Skip to main content

Home/ Politically Minded/ Group items tagged Operating

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Skeptical Debunker

Volcker Rule: 5 Formery Treasury Secretaries Back Obama's Reforms - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...ule-5-treasury-s_n_472051.html

Volcker Rule endorsements ex-Treasury officials

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 22 Feb 10 - Cached
  • The ex-Treasury officials, who served both Republican and Democratic administrations, wrote that the reform measure, which would prohibit commercial banks from owning or investing in hedge funds, private equity funds or "proprietary trading" operations, is a reasonable trade for the benefits banks reap from "public support by means of access to the Federal Reserve and FDIC insurance." And while the rule may not alone prevent the next financial crisis, they said it's a crucial part of a more expansive regulatory reform package: "We fully understand that the restriction of proprietary activity by banks is only one element in comprehensive financial reform. It is, however, a key element in protecting our financial system and will assure that banks will give priority to their essential lending and depository responsibilities."
  • Skeptical Debunker on 22 Feb 10
     
    The 'Volcker Rule' got fresh support this morning when five former Treasury Secretaries endorsed the key financial regulation in a letter to the Wall Street Journal.
Skeptical Debunker

Radical Anti-tax Groups Growing Threat, Say Law Enforcement - Local News | News Article... - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...0,2933,586904,00.html

Joseph Stack manifesto anti-tax IRS

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 22 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Stack's manifesto offers insight into his personal journey as a tax protester - and into the large and growing movement that attracted him. Passages of Stack's manifesto suggest that he was involved in a notorious home church scheme that was popular in the part of California where he lived before he moved to Texas, MacNab said. Stack wrote that he was part of a group who held tax code readings and "zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful 'exemptions' that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy." He said they had "the best high-paid experienced tax lawyers in the business." MacNab said Stack likely was referring to a notorious scheme run by lawyers William Drexler and Jerome Daly. It was based on the idea that citizens could establish themselves as a church and gain the same tax exemptions afforded to religious institutions. The scheme didn't work, and Drexler and Daly were disbarred and imprisoned. If this was the operation Stack was referring to, it may have been a turning point in his life. He wrote: "That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie." This inspired him to take action, write to politicians and meet with likeminded anti-tax protesters. He wrote: "I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity." His anti-tax and anti-government beliefs may also have been fueled by Section 1706, an obscure and relatively unknown change in the tax code that focused on his industry and went into effect in 1986. Section 1706 essentially removed technical workers like software engineers from a safe haven classification of "self-employed consultant," making it easier for the IRS to challenge how Information Technology companies classified their employers. An association of IT companies and industry professionals, now called TechServe Alliance, was created to protest the changes in tax law that it says singled out the industry. "It made the whole business riskier for people using independent contractors because it favored the so-called employment business model," Mark Roberts, TechServe CEO, told FoxNews.com. "It created havoc on a number of folks." Roberts was quick to condemned Stack's behavior as "an act of a very, very sick individual." "I don't see a long-term lasting effect, just a troubled wayward person acting in response to a legitimate issue. But I don't think that actually impacts the issue," Roberts said. Noting that Section 1706 was passed years ago, he added: "We still resent the fact that it singles out the industry, but folks have basically learned to adapt. It's kind of been awhile since this was a burning issue in the industry."
  • Skeptical Debunker on 22 Feb 10
     
    Joseph Stack, the 53-year-old software engineer who crashed his small plane into a seven-story office building in Austin, Texas, was part of a growing, violent anti-tax and anti-government movement that has become increasingly alarming to law enforcement agencies.\n\nStack, who torched his home Thursday morning before setting out on his suicide flight, was fueled by his hatred of the Internal Revenue Service, which had offices and employed nearly 200 workers in the building.
Skeptical Debunker

