ANY SURPRISES LEFT SHOULD NOW COME FROM INVESTORS THEMSELVES

By TERRY KEENAN

November 9, 2003 -- THE mutual fund scandal has shone a bright light on an industry where more than half of all American households park their money, and so far the scrutiny has produced a lot of nasty surprises.

Who would have thought there were so many inventive ways to cheat your loyal customers?

Eliot Spitzer and his posse of lawyers will no doubt do their darndest to uncover them all, but in the meantime the nation's 94 million mutual fund holders should demand other basic reforms from an industry that makes the Vatican look transparent.

While the post-Enron era has forced more accountability and disclosure from Corporate America, the nation's huge fund families have continued to operate in the dark ages. And as we've learned the hard way in recent years, the less transparency, the more opportunity for fraud and other shenanigans.

Let's start with compensation. Jaws dropped this week when it was disclosed that Lawrence Lasser, the deposed head of the Putnam Funds, earned more than $105 million over the last five years and could be in line for tens of millions more in "retirement" benefits despite his failure to supervise his rogue fund managers.

It's no wonder Putnam's fees are so high, even as its performance stumbled. Did Putnam's fund managers also take home a king's ransom while cheating their customers? Hard to know. There are rumors that two of the fund managers caught in the scandal earned $10 million dollars during the go-go years.

If so, it would be news to Putnam fund holders. Fund companies are required to disclose their fees, but they don't have to reveal anything about what their fund managers earn or how that pay is determined.



Why does it matter? Well, in the case of Putnam and others, huge compensation packages from the top on down led to a culture of greed and arrogance. (Sound familiar?) Despite the fund industry's image as a place to invest for the long term, Putnam managers were encouraged to take risky bets in order to meet quarterly performance goals that translated into golden bonuses.

In recent years, that strategy has produced disastrous results for Putnam investors, and even now nearly half of the company's funds lag behind their peers. The same goes for the disclosure of mutual fund holdings. In a world where information is exchanged almost instantaneously, most funds still wait six months to disclose their biggest holdings. A monthly, or bimonthly, report card would go a long way toward giving small investors a snapshot of how their money is being put to work without the risk of front-running.

Americans pay mutual fund companies tens of billions a year in fees in order to have someone else to manage their money. Unfortunately, individual investors may have to take that power back in their own hands.


TERRY KEENAN is senior business correspondent and anchor of Cashin' In, an investing program that appears on Fox News Channel on Saturday mornings at 11:30. E-mail terry.keenan@foxnews.com.

http://www.nypost.com/business/10300.htm

"Free Speech is the right to yell 'Theater!' in a crowded fire." -Abbie Hoffman

Loudly Stand Up and Fight, or Quietly Lay Down and Die.

Financial World's Scandals Keep Spreading

Sunday, November 9, 2003; Page F02

[Didn't somebody predict this? That the scandle would grow and spread because Wall St. is rotten to the core and we all know it just nobdy wants to say it out loud...]

First it was the executives and accountants, cooking the books. Then came the investment bankers and stock analysts, doling out bad advice. Now mutual fund managers have been added to the community of highly paid professionals who were supposed to look out for the financial interests of investors but decided to put their own interests first.

"As my colleagues and I have gathered evidence of one betrayal after another, the feeling I'm left with is one of outrage," Stephen Cutler, the enforcement chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission, told a Senate hearing on the ever-widening mutual fund scandal. Then Cutler rattled off the extent of the problem, as gleaned by the SEC from 88 of the largest fund companies: 10 percent knowingly permitted illegal late trading; 30 percent made selective and illegal disclosures about their holdings to favored customers; 50 percent helped customers engage in quick in-and-out trading; 20 percent failed to give discounts to customers who were entitled to them.

[I'm quite familliar with that last. Hit the break point don't get the discount...even when the statement says it clearly in black and white...and not just me either...]

Eliot Spitzer, the crusading New York attorney general, said he would consider forcing funds to refund all or part of the fees they have collected in recent years from unsuspecting investors. "If you are being paid to act in the interest of investors and you violate that trust, you shouldn't be paid," he said.

[It was 12b1's that pissed me off so much that I started playing beat the fund manager...so far so good.]

Some investors aren't waiting. Small and large investors have pulled $9.7 billion from Putnam Investments in the two weeks since it was charged with civil fraud by state and federal officials. And pension funds representing $2 billion more have put Putnam on a watch list for possible terminations. To appease angry investors, Putnam's parent company demanded the resignation of Putnam chief executive Lawrence Lasser, who received more than $100 million in compensation over the past five years.

Also out: Richard Strong, who resigned as chairman of Strong Mutual Funds amid allegations that he engaged in improper trading in the funds for the benefit of himself, his family and his friends.

[That's so huge I can barely wrap my tiny little mind around it...STRONG? Putnam? !!!!?]

By week's end, the list of fund families caught up in the scandal included Bank of America, Bank One, Alliance Capital, Fred Alger, Prudential Securities and Janus. Many more are likely before the investigation is completed.

[Pru was obvious, I hate Pru always have always will, and the banks they issue credit out of thin air everyday and fuck with the constitution more often than that so a little forward selling and insider bene's isn't a strech, but, but Janus? Et tu Janus? I'm shocked.]

To prevent future abuses, the SEC is considering wholesale changes in the ways funds are governed, how fund managers are chosen and fees negotiated, and what is disclosed to investors in terms of holdings, fees and commissions paid to brokers. A final proposal is expected by the end of the month.

[Opps, and the article's over. Back to Kobe Bryant...]


© 2003 The Washington Post Company


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14736-2003Nov8.html

AUTOMATIC PILOT AND 9.11 - An expert’s opinion http://www.newsmakingnews.com/911automaticpilot.htm

A group of military and civilian US pilots, under the chairmanship of Colonel Donn de Grand, after deliberating non-stop for 72 hours, has concluded that the flight crews of the four passenger airliners, involved in the September 11th tragedy, had no control over their aircraft.

In a detailed press communiqué the inquiry stated: “The so-called terrorist attack was in fact a superbly executed military operation carried out against the USA, requiring the utmost professional military skill in command, communications and control. It was flawless in timing, in the choice of selected aircraft to be used as guided missiles and in the coordinated delivery of those missiles to their pre-selected targets.”

The report seriously questions whether or not the suspect hijackers, supposedly trained on Cessna light aircraft, could have located a target dead-on 200 miles from take off point. It further throws into doubt their ability to master the intricacies of the instrument flight rules (IFR) in the 45 minutes from take off to the point of impact. Colonel de Grand said that it would be impossible for novices to have taken control of the four aircraft and orchestrated such a terrible act requiring military precision of the highest order.

A member of the inquiry team, a US Air Force officer who flew over 100 sorties during the Vietnam war, told the press conference: “Those birds (commercial airliners) either had a crack fighter pilot in the left seat, or they were being maneuvered by remote control.”

