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Paul Merrell

Empire Slayer: Poll: Overwhelming US Majority Says Israel Should Receive No Aid Boost due to US / Iran "Deal" - 0 views

www.empireslayer.org/...whelming-us-majority-says.html

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Israel foreign-aid polls

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • 67.8% of respondents to a Google Consumer Survey said Israel should receive no compensation for the US finalizing a deal with Iran over its civilian nuclear program, which was begun at the behest of the US when Washington’s puppet, the Shah, one of the world’s worst human rights violators, ruled over Iran. Obama is currently offering Israel increased aid to compensate for the agreement.  Israel is the biggest recipient of US aid at over $3 billion per year, and Obama has increased aid to Israel after each of Israel’s major massacres in the Gaza refugee camp since Obama assumed power.
Paul Merrell

Time for the Nuclear Option: Raining Money on Main Street | WEB OF DEBT BLOG - 0 views

ellenbrown.com/...n-raining-money-on-main-street

economy financial-stimulus printing-press

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Predictions are that we will soon be seeing the “nuclear option” — central bank-created money injected directly into the real economy. All other options having failed, governments will be reduced to issuing money outright to cover budget deficits. So warns a September 18 article on ZeroHedge titled “It Begins: Australia’s Largest Investment Bank Just Said ‘Helicopter Money’ Is 12-18 Months Away.” Money reformers will say it’s about time. Virtually all money today is created as bank debt, but people can no longer take on more debt. The money supply has shrunk along with people’s ability to borrow new money into existence. Quantitative easing (QE) attempts to re-inflate the money supply by giving money to banks to create more debt, but that policy has failed. It’s time to try dropping some debt-free money on Main Street. The Zerohedge prediction is based on a release from Macqurie, Australia’s largest investment bank. It notes that GDP is contracting, deflationary pressures are accelerating, public and private sectors are not driving the velocity of money higher, and central bank injections of liquidity are losing their effectiveness. Current policies are not working. As a result:
  • There are several policies that could be and probably would be considered over the next 12-18 months. If private sector lacks confidence and visibility to raise velocity of money, then (arguably) public sector could. In other words, instead of acting via bond markets and banking sector, why shouldn’t public sector bypass markets altogether and inject stimulus directly into the ‘blood stream’? Whilst it might or might not be called QE, it would have a much stronger impact and unlike the last seven years, the recovery could actually mimic a conventional business cycle and investors would soon start discussing multiplier effects and positioning in areas of greatest investment.  Willem Buiter, chief global economist at Citigroup, is also recommending “helicopter money drops” to avoid an imminent global recession, stating: A global recession starting in 2016 led by China is now our Global Economics team’s main scenario. Uncertainty remains, but the likelihood of a timely and effective policy response seems to be diminishing. . . . Helicopter money drops in China, the euro area, the UK, and the U.S. and debt restructuring . . . can mitigate and, if implemented immediately, prevent a recession during the next two years without raising the risk of a deeper and longer recession later.
  • In the UK, something akin to a helicopter money drop was just put on the table by Jeremy Corbyn, the newly-elected Labor leader. He proposes to give the Bank of England a new mandate to upgrade the economy to invest in new large scale housing, energy, transport and digital projects. He calls it “quantitative easing for people instead of banks” (PQE). The investments would be made through a National Investment Bank set up to invest in new infrastructure and in the hi-tech innovative industries of the future. Australian blogger Prof. Bill Mitchell agrees that PQE is economically sound. But he says it should not be called “quantitative easing.” QE is just an asset swap – cash for federal securities or mortgage-backed securities on bank balance sheets. What Corbyn is proposing is actually Overt Money Financing (OMF) – injecting money directly into the economy. Mitchell acknowledges that OMF is a taboo concept in mainstream economics. Allegedly, this is because it would lead to hyperinflation. But the real reasons, he says, are that: It cuts out the private sector bond traders from their dose of corporate welfare which unlike other forms of welfare like sickness and unemployment benefits etc. has made the recipients rich in the extreme. . . . It takes away the ‘debt monkey’ that is used to clobber governments that seek to run larger fiscal deficits.
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  • Tim Worstall, writing in the UK Register, objects to Corbyn’s PQE (or OMF) on the ground that it cannot be “sterilized” the way QE can. When inflation hits, the process cannot be reversed. If the money is spent on infrastructure, it will be out there circulating in the economy and will not be retrievable. Worstall writes: QE is designed to be temporary, . . . because once people’s spending rates recover we need a way of taking all that extra money out of the economy. So we do it by using printed money to buy bonds, which injects the money into the economy, and then sell those bonds back once we need to withdraw the money from the economy, and simply destroy the money we’ve raised. . . . If we don’t have any bonds to sell, it’s not clear how we can reduce [the money supply] if large-scale inflation hits.
  • The problem today, however, is not inflation but deflation of the money supply. Some consumer prices may be up, but this can happen although the money supply is shrinking. Food prices, for example, are up; but it’s because of increased costs, including drought in California, climate change, and mergers and acquisitions by big corporations that eliminate competition. Adding money to the economy will not drive up prices until demand is saturated and production has hit full capacity; and we’re a long way from full capacity now. Before that, increasing “demand” will increase “supply.” Producers will create more goods and services. Supply and demand will rise together and prices will remain stable. In the US, the output gap – the difference between actual output and potential output – is estimated at about $1 trillion annually. That means the money supply could be increased by at least $1 trillion annually without driving up prices.
  • If PQE does go beyond full productive capacity, the government does not need to rely on the central bank to pull the money back. It can do this with taxes. Just as loans increase the money supply and repaying them shrinks it again, so taxes and other payments to the government will shrink a money supply augmented with money issued by the government. Using 2012 figures (drawing from an earlier article by this author), the velocity of M1 (the coins, dollar bills and demand deposits spent by ordinary consumers) was then 7. That means M1 changed hands seven times during 2012 – from housewife to grocer to farmer, etc. Since each recipient owed taxes on this money, increasing M1 by one dollar increased the tax base by seven dollars. Total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP in 2012 was 24.3%. Extrapolating from those figures, $1.00 changing hands seven times could increase tax revenue by $7.00 x 24.3% = $1.70. That means the government could, in theory, get more back in taxes than it paid out. Even with some leakage in those figures and deductions for costs, all or most of the new money spent into the economy might be taxed back to the government. New money could be pumped out every year and the money supply would increase little if at all.
  • Besides taxes, other ways to get money back into the Treasury include closing tax loopholes, taxing the $21 trillion or more hidden in offshore tax havens, and setting up a system of public banks that would return the interest on loans to the government. Net interest collected by U.S. banks in 2014 was $423 billion. At its high in 2007, it was $725 billion. Thus there are many ways to recycle an issue of new money back to the government. The same money could be spent and collected back year after year, without creating price inflation or hyperinflating the money supply. This not only could be done; it needs to be done. Conventional monetary policy has failed. Central banks have exhausted their existing toolboxes and need to explore some innovative alternatives.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Sep 15
     