Leaked intelligence documents: Here's what Facebook and Comcast will tell the police ab... - 0 views

blogs.computerworld.com/...will_tell_the_police_about_you

privacy Comcast Facebook police information

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 01 Mar 10 - Cached
  • The "Facebook Subpoena/Search Warrant Guidelines" from the Cryptome site are dated 2008, so there's a chance they've been superseded. The document spells out how law enforcement and intelligence agenices should go about requesting information about Facebook users, and details what information is turned over. Following is what Facebook will turn over about you, taken verbatim from the guide: Types of Information Available User Neoprint The Neoprint is an expanded view of a given user profile. A request should specify that they are requesting a “Neoprint of used Id XXXXXX”. User Photoprint The Photoprint is a compilation of all photos uploaded by the user that have not been deleted, along with all photos uploaded by any user which have the requested user tagged in them. A request should specify that they are requesting a “Photoprint of user Id XXXXXX”. User Contact Info All user contact information input by the user and not subsequently deleted by the user is available, regardless of whether it is visible in their profile. This information may include the following: Name Birth date Contact e-mail address(s) Physical address City State Zip Phone Cell Work phone Screen name (usually for AOL Messenger/iChat) Website With the exception of contact e-mail and activated mobile numbers, Facebook validates none of this information. A request should specify that they are requesting "Contact information of user specified by [some other piece of contact information]". No historical data is retained. Group Contact Info Where a group is known, we will provide a list of users currently registered in a group. We will also provide a PDF of the current status of the group profile page. A request should specify that they are requesting "Contact information for group XXXXXX". No historical data is retained. IP Logs IP logs can be produced for a given user ID or IP address. A request should specify that they are requesting the "IP log of user Id XXXXXX" or "IP log of IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx". The log contains the following information: * Script – script executed. For instance, a profile view of the URL http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=29445421 would populate script with "profile.php" * Scriptget – additional information passed to the script. In the above example, scriptget would contain "id=29445421" * Userid – The Facebook user id of the account active for the request * View time – date of execution in Pacific Time * IP – source IP address IP log data is generally retained for 90 days from present date. However, this data source is under active and major redevelopment and data may be retained for a longer or shorter period. Special Requests The Facebook Security Team may be able to retrieve specific information not addressed in the general categories above. Please contact Facebook if you have a specific investigative need prior to issuing a subpoena or warrant.
  • Comcast The Comcast document is labeled "Comcast Cable Law Enforcement Handbook," and is dated 2007, so there's a possibility that it, too, has been superseded. As with the other documents, it explains how law enforcement agenices can get information, and details what information is available. There's a great deal of detail in the 35-page document, which describes what Internet, phone, and television information will be turned over. For example, here's the IP information it will make available: Comcast currently maintains Internet Protocol address log files for a period of 180 days. If Comcast is asked to respond for information relating to an incident that occurred beyond this period, we will not have responsive information and can not fulfill a legal request. (Comcast can process and respond to preservation requests as outlined below in this Handbook.) As expected, Comcast will also turn over the emails, including attachments, of those who use Comcast's email service, but "In cases involving another entity’s email service or account, Comcast would not have any access to or ability to access customer email in response to a legal request." Information Comcast turns over to law enforcement agencies varies according to the request. For example, a grand jury subpoena will yield more information than a judicial summons, as you can see in the excerpt below. Comcast notes, though, that this is just a sample, and that "Each request is evaluated and reviewed on a case by case basis in light of any special procedural or legal requirements and applicable laws." So the examples "are for illustration only."
  • For those who worry about privacy, though, all of this information is small potatoes. The real worry is about the use of what are called pen registers or trap-and-trace devices, which essentially capture all of your Internet activity --- the Web sites you visits, the emails you send and receive, IM traffic, downloads, and so on. Here's what the document says about them: Pen Register / Trap and Trace Device Title 18 U.S.C. § 3123 provides a mechanism for authorizing and approving the installation and use of a pen register or a trap and trace device pursuant to court order. All orders must be coordinated prior to submission to Comcast. Law enforcement will be asked to agree to reimburse Comcast's reasonable costs incurred to purchase and/or install and monitor necessary equipment. See "Reimbursement," below.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • As for your voice calls made via Comcast, here's what the company will turn over: Call Detail Records - Comcast maintains two years of historical call detail records (records of local and long distance connections) for our Comcast Digital Voice telephone service. This includes local, local toll, and long distance records. Comcast also currently provides traditional circuit-switched telephone service branded Comcast Digital Phone. Call detail records for this service are collected by AT&T and are available for approximately two years as well. To determine which type of service is involved, contact the Legal Demands Center—Voice and Video at 800-871-6298. Account Records - Account records are generally stored for approximately two years after the termination of an account. If the account has an outstanding balance due, records may be retained for a longer period of time. As with Internet information, what phone information will be turned over depends on the specific kind of legal request, and the examples "are for information only." Here's an excerpt:
  • And, as you would expect, there is the same pen register/trap-and-trace device language as in the section about the Internet. Oddly enough, it appears that when it comes to information about your television viewing habits, you have more privacy rights than you do when it comes to information about your Internet and voice use, because it can only be turned over in response to a court order, not a subpoena. Here's what the document has to say about TV information: Subscriber Account Identification and Related Records For subscribers to our cable television service, the Cable Act requires Comcast as a cable operator to disclose personally identifiable information to a governmental entity solely in response to a court order (and not, for example, a subpoena) or with the subscriber's express written consent. The Cable Act requires that the cable subscriber be afforded the opportunity to appear and contest in a court proceeding relevant to the court order any claims made in support of the court order. At the proceeding, the Cable Act requires the governmental entity to offer clear and convincing evidence that the subject of the information is reasonably suspected of engaging in criminal activity and that the information sought would be material evidence in the case. See 47 U.S.C. § 551(h). Why does the law give you more privacy protection over your television viewing habits than your Internet or phone use? I haven't a clue --- ask your congressman.
  • Skeptical Debunker on 01 Mar 10
     
