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Gary Edwards

The End Of The Obama World Order - 0 views

www.blacklistednews.com/...M.html

Obama

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 17
     
    "For the past eight years, Barack Obama has been using the power of the U.S. presidency to impose his vision of a progressive world order on the entire globe.  As a result, much of the planet will greatly celebrate once the Obama era officially ends on Friday.  The Obama years brought us the Arab Spring, Benghazi, ISIS, civil war in Syria, civil war in Ukraine and the Iran nuclear deal.  On the home front, we have had to deal with Obamacare, "Fast and Furious", IRS targeting of conservative groups, Solyndra, the VA scandal, NSA spying and the worst "economic recovery" since the end of World War II.  And right at the end of his presidency, Barack Obama has committed the greatest betrayal of Israel in U.S. history and has brought us dangerously close to war with Russia. So is the end of the Obama world order worth celebrating? You better believe it is. Of course Obama and his minions are in a great deal of distress that much of their hard work over the past eight years is about to be undone by Donald Trump.  On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden warned the elitists gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos that their "liberal world order" is in danger of collapsing…     Vice President Joe Biden delivered an epic final speech Wednesday to the elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.   The gist of his speech was simple: At a time of "uncertainty" we must double down on the values that made Western democracies great, and not allow the "liberal world order" to be torn apart by destructive forces. And without a doubt, we definitely want it to collapse. During his time in the White House, Barack Obama has used the full diplomatic power of the government to promote "abortion rights", "gay rights" and other "liberal values" to the farthest corners of the globe.  Here at home, the appointment of two new Supreme Court justices under Obama paved the way for the Supreme Court decision that forced all 50 state
Paul Merrell

Will Trump hop on an American Silk Road? | Asia Times - 0 views

www.atimes.com/...l-trump-hop-american-silk-road

globalization China U.S.-spending war & peace

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • ysteria reigns supreme at the dawn of the Trump era, with the President rebranded across the whole ideological spectrum as an American Mao or even an American Hitler. Let’s step away from this “American [media] carnage” to examine a few facts concerning the unofficial G2: US-China relations. A case can be made that Beijing has already landed a 1-2-3 punch, pre-empting the possibility of a US-initiated trade war.
  • It started with Jack Ma’s by now notorious visit to Trump Tower, when he developed his idea of helping small American businesses sell their products in China and across Asia through Alibaba’s network, thus creating at least “1 million jobs” (Ma’s number) in the US. Then came President Xi Jinping’s masterclass at Davos, where he positioned himself as Ronald Xi Reagan selling “inclusive” globalization to the stalwarts of international turbo-capitalism. Finally Ma again, also at Davos, came up with a crystal clear, cause-and-effect formulation on globalization and US economic distress.
  • Ma said, “In the past 30 years, companies like IBM, Cisco and Microsoft made tons of money.” The problem was how the US spent the wealth: “In the past 30 years, America has had 13 wars at a cost of US$14.2 trillion.” So what if the US “had spent part of that money on building up their infrastructure, helping white-collar and blue-collar workers? You’re supposed to spend money on your own people. It’s not that other countries steal American jobs. It is your strategy – that you did not distribute the money in a proper way.” In the meantime, something quite extraordinary happened at the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong, one day before Xi’s Davos speech. China Investment Corporation (CIC) chairman Ding Xuedong, referring to Trump’s much-vaunted US$1 trillion infrastructure building plan, said that created fabulous investment opportunities for China and his US$800 billion sovereign fund. According to Ding, Washington will need at least an astonishing US$8 trillion to fund the infrastructure spectacular. Federal government and US private investors are not enough: “They have to rely on foreign investors.” And CIC is ready for it – focusing already on “alternative investments in the US”.
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Jan 17
     
    Pepe Escobar
Paul Merrell

Russian Elite Warns Of War With The U.S - BuzzFeed News - 0 views

www.buzzfeed.com/...elite-warns-of-war-with-the-us

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Russia-sanctions banksters Davos