    Debt having failed as a method of money creation leads us back to the printing press method. But on whom are those helicopters to drop their new money? And how to we ensure that the banksters are not among them?
Paul Merrell

Victory! World's Largest Nation Bans GMO Food Crops | New Eastern Outlook - 0 views

m.journal-neo.org/...est-nation-bans-gmo-food-crops

GMOs economic-warfare Russia homesteads

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Victories are to be celebrated and for the future of healthy life on our planet we all can celebrate a beautiful victory. The world’s largest nation, the Russian Federation, whose landmass spans Eurasia from the Baltic and Ukraine on the west to Vladivostock and the Pacific on her east, has formally declared all commercial planting of Genetically Modified Organisms, GMOs, to be prohibited. The issue has been subject of a heated debate for some months inside Russia. In February 2014, just days prior to the US-orchestrated coup d’etat in Ukraine, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev created a national research project to obtain scientific information so the Government and Duma might make a decision on GMOs in Russia. Now a definitive decision has been made, and it goes against Monsanto and the US-led GMO cartel. We can say Russia’s crisis has concentrated minds on the essentials of life.
  • Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dorkovich told an international biotechnology conference in Kirov September 18, “As far as genetically-modified organisms are concerned, we have made the decision not to use any GMO in food productions.” Last year the Duma or parliament voted to make tough GMO labeling laws as a first step to the new ban in order to inform consumers of presence of GMO in various foods they buy. That was before US and EU sanctions led to Russian counter-sanctions against EU imports of agriculture products. In August 2014, the Russian government announced its bans on import from the EU and several other countries of meat, fish, dairy products, fruit and vegetables as a response to the sanctions. It produced surprising results. Since the imposition of tough Russian food import bans, Russian agriculture has undergone a spectacular rebirth.
  • This July, taking a page out of American history, the Russian government announced it was drafting a Russian “Homestead Act.” The Russian government is finalizing a bill which will give an opportunity to every Russian citizen to obtain one hectare of land, or a maximum of five hectares for a family of five, in the Russian Far East for free. They can use the land to farm, to do forestry or simply build a home and live, so long as they use the land for the first five years. After, they own the land free if the plot has been used for activities not banned by Russian laws, reported TASS. In the case of non-use the land will be confiscated and revert back to the government. Foreigners will have no right to get the free land. The new land law, if passed in the Duma, will take effect in January, 2016.
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  • Food production in Russia’s under-populated far-east region is also set to boom. On September 3 in Vladivostok at the first Eastern Economic Forum, Russia’s Agriculture Ministry announced the creation of a new $10 billion agriculture development fund together with China. A number of financial institutions, including Russia’s state-owned Sberbank, will participate in its operations. The aim of the fund is to stimulate the production of 10 million tons of grain and agricultural products annually, beginning 2020.
  • A recent poll suggests there is significant interest in the offer, with some 30 million mostly young Russians ready to “go east.” Following the economic devastation of Russia during the Yeltsin era of the 1990s, eastern regions suffered economic collapse and significant depopulation as people migrated to cities to survive. Into this broader context of recent developments, the definitive government ban on growing GMO crops in the Russian Federation adds a major new attraction. Russia stands to become one of the world’s most desired producers of natural, organic non-GMO-contaminated food for the world. Today, the once-great American agriculture has been de-humanized, industrialized, by giant agribusiness concerns, and contaminated by Monsanto and GMO plants along with its deadly herbicides containing toxic glyphosate. More than 80% of all US corn is GMO and almost 100% of USA soybeans. This is no small matter. Exports of GMO soybeans and corn are allowed unlabeled, by loopholes, into the European Union as well as into China. That means that most of the meat and even farmed fish that European and Chinese consumers eat contains indirect GMO crops and toxins. In light of all this it might make sense to treat Russia a little more politely in the future if we want to eat healthy food. They are doing what we should be doing, but don’t. Why?
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Oct 15
     
    5 hectares == 12.35 acres. Times 30 million Russians == 370.5 million acres less space for a home and a driveway. That's a lot of new agricultural production.  Bear in mind that Russia imported most of its food from Europe before the Ukraine sanctions. This article is about the evaporation of foreign trade that Europe will never get back.And it's about new Russian agricultural exports to China. Perhaps even about eventual exports to the U.S. for those who want a "GMO-free" label on their food. This is very bad news for Monsanto and other biotech companies in the U.S, especially a few years down the road when other countries begin importing Russian GMO-free food.  
Paul Merrell

