Thousands of students angered at rising education costs, clashed with police in the capital, who responded with tear gas and water cannons. The students had flooded the streets for a peaceful march, still wearing their uniforms and backpacks, before it then turned violent. At least 40 were arrested. The students oppose the fact they have to pay 75% of the cost of their own educations – one of the highest rates in the world.
This week after a man was evicted from his Brooklyn apartment he attempted suicide in front of a crowd of people outside of the “Today” show studio. He claims to have been robbed by the IRS and a group of stock brokers, a likely story.
A tortured soul who slashed his wrists in front of a horrified crowd watching the “Today” show outside Rockefeller Center Thursday said he committed this “desperate act” to get back at the IRS and others who robbed him.
Pak, 76, said he emigrated from China to New York in 1948 and made a million dollars buying stocks with money made from running a grocery store and working as a waiter. He claimed TD Ameritrade and Scottrade helped the IRS plunder his funds and he had proof back at his apartment.
“I had to do something desperate to fight the corruption, fight the IRS,” Pak Chong Mar told a Daily News reporter as he lay on a hospital gurney at Bellevue Hospital. “They are so powerful.”
“I need people to help me fight for justice,” Pak said. “If I don’t do something drastic, sooner or later these guys are going to kill me anyway. I couldn’t even pay rent this month.”
“I should be living well,” he said. “I had over a million dollars before. They’re making my life miserable.”
“I saw him take slice after slice. I saw the blood gushing,” witness Kellie Ostransky told The New York Post. Ostransky, who lives near Phoenix, was in town to celebrate her birthday with her twin sister, the newspaper reported.
The Today show did recognize that a person had harmed themselves outside, but they did not say anything about his struggle or the IRS:
Cellphone footage of the unfortunate situation is shown below:
The New York State Senate passed a controversial bill on Wednesday that aims to classify ‘aggravated harassment of a police officer’ as a crime, but will it give the authorities the green light for strong-arm tactics if passed?
Sponsored by Senator Joe Griffo, Bill S.2402 would make it a felony to “harass, annoy, or threaten a police officer while on duty.”
“Our system of laws is established to protect the foundations of our society,” Senator Griffo said. “Police officers who risk their lives every day in our cities and on our highways deserve every possible protection, and those who treat them with disrespect, harass them and create situations that can lead to injuries deserve to pay a price for their actions.”
Griffo said that New York police require extra safeguards because “too many people in our society have lost the respect they need to have for a police officer…. We need to make it very clear that when a police officer is performing his duty, every citizen needs to comply and that refusal to comply carries a penalty.”
The bill, which will now move to the State Assembly, would make it a crime for a person to make any type of physical action aimed at intimidating a police officer. Harassment of a police officer would be recognized as a Class E Felony, punishable by up to four years in prison.
Not surprisingly, the bill has won accolades from police.
“Professionally, I am grateful to see this bill pass through the Senate,” said Utica Police Department Chief Mark Williams, as quoted by the House Majority Press. “Our police officers have a very dangerous job and need the support of our government leaders to help make them safe.”
Williams believes that all too often, individuals are “physically challenging police officers in the line of duty.” Currently, in instances where an officer is physically attacked but does not sustain a physical injury, the only possible charge is a violation, he explained.
These consequences are too lenient for offenders, and send the wrong message to the public, Williams continued.
However, questions may arise as to where the boundaries should be drawn concerning the right of individuals to report on incidents of excessive police force, for example.
In May 2011, New York homeowner Emily Good was arrested by Rochester police while standing in her yard and videotaping police officers who were performing a traffic stop in front of her house.
When one of the officers asked Good what she was doing, Good replied, “I’m just recording what you’re doing; it’s my right.” The officer then told Good that “we don’t feel safe with you standing right behind us while we’re doing a traffic stop,” and ordered her to go inside her house.
When Good insisted on her right to stand in her yard, she was arrested, handcuffed, and taken away in a police car. She was later charged with obstructing governmental administration.
A massive law enforcement sweep was underway in Oakland Wednesday, with nine people having reportedly been detained an hour after it was first reported.
