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For the most glaring example of Trump tax cuts benefiting the rich, look no further than Warren Buffett. According to an analysis by Barclays analyst Jay Gelb, Buffett's Berkshire will be among the greatest beneficiaries of US corporate tax reform. The bank calculates that Berkshire Hathaway’s 4Q book value could see a huge boost of as much as $37 billion (12% increase from 3Q 17 level) resulting from the US corporate tax reform due to a decline in its deferred tax liability (DTL). The one-time increase will result from Berkshire lowering its tax liability on appreciated investments.

State and local governments have awarded at least $110 billion in taxpayer subsidies to business, with 3 of every 4 dollars going to fewer than 1,000 big corporations, the most thorough analysis to date of corporate welfare revealed today. Boeing ranks first, with 137 subsidies totaling $13.2 billion, followed by Alcoa at $5.6 billion, Intel at $3.9 billion, General Motors at $3.5 billion and Ford Motor at $2.5 billion, the new report by the nonprofit research organization Good Jobs First shows. Dow Chemical had the most subsidies, 410 totaling $1.4 billion, followed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire-Hathaway holding company, with 310 valued at $1.1 billion. The figures were compiled from disclosures made by state and local government agencies that subsidize companies in all sorts of ways, including cash giveaways, building and land transfers, tax abatements and steep discounts on electric and water bills.

Boeing’s $13.2 billion is a bit more than its pretax profits for the last two years. It is also equals a stunning 70 percent of the $18.2 billion of equity owned by Boeing shareholders.

Second on the subsidy list is Alcoa, the old Aluminum Co. of America, which benefits from 91 subsidies totaling $5.6 billion. On the basis of its pretax income for last four years, that amounts to all the pretax profits Alcoa shareholders can expect for the next 189 years.

All attempts to reform mass incarceration through the traditional mechanisms of electoral politics, the courts and state and federal legislatures are useless. Corporations, which have turned mass incarceration into a huge revenue stream and which have unchecked political and economic power, have no intention of diminishing their profits. And in a system where money has replaced the vote, where corporate lobbyists write legislation and the laws, where chronic unemployment and underemployment, along with inadequate public transportation, sever people in marginal communities from jobs, and where the courts are a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporate state, this demands a sustained, nationwide revolt. “Organizing boycotts, work stoppages inside prisons and the refusal by prisoners and their families to pay into the accounts of phone companies and commissary companies is the only weapon we have left,” said Amos Caley, who runs the Interfaith Prison Coalition, a group formed by prisoners, the formerly incarcerated, their families and religious leaders.

These boycotts, they said, will be directed against the private phone, money transfer and commissary companies, and against the dozens of corporations that exploit prison labor. The boycotts will target food and merchandise vendors, construction companies, laundry services, uniforms companies, prison equipment vendors, cafeteria services, manufacturers of pepper spray, body armor and the array of medieval instruments used for the physical control of prisoners, and a host of other contractors that profit from mass incarceration. The movement will also call on institutions, especially churches and universities, to divest from corporations that use prison labor. The campaign, led by the Interfaith Prison Coalition, will include a call to pay all prisoners at least the prevailing minimum wage of the state in which they are held. (New Jersey’s minimum wage is $8.38 an hour.) Wages inside prisons have remained stagnant and in real terms have declined over the past three decades. A prisoner in New Jersey makes, on average, $1.20 for eight hours of work, or about $28 a month. Those incarcerated in for-profit prisons earn as little as 17 cents an hour. Over a similar period, phone and commissary corporations have increased fees and charges often by more than 100 percent. There are nearly 40 states that allow private corporations to exploit prison labor. And prison administrators throughout the country are lobbying corporations that have sweatshops overseas, trying to lure them into the prisons with guarantees of even cheaper labor and a total absence of organizing or coordinated protest.

Corporations currently exploiting prison labor include Abbott Laboratories, AT&T, AutoZone, Bank of America, Bayer, Berkshire Hathaway, Cargill, Caterpillar, Chevron, the former Chrysler Group, Costco Wholesale, John Deere, Eddie Bauer, Eli Lilly, ExxonMobil, Fruit of the Loom, GEICO, GlaxoSmithKline, Glaxo Wellcome, Hoffmann-La Roche, International Paper, JanSport, Johnson & Johnson, Kmart, Koch Industries, Mary Kay, McDonald’s, Merck, Microsoft, Motorola, Nintendo, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Quaker Oats, Sarah Lee, Sears, Shell, Sprint, Starbucks, State Farm Insurance, United Airlines, UPS, Verizon, Victoria’s Secret, Wal-Mart and Wendy’s.

Stop coddling the super-rich he says.

he British army is creating a special force of Facebook warriors, skilled in psychological operations and use of social media to engage in unconventional warfare in the information age. The 77th Brigade, to be based in Hermitage, near Newbury, in Berkshire, will be about 1,500-strong and formed of units drawn from across the army. It will formally come into being in April. The brigade will be responsible for what is described as non-lethal warfare. Both the Israeli and US army already engage heavily in psychological operations.

Against a background of 24-hour news, smartphones and social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, the force will attempt to control the narrative. The 77th will include regulars and reservists and recruitment will begin in the spring. Soldiers with journalism skills and familiarity with social media are among those being sought. An army spokesman said: “77th Brigade is being created to draw together a host of existing and developing capabilities essential to meet the challenges of modern conflict and warfare. It recognises that the actions of others in a modern battlefield can be affected in ways that are not necessarily violent.” The move is partly a result of experience in counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan. It can also be seen as a response to events of the last year that include Russia’s actions in Ukraine, in particular Crimea, and Islamic State’s (Isis) takeover of large swaths of Syria and Iraq.