Shell stops Arctic activity after 'disappointing' tests - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...business-34377434

environment climate change arctic-drilling Shell

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Royal Dutch Shell has stopped Arctic oil and gas exploration off the coast of Alaska after "disappointing" results from a key well in the Chukchi Sea.In a surprise announcement, the company said it would end exploration off Alaska "for the foreseeable future".Shell said it did not find sufficient amounts of oil and gas in the Burger J well to warrant further exploration.The company has spent about $7bn (£4.5bn) on Arctic offshore development in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas."Shell continues to see important exploration potential in the basin, and the area is likely to ultimately be of strategic importance to Alaska and the US," said Marvin Odum, president of Shell USA. "However, this is a clearly disappointing exploration outcome for this part of the basin."
  • Indeed some analysts suggested Shell might give up on the Arctic completely. "It is possible that Shell might almost be relieved as they can stop exploration for a legitimate operational reason, rather than being seen to bow to environmental pressure," Stuart Elliott from energy information group Platts told the BBC."With the oil price around $50 a barrel, it was a risky endeavour with no guarantee of success. "You could argue that this has been bad for Shell's reputation and it wouldn't be a big surprise if they abandoned Arctic drilling altogether."
  • So, what changed?Certainly, the first findings from the Burger J exploration well 150 miles off the Alaskan coast were not promising.Second, although President Barack Obama had given the necessary permissions for drilling to start again following the problems of rig fires in 2012, Mrs Clinton's tweet revealed that political risks were still substantial.
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  • The US Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic holds about 30% of the world's undiscovered natural gas, as well as 13% of its oil.According to Shell, this amounts to around 400 billion barrels of oil equivalent, 10 times the total oil and gas produced in the North Sea to date.
  • However, environmental groups oppose Arctic offshore drilling, saying it will pollute and damage a natural wilderness largely untouched by human activity. They also argue that fossil fuels such as oil and gas must be left in the ground if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change.Over the summer, protesters in kayaks unsuccessfully tried to block Arctic-bound Shell vessels in Seattle and Portland, Oregon. "Big oil has sustained an unmitigated defeat," said Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven."The Save the Arctic movement has exacted a huge reputational price from Shell for its Arctic drilling programme, and as the company went another year without striking oil, that price finally became too high."Shell had continued to explore for oil despite the slump in the price of oil. Other oil and gas majors have shelved expensive exploration projects but, having invested billions of dollars in its Arctic project, Shell persisted, believing that Arctic oil would be competitive in the longer term.This is why the announcement came as such a surprise.
  • More on this story Video Shell calls end to Alaska oil search 52 minutes ago Shell has made a costly call to abandon Alaska 28 September 2015 'Volatile' oil price hard to predict, says Shell boss 17 September 2015 Why mega-merger is so important for Shell 8 April 2015 BP profits fall on low oil price 28 July 2015
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Sep 15
     
    Not mentioned in the article, but environmental groups recently announced that they would begin a consumer boycott of Shell fuels because of its Artic drilling.  
Gary Edwards

The 6 Grand Illusions That Keep Us Enslaved to the Matrix - 0 views

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

blacklistednews Grand-Illusions Banksters The-New-Feudalism New-World-Order

shared by Gary Edwards on 07 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Bansky, the revered and elusive revolutionary street artist, once commented: “People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.” – Banksy  Advertising is just the tip of the iceberg. When we look further we see that the overall organization of life is centered around the pursuit of illusions and automatic obedience to institutions and ideas which are not at all what they seem. We are in a very real sense enslaved. Many call this somewhat intangible feeling of oppression ‘the matrix,’ a system of total control that invades the mind, programming individuals to pattern themselves in accordance with a mainstream conformist version of reality, no matter how wicked it gets. The grandest of the illusions which keep us enslaved to the matrix, the ones that have so many of us still entranced, are outlined below for your consideration.
  • 1. The Illusion of Law, Order and Authority For so many of us, following the law is considered a moral obligation, and many of us gladly do so even though corruption, scandal, and wickedness repeatedly demonstrate that the law is plenty flexible for those who have the muscle to bend it. Police brutality and police criminality is rampant in the US, the courts favor the wealthy, and we can longer even lead our lives privately thanks to the intrusion of state surveillance. And all the while the illegal and immoral Orwellian permanent war rages on in the background of life, murdering and destroying whole nations and cultures. The social order is not what it seems, for it is entirely predicated on conformity, obedience and acquiescence which are enforced by fear of violence. History teaches us again and again that the law is just as often as not used as an instrument of oppression, social control and plunder, and any so-called authority in this regard is false, hypocritical, and unjust. When the law itself does not follow the law, there is no law, there is no order, and there is no justice. The pomp and trappings of authority are merely a concealment of the truth that the current world order is predicated on control, not consent.
  • 2. The Illusion of Prosperity and Happiness Adorning oneself in expensive clothes and trinkets, and amassing collections of material possessions that would be the envy of any 19th century monarch has become a substitute for genuine prosperity. Maintaining the illusion of prosperity, though, is critical to our economy as it is, because its foundation is built on consumption, fraud, credit and debt. The banking system itself has been engineered from the top down to create unlimited wealth for some while taxing the eternity out of the rest of us. True prosperity is a vibrant environment and an abundance of health, happiness, love, and relationships. As more people come to perceive material goods as the form of self-identification in this culture, we slip farther and farther away from the experience of true prosperity.
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  • 3. The Illusion of Choice and Freedom Read between the lines and look at the fine print, we are not free, not by any intelligent standard. Freedom is about having choice, yet in today’s world, choice has come to mean a selection between available options, always from within the confines of a corrupt legal and taxation system and within the boundaries of culturally accepted and enforced norms. Just look no further than the phony institution of modern democracy to find a shining example of false choices appearing real. Two entrenched, corrupt, archaic political parties are paraded as the pride and hope of the nation, yet third party and independent voices are intentionally blocked, ridiculed and plowed under. The illusion of choice and freedom is a powerful oppressor because it fools us into accepting chains and short leashes as though they were the hallmarks of liberty. Multiple choice is different than freedom, it is easy servitude.
  • 4. The Illusion of Truth Truth has become a touchy subject in our culture, and we’ve been programmed to believe that ‘the‘ truth comes from the demigods of media, celebrity, and government. If the TV declares something to be true, then we are heretics to believe otherwise. In order to maintain order, the powers that be depend our acquiescence to their version of the truth. While independent thinkers and journalists continually blow holes in the official versions of reality, the illusion of truth is so very powerful that it takes a serious personal upheaval to shun the cognitive dissonance needed to function in a society that openly chases false realities.
  • 5. The Illusion of Time They say that time is money, but this is a lie. Time is your life. Your life is an ever-evolving manifestation of the now. Looking beyond the five sense world, where we have been trained to move in accordance with the clock and the calendar, we find that the spirit is eternal, and that the each individual soul is part of this eternity. The big deception here is the reinforcement of the idea that the present moment is of little to no value, that the past is something we cannot undo or ever forget, and that the future is intrinsically more important than both the past and the present. This carries our attention away from what is actually happening right now and directs it toward the future. Once completely focused on what is to come rather than what is, we are easy prey to advertisers and fear-pimps who muddy our vision of the future with every possible worry and concern imaginable. We are happiest when life doesn’t box us in, when spontaneity and randomness gives us the chance to find out more about ourselves. Forfeiting the present moment in order to fantasize about the future is a trap. The immense, timeless moments of spiritual joy that are found in quiet meditation are proof that time is a construct of the mind of humankind, and not necessarily mandatory for the human experience. If time is money, then life can be measured in dollars. When dollars are worth less, so is life. This is total deception, because life is, in truth, absolutely priceless.
  • 6. The Illusion of Separateness On a strategic level, the tactic of divide and conquer is standard operating procedure for authoritarians and invading armies, but the illusion of separateness runs even deeper than this. We are programmed to believe that as individuals we are in competition with everyone and everything around us, including our neighbors and even mother nature. Us vs. them to the extreme. This flatly denies the truth that life on this planet is infinitely inter-connected. Without clean air, clean water, healthy soil, and a vibrant global sense of community we cannot survive here. While the illusion of separateness comforts us by gratifying the ego and and offering a sense of control, in reality it only serves to enslave and isolate us.
  • Conclusion The grand illusions mentioned here have been staged before us as a campaign to encourage blind acquiescence to the machinations of the matrix. In an attempt to dis-empower us, they demand our conformity and obedience, but we must not forget that all of this is merely an elaborate sales pitch. They can’t sell what we don’t care to buy.
  • Gary Edwards on 07 Jun 15
     