FBI agents, local police SWAT and the California Highway Patrol were targeting multiple locations.
Several streets were closed down in West Oakland during the sweeps. Portions of Seventh and Eighth streets were shut down in the area for at least 90 minutes and while helicopters circled overhead.
The police barricades were reportedly lifted just before 10:20 p.m.
It appeared to be an extensive operation with many officers involved.
There were agents carrying out actions in numerous parts of the city Wednesday night.
As of 9 p.m., KTVU learned that nine people had been detained.
An hour later, a separate sweep involving San Leandro Police reportedly resulted in a standoff near the intersection of E. 22 Street and 14th Avenue.
Oakland Police and other agencies involved told KTVU that the participating departments were not at liberty to discuss what the action concerned.
However, those agencies would be able to release details when the sweep was over.
http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/crime-law/fbi-local-police-conducting-massive-sweep-oakland/nXXKw/
(CNN) — [Breaking news update at 2:44 p.m. Wednesday]
Investigators in Washington and Boston denied Wednesday that an arrest had been made in the bombing of the Boston Marathon. They had earlier said there was “substantial” progress in the case.
[Breaking news update at 2:36 p.m. Wednesday]
There is conflicting information as to whether someone has been arrested in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings. A federal law enforcement source told CNN’s Fran Townsend that someone was arrested. But later, two senior administration officials and another federal official told Townsend that there had been a misunderstanding among officials and that no one has been arrested.
I have listened to some MSM broadcasting of the Boston bombs. From Fox News, NBC, CNN, they all are implying “We need to give up our Freedoms for Security.”
Fox news had a man on saying that Israel is safe because of the security and the people in the U.S. on holding on to “individual rights” instead of being safe and secure. He said a conversation will need to be started. They were implying it was “Patriots” over and over yesterday and home grown terrorism. Wolf Blitzer of CNN wondered if “Patriots had anything to do with it?” They repeated “Patriot day” over and over again during that segment. I understand Biden even said “I believe it may be ‘Patriots’ against any gun control.” They are trying to equate being a Patriot is being a terrorist now in the sheeples eyes.
They were saying they could go through any bags and purses that they wanted on the streets of Boston now without cause and that will go to other cities. So there goes our rights for privacy and no search and seizure without cause. Any excuse for us to become completely as the Nazi’s were.
Someone had put this video on a forum. Remember that MSM can create things live now. It seems this video below shows some type of images being created/erased. It is very odd.
http://sherriequestioningall.blogspot.com/2013/04/all-msm-implying-we-need-to-give-up.html
JPM knew all about my Ponzi.
Madoff sends info on Ponzi-complicit banks to Congress.
Bernie keeps banging the drum, this time with a letter from prison sent to Marketwatch editors, after already reaching out to CNBC and Fox Biz in the past 60 days.
Bernard Madoff, speaking out from prison, says the banks knew of his Ponzi scheme all along. The perpetrator of a history-making $50 billion Ponzi scheme wrote in a letter to MarketWatch from jail that he is now telling government committees the story.
Madoff: “From my first interview to the media I have said that ‘the banks must have known,’ and were complicit and contributing to my crime.”
In the emailed letter, he pointed to J.P. Morgan, Bank of New York, HSBC and Citigroup as having access to information about his scam. He added that other banks also knew.
Madoff wrote that “the trustee seems unwilling to act on my offer” to help and is therefore “offering this information to the appropriate governmental committees in the hope that this information will prove helpful in future regulation of the appropriate institutions.”
The House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee had no immediate comment on whether they had received information from Madoff. A spokesman for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency declined to comment.
Madoff’s comments come as prosecutors are looking at whether J.P. Morgan failed to fully alert authorities to suspicions about Madoff’s finances, according to a report in the New York Times on Wednesday.
J.P. Morgan is reportedly also embroiled in a squabble with regulators over a government probe into the institution’s relationship with Madoff. According to a January report by Reuters, the OCC, J.P. Morgan’s chief regulator, has been unable to obtain documents it requested from the bank in connection with an investigation into its relationship with Madoff.