    Wonder what information Facebook and Comcast will turn over to police and intelligence agencies about you? Cryptome, the site that last week posted the leaked Microsoft "spy" manual, has posted company documents that purport to describe what those companies will reveal about you. As with the Microsoft document, the information is eye-opening.
Skeptical Debunker

Opinion: Trudy Rubin: U.S. ignores health care successes in Europe, Japan - San Jose Me... - 0 views

www.mercurynews.com/...ci_14498573

healthcare conservative lies socialism myths

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 05 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Skeptical Debunker on 05 Mar 10
     
    One of the most bewildering aspects of the current health care debate is the failure to learn key lessons from health systems abroad. Conservative talk show hosts decry the alleged evils of "socialized medicine" in countries with universal health coverage; they warn grimly of rationed health care. Yet there's nary a peep from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck - let alone Congress - about countries such as Germany, France, Switzerland or Japan, where coverage is universal, affordable, and top quality, and patients see private doctors with little or no waiting. And, oh yes, their health costs are a fraction of our bloated numbers: The French spend 10 percent of GDP on health care, the Germans 11 percent, and they cover every citizen. We spend a whopping 17 percent and leave tens of millions of Americans uninsured. If you want a very readable short course on how European systems really work, take a look at "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care," by T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post foreign correspondent. You might also watch a fascinating 2008 Frontline series, available online, in which Reid was an adviser: "Sick Around the World: Can the U.S. Learn Anything From the Rest of the World About How to Run a Health Care System?"
  • Skeptical Debunker on 05 Mar 10
     
    Article continued (Diigo would not highlight!?) - So far, the answer seems to be "no," not because there aren't valuable lessons, but because politicians won't relinquish their myths about European health Advertisement systems. Reid takes up that task. Myth No. 1, he says, is that foreign systems with universal coverage are all "socialized medicine." In countries such as France, Germany, Switzerland, and Japan, the coverage is universal while doctors and insurers are private. Individuals get their insurance through their workplace, sharing the premium with their employer as we do - and the government picks up the premium if they lose their job. Myth No. 2 - long waits and rationed care - is another whopper. "In many developed countries," Reid writes, "people have quicker access to care and more choice than Americans do." In France, Germany, and Japan, you can pick any provider or hospital in the country. Care is speedy and high quality, and no one is turned down. Myth No. 3 really grabs my attention: the delusion that countries with universal care "are wasteful systems run by bloated bureaucracies." In fact, the opposite is true. America's for-profit health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs of any developed country. Twenty percent or more of every premium dollar goes to nonmedical costs: paperwork, marketing, profits, etc. In developed countries with universal coverage, such as France and Germany, the administrative costs average about 5 percent. That's because every developed country but ours has decided health insurance should be a nonprofit operation. These countries also hold down costs by making coverage mandatory and by using a unified set of rules and payment schedules for all hospitals and doctors. This does not mean a single-payer system or a government-run health system. But it does sharply cut health costs by eliminating the mishmash of records and charges used by our myriad insurance firms, who use all kinds of gimmi
Bakari Chavanu