    "SOURCE: SIGMUND FRAUD, WAKING TIMES "In prison, illusions can offer comfort." - Nelson Mandela For a magician to fool his audience his deceit must go unseen, and to this end he crafts an illusion to avert attention from reality. While the audience is entranced, the deceptive act is committed, and for the fool, reality then becomes inexplicably built upon on a lie. That is, until the fool wakes up and recognizes the truth in the fact that he has been duped. Maintaining the suspension of disbelief in the illusion, however, is often more comforting than acknowledging the magician's secrets. We live in a world of illusion. So many of the concerns that occupy the mind and the tasks that fill the calendar arise from planted impulses to become someone or something that we are not. This is no accident. As we are indoctrinated into this authoritarian-corporate-consumer culture that now dominates the human race, we are trained that certain aspects of our society are untouchable truths, and that particular ways of being and behaving are preferred.  Psychopaths disempower people in this way. They blind us with never ceasing barrages of suggestions and absolutes that are aimed at shattering self-confidence and confidence in the future.  "
Gary Edwards

Thoughts from the Frontline : Six Impossible Things by John Mauldin - 0 views

www.2000wave.com/article.asp

financial-crisis euro-crisis obammunism economic-rules identity-equation banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Jun 10
     
    Funny but a year ago we were hearing quite a bit of noise about the "End of Capitalism".  Today, the world is looking at the "End of Socialism".  How quickly things change. Six Impossible Things I have written several letters over the years about the basic economic equation GDP = C + I + G + (Net Exports) Which is to say, that Gross Domestic Product in a country is equal to total Consumption (personal and business) plus Investments plus Government Spending plus next exports. This equation is known as an identity equation. It is true for all countries and times. Now, gentle reader, I am going to spare you a few pages of algebra and cut to the chase. Let's divide a country's economy into three sections, private, government and exports. If you play with the variables a little bit you find that you get the following equation. Domestic Private Sector Financial Balance + Governmental Fiscal Balance - the Current Account Balance (or Trade Deficit/Surplus) = 0 This equation was introduced to you a few months ago in an Outside the Box written by Rob Parenteau. We are going to review this briefly, as it is VERY important. Paragraphs in quotes will be from that letter. As Rob noted, "...keep in mind this is an accounting identity, not a theory. If it is wrong, then five centuries of double entry book keeping must also be wrong." By Domestic Private Sector Financial Balance we mean the net balance of business and consumers. Are they borrowing money or paying down debt? Government Fiscal Balance is the same: is the government borrowing or paying down debt? And the Current Account Balance is the trade deficit or surplus. The implications are simple. The three items have to add up to zero. That means you cannot have both surpluses in the private and government sectors and run a trade deficit. You have to have a trade surplus.
Joseph Skues

FDA Warns Consumers to Avoid Drinking Raw Milk - 0 views

www.fda.gov/...ucm108535.htm

fda warns consumers

shared by Joseph Skues on 11 Aug 10 - Cached
  • There is no meaningful difference in the nutritional value of pasteurized and unpasteurized milk. Pasteurization can also prevent such contagious diseases as tuberculosis, diphtheria, polio, Q fever, salmonellosis, strep throat, scarlet fever, and typhoid fever that can be spread by bacteria in milk. All milk shipped between states is required, by law, to be pasteurized. #
Gary Edwards

Predatory lending with a smiley face; How tax payer subsidized "loan modification" programs will sink home owners even further into debt | Salon News - 0 views

www.salon.com/...index.html

financial-crisis obama-socialism real-estate predatory-lending salon banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Mar 09
     
    They say California is a harbinger of the future. If so, we should all be thinking about possible safe havens. The article begins with a description of loan modification seminars attended by the same mortgage brokers whose predatory lending practices got us into this fix. At the seminars, these predators learn how to make even more money off of the exact same clients they pushed off the ledge. It's all about fees and high pressure churning techniques. With one very big difference: Obama is banking on tax payer funded "loan modifications" to help struggling homeowners. The ugly truth is that mortgage brokers are the real winners. Just like mortgage brokers, loan mod companies are under no obligation to act in borrowers' financial interests, short- or long-term. Under California's model contract, which brokers are encouraged to emulate in their dealings with borrowers, almost any change to a mortgage is an acceptable result, whether or not it saves a borrower money. And while the client has to accept the proposed deal in order for the company to get paid in full, the sales forces at these firms are veterans of pressure pitches to people in tough financial situations. Both Carlson and a spokesman for Mortgage Bailout Assistance indicate that their clients almost invariably take the offers they are given. The proverbial fox is helping the hens hold on to their coops, and not just in California. Seventeen states now have laws on the books effectively banning "foreclosure consultants," but most make an exception for mortgage brokers. As consumer complaints about fraudulent loan mod operations proliferate across the country, other government officials, including New York's City Council, are now following California's lead and exploring the creation of an official registry of mod brokers.
Gary Edwards

