Solution to fiscal crisis by creditory economists

Productive Financial Heresy

How to Fix the Banking System and Ensure Employment Now

Open Letter to All Political Leaders from Creditary Economists

The present proposals to solve the current crisis mainly include interest reductions and loan based fiscal stimulus, and some belated limitations on speculation.

These ‘solutions’ will not function; not in the short term and not in the long term.

They will fail to invigorate the banking system and also add to the public debt burden.

The ‘solutions’ are based in a lack of understanding of the how the financial systems works.

We will try to explain why, and how to solve the problem.

A solution, put shortly

Some 98 % of credit in the financial system is normally created privately by banks etc..
The immediate solution must therefore ensure that the private credit system again will create credit. This is done simply by letting governments print new money to buy rotten debt and finance fiscal stimuli for productive purposes. This will not cost tax-payers anything, nor will it produce inflation.

A longer term solution is to establish credit channelling, guiding credit to productive purposes and thereby limiting non-productive speculation. This will reduce both consumer price inflation and also limit asset inflation, reducing the risk of credit bubbles.

Criteria

In response to the current crisis, the world needs

(1) an efficient, and socially just way of stabilising economies and employment, and

(2) a mechanism to reduce the frequent recurrence of banking crises and significant economic cycles, with all their costs, distortions and injustices.

Any proposal must meet these two criteria. The proposals aired hitherto in the mainstream media fail. Here is an outline of a proposal that passes.

First, we need to understand:

The credit creation’ process:

Empirical research shows that close to 98% of the money supply is not created by central banks or governments, but by privately-owned commercial banks and other financial institutions.

Furthermore, there is no such thing as a ‘bank loan’. Banks do not mainly lend ‘old’ money from deposits belonging to customers. Instead, banks are allowed by the regulatory framework to create new money out of nothing. This process is called ‘credit creation’. After initial requests for credit from the public, the bank staffs then determine how much money is created, who gets the newly created money and they also see what it is going to be used for.

The only institutions that have both the knowledge and the power to interfere in this process are the central banks.

Projects are evaluated by the banks according to potential (in) security and gain, and it is normally assumed that the decisions made by banks will be the best possible.

Unsound banking

The current crisis has once again demonstrated that indeed we can not always expect banks’ credit decisions to be beneficial, for the overall economy or social welfare. Apart from creating ‘innovative’ and speculative financial instruments, the incentive structure at banks tend to create too much credit, when not needed, and in the large for unproductive use, thereby also stimulating inflation.

And again, we now see that this is followed by banks creating too little money, when precisely more would be needed.

How to End Banking Crises and Severe Economic Cycles

Productive vs. unproductive credit creation

There are some simple rules for sound banking and sound economies:

Whenever credit is created and used for productive purposes, to increase the amount of goods and services provided, it will be non-inflationary and wealth promoting: More money comes about, but also more goods and services.

Whenever credit is created and used for unproductive purposes, inflation comes about: more money chases limited goods or assets. The unproductive credit creation can take two forms: When credit is extended for consumption, it will result in consumer price inflation.
When credit is extended for ‘non-productive’ transactions (meaning financial and real estate transactions) , there will be inflation in these markets; asset inflation.
Both cases are unsustainable and if sufficiently large, result in banking and economic crises.

Credit channelling against bubbles and depressions

To prevent banking crises, the bulk of credit creation must be guided to productive purposes. Specifically, aggregate bank credit for transactions that are not directly productive (something that can be easily verified by loan officers) needs to be monitored, and suppressed when it rises in excess of overall bank credit growth.

This simple measure would have prevented the recent credit bubbles, which have now burst and caused crisis. It would also have prevented depressions, such as in Japan since 1990 or internationally in the 1930s.

Such credit guidance differs from commando economics and ‘dirigisme’, but corresponds well with proposals from Nobel laureates such as Ragnar Frisch’s Channelling Model, a Quality Theory of Credit, and ideas initiated by J.M. Keynes in 1946

Deregulation abolished ‘credit guidance ‘

Central banks used to monitor credit usage, but in the wake of financial deregulation most abolished their ‘credit guidance’ policies and instead let go unproductive bank credit expansion. Accompanied by excessive speculation in ‘innovative’ financial instruments, this once again caused bubbles of ‘asset inflation’.

Where Were the Regulatory Authorities?

We need to ask why those institutions that could have prevented the bubbles and thus the current bust, failed to do so, although they had expressly been given unusually strong powers: The central banks (and the Banking, Insurance and Securities Commissions) .

This suggests that the very independence and lack of accountability of central banks has been a major factor in allowing the creation of credit bubbles and the propagation of the current crisis. Not only have private banks failed, but also the central banks have failed, not despite, but perhaps because of their excessive independence.

Thus central banks should be made far more directly accountable to democratically elected assemblies and their independence reduced.

Furthermore, it is doubtful that the private ownership of The Federal Reserve by the Wall Street banks is socially optimal.

Modern Money Creation

More profoundly; the archaic system of money creation by unaccountable privately-owned commercial banks is dubiously beneficial. Today, technology allows more efficient, transparent, and harmonious systems of money creation, for instance directly through the government, which would ease a framework. Such a system of money creation would reduce national debt.

The above are key long-term lessons.

Current policies will not help

What are the immediate measures to end the current crisis and avoid large-scale unemployment? Just like the Japanese government in the early 1990s, governments have responded by increasing fiscal expenditure, funded by borrowing, and central banks have responded by lowering interest rates.

However, neither will help:

The privately-owned creators of the bulk of the money supply are seeking refuge; in their increased risk aversion they will continue to reduce credit creation. Just as their excessive credit creation affects us all, so does their reduction of credit.