In evidence given to the enquiry, Captain Kent Hill (retd.) of the US Air Force, and friend of Chic Burlingame, the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, stated that the US had on several occasions flown an unmanned aircraft, similar in size to a Boeing 737, across the Pacific from Edwards Air Force base in California to South Australia. According to Hill it had flown on a pre programmed flight path under the control of a pilot in an outside station.

Hill also quoted Bob Ayling, former British Airways boss, in an interview given to the London Economist on September 20th, 2001. Ayling admitted that it was now possible to control an aircraft in flight from either the ground or in the air. This was confirmed by expert witnesses at the inquiry who testified that airliners could be controlled by electro-magnetic pulse or radio frequency instrumentation from command and control platforms based either in the air or at ground level.

All members of the inquiry team agreed that even if guns were held to their heads none of them would fly a plane into a building. Their reaction would be to ditch the plane into a river or a field, thereby safeguarding the lives of those on the ground.

A further question raised by the inquiry was why none of the pilots concerned had alerted ground control. It stated that all pilots are trained to punch a four-digit code into the flight control’s transponder to warn ground control crews of a hijacking - but this did not happen.

During the press conference Captain Hill maintained that the four airliners must have been choreographed by an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS). This system can engage several aircraft simultaneously by knocking out their on-board flight controls. He said that all the evidence points to the fact that the pilots and their crews had not taken any evasive action to resist the supposed hijackers. They had not attempted any sudden changes in flight path or nose-dive procedures - which led him to believe that they had no control over their aircraft.

THE NEWS, in an attempt to further substantiate the potential veracity of these findings, spoke to an Algarve-based airline pilot, who has more than 20 years of experience in flying passenger planes, to seek his views. Captain Colin McHattie, currently flying with Cathay Pacific, agreed with the independent commission’s findings. However, he explained that while it is possible to fly a plane from the ground, the installation of the necessary equipment is a time-consuming process, and needs extensive planning. THE NEWS will publish a full interview with Captain McHattie in next week’s edition.

The FBI also came in for criticism for the various pieces of contradictory evidence it has published regarding the suspects. Questions are now being asked as to how incorrect information was given out regarding the ID cards of the suspects, and the seat numbers they supposedly occupied after boarding the flights.

None of the suspects named by the FBI appeared on any of the official passenger lists. A further point was how the FBI had managed to retrieve the passport of one of the suspects amid the molten and twisted remains of thousands of tons of steel and rubble brought about by the Twin Towers collapse.

Dr. Paul Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, and presently Senior Research Fellow at Stamford University, has lent his support to the independent inquiry findings. He also claims that Osama Bin Laden was not responsible for September 11th. The doctor has challenged President Bush to make public the so-called “irrefutable evidence” incriminating Bin Laden.

Colonel Donn de Grand said that if President Bush is lying it would not be the first time that the American people had been mislead by its government. He cited the recently published official government archives describing President Roosevelt’s duplicity in deceiving Americans about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, which triggered the US entry into WWll.

He also highlighted the role of the country’s government in misleading its citizens in respect of the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, and the events that brought about the Spanish American war in the late 19th, century. “Whilst considering who committed this act of war on September 11th,” he said, “albeit Russia, China, an Islamic country or NATO, we must also consider that the enemy may well be within the gates.

“Not for the first time the American public might be being mislead, by those with ulterior motives, into lending its support to a war, this time against Iraq, that has no bearing whatsoever on the interests of the people of the USA.”

So far the mainstream American news media has failed to publish or broadcast any details regarding the independent inquiry. Similarly, the White House, whilst having received a copy of the report, has remained silent on its findings.

Much more here: http://www.newsmakingnews.com/911automaticpilot.htm

The following is snipped from:

Planes of 911 Exceeded Their Software Limits http://memes.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1049

Two of the aircraft exceeded their software limits on 9/11. The Boeing 757 and 767 are equipped with fully autonomous flight capability, they are the only two Boeing commuter aircraft capable of fully autonomous flight. They can be programmed to take off, fly to a destination and land, completely without a pilot at the controls. They are intelligent planes, and have software limits pre set so that pilot error cannot cause passenger injury. Though they are physically capable of high g maneuvers, the software in their flight control systems prevents high g maneuvers from being performed via the cockpit controls. They are limited to approximately 1.5 g's, I repeat, one and one half g's. This is so that a pilot mistake cannot end up breaking grandma's neck.

No matter what the pilot wants, he cannot override this feature.

The plane that hit the Pentagon approached or reached its actual physical limits, military personnel have calculated that the Pe ntagon plane pulled between five and seven g's in its final turn.

The same is true for the second aircraft to impact the WTC.

There is only one way this can happen.

See http://memes.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1049

Once you have absorped the above information, please se what lies below.

I have comments below, and research. If you do not get this email in HTML form, with pictures, email me and I will send you a copy direct.

General L. Limnitzer in 1962: "We could blow up a drone...Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation...We could develop a Communist Cuba terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Flordia cities and even in Washington...aircraft at Eglin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CIA proprietary organization in the Miami area....." http://memes.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1655

August 8, 2001: Booz, Allen, & Hamilton employee named head of NIMA (the National Imagery and Mapping Agency - the 'eyes of America') http://cartome.org/new-nima.htm

From Biographies: Federal Government: Civilian and Military http://officialnoticesonline.com/bios.html

James R. Clapper named Director of National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet jointly announced the appointment of James R. Clapper Jr. as the new director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) on August 8, 2001. Clapper, who will become the first civilian head of the agency, succeeds Army Lt. Gen. James C. King who has headed NIMA since March 1998 and will be retiring from the Army later this year. Clapper was chosen for the position owing to his grasp of intelligence matters and his knowledge of the needs of NIMA's principal users, the combat commanders. The director has more than 37 years experience in intelligence, working at all levels and phases of the field. He retired from the Air Force in September 1995 as a lieutenant general after a four-year tour as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Since his retirement, he has served success ively as executive vice president of Vredenburg, a systems acquisition services company headquartered in Reston, Va.; executive director, military intelligence for Booz, Allen & Hamilton, McLean, Va.; and recently as vice president, director of intelligence programs for SRA, International, Fairfax, Va. He was a senior member of the Downing Assessment Task Force, which investigated the terrorist bombing of Khobar Towers in June 1996. NIMA, established in October 1996, is responsible for the collection of imagery through the use of both national and commercial assets. It advises others responsible for collecting imagery using theater and tactical reconnaissance assets. NIMA produces timely imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information in support of the nation's military forces, policymakers, and civil customers.