30 reasons for Great Depression 2 by 2011: Paul Ferrel of MarketWatch - 0 views

www.marketwatch.com/news/story/well-great-depression-2-2011/story.aspx?guid={B28B49B5-EFD1-4941-B57E-A2BA1545BA09}&dist=TNMostRead

financial-crisis socialism depression banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Dec 08 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Dec 08
     
    New-New Deal, bailouts, trillions in debt, antitax mindset spell disaster .... 1) Dot-Com Crash .. Stock market loses $8 Trillion ....2) SubPrime Meltdown: $8.2 Trillion taxpayer loses ....3) MegaBubble Cycles Continue to Hit: 41,000 special-interest lobbyist working a Congress determined to cut taxes while exploding spending, a credit crunch based on consumer debt of $2.5 Trillion, unfunded obligations in SS and Medicare now at $60 Trillion, hidden bailout costs of $5 Trillion, Fannie and Freddie $5 Trillion securitized subprime leveraged 40 times over into $200 Trillion of insured loans and custom derivatives. It's a mess ......
Gary Edwards

The Bailout So Far - WSJ.com Holman W. Jenkins Jr.: - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...SB122826676533474525.html

finacial-crisis economy free-market

shared by Gary Edwards on 03 Dec 08 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 03 Dec 08
     
    Washington a few months ago might have bought the entire stock of subprime mortgages for about half the money committed by the Fed and Treasury last week to prop up Citigroup and spur consumer and mortgage lending. Buying up bad mortgages would at least have left the private sector in charge of issuing new credit, which -- however bad its performance during the housing bubble -- would likely produce better results than government directing credit allocation in the economy. They (Federal Reserve-Treasury-FDIC-Congress) failed to douse the confidence/systemic-risk fire and now have moved on to fighting recession by turning credit allocation into a public utility. Vikram Pandit of Citigroup says: "We have gone from arm's length, free market, just-in-time availability" of funding to a system where big credit-reliant businesses now have only one place to turn, government.
  • Gary Edwards on 03 Dec 08
     
    Maybe Washington will succeed in forestalling a deep and prolonged recession. Maybe all the money ($8 trillion by one count) being printed to acquire or insure mortgages, student loans, credit card receivables, commercial paper and banking shares will be seamlessly withdrawn once those assets are sold back to willing parties in the private sector when the panic has passed. Maybe taxpayers will even make a profit on the deal.
Gary Edwards

Naked Capitalism: "Only 21% Say U.S. Government Has Consent of the Governed … Those with the Lowest Incomes are the Most Skeptical" « naked capitalism - 0 views

www.nakedcapitalism.com/...e-consent-of-the-governed.html

obammunism socialism oligarchy

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Feb 10
     
    A new Rasmussen poll finds: The founding document of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, states that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed." Today, however, just 21% of voters nationwide believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed. *** Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters now view the federal government as a special interest group, and 70% believe that the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.That helps explain why 75% of voters are angry at the policies of the federal government, and 63% say it would be better for the country if most members of Congress are defeated this November… In his new book, In Search of Self-Governance, Scott Rasmussen observes that the American people are "united in the belief that our political system is broken, that politicians are corrupt, and that neither major political party has the answers." He adds that "the gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and the politicians who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18th century." *** Sixty percent (60%) of voters think that neither Republican political leaders nor Democratic political leaders have a good understanding of what is needed today. Thirty-five percent (35%) say Republicans and Democrats are so much alike that an entirely new political party is needed to represent the American people. Nearly half of all voters believe that people randomly selected from the phone book could do as good a job as the current Congress.
Gary Edwards

Rupert Murdoch: Journalism and Freedom - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...4107104574570191223415268.html

wsj rupert-murdock news-media

shared by Gary Edwards on 10 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 10 Dec 09
     
    Excellent editorial taking a clean shot at Google and the many other "aggregators" stealing "news" content.  Rupert also hits the news industry itself for not serving their customers with truth-filled journalism.  He points out that editors have lost the trust of their consumers. excerpt: We are at a time when many news enterprises are shutting down or scaling back. No doubt you will hear some tell you that journalism is in dire shape, and the triumph of digital is to blame. My message is just the opposite. The future of journalism is more promising than ever-limited only by editors and producers unwilling to fight for their readers and viewers, or government using its heavy hand either to overregulate or subsidize us.
Gary Edwards

Jenkins: Obama vs. the 1980s - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...3454504576490083559745242.html

Obammunism Banksters financial-collapse reagan-capitalism

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • "World Tax Reform: A Progress Report," his 1988 volume showed how country after country was following the U.S. in adopting Reagan-style rate-flattening and tax simplification.
  • Mr. Obama now craves a federal infrastructure bank, apparently still unable to see how growth might emerge except by bureaucrats bossing around tax dollars.
  • Simpson-Bowles Commission—proposed a Reagan-style tax reform
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Aug 11
     
    excerpt:  Instead of a "stimulus" to create jobs by financing useful investments that would have paid a growth dividend in the future, we got a debt-fueled permanent expansion of entitlements and the size of government. In health care, instead of reforms to encourage competent consumers not to treat health care as a free lunch, we got a doubling down on health-care free lunchism. In banking, instead of new incentives to cause creditors to pull in the reins on risk-taking banks, we got a formalization of too big to fail. All economic crises begin differently-this one began in housing-but eventually they morph into the same old crisis of forgetting what works. Think about the last big crisis of faith in American capitalism in the early 1980s. The panic was eventually crystallized in dueling Harvard Business Review articles by George Gilder and Charles Ferguson. Mr. Ferguson, an MIT-based consultant, argued the U.S was dooming itself to vassalage unless Washington brushed aside small, poorly-funded entrepreneurs and concentrated regulatory favors and subsidies on giant firms like IBM, AT&T, Digital Equipment and Kodak. Mr. Gilder championed the then-emerging Silicon Valley paradigm. He quoted technologist Carver Mead: "We depend on the innovations of the citizens of a free economy to keep ahead of the bureaucrats and the people who make a living on control and planning. In the long term, it's the element of surprise that gives us the edge over more controlled economies." Who won hardly needs to be belabored except that it apparently does need to be belabored. Almost everything Mr. Obama understands as pro-growth consists of bets on "bureaucrats and the people who make a living on control and planning."
Gary Edwards

