Davos-The Great Reset

Covid-19-The Great Reset 

President Trump: How & Why...

From Jonathan Pie

Pie thinks he knows who is to blame for the rise of Trump...and you're not going to like it!

Source

Four Horsemen - Feature Documentary

FOUR HORSEMEN is an award winning independent feature documentary which lifts the lid on how the world really works.

As we will never return to 'business as usual' 23 international thinkers, government advisors and Wall Street money-men break their silence and explain how to establish a moral and just society.

FOUR HORSEMEN is free from mainstream media propaganda -- the film doesn't bash bankers, criticise politicians or get involved in conspiracy theories. It ignites the debate about how to usher a new economic paradigm into the world which would dramatically improve the quality of life for billions.

"It's Inside Job with bells on, and a frequently compelling thesis thanks to Ashcroft's crack team of talking heads -- economists, whistleblowers and Noam Chomsky, all talking with candour and clarity." - Total Film

"Four Horsemen is a breathtakingly composed jeremiad against the folly of Neo-classical economics and the threats it represents to all we should hold dear."
- Harold Crooks, The Corporation (Co-Director) Surviving Progress (Co-Director/Co-Writer)

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Scamming The Bankers The Revolution Will Be Televised

“Fat Cat” Laws Approved In Europe To Curb Excessive Corporate Pay

By Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog

March 8th, 2013

Nearly 70 percent of Swiss voters approved a “fat cat” referendum that would prohibit “golden handshake” bonuses to departing corporate bosses while the European Union approved legislation limiting bankers executive bonuses to a maximum of one year’s salary, or twice that amount if a majority of shareholders approve.

"The people have decided to send a strong signal to boards, the federal council and the parliament," Thomas Minder, who kickstarted the Swiss “fat cat” referendum in 2006, told Radio Télévision Suisse. Minder is CEO of Trybol, a herbal products company, and a Swiss senator. His initiative passed overwhelmingly despite opposition from the main Swiss political parties and parliament who argued that the executive pay cap could drive big business out of the country.

These new laws come as a public outcry mounts around the world against bloated executive compensation packages, taxpayer-funded bank bailouts and Wall Street style profiteering. (See “Do Not Pay Dozen: 12 CEOs Who Met Shareholder Spring Revolts”)

Last month, lawmakers and investors were enraged when Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, offered Daniel Vasella, its outgoing chairman, $1.1 million every month for six years (a total of $78 million) in order to keep the former CEO from going to work for the company’s competitors. Novartis quickly rescinded the offer.

But it was too late. Vasella had unwittingly become a symbol of greed and excess in Switzerland fueling growing national support for legislation to curb corporate voraciousness. In 2012 – a year in which the company laid off nearly 2,000 workers - Vasella took home nearly $14 million, according to the company’s annual report.

Christian Democratic People's Party President Christophe Darbellay told SonntagsZeitung newspaper that the offer was "beyond evil.”

Vasella was hardly alone. Five of Europe’s 20 highest-paid CEOs work for Swiss companies - according to data compiled by Bloomberg News - including ABB, an industrial group, Credit Suisse bank, Nestlé, the food giant, Novartis and Roche, both pharmaceutical companies.

This past Sunday the Minder initiative was approved by 68 percent of Swiss voters. It outlaws executive compensation packages that encourage company takeovers and sell-offs. It would also make it mandatory for shareholders, including pension funds, to make decisions on executive pay that companies would be bound to honor.

All publicly traded Swiss companies listed in the Swiss or foreign stock exchanges will be required to follow the law. Violators could be punished with up to three years of prison time and fines totaling six years worth of salary. 

The Swiss referendum came on the heels of a February 27 vote by the Economic and Financial Affairs Council of the European Union that approved legislation to limit bank executive bonuses to a maximum of one year’s salary, or twice that amount if a majority of shareholders approve. It will apply to bankers working in all 27 EU states (including those owned by foreign companies) and those working abroad for EU-based banks and their subsidiaries. 

The rule is part of the Basel III financial reform package that requires banks to set aside more funds in reserve in order to make them more stable and guard against expensive taxpayer bailouts in the future.

"If we had had rules (on financial reserves) like this six years ago, the Lehman case wouldn't have happened, or at least not with such devastating consequences," said Michel Barnier, the EU commissioner who oversees financial regulation, referring to the collapse of the New York investment bank in 2008 that was widely seen as the precipitating event in the global financial meltdown that year.

While the financial reserves rules could make the banks less likely to fail, the rules on bankers pay are unlikely to be effective.

First it should be noted that most bank executives, whose bonuses are typically 30 percent of their salaries, are unlikely to be impacted by the EU pay cap. It is true that senior management and investment bankers can make as much as ten times their annual salary in bonuses. Analysts have estimated that some 5,000 bank executives in London, Europe’s financial capital, could be affected by the regulation.

Just this morning Barclay bank, one of the “big four” in the UK, released its annual report showing that five staff were paid more than £5 million ($7.5 million) in 2012 and 428 staff made over than £1 million or $1.5 million. (It should be noted that half its 140,000 staff earned less than £25,000 or $37,500) 

Second, banks are already looking for ways to circumvent the new rules which will take effect in January 2014, say UK observers. George Osborne, the UK finance minister and a member of the Conservative party, argued that the pay restriction would have a “perverse” effect.