The Israel Defence Forces have pioneered state military engagement with social media, with dedicated teams operating since Operation Cast Lead, its war in Gaza in 2008-9. The IDF is active on 30 platforms – including Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Instagram – in six languages. “It enables us to engage with an audience we otherwise wouldn’t reach,” said an Israeli army spokesman. It has been approached by several western countries, keen to learn from its expertise.

After the huge mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and confronted now by new threats amid extraordinary geopolitical shifts, senior British army officers under the incoming chief of the general staff, Sir Nick Carter, are planning potentially far-reaching reforms. An eyecatching centrepiece is the formation of the 77th Brigade, inspired by the Chindits, the guerrilla unit which operated behind enemy lines during the Burma campaign against the Japanese during the second world war.

The emphasis now is not so much on military force but "political warfare", including psychological operations (psyops), deception, and media operations (hence the numerous references in recent stories by defence journalists to "facebook warriors"). The new Chindit brigade, consisting of reservists and civilian specialists as well as regular troops, is designed to help the army win non-kinetic battles in an age of internet warfare and cyber attacks. The unit would "play a key part in enabling the UK to fight in the information age", said an army spokesman.

Disrupting communications and spreading and countering sophisticated propaganda will be the new Chindits' priorities but the environment they will operate in will be very different from that of the Burmese jungle. 1,500 or so new Chindits, who will based near Newbury in Berkshire, could provide just the kind of help Ukraine was asking for on Monday – jamming the communications of pro-Russian, and Russian, forces in the east of the country. Carter and his advisers, meanwhile, are planning to streamline the army's hierarchy, culling perhaps a third of its 500 colonels and 200 brigadiers and generals. No senior officers were sacked over Iraq or Afghanistan. The idea is to change the culture of the top brass, to encourage individuals who have demonstrated their ability – and confidence – to understand the new world, of geopolitics as well as of conflict.

t’s no coincidence then that the White House advised London to establish a special unit within its military structure – the British Cyber Command, transferring up to 1500 officers under its command just “for starters”. One must note that Washington has already created its own special unit for cyberwarfare back in 2009. This unit goes under the name of United States Cyber Command, with its headquarters being located at Fort Meade (Maryland). According to The Guardian, the 77th brigade will formally come into being in April. The brigade will be carrying out covert operations on social networks exclusively, in an effort to spread disinformation and manipulate the population of certain countries, which should create “favorable conditions” for applying political pressure or the executing of regime change in strategically important regions of the world. Its headquarters will be located to the west of London in Newbury (Berkshire) while it’s official insignia will be the famous symbol of Chindits (a mythical god-like lion guarding temples in Myanmar and other countries in South-East Asia), that was used by a a British India ‘Special Force’ which participated in the suppression of guerrilla Japanese troops deep in the forests of Southeast Asia. The use of social networks to overthrow unwanted regimes has been Washington’s modus operandi for decades now. This led to the creation of a whole industry of disinformation and the manipulation of public opinion. The events surrounding the Arab Spring, countless other color revolutions and the latest events in Ukraine can serve as a perfect example of how an unstable sociopolitical and economic situation in a country can be exploited by Western intelligence agencies to a achieve a radical change in the sovereign governments of other states .First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/02/11/rus-v-britanii-sozdayut-internetarmiyu/

Wells Fargo WFC -9.22%Wells FargoWFC$58.16$-5.91(-9.22%)As of 02/06/2018, 01:01am EST is facing far more than a fine for its fake accounts scandal, in which employees at the lender's branches across the country opened over a million fraudulent checking and credit card accounts to hit their numbers. Late on Friday, the Federal Reserve decided to restrict growth at America's third-largest bank by assets until its risk and governance is improved. The order, which also called for a revamp of Wells Fargo's board of directors, sent the bank reeling in early trading Monday. Wells Fargo shares plunged 9% lower in Monday trading, erasing most of its gains over the past 12 months. For its top shareholder, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, the Fed-inspired stock slide meant its Wells Fargo holdings lost over $2.7 billion in value. "We cannot tolerate pervasive and persistent misconduct at any bank and the consumers harmed by Wells Fargo expect that robust and comprehensive reforms will be put in place to make certain that the abuses do not occur again," said chair Janet L. Yellen on Friday. The order was her last as head of the Federal Reserve. On Monday, successor Jerome Powell was sworn in. Added Yellen, "the enforcement action we are taking today will ensure that Wells Fargo will not expand until it is able to do so safely and with the protections needed to manage all of its risks and protect its customers." In September 2016, Wells Fargo paid a $185 million fine to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after the agency found branch bankers had opened well over a million fake accounts, which generated millions of dollars in fees to the lender. When the scandal, which occurred over almost a decade, was first revealed, Wells Fargo and its board didn't immediately overhaul their leadership, or sanction top executives in the divisions where fake accounts were created. Only after significant public outcry, in addition to a widening scope of the scandal, did Wells Fargo begin a revamp, firing CEO John Stumpf and clawing back bonuses for numerous executives. Backer Warren Buffett later said in an appearance on CNBC the bank and its leadership had misjudged the severity of the problem.

In addition to harsh words, the Fed is ordering a sanction of almost unprecedented severity. It will restrict the bank's growth until its governance and risk management improve, though it will allow Wells to continue current operations from taking deposits to offering loans.

Three Wells Fargo long-standing board directors, John Chen, Lloyd Dean and Enrique Hernandez, will likely retire at the firm's annual meeting as part of the Fed's additional order for a refreshment of four board directors. Analysts did not brush off the Fed's move, as they have large fines coming out of the crisis.