkation point in 1969 for three-year-old Fahour, the eldest of three children, and his parents, when they migrated from Lebanon (on the way from Syria).
Fahour's father, an artist, got a job in the paints division of Holden and a home in pre-yuppie Carlton to house a family that rapidly grew to four brothers and three sisters.
Thirty years later, after spending four years in Manhattan as a senior vice-president managing $112 billion for Citigroup, the world's largest financial services company, Fahour decided to return his three children and wife to Australia and, ultimately, to his home town of Melbourne.
What makes Fahour more interesting than other bright and fabulously paid bankers is his central role in rebuilding an Australian institution after one of the most traumatic periods of its 147-year history.
It is also a bank that, one way or the other, affects most borrowers and savers through its interest rates, while its corporate performance, and share price, affect the fortunes of millions of investors.
"I think [NAB chief executive] John Stewart was interested in me because I had lived through some of the things he wants me to do here: the cross-selling, the integration, the market turbulence, the company under a regulatory spotlight," Fahour says. "I just did it for four years [at Citigroup]."
Sitting at the head desk on the sixth floor of NAB's state-of-the-art office complex in Melbourne's Docklands, Fahour has abandoned an executive suite for an open-plan design where his top executives are clustered together in work stations.
The new headquarters, two interconnected low-rise buildings set around light-filled atriums, have no offices and are meant to reflect NAB's new collaborative, open approach to banking, reminiscent of the trading floor.
Fahour is one of the most closely watched businessmen in the nation. Along with Stewart and chief financial officer Michael Ullmer, he is devising the bank's drive to rethink, reshape and re-energise both its structure and its culture.
Still only 38, he brings to the job a golden academic record, fierce intellect, mastery of the bullet-point presentation and a successful career banker's ability to schmooze with his corporate superiors and clients. (others may think, "Full of shit and incompetent)
He is also notorious for being brusque with colleagues who do not make the mark - an issue some attribute to his relative youth and inexperience in hands-on management.
While he would appear to be a shoo-in for the top job when Stewart sets sail for his home in Meopham, Kent, there are those who believe Fahour's management style could stop him from getting the nod - though it's a promotion that Fahour claims is "not on his radar".
What Stewart wants from Fahour is what was demanded by Sanford "Sandy" Weill, the controversial Wall Street titan who built Citigroup into the top dog in global finance.
Fahour, headhunted from a private equity operation to Citigroup in 2000, found himself having to rehabilitate undervalued companies, strip away overheads and mesh them with a growing financial machine, a process of which Weill was considered a master.
This was at a time when Citigroup had run foul of prosecutors and regulators, with a star analyst forced to quit, Weill under intense scrutiny (but never charged), and the bank's culture forced to change.
Add to that the trauma of the September 11 terrorist attack on New York, the bursting of the internet bubble and the Wall Street recession of 2001-02 and even Weill was under pressure to do what he had always done best: deliver strong financial results.
"Beginning to sound familiar?" asks Fahour, who runs NAB's day-to-day banking operations and is bringing the Australian bank and MLC wealth business under the same management umbrella.
Fahour still counts Weill among his friends as well as his former deputy, Robert Rubin, a former boss of investment bank Goldman Sachs and Bill Clinton's secretary of state for treasury.
"I don't mind giving my opinion. When debating with these guys you want to be very clear in your thoughts," he says.
By 2004, Fahour was occupying Weill's son's former office on the fourth floor of global headquarters, running a division whose annual profits had increased sevenfold to more than $262 million.
"I was very close to Sandy and Rubin. Nobody could ever understand why a snotty-nosed 33-year-old from Australia could possibly be on the management committee," he says.
Four horrible New York winters, a yearning to come home and a restructuring of Citigroup's Australian operation created the circumstances for his return to Sydney as chief executive, whence he was poached by NAB.
Fahour hopes his arrival will herald a new era, just as his short time as a player for the Carlton Football Club in the 1980s coincided with one of the most successful periods in the club's history.
Fahour spent his first 11 years close to Princes Park, attending local schools and enjoying typical winter weekends playing footy and watching his beloved Blues.
Broad-shouldered and athletic, the schoolboy ruck-rover discovered to his horror that he was zoned to play for Collingwood because his family had moved from Carlton to Preston when he was 14.
"Can you imagine what it was like for a Carlton supporter to have to pull on a Collingwood jumper? I could not do this, so I went down to Carlton," he said.
Playing half-back flank for two games in the Blues Under-19 team, he was in the shadow of future Blues legends such as Stephen "Sos" Silvani, Mil Hanna and coach Geoff Southby, and quickly saw the writing on the scoreboard.
Fahour has clearly made more of an impression with his brains than boots because neither Hanna nor Southby can recall him, though others do.
It was not the end of his connection to the club. Some years later as a consultant he tried to stop his club from kicking an own goal when he advised it not to build the ill-fated Legends Stand at Optus Oval. The president, John Elliot, ignored the recommendation. Too bad.
Still, Fahour's star rose rapidly. He was studying economics at La Trobe University, where he had caught the attention of Glen Withers, now professor of public policy at Australian National University, and Eric Jones, now adjunct professor at Melbourne University Business School.
"I stumbled across university teachers who were incredibly worldly, very interesting people. That started challenging me," he says. He earned first-class honours and won the Donald Whitehead prize for top third-year student.
Withers says Fahour was an academic all-rounder, as comfortable with statistics and economic analysis as researching history. He puts Fahour on his list of top students, a list that includes Westpac chief David Morgan and former ACTU boss and Reserve Bank board member Bill Kelty.
Employed to help Withers with some "drudge" research during his honours year, Fahour stunned him with a draft paper that was good enough to be a doctoral thesis, Withers recalls.
The way Fahour tells it, "I became very interested in the academic side of things. Glen said to be a very good academic you had to go into the real world and get a job and learn what it is like from the other side."
In this case the "other side" meant a one-month graduate trainee program at ANZ Bank and time in the branches as a junior teller, encountering a fearsome teller who considered any "f---ing graduate" a threat.
"I remember the first day, with a briefcase that only had my lunch in it. As a teller, why did I need a briefcase? At least I looked the part. It was really exciting, considering that, as an immigrant, when Dad was coming out of the factories and trying to start up a business, none of the banks would lend him a dime," he says.
The attractions of working in a branch quickly palled.
"I had coffee with Glen and asked what is the big deal about practical work experience: you are just a robot; you do a job, then you walk out; what is there to learn? Forget it, I am going back to higher education."
Withers says he continued to believe that Fahour's talents might be better suited to the private sector, particularly as a consultant where his personable manner could help him sell himself to senior executives.
He arranged an interview with George Pappas and Colin Carter, of management consultancy Pappas Carter Evans and Koop. Fahour said he did not realise it was a job interview.
Carter, now a successful author, remembers Fahour as being "extraordinarily bright and very commercial ... someone at the prodigious end of the spectrum".
Fahour turned down a job as a trader in the newly deregulated Australian dollar and chose consultancy at half the salary.
"I was interested in the whole financial world rather than one speciality," he says.
Fahour completed his master of business administration at Melbourne Business School in 1993, receiving the top prize for corporate finance while still working full-time for the consultancy, which by then had been taken over by Boston Consulting Group.
Top clients included Qantas, Lend Lease and ANZ. At Lend Lease, he worked on the divestment strategy that included MLC, now owned by NAB.
At ANZ, he was involved in the development of Australia's first and biggest co-branded loyalty card program, the Qantas-Telstra-Visa card.
He denies that the prospect of pocketing as much as $34 million over the next four years had anything to do with his final decision, claiming he could have easily made more money by staying with Citigroup.
Fahour names Stewart, Weill and Pappas as the three key influences of his professional life. But it is clear that his father's travails as a struggling immigrant have also left their mark.
"Where John [Stewart] and the firm had a little thing on me," says Fahour about what made him move from Citigroup to NAB, "was that it was my home town.
"As a little kid, I had been personally banking with the NAB for 10 years. I knew some of the branches very, very well. Dad, one of his many jobs ..."
Fahour pauses. He refuses to elaborate on how his immigrant father was employed at the bank but it's a certainty this Fahour generation will be taking a different sort of broom to the Australian operations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanford_I._Weill
Controversy
In 2004, Citigroup agreed to pay $2.65 billion to settle a class-action suit brought by investors over its role in the WorldCom scandal. Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney had issued optimistic research reports on WorldCom and, at the same time, helped it raise money by selling its securities.[10]After receiving $263.9 million from Citigroup for his 5.6 million shares, Citigroup and Smith Barney employees were encouraged to contribute up to 25% of their pay to purchase shares in Citigroup stock through the Capital Accumulation Plan.[11]
Employee funds which were voluntarily used to purchase Citigroup stock were restricted from being sold while they remained in the CAP plan. On June 1, 2009, the day Smith Barney employees (and their restricted stock) were released into the joint venture Morgan Stanley Smith Barney the stock had fallen to $3.71, a 92% discount to the price Weill received from the company.
On March 24, 2009, Citigroup employees who participated in the ailing company's stock purchase plan filed a suit in district court, charging that the financial services firm concealed its exposure to toxic subprime-related and other derivative products. The suit sought class action status.[12]
http://ssufacultyforqualityeducation.org/sandy-weill%E2%80%94the-new-philanthro-pirates/
Sandy Weill—The New Philanthro-pirates
SSU Mismanagement
By Danny Weil, Ruben Armiñana, president/CEO for Sonoma State University bequeathed an honorary doctorate in May of 2012 on Sandy Weill for his $12 million gift to Sonoma State University (SSU). Activists and protestors called it a Day of Shame for SSU
Sanford “Sandy” Weill (as he likes to be known), is the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Citigroup (you might remember that you gave Citigroup $1.8 trillion in taxpayer bailouts in 2009). For years, Citigroup has been accused and likened to a criminal enterprise and bankster cartel. As CEO, Weill steered Citigroup into the world’s largest ‘financial cartel’ before the whole racketeering enterprise ended in the financial deliquescence in 2008. Ironically this is also the year Sandy Weill resigned from Citigroup, evidently to spend more time with his family. Timing is everything in the gaming racket — that and knowing when to hold them and fold them.
Since then and even before his retirement, Sandy has presented himself as a ‘philanthropist’, much like Bill Gates, the Walton Family members, Warren Buffet and a host of white collar delinquents who, having amassed huge fortunes due to their exploitation of workers, their failure to pay overtime, the copyright protection afforded to them, larceny, fraud and deregulation, now seek to present themselves to the public as philanthropists instead of the rapacious monopolists, fraudsters and banksters they really are.