"It will push salaries up, it will make it more difficult to claw back bankers' bonuses when things go wrong, it will make it more difficult to ensure that the banks and the bankers pay when there are mistakes, rather than the taxpayer," he said. (Osborne stood alone in opposing the legislation against the other 26 EU states)

His opinion was echoed by more politically liberal commentators. “(T)he bonus cap is the point where good intentions lose touch with experience,” writes Nils Pratley, the Guardian’s financial editor. “Did the parliamentarians not notice how Goldman Sachs UK, for example, wanted to defer its bonus payments this year to April to dodge the 50p rate of income tax? That's how banks behave: they will exploit any change in the rules.”

EU commissioner Barnier, however, has been emboldened by the vote. He told Reuters that he was currently drafting legislation that would give European shareholders a mandatory say on compensation. “I am in favor of making shareholders more responsible on pay,” Barnier said.

But empowering shareholders may not be enough to rein in corporate pay, if U.S. precedent is anything to go by. In 2010, the U.S. passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, otherwise known as the “Say on Pay” Act, which required public companies to allow shareholders to vote on executive pay at least once every six years. Such votes are advisory only and non-binding, meaning that corporations can do whatever they please, although they tend to obey investor votes.

Unfortunately in the years since Dodd-Frank passed, investors have overwhelmingly agreed to approve executive pay packages, according to a recent report conducted by financial consulting group, Semler Brossy: Out of 2,215 companies surveyed in 2012, only 2.6 percent of those reported that shareholders had voted against proposed executive compensation packages. 

Indeed, median pay of the 200 highest paid CEOs in the U.S. in 2011 was $14.5 million, according to a study by Equilar, a compensation data firm, with an average pay raise of 5 percent.

“You call this a revolution?,” wrote Nathaniel Popper in the New York Times. “Yes, some corporate boards seem to be listening to shareholders. But rewards at the top are still rich — and getting richer.”

Source

The 2013 Hypocrisy Oscars

Published on Monday, February 25, 2013 by Common Dreams

by Paul Buchheit

The best actors in America are the business and government leaders who impersonate job creators and makers of prosperity. For their stellar performances over the past year, they deserve to be considered for the special awards listed below.

Here are the nominees:

BEST SCORE

Facebook's Eduardo Saverin scored big-time, landing Mark Zuckerberg as a roommate at Harvard, using American resources to score billions in income, and then revoking his citizenship to avoid paying any taxes.

Thanks to a capital gains system that benefits the few over the many, the twenty richest Americans made more money in one year than the entire United States federal education budget.

Double score! Wall Street bankers responsible for the financial crash not only made it through another year without a single arrest, but they continued to score big bonuses for their criminal behavior.

The 71 Fix the Debt CEOs who are determined to cut Social Security built up their personal retirement funds to an average of $9 million each.

BEST COMEDY

AIG threatened to sue the federal government for its own bailout (because other companies got more money).

Rachel Marsden: "If capitalism is perceived to not be working in America..it's because the system isn't capitalist enough."

Chicago Tribune: "Western-style private enterprise..will lead the world out of the mess it led the world into."

BEST COSTUME

WEDDING TUX: Former Senator John Ensign (R-NV) said "Marriage is the cornerstone on which our society was founded." He later admitted that he had had an extramarital affair with a former campaign staffer.

MOTHER GOOSE MASK: Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) introduced a bill against child pornography and supported sex offender laws. Then he was caught sending sexual messages to underage male congressional pages.

PRO-LIFE GOWN: Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) said "All life should be cherished and protected. We are pro-life." It was later learned that he had encouraged both his lover and his wife to get abortions.

"I PAY TAXES" T-SHIRT: Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) stepped down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee after failing to pay income taxes. Later he said "Governor Romney should come clean about the tax returns he's hiding from voters."

EARTH DAY SUIT: Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change. Utility bills for his 20-room Nashville mansion amounted to $30,000 in 2006.

DIOGENES TOGA: Former Sen. Pete Domenici kept secret that he fathered a child in the 1970s with the daughter of a Senate colleague. Then he voted to impeach Bill Clinton and was quoted as saying "Truthfulness is the first pillar of good character.."

BEST SELF-SUPPORTING ACTORS

An Apple executive: "We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems."

Honeywell CEO David Cote: "Zero." (When asked what the corporate tax rate should be.

Billionaire Kenneth Griffin: The wealthy "have an insufficient influence" on politics today.

Chicago Tribune: "What's so terrible about the infusion of so much money into the presidential campaign?"

LEADING ACTRESS Accusation

Roger Rivard (R-WI): "Some girls rape easy."

Rick Santorum: "Rape victims should make the best of a bad situation."

Todd Akin (R-MO): "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Richard Mourdock (R-IN): "I think that even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."

Rush Limbaugh on Sandra Fluke defending contraception: "It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute..She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception."

BEST SONG (and dance, to the tune of "Fix the Debt")

Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs: "You're going to have to do something, undoubtedly, to lower people's expectations of what they're going to get."

Billionaire Peter Peterson: "Without much broader sacrifice..we will never cure America's economic ills."

BEST ANIMATED SHORTS

Charles Koch: "I want my fair share - and that's ALL of it."

CEO Ilana Weinstein about Wall Street bonus cutbacks: "It's a disaster."