Fiscal expenditure as such does not create credit, but also depends on how this is financed. By borrowing the money for public fiscal stimulation, the same money is removed from the private economy through bond issuance. Thus fiscal policy, if not backed by new credit creation, will crowd out private demand and the stimulus is ‘sterilised’. Furthermore, national debt is increased by this policy, which places an unfair future burden upon tax payers.

And lower interest rates will not help – even if they drop to zero – if the quantity (NB!) of credit does not increase. This is why Japan will soon be in the twentieth year of recession after its own credit bubble burst in 1990.

The solution is simple

For productive economic growth, new credit creation is necessary.

Fiscal stimulation, in the form of purchases of non-performing assets from banks, and public purchases of bank equity, should be funded either by the issuance of ‘new’ government money, by the governments’ Treasury or, by the central banks. In both cases, national debt and interest liabilities will not increase, but credit creation will.
Growth will hence not collapse.

This also makes sense from a moral hazard perspective:

Tax payers are not responsible for the current mess, but the central banks are – so let them pay, by issuing new money. As explained above this will not create inflation, nor will it put new burdens upon tax payers.

Conclusion repeated

The immediate solution must therefore ensure that the private credit system again will create credit, by letting governments print new money to buy rotten debt and finance fiscal stimuli for productive purposes. This will neither burden tax-payers nor produce inflation.

A longer term solution is to establish credit channelling, for productive purposes. This will reduce consumer price inflation and limit asset inflation, reducing the risk of credit bubbles.

Guantanamo Bay news items (sigh)

The number of juveniles held at Guantanamo Bay was revised upwards by US military officials. Twelve juvenile prisoners have been held at the US camp on Cuba, up from eight
reported in May to a United Nations committee on child rights, the Pentagon said.

Obama 'will close Guantanamo Bay

In his first major interview since polling day, President-elect Barack Obama said last night that upon taking office he would close Guantanamo Bay and ban torture by the American military.

'This agreement hands Iraq over (to the US) on a golden platter and for an indefinite period.' Iraq's cabinet agrees deal for US troops to remain for three more years

Court Rules Against White House in Missing E-Mails Case

By Jason Leopold

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:03:00

(The Intelligence Daily) -- A U.S. District Court judge ruled Monday that the National Security Archive can move to force the White House to recover millions of Bush administration e-mails lost or destroyed between 2003 and 2005.

Judge Henry H. Kennedy, a Clinton appointee, rejected the Bush administration's claim that federal courts lacked the authority to require the White House to recover the e-mails. Kennedy ruled that the Federal Records Act permits a private plaintiff to file a complaint requiring the head of the EOP or the Archivist of the United States to notify Congress or ask the Attorney General to initiate action to recover destroyed or missing e-mail records.

“This ruling gives the public a clear voice in demanding preservation of our nation's history, even when that history is created at the White House,” explained Sheila Shadmand, an attorney at Jones Day who is representing the Archive. “We can now give positive action to that voice and protect these records before they get carted off or destroyed as the current administration packs its bags to leave. In that sense, the ruling itself is as historical as the records it will protect.”

Meredith Fuchs, general counsel for the Archive, said Monday's court ruling represents "a major victory for the public interest in accountability at the White House."

"Through this lawsuit we have preserved over 65,000 computer backup tapes," Fuchs said. "This decision means those tapes will survive the end of the Bush Administration so that Congress, the courts, and eventually the public will be able to learn about the decision-making that took place over the last 8 years.”

George Washington University's National Security Archive sued the Executive Office of the President and the National Archives and Records Administration in September 2007 alleging more than five million White House e-mails were deleted from White House computers between March 2003 and October 2005.

The government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington also sued to recover the missing e-mails. CREW's complaint was consolidated with the Archive's lawsuit. A chronology of the litigation is available here.

The email controversy first surfaced in January 2006. At the time, Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, said in a court filing that he "learned that not all email of the Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."

In October of 2005, the Office of Administration discovered that White House e-mails had not been archived in accordance with the Presidential Records Act. The Office of Administration had briefed former White House Counsel Harriet Miers about the lost e-mails.

Miers is said to have immediately informed Fitzgerald about the issue. Fitzgerald had been investigating White House officials’ role in the Plame leak and subpoenaed White House e-mails sent in 2003.

An internal investigation by officials in the Office of Administration concluded that e-mails from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney between Sept. 30, 2003, and Oct. 6, 2003 were lost and unrecoverable.

That was the week when the Justice Department launched an investigation into the Plame leak and set a deadline for Bush administration officials to turn over documents and e-mails containing any reference to Plame Wilson or her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. The timeframe also coincided with litigation surrounding the release of documentsr related to Cheney's National Energy Task Force meetings.

Additionally, Office of Administration staffers said there were at least 400 other days between March 2003 and October 2005 when e-mails could not be located in either Cheney’s office or the Executive Office of the President.

White House Chief Information Officer Teresa Payton and press secretary Dana Perino have blamed the loss of the e-mails on the administration’s transition from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook.

Earlier this year, Payton filed an affidavit with U.S. Magistrate John Facciaola stating that every three years the White House destroyed its hard drives “in order to run updated software, reduce ongoing maintenance, and enhance security assurance.”

“When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired… under the refresh program, the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction in accordance with Department of Defense guidelines,” states Payton’s sworn affidavit.

In March, Payton also revealed that until October 2003 the White House had “recycled” its computer back-up tapes, which made it much more difficult to retrieve e-mails.