According to the Sonoma State University website, May, 2012:
“Joan and Sanford “Sandy” Weill’s lives can be characterized by their extensive business and philanthropic work in myriad of areas with a dedicated personal focus on education, healthcare, culture, and the arts. They strongly believe that the arts are a very important part of the growth and understanding of young people, and should always be a part of the fabric of their lives. The Weill’s involvement, experience, and generous gifts have made that possible for many and they believe it can help bridge cultural divides that exist throughout the world” (http://www.sonoma.edu/uaffairs/commencement/honorary.html).
It is not unusual that a public service announcement favorable to the rich and famous and paid for by taxpayers would appear on the Sonoma State University website. Amongst the “generous gifts”, that “Sandy” and his wife, Joan gave to US society was $12 million in hard cash to the Sonoma State University for the ‘Green Music Center’ (GMC). When you give that kind of money to a California State University campus of only 8,500 students, you expect something in return and it’s more than just a handshake, a personalized license plate and your own parking space.
Weill, of course is best known, if known at all, for helping to engineer the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act. The repeal allowed investment bankers such as Weill to get his hands on depositor money so he could gamble it in the global casino markets. The story of the repeal of Glass-Steagal is not the subject of this article but it is essential in understanding just who Sandy Weill is and more importantly, allows readers to understand the grand corruption that is American politics and the economic structure that permits Wall Street ruffians like Weill and his cohorts to voraciously game the nation by turning the American economy into their own personal lavish casino and then get an honorary doctorate for their crimes.
These men teamed up with others to pressure Bill Clinton, then president of the US, to speed up the repeal process while they secretly and privately planned mergers and back room deals they knew would profit them handsomely once the fix was in.
In order to engineer the repeal of Glass-Steagal, Weill recruited ex-President Gerald Ford to the Board of Directors of Citigroup and also Robert Rubin (Secretary of Treasury during Democratic Clinton Administration and head of Goldman-Sachs). Weill was personally intimate with all of them and they worked assiduously to politically corrupt the process figuring that with both Democrats and Republicans on their side, President Clinton would be in a pickle; he would do what Wall Street wanted him to do.
They were right; the repeal of Glass-Steagal would be accomplished in less than 2 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanford_I._Weill). It would take a few more financial bubbles to create the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 but without Sandy Weill and his one percent gaggle of carnies and croupiers, the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world could never have been accomplished.
As to Bill Clinton, well he was just the courtier that enabled the neo-liberal state but for his drive, ambition and close ties to the banking syndicate. On December 21, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed a bill called the Commodities Futures Modernization Act. This law ensured that derivatives could not be regulated, setting the stage for the financial crisis. Just two months later, on February 5, 2001, Clinton received $125,000 from Morgan Stanley, in the form of a payment for a speech Clinton gave for the company in New York City. A few weeks later, Credit Suisse also hired Clinton for a speech, at a $125,000 speaking fee, also in New York
(http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/its-not-about-reelection-bill-clintons-80-million-payday.html).
It is reported that Clinton has now made over $80 million in speaking fees from where? Banks and Wall Street, of course this is how the kickback works.
Bill Clinton still goes to bat for the banking industry, hungrily looking for speaking fees. As recently as April 12, 2012 Clinton urged Congress to put aside partisan differences and reauthorize the nearly 80-year-old U.S. Export-Import Bank, Eximbank, which he said was key to helping the United States expand job-creating exports (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/12/usa-eximbank-idUSL2E8FC8JM20120412). Wonder what his fee was for that?
Alas, Weill’s Citigroup is no stranger to organized crime either, having paid huge fines for laundering drug money (http://globalorganizedcrime.foreignpolicyblogs.com/tag/citigroup/). Weill was the chief executive officer and chairman of Citigroup until October 1, 2003, and April 18, 2006, respectively, but officially retired in 2008.
On May 17, 2001, Michael Ruppert, a notable researcher and investigative journalist and a former LA cop, wrote:
“On May 17 Citigroup, America’s largest financial institution commanding some $700 billion in assets announced a $12.5 billion purchase of Banamex’s parent company controlling some $39 billion in assets. The move will place Citigroup in control of one of the major – and proven – money laundering institutions in Mexico and allow Citigroup (first time for a US company) to penetrate the Mexican stock market.
The Citigroup dirt descends to even the personal level as Marc Weill, 44, the son of Chairman Sandy Weill, was exposed in the AP last November as having a cocaine addiction which necessitated that he relinquish control of Citigroup’s $113 billion investment portfolio” (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/053101_Citigroupandasa.html
Even California’s Governor, Jerry Brown, who before occupying his current post as Governor was the California Attorney General felt compelled to write that Citigroup “knowingly stole from customers, mostly poor people and the recently deceased” (http://www.sonomastatestar.com/opinion/big-banker-sanford-weill-s-honorary-degree-1.2869781).
The malevolence of the corporation and its ill-gotten gains is legendary, well known to the political and corporate media class and obviously not in the target of prosecutors for if anything, only fines are paid.
According to the Press Democrat:
“The Weills, whose primary residence is New York City, bought a 362-acre estate in the hills west of Sonoma for nearly $31 million last year, believed to be a record price for a real estate deal in Sonoma County.
‘We love to be involved in the communities where we spend time,’ Sandy Weill said in an interview Tuesday on the concert hall stage.
When the couple first toured the Green Center late last year and heard a student piano, violin and cello performance, Sandy Weill said they were impressed by the ‘sound of the music filling the hall.’” (SSU gets $12 million donation for Green Music Center, March 22, 2011, GUY KOVNER, http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110322/ARTICLES/110329876).
How charming. Investigative journalist Will Parrish, writing for the Anderson Valley Advertiser (AVA) points out:
“The Weills purchased a grandiose $35 million, 362-acre estate in the hills west of Sonoma in 2010. The previous owners were a private equity investor family, the Shansbys, who had taken up tequila making as a hobby and who next wanted to become winemakers. The Shansbys eerily named their property Shanel, after the Shanel Pomo band who inhabited the area for many thousands of years. It’s no small irony that the Shanel Pomo were decimated first by the Spanish mission system, then by waves of Gold Rush-era settlers stricken with greed” (http://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/will-parrish-wine-countrys-dr-sociopath/).
Parrish described the Weill’s new crib as a “13,162 square foot main residence, two-bedroom guest house and pool/cabana area you find something akin to your own national park”. It also has seven fireplaces, a lake stocked with bass and trout and filled by a winter creek. The home is surrounded by miles of mountain trails as well as an equestrian center complete with four paddocks, an immaculate five-stall stable, tack room, office and his and her locker rooms” (where they can post their new honorary diplomas!). The home also comes complete with over 6,000 square foot covered riding arena (ibid).
Parrish hits the nail stunningly on the mark when he writes:
“It is an economy of millionaire owners, a landed class with mansions surrounded by a sea of grapes, served by an army of dispossessed waiters, baristas, cashiers, and clerks, not to mention grapevine pickers, pruners, and tenders. Sales of premium wines have correlated strongly with rising income inequality between the wealthy few and the indebted majority (not to mention their mostly immigrant Mexican workers). The wine industry’s power and prestige have grown in parallel with the increasing inequality fostered by this get-rich-quick economy” (ibid).
I suggest readers view more on the Bill Moyer’s Show on PBS where he spells out in stunning detail the actual malfeasance and the horrendous ramifications of the Weill hustle: (http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-how-big-banks-are-rewriting-the-rules-of-our-economy/).
Robert Scheer, former journalist for the Los Angeles Times and now founder and editor for Truthdig.com, has written a very good piece entitled, “For He’s a jolly good scoundrel” on Weill and the looting of the American economy. Scheer quite correctly points out that Weill also was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences for an “extraordinary accomplishment and a call to serve”
((http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/for_hes_a_jolly_good_swindler_20120418/). He is also on the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Hall and dozens more such boards (http://www.ssualumni.org/s/937/index.aspx?sid=937&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=1421&ecid=1421&ciid=3523&crid=0). While has been very busy inventing himself as a philanthropist, very busy indeed.
In an article in the New York Times back in 2005 correctly titled “Laughing all the way from the bank” we learn of “an enormous wooden plaque” in the bank’s headquarters that featured a likeness of Weill with the inscription “The Man Who Shattered Glass-Steagal.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/business/11citi.html).
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/27/1113009/-Libor-Sandy-Weill-and-Endless-Corruption
Fri Jul 27, 2012 at 06:00 PM PDT
Libor, Sandy Weill, and Endless Corruption
Note: This post was written by donnyg1941 and JeffreeB
By now you've probably heard of Libor, the London Interbank Offered Rate, and the scandal surrounding it. And unless you have an advanced degree in finance, the complexity of the scandal (and Libor itself) probably makes your head spin. In simple terms, as Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi explained it in a recent interview with Democracy Now!, "Libor is basically the rate at which banks borrow from each other. It’s a benchmark that... a lot of international investment products are pegged to. When Libor is low, that means that the banks feel confident in each other; and when Libor is high, that means there is generally instability."
So what does some esoteric, inter-bank lending rate in London have to do with you? Quite a bit, actually. As Taibbi points out, Libor, "sets the borrowing costs of everything from mortgages to student loans to credit card accounts... Basically, every city and town in America, to say nothing of the rest of the world, has investments that are pegged to Libor. Most of them are holding investment accounts that actually will decrease in value as Libor goes down." And as municipalities lose money because big banks stack the deck, the same big banks make billions.
Somehow Wall Street has convinced municipalities countrywide that they will save money by engaging in interest rate swaps based on Libor. But in practice, these swaps have been devastating to communities. Pam Martens writes in her article, "How Wall Street Gutted Our Schools and Cities," "In many cases, continuing to this day, the municipality ended up receiving a fraction of one percent, while contractually bound to pay Wall Street firms as much as 3 to 6 percent in a fixed rate for twenty years or longer. If the local or state governments or school boards wanted out of the deal, a multi-million dollar penalty fee could be charged based on the rate structure and notional (face amount) of the swap." While you may need a degree in finance to understand how Libor works, you don't need that degree to know that when you're receiving a fraction of a percent and have to pay 3 to 6 percent, you're losing money. And of course, where does that money you're losing go? Right into the pockets of the deck stackers themselves.
Martens points out that between 2006 and 2008, banks, "collected as much as $28 billion in termination fees from state and local governments who were desperate to exit the abusive interest rate swaps. That amount does not include the ongoing outsized interest payments that were and are being paid. Experts believe that billions of abusive swaps may be as yet unacknowledged by embarrassed municipalities."