The Heritage Foundation on the Financial Transaction Tax: "Thousands of high-paying jobs would leave the U.S."

An HSBC executive after laundering money through drug cartels: We are "profoundly sorry."

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. 2012 was the best year ever: Poverty and Inequality Down.

-- This documentary skillfully looks beyond the fact that the almost half the people of the world - three billion people - live on less than $2.50 a day, with little change between 1981 and 2008. As for inequality, if China is excluded the global income gap has risen dramatically, even though inequality WITHIN China has risen steadily.

2. The Verizon Story

-- An overview of the popular company over the past five years. Verizon paid negative taxes from 2008 to 2010. A company spokesman said, "The fact is, Verizon fully complies with all tax laws and pays its fair share of taxes." Over approximately the same period, Verizon laid off 30,000 workers. Today, because of Verizon/AT&T market dominance, users in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Europe get much faster service at a much lower price. Verizon is one of the leading lobbyists in Washington, using its money and muscle to crush competition.

3. Sour Apple

-- Behind the scenes at the company with all our favorite gadgets. Apple got its tax bill down to 9.8% last year. About 2/3 of its profits remain overseas for tax avoidance purposes. For state avoidance purposes, the Cupertino, California company claims residence in Nevada. Apple claims to have added 500,000 jobs to the U.S. economy, but it only has 47,000 U.S. employees. It is estimated that the company makes $420,000 profit per employee while paying an average of $12 per hour for its store workers.

BEST EDITING

The JOBS Act: Removing Protections for Small Investors

Electricity Freedom Act: Repealing Renewable Energy Standards

Right To Work Act: Weakening Unions

Legacy Families: The Super-Rich

BEST MAKE UP

Rick Santorum: "One of the favorite tricks of the left [is] this politicization of science called manmade global warming."

Fox News: "Report: Global Warming Stopped 16 Years Ago."

Senator James Inhofe: "The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous."

BEST PRODUCTION (of Jobs in the Mind)

Michael Barone: "The iPod/Facebook generation [has] the means to find work and create careers that build on their own personal talents and interests."

Mitt Romney: "..borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business."

President Obama: "Over five million new jobs." He didn't mention the 4.3 million jobs that were lost after he became President.

BEST SCREEN PLAY

Google screens profits by moving them through Ireland and the Netherlands and Bermuda, and then screens them again in U.S. banks to keep the money safe (although still untaxed).

American "Ultra High Net Worth Individuals" are using overseas tax havens to screen up to$750 billion of income every year.

Hedge fund managers screen their billions in Bermuda with a strategy called the "reinsurance company", which allow taxes to be deferred for years.

BEST SOUND MIXING

Mitt Romney: "I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in."

BEST VISUAL EFFECT

Nutrition classes being taught by Coca Cola and Hershey's

Foreclosure leader Wells Fargo sponsoring Habitat for Humanity

McDonalds sponsoring London Olympics 2012

BEST MOVIE

Argo: Why Couldn't They Just Let Us Run Their Country In Peace?

Lincoln: Why Isn't Frederick Douglass in My Movie?

Django Rechained: When He's Picked Up at School in a Private Prison Drug Sweep

Zero Dot Thirty: The Percentage Of Accurate Drone Strikes

And THE WINNER IS... the Financial Industry.

Acceptance Speech:

I'd like to thank Congress and the SEC and the Glass-Steagall repealers and the ratings agencies and all my friends at the Federal Reserve, and everyone who came through the revolving door of my life.

And to you, America: You dislike me, you really dislike me!

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

The Mayan 2012 Prophecy: Orwellian “End of the World” Doomsday is “Made in America”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, December 19, 2012

Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-mayan-2012-prophecy-the-end-of-the-world-is-man-made-orwellian-doomsday-made-in-america/5316231

The 2012 Mayan Prophecy has been readily distorted and misunderstood. The End of the Mayan Calendar on December 21, 2012 has nothing to do with the “End of the World”.

In fact, the Mayan calendar does not end on December 21st, 2012. Rather December 21 marks the beginning of a new “Long Cycle” in the Mayan calendar system. (See Washington’s Blog, End of the World: Hear the 2012 Prophecy ... Direct from the Mouths of the Mayan Priests, Global Research, December 13, 2012)

The End of the World concept is a falsehood and misinterpretation of Mayan thought. What is at stake is a renewal, the unfolding of a new era. For the Mayans, December 21, 2012 marks the beginning of a new long cycle (Ibid).

Meanwhile, “End of the World” stories and commentary are plastered on the news tabloids. While the Western media readily refutes the Mayan prophesy, the apocalypse narrative, when repeated ad nauseam, serves as a distraction and distortion.

A Reuters-Ispos poll conducted last May confirms that 10% of the World’s population believe that: “The Mayan calendar, which some say ‘ends’ in 2012, marks the end of the world”.

Ironically, in sharp contrast to the Mayan prophesy of “renewal, the real World we live in at the outset of the 21st Century is marked by a formidable economic and social crisis which is impoverishing millions of people, literally destroying people’s lives.

In the figurative sense, we are in the midst of an unfolding “doomsday scenario” of a complex political, social and economic nature: it’s man made, it’s “Made in America”; it is the consequence of the fracture of the judicial system, the evolving Homeland Security apparatus, the fraudulent deregulation of financial markets, the mismanagement of the real economy.