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • The head of a leading Kremlin-owned bank warned on Friday that further banking sanctions would lead Russia and the U.S. to the “brink of war.” Andrei Kostin, the head of VTB, reacted angrily when asked what the consequences would be if Russia were excluded from the Swift banking system, a secure means of moving money across borders. If it were to happen, Kostin told a session on the Russian economy at the World Economic Forum in Davos, “ambassadors can leave capitals. It means Russia and America might have no relationship after that.” “If there is no banking relationship, it means the countries are on the verge of war, or definitely in the cold war,” he said in English, growing increasingly red in the face. “It will be a very dangerous situation.”
  • He said that if Russia were excluded from the Swift system, it would make the U.S.–Russia relationship akin to the U.S.–Iran one. He made the comments after noting that Russia had recently created its own alternative to Swift. The U.S. and EU have imposed numerous sanctions on Russia, including against VTB.
  • Igor Shuvalov, a deputy prime minister and the head of Russia’s delegation to Davos, issued a stern warning to those who would imagine Russia without President Vladimir Putin. “I support my president 100%,” Shuvalov said. “When people ask that, they don’t understand the Russian character, they don’t know Russian history.” “If we think someone from the outside wants to change our leader, to go against our will … we will be united like never before.” He brushed off questions about Ukraine and warned the West that it must treat Russia like an equal partner rather than having the country “sit in the corner.” If it failed to treat Russia equally, Shuvalov warned, Ukraine “will be a huge wound for the next 10 years.”
Paul Merrell