The report cites a letter from Treasury Department Inspector General Eric Thorson to J.P. Morgan’s general counsel, Stephen Cutler, saying the OCC has been unable to obtain what it is seeking. Madoff had an account at J.P. Morgan Chase that he used to transfer funds between offices.
Following the rules is not easy for Jamie.
Dimon warns more sanctions are coming for JPMorgan.
Jamie Dimon warns that JPMorgan, which is under regulatory orders to tighten internal controls, will face more sanctions in the coming months. Dimon comments on the London Whale, criminal investigations into activities at the bank, illegal foreclosures, money laundering and the threat of cyber attack.
Here’s why Jamie is warning shareholders:
http://dailybail.com/home/dimon-admits-breaking-the-law-is-a-problem-at-jpm.html
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is an international treaty negotiated in secret – hidden even from congressmen who oversee such treaties – which threatens to destroy national sovereignty.
Public banks – such as the Bank of North Dakota – can provide low-cost loans to Main Street, when Wall Street insists on high interest rates … or won’t even extend credit.
More and more states are considering launching their own public banks.
A 2011 study from Demos – a non-partisan public policy organization – in conjunction with the Center for State Innovation, analyzed the potential for “partnership banks” across the country, including numerous states already considering such legislation. The study found:
Across the country, states are considering proposals to move general revenue deposits out of the Wall Street banks that dominate the banking business today, and use them to capitalize a new local public structure with a mission to grow the local economy. A “Main Street Partnership Bank” would be modeled on the nearly 100-year-old public Bank of North Dakota (BND). This public policy innovation—also known as a Public Bank or State Bank—could contribute to the health of local community banks, state budgets and small business job growth in an era of rapid banking concentration, budget deficits and disinvestment on Main Street.
Partnership Banks can raise revenue for states without raising taxes, and increase loans to small businesses precisely when Wall Street banks have cut back on lending and raised public borrowing costs. A Partnership Bank would act as a “banker’s bank” to in-state community banks and provide the state government with both banking services at fair terms and an annual multi-million dollar dividend.
If modeled on the successful Bank of North Dakota, Partnership Banks in other states would:
- Create new jobs and spur economic growth. Partnership Banks are participation lenders, meaning they partner—never compete—with local banks to drive lending through local banks to small businesses. If Washington State had a fully-operational Partnership Bank capitalized at $100 million during the Great Recession, it would have supported $2.6 billion in new lending and helped to create 8,212 new small business jobs. A proposed Oregon bank could help community banks expand lending by $1.3 billion and help small business create 5,391 new Oregon jobs in its first three to five years. All of this would be accom- plished at a profit, which Partnership Banks should share with the state.
- Generate new revenues for states directly, through annual bank dividend payments, and indirectly by creating jobs and spurring local economic growth…
- Lower debt costs for local governments. Like the Bank of North Dakota, Partnership Banks can get access to low-cost funds from the regional Federal Home Loan Banks. The banks can pass savings on to local governments when they buy debt for infrastructure investments. The banks can also provide Letters of Credit for tax-exempt bonds at lower interest rates.
- Strengthen local banks even out credit cycles, and preserve real competition in local credit markets. There have been no bank failures in North Dakota during the financial crisis. BND’s charter is clear that its goal is to “be helpful to and to assist in the development of [North Dakota banks]… and not, in any manner, to destroy or to be harmful to existing financial institutions.” By purchasing local bank stock, partnering with them on large loans and providing other sup- port, Partnership Banks would strengthen small banks in an era when federal policy encourages bank consolidation.
- Build up small businesses. Surveys by the Main Street Alliance in Oregon and Washington show at least 75 percent support among small business owners. In markets increasingly dominated by large corporations and the banks that fund them, Partnership Banks would increase lending capabilities at the smaller banks that provide the majority of small business loans in America.
These various proposals would “move general revenue deposits out of the Wall Street banks that dominate the banking business today, and use them to capitalize a new local public structure with a mission to grow the local economy.”
This would obviously cut into the big banks’ profits. Indeed, the big banks have engaged in mafia-style big-rigging fraud against local governments (see this, this and this), scalped local governments by manipulating interest rates, and engaged in all sorts of other shenanigans to fleece governments, businesses and citizens.