Socialism Today - Capitalism: costing the earth - 0 views

www.socialismtoday.org/...carbon.html

politics capitalism

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 16 Oct 09 - Cached
  • THE 2007 STATEMENT from the United Nation’s climate panel, the IPCC, that the average temperature on earth must not rise more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels or an incalculable disaster will take place, was a powerful reminder of the nature of the problem.
  • The main reason is that as the oceans warm up they lose the ability to absorb carbon dioxide. Another horrific truth is that there is more carbon beneath the permafrost of the polar regions than in the entire atmosphere. Experts say that if the emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphate and nitrogen dioxide continue as they are today, this bomb will explode within the next 100 years.
  • Does this mean that emissions are dropping? Not at all. So what does this trade mean in practice? An Oxford academic who studied the scheme, Adam Bumpus, concluded that "this regulation is ultimately there to facilitate the markets – it’s not about making cheap reductions, it’s about making a lot of money"
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Therefore, so the theory goes, the buyer pays to emit greenhouse gases while the seller is rewarded for having reduced emissions by more than their quota. There is only one problem. It does not work like that.
  • The market always chooses the easiest means to save a given quantity of carbon in the short term, regardless of what action is needed for long-term reduction. The result is that the system reinforces technological lock-in. For instance, small cuts may often be achieved cheaply through making a technology a little bit more efficient, whereas larger cuts would require massive investments in new technology.
  • The problem with most of the established green organisations is that they seek mechanisms, such as emissions markets, green taxes, green laws or other technical fixes to the problem of polluting fat cats.
  • The carbon trade system is bad in itself. But the fact that governments or other capitalist controlled bodies allocated the emissions permits in the first place, the logic of the market meant that they handed out too many permits out of fear of being in a disadvantage with competing capitalist powers. Today, there are more permits in circulation than there is capacity to pump out greenhouse gases!
  • MANY CDMS ARE about dams. The push for mega-dams has been justified by both development banks and multinationals as being necessary for the development of Africa and to combat carbon emissions. While governments, such as the US, Britain and China, announce mighty plans to electrify Africa, and other ‘aid’ schemes, the companies set in action the Boot model – Build, Own, Operate and Transfer – emptying the rivers of Africa to feed the growing energy needs of Europe, etc. And it is a very lucrative business when they can earn more carbon emission credits in the process. Large dams provide electricity for multinational companies, water for mining, and irrigation for large-scale foreign-owned farms.
  • In a study of 50 dams in Africa, professor Thayer Scudder, formerly the leading resettlement consultant for the World Bank, found that landlessness affected 86% and joblessness 80% of the displaced people. Lack of food security impacted on 79% of the people displaced by these ‘green dams’.
Bakari Chavanu

