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Bank of North Dakota Soars Despite Oil Bust: A Blueprint for California?
Ellen Brown
Despite North Dakota’s collapsing oil market, its state-owned bank continues to report record profits. This article looks at what California, with fifty times North Dakota’s population, could do following that state’s lead.
In November 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Bank of North Dakota (BND), the nation’s only state-owned depository bank, was more profitable even than J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. The author attributed this remarkable performance to the state’s oil boom; but the boom has now become an oil bust, yet the BND’s profits continue to climb. Its 2015 Annual Report, published on April 20th, boasted its most profitable year ever.
The BND has had record profits for the last 12 years, each year outperforming the last. In 2015 it reported $130.7 million in earnings, total assets of $7.4 billion, capital of $749 million, and a return on investment of a whopping 18.1 percent. Its lending portfolio grew by $486 million, a 12.7 percent increase, with growth in all four of its areas of concentration: agriculture, business, residential, and student loans.
TPP & TTIP Harmful, Economic Studies Find
Eric Zuesse
Presently, three supposed ‘trade’ deals are being proposed by U.S. President Barack Obama, to be signed by major trading nations (except Russia, China, and the other BRICS nations): TPP with Asia, TTIP with Europe, and also (but only for financial and other services) TISA with Europe. The promised benefits in all three cases are said to be economic.
Three independent economic studies have been done, two of Obama’s TTIP treaty with Europe, and one of his TPP treaty with Asia, and all three independent economic analyses find that the publics in each participating country will suffer, and that the owners of international corporations (especially in the U.S.) will benefit, if the proposed ‘trade’ deal goes into effect.
Remembering Daniel Berrigan
Stephen Lendman
On April 30, famed Jesuit priest, poet, anti-war activist Daniel Joseph Berrigan died days short of his 95th birthday.
He taught theology at the Jesuit Brooklyn Preparatory School. Later was Professor of New Testament studies at Le Moyne College, taught theology at Cornell and Fordham universities.
Best known for his anti-war activism, he co-founded an interfaith coalition against the Vietnam War with his brother Philip and Thomas Merton.
They campaigned passionately for its end. In 1967, he and Philip were arrested for pouring blood on draft records. Philip was sentenced to six years in prison for defacing government property.
In 1968, Daniel and Howard Zinn traveled to Hanoi during the January Tet Offensive to bring home three released US POWs.
In 1968, he, Philip and seven other priests (known as the Catonville Nine) burned hundreds of draft files with homemade napalm in the Catonville, MD draft board parking lot.
Cruz/Sanders Campaigns on Life Support
Stephen Lendman
Trump and Clinton are their parties’ presumptive nominees, too far ahead to be overtaken. Polls show them leading in most remaining primaries.
Ahead of Tuesday’s Indiana contest, a new NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll shows Trump way ahead of his rivals.
Asked on Fox News Sunday if winning Indiana assures his nomination, he brashly said “(y)es, it’s over. It’s already over.”
On NBC’s Meet the Press, Cruz maintained a brave face, saying “I think the support we are seeing is surging.” Various polls indicate otherwise.On CNN’s State of the Union, Clinton said “you have to look at reality.” It’s time for Sanders to step aside.
He and Cruz are too far behind to catch up. Will they continue their campaigns into July or concede because they have no chance to become their parties’ nominees?
Iraq in Turmoil
Stephen Lendman
Public anger over unchecked corruption while popular needs go begging may be the undoing of Washington’s puppet regime.
On Saturday, thousands breached the heavily fortified Green Zone. Hundreds entered parliament. Protesters want revolutionary change, current ministers replaced with new ones, no action so far taken.
One protester likely spoke for others, shouting “(y)ou are not staying here. This is your last day in the Green Zone.”
Another said “(w)e are fed up. We are living a humiliated life. We’ll leave here only when the corrupt government is replaced with another of independent technocrats that serve the people, not the political parties.”
Russian v. EU Refugee Policy
Stephen Lendman
Since US-supported Kiev putschists waged war on their own people, Russia welcomed well over a million Ukrainian refugees, rejecting fascist rule, most deciding never to return.