And the big banks are using dirty tricks to try to kill the growing public banking movement, so as to protect their racket.
Les Leopold writes:
Clearly, from Wall Street’s perspective, the North Dakota bank must go, and all other state efforts to replicate it must be thwarted. Wall Street’s stealth weapon may be lodged within the latest corporate trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which currently is being negotiated in secret. We already know that Wall Street is seeking to remove all tariff restrictions that prevent the U.S. financial services industry from doing business in countries like Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. The biggest banks also want the treaty to eliminate “non-tariff” barriers including regulations that create “unfair” competition with state-owned financial enterprises.
Depending on the final language, it is possible that the activities of the Bank of North Dakota could be ruled illegal because “foreign bankers could claim the BND stops them from lending to commercial banks throughout the state” …. How perfect for Wall Street: a foreign bank can be used as a shill to knock out the BND.
Truthout explains:
Legislators around the world are being kept in the dark about what they’re voting on until the deal [on TPP] is hammered out; it’s expected to be completed this year. When it’s finished, if the experience of Congress here is any indication, legislators will be feeling extraordinary pressure from corporate lobbyists and their heads of state to accept the deal without a fuss. [Indeed, lawmakers often vote on legislation without ever reading it.]
***
Publicly owned enterprises, for example, are being targeted by negotiators. One such entity in the United States that has been the subject of considerable interest in recent years is the Bank of North Dakota (BND) – the only fully publicly owned financial institution in the country. The BND, which is only allowed to lend wholesale, was a stabilizing force that helped keep the already energy-rich state insulated from the shock of the financial crisis (Alaska, for example, didn’t fare as well). It has also brought a small fortune to the state’s treasury – $340 million in net tax gain between 1997 and 2009. Legislators in at least 13 different states have proposed studying or emulating the North Dakota model – state-owned development of central-bank style institutions guaranteed by tax revenue. But if the TPP is passed, that option might not be available. [Barbara Weisel, the top American government negotiator for TPP] said that State Owned Enterprises (SOE) are routinely “competing directly with private enterprises, and often in a way that is considered unfair.”
“Some of the advantages that can be conferred on State Owned Enterprises are things like preferential financing,” Weisel said. “Those are things that wouldn’t be provided to private companies – preferential provision of goods and services provided by a government.”
She said that “State Owned Enterprises – which in some cases can comprise a significant percentage of an economy – can be used to undermine what we’re otherwise trying to gain from this free trade agreement.”
A spokesperson for the BND declined to comment on whether or not this outlook was perceived by the bank to be an institutional threat. But, depending on the report’s language, foreign bankers could claim that the BND stops them from lending to commercial banks throughout the state.
Citigroup’s Johnston [Rick Johnston is a a senior vice president and director for international government affairs at Citigroup], in response to another question from the audience, said that corporations weren’t exactly enamored of competition with publicly owned enterprises – and that they are prodding TPP delegates into doing something about it.
“The companies that are running up against the problem and the challenges of the state-owned enterprises, they obviously feel strongly enough about it that the problem is being addressed within the negotiations,” he said.
***
There can be no guarantee, until the draft is finally released, that the TPP will protect entities like the BND, especially when considering, as critics have contended, that the deal’s boosters are pushing an agreement that more firmly entrenches capital flow as a form of trade.
“When you hear the word ‘trade‘ in today’s business world, it doesn’t just mean goods moving across borders,” Johnston said. “It doesn’t even mean just services moving across borders. It also means investment. And that’s something where the TPP is really gonna make a big difference.”
Trade, according to Black’s Law dictionary, is defined as “Traffic; commerce, exchangeof goods for other goods, or for money.” Yet this trade pact could usher in a rash of reforms, with minimal oversight and virtually no public hearings, treating investment rules as a trade issue, even though they haven’t traditionally been dealt with as such.
A lobbyist’s world-view on this issue is instructive. As Michael Wendell told the Congressional Subcommittee on Trade:
SOEs [state-owned enterprises], by definition, are interested in promoting the interests of their home country, and are all too often guided by state interests, rather than commercial interests.