From: 9-11: Mitre Corp., Warren Buffet, Global Hawk, and September 11, 2001
Posted by: souljah on Jan 16, 2003 - 06:14 PM

The NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) demonstrated its new satellite capabilities (NRO payload launched into space on September 8, 2001) and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA - "the eyes of America") gained a new director one month prior to that fateful day. Considering all of this, one gets a pretty clear picture of where all those 'Star Wars' dollars went. James R. Clapper is the man named to head NIMA and he comes from Booz, Allen, & Hamilton which is a client for Blessed Relief, the charity said to be a front for Osama Bin Laden. Booz, Allen, & Hamilton also works closely with DARPA. DARPA is, of course, closely aligned with John Poindexter, head of Total Information Awareness and the guy that called the shots in Iran-Contra.

Hyperlinks considered, this piece pretty much sums up what really went down on September 11, 2001.

Mitre Corp., Warren Buffet, Global Hawk, and September 11, 2001

Carl Hammond, 37, was a passenger on board the hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He also was a physicist for Mitre Corporation, a company that peddles Global Hawk (remote piloting) technology. The strongest case has been made that Global Hawk was employed in electronically hijacking the planes in question regarding September 11. Warren Buffet heads Mitre Corp. as well as Berkshire-Hathaway, another CIA front for the sale of remotely controlled pseudo-terrorism.

As well, Mitre Corp. has been working with Lincoln Laboratories (at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology - MIT) on many pursuits deemed necessary to the accomplishment of the human-machine interface. Recently, NASA's Ames Research Center web site reported, scientists were able to land a Boeing 757 by nerve impulses alone - by thinking about it.

Buffet's other company, Berkshire-Hathaway, makes Biz Jets, which CEO's all over the world are buying up as the latest fad. Of course, this means that Warren Buffet, consumate money launderer and second in wealth in the US only to Mr. William Gates, the very man that may have been at the heart of the play calling on September 11 (he was at least playing along), makes the machines the powerful fly in. Fear of death always works, doesn't it?

During his career, Carl Hammond worked at MIT, the institute mentioned above that is seeking total cyborg awareness. Carl Hammond ALSO worked on Global Hawk technologies, it is safe to presume, when he worked at Georgia Tech, home to DARPA's UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) program.

The NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) demonstrated its new satellite capabilities (NRO payload launched into space on September 8, 2001) and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA - "the eyes of America") gained a new director one month prior to that fateful day. Considering all of this, one gets a pretty clear picture of where all those 'Star Wars' dollars went. James R. Clapper is the man named to head NIMA and he comes from Booz, Allen, & Hamilton which is a client for Blessed Relief, the charity said to be a front for Osama Bin Laden. Booz, Allen, & Hamilton also works closely with DARPA. DARPA is, of course, closely aligned with John Poindexter, head of Total Information Awareness and the guy that called the shots in Iran-Contra.

My question is no longer, "Who pulled it off?" My question is, "Were these people killed for knowing too much or were they witness protected."

Re: suspicious deaths.. (Score: 0)
by Anonymeme on Jan 16, 2003 - 11:54 PM
I noticed some times ago that the company Booz had lost 3 employees in the Pentagon : Gerald Fisher, Terence Lynch, and Ernest Willcher. They had apparently to work for the government on Trailblazer 1, a system required to spy communications..

Scott Powell and Edmond Young, members of BTG Inc, died in Pentagon too. RPI, acquired by BTG Inc in april 2001, awarded $11.2 Million Contract by Department of Justice : under the contract, RPI will support exercises to help prepare state and lo cal officials to respond to possible chemical or biological terrorist attacks... They did the job so good that BTG Inc was acquired by Titan Corp on september 20, 2001, a probable coincidence..

Did these employees know too much ?

Anyway.. these deaths seem bizarre if we consider that the touched part of the Pentagon had just been renovated, and offices were not yet completed..

bischar

The following is snipped from http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2002_06_09_xymphora_archive.html

A number (it hasn't been reported exactly how many but it was called 'a small group of business leaders') of CEO's from New York, including at least one from the WTC, were attending a breakfast meeting at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska on the morning of September 11, guests of Warren Buffett (isn't he the same guy who has guaranteed that the United States will suffer a nuclear attack by terrorists?). Offutt Air Force Base is the base that Bush flew to on September 11, supposedly becau se it is the headquarters of the E-4B, the aircraft which is the "command, control and communications center to direct U.S. forces, execute emergency war orders and coordinate actions by civil authorities". He wanted to be on the scene in person, particularly as there was fear that the terrorists were in possession of the secret codes by which they could electronically impersonate Bush in giving military commands (interesting how we have heard nothing more of that story). So how much of a coincidence is it that this meeting with Warren Buffett was at the same air force base that Bush flew to (apparently Bush intended to fly directly to Offutt, but had to stop for refuelling in Louisiana)? Is it possible that Buffett's invitation to a bunch of 'important' New York City executives for a breakfast meeting at an air force base in Nebraska (just think about how weird that is!) was an attempt to save the live s of the invitees?

The following is snipped from http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22warren+buffett%22%2C%2...

MITRE Globetrotter in Omaha, Nebraska
... United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM for short) Headquarters on Offutt Air
Force Base ... Warren Buffett, the second richest man in the country (next to Bill ...
http://www.mitre.org/news/gt/omaha/omahaltr.shtml - 12k - Cached - Similar pages

The following is s n i pped from http://www.mitre.org/

MITRE is a not-for-profit national resource that provides systems engineering, research and development, and information technology support to the government. It operates federally funded research and development centers for the DOD, the FAA, and the IRS, with principal locations in Bedford, Massachusetts, and Northern Virginia.

The following is snipped from http://www.mitre.org/technology/mtp01/sensors.shtml

MITRE is supporting DARPA and the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Information Directorate (program agent) on the Affordable Moving Surface Target Engagement (AMSTE). The AMSTE program is developing technologies to affordably engage moving surface targets such as tanks, tactical ballistic missile transporters, and small boats from long ranges and in all weather conditions.

MITRE is experimenting with the integration of advanced Internet technologies into the ISR sensor ground station. The ISR Information Service (ISRIS) Mission Oriented Investigation and Experimentation (MOIE) will develop a prototype information portal that provides ISR sensor data and ground station service accessibility to the battlespace internets: the Intelinks, the Air Force Join t Ba ttl espace Infosphere (JBI), the Navy Network Centric Warfare, and the Army First Digital Division. In FY01, the project will demonstrate the ISRIS concept using the Global Hawk UAV platform. Global Hawk is an excellent platform for this pathfinding research since it has no established TPED support systems today, and it's multiple sensor data types Electro-Optic (EO), Infra-Red (IR), Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), and Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) make it an especially rich information source.

Total Mitre Corp. Awareness http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ctrl/message/23439

"The company was working on the developement of remote control aircraft and on Sept 6th I recieved word that some of my people may have been released from China to work on a change over of ATC Radar. I was told they had been contacted to be in a work detail in the WTC which was being renovated." http://memes.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1593&mode=thread&...