President Xi's speech to Davos in full | World Economic Forum - 0 views

www.weforum.org/...te-at-the-world-economic-forum

globalization China Xi Davos speech must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” These are the words used by the English writer Charles Dickens to describe the world after the Industrial Revolution. Today, we also live in a world of contradictions. On the one hand, with growing material wealth and advances in science and technology, human civilization has developed as never before. On the other hand, frequent regional conflicts, global challenges like terrorism and refugees, as well as poverty, unemployment and widening income gap have all added to the uncertainties of the world. Many people feel bewildered and wonder: What has gone wrong with the world? To answer this question, one must first track the source of the problem. Some blame economic globalization for the chaos in the world. Economic globalization was once viewed as the treasure cave found by Ali Baba in The Arabian Nights, but it has now become the Pandora’s box in the eyes of many. The international community finds itself in a heated debate on economic globalization.
  • Today, I wish to address the global economy in the context of economic globalization. The point I want to make is that many of the problems troubling the world are not caused by economic globalization. For instance, the refugee waves from the Middle East and North Africa in recent years have become a global concern. Several million people have been displaced, and some small children lost their lives while crossing the rough sea. This is indeed heartbreaking. It is war, conflict and regional turbulence that have created this problem, and its solution lies in making peace, promoting reconciliation and restoring stability. The international financial crisis is another example. It is not an inevitable outcome of economic globalization; rather, it is the consequence of excessive chase of profit by financial capital and grave failure of financial regulation. Just blaming economic globalization for the world’s problems is inconsistent with reality, and it will not help solve the problems.
  • But we should also recognize that economic globalization is a double-edged sword. When the global economy is under downward pressure, it is hard to make the cake of global economy bigger. It may even shrink, which will strain the relations between growth and distribution, between capital and labor, and between efficiency and equity. Both developed and developing countries have felt the punch. Voices against globalization have laid bare pitfalls in the process of economic globalization that we need to take seriously. As a line in an old Chinese poem goes, “Honey melons hang on bitter vines; sweet dates grow on thistles and thorns.” In a philosophical sense, nothing is perfect in the world. One would fail to see the full picture if he claims something is perfect because of its merits, or if he views something as useless just because of its defects. It is true that economic globalization has created new problems, but this is no justification to write economic globalization off completely. Rather, we should adapt to and guide economic globalization, cushion its negative impact, and deliver its benefits to all countries and all nations.
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  • Whether you like it or not, the global economy is the big ocean that you cannot escape from. Any attempt to cut off the flow of capital, technologies, products, industries and people between economies, and channel the waters in the ocean back into isolated lakes and creeks is simply not possible. Indeed, it runs counter to the historical trend.
  • First, lack of robust driving forces for global growth makes it difficult to sustain the steady growth of the global economy. The growth of the global economy is now at its slowest pace in seven years. Growth of global trade has been slower than global GDP growth. Short-term policy stimuli are ineffective. Fundamental structural reform is just unfolding. The global economy is now in a period of moving toward new growth drivers, and the role of traditional engines to drive growth has weakened. Despite the emergence of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and 3-D printing, new sources of growth are yet to emerge. A new path for the global economy remains elusive. Second, inadequate global economic governance makes it difficult to adapt to new developments in the global economy. Madame Christine Lagarde recently told me that emerging markets and developing countries already contribute to 80 percent of the growth of the global economy. The global economic landscape has changed profoundly in the past few decades. However, the global governance system has not embraced those new changes and is therefore inadequate in terms of representation and inclusiveness. The global industrial landscape is changing and new industrial chains, value chains and supply chains are taking shape. However, trade and investment rules have not kept pace with these developments, resulting in acute problems such as closed mechanisms and fragmentation of rules.
  • Third, uneven global development makes it difficult to meet people’s expectations for better lives. Dr. Schwab has observed in his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution that this round of industrial revolution will produce extensive and far-reaching impacts such as growing inequality, particularly the possible widening gap between return on capital and return on labor. The richest one percent of the world’s population own more wealth than the remaining 99 percent. Inequality in income distribution and uneven development space are worrying. Over 700 million people in the world are still living in extreme poverty. For many families, to have warm houses, enough food and secure jobs is still a distant dream. This is the biggest challenge facing the world today. It is also what is behind the social turmoil in some countries. All this shows that there are indeed problems with world economic growth, governance and development models, and they must be resolved. The founder of the Red Cross Henry Dunant once said, “Our real enemy is not the neighboring country; it is hunger, poverty, ignorance, superstition and prejudice.” We need to have the vision to dissect these problems; more importantly, we need to have the courage to take actions to address them.
  • First, we should develop a dynamic, innovation-driven growth model. The fundamental issue plaguing the global economy is the lack of driving force for growth.Innovation is the primary force guiding development. Unlike the previous industrial revolutions, the fourth industrial revolution is unfolding at an exponential rather than linear pace. We need to relentlessly pursue innovation. Only with the courage to innovate and reform can we remove bottlenecks blocking global growth and development. With this in mind, G-20 leaders reached an important consensus at the Hangzhou Summit, which is to take innovation as a key driver and foster new driving force of growth for both individual countries and the global economy. We should develop a new development philosophy and rise above the debate about whether there should be more fiscal stimulus or more monetary easing. We should adopt a multipronged approach to address both the symptoms and the underlying problems. We should adopt new policy instruments and advance structural reform to create more space for growth and sustain its momentum. We should develop new growth models and seize opportunities presented by the new round of industrial revolution and digital economy. We should meet the challenges of climate change and aging population. We should address the negative impact of IT application and automation on jobs. When cultivating new industries and new forms models of business models, we should create new jobs and restore confidence and hope to our peoples.
  • Second, we should pursue a well-coordinated and inter-connected approach to develop a model of open and win-win cooperation. Today, mankind has become a close-knit community of shared future. Countries have extensive converging interests and are mutually dependent. All countries enjoy the right to development. At the same time, they should view their own interests in a broader context and refrain from pursuing them at the expense of others. We should commit ourselves to growing an open global economy to share opportunities and interests through opening-up and achieve win-win outcomes. One should not just retreat to the harbor when encountering a storm, for this will never get us to the other shore of the ocean. We must redouble efforts to develop global connectivity to enable all countries to achieve inter-connected growth and share prosperity. We must remain committed to developing global free trade and investment, promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation through opening-up and say no to protectionism. Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in a dark room. While wind and rain may be kept outside, that dark room will also block light and air. No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war.
  • Third, we should develop a model of fair and equitable governance in keeping with the trend of the times. As the Chinese saying goes, people with petty shrewdness attend to trivial matters, while people with vision attend to governance of institutions. There is a growing call from the international community for reforming the global economic governance system, which is a pressing task for us. Only when it adapts to new dynamics in the international economic architecture can the global governance system sustain global growth. Countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are all equal members of the international community. As such, they are entitled to participate in decision-making, enjoy rights and fulfill obligations on an equal basis. Emerging markets and developing countries deserve greater representation and voice. The 2010 IMF quota reform has entered into force, and its momentum should be sustained. We should adhere to multilateralism to uphold the authority and efficacy of multilateral institutions. We should honor promises and abide by rules. One should not select or bend rules as he sees fit. The Paris Agreement is a hard-won achievement which is in keeping with the underlying trend of global development. All signatories should stick to it instead of walking away from it as this is a responsibility we must assume for future generations.