Capitalism's Self-inflicted Apocalypse - 0 views

www.michaelparenti.org/capitalism%20apocalypse.html

politics economy capitalism

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 16 Oct 09 - Cached
  •  The present economic crisis, however, has convinced even some prominent free-marketeers that something is gravely amiss. Truth be told, capitalism has yet to come to terms with several historical forces that cause it endless trouble: democracy, prosperity, and capitalism itself, the very entities that capitalist rulers claim to be fostering.
  • Some eighty  years ago Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis commented, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Moneyed interests have been opponents not proponents of democracy.
  • In the early days of the Republic the rich and well-born imposed property qualifications for voting and officeholding. They opposed the direct election of candidates (note, their Electoral College is still with us). And for decades they resisted extending the franchise to less favored groups such as propertyless working men, immigrants, racial minorities, and women.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • The conservative plutocracy also seeks to rollback democracy’s social gains, such as public education, affordable housing, health care, collective bargaining, a living wage, safe work conditions, a non-toxic sustainable environment; the right to privacy, the separation of church and state, freedom from compulsory pregnancy, and the right to marry any consenting adult of one’s own choosing.
  • About a century ago, US labor leader Eugene Victor Debs was thrown into jail during a strike. Sitting in his cell he could not escape the conclusion that in disputes between two private interests, capital and labor, the state was not a neutral arbiter. The force of the state--with its police, militia, courts, and laws—was unequivocally on the side of the company bosses.
  • Any nation that is not “investor friendly,” that attempts to use its land, labor, capital, natural resources, and markets in a self-developing manner, outside  the dominion of transnational corporate hegemony, runs the risk of being demonized and targeted as “a threat to U.S. national security.”
  • Most of the world is capitalist, and most of the world is neither prosperous nor particularly democratic. One need only think of capitalist Nigeria, capitalist Indonesia, capitalist Thailand, capitalist Haiti, capitalist Colombia, capitalist Pakistan, capitalist South Africa, capitalist Latvia, and various other members of the Free World--more accurately, the Free Market World.
  • Corporate investors prefer poor populations. The poorer you are, the harder you will work—for less. The poorer you are, the less equipped you are to defend yourself against the abuses of wealth.
  • In the corporate world of “free-trade,” the number of billionaires is increasing faster than ever while the number of people living in poverty is growing at a faster rate than the world’s population. Poverty spreads as wealth accumulates.
  • To the extent that life is bearable under the present U.S. economic order, it is because millions of people have waged bitter class struggles to advance their living standards and their rights as citizens, bringing  some measure of humanity to an otherwise heartless politico-economic order.
  • There is a third function of the capitalist state seldom mentioned. It consists of preventing the capitalist system from devouring itself.  Consider the core contradiction Karl Marx pointed to: the tendency toward overproduction and market crisis. An economy dedicated to speedups and wage cuts, to making workers produce more and more for less and less, is always in danger of a crash. To maximize profits, wages must be kept down. But someone has to buy the goods and services being produced. For that, wages must be kept up. There is a chronic tendency—as we are seeing today—toward overproduction of private sector goods and services and underconsumption of necessities by the working populace. 
  • Instead of trying to make money by the arduous task of producing and marketing goods and services, the marauders tap directly into the money streams of the economy itself. During the 1990s we witnessed the collapse of an entire economy in Argentina when unchecked free marketeers stripped enterprises, pocketed vast sums, and left the country’s productive capacity in shambles. The Argentine state, gorged on a heavy diet of free-market ideology, faltered in its function of saving capitalism from the capitalists.
  • These thieves were caught and convicted. Does that not show capitalism’s self-correcting capacity? Not really. The prosecution of such malfeasance— in any case coming too late—was a product of democracy’s accountability and transparency, not capitalism’s. Of itself the free market is an amoral system, with no strictures save caveat emptor.
  • Perhaps the premiere brigand was Bernard Madoff. Described as “a longstanding leader in the financial services industry,” Madoff ran a fraudulent fund that raked in $50 billion from wealthy investors, paying them back “with money that wasn’t there,” as he himself put it. The plutocracy devours its own children.
  • The classic laissez-faire theory is even more preposterous than Greenspan made it.  In fact, the theory claims that everyone should pursue their own selfish interests without restraint.
  • Capitalism breeds the venal perpetrators, and rewards the most unscrupulous among them.  The crimes and crises are not irrational departures from a rational system, but the converse: they are the rational outcomes of a basically irrational and amoral system.
  • Worse still, the ensuing multi-billion dollar government bailouts are themselves being turned into an opportunity for pillage. Not only does the state fail to regulate, it becomes itself a source of plunder, pulling vast sums from the federal money machine, leaving the taxpayers to bleed.
  • But the 2008-09 “rescue operation” offered a record feed at the public trough. More than $350 billion was dished out by a right-wing lame-duck Secretary of the Treasury to the biggest banks and financial houses without oversight--not to mention the more than $4 trillion that has come from the Federal Reserve.  Most of the banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of New York Mellon, stated that they had no intention of letting anyone know where the money was going.
  • In sum, free-market corporate capitalism is by its nature a disaster waiting to happen.
  • If the paladins of Corporate America want to know what really threatens “our way of life,” it is their way of life, their boundless way of pilfering their own system, destroying the very foundation on which they stand, the very community on which they so lavishly feed.
« First ‹ Previous 61 - 66 of 66
Showing 20▼ items per page