Why does this matter? Let’s consider a Chinese SOE. Chinese SOEs benefit enormously from below-market-rate financing by state-owned banks at rates well below what American companies pay. Many of these loans may not have to be repaid at all. How does a commercial entity here in the U.S. compete with the U.S.-based operations of an SOE that sets up shop here?
***
There are many ways that disciplines on SOEs can be developed as part of the TPP talks. The best approach would be to ensure that all transactions are based on commercial considerations.
Basing all transactions on “commercial considerations” may sound okay initially. But that would – in essence – mean that the interests of the banks in making high-interest rate loans are more important than the interests of the people in obtaining cheap loans.
Moreover, America as a nation is arguably paying trillions of dollars to the big banks in unnecessary interest costs which public banks would render moot. See this and this.
And remember, the Founding Fathers’ vision of prosperity was largely based around public banking.
However we decide to treat foreign state-owned enterprises, banks owned by the American people will help to create prosperity for we the people and our small businesses.
Indeed, both conservative and liberal economists point out that the big banks are already state-sponsored institutions … so the government should create a little competition through public banking.
State-owned public banks – like North Dakota has – would take the power away from the big banks, andgive it back to the people … as the Founding Fathers intended.
Don’t trust the federal government? That’s fine … we’re not talking about state – not federal – banks. Don’t trust your state? Then support a county-level bank.
Postscript: Obama is a shill for TPP. So is Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who told the Senate:
As Deputy Secretary of the State Department, I actively promoted the United States’ entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.
Did you know that there are thousands upon thousands of homeless people that are living underground beneath the streets of major U.S. cities? It is happening in Las Vegas, it is happening in New York City
and it is even happening in Kansas City. As the economy crumbles, poverty in the United States is absolutely exploding and so is homelessness. In addition to the thousands of “tunnel people” living under the streets of America, there are also thousands that are living in tent cities, there are tens of thousands that are living in their vehicles and there are more than a million public school children that do not have a home to go back to at night. The federal government tells us that the recession “is over” and that “things are getting better”, and yet poverty and homelessness in this country continue to rise with no end in sight. So what in the world are things going to look like when the next economic crisis hits?
When I heard that there were homeless people living in a network of underground tunnels beneath the streets of Kansas City, I was absolutely stunned. I have relatives that live in that area. I never thought of Kansas City as one of the more troubled cities in the United States.
But according to the Daily Mail, police recently discovered a huge network of tunnels under the city that people had been living in…
Below the streets of Kansas City, there are deep underground tunnels where a group of vagrant homeless people lived in camps.
These so-called homeless camps have now been uncovered by the Kansas City Police, who then evicted the residents because of the unsafe environment.
Authorities said these people were living in squalor, with piles of garbage and dirty diapers left around wooded areas.
The saddest part is the fact that authorities found dirty diapers in the areas near these tunnels. That must mean that babies were being raised in that kind of an environment.
Unfortunately, this kind of thing is happening all over the nation. In recent years, the tunnel people of Las Vegas have received quite a bit of publicity all over the world. It has been estimated that more than 1,000 people live in the massive network of flood tunnels under the city…
Deep beneath Vegas’s glittering lights lies a sinister labyrinth inhabited by poisonous spiders and a man nicknamed The Troll who wields an iron bar.
But astonishingly, the 200 miles of flood tunnels are also home to 1,000 people who eke out a living in the strip’s dark underbelly.
Some, like Steven and his girlfriend Kathryn, have furnished their home with considerable care – their 400sq ft ‘bungalow’ boasts a double bed, a wardrobe and even a bookshelf.
Could you imagine living like that? Sadly, for an increasing number of Americans a “normal lifestyle” is no longer an option. Either they have to go to the homeless shelters or they have to try to eke out an existence on their own any way that they can.
In New York City, authorities are constantly trying to root out the people that live in the tunnels under the city and yet they never seem to be able to find them all. The following is from a New York Post article about the “Mole People” that live underneath New York City…
The homeless people who live down here are called Mole People. They do not, as many believe, exist in a separate, organized underground society. It’s more of a solitary existence and loose-knit community of secretive, hard-luck individuals.