Earlier, Sergey Lavrov said “Ukrainian refugees should be given the right to live where they want.” On May 1, Putin made it easier, approving a new law, simplifying the issuance of residence permits to refugees from Ukraine and other countries.
It skips the former temporary permit system for one year for refugees and their families. According to Federal Migration Service acting head Yekaterina Yegorova, residence permission now grants its holders the right to housing, to be registered where they’re domiciled, and be eligible for mortgage loans.
Contrast Russia’s refugee policy with Europe’s - colluding with fascist Turkey to warehouse desperate people fleeing US/NATO/Riyadh/Israeli war theaters, wanting as many as possible kept out of EU countries - flagrantly breaching international humanitarian law.
Sunday Is May Day
Stephen Lendman
Labor and social justice advocates commemorate International Workers Day on May 1 - called May Day, more symbolic than meaningful.
Since the 1880s in America and Canada, Labor Day is a national holiday on the first Monday in September. It once had meaning, now pointless in nations beholden solely to wealth and power interests - worker rights lost and ignored.
Years of organizing, taking to the streets, going on strike, holding boycotts, battling police, as well as paying with blood and lives won real gains - now gone. Bargaining collectively with management on equal terms no longer exists. Grassroots energy waned. Corrupted union bosses and politicians sold out to management for personal gain.
ISLAMOPHOBIA, USA, AND THE CASE OF THE ARABIC LANGUAGE
SUFYAN BIN UZAYR
While sane and insane voices exist in every society, it is common knowledge by now that Islamophobes are pretty loud in the West, especially in USA. The story of Ahmed, the kid who brought a self-made clock to school, is a case in point. Of course, Islamophobia is not the dominant ideology in USA, as can be seen in the efforts of several good-willed Americans who seek nothing but peace. After all, Ahmed did get support and appreciation from all corners, didn’t he? However, what happens when such Islamophobic paranoia, even though it might be in the minority, spills out and makes itself visible in stuff that is otherwise not a monopoly of Islam? What happens when one’s bigotry makes him/her feel scared of a language?
Apparently, some Islamophobes in USA seem to be scared of the Arabic language.
Palestinians Protecting Islam’s Third Holiest Site Risk Imprisonment
Stephen Lendman
Israel kidnaps and brutalizes Palestinians for any reason or none at all. Multiple community intrusions occur daily - families terrorized, children traumatized.
On April 14, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) said soldiers abducted 16 Palestinians, aged 45 - 70, after violently raiding their homes pre-dawn.
On April 29, seven were indicted for “joining a hostile organization.” Sa’adi Rajabi, Anwar al-Qaaq, ‘Adli Abu Ermeila, Mohammad Taher Arafa, Jamal Natsha and Khader Abu Sneina face criminal prosecution for protecting Islam’s third holiest site.
Israel calls it incitement, charging the men for involvement with Murabitun - outlawed last year for protecting Al-Aqsa, demonstrating against increasing Israeli intrusions and attempted control over Islam’s third holiest site.
Extremist Jews want it for a third Jewish temple. They want prohibition against non-Muslim prayer lifted.
America’s Rape of Iraq
Stephen Lendman
Complicit with Israel, America’s plan to redraw the Middle East map bears full responsibility for raping and destroying Iraq.
From September 1980 to the present, Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama committed the highest of high crimes against peace.
Millions of Iraqis perished from war, conflict related violence, preventable diseases, starvation, overall deprivation and US-sponsored terrorism.
Millions today endure unspeakable misery - living in an endless war zone, security and stability entirely absent.
Puppet governance runs things, serving its US master, officials enriching themselves through massive corruption, ignoring humanitarian crisis conditions affecting millions of impoverished, unemployed and internally displaced Iraqis.
Protests demanding reform raged intermittently in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities since July 2015. They escalated in mid-March over parliament’s failure to act, ebbed after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi proposed new cabinet members, intensified when legislators rejected his choices.
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