Boeing has established a new division to expand the "unmanned systems" market and speed development of pilotless combat aircraft. The immediate focus is on the USAF X-45 UCAV. Once this aircraft has been proved to a sufficient degree, the division plans to develop prototypes for gathering intelligence, area surveillance and combat reconnaissance. The X-45A is undergoing taxi testing in preparation for its first flight during the first half of next year. Initial low speed taxi testing confirmed the autonomous operation of the vehicle as well as its responsiveness to controller commands. The X-45A demonstrator system consists of an air vehicle, mission control system and a storage container. The air vehicle has a stealthy, tailless, 27-foot long airframe with a 34-foot wingspan. It can carry a variety of precision strike munitions.

http://www.beyond2000.com/news/Nov_01/story_1302.html

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/uav-01n.html

Utilizing Artificial Intelligence to Achieve Dominant Battlespace Awareness/Knowledge

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usacsl/divisions/std/branches/keg/98TermII/maai1.htm

From which the following is snipped (from the section of the document on Key Technologies):

The Tier II-plus High Altitude Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(HAE UAV) are Global Hawk and Dark Star. These systems will provide broad-area, all weather, day-night identification of both fixed and mobile targets on land, air and sea. Precise coordinates will be developed utilizing on-board Global Positioning System(GPS). Communication relays on board will provide 200 mile radius line of sight communication, from the 45-60,000 foot altitude ranges where these UAVs operate [3].

the following is snipped from Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle Technology

After September eleventh, UCAV technology took a big step. Although not confirmed by the Pentagon, it is reported that an RQ-1 Predator spy plane equipped with hellfire missiles flew over Afghanistan and conducted the first successful remote-controlled bombing raids in history (Bowmaster). The operators remained safely on the ground out of harms way.

Boeing, with backing from DARPA, is on the cutting edge with the development of the X-45, which is scheduled for flight test in early 2002. With an estimated range of 500 to 1,000 miles and a payload of 1,000 to 3,000 pounds, Boeing intends to increase effectiveness and survivability of manned combat aircraft by sending their UCAV in first to clear out radar, antiaircraft sights, and surface to air missile (SAM) sights. With two prototypes already complete, they are moving forward with their vision of air combat tomorrow.

the following is snipped from http://diescon2.syncorp.com/diescon/OrderGuide/Teammates/capabilities.asp?CODE=HAI

Houston Associates, Inc., located in most large Federal government engineering centers, is a leading edge engineering technologies company, that has been involved with a wide variety of DoD Information Technologies requirements for more than 15 years. HAI has provided outstanding engineering capabilities and transitional development services to a wide range of clients.

Among our Federal client base are DARPA, DISA, DIA, DSWA, USAF, US Army, several CINCs, and Federal Agencies. Each is supported with engineering capabilities from Network (MAN&WAN), ATM requirements (Red and Black systems), Mission Control Support Element Engineering Services employing leading edge Information Technologies for the UAV-Predator, UAV-Global Hawk, and other relate systems. HAI supports and is under contract to provide engineering services to the NASA Manned Space Flight Program at Marshall and Johnson Space Flight Centers. HAI is also doing network site work at Birk Test Center, Edward AFB, California. Our commercial client base included Raytheon, Sprint, Lockheed Space, an Lockheed SkunkWorks, to name a few.

Global Hawk, Artificial Intelligence, Boeing, DARPA, and September 11 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psy-op/message/12427

The following is snipped from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psy-op/message/10954

Agent Smiley, Dick I have more on the 757 order to China. The reason 757 were ordered was because China wanted 747s but the Boeing could not ramp up in time to meet the order. Since 757 would be the predominant plane used at all Chinese airports using remote and ROTHR they would become the standard in the industry along with Raytheon.

Soon after September 11, 2001, China was admitted into the World Trade Organization. They had apparently fulfilled their end of the bargain. Brzezinski's plan to include China and therefore blunt its sharpness in its ambitions globally was not going to be implemented without a little token from them.
"The company was working on the developement of remote control aircraft and on Sept 6th I recieved word that some of my people may have been released from China to work on a change over of ATC Radar. I was told they had been contacted to be in a work detail in the WTC which was being renovated."

I think they were fitting it with a beacon. In a few days, a lot would be at stake for a lot of powerful interests.

Despite the U.S. spending millions to defend satellites from its own high-powered laser weapons, many of these computers in orbit still obey commands without authenticating their source. Remember, US space stations experienced disruption of their satellite communications on that day. SOMEONE had access to highly sensitive frequencies of transmission. http://memes.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1621

http://www.humanunderground.com/11september/pent.html

Independent Flight 77 - Pentagon Event Investigation

This is a work in progress
EXPECT CHANGES AND ADDITIONS

"And these blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise."
Brief Statement
I hope it is understood that I mean no disrespect to the grieving loved ones of those lost on Flight 77 and at the Pentagon on S11. I respect your hardships fully. I feel that I should make a small statement here since this is getting some rather heavy traffic. I began this project in response to the Hunt the Boeing site, a French research effort into curiosities regarding the Pentagon crash site and the 'official line'. I was intrigued, but offended by the hostile tone of the presentation. I felt I had some more benign theories to answer complicated questions of my own. I began discussing them on the American Patriot Friends Network since that's where I learned of the French site. It's been non-stop since that moment. The suspicious timing of the Pentagon data release, within just hours of the developing dis cussions on APFN is rather curious.

It has occurred to me that the theory has taken a turn toward the 'extreme.' This was not intentional. I merely started out to debunk the French site, a seemingly simple task with the data available. I rejected most of the 'radical' theories out-right, but research has compelled me to look at some very disturbing circumstantial evidence. I still hold a more pro-American viewpoint and at the same time realize the extreme nature of the situation I propose requires the most extreme of measures to be taken only in an emergency as grave as war. This is wartime thinking. This is only a theory.

The Theory
In a nutshell... I assume American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked by terrorists as reported. What I question is the evidence linking Flight 77 to the event at the Pentagon. Specifically, if Flight 77's transponder was off, radar and radio contact also lost, then what evidence do we have that it was in fact Flight 77 that caused the Pentagon event?

We've learned that there exists technology to control and recover a hijacked airliner, even prevent the hijacking all together. We propose that American Airlines Flight 77 was remotely recovered. It was never near the Pentagon. The terrorists were captured by a waiting hostage rescue team and the passengers are safely sequestered away as special guests of the USG, probably participating in a federal witness security program. This would explain the U.S. reluctance to elaborate on the evidence and methods to link bin Laden. The U.S. has the terrorists captured and no one will know about the remote recovery. The civilians would naturally comply; they would not want to seem unpatriotic by messing with a very important investigation while the country is at war.