Not only have the big banks rigged Libor to appear stronger than they really were, a key factor in the economic situation in which we found ourselves in 2008, but they also did it simply to steal billions from your city, your state, and your schools. When the house gets to stack the deck, the house always wins.
Enter Sandy Weill, former CEO of Citibank, who now professes religion. In a move seeming to come right out of left field, Weill stated on CNBC(the paragons of economic objectivity) that he believes too big to fail banks should be broken up. Oddly enough, Weill was largely responsible for creating the current structure of big banking.
Who is Sandy Weill you might ask? Well, he's been around the block a few times in the Financial industry, starting in 1955. "Weill began serving as president of American Express Co. in 1983 and as chairman and CEO of American Express's insurance subsidiary, Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, in 1984. Weill was succeeded by his protégé, Peter A. Cohen, who became the youngest head of a Wall Street firm. While at American Express, Weill began grooming his newest protégé, Jamie Dimon, the future CEO of JPMorgan Chase."(credit Wikipedia). Are you seeing a pattern here yet? For more background on Mr. Weill, see the Wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
As CEO of Travelers Insurance Group, Weill oversaw the 1998 Travelers Group and Citibank merger, a merger that, as Bonnie Kavoussi at the Huffington Post points out, was, "at the time, the largest merger in history." Weill remained CEO of Citi until 2003 and remained chairman until 2006. He did this in defiance of banking law extant at the time, and guess who gave him a free pass? Right, Alan Greenspan, that apostle of Ayn Rand, and originally appointed to the Fed by that great president, Ronald Reagan.
Not only did Weill create yet another big bank monster out of Citi, he was also the lobbyist-in-chief for repealing the Glass-Steagall Act. Weill was so instrumental in the 1999 dismantling of Glass-Steagall that, as Kavoussi reports, "Weill's office once had a wooden plaque with his portrait that read 'The Shatterer Of Glass-Steagall.'" And with the end of Glass-Steagall, any commercial bank could do what Sandy had illegally done the year before, and could now engage in the very same behaviors as the Wall Street investment banks, just as they did in the 1920s.
Repealing Glass-Steagall was a grand slam for commercial banks; the law, instated after the crash of 1929, separated investment banking from commercial banking. With Glass-Steagall out of the way, Weill could now take our bank accounts right to the bookie. And in 2008, the bookie came to collect.
So now it seems Weill has gone rogue, or found some new way to make money. He said in the Wednesday morning interview with CNBC, "What we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking, have banks be deposit takers, have banks make commercial loans and real estate loans, and have banks do something that's not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that's not going to be too big to fail." Odd words to come from the terminator of the very things he now professes to embrace.
But is Weill really batting for the 99 percent now? We'll see.
When Weill went on to discuss his reasons for believing that banks should be taken in the exact opposite direction from that which he took Citigroup, he said, "I think that the earlier model was right for that time... I don't think it's right anymore... I think that this system is really immobilizing the banking system."
Right for the time? Repealing Glass-Steagall was a major factor in getting us into the mess in which we now find ourselves. It's like Weill is saying that it was a great idea until it wasn't a great idea, and now it's not a great idea. But this seems to be about as close to an apology or an admission of failure as we can expect to get from Banksters. Or as Marketwatch's David Weidner writes today,"Former executives such as Weill, or his former lieutenant, Sally Krawcheck, or Dick Fuld of Lehman Brothers, or Maurice “Hank” Greenberg never get it. They try to reconcile their resumes with history for the sake of sounding honest and remorseful. But they also remind their audience that there were forces outside of their control too."
Though we cannot say with certainty that he has become a proponent of re-regulation, his failure to acknowledge his role in all of this mess leaves one with a very skeptical view of Sandy the wily. But before we end, let us remind ourselves that not one of these guys has gone to jail or been forced by our government to give up their personal ill-gotten gains. So the corruption is pandemic, infecting our financial systems world-wide and the governments that are supposed to regulate and punish them when they behave badly. As David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist says in Heist, "The purpose of rules is not to regulate saints, it is to regulate sinners."
Sandy it is time to repent for thou art indeed a major league sinner. As for the rest of the Banksters, it is way past time to lock them up, and nationalize these bankrupt banks, for the good of the nation.
By now you've probably heard of Libor, the London Interbank Offered Rate, and the scandal surrounding it. And unless you have an advanced degree in finance, the complexity of the scandal (and Libor itself) probably makes your head spin. In simple terms, as Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi explained it in a recent interview with Democracy Now!, "Libor is basically the rate at which banks borrow from each other. It’s a benchmark that... a lot of international investment products are pegged to. When Libor is low, that means that the banks feel confident in each other; and when Libor is high, that means there is generally instability."
So what does some esoteric, inter-bank lending rate in London have to do with you? Quite a bit, actually. As Taibbi points out, Libor, "sets the borrowing costs of everything from mortgages to student loans to credit card accounts... Basically, every city and town in America, to say nothing of the rest of the world, has investments that are pegged to Libor. Most of them are holding investment accounts that actually will decrease in value as Libor goes down." And as municipalities lose money because big banks stack the deck, the same big banks make billions.
Somehow Wall Street has convinced municipalities countrywide that they will save money by engaging in interest rate swaps based on Libor. But in practice, these swaps have been devastating to communities. Pam Martens writes in her article, "How Wall Street Gutted Our Schools and Cities," "In many cases, continuing to this day, the municipality ended up receiving a fraction of one percent, while contractually bound to pay Wall Street firms as much as 3 to 6 percent in a fixed rate for twenty years or longer. If the local or state governments or school boards wanted out of the deal, a multi-million dollar penalty fee could be charged based on the rate structure and notional (face amount) of the swap." While you may need a degree in finance to understand how Libor works, you don't need that degree to know that when you're receiving a fraction of a percent and have to pay 3 to 6 percent, you're losing money. And of course, where does that money you're losing go? Right into the pockets of the deck stackers themselves.
Martens points out that between 2006 and 2008, banks, "collected as much as $28 billion in termination fees from state and local governments who were desperate to exit the abusive interest rate swaps. That amount does not include the ongoing outsized interest payments that were and are being paid. Experts believe that billions of abusive swaps may be as yet unacknowledged by embarrassed municipalities."
Not only have the big banks rigged Libor to appear stronger than they really were, a key factor in the economic situation in which we found ourselves in 2008, but they also did it simply to steal billions from your city, your state, and your schools. When the house gets to stack the deck, the house always wins.
Enter Sandy Weill, former CEO of Citibank, who now professes religion. In a move seeming to come right out of left field, Weill stated on CNBC(the paragons of economic objectivity) that he believes too big to fail banks should be broken up. Oddly enough, Weill was largely responsible for creating the current structure of big banking.
Who is Sandy Weill you might ask? Well, he's been around the block a few times in the Financial industry, starting in 1955. "Weill began serving as president of American Express Co. in 1983 and as chairman and CEO of American Express's insurance subsidiary, Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, in 1984. Weill was succeeded by his protégé, Peter A. Cohen, who became the youngest head of a Wall Street firm. While at American Express, Weill began grooming his newest protégé, Jamie Dimon, the future CEO of JPMorgan Chase."(credit Wikipedia). Are you seeing a pattern here yet? For more background on Mr. Weill, see the Wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
As CEO of Travelers Insurance Group, Weill oversaw the 1998 Travelers Group and Citibank merger, a merger that, as Bonnie Kavoussi at the Huffington Post points out, was, "at the time, the largest merger in history." Weill remained CEO of Citi until 2003 and remained chairman until 2006. He did this in defiance of banking law extant at the time, and guess who gave him a free pass? Right, Alan Greenspan, that apostle of Ayn Rand, and originally appointed to the Fed by that great president, Ronald Reagan.
Not only did Weill create yet another big bank monster out of Citi, he was also the lobbyist-in-chief for repealing the Glass-Steagall Act. Weill was so instrumental in the 1999 dismantling of Glass-Steagall that, as Kavoussi reports, "Weill's office once had a wooden plaque with his portrait that read 'The Shatterer Of Glass-Steagall.'" And with the end of Glass-Steagall, any commercial bank could do what Sandy had illegally done the year before, and could now engage in the very same behaviors as the Wall Street investment banks, just as they did in the 1920s.
Repealing Glass-Steagall was a grand slam for commercial banks; the law, instated after the crash of 1929, separated investment banking from commercial banking. With Glass-Steagall out of the way, Weill could now take our bank accounts right to the bookie. And in 2008, the bookie came to collect.
So now it seems Weill has gone rogue, or found some new way to make money. He said in the Wednesday morning interview with CNBC, "What we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking, have banks be deposit takers, have banks make commercial loans and real estate loans, and have banks do something that's not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that's not going to be too big to fail." Odd words to come from the terminator of the very things he now professes to embrace.
But is Weill really batting for the 99 percent now? We'll see.
When Weill went on to discuss his reasons for believing that banks should be taken in the exact opposite direction from that which he took Citigroup, he said, "I think that the earlier model was right for that time... I don't think it's right anymore... I think that this system is really immobilizing the banking system."
Right for the time? Repealing Glass-Steagall was a major factor in getting us into the mess in which we now find ourselves. It's like Weill is saying that it was a great idea until it wasn't a great idea, and now it's not a great idea. But this seems to be about as close to an apology or an admission of failure as we can expect to get from Banksters. Or as Marketwatch's David Weidner writes today,"Former executives such as Weill, or his former lieutenant, Sally Krawcheck, or Dick Fuld of Lehman Brothers, or Maurice “Hank” Greenberg never get it. They try to reconcile their resumes with history for the sake of sounding honest and remorseful. But they also remind their audience that there were forces outside of their control too."
Though we cannot say with certainty that he has become a proponent of re-regulation, his failure to acknowledge his role in all of this mess leaves one with a very skeptical view of Sandy the wily. But before we end, let us remind ourselves that not one of these guys has gone to jail or been forced by our government to give up their personal ill-gotten gains. So the corruption is pandemic, infecting our financial systems world-wide and the governments that are supposed to regulate and punish them when they behave badly. As David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist says in Heist, "The purpose of rules is not to regulate saints, it is to regulate sinners."
Sandy it is time to repent for thou art indeed a major league sinner. As for the rest of the Banksters, it is way past time to lock them up, and nationalize these bankrupt banks, for the good of the nation.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/23/why-ex-citigroup-ceo-sandy-weill-is-a-worthless-human-being/
The Master of Carnage
Why Ex-Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill is a Worthless Human Being
Nearly a fortnight ago, and after hearing his conflicted comments aired recently on CNBC regarding his presumed desire to reinstate the Glass Steagall Act along with the break-up of big banks, one can be incredibly confident that Judas has a warm seat in hell waiting for Mr. Sandy Weill.