These fundamental shifts in America’s institutional and social fabric are coupled with a far-reaching global military agenda and a self-serving US foreign policy. The latter under the helm of Secretary Hillary Clinton points towards potential a breakdown of the channels of international diplomacy.

War and the Economic Crisis are intimately related. While the global economy is in a state of chaos, marked by the collapse of productive systems, the US and its allies –including NATO and Israel– have embarked upon a military adventure, “a long war” under the disguise of a “global war on terrorism”.

The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest. The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously. Pentagon war games routinely focus on simulating World War III scenarios. This “End of the World” military agenda potentially threatens the future of humanity.

Media Disinformation

While World public attention is riveted on the “Mayan apocalypse”, the “Real Crisis” which is affecting humanity is not an object of serious debate. The Pentagon’s “long war” combined with a murky scenario of global impoverishment and economic breakdown is not front page news.

The corporate media plays a central role in providing legitimacy to a destructive military agenda. The US-NATO weapons arsenal and military deployment in all regions of the World are routinely portrayed as instruments of peace. America’s new generation of tactical nuclear weapons are said to be “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”. Pre-emptive nuclear war, which constitutes a de facto doomsday scenario, is portrayed as a “humanitarian undertaking”.

Central to an understanding of war is the media campaign which grants it legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion.

A good versus evil dichotomy prevails.

The perpetrators of war are presented as the victims.

According to the Western media, America and NATO’s “Atlantic area” were attacked by a “foreign power” [Afghanistan] on September 11, 2001: an a absurd proposition.

NATO’s doctrine of collective security, based on the concept of “self defense” was invoked by the Atlantic Council on the morning of September 12, 2001 as a justification to bomb and invade Afghanistan, because Afghanistan had allegedly attacked America.

Meanwhile, the media stands mum: no analysis, no debate. Public opinion is misled.

Breaking the “big lie”, which upholds war as a humanitarian undertaking, means breaking the propaganda apparatus, which sustains a criminal project of global destruction.

War propaganda not only sustains a profit-driven military agenda, it creates in the inner consciousness of millions of people the acceptance of war as a societal project. It literally stamps out and excludes from the human mindset fundamental human values of peace, compassion and social justice. It transforms people into unconscious zombies.

The corporate media is involved in acts of camouflage. The devastating impacts of a nuclear war are either trivialized or not mentioned. Against this backdrop, people across the land, nationally and internationally, should understand the gravity of the present situation and act forcefully at all levels of society to reverse the tide of war.

Strong “Economic Medicine”

The conduct of global warfare is accompanied by process of Worldwide macroeconomic restructuring. Throughout the World strong “economic medicine” is imposed.

People are led to believe that austerity is the “solution” to crisis when it is in fact the “cause” of economic collapse. In the 1980s and 1990s, the IMF “Structural Adjustment Program” (SAP) was imposed on the Third World, Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the countries of the former Soviet block. In all these countries, the standard of living plummeted, State social programs were phased out or privatised.

In North America and the European Union, the social crisis has been is marked by the weakening or outright disintegration of Medicare, Social Security and public education. The civilian economy is in crisis. Tax revenues are reallocated to building a formidable war economy at the expense of social services. Fiscal collapse is the inevitable outcome. State budgets are dictated by the creditor banks, which increasingly decide on the fate of millions of people.

Across America, millions of households have lost their homes. Small businesses are driven into bankruptcy. What remains of social security and Medicare is slated to be scrapped. The only sectors of the US economy which are booming are the luxury goods sector geared to the “One Percent” and the state of the art weapons industry, largely composed of the defence conglomerates including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, British Aerospace et al.

Tax Dollars used to Wage Wars and Kill People

The war economy is booming, F35 fighter jets are to be sold at half a billion dollars a piece. Not included in this price is another 300 million dollars of related maintenance and upkeep of these state of of the art fighter jets. Canada and Norway be acquiring a large number of these planes at the expense of their social programs. “The overall cost of the program to the US military is estimated at a staggering $1.51 trillion over the so called life cycle of the program, namely $618 million per plane. (Shalal-Esa, Andrea. Government sees lifetime cost of F-35 fighter at $1.51 trillion., Chicago Tribune, April 2, 2012).

War and Globalization

War and globalization including the imposition of deadly austerity measures are intimately related. Global Warfare is good for business. It feeds billions of dollars into what Dwight D. Eisenhower call the “Military Industrial Complex”. The fanciful headlines regarding the upcoming Apocalypse serve to overshadow the grim realities of the US-NATO led wars.

Several new weapons systems have been introduced in the course of the post Cold war era. The emphasis is on unconventional warfare.

• Unmanned warfare, killing from a computer screen,
• environmental modification techniques including climatic warfare,
• a new generation of nuclear weapons made in America, not to mention the use of depleted uranium ammunition which causes cancer.

The backdrop is a culture of violence in Hollywood where war, police brutality, torture and extrajudicial killings are the “new normal”;

Meanwhile the Fukushima disaster is a nuclear war without a war, conducive to massive contamination and radiation, the consequences of which are still to be fully assessed.

Who are the main actors behind the US led war?