Schneiderman Is Said to Face Pressure to Back Bank Deal - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ressure-to-back-bank-deal.html

Gretchen-Morgenson Banksters Obama-Bankster-Power-Play Mortgage-Fraud

shared by Gary Edwards on 24 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Terms of the possible settlement under consideration center on foreclosure improprieties like so-called robo-signing and submitting apparently forged documents to the courts to speed up the process of removing troubled borrowers from homes.
  • An initial term sheet outlining a possible settlement emerged in March, with institutions including Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo being asked to pay about $20 billion that would go toward loan modifications and possibly counseling for homeowners
  • In exchange, the attorneys general participating in the deal would have agreed to sign broad releases preventing them from bringing further litigation on matters relating to the improper bank practice
  • ...1 more annotation...
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 24 Aug 11
       
      You've got to be kidding me!  $20 Billion and these crooks get to illegally foreclose on mortgages they can't document or prove they own?  They've stolen trillions of dollars, sunk the worlds economy, and maybe ended the greatest experiment in self government / individual liberty in mankind's 4,000 year history.  And the tab is only $20 Billion?  The Banksters steal that much in while putting on their pants in the morning.
  • Gary Edwards on 24 Aug 11
     
    By GRETCHEN MORGENSON Published: August 21, 2011 Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, has come under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to drop his opposition to a wide-ranging state settlement with banks over dubious foreclosure practices, according to people briefed on discussions about the deal. Eric T. Schneiderman has objected to elements of the settlement for months.  In recent weeks, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and high-level Justice Department officials have been waging an intensifying campaign to try to persuade the attorney general to support the settlement, said the people briefed on the talks. Mr. Schneiderman and top prosecutors in some other states have objected to the proposed settlement with major banks, saying it would restrict their ability to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing in a variety of areas, including the bundling of loans in mortgage securities. But Mr. Donovan and others in the administration have been contacting not only Mr. Schneiderman but his allies, including consumer groups and advocates for borrowers, seeking help to secure the attorney general's participation in the deal, these people said. One recipient described the calls from Mr. Donovan, but asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.
Gary Edwards

We are screwed! US Debt To GDP: The Numbers are stunning! - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-our-de-2009-4

financial-crisis obama-socialism Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Apr 09
     
    Government debt has remained at a relatively consistent percentage of GDP for the past 50 years, but the debt of companies, consumers, and financial businesses has soared.  The problem now is that the value of the assets that serve as collateral for that debt (houses, stocks, cars, etc.) is plummeting.  Thus, the percentage of debt to equity is increasing, and in many areas, the equity is being wiped out.
Gary Edwards

The Divider vs. the Thinker - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...3554104577002262150454258.html

Banksters Paul-Ryan Obammunism Peggy-Noonan WSJ The-American-Idea

shared by Gary Edwards on 28 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • There's a lot to rebel against, to want to throw off. If they want to make a serious economic and political critique, they should make the one Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner make in "Reckless Endangerment": that real elites in Washington rigged the system for themselves and their friends, became rich and powerful, caused the great catering, and then "slipped quietly from the scene."
  • It is a blow-by-blow recounting of how politicians—Democrats and Republicans—passed the laws that encouraged the banks to make the loans that would never be repaid, and that would result in your lost job.
  • It began in the early 1990s, in the Clinton administration, and continued under the Bush administration, with the help of an entrenched Congress that wanted only two things: to receive campaign contributions and to be re-elected.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Specifically it is the story of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage insurers, and how their politically connected CEOs, especially Fannie's Franklin Raines and James Johnson, took actions that tanked the American economy and walked away rich.
  • "the temptation to exploit fear and envy returns." Politicians divide in order to "evade responsibility for their failures" and to advance their interests.
  • "The American Idea"
  • Which gets us to Rep. Paul Ryan. Mr. Ryan receives much praise, but I don't think his role in the current moment has been fully recognized. He is doing something unique in national politics. He thinks. He studies. He reads. Then he comes forward to speak, calmly and at some length, about what he believes to be true. He defines a problem and offers solutions, often providing the intellectual and philosophical rationale behind them.
  • But Republicans, in their desire to defend free economic activity, shouldn't be snookered by unthinking fealty to big business. They should never defend—they should actively oppose—the kind of economic activity that has contributed so heavily to the crisis.
  • Here Mr. Ryan slammed "corporate welfare and crony capitalism."
  • "Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended?" Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically connected solar energy firms like Solyndra? "Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?"
  • The "true sources of inequity in this country," he continued, are "corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless."
  • The real class warfare that threatens us is "a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society."
  • Gary Edwards on 28 Oct 11
     
    Peggy Noonan writes about Paul Ryan's "The American Idea" speech he recently gave at the heritage Foundation.  It's a beautifully written summary that goes right to the heart of the matter:  the ruling elites have been enriching themselves, feeding at the public trough of corporate welfare and crony capitalism.  Washington DC is corrupt and rotten to the core, and the hand maiden of Banksters, Global Corporatist, Big Unions, and Big Bearucracy.   One things for sure.  Congressman Paul Ryan is a brilliant thinker aho believes in the great promise he calls "The American Idea".   Funny how, as the presidential primary race rolls on, my hopeful attention is being drawn towards four men:  Herman Cain, Paul Ryan, Ron Paul and Marco Rubio.   Herman unfortunately is soft on Banksters, totally unaware and oblivious to the need to take back the currency, and end the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel.  I also have some difficulties with the "revenue neutral" aspects of his 999 plan.  We need less government, not more.  The private sector needs to keep more money, not less.   Too bad because everything else about Herman excites me.  Especially his authentic, from the heart love of America, American exceptionalism and opportunity, and the founders truly unique "American Idea". Ron Paul has an awesome "American Recovery" plan.  Awesome.  But his remarks on terrorism and foreign policy stray far from his usual reliance on the Constitution and the 10th Amendment.   He's right about the connection between global corporatism and the never ending militarism they push.  But he's dead ass wrong about our enemies and their intentions.  And that's scary.  If RP had stuck to the Constitution and 10th Amendment, i would fully support him.   If it's not an enumerated power, it belongs to the States and individual citizens.  End of story.   Marco Rubio is awesome in the same way Herman is.  He connects with a special authenticity that screams the principles and val
Gary Edwards