It defies human comprehension how the primary architect in the deregulation of the banking industry in the late 90’s – that cumulated in the repeal of Glass Steagall in 1999 (with the help of a southerner named Bill Clinton) – would have a “come to Jesus moment”, wherein the consequences resulted in the near destruction of the banking industry in the United States; actually the whole entire world – with a few countries going bankrupt along the way, and a few more in imminent danger.
Case and point, when Mr. Weill left Citigroup in 2006, the price per share was $55. The price a few years later was about $3 to $4 bucks a share. With penny stocks at $1.00 a share, it wouldn’t have taken long for Mr. Weill to maintain the distinction as one of the worst CEO’s to ever don a pair of wingtips. On a more comically note, who would ever trust a bank that misspells its own name. It makes one think that Dan Quayle was on the Board of Directors.
Svengali or Latter Day Saint?
When a person of this stature proclaims that big banks should break up, it might seem to be as if Moses himself had parted the clouds and converted the last and least of the non-believers! Are as Joseph Saluzzi, equity trader and co-founder of Themis Trading stated, “Is Sandy Weill now considered a ‘born again banker’?”
Are we witnessing a Svengali or latter day saint? An erstwhile banker suddenly concerned about his own legacy? When an individual abruptly wants to be remembered as a “man amongst men”, the cynic in you wants to know the motivation.
Admittedly, what’s not to like about Mr. Weill’s enlightened conversion? As he told CNBC:
It’s not very often one can smugly take credit for – as a handful of malefactors, and consequently benefactors in fact did, for the largest meltdown since the Holy Roman Empire. But instead of taking 800 years to wreak havoc on a loosely held confederacy of territories, municipalities, hamlets and duchies, which started when Charlemagne was
crowned Emperor of the Romans in 800 AD, the ascension of Otto1 in 962 AD as the first Holy Roman Emperor, and dissolved in 1806 when Napoleon defeated the Third Coalition at the Battle of Austerlitz – these Ivy League educated dolts managed to effectively clean house in a matter of 9 years.
When Monsters Spawn: Baby Weills
But wait, it gets better. Almost like the movie Alien, wherein alien baby monsters were spawned by the Baby Mama alien creature, Mr. Weill mentored Jaime Dimon of JP Morgan Chase at Travelers/Citigroup in the 80’s and 90’s. Baby Daddy himself recruited Mr. Dimon out of Harvard Business School. This dynamic duo essentially took over Citicorp. Although they eventually parted ways non-amicably in 1998, the rest is history in as far as the genetic transfusion.
Like the former telephone giant Bell Telephone, known as Ma Bell from the 1970’s before its FCC break up into smaller telephone companies, that were affectionally known as Baby Bells, we have Mr. Weill to thank in spawning the likes of Jamie Dimon and other maladjusted CEO’s. Mr. Weill is the ultimate father figure and hustler. He has given the gift that keeps on giving. The “toxic mortgage pus” has already spewed to a neighborhood near you. Or perhaps its already cocooned itself in your own foreclosure infested neighborhood.
It’s as if single handedly Mr. Weill gave the entire financial industry crabs. Metaphorically speaking, there wasn’t a bathhouse Mr. Weill didn’t know.
Just like a filth infested pregnant mother cock roach that dies shortly after giving birth to hundreds of baby cock roaches, Mr. Weill has successfully infested his venom into the innards of America. It’s the ultimate flesh eating bacteria of the ‘financial strain.’ (And this is before zombie Bath Salts hit the scene). And although some of us may have been woefully complicit hopeful jackasses that drank the Kool-Aid before signing those liar loans, it is of no comfort when the mother of all banksters states that the big banks should be split up.
The 1% “Rule Riggers”
And thus, a special breed of “no-holds-barred entitlement culture” was promulgated. They are the 1/10th of the 1% percent. Are as I like to call them, the “rule riggers” of the 1% percent, since not all 1% percenters are deceitful, thieving miscreants who wouldn’t know the meaning of empathy if they tripped over it.
Starting with the repeal of Glass Steagall in November 1999, and cumulating in September 2008 when the New York Stock Exchange nose dived 777 points on black Monday – if you were not a true believer at this point as an American, that a select few of the 1 percent had managed to sell snake oil to millions worldwide (some of whom knew it was snake oil by the way), then I‘ve got some swampland in Florida I’d like to sell you.
If one wants to point out the bad guys, just go to the TIME magazine list of 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crises, combine that with 40 to 50 CEO’s of the largest banks, financiers and insurance companies in the Fortune 500, and sprinkle in a super large handful of lobby-whoring politicians (Dems and Reps alike). And for good measure, toss in those forever self-esteem starved credit rating nerd idiots who enjoy licking the boots of Wall Streeters – and voila, you have the perfect storm of idiocy that’s ready to be poured out of the Crock-Pot. Although hands-down the aforementioned are the splendid dumbasses with the most blood and green ink on their hands – most did not, and won’t be doing any jail time.
In terms of criminal charges, to whom does Wall Street owe a big high five? Unequivocally, probably their ace bitch on the corner, Security and Exchange Commissioner Mary Schapiro. And unless there’s something the American public is unaware of in terms of Mrs. Schapiro having a bounty on her head from some crazed lobbyist hunkered down on K Street, it’s inexplicably why the SEC has been and continues to be the doormat of Wall Street.
At one time, it was believed that Mrs. Schapiro, along with FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair and Assistant to the President of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren – all of whom graced the cover of TIME magazine in May 2010, would act as the antidote of Wall Street corruption (and Main Street self inflicted self-destruction). This cover, which metaphorically demonstrated to Wall Street that there was a new sheriff in town – and that it’s your mother, was the perfect book end to the February 2009 TIME magazine cover story for the 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crises.
The Final Act
In what could have been a true Jerry Maguire moment, Mr. Weill doesn’t quite throw himself on the sword when he goes on to say that he has no problems with his Wall Street brethren getting paid enormous amounts of cash – before and after the crash. Listening to Mr. Weil’s “come to Jesus moment” was much like an anxious and sweaty palmed huckster “jonesin” for just one more hustle. Or a hard-up drug addict looking to shoot up just one more time, before he goes on methadone. Ultimately, Mr. Weill pulls back, not fully prepared to disavow an industry that has made him fabulously wealthy – and his grandchildren, and great, great grandchildren fabulously wealthy.
During the CNBC interview, Mr. Weill fumbled about and gave incoherent responses to the reporters’ questions in connection with some of the errors of his banking brethren. The responses were half hearted non-responses that were similar to a dementia ridden infantile senior drifting in and out of consciousness.
As an alumni of TIME magazines’ 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crises, there are many reasons Mr. Weill may have chosen a path of moral redemption. Many of which we’ll likely never know and can only speculate. But as the reigning emeritus of Wall Street who suddenly has a moment of consciousness, it is painstakingly difficult to acutely ascertain the motivation of a man who is indirectly responsible for a substantial amount of financial carnage, worldwide.
D. Sidney Potter has worked in the real estate and mortgage industry since 1992 and is a licensed member of the National Association of Home Builders, and the National Association of Realtors. Mr. Potter has a BA in Political Science, 2 MBA’s and part of a doctorate degree from Pepperdine. He is the author of The Flip
It defies human comprehension how the primary architect in the deregulation of the banking industry in the late 90’s – that cumulated in the repeal of Glass Steagall in 1999 (with the help of a southerner named Bill Clinton) – would have a “come to Jesus moment”, wherein the consequences resulted in the near destruction of the banking industry in the United States; actually the whole entire world – with a few countries going bankrupt along the way, and a few more in imminent danger.
Case and point, when Mr. Weill left Citigroup in 2006, the price per share was $55. The price a few years later was about $3 to $4 bucks a share. With penny stocks at $1.00 a share, it wouldn’t have taken long for Mr. Weill to maintain the distinction as one of the worst CEO’s to ever don a pair of wingtips. On a more comically note, who would ever trust a bank that misspells its own name. It makes one think that Dan Quayle was on the Board of Directors.
Svengali or Latter Day Saint?
When a person of this stature proclaims that big banks should break up, it might seem to be as if Moses himself had parted the clouds and converted the last and least of the non-believers! Are as Joseph Saluzzi, equity trader and co-founder of Themis Trading stated, “Is Sandy Weill now considered a ‘born again banker’?”
Are we witnessing a Svengali or latter day saint? An erstwhile banker suddenly concerned about his own legacy? When an individual abruptly wants to be remembered as a “man amongst men”, the cynic in you wants to know the motivation.
Admittedly, what’s not to like about Mr. Weill’s enlightened conversion? As he told CNBC:
“What we should probably do is go split up investment banking from banking, have banks be deposit-takers, have banks make commercial loans and real estate loans, have banks do something that’s not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that’s not too big to fail.”What’s not to be forgotten, is that Mr. Weill’s bad judgment and complicity with other bad actors in the financial industry – even if no laws were broken (technically speaking), has the near moral equivalency of Bernie Madoffs’ misdeeds as a lone wolf Ponzi scheme reprobate. Both men had the audacity to have an extreme disdain for other people’s money.
It’s not very often one can smugly take credit for – as a handful of malefactors, and consequently benefactors in fact did, for the largest meltdown since the Holy Roman Empire. But instead of taking 800 years to wreak havoc on a loosely held confederacy of territories, municipalities, hamlets and duchies, which started when Charlemagne was
crowned Emperor of the Romans in 800 AD, the ascension of Otto1 in 962 AD as the first Holy Roman Emperor, and dissolved in 1806 when Napoleon defeated the Third Coalition at the Battle of Austerlitz – these Ivy League educated dolts managed to effectively clean house in a matter of 9 years.When Monsters Spawn: Baby Weills
But wait, it gets better. Almost like the movie Alien, wherein alien baby monsters were spawned by the Baby Mama alien creature, Mr. Weill mentored Jaime Dimon of JP Morgan Chase at Travelers/Citigroup in the 80’s and 90’s. Baby Daddy himself recruited Mr. Dimon out of Harvard Business School. This dynamic duo essentially took over Citicorp. Although they eventually parted ways non-amicably in 1998, the rest is history in as far as the genetic transfusion.
Like the former telephone giant Bell Telephone, known as Ma Bell from the 1970’s before its FCC break up into smaller telephone companies, that were affectionally known as Baby Bells, we have Mr. Weill to thank in spawning the likes of Jamie Dimon and other maladjusted CEO’s. Mr. Weill is the ultimate father figure and hustler. He has given the gift that keeps on giving. The “toxic mortgage pus” has already spewed to a neighborhood near you. Or perhaps its already cocooned itself in your own foreclosure infested neighborhood.
