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Paul Merrell

Iran No Longer Accepting Dollars For Oil, Demanding Euros Instead - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...213505

war & peace economic-warfare Iran Euros petrodollar banksters

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Even with a number of U.S. sanctions against Iran coming to an end, the Iranian government has recently made a very important decision in regards to its oil payment system and it could spell bad news for the United States. This is because Iran has apparently decided to no longer accept U.S. dollars for payment on both its new and outstanding oil sales. Instead it will receive its payment in euros. Reuters has cited an official from the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) as stating that the new plan will apply to “newly signed deals” with France’s Total, Russia’s Lukoil, and Spain’s Cepsa. Reuters quotes the official as saying that “In our invoices we mention a clause that buyers of our oil will have to pay in euros, considering the exchange rate versus the dollar around the time of delivery.”   In addition, Iran is also informing its trading partners, including India, that owe billions of dollars that it now prefers to be paid in euros instead of dollars. “Iran shifted to the euro and cancelled trade in dollars because of political reasons,” the official source said, pointing out that this policy was concocted during the time of the sanctions.
Gary Edwards

How American Corporations Transformed from Producers to Predators - 1 views

www.nakedcapitalism.com/...om-producers-to-predators.html

Agenda-21 Banksters Pantheists Corporatists Yves-Smith Sustainability

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Apr 12
     
    Bankster hunter and economist Yves Smith has posted a collection of comments from William Lazonick, professor of economics and director of the UMass Center for Industrial Competitiveness. His book, "Sustainable Prosperity in the New Economy? Business Organization and High-Tech Employment in the United States" (Upjohn Institute, 2009) won the 2010 Schumpeter Prize. Lazonick traces the history of US Corporations as they transitioned from their historical reliance on investing in the productive capacity of their employees to, the financial game of increasing their share prices. He class this the "financialization" of Corporate America. And it's been a disaster. The history looks like a very good read, but i really disagree with Lazonick's recommendations. Maybe the title of his book is a dead giveaway of where Lazonick's head is really at. He uses the word "sustainability". A word that has come to represent the tyranny of a new world order: Globalism. This is where the Banksters and Corporatist impose a tyranny of financial control using a mechanism of United Nations "Agenda 21" based socialism. Sustainability is the unifying themes linking the tyranny of UN Agenda 21 to pantheistic socialism and control of globalist Banksters and their Corporate cronies. So his remedies trouble me greatly. And what would i do? End all income tax (and the IRS), and levy an immediate 33% tariff on all imports. Of course, that will be difficult because the Globalist (Banksters, Corporatists, Pantheists and Agenda 21 types) all support open trade policies. Good read though.
Gary Edwards

Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank: David Reilly - Bloomberg - 1 views

www.bloomberg.com/...barney-frank-david-reilly.html

Dodd-Frank-Act banksters financial-collapse Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Nov 13
     
    excerpt: "While banks opposed the legislation, they should cheer for its passage by the full Congress in the New Year: There are huge giveaways insuring the government will again rescue banks and Wall Street if the need arises. Nuggets Gleaned Here are some of the nuggets I gleaned from days spent reading Frank's handiwork: -- For all its heft, the bill doesn't once mention the words "too-big-to-fail," the main issue confronting the financial system. Admitting you have a problem, as any 12- stepper knows, is the crucial first step toward recovery. -- Instead, it supports the biggest banks. It authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. So much for "no-more-bailouts" talk. That is more than twice what the Fed pumped into markets this time around. The size of the fund makes the bribes in the Senate's health-care bill look minuscule. -- Oh, hold on, the Federal Reserve and Treasury Secretary can't authorize these funds unless "there is at least a 99 percent likelihood that all funds and interest will be paid back." Too bad the same models used to foresee the housing meltdown probably will be used to predict this likelihood as well. More Bailouts -- The bill also allows the government, in a crisis, to back financial firms' debts. Bondholders can sleep easy -- there are more bailouts to come. -- The legislation does create a council of regulators to spot risks to the financial system and big financial firms. Unfortunately this group is made up of folks who missed the problems that led to the current crisis. -- Don't worry, this time regulators will have better tools. Six months after being created, the council will report to Congress on "whether setting up an electronic database" would be a help. Maybe they'll even get to use that Internet thingy. -- This group, among its many powers, can restrict the ability of a financial firm to trade for its own account. Perha
Paul Merrell