• The military industrial complex also described as the defence contractors, including the mercenary and security outfits on contract to the US Department of Defense (DoD)
• the Wall Street financial establishment including the institutional speculators and the hedge funds,
• the biotech conglomerates, agribusiness and big Pharma, which produce genetically modified seeds, chemical and biological weapons. This sector overlaps with the military industrial complex,
• the Anglo-American oil conglomerates and energy companies,
• the communications giants overlapping with the military and intelligence apparatus, including surveillance and police state technology,
• The media conglomerates which constitute the cornerstone of the US imperial propaganda.

Wars on the Pentagon Drawing Board

Active war preparations against Syria, Lebanon and Iran have been ongoing for the last eight years.

Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America’s NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems.

Public opinion, swayed by media hype is tacitly supportive, indifferent or ignorant as to the likely impacts of what is upheld as an ad hoc “punitive” operation directed against Iran’s nuclear facilities rather than an all out war.

The war on Iran is presented to public opinion as an issue among others. It is not viewed as a threat to humanity, as a doomsday scenario. Quite the opposite: it is viewed as a humanitarian endeavor which contributes to enhancing an illusive concept of global security.

The “End of the World” is an ongoing man made process. What we are witnessing in the 21st Century is the outright destruction of entire countries.

Erasing the Achievements of Post War Economic and Social Development. Dismantling the Welfare State

The European Union –which had reached a high level of economic and social development– is now beset with mass unemployment and the dismantling of the post World War II Welfare State. The governments of sovereign countries are controlled by a shadow financial establishment.

Almost one quarter of Europe’s young people are without work, with the highest youth jobless rate (52.1 percent) recorded in Greece and Spain.

In Greece and Spain, the overall unemployment rates now stand at the record levels of 21.9 percent and 24.6 percent, respectively. In both countries unemployment has risen sharply in the past year. In May 2011, unemployment stood at 20.9 percent in Spain and 15.7 percent in Greece. (See Christoph Dreier, Record Unemployment in Euro Zone, Global Research, July 03, 2012 World Socialist Web Site 3 July 2012,http://www.globalresearch.ca/record-unemployment-in-euro-zone/31740)

At the height of the great depression of the 21st century, economic chaos prevails, the possibility of financial breakdown can not be dismissed.

Criminalization of the Banking System

Known and documented, the mega-banks which oversee the economic restructuring of the European and North American economies are routinely involved in money laundering and the drug trade. Pervasive links to organized crime have been established. The banks work hand in glove with the drug cartels.

HSBC was sued for collaborating with the Mexican drug. This is not an isolated event. All major financial institutions are involved in the laundering of drug money.

And lest we forget, the drug economy is part of a long history of international trade. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation founded in 1865 in the British colony of Hong Kong was an offshoot of the British East India company (BEIC). Starting in the late 18th century, protected by the British Empire, the BEIC was involved in the lucrative opium trade. Produced in Bengal and then shipped to China, the revenues were used to finance Britain’s imperial expansion.

When the Chinese imperial government ordered the opium to be destroyed in 1839, Britain declared war on China, initiating what was called the “first opium war”. Britain’s casus belli was that China –by destroying the opium– had violated the tenets of 19th Century “free trade”.

The HKSB is no exception. Today, corporate capital continues to protect the drug trade and the most respected banking institutions annually launder billions of narco-dollars. It is worth noting that since 2001, Afghanistan’s war shattered economy supplies more than 90 percent of the World’s heroin. The highly lucrative drug trade out of Afghanistan is protected by the US-NATO occupation forces on behalf of powerful financial interests: a multibillion dollar bonanza for the banks and the criminal syndicates involved in the Golden Crescent drug trade. The resulting flow of narco-dollars is largely laundered in the Western banking system.

SOURCE: Washington’s Blog, Are American Troops Protecting Afghan Opium? U.S. Troops Patrolling Poppy Fields In Afghanistan (Photos) Global Research, October 28, 2012

Destroying Civilization: Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley

America’s wars in the Middle East and Central Asia have largely been conducive to the destabilization and decline of an entire region, considered by historians to be the cradle of civilization.

The “doomsday” wars on Iraq and more recently Syria are instrumental in the destruction of Mesopotamia, the “Land of two Rivers”.

More than 5000 years of history are erased. In Iraq. At the very outset of the occupation in April 2003, the cultural and archaeological heritage was looted by the invaders.

America’s unmanned drone attacks against civilians in Pakistan under the mandate of the “Global War on Terrorism” occur in the upper Indus Valley, another cradle of ancient civilization going back to the Bronze Age (Third Millennium BC) , which is currently being destroyed. The Indus Valley Civilization also known as the Harappan civilization, started in the third millennium BC (3300–1300 BC). Together with the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley was one of the first urban river civilizations.

The “collateral casualties” resulting from the drone attacks are “nothing more than a euphemism for state-sponsored mass murder.”

The recipients of these profit driven wars are the Anglo-American oil giants and the weapons conglomerates, the so-called “defence contractors” (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, British Aerospace, etc) which produce the humanitarian missiles and fighter planes for the US-NATO war machine. The latter includes a new generation of nuclear weapons.

The technology and sophistication of this military hardware at the height of the electronic age have expanded beyond bounds. In a bitter irony, these “weapons of peace” are used to ensure that Iran and Syria do not use their alleged WMDs against the Western World.

The Role of Al Qaeda

US led wars are geared towards in fomenting ethnic and factional divisions as well as supporting, through covert operations the formation of “Islamist” terrorist paramilitary organizations. These covert operations are essentially intended to destroy the nation state and install a puppet regime.