It’s as if single handedly Mr. Weill gave the entire financial industry crabs. Metaphorically speaking, there wasn’t a bathhouse Mr. Weill didn’t know.
Just like a filth infested pregnant mother cock roach that dies shortly after giving birth to hundreds of baby cock roaches, Mr. Weill has successfully infested his venom into the innards of America. It’s the ultimate flesh eating bacteria of the ‘financial strain.’ (And this is before zombie Bath Salts hit the scene). And although some of us may have been woefully complicit hopeful jackasses that drank the Kool-Aid before signing those liar loans, it is of no comfort when the mother of all banksters states that the big banks should be split up.
The 1% “Rule Riggers”
And thus, a special breed of “no-holds-barred entitlement culture” was promulgated. They are the 1/10th of the 1% percent. Are as I like to call them, the “rule riggers” of the 1% percent, since not all 1% percenters are deceitful, thieving miscreants who wouldn’t know the meaning of empathy if they tripped over it.
Starting with the repeal of Glass Steagall in November 1999, and cumulating in September 2008 when the New York Stock Exchange nose dived 777 points on black Monday – if you were not a true believer at this point as an American, that a select few of the 1 percent had managed to sell snake oil to millions worldwide (some of whom knew it was snake oil by the way), then I‘ve got some swampland in Florida I’d like to sell you.
If one wants to point out the bad guys, just go to the TIME magazine list of 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crises, combine that with 40 to 50 CEO’s of the largest banks, financiers and insurance companies in the Fortune 500, and sprinkle in a super large handful of lobby-whoring politicians (Dems and Reps alike). And for good measure, toss in those forever self-esteem starved credit rating nerd idiots who enjoy licking the boots of Wall Streeters – and voila, you have the perfect storm of idiocy that’s ready to be poured out of the Crock-Pot. Although hands-down the aforementioned are the splendid dumbasses with the most blood and green ink on their hands – most did not, and won’t be doing any jail time.
In terms of criminal charges, to whom does Wall Street owe a big high five? Unequivocally, probably their ace bitch on the corner, Security and Exchange Commissioner Mary Schapiro. And unless there’s something the American public is unaware of in terms of Mrs. Schapiro having a bounty on her head from some crazed lobbyist hunkered down on K Street, it’s inexplicably why the SEC has been and continues to be the doormat of Wall Street.
At one time, it was believed that Mrs. Schapiro, along with FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair and Assistant to the President of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren – all of whom graced the cover of TIME magazine in May 2010, would act as the antidote of Wall Street corruption (and Main Street self inflicted self-destruction). This cover, which metaphorically demonstrated to Wall Street that there was a new sheriff in town – and that it’s your mother, was the perfect book end to the February 2009 TIME magazine cover story for the 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crises.
The Final Act
In what could have been a true Jerry Maguire moment, Mr. Weill doesn’t quite throw himself on the sword when he goes on to say that he has no problems with his Wall Street brethren getting paid enormous amounts of cash – before and after the crash. Listening to Mr. Weil’s “come to Jesus moment” was much like an anxious and sweaty palmed huckster “jonesin” for just one more hustle. Or a hard-up drug addict looking to shoot up just one more time, before he goes on methadone. Ultimately, Mr. Weill pulls back, not fully prepared to disavow an industry that has made him fabulously wealthy – and his grandchildren, and great, great grandchildren fabulously wealthy.
During the CNBC interview, Mr. Weill fumbled about and gave incoherent responses to the reporters’ questions in connection with some of the errors of his banking brethren. The responses were half hearted non-responses that were similar to a dementia ridden infantile senior drifting in and out of consciousness.
As an alumni of TIME magazines’ 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crises, there are many reasons Mr. Weill may have chosen a path of moral redemption. Many of which we’ll likely never know and can only speculate. But as the reigning emeritus of Wall Street who suddenly has a moment of consciousness, it is painstakingly difficult to acutely ascertain the motivation of a man who is indirectly responsible for a substantial amount of financial carnage, worldwide.
D. Sidney Potter has worked in the real estate and mortgage industry since 1992 and is a licensed member of the National Association of Home Builders, and the National Association of Realtors. Mr. Potter has a BA in Political Science, 2 MBA’s and part of a doctorate degree from Pepperdine. He is the author of The Flip
So Mr Ahmed Fahours - CEO of Australia Post - not only is he an incompetent CEO who can't do basic maths - he also works for the global banking network of organised criminals and now they are bombing the fuck out of his home land - so they can install another phoney puppet government - that will commit endless murders, like the Shah of Iran did etc., so they can steal oil and control another part of that region.
For Fun, Greed and Profit.
I bet your refugee mum and dad are fucking pleased.
http://www.citifmonline.com/2014/06/20/developing-countries-home-to-86-percent-of-worlds-refugees/
Developing countries home to 86% of world’s refugees – Report
Friday 20th June , 2014 5:15 am The UNHCR report shows that the number of refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced people worldwide has topped 50 million for the first time since World War II.
UNHCR’s annual Global Trends report, which is based on data compiled by governments, non-governmental partner organizations, and from the organization’s own records, shows 51.2 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2013, fully six million more than the 45.2 million reported in 2012.
This massive increase was driven mainly by the war in Syria, which at the end of last year had forced 2.5 million people into becoming refugees and made 6.5 million internally displaced. Major new displacement was also seen in Africa – notably in Central African Republic, and towards the end of 2013, in South Sudan too.
“We are seeing here the immense costs of not ending wars, of failing to resolve or prevent conflict,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. “Peace is today dangerously in deficit. Humanitarians can help as a palliative, but political solutions are vitally needed. Without this, the alarming levels of conflict and the mass suffering that is reflected in these figures will continue.”
The worldwide total of 51.2 million forcibly displaced represents a huge number of people in need of help, with implications both for foreign aid budgets in the world’s donor nations and the absorption and hosting capacities of countries on the front lines of refugee crises.
“The international community has to overcome its differences and find solutions to the conflicts of today in South Sudan, Syria, Central African Republic and elsewhere,” Guterres said. “Non-traditional donors need to step up alongside traditional donors. As many people are forcibly displaced today as the entire populations of medium-to-large countries such as Colombia or Spain, South Africa or South Korea,” added Guterres.
Refugees
Displacement data in the Global Trends report covers three groups – refugees, asylum-seekers, and the internally displaced. Among these, refugee numbers amounted to 16.7 million people worldwide, 11.7 million of whom are under UNHCR’s care and the remainder registered with our sister organization, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine.
Of these, 2.9 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa, coming primarily from Somalia (778,400), Sudan (605,400), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (470,300), the Central African Republic (251,900), Eritrea (198,700) and Mali (167,000).
These figures were compiled before fighting in South Sudan at the end of last year caused some 1.4 million people to flee, both inside the country (1,040,706) and to neighboring countries (367,260 as of 01 June).
At the end of 2013, three African countries were among the top 10 refugee-hosting countries in the world – Kenya (534,900 refugees), Chad (434,000) and Ethiopia (433,900). Pakistan tops the list, with 1.6 million refugees, primarily from Afghanistan.
In 2013, Somalia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Eritrea were among the top 10 refugee-producing countries. Overall, the biggest refugee populations under UNHCR care come from Afghanistan and Syria, with refugees from Somalia in third place.
*(All places the American War Profiteers are plundering - aka: Citibank and Co.)
By region, Asia and the Pacific had the largest refugee population overall at 3.5 million people. Sub-Saharan Africa had 2.9 million people, while the Middle East and North Africa had 2.6 million.
Asylum Seekers
In addition to refugees, 2013 saw 1.1 million people submitting applications for asylum, the majority of these in developed countries (Germany in 2013 became the largest single recipient of new asylum claims). A record 25,300 asylum applications were from children who were separated from or unaccompanied by parents. Syrians lodged 64,300 claims, more than any other nationality, followed by asylum seekers from Democratic Republic of the Congo (60,400) and Myanmar (57,400).
Internal Displacement
People who were forced to flee their homes but stayed within their own country totaled a record 33.3 million people, the largest increase of any group in the Global Trends report. For UNHCR and other humanitarian actors, helping these people represents a special challenge as many are in conflict zones, where getting to aid to them is difficult and where they lack the international protection norms afforded to refugees. Renewed fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic, Mali and the unstable security situation in the north east of Nigeria, all caused enormous numbers of civilians to leave their homes and seek refuge elsewhere within their own country.
Solutions for the individual
At the same time, some 68,400 refugees were able to return to their homes in DRC last year, according to these statistics. They were among the 414,600 refugees who went back to their homelands, the goal of most refugees and the UN refugee agency. When voluntary return home is not possible, UNHCR seeks long-term solutions for refugees through local integration or resettlement in third countries. During the year, UNHCR submitted 93,200 refugees for resettlement, and some 71,600 departed with UNHCR’s assistance.
Statelessness
The worldwide population of stateless people is not included in the figure of 51.2 million forcibly displaced people (since being stateless doesn’t necessarily correlate to being displaced). Statelessness remains hard to quantify with precision, both because of the inherent difficulties governments and UNHCR have in recording people who lack citizenship and related documentation, and because some countries do not gather data on populations they do not consider as their citizens. For 2013, UNHCR’s offices worldwide reported a figure of almost 3.5 million stateless people including 750,000 in West Africa; Cote D’Ivoire in situ stateless, Mauritanians in Mali and Senegal (refugees and stateless) and Liberian former refugees in ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African State) . However this is about a third of the number of people estimated to be stateless globally.
Source: UNHCR
http://www.worldbeyondwar.org/citi-group-analysis-public-stopping-wars/
Citi Group Analysis: Public Is Stopping Wars
On page 40 of the attached PDF report from Citi, RUAD, we read that the public stopped the missiles into Syria and is taking war off the table as an option. And that there may be a silver lining in the replacement of war with diplomacy.Ahmed Fahour's friends in Corporation USA, and it's Goldman Sachs and Citibank etc., have been murdering millions, all around the world, for a LONG TIME.
http://libya360.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/citibank-and-rwanda-congo-atrocities/
Citibank in Rwanda:Congo.mp3
OK to go back into deep history...
A rare kind of an excursion:
You will have to ride this out, as there is quite a lot I shall put on the table - and it's a fair bit to get through.
And there shall be repeats of some issues, in the core subject/s being presented in similar ways, but by different people and groups - thus adding a fuller picture, than the singular version of the matters raised.