The New York Post followed one homeless man known as “John Travolta” on a tour through the underground world. What they discovered was a world that is very much different from what most New Yorkers experience…
In the tunnels, their world is one of malt liquor, tight spaces, schizophrenic neighbors, hunger and spells of heat and cold. Travolta and the others eat fairly well, living on a regimented schedule of restaurant leftovers, dumped each night at different times around the neighborhood above his foreboding home.
Even as the Dow hits record high after record high, poverty in New York City continues to rise at a very frightening pace. Incredibly, the number of homeless people sleeping in the homeless shelters of New York City has increased by a whopping 19 percent over the past year.
In many of our major cities, the homeless shelters are already at maximum capacity and are absolutely packed night after night. Large numbers of homeless people are often left to fend for themselves.
That is one reason why we have seen the rise of so many tent cities.
Yes, the tent cities are still there, they just aren’t getting as much attention these days because they do not fit in with the “economic recovery” narrative that the mainstream media is currently pushing.
In fact, many of the tent cities are larger than ever. For example, you can check out a Reuters video about a growing tent city in New Jersey that was posted on YouTube at the end of March right here. A lot of these tent cities have now become permanent fixtures, and unfortunately they will probably become much larger when the next major economic crisis strikes.
But perhaps the saddest part of all of this is the massive number of children that are suffering night after night.
For the first time ever, more than a million public school children in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percentsince the 2006-2007 school year.
So if things are really “getting better”, then why in the world do we have more than a million public school children without homes?
These days a lot of families that have lost their homes have ended up living in their vehicles. The following is an excerpt from a 60 Minutes interview with one family that is living in their truck…
This is the home of the Metzger family. Arielle,15. Her brother Austin, 13. Their mother died when they were very young. Their dad, Tom, is a carpenter. And, he’s been looking for work ever since Florida’s construction industry collapsed. When foreclosure took their house, he bought the truck on Craigslist with his last thousand dollars. Tom’s a little camera shy – thought we ought to talk to the kids – and it didn’t take long to see why.
Pelley: How long have you been living in this truck?
Arielle Metzger: About five months.
Pelley: What’s that like?
Arielle Metzger: It’s an adventure.
Austin Metzger: That’s how we see it.
Pelley: When kids at school ask you where you live, what do you tell ‘em?
Austin Metzger: When they see the truck they ask me if I live in it, and when I hesitate they kinda realize. And they say they won’t tell anybody.
Arielle Metzger: Yeah it’s not really that much an embarrassment. I mean, it’s only life. You do what you need to do, right?
But after watching a news report or reading something on the Internet about these people we rapidly forget about them because they are not a part of “our world”.
Another place where a lot of poor people end up is in prison. In a previous article, I detailed how the prison population in the United States has been booming in recent years. If you can believe it, the United States now has approximately 25 percent of the entire global prison population even though it only has about 5 percent of the total global population.
And these days it is not just violent criminals that get thrown into prison. If you lose your job and get behind on your bills, you could be thrown into prison as well. The following is from a recent CBS News article…
Roughly a third of U.S. states today jail people for not paying off their debts, from court-related fines and fees to credit card and car loans, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Such practices contravene a 1983 United States Supreme Court ruling that they violate the Constitutions’s Equal Protection Clause.
Some states apply “poverty penalties,” such as late fees, payment plan fees and interest, when people are unable to pay all their debts at once. Alabama charges a 30 percent collection fee, for instance, while Florida allows private debt collectors to add a 40 percent surcharge on the original debt. Some Florida counties also use so-called collection courts, where debtors can be jailed but have no right to a public defender. In North Carolina, people are charged for using a public defender, so poor defendants who can’t afford such costs may be forced to forgo legal counsel.
The high rates of unemployment and government fiscal shortfalls that followed the housing crash have increased the use of debtors’ prisons, as states look for ways to replenish their coffers. Said Chettiar, “It’s like drawing blood from a stone. States are trying to increase their revenue on the backs of the poor.”
If you are poor, the United States can be an incredibly cold and cruel place. Mercy and compassion are in very short supply.
