Trans-Pacific Partnership – Is It Really that Bad?
By Tracy Turner
If you read the statement of SIFMA on Japan negotiations in the TPP, then look at exactly what (not who, but what) SIFMA represents – it gives you a feel for TPP expanding the ‘rights’ of securities firms, banks and asset managers. In plain English, TPP expands the rights of the uber rich and reduces the rights of the ordinary. SIFMA Statement on Japan Joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. ... "that for a 21 st century ... should remain an integral part of our current trade agenda." ... In very plain English, Japanese TEPCO, which built 150 nuclear reactors on top of a volcano, should enjoy a bill of rights that strips you and I of our Bill of Rights...
Most Americans do not bother looking at the official positions and talking points of Green Peace and the Sierra Club on TPP. The Sierra Club's introduction paragraph: "An Explosion of Fracking? One of the dirtiest secrets of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement. The United States is quietly negotiating an expansive trade agreement with ten other countries that could dramatically increase exports of liquefied natural gas to overseas markets without any domestic oversight. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, therefore, could increase dirty fracking and carbon emissions; put sensitive ecological areas at risk; and increase natural gas and electricity prices, impacting consumers, manufacturers, workers, and increasing the use of dirty coal power". More Here by Sierra Club. Read GreenPeace New Zealands' position on TPP.
PermalinkThe future of Africa looks bleak, here is why
by chycho
Contrary to what some have been hoping for, the future of Africa looks to be bloodier than its past. The reasons for this are as vast and varied as the continent itself, such as resources (oil, water, land, minerals), economic interests of external powers (growth, trade, monetary policy), and ideological differences (structure of governments, corruption, tradition, ethnicity).
One of the main reasons that this scramble for Africa has intensified in the last few years and will most likely continue to escalate for the next few decades is because western nations are losing major battles on multiple other fronts. Just to name a few: the coalition of the willing has lost Iraq as well as Afghanistan; Syria is a stalemate; Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Algeria, Congo, and Mali are a disaster; Bahrain is in lockdown; Latin America is freeing itself from U.S. control; and Israel has gone rogue.
Recolonization of Africa, a Symptom of Our Addiction to Growth: Differential Accumulation, Why GDP Growth Rates Influence Foreign Policy
by chycho
Let’s continue our conversation from Part 1 and Part 2.
The name of the game when it comes to investing in the markets is that you must not only be ahead of inflation but you must also beat the averages, exceeding the normal rate of return. If you don’t do both then you are neither protecting nor accumulating capital, i.e., in the limit you will lose your wealth. This principle also applies to nations.
Ignoring our need to rely on different economic measures (pdf) other than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a nation to indicate progress, wealth and well-being, if a countries GDP growth rate is below the global average, then over time that country will lose influence and be subject to an unstable economy. In essence, how a countries economy performs is relative to how other countries perform – there is a “growth imperative in capitalist economies” (pdf).
“But why do capitalist economies need to grow? Because competition and the quest for profit compel each business to grow or be wiped out by its competitors.”
The economic theory that best encompasses this principle is Differential Accumulation. It “emphasizes the powerful drive by dominant capital groups to beat the average and exceed the normal rate of return.” The video linked below and the following excerpts from an article entitled “Differential Accumulation” by Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan provide further information on this train of thought (emphasis added).
Abandoned Youth - No More Future
By Michael Collins
If you are twenty four or younger, you are likely either under or unemployed. Only about 60% of those 16 to 24 years old are in the labor force (those employed or seeking jobs). Their unemployment rate is 18%.
For years, Money Party lackeys, our (s)elected officials, put out a propaganda line that said, Get an education or there's no future for you. Well, lots of people got a college or trade school education or on the job training and there are no jobs for them.
Here's why.
There has been no increase in jobs in the United States since 2000. In fact, the number of jobs relative to the total workforce has actually declined. Negative job growth for eleven years shows that the current economic system has failed miserably. Here's the ugly picture the rulers won't talk about.
Occupy Wall Street protesters sue New York City
By Rady Ananda
After the New York Police Dept. arrested over 700 protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge last Saturday, six of those arrested filed a class action lawsuit on Oct. 4, alleging constitutional violations for intentional entrapment and false arrest.
“The NYPD engaged in a premeditated, planned, scripted and calculated effort to sweep the streets of protesters and disrupt a growing protest movement in New York,” plaintiffs charged in the complaint.