  • Despite a sluggish global economy, China’s economy is expected to grow by 6.7 percent in 2016, still one of the highest in the world. China’s economy is far bigger in size than in the past, and it now generates more output than it did with double-digit growth in the past. Household consumption and the services sector have become the main drivers of growth. In the first three quarters of 2016, added value of the tertiary industry took up 52.8 percent of the GDP and domestic consumption contributed to 71 percent of economic growth. Household income and employment have steadily risen, while per unit GDP energy consumption continues to drop. Our efforts to pursue green development are paying off. The Chinese economy faces downward pressure and many difficulties, including acute mismatch between excess capacity and an upgrading demand structure, lack of internal driving force for growth, accumulation of financial risks, and growing challenges in certain regions. We see these as temporary hardships that occur on the way forward. And the measures we have taken to address these problems are producing good results. We are firm in our resolve to forge ahead. China is the world’s largest developing country with over 1.3 billion people, and their living standards are not yet high. But this reality also means China has enormous potential and space for development. Guided by the vision of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, we will adapt to the new normal, stay ahead of the curve, and make coordinated efforts to maintain steady growth, accelerate reform, adjust economic structure, improve people’s living standards and fend off risks. With these efforts, we aim to achieve medium-high rate of growth and upgrade the economy to higher end of the value chain.
  • We should foster a culture that values diligence, frugality and enterprise and respects the fruits of hard work of all. Priority should be given to addressing poverty, unemployment, the widening income gap and the concerns of the disadvantaged to promote social equity and justice. It is important to protect the environment while pursuing economic and social progress so as to achieve harmony between man and nature and between man and society. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development should be implemented to realize balanced development across the world. A Chinese adage reads, “Victory is ensured when people pool their strength; success is secured when people put their heads together.” As long as we keep to the goal of building a community of shared future for mankind and work hand in hand to fulfill our responsibilities and overcome difficulties, we will be able to create a better world and deliver better lives for our peoples.
  • This is a path that puts people’s interests first. China follows a people-oriented development philosophy and is committed to bettering the lives of its people. Development is of the people, by the people and for the people. China pursues the goal of common prosperity. We have taken major steps to alleviate poverty and lifted over 700 million people out of poverty, and good progress is being made in our efforts to finish building a society of initial prosperity in all respects. This is a path of pursuing reform and innovation. China has tackled difficulties and met challenges on its way forward through reform. China has demonstrated its courage to take on difficult issues, navigate treacherous rapids and remove institutional hurdles standing in the way of development. These efforts have enabled us to unleash productivity and social vitality. Building on progress of 30-odd years of reform, we have introduced more than 1,200 reform measures over the past four years, injecting powerful impetus into China’s development.
  • This is a path of pursuing common development through opening-up. China is committed to a fundamental policy of opening-up and pursues a win-win opening-up strategy. China’s development is both domestic and external oriented; while developing itself, China also shares more of its development outcomes with other countries and peoples. China’s outstanding development achievements and the vastly improved living standards of the Chinese people are a blessing to both China and the world. Such achievements in development over the past decades owe themselves to the hard work and perseverance of the Chinese people, a quality that has defined the Chinese nation for several thousand years. We Chinese know only too well that there is no such thing as a free lunch in the world. For a big country with over 1.3 billion people, development can be achieved only with the dedication and tireless efforts of its own people. We cannot expect others to deliver development to China, and no one is in a position to do so. When assessing China’s development, one should not only see what benefits the Chinese people have gained, but also how much hard effort they have put in, not just what achievements China has made, but also what contribution China has made to the world. Then one will reach a balanced conclusion about China’s development.
  • Between 1950 and 2016, despite its modest level of development and living standard, China provided more than 400 billion yuan of foreign assistance, undertook over 5,000 foreign assistance projects, including nearly 3,000 complete projects, and held over 11,000 training workshops in China for over 260,000 personnel from other developing countries. Since it launched reform and opening-up, China has attracted over $1.7 trillion of foreign investment and made over $1.2 trillion of direct outbound investment, making huge contribution to global economic development. In the years following the outbreak of the international financial crisis, China contributed to over 30 percent of global growth every year on average. All these figures are among the highest in the world. The figures speak for themselves. China’s development is an opportunity for the world; China has not only benefited from economic globalization but also contributed to it. Rapid growth in China has been a sustained, powerful engine for global economic stability and expansion. The inter-connected development of China and a large number of other countries has made the world economy more balanced. China’s remarkable achievement in poverty reduction has contributed to more inclusive global growth. And China’s continuous progress in reform and opening-up has lent much momentum to an open world economy.
  • Fourth, we should develop a balanced, equitable and inclusive development model. As the Chinese saying goes, “A just cause should be pursued for common good.”Development is ultimately for the people. To achieve more balanced development and ensure that the people have equal access to opportunities and share in the benefits of development, it is crucial to have a sound development philosophy and model and make development equitable, effective and balanced.
  • — China will foster an enabling and orderly environment for investment. We will expand market access for foreign investors, build high-standard pilot free trade zones, strengthen protection of property rights, and level the playing field to make China’s market more transparent and better regulated. In the coming five years, China is expected to import $8 trillion of goods, attract $600 billion of foreign investment and make $750 billion of outbound investment. Chinese tourists will make 700 million overseas visits. All this will create a bigger market, more capital, more products and more business opportunities for other countries. China’s development will continue to offer opportunities to business communities in other countries. China will keep its door wide open and not close it. An open door allows both other countries to access the Chinese market and China itself to integrate with the world. And we hope that other countries will also keep their door open to Chinese investors and keep the playing field level for us.
  • — China will vigorously foster an external environment of opening-up for common development. We will advance the building of the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific and negotiations of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to form a global network of free trade arrangements. China stands for concluding open, transparent and win-win regional free trade arrangements and opposes forming exclusive groups that are fragmented in nature. China has no intention to boost its trade competitiveness by devaluing the RMB, still less will it launch a currency war. Over three years ago, I put forward the “Belt and Road” initiative. Since then, over 100 countries and international organizations have given warm responses and support to the initiative. More than 40 countries and international organizations have signed cooperation agreements with China, and our circle of friends along the “Belt and Road” is growing bigger. Chinese companies have made over $50 billion of investment and launched a number of major projects in the countries along the routes, spurring the economic development of these countries and creating many local jobs. The “Belt and Road” initiative originated in China, but it has delivered benefits well beyond its borders.
  • Ladies and Gentlemen,Dear Friends, World history shows that the road of human civilization has never been a smooth one, and that mankind has made progress by surmounting difficulties. No difficulty, however daunting, will stop mankind from advancing. When encountering difficulties, we should not complain about ourselves, blame others, lose confidence or run away from responsibilities. We should join hands and rise to the challenge. History is created by the brave. Let us boost confidence, take actions and march arm-in-arm toward a bright future.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 17
     