In an effort to conceal the recovery, a suitable distraction needed to be created... We suggest the Pentagon was deliberately struck by an unmanned, drone aircraft to conceal the details and evidence of Flight 77's recovery, an operation of strategic deception. The "planners" targetted the Pentagon specifically to LIMIT casualties. It was a section under renovation without the full compliment of employees; they were mostly military, expected to die for their country and so they did... (Realize: specific aim points calculated for specific damage patterns routinely selected and commented on during Gulf War 2 - They are not stupid.) What is implied is that opportunities for deception will be seized if it serves a purpose. The purpose, to hide a recovered airliner with hijacking terrorists on board.

Revisions and Clarifications
Due to overwhelming confusion and misinterpretation I will be removing extraneous data points and early observations from the presentation. Recent optical analysis and accounting of 5 disturbed street-light poles clearly establish a corrected trajectory. Studying the analysis more closely leaves me with the impression that the alternate impact point, which I spent so much time pointing out, could be damage resulting from the impact of the engine under the RIGHT wing. (1) (2) (3)

In response to the recent 'Fescado-Bosankoe' "evidence" I have this to say... I never had it set in stone that I was committed to a smaller aircraft, that's why I removed the F16 comparison in the first place . After Dave began promoting his math and referencing my initial observation, I put the image back up as a matter of research record (et3 and et4). My estimations were very clumsy without taking into account foreshortening of the attack object as imaged caused by the angle of approach (approx 30 deg.) and the angle of the imaging lens. I'm using an unmanned 757 as my primary drone in the equation because we can establish the automated flight control systems on board and the ease with which it would convince observers of an American Airlines Flight 77. I am open to solutions - my investigation will continue to reflect the critical thinking and emerging theories as they present themselves.

If you haven't noticed, this whole thing, (S11) opened the public debate on and demonstration of unmanned aircraft from the start of the Afghan campaign with the Predator, then Global Hawk, and now discussion of the Unmanned Aerial Combat Vehicle, or some order of those words. I expect the risk of hijack will be enough to push for unmanned civil air piloting. The technology is there; the tests were completed. From NASA: "The team tested several prototype GPS Landing System concepts using NASA 557 during 226 automatic approaches and landings." From Boeing: "The precision of global positioning satellite system (GPS) navigation, automated air traffic control functions, and advanced guidance and communications features are now available as part of the new Future Air Navigation System (FANS) flight management computer. [757-200]" They can't admit to it now - for why did they not use this technology to save the day on S11? If you answer that - you will see history doesn't happen by accident.


http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_government&Number=1016889&t=-1

Lost city near Machu Picchu found

Sunday, November 9, 2003 Posted: 12:39 PM EST (1739 GMT)

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- An international team of explorers have found an Incan city lost for centuries in the Peruvian jungles despite being within sight of the key religious center at Machu Picchu.

Using infrared aerial photography to penetrate the forest canopy, the team led by Briton Hugh Thomson and American Gary Zeigler located the ruins at Llactapata 50 miles northwest of the ancient Incan capital, Cusco.

"This is a very important discovery. It is very close to Machu Picchu and aligned with it. This adds significantly to our knowledge about Machu Picchu," Thomson told Reuters by telephone Thursday. "Llactapata adds to its significance."

The site was first mentioned by explorer Hiram Bingham, the discoverer of Machu Picchu, in 1912. But he was very vague about its location, and the ruins have lain undisturbed ever since.

After locating the city from the air, the expedition used machetes to hack through the jungle to reach it, 9,000 feet up the side of a mountain.

They found stone buildings including a solar temple and houses covering several square miles in the same alignment with the Pleiades star cluster and the June solstice sunrise as Machu Picchu, which was a sacred center.

"This gives the site great ritual importance," Thomson said.

Not only was Llactapata probably a ceremonial site in its own right, excavations suggested that it might also have acted as a granary and dormitory for its sacred neighbor, he added.

The Incas abandoned their towns and cities and retreated from the treasure-hunting Spanish invaders after the Conquistadors captured and executed the last Incan leader, Tupac Amaru, in 1572.

Some of the cities have since been rediscovered, but many more are believed to lie hidden in the dense jungle, almost impossible to detect without new technology or a chance encounter.

Last year, the expedition found another lost Incan town at Cota Coca, about 60 miles west of Cusco.

"The fact that we have found two in two years means there could be many more out there," Thomson said.

He said the use for the first time of an infrared camera to locate a set of ruins from the air had been a breakthrough, but one that did not make the humble machete redundant.

"It makes wielding the machete slightly more purposeful -- at least you know where you are going and that there is something definitely in front of you -- but it certainly won't put it out of business," Thomson said.


http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/11/08/peru.inca.reut/


I have a freind who used to work for the NSA who gave me some interesting reading material concerning the Incas and their gold. They were on their way from all corners of the empire with gold for the ransom of their leader and the Spanish killed him before the got there...when they found out that their leader had been killed they just disappeared into the mountains with all that gold...and the manuscript I was reading had some very interesting speculations as to where all that gold went...almost 5 centuries later (okay just over 4 centuries later I was reading a transcript by shrub and rummy and got carried away) that gold remains undiscovered and the secret is passed from generation to generation...or so the story goes...one account comes from a Catholic priest who was actualy photographed with a few gold trinkets. He said he got them from a place where these were the smallest and least of the hoard...he was reported missing shortly there after...true or not made for some great reading...bottom line: It's a big world still even though it's a very small world after all.

TFC:

http://www.freewayblogger.com/

$3,400 an ounce gold, an article by Charlie Reese



Charley Reese

http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20030723/index.php

Weimar Republic

I have a theory that nations are like individuals. Those whose leaders
are smart, strong and lucky prosper, and those whose leaders are stupid,
weak and unlucky suffer or perish.

That's why it matters which leaders we choose. There are relatively few
people in the United States who actually have the power to make important
decisions.

The Constitution, for example, vests 100 percent of the power of the
federal government in only 537 individuals =97 one president, one vice
president, 435 members of the House and 100 members of the Senate.

Everybody else in the entire federal government operates on authority
delegated to them by these 537 individuals. Actually, since most matters
can be decided by a majority vote, a mere 269 individuals (51 senators,
218 representatives) can make most of the decisions.

Bald fact: If these people are idiots, a country can go to hell in a
hurry. Key question: Does our present political system, in which leaders
are chosen in campaigns dominated by money and marketing experts, provide
us with the opportunity to choose wise leaders? Given the present
situation, I fear not. The universal franchise in which any moron, no
matter how ignorant, is given the right to vote is a prescription for
disaster. We are looking more and more like the Weimar Republic of
Germany that collapsed morally and economically in the 1920s and gave
rise to Hitler and his Nazi Party.