But they all tie in together....
The simple-r fun flick. Explains it all nicely.
How the Rothschilds rule USA
The rothschild bank and how they basically run the royal families, and the banks and they run the governments, the corporations and the nations - and fuck everyone over and around - by money, profit and market manipulation. They stir up fights in one country or area (CIA speciality) and then lend them money to finance the wars, sell them the armaments, and then move in with a puppet government when both sides have slaughtered each other... = profit + profit + profit.... and more profit in the form of privatising all the countries infrastructure..... and selling the use of them back to the population.
A more comprehensive view. This is very good - about 2.5 hours.
I will add the core of this information and sort it's order out later... much to weave in.
Published on Mar 16, 2013
'As of the year 2000, there were seven countries without a Rothschild-owned Central Bank:Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLCbVv4l5Y
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/774302/posts
http://ssufacultyforqualityeducation.org/day-of-shame-on-sonoma-state-university-in-protest-of-sandy-weills-honorary-degree-may-12-2012/
“Day of Shame on Sonoma State University” In protest of Sandy Weill’s honorary degree – May 12, 2012
SSU Mismanagement
(Petaluma 5/6/12) A recently organized coalition of Sonoma State faculty, students and local Occupy activists is calling for a public demonstration of outrage in response to the announcement that former Citigroup CEO Sanford Weill will receive an honorary degree at SSU’s graduation ceremony this year. People all over the country are invited to the Sonoma State campus for a “Day of Shame on Sonoma State University.” The protest begins at noon on Saturday, May 12, and does not intend in any way to disrupt graduation proceedings. On the contrary, this is an urgent call to defend the integrity of the ceremony and denounce the unacceptable insult that Mr. Weill’s dishonorable doctorate degree represents.
Sanford (Sandy) Weill was the driving force in shattering the Glass-Steagall Act, which for decades had prohibited Wall Street investment firms from gambling with their depositors’ money. Its reversal opened the gates for the housing crisis in 2008, the plague of foreclosures devastating our communities and the economic recession that has stolen our children’s future. Mr. Weill thus enabled the merger that created Citigroup, a major player in the criminal banking practices thereby unleashed. Given his unquestioned responsibility in this, Time Magazine recently included Weill’s name in its list of the “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis.”
A major purveyor of toxic subprime mortgages, Citigroup required $45 billion in government investment and a $300 billion guarantee of its bad assets to avoid bankruptcy; yet Sandy Weill retired an incredibly wealthy man shortly before the “banking collapse he helped engineer” required a tax-payer bail-out. Now Mr. Weill is being rewarded with a degree in Humane Letters for his donation of 12 million of his ill-gotten dollars to complete SSU’s construction of the controversial Green Musical Center. SSU Sociology Professor Peter Phillips asks, “Is this a doctorate honoring anything besides being the largest recent donor to the Green Music Center? It seems to smack of buying the honor instead of earning it.”
In fact, many of the students in the SSU graduating class this year are leaving school saddled with Citigroup student loans, all part of the trillion dollar student loan debt from which graduates across the nation will be struggling for years to escape. The courageous obligation to protest Weill’s honorary degree is made quite clear in graduating SSU student Melanie Sanders’ words: “I must now call my grandma and explain that I will be protesting at my graduation ceremony. I am personally offended that he will be at my graduation and receiving a degree.”
Many attribute this offensive gesture to the stewardship of SSU President Ruben Armiñana. They argue that, by honoring a man who, in the process of amassing his fortune, has inflicted so much suffering and destruction on countless lives – including many in this very graduating class – Armiñana has betrayed the integrity of the California State University system and its mission. The “Day of Shame on Sonoma State University” is an urgent action organized to give people an opportunity to demonstrate their outrage and publicly denounce the arrogance, greed and fraud that has inverted our social contract and hi-jacked the American Dream as the entitlement of the few, at the expense of the many.
According to organizer Shepherd Bliss, “Seating for 4,000 guests will be set up to accommodate those wanting to be present for 1000 graduates in the morning and another 1000 in the afternoon. This would be an important audience to educate and mobilize, helping them connect the necessary dots between a prominent one percenter and his victims.”
The “Day of Shame on Sonoma State University” starts at noon on the SSU campus at 1801 East Cotati Ave, Rohnert Park, on May 12, 2012. Please respect our commitment to non-violent assembly and protect the integrity of this graduation ceremony, deploying your creativity to inform and articulate compassionate resistance, and honoring the dignity of this treasured moment for students and their families by dressing appropriately in black.
For more extensive information on Sandy Weill’s background and the corporitization of SSU, visit:
http://shameonssu.org/
For interviews and additional information, contact:
Shepherd Bliss
707-829-8185
3sb@comcast.net
Susan Lamont
707-889-3021
peacenik@sonic.net
Melanie Sanders
707-228-6658
3belly@gmail.com
Peter Phillips
707-874-2695
peter.phillips@sonoma.edu
To sign a petition urging the CSU Board of Trustees to revoke Sandy Weill’s dishonorable degree:
http://shameonssu.org/get-involved/
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
Smedley Darlington Butler[1] (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a United States Marine Corps major general, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Butler is well known for having later become an outspoken critic of U.S. wars and their consequences, as well as exposing the Business Plot, a purported plan to overthrow the U.S. government.
By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.
In 1933, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler selected to lead a march of veterans to become dictator, similar to other Fascist regimes at that time. The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot and the media ridiculed the allegations. A final report by a special House of Representatives Committee confirmed some of Butler's testimony.
In 1935, Butler wrote a book entitled War Is a Racket, where he described and criticized the workings of the United States in its foreign actions and wars, such as those he was a part of, including the American corporations and other imperialist motivations behind them. After retiring from service, he became a popular activist, speaking at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists, and church groups in the 1930s.
To skip to his book:
War Is a Racket is the title of two works, a speech and a booklet, by retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler. In them, Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests commercially benefit (war profiteering) from warfare.
After his retirement from the Marine Corps, Butler made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech "War is a Racket". The speech was so well received that he wrote a longer version as a small book with the same title that was published in 1935 by Round Table Press, Inc., of New York. The booklet was also condensed in Reader's Digest as a book supplement which helped popularize his message. In an introduction to the Reader's Digest version, Lowell Thomas, the "as told to" author of Butler's oral autobiographical adventures, praised Butler's "moral as well as physical courage".[1]
In War Is A Racket, Butler points to a variety of examples, mostly from World War I, where industrialists whose operations were subsidised by public funding were able to generate substantial profits essentially from mass human suffering.
The work is divided into five chapters:
- War is a racket
- Who makes the profits?
- Who pays the bills?
- How to smash this racket!
- To hell with war!
- "War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.
Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
- "The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the United States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles."
War Is A Racket
By Major General Smedley Butler
Contents
Chapter 1: War Is A Racket
Chapter 2: Who Makes The Profits?
Chapter 3: Who Pays The Bills?
Chapter 4: How To Smash This Racket!
Chapter 5: To Hell With War!
Smedley Darlington Butler
* Born: West Chester, Pa., July 30, 1881
* Educated: Haverford School
* Married: Ethel C. Peters, of Philadelphia, June 30, 1905
* Awarded two congressional medals of honor:
1. capture of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1914
2. capture of Ft. Riviere, Haiti, 1917
* Distinguished service medal, 1919
* Major General - United States Marine Corps
* Retired Oct. 1, 1931
* On leave of absence to act as
director of Dept. of Safety, Philadelphia, 1932
* Lecturer -- 1930's
* Republican Candidate for Senate, 1932
* Died at Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, June 21, 1940
* For more information about Major General Butler,
contact the United States Marine Corps.
CHAPTER ONE
War Is A Racket
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the
most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the
only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the
losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not
what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside"
group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of
the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few
people make huge fortunes.
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the
conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were
made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted
their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other
war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of
them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go
hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent
sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and
machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of
an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are
victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory
promptly is exploited by the few -- the selfsame few who wrung
dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the
bill.
And what is this bill?
This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones.
Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic
instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries.
Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.
For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war
was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully
realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering,
as they are today, I must face it and speak out.
Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to
stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar
agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other,
forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over
the Polish Corridor.
The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia]
complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies,
were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in.
But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are
looking ahead to war. Not the people -- not those who fight and
pay and die -- only those who foment wars and remain safely at
home to profit.
There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our
statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not
in the making.
Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be
dancers?
Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are
being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out.
Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the
publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
said:
"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and
observes the future and the development of humanity
quite apart from political considerations of the moment,
believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of
perpetual peace. . . . War alone brings up to its
highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of
nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet
it."
Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained
army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for
war -- anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of
Hungary in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And
the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border
after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are
others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or
later.
Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands
for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to
peace. France only recently increased the term of military service
for its youth from a year to eighteen months.
Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of
Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more
adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out
our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very
generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend
is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the "open door"
policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about
$90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about
$600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our
bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private
investments there of less than $200,000,000.
Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect
these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the
Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to
war -- a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars,
hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more
hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced
men.
Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit --
fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be
piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders.
Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.
Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they?
It pays high dividends.
But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it
profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their
sweethearts? What does it profit their children?
What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means
huge profits?
Yes, and what does it profit the nation?
Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory
outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national
debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became
"internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice
of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's
warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired
outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct
result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt
had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade
balance during the twenty-five-year period was about
$24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran
a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well
have been ours without the wars.
It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average
American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements.
For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld
rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is
always transferred to the people -- who do not profit.
CHAPTER TWO
Who Makes The Profits?
The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the
United States some $52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400
to every American man, woman, and child. And we haven't paid the
debt yet. We are paying it, our children will pay it, and our
children's children probably still will be paying the cost of that
war.
The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are
six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time
profits -- ah! that is another matter -- twenty, sixty, one
hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent -- the
sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the
money. Let's get it.
Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed
into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all
put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and
skyrocket -- and are safely pocketed. Let's just take a few
examples:
Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people -- didn't one of
them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder
won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How
did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well,
the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914
were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but the du Ponts managed
to get along on it. Now let's look at their average yearly profit
during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a
year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and
the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in
profits of more than 950 per cent.
Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted
aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture
war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged
$6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem
Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump
-- or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well, their
1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!
Or, let's take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the
five-year period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not
bad. Then along came the war and up went the profits. The average
yearly profit for the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. Not bad.
There you have some of the steel and powder earnings. Let's look
at something else. A little copper, perhaps. That always does well
in war times.
Anaconda, for instance. Average yearly earnings during the pre-war
years 1910-1914 of $10,000,000. During the war years 1914-1918
profits leaped to $34,000,000 per year.