    Very important speech. A must-read (I snipped only portions).
Gary Edwards

Are Federal Reserve Presidents Gaming the System? - Money Morning - 0 views

moneymorning.com/...e-presidents-gaming-the-system

Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel Congressional-Inside-Trading-Scandal

shared by Gary Edwards on 07 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 07 Feb 12
     
    While congress debates a ban on congressional inside trading, the news comes out that the thugs who run the Federal Reserve and own private banks with deep connections to Wall Street, are also profiting mightily from their indie trading activities.  C'mon, money is the fuel of Wall Street, and if you know a multi trillion dollar pump and dump is coming from the Federal Reserve how can you not crush the market?  These guys should heading to jail instead of Davos. excerpt: The presidents of the U.S. Federal Reserve may not have used their knowledge for personal gain, but a look at their assets does show several apparent conflicts of interests. More than 600 pages of disclosure documents were released last week after Bloomberg News filed a Freedom of Information Act request. The most troubling revelation concerned Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart. Two weeks prior to the Federal Reserve's November 2010 decision to go ahead with the second phase of its quantitative easing program (QE2), Lockhart invested $289,000 in several stock index funds. The $600 billion of government bond-buying that followed helped push the Standard & Poor's 500 index up about 15% over the next six months.
Paul Merrell

Richest 1% will own more than all the rest by 2016 - Oxfam | Blogs | Oxfam GB - 0 views

www.oxfam.org.uk/...more-than-all-the-rest-by-2016

income inequality

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • The combined wealth of the richest 1 per cent will overtake that of the other 99 per cent of people next year unless the current trend of rising inequality is checked, Oxfam warned today ahead of the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. The international agency, whose executive director Winnie Byanyima will co-chair the Davos event,  warned that the explosion in inequality is holding back the fight against global poverty at a time when 1 in 9 people do not have enough to eat and more than a billion people still live on less than $1.25-a-day.
  • Wealth: Having it all and wanting more, a research paper published today by Oxfam, shows that the richest 1 per cent have seen their share of global wealth increase from 44 per cent in 2009 to 48 per cent in 2014 and at this rate will be more than 50 per cent in 2016. Members of this global elite had an average wealth of $2.7m per adult in 2014. Of the remaining 52 per cent of global wealth, almost all (46 per cent) is owned by the rest of the richest fifth of the world's population. The other 80 per cent share just 5.5 per cent and had an average wealth of $3,851 per adult - that's 1/700th of the average wealth of the 1 per cent.
Paul Merrell

Ruble Plunge, Sanctions Are Pressuring Car Makers to Produce in Russia - Russia Insider - 0 views

russia-insider.com/...2924

economic-warfare Russia ruble manufacturing autos

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • The crisis in the Russian automotive market, the decline of the local currency and the decline in sales since the beginning of 2014 confirm the carmaker Renault-Nissan to address the issue of localization of production with even more vigor.As the Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn announced in Davos at the 45th World Economic Forum, it is going ahead with forced localization and a withdrawal of the planning pace of new models in the high price sector. Ghosn in Davos told the Agency RIA Novosti: "All this together forces us to localize the production, and as soon as possible."
  • Paul Merrell on 29 Jan 15
     