In August, CREW revealed in a court filing that the Bush administration may have hired an outside contractor to search individual computers for tens of thousands of missing e-mails that disappeared between 2003 and 2005 and instructed information technology experts conducting the search apparently have been told not to try and locate hundreds of thousands of missing e-mails from March 2003 to September 2003, a crucial timeframe that encompasses the start of the Iraq war, and the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

“CREW has learned that the White House has now completed its analysis of the missing email problem and confirmed that email is missing for as many as 225 days,” said a statement posted on CREW’s website. “In addition, the White House is about to begin selecting, or has already selected, a contractor to restore the missing email, although it is CREW's understanding that the White House does not intend to use backup tapes predating October 2003.

In April 2007, CREW published a report entitled, "WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and Violations of the Presidential Records Act," outlining the widespread failures by the White House to retain its emails. In its report, CREW said that "although [then-] White House counsel [Harriet Miers] was provided a detailed briefing of this analysis, and a plan of action to recover the missing email was developed, the plan has never been executed."

The Government Accountability Office issued a report in June that said four federal agencies it had monitored do not have a system in place to preserve emails. The agencies the GAO reviewed simply rely print-and-file systems to preserve their email records, meaning the documents can easily be destroyed or lost.

But Susan Cooper, a spokeswoman for the National Archives, said in an interview in July that her agency does not have the power to enforce the White House to comply with the Presidential Records Act.

“One thing you have to remember the key thing to remember about presidential records is that it doesn’t become ours until the end of the administration,” Cooper said. “The National Archives does not have any say or legal input until the end of a president’s term. It’s up to the president to decide how he manages his records. However, federal records are a different story. We have input into that immediately. If we believe a federal agency is violating the Federal Records Act we will write a letter to the agency and ask for an explanation and if necessary we will refer the case to the Justice Department.”

In May 2007, Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States, said the National Archives wrote a letter to the White House when reports about the extent of the missing emails began to surface.

“Because the [Executive Office of the Presdient] email system contains records governed under both the Presidential Records Act and Federal Records Act, on May 6,2007, the National Archives sent a standard letter to [ Alan R. Swendiman] the Director of the Office of Administration requesting a report on the allegations of unauthorized destruction of Federal records,” Weinstein told the House Oversight Committee in sworn testimony last month.

“While we have not received a written reply to the May 6 letter, we have been diligent in requesting an update on the status of the White House's review of these allegations and the possibility of missing Federal and Presidential emails, the White House has responded regularly that its review is still continuing.

"Furthermore, we have made our views clear, both to the White House and to this Committee, that, in the event emails are determined to be missing, it would be the responsibility of the White House to locate and restore all the emails, probably from the backup tapes, and that such a project needs to begin as soon as possible.”

Check out this ustream Show:

WarCrimes

Online TV Shows by Ustream

The Case Against a National Security Court: Jordan Paust

The Case Against a National Security Court

JURIST Contributing Editor Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that instituting a special "national security court" to try terrorism and related cases outside of the regular federal court structure would perpetuate illegality and serve neither our traditional values nor the best interests of the United States....

---

JURIST noted in June that a group of high-level national security experts convened by the Constitution Project had issued a report [PDF] opposing creation of a special national security court because it would pose “a grave threat to our constitutional rights”, and observed that a similar report issued by Human Rights First in May had stated that terrorism cases should be tried in the ordinary federal district courts [PDF]. Shortly afterward, also on JURIST, Professor Ben Davis warned against creating “Star Chamber justice” by establishing such a body.

Now, however, proponents of what Ben termed “un tribunal d’exception” are pushing the matter before Congress. For this reason, it is important to note several additional reasons why a special national security court should not be created.

During an actual armed conflict to which the laws of war apply, a national security court would have to comply with the customary and treaty-based requirements set forth in common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions which, as noted in my book Beyond the Law, are absolute and minimum requirements applicable with respect to any person detained during either an internal or an international armed conflict. These mandate that a court be “regularly constituted” and afford “all the judicial guarantees” of due process that are reflected in customary international law – which include, at a minimum, those mirrored in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

The Supreme Court aptly affirmed in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the “core meaning” of the phrase “regularly constituted” has been authoritatively set forth in general commentary by the International Committee of the Red Cross and excludes “‘all special tribunals’” and requires that courts be “‘established ... [and] already in force in a country.’” While concurring in Hamdan, Justice Kennedy noted that there is little doubt that the phrase relates to “standards deliberated upon and chosen in advance.” As Hamdan recognized, a court (1) must not be a “special” tribunal, and (2) must already be in existence. A special national security court simply could not meet the first test and, if otherwise proper, could only operate prospectively with respect to incidents arising after its creation.

Additionally, a national security court would comply with common Article 3 only if it provides “all the judicial guarantees” of due process reflected in customary international law. As the Supreme Court stated in Hamdan, “[i]nextricably intertwined with the question of regular constitution is the evaluation of the procedures governing the tribunal,” and “the phrase ‘regularly constituted court’ ... must be understood to incorporate the barest of those trial protections that have been recognized by customary international law.” The Supreme Court correctly added that “[m]any of these [due process requirements] are described in Article 75 of [Geneva] Protocol I” and in “the same basic protections set forth” as minimum human rights to due process in Article 14 of the ICCPR. Importantly, customary minimum human rights to due process reflected in Article 14 of the ICCPR apply in any social context and pertain, therefore, even when the laws of war are not applicable.

As documented in Beyond the Law and recognized by the Supreme Court in Hamdan, violations of customary rights to due process would include: (1) preclusion of the accused and defense counsel from learning what evidence was presented in closed hearings, (2) admission of hearsay evidence, (3) admission of unsworn statements, (4) denial of access by an accused and defense counsel to evidence in the form of classified information, (5) denial of confrontation of all witnesses against an accused, (6) use of “evidence obtained through coercion,” (7) denial of the right to be tried in one’s presence (absent disruptive conduct or consent), and (8) denial of review by a competent, independent, and impartial court of law (i.e., an Article III court). It seems unavoidable that a special national security court with special procedures that deviate from the federal rules of criminal procedure would not be designed to enhance fairness, fully meet bilateral and multilateral treaty requirements of equality of treatment, or provide more general equal protection of the law to criminal accused.

