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Train Wreck of the Week By Bob Chapman

July 29 2006

Not since Dresden has the deliberate carnage and the taking of the lives of the innocent been more horrible and brutal than in Lebanon. The bombing in areas where no military targets exist – where only civilians live. Worse yet, Israel was using internationally banned cluster bombs and white phosphorus on civilians. Vehicles full of women and children were deliberately targeted by missiles in what looks to be the extermination of the Lebanese population. You would have thought Israelis would have learned from the evils of Germany and WWII. We guess not. We find what is going on beyond comprehension – beyond humanity.

What is the Guardians of Liberty? It’s about three million hardcore George W. Bush neocon backers, sort of like an SS or Gestapo - the anointed followers. This is the next Bush-Republican project and guess what, it will be funded via a Netherlands-Antilles secret corporation, called “Trilateral Communications Ltd.” What a fitting title. Of course what we are looking at is a corporation that was funded via black ops-drug operations during Iran Contra. This corporation is part of the Trilateral Investment Group, which finances the neocon juggernaught. This is what finances the insiders within government and keeps elitists in office in the perpetuation of wealth, power and world government. This is the black bag group who do all the dirty work and dirty tricks. It goes all the way from character assassinations, to phony criminal charges to murder. Thus the financing and organizing of this wildly devoted fascist group comes from people who have continually broken the law and gotten away with it. This group is what you always suspected existed but couldn’t prove it. This is the product of the last 30 years of Republican power and how it was financed. It is no wonder Lyn Nofziger didn’t want me contaminating Ronald Reagan with the truth in 1965. This is the group as a whole that believes that if you do not support the neocon fascist movement you are undemocratic, treasonous or a seditionist. Now you can well understand why we cannot any longer live in the US. We wouldn’t last two weeks, we are protestors, and seekers and messengers of the truth, something this swine can’t stand. These people will turn these Guardians of Liberty into useful zombies. This will be sold all in the guise of patriotism. After it gets going then the spy on your neighbor – KGB – Stasi – program will go into action. Then they’ll have vast dossiers on millions of Americans, just this time it is not the communist at the helm, it’s fascists. If you let it be, this will be your tomorrow.

Backed by the money hungry financial services’ industry, the Financial Data Protection Act of 2005 would narrow the circumstances in which consumers could restrict their credit activity to prevent fraudulent borrowing, and it would undermine stronger state-based reporting rules for companies that hold and sell consumer data. Companies that stand to gain from the legislation have spent a small fortune on campaign contributions and lobbying.

It’s shocking that at a time when data breaches are in the headlines daily and consumers are at greater risk than ever of identity theft, Congress would choose to vote on a bill that would strip consumers of their existing identity-theft protections.

In the last two election cycles, finance and credit companies have donated more than $12.5 million to political campaigns, and in 2005 alone, the industry spent almost $30 million on lobbying. The top recipients were Michael Castle (D-DE) who received $116,616, Dennis Moore (D-KS) who got $67,729 and Deborah Pryce (R-OH) who received $22,500, co-sponsored the bill and we call that, political payoffs.

The bill would make it more difficult for consumers to freeze their credit, a process that enables consumers to make it nearly impossible for anyone – including the consumer him or herself – to open new credit cards without first going through extra security precautions. Some states allow consumers to freeze their credit at will in order to protect themselves against fraud. Under the new bill it would have to be proven that an identity theft had already occurred before obtaining a freeze. That is simply absurd. You cannot put locks on your doors until you have been burglarized. Choice Point is the worst offender and they are tightly hooked up with George and the neocons. If this bill is passed, consumers will lose billions of dollars to thieves.

Our federal government is moving forward to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the IRS who audit tax returns of the rich, especially those who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer parts of their fortunes to their children and others. They will cut 157 of the agency’s 345 estate tax lawyers, plus 17 support personnel. Bush couldn’t get the estate tax eliminated by Congress, so he won’t audit those who are clandestinely rolling their assets. There isn’t a law this administration won’t break for the rich elitists. The IRS is lying about the efficiency of these agents. They are the best and most effective in the service. The IRS has been told to leave the rich alone, when over the past 5 years, officials at both the IRS and Treasury have told Congress that cheating among the highest-income Americans is out of control and is a major problem. This is another gift to the elitists by George and the neocons.

Finally and for the first time in 30 years college graduates are seeing their wages virtually frozen. That is caused by pressure from the bottom via illegal aliens. Then that affects blue-collar workers and then those with bachelor’s degrees. Earnings for workers with 4-year degrees fell 5.2% between 2000 and 2004. This is part of what outsourcing is all about. The American public still doesn’t get it. Free trade and globalization is screwing everyone. That degree has been worth hundreds of thousands more in lifetime income for 30 million Americans 20 to 59, but that has at least for now come to an end. The bottom line is college grads are every bit as much victims of free trade and globalization as workers at the lower end of the educational scale. The economy is only generating jobs at the very lower end of the pay scale. All the better paying blue-collar and white-collar jobs are headed out of the country to employ slave labor. That is a real kick in the pants for Americans who owe $25,000 and spent four years in college only to see their potential employment headed to foreign countries. The jobs that do stay in America offer low paying non-salaried jobs, including part-time and freelance positions without benefits. The result is we have an economy with very little financial advancement with all sectors of the economy offering a struggle for financial survival. Worse yet, our Congress and our President keep pushing the program to destroy our economy. Wages are up 3.4% and yet inflation is up over 10%, so we have few winners. Our economy is dead in the water for Americans. Not the rich – they just get richer thanks to our President and Congress. Four more years of this and we will be joining the third world.

For almost four years the economy has thrived on cheap money and credit. For the past year Europe has followed and the Japanese have fought back with zero interest rates and cheap credit. In spite of this tremendous aggregate creation in these economies, they are not really thriving. Private credit growth is still surging at a 10.7% y-o-y rate – a dramatic acceleration from the 2.6% low of 2002 and even stronger than prior peak rates of credit expansion of 9.8% hit in the spring of 2000. All the major economies have the same problem to a larger or lesser degree. Free trade and globalization was a profit gravy train and now it is the engine that created the imbalances. It is the policy that is about to bring on recession and depression.