The Daily Bell - Occupy Wall Street Demands Global UN Tax and Worldwide G20 Protest - 0 views

www.thedailybell.com/...-Tax-and-Worldwide-G20-Protest

Banksters OWS

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Oct 11
     
    Occupy's busting out on a new path ... So Adbusters is asking people all around the world to march on Oct. 29. "We want to send a clear message that we the people want to slow down this global casino." And Adbusters does have one specific demand, a 1 percent tax on financial-sector transactions (perhaps stocks, bonds, foreign-currency trades and derivatives). Some form of that idea, known as the "Robin Hood" tax, has been around for a while and might actually fly. - Jerry Large/Seattle Times Dominant Social Theme: We want justice for the world and the UN will give it to us. Free-Market Analysis: Kalle Lasn, founder of Adbusters magazine, based in Vancouver, B.C. - the magazine that issued the call for the initial Occupy Wall Street protests - has called on people to protest the upcoming G20 while demanding a one-percent tax on financial transactions. The revenue raised would be enormous and the lingering question is where this incredible revenue stream would be directed. The answer is obvious to those who follow what we call "directed history." The intention is likely to fund the UN as part of a final push to rationalize and perfect the initial stages of true world government. As we have written before, the movement toward world government is happening very quickly now. The ramifications are enormous and people who write off these protests as spontaneous and short-lived are not grasping what is taking place, in our humble opinion. The financial sales tax has been around for a very long time but has found its most recent voice in a column by Jerry Large of the Seattle Times. He recently gained an exclusive interview with Kalle Lasn, who sounds as if he hopes that a large protest on Oct 29th will mark the beginning of a push for such a tax. What's going on is pure one-worldism, an OWS ideology that is gradually revealing itself in dribs and drabs. It is one reason that that the OWS leaders have made no specific demands. They have hoped to create a momentu
Gary Edwards

Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...14-forecast-burning-down-house

Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Jan 14
     
    Incredible must read analysis. Take away: the world is going to go "medevil". It's the only way out of this mess. Since the zero hedge layout is so bad, i'm going to post as much of the article as Diigo will allow: Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/06/2014 19:36 -0500 Submitted by James H. Kunstler of Kunstler.com , Many of us in the Long Emergency crowd and like-minded brother-and-sisterhoods remain perplexed by the amazing stasis in our national life, despite the gathering tsunami of forces arrayed to rock our economy, our culture, and our politics. Nothing has yielded to these forces already in motion, so far. Nothing changes, nothing gives, yet. It's like being buried alive in Jell-O. It's embarrassing to appear so out-of-tune with the consensus, but we persevere like good soldiers in a just war. Paper and digital markets levitate, central banks pull out all the stops of their magical reality-tweaking machine to manipulate everything, accounting fraud pervades public and private enterprise, everything is mis-priced, all official statistics are lies of one kind or another, the regulating authorities sit on their hands, lost in raptures of online pornography (or dreams of future employment at Goldman Sachs), the news media sprinkles wishful-thinking propaganda about a mythical "recovery" and the "shale gas miracle" on a credulous public desperate to believe, the routine swindles of medicine get more cruel and blatant each month, a tiny cohort of financial vampire squids suck in all the nominal wealth of society, and everybody else is left whirling down the drain of posterity in a vortex of diminishing returns and scuttled expectations. Life in the USA is like living in a broken-down, cob-jobbed, vermin-infested house that needs to be gutted, disinfected, and rebuilt - with the hope that it might come out of the restoration process retaining the better qualities of our heritage.
Paul Merrell

Customer proprietary network information - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...roprietary_network_information

security state call-metadata 4th Amendment

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Customer proprietary network information (CPNI) is the data collected by telecommunications companies about a consumer's telephone calls. It includes the time, date, duration and destination number of each call, the type of network a consumer subscribes to, and any other information that appears on the consumer's telephone bill. Telemarketers working on behalf of telephone companies, attempting to either win back a customer or upsell a customer with more services, must ask the customer's consent before accessing the billing information or before using that information to offer an upsell or any change of services. Usually this is done at the beginning of a call from the telemarketer to the telephone subscriber.
  • Note that as long as an affiliate is "communications" related, the FCC has ruled that CPNI is under an opt-out approach (can be shared without your explicit permission). A phone company is permitted to sell all information on you, such as numbers you call, when you called them, where you were when you called them, or any other personally identifying information. CPNI would normally require a warrant for law enforcement agencies, but it can be freely sold to "communications" related companies. One can verify this by checking rule 64.2007(b)(1) and footnote 137 in the 2007 CPNI order. One can call up a phone company and opt out by requesting that they do not share CPNI information. In the case of
  • The U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996 granted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authority to regulate how customer proprietary network information (CPNI) can be used and to enforce related consumer information privacy provisions. The rules in the 2007 FCC CPNI Order further restrict CPNI use and create new notification and reporting requirements. The rules in the 2007 CPNI Order include: Limits the information which carriers may provide to third-party marketing firms without first securing the affirmative consent of their customers Defines when and how customer service representatives may share call details Creates new notification and reporting obligations for carriers (including identity verification procedures) Verification process must MATCH what is shown with the company placing the call.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The 2007 CPNI Order does not revise all CPNI rules. For example, the rule revisions adopted in the Order do not limit a carrier's ability to use CPNI to perform billing and collections functions, restrict CPNI use to effect maintenance and repair activity, or impact responses to lawful subpoenas. Fines for failure to comply with CPNI rules can be substantial. Since 2006, the FCC, focusing on one rule regarding internal annual compliance certificates, proposed over $1 million in fines and those fines are not necessarily indicative of the fines the FCC could propose. The FCC is authorized to impose fines of up to $150,000 for each rule violation or each day of a continuing violation up to a maximum of $1.5 million for each continuing violation.[1] The rules adopted in the Order are effective either six months after the Order is published in the Federal Register or on receipt of Office of Management and Budget approval of the new rules depending on which event is later. (Order at ¶61)
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Jan 14
     