Uncle Sam Food History Exhibit Promotes Food Control
By Rady Ananda
Oh, gag me with a bowl of propaganda. The National Archives is hosting an historical exhibit on government say in what we eat and grow and how to cook it: “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam: The Government's Effect on the American Diet.” From the opening lines of the website, you know our control freak “Uncle” has launched another major psyops campaign to convince us that Government Knows Best when it comes to food:
“We demand that our Government ensure that it is safe, cheap, and abundant. In response, Government has been a factor in the production, regulation, research, innovation, and economics of our food supply.”
Though painting Uncle Sam as Mrs. Doubtfire, when it comes to the results of government intrusion into the food supply, he’s more like Joseph Mengele. Over the last hundred years, we've seen climbing rates of cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease and neurological disorders, thanks to Uncle Sam's "regulation" of food additives and environmental pollutants. We've also seen the number of farms decline by 98%.
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Questions for the Money Party - Why negative job growth for 11 years?
By Michael Collins
"The Money Party is a very small group of enterprises and individuals who control almost all of the money and power in the United States. They use their money and power to make more money and gain more power. It's not about Republicans versus Democrats. The Money Party is an equal opportunity employer. It has no permanent friends or enemies, just permanent interests. Democrats are as welcome as Republicans to this party. It’s all good when you’re on the take and the take is legal. "Economic Populist
Negative job growth for eleven years is the best evidence concerning our economic troubles. There were 135 million jobs in 2000 for a workforce of 144 million. Today, there are 139 million jobs for a workforce of 154 million. That represents negative job growth when you factor in population growth.
Job growth in this economy hit a dead calm in 2000 and is now moving backwards. If the issue isn't raised, how can we address the phenomena?
Michael Collins: Things are Different (and sometimes much better) in the East
The nation formerly known as the Ottoman Empire is building a strong foundation for a bright future. That nation is also addressing its scandalous recent past as it reaches out to old enemies. The dynamics producing real change in Turkey are well worth understanding. Turkey is on a path to rapid economic growth, cultural liberalization, and will emerge as a key player in world affairs.
Libya, Gas Prices, and the Big Payday at Your Expense
Another Triumph for The Money Party
Michael Collins
The average price for a gallon of gas rose 30% from $2.69 in July 2010 to $3.49 as of March 6. Most of that 30% has come in just the last few days.
We're about to embark on another period of let the markets take care of it. The Money Party manipulators are again jerking citizens around in the old bottom-up wealth redistribution program. Their imagineers are writing the storyline right now.
The conflict in Libya is causing the spike in oil prices over the past ten days or so according to the media script. Take a look at the chart to the right. Can you find Libya among the top fifteen nations supplying the United States with crude oil?
Why the Current Panic Over Gas Prices?
The general explanation points to the crisis in Libya as the proximate cause. The anti Gaddafi regime revolution began in earnest on February 17. But if the Libyan revolution were the cause, we'd have to attribute a 50% drop in a 2% share of the world's oil supply as the cause of the panic. We would also have to attribute the increase in US gas prices to a nation that doesn't impact the US crude oil supply and, as a result, should not impact the price of gas here..
‘Global Economic Crisis’ exposes plans for a global military dictatorship
By Rady Ananda
Review of: The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century
Editors, Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall
Publisher: Global Research, 2010 (391 pp)
There’s a certain irony to my reading this book while waiting at the Food Stamp office. I’m part of an increasing number suffering under the New World Order’s systematic destruction of the planet’s middle classes so as to concentrate wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer families. While global uprisings now threaten global governance under a single currency, scheming rulers have long anticipated this reaction. In The Global Economic Crisis, we learn exactly how a planet-wide military dictatorship plans to enforce its feudal vision.
Neatly organized into five sections comprising 20 essays by fifteen different authors, Global Economic Crisis carefully ties militarization with the planned economic meltdown. Client states and the U.S. itself have openly and sometimes secretly developed the legal framework for martial law. Testifying before a US Senate committee on Intelligence in early 2009, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, warned that civil unrest owing to the economic collapse posed a greater threat than Arab terrorism. One of the book’s essayists, Bill Van Auken, points out that this is the first time in several years that Al Qaeda did not top the list of threats to national security.
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