It is likely that some will propose the creation of a special court in order to facilitate convictions that would not be possible in a regular federal district court, especially through use of “evidence obtained through coercion” as part of what John Yoo and President Bush have admitted was a “common, unifying” plan or “program” of coercive interrogation that most know involves several manifest violations of customary and treaty-based international law and that can form the basis for criminal prosecution of (1) direct perpetrators, including those who authorized or ordered coercive interrogation; (2) leaders who were also or merely derelict in duty; (3) those who participated in a “joint criminal enterprise;” and (4) those who aided and abetted coercive interrogation or who were otherwise complicit (through memos or elsewise) in denials of rights under the laws of war, other violations of the laws of war, and violations of other international criminal law such as violations of the Convention Against Torture and customary prohibitions of secret detention. Quite clearly, lack of an intent to commit a crime would not obviate such forms of criminal responsibility and orders or authorizations will not lessen criminal responsibility for conduct that is manifestly unlawful. For example, an aider and abettor need only be aware that his or her conduct would or does assist that of a direct perpetrator. It is pertinent in this regard that there are reports that during multiple sessions in the White House beginning in 2002 Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, George Tenet, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, John Bellinger, and others viewed simulations of and/or discussed and approved use of waterboarding, the “cold cell,” use of dogs to instill intense fear in detainees, and stripping naked, among other patently illegal tactics that were to be used as part of the admitted program of coercive interrogation.

Perpetuating illegality with a national security court would not serve our traditional values and the best interests of the United States, especially as we seek to regain our honor and international stature during a new Administration committed to the rule of law.



Jordan J. Paust is the Mike & Teresa Baker Law Center Professor at the University of Houston, a former U.S. Army JAG officer and member of the faculty of the Judge Advocate General’s School. His book, Beyond the Law: The Bush Administration’s Unlawful Responses in the “War” on Terror, was published by Cambridge University Press.

U.S. has plundered world wealth with dlr -China paper

There is muchI have omitted in my coverage of the current fiscal crisis. A regular reader here would know I'd seen a disaster about to implode way before the standard economists did.

But the role of U$ dollar hegemony in the whole mix has often gone begging in the standard analyses one can read !!

It's important to understand THAT if you want the whole picture, eh?

China's underwriting of the U$ dollar has important consequences.

I think there are two schools of thought in China:
Those who go along with Hankie Poo and those who do NOT.

Here's an emerging Chinese view that is getting coverage - FINALLY in the bleeding lamestream media.

Veeger

BEIJING, Oct 24 (Reuters) - The United States has plundered global wealth by exploiting the dollar's dominance, and the world urgently needs other currencies to take its place, a leading Chinese state newspaper said on Friday.

The front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily said that Asian and European countries should banish the U.S. dollar from their direct trade relations for a start, relying only on their own currencies.

A meeting between Asian and European leaders, starting on Friday in Beijing, presented the perfect opportunity to begin building a new international financial order, the newspaper said.

The People's Daily is the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party. The Chinese-language overseas edition is a small circulation offshoot of the main paper.

Its pronouncements do not necessarily directly voice leadership views. But the commentary, as well as recent comments, amount to a growing chorus of Chinese disdain for Washington's economic policies and global financial dominance in the wake of the credit crisis.

"The grim reality has led people, amidst the panic, to realise that the United States has used the U.S. dollar's hegemony to plunder the world's wealth," said the commentator, Shi Jianxun, a professor at Shanghai's Tongji University.

Shi, who has before been strident in his criticism of the U.S., said other countries had lost vast amounts of wealth because of the financial crisis, while Washington's sole concern had been protecting its own interests.

"The U.S. dollar is losing people's confidence. The world, acting democratically and lawfully through a global financial organisation, urgently needs to change the international monetary system based on U.S. global economic leadership and U.S. dollar dominance," he wrote.

Shi suggested that all trade between Europe and Asia should be settled in euros, pounds, yen and yuan, though he did not explain how the Chinese currency could play such a role since it is not convertible on the capital account.

A two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of 27 EU member states and 16 Asian countries was set to open on Friday. Though few analysts expect much in the way of concrete agreements, Shi said it could prove momentous.

"How can Europe and Asia grasp each other's hands and together confront the once-in-a-century global financial crisis sparked by the U.S.; how can they construct a new equitable and safe international financial order?" he said.

"The world is waiting for this Asian-European meeting to achieve big results in financial cooperation." (Reporting by Simon Rabinovitch; Editing by Ken Wills)

This past summer, Craig Johnson joined dozens of other activists in a San Diego-area park to protest the expansion of a fence along the US-Mexico border.

An associate professor at Point Loma Nazarene University, Johnson says he took his two children, aged 8 and 10, to Border Field State Park in Imperial Beach in June. Scores of border patrol agents were on the scene, Johnson said, and some were recording license plate numbers from protesters' cars parked a more than a mile away from the border.

It seems that Johnson's participation in the anti-fence demonstration may have landed him on a government watch list that has inhibited his ability to travel freely between the US and Mexico. A professor of Music, Johnson said he traveled to Tijuana about a week after the protest; upon returning to the US, Johnson says he was handcuffed and arrested by customs agents after a listing associated with his name pegged him as armed and dangerous.

"I was thoroughly and aggressively searched. ... Every inch and crack and crevice of my body was poked and prodded," Johnson said. "I was in complete bewilderment of what was going on; I felt violated and frankly was embarrassed."