Over the past 30 years, US intelligence in partnership with Britain’s MI6 and Israel’s Mossad, have supported the creation of Al Qaeda as well as a number of “Al Qaeda affiliated” organizations. These terrorist entities are “intelligence assets”, namely instruments of Western intelligence.

Today, the jihadists freedom fighters are recruited by NATO. In Libya and in Syria, these Al Qaeda affiliated entities, supported and integrated by French and British special forces, act on behalf of the Western military alliance. They are NATO’s foot-soldiers.

The Plight of Genetically Engineered Seeds (GMO)

In India, the Ganges which floods the fertile plains of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, thousands of bankrupt and impoverished farmers are committing suicide. The figures confirm that 250,000 farmers have committed suicide. Why? Because the organic seeds are being replaced by genetically modified varieties, which once adopted leads not only to the destruction of biodiversity but also to the demise of entire farming communities:

Monsanto offered its GM seeds to the farmers of India with hopes of reaping plentiful crops. Plain and mostly uneducated farmers thought Monsanto had come to provide a “magic” formula that would transform their lives. They had no idea what was coming.

Monsanto’s seeds in India did not produce what the company had promised and farmers hoped. The expensive seeds piled up debts and destroyed farming fields. In many instances, the crops simply failed to materialize. The farmers were not aware that the GM seeds required more water than the traditional seeds. And lack of rain in many parts of India exacerbated the crop failure.

With no harvest, the farmers could not pay back the lenders. Burdened with debts and humiliation, the farmers simply took their own lives, some by swallowing poisonous pesticides in front of their families. To date, an estimated 200,000 farmers have committed suicide all over India.

To add to the misery, wives inherited the debts along with the fear of losing their homes and lands. With no money coming in, they also had to pull their kids from the schools. The mass suicide among the Indian farmers is known as the “GM genocide.” (KILLER SEEDS: The Devastating Impacts of Monsanto’s Genetically Modified Seeds in India By Iqbal Ahmed. January 12, 2012 http://www.globalresearch.ca/killer-seeds-the-devastating-impacts-of-monsanto-s-genetically-modified-seeds-in-india/28629

A similar process is occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. In the highlands of Ethiopia, where the landraces of an ancient agricultural system are being replaced by seeds and farm inputs from Monsanto, Cargill, et al:

The hidden agenda was to eventually displace the traditional varieties and landraces reproduced in village-level nurseries. With the weakening of the system of traditional exchange, village level seed banks were being replenished with commercial hi-bred and genetically modified seeds. Michel Chossudovsky, Sowing the Seeds of Famine in Ethiopia Global Research, September 10, 2001 The Ecologist, 1 September 2000, also published as a chapter in The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Global Research, Montreal 2003

Impoverishment and Famine in sub-Saharan Africa

This destructive pattern – invariably resulting in famine – is replicated throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. From the onslaught of the debt crisis of the early 1980s, the IMF-World Bank had set the stage for the demise of the peasant economy across the region .

This process of planned impoverishment of the African continent under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank has been accompanied by an ongoing process of US led militarization under the mandate of the “Global War on Terrorism.

In the course of the last 30 years, civil wars triggered through covert intelligence ops have been launched. Powerful corporate interests are behind these wars. Control over resources, oil, natural gas, precious and strategic metals is the not so hidden agenda.

In South Sudan, oil was discovered in 1978. Five years later a US sponsored “civil war” supported by the CIA was launched, led by John Garang, who was trained by the US military at Fort Benning, Georgia. The Sudan war resulted in 2 million lives and another 4 million displaced. Estimates of war related deaths in Sudan are in the range of 4 million.

The Rwandan civil war and 1994 genocide resulted in a million deaths out of a total population of approximately 7 million. The resource wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo resulted in up to five million deaths.

These wars in sub-Saharan Africa are never mentioned by the media. Many people in America do not know they even happened.

More generally, the 2012 Mayan prophesy among other World events serves the useful purpose of distracting people’s attention from the most devastating crisis in word history characterised by endless war, environmental degradation and poverty triggered by macroeconomic reform.

Reversing the Tide of War. Restoring Economic and Social Development. Reinstating Civil Liberties

While we are not facing an imminent “End of the World” scenario, the World is nonetheless at the juncture of the most serious economic and social crisis in modern history. The outbreak of a full fledged war against Syria and Iran could potentially lead humanity into a Third World War scenario.

The US possesses an impressive arsenal of weapons which it is being used to threaten the World.

An Orwellian police state has emerged, with spying and eves-dropping implemented at a global level. Big Brother is instated at height of the electronic age, with sophisticated data banks and surveillance techniques, operating Worldwide.

Habeas corpus has been repealed. Extrajudicial assassinations are now legal.

The international community has endorsed preemptive nuclear war in the name of world peace.

“Making the world safer” is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.

While one can conceptualize the loss of life and destruction resulting from present-day wars including Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastation which might result from a Third World War, using “new technologies” and advanced weapons, including nuclear weapons, until it occurs and becomes a reality.

What we are witnessing at the outset of the 21st Century, however, is not an abrupt shift and fracture, but a gradual process of decay and social decline. What is at stake is the destruction of civilization as we know it, where progress is interrupted and the reproduction of human life is impaired. This process is marked by the implementation of a global military agenda coupled with a Worldwide economic depression.