    From the U.S. Neocon Department of This-Isn't-What_We_Wanted: With the decline in the ruble in the foreign exchange market and stiff trade sanctions on Russia, manufacturers are having to move manufacturing from Europe to Russia. 
Gary Edwards

Just 62 people control more wealth than half the world's population: study - CSMonitor.com - 1 views

www.csmonitor.com/...f-the-world-s-population-study

oxfam Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Oxfam argues that there are several reasons for why the disparity between rich and poor has become so vast, including what the report terms “the global spider’s web of tax havens and the industry of tax avoidance, which has blossomed over recent decades.”Oxfam estimates that nearly $7.6 trillion, or more than twice the combined GDP of the United Kingdom and Germany, is currently being held offshore.
  • The Oxfam study also suggests that the global economy’s push on the importance of capital over labor is another reason for widening inequality. This not only concentrates national incomes in the hands of those few that control it, Oxfam says, but has implications for private companies as well. It increases pay for executives while preventing many workers in the very lowest-paying jobs at the bottom from earning higher wages.
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Jan 16
     
    "A recent study conducted by Oxfam International indicates that just 62 people, 53 of them men, now control over half the world's wealth. The study, 'An Economy for the 1 Percent,' was released ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. The study from the anti-poverty NGO calculated that 62 people held the same amount of wealth as the world's 3.6 billion poorest citizens in 2015.  That's a huge drop from the estimated 388 people who controlled that amount of wealth in 2010, and the concentrated amount of wealth that those 62 people possess has increased by 44 percent over that same five-year period, to $1.76 trillion dollars. It is true that global poverty has declined substantially since 1990, according to Oxfam. However, the study found that at the same time that global wealth rose dramatically among the world's richest 1 percent, the relative wealth of those living in extreme poverty has declined dramatically since 2010, by approximately $1 trillion."
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Jan 16
     
    The divide between the haves and the have-nots has been deepening for decades and is well known. This year, the topic has become part of presidential election politics thanks to Bernie Sanders. But while the situation has no public defenders, we have yet to see a single piece of legislation submitted to remedy the situation. That leaves the situation as a talking point rather than the focus of remedial action, which leads to the conclusion that those who talk about it don't care enough about it to do anything to reverse the situation. Example, since the financial crash of 2007 we have no bill to reintroduce Glass\Seagall, no bill to break up the too-big-to-fail banks (which are no bigger than before), no bill to back the U.S. out of the trade agreements that have shipped millions of American jobs overseas, no bill to increase taxes for the wealthy, etc. Instead, we see a majority of members of Congreess voting to maintain the status quo, which is that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The cure? Step 1 is adoption of the We the People Amendment to get corporations and money out of the election process. https://movetoamend.org/wethepeopleamendment
Gary Edwards

George Soros on the Coming U.S. Class War:      Information Clearing House - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30347.htm

George-Soros Banksters Davos-elites Illuminati New-World-Order

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 12
     
    Excellent story on George Soros, the epitome of evil.  The man who seeks to destroy America and the ideals of individual liberty and natural rights.  Of course, Soros claims to be anything but the evil Bankster who backs Obama and international ruling elites seeking to take out the American Constitution, and replace it with a socialist-militarist-corporatist governance under the command and control of international Banksters. One thing not covered in this story is how the reptillion Soros rose within the ranks of the Bankster illuminati?  Who staked his 1972 hedge fund innovation?  Who helped him escape first National Socialism, and then International Socialism, to become the primary mover of a new International socialism run by international Banksters?  excerpt: To many, the idea of Soros lecturing the world on "evil" is, well, rich. Here, after all, is an investor who proved-and profited hugely from-the now much-derided notion that the market, or in his case a single investor, is more powerful than sovereign governments. He broke the Bank of England, destroyed the Conservative Party's reputation for economic competence, and reduced the value of the pound in British consumers' pockets by one fifth in a single day. Soros the currency speculator has been condemned as "unnecessary, unproductive, immoral." Mahathir Mohamad, former prime minister of Malaysia, once called him "criminal" and "a moron." In the U.S., where the right still has not forgiven him for agitating against President George W. Bush and the "war on terror" after 9/11, which he described as "pernicious," his prediction of riots on the streets-"it's already started," he says-will likely spark fresh criticism that Soros is a "far-left, radical bomb thrower," as Bill O'Reilly once put it. Critics already allege he is stoking the fires by funding the Occupy movement through Adbusters, the Canadian provocateurs who sparked the movement. Not so, says So
Paul Merrell