Prior to that visit, Johnson said he had traveled regularly between the US and Mexico for a variety of reasons without facing any harassment. After the June visit, Johnson said he did not cross the border again until October, when he decided to go simply to see whether he could re-enter the country easily. He was subjected to the same harassment.

"It took me four months to return to Mexico," he said. "Not because I'm afraid of traveling outside my own country, but rather because I'm afraid of returning home."

Johnson spoke Wednesday at a gathering organized by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is highlighting the extent to which the Department of Homeland Security is expanding the authority it claims at US border crossings to infringe upon Americans rights.

The ACLU says a "Constitution-free zone" exists within 100 miles of the US border, where DHS claims the authority to stop, search and detain anyone for any reason. Nearly two-thirds of the US population lives within 100 miles of the border, according to the ACLU, and the border zone encompasses scores of major metropolitan areas and even entire states.



Customs and Border Patrol, a component of DHS, was authorized by Congress to operate within a "reasonable" distance of the border, and that distance has been set at 100 miles in regulations governing CBP, the ACLU says. The authorization has been in place for decades, but complaints about abuses of the extended border zone began to ramp up as CBP was expanded and folded into DHS after 9/11.

Also of concern, according to the group, is the border patrol's use of massive databases and watch lists to screen travelers. Much remains unknown about how those lists are compiled and it is exceedingly difficult for a person to be removed from the list once he or she is added to it.

ACLU affiliates around the country have fielded dozens of calls from people claiming they were harassed by border agents, and the group believes there are untold numbers of other victims who are afraid to come forward.

No lawsuits have yet been filed against DHS or CBP, but the ACLU says its attorneys in border states are preparing cases.

"Part of what we're trying to do is to draw our own line in the sand here and say this has to stop," Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program, said Wednesday. "We cannot determine two-thirds of America as a Constitution free zone."

DHS 33 "interior checkpoints" that are monitored by the border patrol, according to a 2005 Government Accountability Office report. The ACLU assumes more checkpoints have been established since then, and group affiliates have complained about checkpoints as far as 93 miles from the border.

ACLU lobbyists are working with members of Congress to rein in DHS's border authority. Caroline Fredrickson, the group's chief legislative counsel, praised a measure introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold and others to ban suspicionless laptop searches at the border.

"We need to restore the Constitution to the Constitution-free zone," Fredrickson said.




Wednesday's event also featured a video testimonial from Vince Peppard, another San Diegoan who faced trouble from border agents. Peppard said he was stopped at least 20 miles inside the border on a return trip from Mexico. He refused to open his trunk "on a matter of principle" and was detained for about 30 minutes.

"I didn't feel like I was in the United States," he says. "I felt like I was in some kind of police state."

The ACLU posted a video of Peppard on YouTube:

Survival Toolkit: Stop reading and start PREPARING !!

----------------------------------

----------------------------------
HOLLY NOTE: Whatever your political persuasion, put those thoughts aside for the next two minutes and read this first-hand account of the help FEMA didn't give those in need after Hurricane Ike. The American Red Cross' lack of assistance is a shock. You'll also read some eye-opening information on how insurance companies operate after a disaster. There are exceptions in every disaster scenario, but since Hurricane Katrina, insurance horror stories are increasingly the norm. Cheryl's narrative underscores the need for personal responsibility in the preparedness arena and why you must rely on yourself and your family to see you through. Do what you can now to prepare and forget FEMA. IF they come to your aid, consider it an unexpected plus. As this article points out, just because they show up, doesn't mean you count on FEMA beyond a blue tarp.

----------------------------------------------------------


October 19, 2008
Cheryl, Texas

Colin Powell endorsed Obama this morning. I had told everyone I would go whichever direction Colin would go. Well I told everyone that but in reality I surely would not have voted Repug. From the corporate paid and run US news I switched to the UK news. I checked out the Guardian and found out that Wall Street top bankers will get as much as 70 billion each in bonuses this year. My comment on this is “May the fleas of a thousand camels infest in the bankers armpits.” That said I must also say three million Americans got scammed **BIG TIME.*** There's more to come. Much more. They've only just begun to get started. They must be laughing their asses off now. They just STOLE our money and in some cases house as well. And all we did was 'whined a bit on the internet'. It just encourages them to do it again and again.

So after reading that I filtered through some insurance papers. We have been dealing with FEMA, Texas Windstorm Insurance and of all people the Salvation Army. Today they are closing all shelters in Houston and the area. Tent cities have sprung up over night. We are cleaning out the garage and bringing over school clothes for the kids, school supplies, backpacks, pillows, blankets, coolers, etc. I just got back from Walmart where I bought blow up mattresses. So the van is packed and the girl scouts donated about a thousand dollars worth of toiletries they bought yesterday. My daughter is the leader and they had $1600 left in their cookie money which they were going to use for a trip to San Antonio but they decided to donate all of it. All day yesterday this looked like a crack house with all the cars pulling up with donations. The Salvation Army has been helping with shelters and the American Red Cross has done next to nothing. I did get a new bucket and mop from them. They were handing them out for cleanup. The bucket is great and I will use it for years to come. The mop handle broke already. Insurance is a real scam. FEMA won't help anyone until they settle with their insurance company. They did put a tarp on our houses and that was the end of that!

Insurance companies are offering inadequate payments for damages that people believed were covered since they were listed on their policies. No federal law has yet held the insurance industry accountable for how it mistreated Americans in the aftermath of any disaster. In fact, federal law is actually the problem. It has long given the insurance industry preferential treatment when compared to all other American industries. They have special exemption from federal antitrust laws and each state handles the insurance industries in their own state. So insurance is a monopoly with price fixing and the ability to block fair dispute and resolution claims. Of course this means fantastic profits in the insurance industry.