    A term that may become controversial in the context of pending cases under the 4th Amendment against NSA surveillance, going to the "reasonableness" of a customer's expectation of privacy in call metadata.
Paul Merrell

Western Sponsors Liable for Kiev Basket Case | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...onsors-liable-kiev-basket-case

war & peace Ukraine-creditworthiness Russia natural-gas

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • The Kiev ultra rightwing regime that Washington and Brussels railroaded into power in February this year, in an illegal coup d’état, has compounded fiscal bankruptcy with a seventh-month criminal war on the ethnic Russian population of the eastern Donbass regions, prompting up to a million refugees to stream across the border with Russia. Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that Ukraine will need to find an additional $19 billion to avoid bankruptcy if the Kiev regime continues with its military operations in the east of the country. That is on top of the $17 billion that the IMF has already committed to Kiev following the CIA-backed coup against the elected government of President Victor Yanukovych. The legality and delivery of those IMF funds are questionable given the Washington-based institute’s own prohibition on funding states that are engaged in war.
  • This is the context for why Russia was obliged to put Ukraine on a prepayment basis over gas purchases back in June. At a trilateral negotiation in Brussels on September 26, the parties appeared to reach an agreement on a winter package of gas supply to Ukraine from Russia to cover the months of October to March inclusively, which would be based on a prepayment scheme. The payment rate agreed to was $385 per 1,000 cubic metres of natural gas. Granted, that payment rate is a lot more than what Moscow was previously supplying the Yanukovych government. But that was on a preferential basis to an ally. Given that the Kiev regime ousted this ally of Moscow and has shown unprecedented hostility towards Russia ever since the coup in February it is not unreasonable that Russian state-owned Gazprom has raised the price of its gas to $385, and especially because that figure is the average price paid by all European countries for Russian gas.
  • The fact is that Ukraine owes Russia $5.3 billion in unpaid gas bills going back several years. As Western consumer societies might just appreciate, if a customer does not make good on outstanding credit for a service or goods, then the supplier of that service is entitled by law to with-hold further delivery.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • «We are ready to pay in advance but the advance payment mechanism has not yet been squared,» the Kiev energy minister told media. Hmmm, payment mechanism has not yet been squared? That hardly sounds like an ironclad commitment to honour contracts with Russia and to make long overdue amends to outstanding debt. It sounds rather like more of the same shenanigans that typifies this warmongering junta. Russia’s energy minister Alexandr Novak is therefore not only entitled, but is merely exercising a modicum of sanity, to insist that Kiev presents a definitive source of funds by the next trilateral meeting scheduled to take place on October 29. To any reasonable person, Russia’s insistence on Kiev providing proof of ability and willingness to pay for the next delivery of natural gas is not an act of «intimidation» but rather is a basic and wholly justified reservation on the part of Moscow to make sure that it is indeed paid for a strategically vital export. One can only imagine how the US or EU would react if they were being dictated to by a hostile jumped-up regime.
  • The depth of Kiev’s insolvency is probably even worse than the IMF’s own dire forecast. Sergei Glazyev, an economic advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, earlier this month reckoned that Ukraine will need at least $100 billion to stabilise its economy. He says that the Kiev regime won’t be able to meet its international obligations even if all the promised financial aid from the US and the European Union is delivered, which is doubtful. «Default is inevitable,» Glazyev concludes. In this context of extreme credit unworthiness, it is not surprising therefore that Russia is insisting that the Kiev regime make prepayments for the further purchase of natural gas. Ukraine will require some 18 billion cubic metres of the fuel to see it through the bitter winter months – and all of it from Russia.
  • The September 26 agreement also stipulated that Kiev would pay off its $5.3 billion debt to Russia in roughly two equal tranches amounting to a total of $3.1 billion by the end of this year, with the first payment at the end of this month. However, on October 13, the Kiev-appointed energy minister Yuriy Prodan announced an about-turn by declaring that the regime would not be making any prepayment, and that money would be forthcoming only after delivery of Russian gas. Such a truculent attitude is by no means the first time that Kiev has vacillated on commitments, not just over gas, but also in the realm of political negotiations to find a peaceful solution to the violence in the eastern regions. In a word, the Western-backed regime in Kiev has shown itself to be unreliable to say the least, if not downright unscrupulous. That conclusion is not based on random delinquent behaviour but rather on a systematic pattern since the regime seized power. Then this week at the latest trilateral talks in Brussels, Kiev’s Prodan once again swivelled position and is now appearing to say that the regime will make good on the arrangement of prepayments.
  • What’s more, Russia’s adamant stance on gas prepayments is all the more warranted because the Western sponsors of the Kiev regime have so far shown little inclination to help it deal with its looming energy crisis.
  • Last week, Kiev put a request to the European Commission for a loan of $2.6 billion. But all that the EC would say is that it is considering the request. Yet, on the basis of no money, the EU’s energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger this week says that he expects a gas deal to be signed on October 29 between Russia and Ukraine under the auspices of Brussels. Washington is even more circumspect than Brussels on the matter of providing hard cash to Kiev, as opposed to lots of hot-air promises of nebulous aid. One gets the feeling that the Western sponsors know full well that this regime is a basket case. Nevertheless, these Western sponsors are liable for the basket case that they created. Russia is thus dead right to be sceptical and to insist: show us the colour of your money. If not, then the Western-aspiring regime should be ready to abide by its Western consumer-market principles. No money, no delivery – unless your Western daddy bails you out, which is not looking likely so far. If Ukraine comes off the rails with an energy crisis this winter, the responsibility lies with the reckless regime-hijackers in Washington and Brussels. They created this wreck, they should pay for it – not the government of Russia, which has shown incredible forbearance in spite of gratuitous insults, provocation and insolence.
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