Leahy: NSA surveillance 'not making us safer' | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...rveillance-not-making-us-safer

surveillance state NSA NSA-reform Congress Leahy

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) warned about the government’s collection of massive quantities about data about American citizens on Wednesday.During a panel discussion titled “The Big Brother Problem" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Leahy said government officials “don’t make ourselves safer by wiretapping or investigating every single person.”“In the United States, which should be one of the freest countries to express yourself, we are collecting far too much information,” the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said. “It is not making us safer.”ADVERTISEMENTLeahy also compared the dangers posed by the National Security Agency’s (NSA) collection of information to abuses conducted by former longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover or the Nixon administration during the Watergate scandal.“Just because we can do it in the United States doesn’t mean we should,” he told the panel. “I don’t think it makes us safer any more than the horrible excesses of Watergate and J. Edgar Hoover and all made us safer. It made us less safe.”
Paul Merrell

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange warns: Google is not what it seems - 1 views

www.dailytimes.com.pk/...ns-google-is-not-what-it-seems

surveillance state internet freedom Google NSA

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Back in 2011, Julian Assange met up with Eric Schmidt for an interview that he considers the best he’s ever given. That doesn’t change, however, the opinion he now has about Schmidt and the company he represents, Google.In fact, the WikiLeaks leader doesn’t believe in the famous “Don’t Be Evil” mantra that Google has been preaching for years.Assange thinks both Schmidt and Google are at the exact opposite spectrum.“Nobody wants to acknowledge that Google has grown big and bad. But it has. Schmidt’s tenure as CEO saw Google integrate with the shadiest of US power structures as it expanded into a geographically invasive megacorporation. But Google has always been comfortable with this proximity,” Assange writes in an opinion piece for Newsweek.
  • “Long before company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin hired Schmidt in 2001, their initial research upon which Google was based had been partly funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). And even as Schmidt’s Google developed an image as the overly friendly giant of global tech, it was building a close relationship with the intelligence community,” Assange continues.Throughout the lengthy article, Assange goes on to explain how the 2011 meeting came to be and talks about the people the Google executive chairman brought along - Lisa Shields, then vice president of the Council on Foreign Relationship, Jared Cohen, who would later become the director of Google Ideas, and Scott Malcomson, the book’s editor, who would later become the speechwriter and principal advisor to Susan Rice.“At this point, the delegation was one part Google, three parts US foreign-policy establishment, but I was still none the wiser.” Assange goes on to explain the work Cohen was doing for the government prior to his appointment at Google and just how Schmidt himself plays a bigger role than previously thought.In fact, he says that his original image of Schmidt, as a politically unambitious Silicon Valley engineer, “a relic of the good old days of computer science graduate culture on the West Coast,” was wrong.
  • However, Assange concedes that that is not the sort of person who attends Bilderberg conferences, who regularly visits the White House, and who delivers speeches at the Davos Economic Forum.He claims that Schmidt’s emergence as Google’s “foreign minister” did not come out of nowhere, but it was “presaged by years of assimilation within US establishment networks of reputation and influence.” Assange makes further accusations that, well before Prism had even been dreamed of, the NSA was already systematically violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act under its director at the time, Michael Hayden. He states, however, that during the same period, namely around 2003, Google was accepting NSA money to provide the agency with search tools for its rapidly-growing database of information.Assange continues by saying that in 2008, Google helped launch the NGA spy satellite, the GeoEye-1, into space and that the search giant shares the photographs from the satellite with the US military and intelligence communities. Later on, 2010, after the Chinese government was accused of hacking Google, the company entered into a “formal information-sharing” relationship with the NSA, which would allow the NSA’s experts to evaluate the vulnerabilities in Google’s hardware and software.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • “Around the same time, Google was becoming involved in a program known as the “Enduring Security Framework” (ESF), which entailed the sharing of information between Silicon Valley tech companies and Pentagon-affiliated agencies at network speed.’’Emails obtained in 2014 under Freedom of Information requests show Schmidt and his fellow Googler Sergey Brin corresponding on first-name terms with NSA chief General Keith Alexander about ESF,” Assange writes.Assange seems to have a lot of backing to his statements, providing links left and right, which people can go check on their own.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Sep 15
     
    The "opinion piece for Newsweek" is an excerpt from Assange's new book, When Google met Wikileaks.  The chapter is well worth the read. http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447
Paul Merrell