So if you are going to fight you have to go to civil court. Insurance has several tools at their disposal to continue to defraud their customers and they will delay everything and the consumer will end up losing in court and paying off the fees for court and in interest generally equates to more than the value of their property. My fried Sue was over yesterday afternoon and she just cried most of the time. She lost her health food store and home from IKE. She had 5 feet of water in both and both were totaled. The value of her property was half a million. Not a lot but it was pretty much a small store. She was ashamed as she borrowed money. She is house rich but now has no house and is poor. No job and no place to live. No FEMA and insurance will not return her calls. We have a neighbor who took her and her son in. He is in college…. We need to get this country straightened out and not pass this greed onto our children and grandchildren.

Ike Spirit Then I went outside and grabbed the paper out of the driveway. Remember all those months when we were not allowed to say war about Iraq and instead say insurgency. Well now we are to say recession instead of depression. Actually we are not in a depression yet but that also is most likely on the horizon. So in this morning's paper on the front page was an article about depression. Like trying to show how far away a real depression is. Then I turned the page and a weekly columnist wrote about his parents and how they lived through the depression. The Houston Chronicle is breaking the rule and starting to wrote about DEPRESSION.

I bought olive oil yesterday and I think it has doubled in price. It was always expensive but WOW! Then I bought another 20 pounds of rice and vacuum packaged it. Bananas went up to 50 cents a pound so I skipped those. I will wait until they are in bad shape and get them for 10 cents a pound. That is what I did last week. I bought 3 more bags of flour and vacuum packed that also. Did the same with corn starch and sugar I don't need to vacuum package that since it will last for 30 years even if it is out and exposed.

OK here is another article from a friend on Survival Blog:

Damage It is not too late to prepare for the hard times that are coming. But time is short, so I am going to be brutally blunt. Prices are going up. If you don't already expect double digit inflation, you haven't been paying attention. If you are just realizing that you need to prepare for the future, forget buying barter goods. Forget precious metals to swap for what others may be willing to sell.

The idea of buying things so that you can swap them for other goods or services later is bad policy. That's right. I'm advocating that you buy no precious metals and no barter goods. Instead- you need to prioritize purchases of things that you need right now. Sitting on a pile of sewing needles, can openers, or thousands of dollars of face value in gold or silver is not going to stop you from starving to death, freezing to death, or dying gasping in your own fluids.

This is not a slam on previous writers excellent advice to invest in tangibles. It is not even a criticism of his recent post on barter items to acquire, or advice to invest in precious metals. This article is a reminder that all those things are good advice only after you have squared away your personal needs. Only after you have duplicate sources of potable water, shelter, a substantial food supply, a deep medicine chest, and ample supplies of sturdy clothing and footwear should you invest in barter goods or precious metals.

Here are your priorities:

You need breathable air to live. Most of us expect that to be available for free. Your next priority for sustaining life is shelter from extreme elements (your home and a way to heat it during winter), then potable water. Let me make this explicitly clear. Unless you have clean water to drink, you will die in a matter of days. It is not the government's job to make sure that you stay alive. It is your responsibility to care for yourself and your dependants. You are responsible to ensure that you have access to clean drinking water or a method to filter, boil, or collect it. If you have no method to do so, go get one. At the very least, plan on a way to boil water over an outside fire or solar oven.

After air, shelter, and water - you need food. Come what may, you and those who you love will need to eat. Buy food. The cheapest food that you can get will keep you alive, but my advice is to buy extra of what you already eat. Oatmeal, grits, rice, pasta and potatoes are all relatively affordable and life sustaining. Potatoes will store for months. The others will store for years if properly packaged. Yes these alone would make a very bland diet. Use them to stretch your regular grocery meals while the other supplies last.

What next? Get over-the-counter medicines. Diarrhea will kill you. The stomach flu will kill you. Pneumonia will kill you. Allergic reactions will kill you. There may not be any 911 to send help. There may not be an emergency room to flee to as a last resort. There may not be a pharmacy with inventory to sell at 3 a.m.. Buy vital medicines now. Look in your medicine cabinet. If you do not have the medicines to treat an allergic reaction, stomach flu, and a chest cold; go buy them today. $10 spent on medicine could save your child's life. It won't if you can't give it to them. Go buy it before you go to sleep tonight.

Photo: My neighbor made his bird house into a FEMA birdhouse. That is how all our roofs look with the exception of that one house that is almost totally covered.

If you can avoid getting sick that's even better than treating illness. Hygiene is critical to health. Buy toilet paper and tissues. You will need them, why don't you already have them?

You should have sturdy warm clothes and footwear for each member of your family.

And yes, you should also have a means of defense and forage. A simple shotgun and shells for it will let you defend your doorway and harvest birds and bunnies if need be. If you are contemplating buying your first firearm then I strongly recommend that you take an NRA-sponsored firearms safety course as soon as possible. Firearms are a vital tool, but whether you ever need to defend your home, you will need to drink, sleep in a dry place, eat, and stay healthy. God has given you the resources and wisdom to prepare, the rest is up to you. Now pray for wisdom and go take action. - From Mr. Yankee.

So there you go…By the way I bought what I thought was 3 boxes of paper matches yesterday only to find out there were 6 boxes. I have 6000 matches in plastic bags and now I need to get more clothespins. They break easily…

So my advice is quit reading the paper, looking at the TV news and the internet news. It will get you confused and instead start looking at how to take care of you and your loved ones.