And the Winner of the 'War On Terror' Financed Dream Home 2014 Giveaway Is… -... - 0 views

firstlook.org/...anced-dream-home-2014-giveaway

corruption Freeh Kazeminy

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Oceanfront views, 24-hour doorman, heated pool, and perhaps best of all, a “private tunnel to the beach.” This $3 million Palm Beach, Florida penthouse could be yours, but unfortunately it isn’t because this prize has already been claimed by a former high-level U.S. official who helped pave the way for the over decade-long “war on terror,” which has been a near complete catastrophe. Iraq is aflame, the Islamic State is on the rampage, the situation in Afghanistan worsens by the day, and thousands of Americans—and many more Iraqis and Afghans—have died during the post-9/11 conflicts. Meanwhile, the combined cost of the “war on terror” comes to an estimated $1.6 trillion. But if the American people got screwed on the deal, a lot of former senior government officials who played important roles in this debacle have done quite well for themselves. It’s New Year’s Eve and I need to write a final sendoff to 2014, so I thought I’d take a look at the fortunes (literally) of some of these figures: Former CIA director George Tenet and former FBI director Louis Freeh (I’ll cover former Department of Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge in a New Year’s post).
  • Freeh resigned from the FBI two months before 9/11. When he worked there he was making an annual salary of $145,000 and lived “in a heavily mortgaged house in Great Falls, a Virginia suburb,” according to an old and admiring New Yorker profile. He and his wife now own at least four lavish estates worth many millions of dollars, including a residence in Wilmington, Delaware, a six-bedroom summerhouse worth more than $3 million in Vermont, and a beachfront penthouse at 100 Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, Florida, which was bought for $1.4 million and now has an estimated value of $3 million. How’d that happen? Well, Freeh is one of many former U.S. officials who got paid big speaking fees (reportedly up to $50,000 a pop) by a creepy Iranian group called the People’s Mujahedin, also known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq, or MEK, to successfully advocate for its removal from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. He also opened up a consulting firm whose clients have included Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar, who the U.S. Department of Justice accused of taking massive bribes from a British defense contractor. That’s right, Freeh represented a prince from America’s old pal Saudi Arabia, home to fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, and whose export of Wahhabism is credited with giving rising to the Islamic State.
  • Freeh is also hired to conduct investigations, like the controversial report he produced about Penn State’s football program. Nasser Kazeminy, a Minnesota businessman who in 2008 was accused of bribing former Senator Norm Coleman, also hired Freeh to conduct a “thorough investigation” of the allegations against him in the hopes of clearing his name.
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  • In 2011, Freeh issued a public statement saying that his investigation had “completely vindicated” both Kazeminy and Coleman. Sure, Kazeminy had bought Coleman $100,000 worth of presents, but, Freeh said at a press conference, “There was no quid pro quo in the gifts. There was no wrongdoing.” Freeh also met with the Justice Department – which was investigating the bribery charges but declined to bring a case—on Kazeminy’s behalf. Oh yeah, about Freeh’s Palm Beach penthouse. As I discovered through Florida property records, Freeh’s wife co-owns it with Kazeminy, which kind of makes you wonder about just how thorough and impartial his investigation was. The quit claim deed giving Freeh’s wife one-half ownership of the penthouse was signed nine days after Freeh’s vindication of Kazeminy.
ashkif as

Golden Ticket Giveaway Contest Details - BudExpressNOW.ca - 0 views

www.portalmarkets.com/...44558.html

giveaway contest details ticket

shared by ashkif as on 15 Dec 18 - No Cached
  • ashkif as on 15 Dec 18
     
    During our 12 days of Cannabis Christmas specials, only two winners will be randomly selected each day to receive a prize pack worth $150! Keep an eye out for a Golden Ticket in your package! Tweet$(document).ready(function() {var media = $('img[src*=\'oc-content/uploads/\']').attr('src'); if(media==undefined) { media = ''; $('.pinterest').remove(); } else { media = '&media='+escape(media); };$('.pinterest').find('a').attr('href','http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url='+escape(document.URL...
Paul Merrell