If this happens to us, it will be consistent with the predictions of
Oswald Spengler, who, in his book "The Decline of the West,"
predicted that what he called an age of money would be replaced by the
age of Caesars just about around the turn of the century. He made that
prediction prior to 1918. We today are living in the time frame of his
predicted transition to dictatorships.

The quickest way to ruin a country is economically. Those dollars in our
wallets are pieces of paper tied to nothing. They are a medium of
exchange. What matters is not what the number is on the piece of paper,
but the amount of goods and services that piece of paper can be exchanged
for. That's called purchasing power. Inflation, whether gradual or
hyper-, reduces the purchasing power and thus impoverishes everyone. It
is the way that governments have historically robbed the people. In 1967,
$1 would buy four or five gallons of gasoline; today, it won't even buy
one. It isn't that the price of gasoline has gone up, but that the
purchasing power of the dollar, eroded by years of inflation, has
declined.

Hyperinflation would mean it would take a wheelbarrow full of currency to
buy a loaf of bread. It would mean the ruin of practically all Americans,
especially the middle class. All of sudden, a family's entire life
savings wouldn't pay a month's rent. Massive poverty and even starvation
would descend on the nation, and desperate people would start looking for
a savior. Survival would become more important than democratic processes.

Now, here's a scary paragraph from an article by John Berthelsen in Asia Times. You can find it at

www.atimes.com.

Asia fills her boots: dollar reserve's skyrocket
By John Berthelsen Jul 15, 2003

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Asian_Economy/EG15Dk01.html=

He quotes an analysis done by an expert with Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia in Hong Kong by the name of
Christopher Wood:

"Wood predicts that by the end of the decade there will no longer be a possibility that the world's central banks can control the situation, and there will be a truly massive devaluation of the dollar. 'The view here is that the U.S. dollar will have disintegrated by the end of this decade. By then, the target price of gold bullion is U.S. $3,400 an ounce.'"

This is predicted because of the massive trade deficits, massive federal deficits and massive personal debt that stupid politicians and citizens have accumulated. Since the target date is only seven years from now, we have only the 2004 elections to replace idiots with some smart people who might be able to head off this disaster.

2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword.

It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has 'closed', the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all their rights unto the leader and gladly so.

How do I know?

For this is what I have done.

AND I AM CAESAR."

--Julius Caesar

Damh hippies:


For two celestial reasons, the weekend of November 8-9, 2003 will provide an auspicious moment for ceremony on a global scale. On that weekend the planets will arrange themselves in a Grand Sextile pattern, representing a sublime balance of energy. Meanwhile, we will also experience a Full Moon Eclipse.

http://www.lovingtouch.co.za/harmonic_concordance.htm




For two celestial reasons, the weekend of November 8-9, 2003 will provide an auspicious moment for ceremony on a global scale. Over that weekend the planets will arrange themselves in a Grand Sextile pattern, representing a sublime balance of energy; meanwhile, the shadow of the Earth will pass over and obscure the reflected light of the Moon in a Full Moon Eclipse.

http://www.vibrantuniverse.com/auspicious_moment.html

Spam update:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cq?d=v1&s=kolr.ob+dytk

KOLR volatile...the guy spammed it at the top (of course), was up .11 for 13% on Friday...too much movement on too little volume...

DYTK is a dog from day one...several of you PM'ed me (Private Messaged) that the guy was a P & D and I should be careful...I'm always careful if I do play I play with play money and mostly I just watch and see...



Dog:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=DYTK&t=3m

IS CANCER MERELY A VITAMIN DEFICIENCY DISEASE?
Vitamin B17 Laetrile Cancer Treatment Now Available in Australia

It is a pleasure to be able to announce that Doctor Michael Tait of Queensland, Australia, has stood up to be counted in the use of B17 Laetrile. At his “Fountain of Life” clinic on the Gold Coast, Dr Tait and his colleagues generally have 4–7 cancer patients per day receiving 3 hours of Laetrile therapy. Judged by the available data, patient response is predictably excellent.

Despite his punishing workload at the clinic, Dr Tait has also managed to erect a very impressive web site, which provides more data on Vitamin B17 than any other web site I have seen. His site is well worth a visit by anyone who has ever wondered why the American FDA and Australian Government have responded to B17 with such vicious disregard for human life. A link to Dr Tait’s Fountain of Life web site is provided at the bottom of this page.

Though many alternative treatments for cancer have demonstrated success over the years, there has been too little discussion on possible ways of preventing or suppressing cancer before it has a chance to attack, or controlling it effectively after it strikes. There is also the question of why we have become increasingly vulnerable to every form of cancer as each year goes by. Is there a direct link between easily researched and steadily increasing quantities of chemicals and additives in our food and water supplies, or has the removal of certain intrinsic factors from our refined western diets been more to blame? Specifically where vulnerability is concerned, there is compelling evidence that the removal of vitamin B17 from our diets has played the greatest single role.

Decades ago two books provided vital clues to one possible cause for the alarming increasing incidence of all forms of cancer. Though aimed at widely different readerships, both books looked at possible connections between vitamin deficiency and disease. "World Without Cancer" by Edward Griffin of California examines the growing conviction that vitamin B17 appears capable of preventing the onset of all forms of cancer, while the second book "Eat Fat and Grow Slim" by Richard MacKarness M.D., proposes a high fat diet for those tired of trying the 'lettuce leaf' approach to weight loss.

Initially it is difficult to see any connection between these two widely differing subjects, but connection there is. In their individual ways both books point towards two entirely different groups of people (one vegetarian and the other carnivorous) who suffer no cancers or heart disease at all while consuming local food in their native environments. This is a critical point, for without such a linkage it is far too easy for established medical researchers to lead the public astray with billions of dollars worth of research aimed at promoting radiation and chemotherapy treatments. During 1950 after many years of research a dedicated biochemist by the name of Dr. Ernst T. Krebs, Jr. isolated a new vitamin that he numbered B17 and called 'Laetrile'. As the years rolled by, thousands became convinced that Krebs had finally found the complete control for all cancers, a conviction shared by even more people today. Back in 1950 Ernst Krebs had no idea of the hornet's nest he was about to stir up.

Unable to patent B17 or claim exclusive rights to the vitamin, the pharmaceutical multinationals launched a massive propaganda attack of unprecedented viciousness against Laetrile, despite the fact that hard proof of its efficiency in controlling cancer now surrounds us. How is it any of us gets cancer in the first place - through exposure to cigarette smoking, intense sunlight or perhaps the effect of toxic food additives? Dr. Krebs thinks not. All of his hard biochemical evidence points to the fact that cancer is a simple deficiency disease of vitamin B17, long ago removed from our highly refined western diets. Krebs postulates that the so-called 'carcinogens' are merely stress triggers which finally expose the B17 deficiency with devastating effect.