The middle class continues to shrink and poverty continues to grow with each passing year. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately one out of every six Americans is now living in poverty. And if you throw in those that are considered to be “near poverty”, that number becomes much larger. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either “poor” or “low income”.
For many more facts about the rapid increase of poverty in this country, please see my previous article entitled “21 Statistics About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Everyone Should Know“.
But even as poverty grows, it seems like the hearts of those that still do have money are getting colder. Just check out what happened recently at a grocery store that was in the process of closing down in Augusta, Georgia…
Residents filled the parking lot with bags and baskets hoping to get some of the baby food, canned goods, noodles and other non-perishables. But a local church never came to pick up the food, as the storeowner prior to the eviction said they had arranged. By the time the people showed up for the food, what was left inside the premises—as with any eviction—came into the ownership of the property holder, SunTrust Bank.
The bank ordered the food to be loaded into dumpsters and hauled to a landfill instead of distributed. The people that gathered had to be restrained by police as they saw perfectly good food destroyed. Local Sheriff Richard Roundtree told the news “a potential for a riot was extremely high.”
Can you imagine watching that happen?
But of course handouts and charity are only temporary solutions. What the poor in this country really need are jobs, and unfortunately there has not been a jobs recovery in the United States since the recession ended.
In fact, the employment crisis looks like it is starting to take another turn for the worse. The number of layoffs in the month of March was 30 percent higher than the same time a year ago.
Meanwhile, small businesses are indicating that hiring is about to slow down significantly. According to a recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, small businesses in the United States are extremely pessimistic right now. The following is what Goldman Sachs had to say about this survey…
Components of the survey were consistent with the decline in headline optimism, as the net percent of respondents planning to hire fell to 0% (from +4%), those expecting higher sales fell to -4% (from +1%), and those reporting that it is a good time to expand ticked down to +4% (from +5%). The net percent of respondents expecting the economy to improve was unchanged at -28%, a very depressed level. However, on the positive side, +25% of respondents plan increased capital spending [ZH: With Alcoa CapEx spending at a 2 year low]. Small business owners continue to place poor sales, taxes, and red tape at the top of their list of business problems, as they have for the past several years.
So why aren’t our politicians doing anything to fix this?
For example, why in the world don’t they stop millions of our jobs from being sent out of the country?
Well, the truth is that they don’t think we have a problem. In fact, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson recently said that U.S. trade deficits “don’t matter”.
He apparently does not seem alarmed that more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities have been shut down in the United States since 2001.
And since the last election, the White House has seemed to have gone into permanent party mode.
On Tuesday, another extravagant party will be held at the White House. It is being called “In Performance at the White House: Memphis Soul”, and it is going to include some of the biggest names in the music industry…
As the White House has previously announced, Justin Timberlake (who will be making his White House debut), Al Green, Ben Harper, Queen Latifah, Cyndi Lauper, Joshua Ledet, Sam Moore, Charlie Musselwhite, Mavis Staples, and others will be performing at the exclusive event.
And so who will be paying for all of this?
You and I will be. Even as the Obamas cry about all of the other “spending cuts” that are happening, they continue to blow millions of taxpayer dollars on wildly extravagant parties and vacations.
Overall, U.S. taxpayers will spend well over a billion dollars on the Obamas this year.
I wonder what the tunnel people that live under the streets of America think about that.
Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-tunnel-people-that-live-under-the-streets-of-america/#y0LM9Kvua2B11raq.99
(Daily Bail) “Hank Paulson is the world’s greatest salesman. We gave $700 billion to Wall Street and nobody cares.”
Outstanding new interview. Inhofe beats on Henry Paulson.
Luke Rudkowski of We Are Change interviews Senator James Inhofe about his opposition to TARP and martial law threats he received from Henry Paulson.
Not stopping TARP was my biggest failure.
“Think about how big it was — $700 billion given to an unelected bureaucrat, with no accountability, to do anything he wanted with it. Can this happen? It did.”
James Hall, Contributor
Activist Post
If there was any lingering doubt about the supremacy of the internationalist banker over the canons of law, the latest HSBC exemption from criminal charges proves that the real masters of the planet are the criminal banksters. If this settlement was an abnormality and not the rule, one might argue the expediency for pragmatism, while deployable, is necessary. Unfortunately, for the financial elites, the facts tell a very different story.