The shocking numbers behind corporate welfare | Al Jazeera America - 0 views

america.aljazeera.com/...lfaresubsidiesboeingalcoa.html

corporate-welfare

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • 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.
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  • Taxpayers who want to understand the full dimension of their burdens should demand that Congress require and pay for detailed annual statistical reports showing every federal, state and local subsidy received by corporations, including the value of indirect subsidies like those perpetual rights of way to pipelines and other legal monopolies. Without that information, we have no idea of the true cost of welfare or the cost of propping up companies that, evidently, cannot make their way on their own.
Joseph Skues

We're Not Broke: Congress -Here's $400 Billion In New Annual Revenue « SpeakEasy - 0 views

blogs.alternet.org/...400-billion

not broke we're congress TAXES SNYDER

shared by Joseph Skues on 08 Apr 11 - Cached
  • Congress has blown holes in our tax code, losing hundreds of billions in revenue. Worse, lawmakers have averted their eyes as corporate lobbyists drill new tax loopholes and extract new corporate welfare subsidies.
  • How else can we explain how a profitable company like General Electric pays no taxes?
  • Other huge global companies such as Verizon, Boeing, ExxonMobil, and Bank of America also pay no taxes.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • They pretend to earn their profits offshore and then report their paper losses here in the United States–so they don’t have to pay the IRS a dime.
  • f U.S. millionaires and billionaires paid taxes based on 1961 tax rules, we would have raised an additional $231 billion in federal revenue this year.
  • By reversing years of tax giveaways to America’s rich and the corporations that enrich them, Congress could raise trillions in revenue. We could fund the public structures that safeguard our families and our future.
  • a modest financial transaction tax on the transfers of stock, currency, and speculative investments that do little to strengthen the real economy
  • reduce corporate tax dodging by closing overseas tax havens and requiring companies to pay U.S. taxes on the profits they actually earn in this country. This could generate as much as $100 billion a year.
  • new top tax rates on households with annual incomes over $1 million, which could generate another $100 billion a year.
  • a progressive estate tax on fortunes over $5 million, with higher rates on billionaire estates. That would generate $45 billion a year.
  • aking all four of these straightforward steps could raise a total of approximately $400 billion per year.
  • But that doesn’t mean we’re broke. It just means we need to get our priorities straight.
  • Originally Published in OtherWords.
  • Senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies where I direct the Program on Inequality and the Common Good (www.ips-dc.org/inequality). Co-founder of Wealth for the Common Good (www.wealthforcommongood.org). Co-author with Bill Gates Sr. of Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes. Co-author with Mary Wright of The Moral Measure of the Economy.
  • Joseph Skues on 08 Apr 11
     
    Here is the proof we are well off and not broke.
Paul Merrell

The Economic Scam of the Century » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the N... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...e-economic-scam-of-the-century

banksters bail-outs legislation

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • The leaders of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee,  Sen. Tim Johnson (D., S.D.) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R., Idaho),  released a draft bill on Sunday that would provide explicit government guarantees on mortgage-backed securities (MBS) generated by privately-owned banks and financial institutions. The gigantic giveaway to Wall Street would put US taxpayers on the hook for 90 percent of the losses on toxic MBS the likes of which crashed the financial system in 2008 plunging the economy into the deepest slump since the Great Depression. Proponents of the bill say that new rules by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) –which set standards for a “qualified mortgage” (QM)– assure that borrowers will be able to repay their loans thus reducing the chances of a similar meltdown in the future. However, those QE rules were largely shaped by lobbyists and attorneys from the banking industry who eviscerated strict underwriting requirements– like high FICO scores and 20 percent down payments– in order to lend freely to borrowers who may be less able to repay their loans.  Additionally, a particularly lethal clause has been inserted into the bill that would provide blanket coverage for all MBS  (whether they met the CFPB’s QE standard or not) in the event of another financial crisis. Here’s the paragraph:
  • “Sec.305. Authority to protect taxpayers in unusual and exigent market conditions…. If the Corporation, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, determine that unusual and exigent circumstances threaten mortgage credit availability within the U.S. housing market, FMIC may provide insurance on covered securities that do not meet the requirements under section 302 including those for first loss position of private market holders.” (“Freddie And Fannie Reform – The Monster Has Arrived”, Zero Hedge) In other words, if the bill passes,  US taxpayers will be responsible for any and all bailouts deemed necessary by the regulators mentioned above.  And, since all of those regulators are in Wall Street’s hip-pocket, there’s no question what they’ll do when the time comes. They’ll bailout they’re fatcat buddies and dump the losses on John Q. Public. If you can’t believe what you are reading or if you think that the system is so thoroughly corrupt it can’t be fixed; you’re not alone. This latest outrage just confirms that the Congress, the executive and all the chief regulators are mere marionettes performing whatever task is asked of them by their Wall Street paymasters.
Paul Merrell