Or Utah Copper. Average of $5,000,000 per year during the
1910-1914 period. Jumped to an average of $21,000,000 yearly
profits for the war period.
Let's group these five, with three smaller companies. The total
yearly average profits of the pre-war period 1910-1914 were
$137,480,000. Then along came the war. The average yearly profits
for this group skyrocketed to $408,300,000.
A little increase in profits of approximately 200 per cent.
Does war pay? It paid them. But they aren't the only ones. There
are still others. Let's take leather.
For the three-year period before the war the total profits of
Central Leather Company were $3,500,000. That was approximately
$1,167,000 a year. Well, in 1916 Central Leather returned a profit
of $15,000,000, a small increase of 1,100 per cent. That's all.
The General Chemical Company averaged a profit for the three years
before the war of a little over $800,000 a year. Came the war, and
the profits jumped to $12,000,000. a leap of 1,400 per cent.
International Nickel Company -- and you can't have a war without
nickel -- showed an increase in profits from a mere average of
$4,000,000 a year to $73,000,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of
more than 1,700 per cent.
American Sugar Refining Company averaged $2,000,000 a year for the
three years before the war. In 1916 a profit of $6,000,000 was
recorded.
Listen to Senate Document No. 259. The Sixty-Fifth Congress,
reporting on corporate earnings and government revenues.
Considering the profits of 122 meat packers, 153 cotton
manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal
producers during the war. Profits under 25 per cent were
exceptional. For instance the coal companies made between 100 per
cent and 7,856 per cent on their capital stock during the war. The
Chicago packers doubled and tripled their earnings.
And let us not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If
anyone had the cream of the profits it was the bankers. Being
partnerships rather than incorporated organizations, they do not
have to report to stockholders. And their profits were as secret
as they were immense. How the bankers made their millions and
their billions I do not know, because those little secrets never
become public -- even before a Senate investigatory body.
But here's how some of the other patriotic industrialists and
speculators chiseled their way into war profits.
Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with
abnormal profits. They made huge profits on sales abroad to our
allies. Perhaps, like the munitions manufacturers and armament
makers, they also sold to the enemy. For a dollar is a dollar
whether it comes from Germany or from France. But they did well by
Uncle Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam 35,000,000 pairs
of hobnailed service shoes. There were 4,000,000 soldiers. Eight
pairs, and more, to a soldier. My regiment during the war had only
one pair to a soldier. Some of these shoes probably are still in
existence. They were good shoes. But when the war was over Uncle
Sam has a matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. Bought -- and paid
for. Profits recorded and pocketed.
There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold
your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the
cavalry. But there wasn't any American cavalry overseas! Somebody
had to get rid of this leather, however. Somebody had to make a
profit in it -- so we had a lot of McClellan saddles. And we
probably have those yet.
Also somebody had a lot of mosquito netting. They sold your Uncle
Sam 20,000,000 mosquito nets for the use of the soldiers overseas.
I suppose the boys were expected to put it over them as they tried
to sleep in muddy trenches -- one hand scratching cooties on their
backs and the other making passes at scurrying rats. Well, not one
of these mosquito nets ever got to France!
Anyhow, these thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no
soldier would be without his mosquito net, so 40,000,000
additional yards of mosquito netting were sold to Uncle Sam.
There were pretty good profits in mosquito netting in those days,
even if there were no mosquitoes in France. I suppose, if the war
had lasted just a little longer, the enterprising mosquito netting
manufacturers would have sold your Uncle Sam a couple of
consignments of mosquitoes to plant in France so that more
mosquito netting would be in order.
Airplane and engine manufacturers felt they, too, should get their
just profits out of this war. Why not? Everybody else was getting
theirs. So $1,000,000,000 -- count them if you live long enough --
was spent by Uncle Sam in building airplane engines that never
left the ground! Not one plane, or motor, out of the billion
dollars worth ordered, ever got into a battle in France. Just the
same the manufacturers made their little profit of 30, 100, or
perhaps 300 per cent.
Undershirts for soldiers cost 14¢ [cents] to make and uncle Sam
paid 30¢ to 40¢ each for them -- a nice little profit for the
undershirt manufacturer. And the stocking manufacturer and the
uniform manufacturers and the cap manufacturers and the steel
helmet manufacturers -- all got theirs.
Why, when the war was over some 4,000,000 sets of equipment --
knapsacks and the things that go to fill them -- crammed
warehouses on this side. Now they are being scrapped because the
regulations have changed the contents. But the manufacturers
collected their wartime profits on them -- and they will do it all
over again the next time.
There were lots of brilliant ideas for profit making during the
war.
One very versatile patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen 48-inch
wrenches. Oh, they were very nice wrenches. The only trouble was
that there was only one nut ever made that was large enough for
these wrenches. That is the one that holds the turbines at Niagara
Falls. Well, after Uncle Sam had bought them and the manufacturer
had pocketed the profit, the wrenches were put on freight cars and
shunted all around the United States in an effort to find a use
for them. When the Armistice was signed it was indeed a sad blow
to the wrench manufacturer. He was just about to make some nuts to
fit the wrenches. Then he planned to sell these, too, to your
Uncle Sam.
Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride
in automobiles, nor should they even ride on horseback. One has
probably seen a picture of Andy Jackson riding in a buckboard.
Well, some 6,000 buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of
colonels! Not one of them was used. But the buckboard manufacturer
got his war profit.
The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too. They
built a lot of ships that made a lot of profit. More than
$3,000,000,000 worth. Some of the ships were all right. But
$635,000,000 worth of them were made of wood and wouldn't float!
The seams opened up -- and they sank. We paid for them, though.
And somebody pocketed the profits.
It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and
researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of
this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war itself.
This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how
the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This
$16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a
tidy sum. And it went to a very few.
The Senate (Nye) committee probe of the munitions industry and its
wartime profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly has
scratched the surface.
Even so, it has had some effect. The State Department has been
studying "for some time" methods of keeping out of war. The War
Department suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The
Administration names a committee -- with the War and Navy
Departments ably represented under the chairmanship of a Wall
Street speculator -- to limit profits in war time. To what extent
isn't suggested. Hmmm. Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and
1,600 per cent of those who turned blood into gold in the World
War would be limited to some smaller figure.
Apparently, however, the plan does not call for any limitation of
losses -- that is, the losses of those who fight the war. As far
as I have been able to ascertain there is nothing in the scheme to
limit a soldier to the loss of but one eye, or one arm, or to
limit his wounds to one or two or three. Or to limit the loss of
life.
There is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not more
than 12 per cent of a regiment shall be wounded in battle, or that
not more than 7 per cent in a division shall be killed.
Of course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling
matters.
CHAPTER THREE
Who Pays The Bills?
Who provides the profits -- these nice little profits of 20, 100,
300, 1,500 and 1,800 per cent? We all pay them -- in taxation. We
paid the bankers their profits when we bought Liberty Bonds at
$100.00 and sold them back at $84 or $86 to the bankers. These
bankers collected $100 plus. It was a simple manipulation. The
bankers control the security marts. It was easy for them to
depress the price of these bonds. Then all of us -- the people --
got frightened and sold the bonds at $84 or $86. The bankers
bought them. Then these same bankers stimulated a boom and
government bonds went to par -- and above. Then the bankers
collected their profits.
But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.
If you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the
battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran's hospitals in
the United States. On a tour of the country, in the midst of which
I am at the time of this writing, I have visited eighteen
government hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about
50,000 destroyed men -- men who were the pick of the nation
eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government
hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead,
told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as
among those who stayed at home.
Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and
offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There
they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about
face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put
shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were
entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained
them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.
Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another
"about face" ! This time they had to do their own readjustment,
sans [without] mass psychology, sans officers' aid and advice and
sans nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them any more. So we
scattered them about without any "three-minute" or "Liberty Loan"
speeches or parades. Many, too many, of these fine young boys are
eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that
final "about face" alone.
In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys
are in pens! Five hundred of them in a barracks with steel bars
and wires all around outside the buildings and on the porches.
These already have been mentally destroyed. These boys don't even
look like human beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically,
they are in good shape; mentally, they are gone.
There are thousands and thousands of these cases, and more and
more are coming in all the time. The tremendous excitement of the
war, the sudden cutting off of that excitement -- the young boys
couldn't stand it.
That's a part of the bill. So much for the dead -- they have paid
their part of the war profits. So much for the mentally and
physically wounded -- they are paying now their share of the war
profits. But the others paid, too -- they paid with heartbreaks
when they tore themselves away from their firesides and their
families to don the uniform of Uncle Sam -- on which a profit had
been made. They paid another part in the training camps where they
were regimented and drilled while others took their jobs and their
places in the lives of their communities. The paid for it in the
trenches where they shot and were shot; where they were hungry for
days at a time; where they slept in the mud and the cold and in
the rain -- with the moans and shrieks of the dying for a horrible
lullaby.
But don't forget -- the soldier paid part of the dollars and cents
bill too.
Up to and including the Spanish-American War, we had a prize
system, and soldiers and sailors fought for money. During the
Civil War they were paid bonuses, in many instances, before they
went into service. The government, or states, paid as high as
$1,200 for an enlistment. In the Spanish-American War they gave
prize money. When we captured any vessels, the soldiers all got
their share -- at least, they were supposed to. Then it was found
that we could reduce the cost of wars by taking all the prize
money and keeping it, but conscripting [drafting] the soldier
anyway. Then soldiers couldn't bargain for their labor, Everyone
else could bargain, but the soldier couldn't.
Napoleon once said,
"All men are enamored of decorations . . . they
positively hunger for them."
So by developing the Napoleonic system -- the medal business --
the government learned it could get soldiers for less money,
because the boys liked to be decorated. Until the Civil War there
were no medals. Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was handed
out. It made enlistments easier. After the Civil War no new medals
were issued until the Spanish-American War.
In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept
conscription. They were made to feel ashamed if they didn't join
the army.
So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into
it. With few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to
kill, kill, kill. To kill the Germans. God is on our side . . . it
is His will that the Germans be killed.
And in Germany, the good pastors called upon the Germans to kill
the allies . . . to please the same God. That was a part of the
general propaganda, built up to make people war conscious and
murder conscious.
Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to
die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make
the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they
marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war
profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be
shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told
them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be
torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents. They
were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure."
Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided
to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large
salary of $30 a month.
All they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear
ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat
canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill .
. . and be killed.
But wait!