We are living in a destructive and momentous period in World history

The ideological underpinnings of this inquisitorial New World Order are devastating:

The overriding consensus is that people should support a Wordwide criminal project, involving illegal wars, the police State, the derogation of civil liberties and financial fraud, “in the name of democracy”.

The consensus does not allow for dissent or debate. Its the American inquisition. Those opposed to this perverted brand of democracy are categorized as “terrorists”. Being opposed to criminality is a criminal offence.

For this Orwellian New World Order to be sustained, realities must be turned upside down: the propaganda apparatus is predicated on instilling falsehoods in the minds of millions of people.

Citizens must accept the premises of a World Order where:

• war is heralded as peace,
• the police state is upheld as democracy,
• austerity means prosperity,
• wealth and luxury is a indicator of progress and development,
• killing and torturing alleged terrorists are required to ensure national security
• the victims of war constitute a threat to Western civilization

Realities are distorted and turned upside down, the Lie becomes the Truth.

The real global crisis affecting the people of this planet is thereby obfuscated by “fake crises” and catastrophes, not to mention warnings of impending “terrorist attacks” by unidentified “outside enemies”.

The ultimate purpose of propaganda is to create confusion and obedience to a pre-determined political consensus. The objective is to distract and divert public attention from an understanding of the real crisis which is affecting humanity: The great depression and World War III are not front page news, yet the danger of a world war is real.

Reversing the tide is tantamount to a revolution, it is the reversal of certain embedded tendencies in the capitalist World Order.

The latter is characterized by the criminalization of both the financial system and the political apparatus. Bankers are rightfully involved in fraud and money laundering, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon et al. are vying for more wars, oil companies have their eyes riveted on conquering the Middle East: more than 60 percent of the World’s oil lies in Muslim lands.

This downward spiral underlying this crisis is a gradual yet cumulative process. It can be reversed.

The conditions for its reversal imply the dismantling of fundamental structures and institutions, repealing the police state, closing down the military industrial complex, revamping the financial system, scrapping economic austerity measures and restoring the standard of living of working people, putting an end to humanitarian killings, repealing racism and xenophobia.

In essence, what is required at the outset is meaningful “Regime Change” in the USA, a massive overall in the political system as well as the financial architecture.

A revolution involves first and foremost the dismantling of the propaganda apparatus, which means targeting the sources of media disinformation.

Dismantling mainstream media disinformation is is a prerequisite to implementing more fundamental changes in the workings of the economic and social system, implying fundamental shifts in power relations.

The most important instrument at our disposal is the Truth, because the truth overrides the Lie. It is the basis for developing a mass grass-roots movement, nationally and internationally

When the Lie becomes the Truth within an Orwellian police state environment, there is no going back, humanity is precipitated onto the path of self destruction. It is therefore crucial to fully comprehend the criminal nature of the New World Order, of its legal and political underpinnings, and the nature of the elite power structures which sustain it.

To reverse the tide, war criminals in high office, must be targeted as an initial step. The weapons industry must eventually be closed down. The fraudulent financial mechanisms –including derivative trade and speculative instruments, the institutions, the legal apparatus, etc.– underlying the global capitalist economy must eventually also be dismantled.

What is presented here are a few thoughts to initiate a broader debate. The complexities underlying the military agenda and global economic system must be addressed if we are to successfully reverse the tide.

What is required is a mass movement of people which forcefully challenges the legitimacy of war and economic austerity, a global people’s movement which criminalizes war.

Martin Luther King once said:

Youngsters will learn words they will not understand,

Children from India will ask: “What is hunger?”

Children from Alabama will ask: “What is racial segregation?”

Children from Hiroshima will ask: “What is the atomic bomb?”

Children at school will ask: “What is war?”

You will answer them, you will tell them: “Those are words not used any more,

Like ‘stage-coaches’, ‘galleys’ or ‘slavery’,

Words no longer meaningful,

That is why they have been removed from dictionaries.”

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Copyright © 2012 Global Research

Do Not Pay Dozen: 12 CEOs Who Met Shareholder Spring Revolts

By by Pratap Chatterjee

CorpWatch Blog

June 14th, 2012

Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, the global ad agency, was defeated Wednesday in his attempt to get shareholders to approve his $20 million (£13 million) a year salary. He was at least the 12th CEO to face a shareholder revolt against excessive compensation this spring.

“Ever since the first revolts erupted in earnest this year, the “shareholder spring” has been searching for its own Hosni Mubarak to rally against,” writes Jonathon Ford in the Financial Times. “Now a suitably pharaonic candidate has emerged in Sir Martin Sorrell.”

WPP began life as Wire and Plastic Products plc in 1971, as a company that manufactured wire shopping baskets, but was bought out in 1985 by Martin Sorrell, former finance director of Saatchi & Saatchi. Today it is one of the most powerful ad agencies in the world, after having bought up some of its most famous rivals like Burson-Marsteller, Grey, Hill & Knowlton, JWT, Ogilvy Group and Young & Rubicam. Sales in 2011 hit £10 billion ($16 billion)

Sorrell defended his salary in a June 5 Financial Times commentary titled "I Act Like The Owner That I Am." "I find the controversy over my compensation deeply disturbing. Some imagine that I wake up every morning and make decisions, including those over compensation, in the shaving mirror ... If the government or institutions believe pay is excessive, tax it. Do not fiddle with the market mechanism. WPP is not a failure, it is a success."