Louis Freeh's Latest Investigation: Billionaire Businessman Accused of Bribing African ... - 0 views

firstlook.org/...sed-bribing-african-government

corruption Freeh FBI Steinmetz

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Louis Freeh, the former FBI director whose wife was deeded half of a $3 million beachside penthouse by a businessman–just nine days after Freeh cleared that same businessman of wrongdoing–is onto a new job: Helping exonerate a billionaire businessman accused of bribing an African government. As I reported here the other day, Freeh has made piles of money since leaving government service by hiring himself out to conduct allegedly independent corporate and political investigations.  These investigations are clearly a growth business, because now Freeh’s firm is helping coordinate the defense of an Israeli billionaire who is being investigated on three continents in regard to bribes he allegedly paid to win a mining stake in one of the world’s poorest countries.
  • The case involves Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz, who controls BSGR, a holding company that in 2008 obtained a huge stake in a gigantic iron mine in the West African nation of Guinea. BSGR reportedly paid nothing for its rights to Simandou and two years later flipped 51% of its stake to a Brazilian mining giant for $2.5 billion – twice the size of Guinea’s annual budget. The deal was consummated two weeks before the death of Lansana Conté, a homicidal dictator who had ruled since a 1984 coup. An investigation by the current government of Guinea found that a shell company controlled by BSGR paid at least $2.4 million to Mamadie Touré, a wife of the former dictator, in return for her help in acquiring the rights to the mine for BSGR. Earlier this year the government annulled BSGR’s stake in the mine, saying the firm had obtained it through corruption. Police in France and Switzerland raided offices linked to Steinmetz, and in the United States, there is an ongoing court case in the Southern District of New York about the Simandou affair as well as a huge Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation led by the Justice Department. The Justice Department could indict Steinmetz if it’s shown that he played a direct role in paying bribes. (See this fantastic New Yorker account if you want the full story. Also see the great work by Global Witness.)
Paul Merrell

NATO Finds Arab Backdoor to Arm Kiev | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...inds-arab-backdoor-to-arm-kiev

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Ukraine UAE weapons-transfers

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The announcement this week that the Kiev regime struck a major deal with the United Arab Emirates for military weapons raises strong suspicions that the US-led NATO alliance has found a new backdoor into Ukraine. We say «new» because it is believed that the US and its NATO allies, Poland and Lithuania, are already covertly supplying weapons to the Kiev regime. 
  • Kiev President Petro Poroshenko hailed the new strategic partnership with the Persian Gulf kingdom while attending the International Defence Exhibition (IDEX) in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi. Poroshenko, who was royally received by UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al Nayhan, declared himself a «president of peace» but that Ukraine, or rather the rump state that his regime commands, needed strong defence because of its «Russian enemy». A giveaway to the real significance of the surprise development is that Poroshenko and his Arab hosts also reportedly held discreet meetings with Pentagon officials and US weapons manufacturing executives during the weapons exhibition. That indicates that Washington is coordinating the expected arms transfers.
  • Although the Kiev-UAE partnership lacked any public detail, one can safely assume that the Arab supply of weapons to Ukraine is simply a conduit for American and NATO military support to the Western-backed junta, which seized power in Ukraine last year in an illegal coup. Its war of aggression on the separatist eastern Ukraine has inflicted at least 6,000 deaths, mainly among the ethnic Russian civilian population. Earlier this month it soon became clear that Washington and its NATO allies would pay a heavy political price for an audacious move to openly increase their military involvement in the Ukraine conflict. When Washington announced that it intended to go ahead with Congressional provisions to send «lethal aid» to Kiev there was much international consternation over such a reckless move. Moscow warned Washington that any further military support to the reactionary, anti-Russian Kiev regime on its western border would constitute a «disastrous escalation». US President Barack Obama then appeared to back off from the proposal to supply lethal munitions. America’s normally servile European allies also baulked at the Washington arms move. Germany, France and even Britain indicated disproval by stating that they would not be following suite by sending arms to Ukraine. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel was perhaps the most forthright in her reservations. While on an official visit to Washington she reiterated her «no weapons» position to US media while being received in the White House by Obama.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • No doubt a disgruntled European public reeling from economic austerity, unemployment and seething contempt for unaccountable EU leaders had a concentrating effect on the various political capitals to not throw more fuel on an already raging Ukrainian fire. The idea of going along with incendiary American militarism in Ukraine and further antagonising Russia would provoke a political storm across Europe. Hence the usually trusty European «yes men» had to defy Washington’s recklessness. That incipient divergence between the US and EU appeared to unnerve Washington, with the latter fearing that its anti-Russian axis and sanctions tactics might be unravelling. President Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry were at pains to emphasise American-European «unity» over Ukraine and alleged «Russian aggression» – in spite of the fact that European leaders were, publicly at least, repudiating Washington’s weapons policy. So, rather than risking an open split in the NATO ranks, Washington and its allies seem to have found an ingenious way around that problem – by getting the UAE to be the front end for weapons supplied to the Kiev regime.
Paul Merrell