Half of that wage (just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard
or a laborer in a munitions factory safe at home made in a day)
was promptly taken from him to support his dependents, so that
they would not become a charge upon his community. Then we made
him pay what amounted to accident insurance -- something the
employer pays for in an enlightened state -- and that cost him $6
a month. He had less than $9 a month left.
Then, the most crowning insolence of all -- he was virtually
blackjacked into paying for his own ammunition, clothing, and food
by being made to buy Liberty Bonds. Most soldiers got no money at
all on pay days.
We made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and then we bought them
back -- when they came back from the war and couldn't find work --
at $84 and $86. And the soldiers bought about $2,000,000,000 worth
of these bonds!
Yes, the soldier pays the greater part of the bill. His family
pays too. They pay it in the same heart-break that he does. As he
suffers, they suffer. At nights, as he lay in the trenches and
watched shrapnel burst about him, they lay home in their beds and
tossed sleeplessly -- his father, his mother, his wife, his
sisters, his brothers, his sons, and his daughters.
When he returned home minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his
mind broken, they suffered too -- as much as and even sometimes
more than he. Yes, and they, too, contributed their dollars to the
profits of the munitions makers and bankers and shipbuilders and
the manufacturers and the speculators made. They, too, bought
Liberty Bonds and contributed to the profit of the bankers after
the Armistice in the hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty Bond
prices.
And even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally
broken and those who never were able to readjust themselves are
still suffering and still paying.
CHAPTER FOUR
How To Smash This Racket!
WELL, it's a racket, all right.
A few profit -- and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it.
You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate
it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups
can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively
only by taking the profit out of war.
The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and
industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted.
One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the
nation -- it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let
the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of
our armament factories and our munitions makers and our
shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of
all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as
the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted -- to get $30 a
month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.
Let the workers in these plants get the same wages -- all the
workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all
managers, all bankers -- yes, and all generals and all admirals
and all officers and all politicians and all government office
holders -- everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly
income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!
Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all
those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and
majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and
pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.
Why shouldn't they?
They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their
bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in
muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!
Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over
and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will
smash the war racket -- that and nothing else.
Maybe I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some say. So
capital won't permit the taking of the profit out of war until the
people -- those who do the suffering and still pay the price --
make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their
bidding, and not that of the profiteers.
Another step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is
the limited plebiscite to determine whether a war should be
declared. A plebiscite not of all the voters but merely of those
who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying. There
wouldn't be very much sense in having a 76-year-old president of a
munitions factory or the flat-footed head of an international
banking firm or the cross-eyed manager of a uniform manufacturing
plant -- all of whom see visions of tremendous profits in the
event of war -- voting on whether the nation should go to war or
not. They never would be called upon to shoulder arms -- to sleep
in a trench and to be shot. Only those who would be called upon to
risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of
voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.
There is ample precedent for restricting the voting to those
affected. Many of our states have restrictions on those permitted
to vote. In most, it is necessary to be able to read and write
before you may vote. In some, you must own property. It would be a
simple matter each year for the men coming of military age to
register in their communities as they did in the draft during the
World War and be examined physically. Those who could pass and who
would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of war
would be eligible to vote in a limited plebiscite. They should be
the ones to have the power to decide -- and not a Congress few of
whose members are within the age limit and fewer still of whom are
in physical condition to bear arms. Only those who must suffer
should have the right to vote.
A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to
make certain that our military forces are truly forces for defense
only.
At each session of Congress the question of further naval
appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington
(and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists.
And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of
battleships to war on this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of
all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval
power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great
fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate
125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a
larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For
defense purposes only.
Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For
defense. Uh, huh.
The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline
on the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three
hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes,
perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.
The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond
expression to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon's
shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California
were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese
fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.
The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically
limited, by law, to within 200 miles of our coastline. Had that
been the law in 1898 the Maine would never have gone to Havana
Harbor. She never would have been blown up. There would have been
no war with Spain with its attendant loss of life. Two hundred
miles is ample, in the opinion of experts, for defense purposes.
Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can't go
further than 200 miles from the coastline. Planes might be
permitted to go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of
reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the territorial
limits of our nation.
To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
1. We must take the profit out of war.
2. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to
decide whether or not there should be war.
3. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.
CHAPTER FIVE
To Hell With War!
I am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of the past. I
know the people do not want war, but there is no use in saying we
cannot be pushed into another war.
Looking back, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a
platform that he had "kept us out of war" and on the implied
promise that he would "keep us out of war." Yet, five months later
he asked Congress to declare war on Germany.
In that five-month interval the people had not been asked whether
they had changed their minds. The 4,000,000 young men who put on
uniforms and marched or sailed away were not asked whether they
wanted to go forth to suffer and die.
Then what caused our government to change its mind so suddenly?
Money.
An allied commission, it may be recalled, came over shortly before
the war declaration and called on the President. The President
summoned a group of advisers. The head of the commission spoke.
Stripped of its diplomatic language, this is what he told the
President and his group:
"There is no use kidding ourselves any longer. The cause
of the allies is lost. We now owe you (American bankers,
American munitions makers, American manufacturers,
American speculators, American exporters) five or six
billion dollars.
If we lose (and without the help of the United States we
must lose) we, England, France and Italy, cannot pay
back this money . . . and Germany won't.
So . . . "
Had secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiations were
concerned, and had the press been invited to be present at that
conference, or had radio been available to broadcast the
proceedings, America never would have entered the World War. But
this conference, like all war discussions, was shrouded in utmost
secrecy. When our boys were sent off to war they were told it was
a "war to make the world safe for democracy" and a "war to end all
wars."
Well, eighteen years after, the world has less of democracy than
it had then. Besides, what business is it of ours whether Russia
or Germany or England or France or Italy or Austria live under
democracies or monarchies? Whether they are Fascists or
Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own democracy.
And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us
that the World War was really the war to end all wars.
Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms
conferences. They don't mean a thing. One has just failed; the
results of another have been nullified. We send our professional
soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to
these conferences. And what happens?
The professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No
admiral wants to be without a ship. No general wants to be without
a command. Both mean men without jobs. They are not for
disarmament. They cannot be for limitations of arms. And at all
these conferences, lurking in the background but all-powerful,
just the same, are the sinister agents of those who profit by war.
They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously
limit armaments.
The chief aim of any power at any of these conferences has not
been to achieve disarmament to prevent war but rather to get more
armament for itself and less for any potential foe.
There is only one way to disarm with any semblance of
practicability. That is for all nations to get together and scrap
every ship, every gun, every rifle, every tank, every war plane.
Even this, if it were possible, would not be enough.
The next war, according to experts, will be fought not with
battleships, not by artillery, not with rifles and not with
machine guns. It will be fought with deadly chemicals and gases.
Secretly each nation is studying and perfecting newer and
ghastlier means of annihilating its foes wholesale. Yes, ships
will continue to be built, for the shipbuilders must make their
profits. And guns still will be manufactured and powder and rifles
will be made, for the munitions makers must make their huge
profits. And the soldiers, of course, must wear uniforms, for the
manufacturer must make their war profits too.
But victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and
ingenuity of our scientists.
If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more
fiendish mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they
will have no time for the constructive job of building greater
prosperity for all peoples. By putting them to this useful job, we
can all make more money out of peace than we can out of war --
even the munitions makers.
So...I say,
TO HELL WITH WAR!
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html (hypertext)
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.txt (text only)
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf (print ready)
The war on democracy by John Pilger
War Made Easy - How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death
Robert Newman - History of Oil
Fahrenhheit 911 - good movie.
Capitalism: A love story.
And to take a huge swipe at the jew cults. Namely judaeism, islam and christianity - all NASTY cults - A bunch of dead beats lived in Babylon, they ripped off King Hammurubi's city / state laws, by taking the cover off the book, so to speak and then slapping their own cover on it, and saying "we said that god said - so therefor you must obey him, going by what we tell you"
I published this about 20 years ago, that the first 6 or 8 books of the old testament (jew cult book) were word for word rip offs, of the Code of Hammurubi.
A jew prick by the name of Abrham sold this to a dead beat called Mohammed, who invented islam. Then this bullshit evolved into some 37 thousand branches of christianity - which is also a bogus cult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_code_of_Hammurabi.pdf
The jew bibles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Bible
http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Bible_King_James_Version.pdf
http://www.jewfaq.org/torah.htm
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Bible/jpstoc.html
And the quran...
https://www.alislam.org/quran/Holy-Quran-English.pdf
http://www.torahzone.net/FREE-PDF-DOWNLOADS/
See I like all people, from all around the world. But the religious? I won't accept being told what to think, by anyone, for any reasons.
See the jews were monkey descendants like the rest of us - there is no fairy stories about the garden of eden or how they were magical monkeys made from dirt, while the rest of us migrated out of Afrika.
I won't accept crap that it took Moses and 2 million fuckwits, 40 years to travel from Egypt to Syria - when the distance is 130Km or so and that is about 4 or 5 days walk - and there are Egyptian garrisons stationed all along the route...
Moses the fuckwit tourguide, with it's god magically air lifting in rations along the way for the idiot ingrates... as if.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmaelhttp://www.mostmerciful.com/js-md1.htm
Yeah so anyway - ALL religion is bullshit. It's poison. Jew, islam, christianity, buddism, a million and one dieties, semi-demi and other gods, and assorted grades of angels and demons - all fucking bullshit.
A billion and one silly texts, a billion and one silly preachers, a billion and one silly rituals, a billion and one silly ways to dress, a billion and one opionions about a billion and one other opinions, and a billion and one silly arguments over who's prophet meant what, and why you have to live by what we say.
All bullshit.
So I do not support any religion and it's proponents of brainwashing.
The religious also have a tendancy to be just as corrupt and weak minded and as prone to brokering corrupt deals as the imperialist forces they are out to evict - the jews, the moslems and the christians - all as ignorant and biggotted as each other.
All into doing dirty deals with and against each other.
This is the nature of people.
But I do support the people of the middle east, eradicating and eliminating the influences and control of the British, American and their other imperialist forces of occupation, from their lives, minds and countries.
And Ahmed Fahour - has the biggest crooks in the banking business as is best friends.
http://www.photius.com/flags/usa_flag_burning_map.html
This map shows the countries of the world where the USA flag desecration incidents illustrated in the photo archive took place.
It is easy to spot the countries not represented in the archive, which are primarily in Africa and central Asia, as well as some others, including North Korea, Myanmar, Cuba, Belarus and Papua New Guinea.
Maybe There are good people everywhere - when it comes down to it, that is all we have. Each other. There is no where else to go - but there are a whole heap of unrepentant cunts in amongst us... They should be helped to move else where.
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