The credibility of Krebs' claim is best illustrated by the vitamin C deficiency disease known as 'scurvy'. As with cancer there is no advance warning of scurvy; no tell-tale signs that the body is running low on vitamin C reserves. One minute the patient is a healthy person and the next an invalid. Recovery from scurvy is equally dramatic. Within days (sometimes hours) of high-dose vitamin C treatment the scurvy vanishes, reappearing only if vitamin C reserves once more drop below a critical (but undocumented) level. Thus if Ernst Krebs is right, alternative treatments such as Essiac, Oxygen, and electromagnetic therapies are continually fighting an uphill battle. The simple replacement of the 'lost' Vitamin B17 in our diets might contribute to an increased success rate for other alternative treatments, or replace them completely.

The proof Dr. Krebs has presented over the years to support his claim of 'lost' B17 in our diets is impressive. Centuries ago we used to eat millet and linseed bread rich in B17, but now we chew our way through wheat bread which has none at all. For generations our grandmothers used to carefully crush the seeds of plums, greengages, cherries, apples, apricots and other members of the botanical family Rosaceae, and diligently mix the kernels with their home made jams and preserves. Grandma probably didn't know why she was doing it, but the kernels of all these fruits are some of the most potent sources of B17 in the world. In the tropics, huge quantities of B17 are found in bitter cassava, also known as tropical manioc.

Research has proved that a Himalayan tribe known as the 'Hunza' never contract cancer or suffer from heart disease if they stick to their native diet which is exceptionally high in both apricots and millet. However, once exposed to western diets the Hunza become as vulnerable as the rest of us. Because the Hunza eat very little meat this might encourage large numbers of the vegetarian community to pat each other eagerly on the back whilst proclaiming: "See, we were right!"

Alas, such jubilation would be sadly misplaced. In a bid to find a diet acceptable to those not wishing to nibble one lettuce leaf a day, Richard MacKarness made a detailed study of Eskimos living on the polar ice, and American Indians eating traditional diets. In their natural environments both groups are mostly carnivorous, eating wild game including Elk and Caribou, supplemented only by wild berries when available in season. The main point MacKarness makes in his book "Eat Fat and Grow Slim" is that there is no such thing as obesity among these people: an interesting fact in its own right as they regularly gorge themselves on saturated animal fats at least twice a day. Where things get decidedly more interesting is his proof that Eskimos and Indians living in their natural environments and eating traditional foods, NEVER contract cancer or suffer from heart complaints: exactly the same as the Hunza people in the Himalayas, despite the Eskimos and American Indians being carnivores rather than vegetarians.

Careful investigation reveals the most likely common factor to be vitamin B17. The caribou which form a large part of the staple diet of both groups graze predominantly on arrow grass containing up to 15,000 mg per kilo nitriloside, the primary source of B17. The salmon berries dried and eaten by Eskimos and Indians alike also contain huge quantities of vitamin B17. So in these widely differing communities vegetarians and carnivores alike can both remain perfectly healthy. This is of particular importance to those who are environmentally unable to take up a vegetarian diet by choice. Such a diet would be well nigh impossible on the polar ice caps or in arid deserts.

Unfortunately for most 'civilized' western cultures, grasses and other foodstuffs now used to feed domestic animals intended for human consumption rarely contain more than a trace of nitriloside, though they did until botanists and biochemists started to genetically alter our plant life. In turn this means our secondary source of vitamin B17 (through the meat food-chain) is fast drying up. Where The Hunza or Eskimaux get an average individual ration of between 250 and 3,000 milligrams of vitamin B17 every day, European folk eating 'healthy' modern foods receive barely 2 milligrams.

The implications of these finding are staggering of course. If we managed to control scurvy centuries ago, how is it we cannot do the same for cancer today? The fact is we probably could if our respective governments would allow it.

Unfortunately most: governments have buckled under the pressure exerted by the pharmaceutical multinationals, the American Food & Drug Administration, and the American Medical Association. All three have mounted highly successful 'scare' campaigns based on the fact that vitamin B17 contains quantities of 'deadly' cyanide; conveniently forgetting that vitamin B12 also contains large quantities of cyanide but is freely available in health food shops world-wide.

Dr. Kreb's B17 Laetrile was derived from apricot kernels and then synthesized into crystalline form using his own unique process. Suddenly the American FDA bombarded the media with a story about an unfortunate couple who had poisoned themselves by eating raw apricot kernels in San Francisco. The story made headline news across the U.S.A. although several suspicious ;journalists never managed to establish the identity of the unfortunate couple, despite many determined attempts.

But the multinational pharmaceutical/FDA boot had been put in with a vengeance. From that point onwards eating apricot kernels or B17 Laetrile became synonymous with committing suicide. Back in the fifties Dr. Ernst Krebs proved beyond doubt that B17 was completely harmless to humans in the most convincing way possible. After testing the vitamin on animals, he filled a large hypodermic with a mega-dose of concentrated Laetrile which he then injected into his own arm! Drastic perhaps, but the adventurous Dr. Krebs is still alive and well today.

The vitamin is harmless to healthy tissue for a very simple reason: each molecule of B17 contains one unit of cyanide, one unit of benzaldehyde and two of glucose (sugar) tightly locked together. In order for the cyanide to become dangerous it is first necessary to 'unlock' the molecule to release it, a trick that can only be performed by an enzyme called beta-glucosidase, which is present all over the human body in minute quantities, but in truly vast quantities (up to 100 times as high) at only one place: the site of a malignant cancer tumor. Thus the cyanide is unlocked only at the cancer site with drastic results, which become utterly devastating to the cancer cells because the benzaldehyde unit unlocks at the same time.

Benzaldehyde is a deadly poison in its own right, which then acts synergistically with the cyanide to produce a poison 100 times more deadly than either in isolation. The combined effect on the cancer cells is best left to the imagination. But what about danger to the rest of the body's cells? Another enzyme, rhodanese, always present in far larger quantities than the unlocking enzyme beta-glucosidase in healthy tissues, has the easy ability to completely break down both cyanide and benzaldehyde into beneficial body products. Predictably perhaps, malignant cancer cells contain no rhodanese at all, leaving them completely at the mercy of the two deadly poisons.

Generations ago our agricultural experts knew of the 'trigger' effect of beta-glucosidase i.e. its ability to unlock the cyanide unit in the B17 molecule, but there appeared to be a considerable amount of confusion about how to approach the problem. The simplistic solution seemed to be that of labeling all plants containing the B17 molecule "poisonous", then genetically modifying them to remove the nitriloside content completely for the safety of the animals. One classic example of this misguided approach was a 1940s case where Australian sheep were occasionally dying from an excess of cyanide derived from white clover, known to contain B17. Without giving a thought to why most of the sheep eating the same clover stayed alive, botanists promptly bred the nitriloside content out of the white clover.