Lawmakers Say TPP Meetings Classified To Keep Americans in the Dark | Global Research - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5437233

U.S.-foreign-policy trade agreements TPP secrecy Congress

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • US Trade Representative Michael Froman is drawing fire from Congressional Democrats for the Obama adminstration’s continued imposition of secrecy surrounding the Trans-Pacific Parternship. (Photo: AP file) Democratic lawmaker says tightly-controlled briefings on Trans-Pacific Partnership deal are aimed at keeping US constituents ignorant about what’s at stake Lawmakers in Congress who remain wary of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement are raising further objections this week to the degree of secrecy surrounding briefings on the deal, with some arguing that the main reason at least one meeting has been registered “classified” is to help keep the American public ignorant about giveaways to corporate interests and its long-term implications.
  • As The Hill reports: Members will be allowed to attend the briefing on the proposed trade pact with 12 Latin American and Asian countries with one staff member who possesses an “active Secret-level or high clearance” compliant with House security rules. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told The Hill that the administration is being “needlessly secretive.” “Even now, when they are finally beginning to share details of the proposed deal with members of Congress, they are denying us the ability to consult with our staff or discuss details of the agreement with experts,” DeLauro told The Hill. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) condemned the classified briefing. “Making it classified further ensures that, even if we accidentally learn something, we cannot share it. What is [Froman]working so hard to hide? What is the specific legal basis for all this senseless secrecy?” Doggett said to The Hill. “Open trade should begin with open access,” Doggett said. “Members expected to vote on trade deals should be able to read the unredacted negotiating text.”
  • “I’m not happy about it,” Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) told the Huffington Post, referring to the briefing with Froman and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez on Wednesday. The meeting—focused on the section of the TPP that deals with the controversial ‘Investor-State Dispute Settlement’ (ISDS) mechanism—has been labeled “classified,” so that lawmakers and any of their staff who attend will be barred, under threat of punishment, of revealing what they learn with constituents or outside experts. According to the Huffington Post: ISDS has been part of U.S. free trade agreements since NAFTA was signed into law in 1993, and has become a particularly popular tool for multinational firms over the past few years. But while the topic remains controversial, particularly with Democrats, many critics of the administration emphasize that applying national security-style restrictions on such information is an abuse of the classified information system. An additional meeting earlier on Wednesday on currency manipulation with Froman and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is not classified.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Among its other critics, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has slammed the idea of ISDS provisions as a surrender of democratic ideals to corporate interests. According to Warren, ISDS would simply “tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big multinational corporations.” By having unchallenged input on secretive TPP talks, Warren argued last month, these large companies and financial interests “are increasingly realizing this is an opportunity to gut U.S. regulations they don’t like.” According to Grayson, putting Wednesday’s ISDS briefing in a classified setting “is part of a multi-year campaign of deception and destruction. Why do we classify information? It’s to keep sensitive information out of the hands of foreign governments. In this case, foreign governments already have this information. They’re the people the administration is negotiating with. The only purpose of classifying this information is to keep it from the American people.”
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