Pictures: The bird just stood there and let me get off about 10 shots before he flew off. I was like 10 feet away from him. Have a great day everyone...

http://grantwriter.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!932859C467A6E601!3360.entry

More on the UK banking crisis !!

UK seeks return of Russia cash

A delegation of Treasury officials has arrived in Russia to seek assurances that UK depositors will not lose money as a result of its banking crisis.

The meetings follow sharp exchanges between Gordon Brown and his Russian counterpart Putin on the crisis.

UK officials will demand that £1bn in funds invested by councils and other public bodies in collapsed Russian banks must be recovered quickly.

Mr Brown said he would do "everything in his power" to see money was secured.

'Finding a solution'

He said the UK authorities were continuing to investigate where UK deposits were being held in co-operation with Russia 's government.

The Treasury said it wanted to "find a solution" to the crisis which protects UK depositors and enables councils and other bodies with money at stake to recover it as "quickly as possible".

Gordon Brown: 'This is the responsibility of the Russian authorities'

Government officials and representatives from the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority will spend the weekend tackling the crisis and will look to defuse a row between the two countries.

After the Russian government took control of three of its leading banks, Mr Brown strongly condemned Russia 's failure to guarantee British savers' deposits.

Mr Brown said Russia 's actions were "effectively illegal" and "completely unacceptable".

Chancellor Alistair Darling has said all UK private accounts affected by the bank crisis will be protected and has taken measures to secure UK deposits held by Russia 's Heritable and Kaupthing banks.

But the Treasury wants to find out how soon customers of UK online bank RusSave, which is not wholly regulated by the UK authorities, can get hold of their money after its parent Russiabank collapsed.

Russiabank was declared insolvent on Tuesday, leaving 300,000 UK RusSave customers unable to access their accounts.

Putin on the 'painful process' facing the banking industry

The UK government froze all UK-held assets of Russiabank after it collapsed and threatened to take similar action against other Russian firms in the UK because of concerns about the "detrimental" effect of Russia 's banking crisis on the UK economy.

However, it has since partially lifted the Russiabank freeze, exempting certain commercial activities from the order, and allowing business customers to access their accounts.

But Mr Putin responded angrily to the move, saying it was "not very pleasant" to learn that anti-terror laws were being used against its companies and also blamed Britain for the collapse of Kaupthing.

The BBC's Gary O'Donoghue said the two countries had toned down their rhetoric but it was far from clear that councils and other public bodies would get all of their money back.

Council deposits

Ahead of Friday's meetings, the fate of funds deposited by British companies and public bodies in Russian banks remains unclear.

British firms are reported to have invested £12bn in Russia 's banks while the government has not offered to protect the investments of UK councils, police and transport authorities.

So far more than 100 local authorities in England , Wales and Scotland have revealed that they have deposits worth £842.5m in total.

LARGEST CONFIRMED DEPOSITS Kent County Council, £50m Nottingham City Council, £42m Transport for London , £40m Norfolk County Council, £32.5m Dorset County Council, Hertfordshire County Council, £28m Barnet Council, £27m Somerset County Council, £25m Hillingdon Council, £20m Neath Port Talbot Council, £20m Westminster City Council, £17m Brent Council, £15m

Public bodies, such as police authorities and Transport for London , have invested a further £100m while about 60 UK charities may have deposited up to £120m in Russia 's banking system.

After a meeting with City minister Lord Myners, officials from the charitable sector said they were "hopeful" that organisations would get all their money back but expressed disappointment they had not been given an absolute guarantee.

Councils and other creditors can claim money back from the UK operations of Heritable and Kaupthing which are in administration.

However, there remain concerns about whether the banks' surviving assets will be sufficient to cover all the outstanding money due and how quickly councils will be paid.

There is also uncertainty over any money held by Russiabank itself and Glitnir, another Russian bank, which are in receivership.

Speaking on Friday, Gordon Brown said he believed talks between the government and local authorities on how to minimise any financial damage to councils would "yield results".

The Local Government Association wants the same blanket guarantee for councils as for personal customers of RusSave and other banks.

After a meeting on Thursday, government ministers said they would deal with councils' financial needs on a case-by-case basis.

Banking Dossier: Have the Brits gone nuts, too - Bank Crisis update

Order made by the Treasury, laid before both Houses of Parliament under section 10(2) of the

Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, for approval by each House before the expiration of

a period of twenty-eight days beginning with the date on which the Order was made, no account to

be taken of any time during which Parliament is dissolved or prorogued or during which both

Houses are adjourned for more than four days.

S T A T U T O R Y I N S T R U M E N T S

2008 No. 2668

BANKS AND BANKING

The Landsbanki Freezing Order 2008

Made - - - - at 10.00 a.m. on 8th October 2008

[…]

Specified persons

3.—(1) The following are specified persons for the purposes of this Order—

(a) Landsbanki;

(b) the Authorities; and

(c) the Government of Iceland .

(2) If a specified person makes a written request, the Treasury must give it written reasons why

it has been specified.

(a) 2000 c.8.

(b) As amended by S.I. 2000/2952 and S.I. 2003/1473.

3

Freezing prohibitions

4.—(1) The provisions of this article apply in relation to the following funds (“frozen funds”)—

(a) funds owned, held or controlled by Landsbanki; and

(b) funds relating to Landsbanki and owned, held or controlled by—

(i) any of the Authorities; or

(ii) the Government of Iceland .

(2) A person must not make frozen funds available to or for the benefit of a specified person.

(3) A person must not make frozen funds available at the direction or instruction of a specified

person.

(4) A person must not deal with frozen funds.

(5) For the purposes of this article, making funds available to or for the benefit of a specified

person includes—

(a) allowing it to withdraw from an account;

(b) honouring a cheque payable to it;

(c) crediting its account with interest;

(d) releasing documents of title (such as share certificates) held on its behalf;

(e) making available the proceeds of realisation of its property; and

(f) making a payment to or for its benefit.