In court papers filed in federal court in Brooklyn, the federal government said the case against HSBC is related to the laundering of proceeds from narcotics trafficking via the Black Market Peso Exchange, a method by which money launderers convert cash narcotics dollars into Colombian pesos by buying and re-selling wholesale consumer goods.
‘The lack of an effective anti-money laundering program at HSBC Mexico and HSBC Bank USA, N.A. contributed to the conduct charged’ in the money-laundering case against narcotics traffickers, Justice Department prosecutors said in court papers.
Published in the Globe and Mail account, HSBC failed to control drug-money laundering, Senate finds, indicates the political nature of this investigation.
A year-long investigation by a Senate committee uncovered that HSBC acted as a conduit for drug money, disguised the sources of funds to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran, and included among its clients businesses with alleged ties to terrorism. HSBC’s internal culture has been ‘pervasively polluted for a long time,’ said Carl Levin, a senator from Michigan, who helped lead the investigation.
Instead of prosecuting criminal charges, the U.S. Department of Justice slaps a fine and demands stricter but inadequate regulations. Some of the details are provided in Banks on alert as regulators step up pressure on HSBC. The facade of accountability is insulting. Ian Fraser presents a correct assessment. HSBC’s $1.9 Billion Settlement Sets (Another) Dangerous Precedent.
“Sending executives to prison has far more deterrent value that bringing a company down, since many will argue that employees who had nothing to do with the criminal activity would also be harmed.”
The muckraker Matt Taibbi gives a sober overview in a video that deserves watching, After Laundering $800 Million in Drug Money. His observations parallel that of Mr. Fraser.
‘You can do real time in jail in America for all kinds of ridiculous offenses,’Taibbi says. ‘Here we have a bank that laundered $800 million of drug money, and they can’t find a way to put anybody in jail for that. That sends an incredible message, not just to the financial sector but to everybody. It’s an obvious, clear double standard, where one set of people gets to break the rules as much as they want and another set of people can’t break any rules at all without going to jail.’
The risk of going to jail for managing the enormous sums from the illicit drug trade is small, when governments are beholden to the banking cabals, which control the apparatus of fiat money.
It should come as no surprise that British banking giant HSBC was caught laundering money for drug cartels and terrorist groups. HSBC, as we shall show, is the kingpin bank of the global drug trade, a bank which, since its founding in 1865, has been devoted to financing drug crops and laundering the proceeds. HSBC is, in fact, one of the key controlling institutions of the global illicit drug cartel we call Dope, Inc.
If you think that is an outlandish claim, consider the fact that EIR, through its bookDope, Inc., and in its affiliated War on Drugs magazine, published in the early 1980s by the National Anti-Drug Coalition, have made this charge for over 30 years, and have never been sued or challenged by the bank.
Once a drug launderer, it is an easy step to institutionalized money laundering.
Now watch the interview with Jeffrey Robinson on HSBC fine for money-laundering. Mr. Robinson’s appraisal rings similar with that of Fraser and Taibbi. This picture becomes clearer as more information becomes available. Even the establishment journal The Economist must conclude thatToo big to jail is the reality in the world of international banking.
The agreements put an end to uncertainty over the banks’ ability to operate within America, a key link in their global networks; their share prices both rose on the day the fines were announced. And the penalties are, in effect, levied on shareholders; not one corporate employee faces charges (although HSBC, at least, has clawed back payments to those responsible). Indeed, at a news conference this week Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, suggested that an outright prosecution of HSBC was considered and rejected because of how damaging the impact could be on the bank’s viability, and thus on jobs and the American economy. Has a handful of banks become not too big to fail, but too big to jail?
The significance of rejecting criminal pursuance of HSBC, and the long list of other mega banks is Prima Facie validation that the global economy operates under the self-serving guidance and often the practical permission of the largest international banking organizations.
The HSBCs of this world are dirty participants in the real drug triangle; namely, drug traffickers, crooked government elements and complicit moneychangers.
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