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2015/january/23/foreign-t... - 0 views

www.ronpaulinstitute.org/...eign-troops-in-ukraine-you-bet

war & peace Ukraine Russia U.S.-foreign-policy boots-on-the-ground hypocrisy

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • US-backed president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, was among the elites gathering in Davos, Switzerland this week to attend the 2015 World Economic Forum. During his speech he made the remarkable claim that 9,000 Russian troops were currently fighting in Ukraine on behalf of the independence-seeking areas of the country. These 9,000 troops have brought with them tanks, heavy artillery, and armored vehicles, he claimed. "Is this not aggression?" he asked the gathered elites.The US was quick to amplify Poroshenko's claims
  • NATO agreed with the US government assessment, adding that the movement of heavy equipment from Russia into Ukraine had increased in pace recently.There appears to be a problem, however. The 9,000 troops and heavy weapons and equipment that purportedly accompanies them have been seen by no one. There are no satellite photos of what would certainly be a plainly visible incursion. We know from incredibly detailed satellite photos of Boko Haram's recent massacre in Nigeria that producing evidence of such large scale movement is entirely within the realm of US and NATO technological capabilities. Still there remains a lack of evidence. Moreover, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is on the ground monitoring the border crossings between Ukraine and Russia, reported just this week that, "At the two BCPs (border crossing points) the OM (observer mission) did not observe military movement, apart from vehicles of the Russian Federation border guard service." If there has been an increase of Russian heavy weapons into Ukraine, why are the satellites in the skies and the eyes on the ground blind to them?
  • US military on the ground in Ukraine is a significant escalation, far beyond the previous deployment of additional US and NATO troops in neighboring Poland and the Baltics.Additionally, the US announced it was transferring heavy military equipment to the Ukrainian armed forces, including the Kozak mine-resistant personnel carrier and some 35 other armored trucks.The US government has reportedly set aside several million dollars to help train the Ukrainian national guard. Considering the fact that the national guard was only re-formed after last year's US-backed coup and is made up in large part of neo-Nazis from the extremist Right Sector, one would hope some of the money is spent dissuading members from such an odious ideology.So there may well be Russian troops and equipment on the ground in Ukraine -- though so far no proof exists and the Russians deny it. But we know very well that there are US troops and heavy military equipment on the ground in Ukraine because the US openly admits it! So Russia has no business claiming interest in unrest on its doorstep, but the US has every right to become militarily involved in a conflict which has nothing to do with us nearly 5,000 miles away? Interventionist illogic.
Paul Merrell

Richest One Percent Bagged 82 Percent of Global Wealth - Poorest Half of Humanity Got N... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5626929

global-economy wealth-transfer income-inequality

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • Eighty two percent of the wealth generated last year went to the richest one percent of the global population, while the 3.7 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world saw no increase in their wealth, according to a new Oxfam report released today.  The report is being launched as political and business elites gather for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. ‘Reward Work, Not Wealth’ reveals how the global economy enables a wealthy elite to accumulate vast fortunes while hundreds of millions of people are struggling to survive on poverty pay. Billionaire wealth has risen by an annual average of 13 percent since 2010 – six times faster than the wages of ordinary workers, which have risen by a yearly average of just 2 percent. The number of billionaires rose at an unprecedented rate of one every two days between March 2016 and March 2017. It takes just four days for a CEO from one of the top five global fashion brands to earn what a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn in her lifetime. In the US, it takes slightly over one working day for a CEO to earn what an ordinary worker makes in a year. It would cost $2.2 billion a year to increase the wages of all 2.5 million Vietnamese garment workers to a living wage. This is about a third of the amount paid out to wealthy shareholders by the top 5 companies in the garment sector in 2016.
Paul Merrell

'We're going to have nothing to do with (peace process) any longer' -- Trump threatens ... - 0 views

mondoweiss.net/...process-threatens-palestinians

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Israel Palestine peace-talks Trump

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • Today at joint press appearance with Benjamin Netanyahu in Davos, Switzerland, Donald Trump bragged that the U.S. had taken “the toughest issue” — Jerusalem– “off the table” with his embassy announcement. “We don’t have to talk about it anymore.” But if the Palestinians don’t accept his Jerusalem announcement and don’t agree to negotiate peace with the Israelis, the U.S. was “going to have nothing to do with it any longer.” Trump issued that warning in the context of threatening to withdraw hundreds of millions of aid from Palestine unless its leaders negotiate. When they disrespected us a week ago by not allowing our great Vice President to see them — and we give them hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and support… That money is on the table, and that money is not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace. Because I can tell you that Israel does want to make peace. And they’re going to have to want to make peace too, or we’re going to have nothing to do with it any longer. The president also said that the U.S. will have a “small version” of the Embassy opened in Jerusalem ahead of schedule in 2019.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 18
     
    Actual policy or mere threat? The Palestinians seem serious about boycotting peace talks where the U.S. acts in the mediator role, in the wake of the illegal U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
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