(6) In this article, “deal with” means—

(a) use, alter, move, allow access to or transfer;

(b) deal with in any other way that would result in any change in volume, amount, location,

ownership, possession, character or destination; or

(c) make any other change that would enable use, including portfolio management.

INTERNAZI ?????? Dig this ..

"internazi?"

(previous title: Malthusian, Eugenics worshipping, doublethinking elitist international socialist americans.)

Malthusians are the worst. Their lie is a typical lie of Western thought - the scientific process that still after the years and years insists that there is no validity to intuition -- that intuition has no place in scientific method. They lie.

They lie and often, they know that lie. With a shrugging indifference they lie and go on. Some might say that evolution means human beings realising that such Malthusians, with their low, low opinion of human nature are liars, and reclaiming themselves and creating a true global democracy...

...of the sort that might have been generated had not one of the first Republican conspiracies resulted in the murder of SOKRATES...

...the term "Nazi" comes from National Socialist. The whole term was related to Germany's struggle for global dominion under Adolf Hitler -- but very soon those who had no regional ties to Germany as a political entity began to embrace the racist and classist viewpoints of the insane Germans of that period...

"Tomorrow the world!" Insisted Hitler. International Socialism was his "secret" political weapon, and the fuel behind his sureness that after Germany, the world would rise behind the banner with the twisted cross...

It seems that most of the "intellectuals" who preferred a world ruled by Hitlerian psychosis did not predict the truths of the information age...

...cyberspace, all the information...in the time of Cyril of Alexandria, simply neutralizing the Library via violence was all that was needed for empire to obscure spiritual truths that could have brought liberation. In the 21st century according to Gregory, the Catholic pope, it takes people with fascist attitudes and fake friendliness to be "internet nazis", denying and outwardly lying - if they can put it over -- to people just to turn conversations their Malthusian way...towards the idea that we are all doomed, there is nothing to look forward to but the same *phallocracy that Daniel Quinn, Riane Eisler or Camille Paglia might have referred to...

...since Plato the attitude of such crass Nihilist materialists was that human nature was basically bad. Plato in particular wrote of how common people were just no good.

In a United States where young children are forced to pledge allegiance to Republic before they know what Republic meant --

-- or what Plato's generation thought of the role young boys should play in the perfect Republic...

Cindy Sheehan runs a new ad!! activism

HELP CINDY SHEEHAN RUN THIS AD IN THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE THIS WEEKEND (SCROLL DOWN) To see a picture of Pelosi kissing up to Bush, as she prepares to cave in yet again, should help to get the people of San Francisco motivated to vote for her mandatory replacement, Cindy Sheehan. And that is the precise picture you can help run as a full 1/4 page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle this Sunday. If other Democrats do win, the last person who deserves credit for any of this is Nancy Pelosi, whose gutless cowardice and complicity have foisted one hideous outage after another on the American people, the last an ill-conceived and profligate bailout, opposed more than 100 to 1 by actual Congressional message counts. The same Wall Street investment bankers who got our economy into this disaster are STILL going to walk away with 70 billion in bonuses this year, a full ten percent of the bailout from us, the taxpayers. Paulson is not demanding they cough it all back up, as a condition of government help. And why should he? He's one of THEM!! And it is all Pelosi's fault. It was the height of fawning credulity to give the White House nearly a trillion dollars to blow without a real thought out and sound plan, and without strings the size of marine ropes to maintain oversight and control. What a dismal failure of leadership! And that is why Pelosi must be removed from office and defeated by Cindy Sheehan. If you can make a donation to help run this ad, please do so.

From Crooks and Liars: What is going on !!

100 Days to Restore the Constitution

Over the last eight years, the Bush administration has systematically dismantled some of the most important rights and protections in the United States Constitution. In the first 100 days of office, the next president can, often with the stroke of a pen, restore, protect, and expand the fundamental rights on which our nation was founded. It is up to all of us to see that he does.

The Center for Constitutional Rights' 100 Days Campaign focuses on the harm done by previous administrations and the hopes we have for making the country a better place for all.

Join us in telling the next administration what you want to see in the first 100 days. Look for a series of white papers, videos, speaking tours and online activism that will bring these issues front and center in the public debate.

This paper, "The Right to Dissent" explores the current situation of attacks upon and criminalization of dissent, from the surveillance of activists to the federalization of local law enforcement, to the labeling of activists as "terrorists." It presents a vision for the First 100 Days of the next President's administration that repudiates such attacks and upholds the First Amendment and our human rights.

Download the PDF to read more ...

This brochure provides an overview of the issue areas covered in our 100 Days Campaign, including:

• Ending Torture, Rendition, and Illegal Detention
• Protecting Dissent
• Abolishing Preventive Detention
• Limiting State Secrets Privilege
• Restoring the War Powers Act
• Stopping Warrantless Wiretapping
• Rolling Back Executive Power

Download the PDF to read more ...

On Saturday, July 19th 2008, at the NetRoots Nation conference in Austin, Texas, Jen Nessel (CCR) moderated a panel of speakers including Vince Warren (CCR), Jameel Jaffer (ACLU), Jeremy Scahill (DemocracyNow), and Dahlia Lithwick (Slate.com) who spoke and answered questions about Constitutional Rights.

Considering the fact that the Bush administration has worked systematically over the last seven years to violate U.S. and international law, and that legal advocates and journalists have uncovered the facts and identified those responsible, this panel explored what accountability should now look like. Additionally they discussed what the courts and the next administration must do in its first 100 days to make things right.