A week later, some 60 percent of shareholders voted against Sorrell’s pay package. The revolt “appeared to stun the board directors as they watched the results appear on TV screens” wrote the Independent. (The directors were meeting on Wednesday in Dublin, where the company is headquartered to avoid taxes)

"People are concerned because there is a recession, they're concerned about inequality, inequality of wealth and incomes,” a suitably chastened Sorrell told a Reuters meeting in Paris on Thursday. “At times of recession people become more concerned about that, you see that politically.”

Here is the CorpWatch list of CEOs who have seen significant shareholder votes against their multimillion dollar salaries so far this spring.

* David Brennan, CEO of AstraZeneca, the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company, resigned April 26 after shareholders voted against his £9 million pay ($14.4 million)

* Andrew Moss, CEO of Aviva, the top UK insurance company, was forced to resign on May 8 after he lost a vote against his £2.7 million ($4.3 million) pay package

* Sly Bailey, CEO of Trinity Mirror, the UK’s biggest newspaper group, decided to step down May 3 after shareholders voted against her £1.7 million ($2.7 million) pay

* Vikram Pandit, Citibank’s CEO, faced a revolt against his proposed salary of $15 million from some 55 percent of shareholders

* Brady Dougan, CEO of Credit Suisse, saw his salary slashed in half to $6.37 million

* Bill Gammell, founder of Cairn Energy, lost share options worth £2.5 million ($4 million) after 67 percent of shareholders voted against his pay package

* Mike Davies, chairman of Pendragon, a UK car dealership, saw 25 percent vote against his salary

* Andrew Sukawaty, the executive chairman of Inmarsat, the satellite phone company, saw a shareholder revolt against his £2.66 million salary ($4.25 million)

* Ralph Topping, CEO of William Hill, a major UK betting company, saw 49.9 percent of shareholders vote against his £1.2 million ($1.92 million) pay package

* Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of Swiss mining company Xstrata

* Kaspar Villiger, chairman of UBS bank in Zurich

Source

Vampire Squid Update: SEC Fines Goldman For Huddles

by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog

April 13th, 2012 

In U.S. sports jargon, a “huddle” is the term used to describe players gathering in a tight circle to plan game strategy. When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) discovered that Goldman Sachs researchers had weekly “huddles” with investment bankers and traders to provide them with stock tips, however, they called foul.

“From 2006 to 2011, Goldman held weekly huddles sometimes attended by sales personnel in which analysts discussed their top short-term trading ideas and traders discussed their views on the markets,” said the SEC in a press release issued earlier this week. “In 2007, Goldman began a program known as the Asymmetric Service Initiative (ASI) in which analysts shared information and trading ideas from the huddles with select clients.”

Insider trading – as we have noted before – is the practice of cashing in on information that is not known to the general public. Although it is not illegal in many other countries, the U.S. takes it very seriously and will jail violators and sometimes ban them from trading. Bigger companies – like Goldman Sachs – will typically pay out large sums in order to avoid such punishment.

This is not the first time that Goldman Sachs has been accused of insider trading. In 2003, the investment bank paid out $110 million as part of a $1.4 billion settlement with the New York state attorney general Eliot Spitzer to resolve claims of conflicts of interest. Business Week magazine’s Robert Kuttner described it thus: “(R)esearch analysts" were acting as stock touts for the firms' investment banking business instead of providing objective, independent analysis to investors.” 

Three years later, it appears that the company was doing much the same thing. In 2009, the Wall Street Journal uncovered evidence: Susanne Craig published an article in which she gave specific example of a Goldman analyst named Marc Irizarry who rated mutual-fund manager Janus Capital Group Inc. as a "neutral" in early April 2008. Later that month, at an internal huddle, Irizarry said that he expected Janus to climb. The following day Goldman staff called some 50 preferred clients like Citadel Investment Group and SAC Capital Advisors, both hedge fund groups, to give them the tip. Less powerful clients had to wait six days for Irizarry’s bullish report, by which time the stock had already gained 5.8 percent.

In June 2011, Goldman Sachs paid state regulators in Massachusetts a $10 million fine to resolve the allegations of huddles. “We verified that there was a preference of some customers at the expense of others,” William F. Galvin, the state’s chief financial regulator, told the New York Times.

More details followed: An internal e-mail, written in November 2008, noted that over half of 115 accounts that were contacted by Goldman Sachs staff reported an increase in revenue. “The commercial value of these calls in the form of more revenue to GS … (is) substantial,” the complaint recorded one business manager saying. “In general we have seen about a 50 percent rise in revenue.”

This week’s settlement with the SEC requires Goldman Sachs to pay a fine of $22 million. “Despite being on notice from the SEC about the importance of (higher-order) controls, Goldman failed to implement policies and procedures that adequately controlled the risk that research analysts could preview upcoming ratings changes with select traders and clients,” said Robert S. Khuzami, the SEC’s enforcement director in a press release. 

Goldman issued a statement saying that it “neither admitted or denied the charges.”

Given this history, it is hardly a surprise that Goldman Sach’s business model was recently caricatured by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone thus: “The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15704