In reality the sheep that died were the few who wandered away from the clover to eat a tasty fuschia plant which contained a very high concentration of the unlocking enzyme beta-glucosidase, which reacted immediately in the sheeps' stomachs and caused death. If the botanists had neutralized a few fuschias instead of millions of tons of white clover, there would be significantly more vitamin B17 available today for humans to ingest through the meat food-chain.

For better or worse vast quantities of vitamin B17 have been removed from western foods, and society is now faced with cancers at an unprecedented level. Even if we allow that a deficiency of B17 might be the most likely culprit for the sudden appearance of such a condition, there is still the question of what happens next and how that cancer develops to the life-threatening stage. In "World Without Cancer", Griffin explains the trophoblastic theory of cancer proposed by Professor John Beard of Edinburgh University, who claims certain pre-embryonic cells in pregnancy differ in no discernible way from highly malignant cancer cells. Griffin notes: ' The trophoblast in pregnancy indeed does exhibit all the classical characteristics of cancer. It spreads and multiplies rapidly as it eats its way into the uterus wall preparing a place where the embryo can attach itself for maternal protection and nourishment.'

The trophoblast is formed in a chain reaction by another cell which Griffin simplifies down to the 'total-life' cell, which can evolve into any organ or tissue, or alternatively into a complete human embryo. When the total-life cell is triggered into producing trophoblast by contact with the hormone oestrogen, present in both males and females, one of two different things happens: in the case of pregnancy the result is conventional development of a placenta and umbilical cord. If the trophoblast is triggered as part of a healing process however, the result is cancer or, as Edward Griffin cautions: 'To be more accurate, we should say it is cancer if the healing process is not terminated upon completion of its task.'

Stunning proof of this claim is readily available. All trophoblast cells produce a unique hormone called the chorionic gonadotrophic (CGH) which is easily detected in urine. Thus if a person is either pregnant or has cancer, a simple CGH pregnancy test should confirm either or both. It does, with a reported accuracy of better than 85%. If the urine sample shows positive it means either normal pregnancy or abnormal malignant cancer. Griffin notes: 'If the patient is a woman, she either is pregnant or has cancer. If he is a man, cancer can be the only cause.' So why all of the expensive, dangerous biopsies carried to 'detect' cancerous growths? One can only assume that medicare pays doctors a larger fee for biopsies than pregnancy tests. In Australia, two CGH style 'do-it-yourself' pregnancy tests stocked by most pharmacies are 'Discover' and 'Predictor'.

Physicians reading this article will probably be shaking with self-righteous indignation by this stage, muttering darkly: 'Yes, but where is the PROOF?' Right here: Most people have heard of 'spontaneous regression' where a cancer simply goes away, hopefully never to reappear. Such spontaneous regressions are exceedingly rare and vary from one form of cancer to another. One virulent cancer variety known as testicular chorionepithelioma has never been known to produce a single spontaneous regression. Perhaps for that precise reason, Dr. Krebs singled it out for special attention when proving the effectiveness of B17 Laetrile in providing total control for cancers.

As Edward Griffin recalls, in a banquet speech in San Francisco on November 19, 1967, Dr. Ernst T. Krebs briefly reviewed six cases of testicular chorionepithelioma. Then he added: 'Now there is an advantage in not having had prior radiation, because if you have not received prior radiation that has failed, then you cannot enjoy the imagined benefits of the delayed effects of prior radiation. So this boy falls into the category of the "spontaneous regression." And when we look at this scientifically, we know that spontaneous regression occurs in fewer than one in 150,000 cases of cancer. The statistical possibility of spontaneous regression accounting for the complete resolution of six successive cases of testicular chorionepithelioma [All six completely resolved solely by B17 Laetrile - Ed.] is far greater than the statistical improbability of the sun not rising tomorrow morning. '

Wisely perhaps, Griffin notes that because of the adverse publicity against B17 Laetrile, and because of the difficulties in obtaining the 'banned' substance, most cancer sufferers turn to the vitamin as a last resort, long after they have been burned by radiation therapy, and/or poisoned by chemotherapy. When "World Without Cancer" was written in 1974, B17 Laetrile was freely available in Australia. It is not now. A recent check with the Australian Cancer Foundation and health authorities revealed that nowadays Canberra considers each individual case on its merits, then decides whether the patient should be allowed to import sufficient of the material for his or her own personal use. If he or she manages to jump that hurdle, it is then his or her own responsibility to find a doctor prepared to inject it. Seemingly the multinational lobbyists managed to get to our politicians before Dr. Krebs could get to the Australian public.

Last month Australian nationwide television carried the frightening news that two out of every three Australians can expect to suffer skin cancer at least once during their lifetimes. On the massive evidence provided by Dr. Ernst Krebs, Jr., Edward Griffin and Dr. Richard MacKarness, that figure might be crushed to a tiny percentage if Australians were allowed freedom of choice where B17 Laetrile is concerned. It is perhaps time for Australians to take a stand on this undeniably lethal issue.

REFERENCES

Australian Veterinary Journal, Franklin and Reid, Volume 100, p92, 1944.

CANCER: Disease of Civilization? An Anthropological and Historical Study, Stefanson, V, Hill & Wang, New York, 1960.

Eat Fat and Grow Slim, MacKarness, R., Fontana, London 1976.

Laetrile Case Histories, Richardson J.A. and P, Bantam, USA.

New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology, Coop & Blakely, February 1949, page 277, February 1950, page 45
.
The Nitrilosides in Plants and Animals, "Nutritional and therapeutic Implications", Krebs E.T, Cancer Book House, Los Angeles, California, USA. Published by the Cancer Control Society, a non-profit educational Society dedicated to educating the public about nutrition and non-toxic cancer therapies.

World Without Cancer, Griffin, G.E., American Media, PO Box 4646, Westlake Village, California 91359, USA. Price US$9.95 plus air mail postage of US$9.00. Discounts available (up to 65% for bulk orders) for alternative booksellers.

FOOTNOTES: For anyone unable to access synthesized Laetrile in Mexico, the most obvious source of oral vitamin B17 is apricot kernels. Unfortunately the Australian Government has made access to this natural product extremely difficult. Courtesy of the pharmaceutical lobbies, it is now a federal "crime" for health food shops and others to sell apricot kernels to the public. There is an easier way of obtaining B17 not shown in the text, and that is from crushed linseed. The primary source of B17 in linseed is Linimarin rather than Nitriloside found in apricot kernels and Cassava, but the effect is the same if enough is eaten.

Readers should note that linimarin B17 exists in the crushed linseed itself, not in the extracted linseed oil. Cheap "Linseed Cake" sold by all animal feed stores is ideal, though in every case the linseed should be mixed in a high-speed blender or coffee grinder before use. Whole linseed is very hard, passing through the gut unaltered and without releasing its beneficial B17 content into the bloodstream. Once crushed, the linseed meal may be mixed with breakfast cereals or baked in bread.

Medical Researchers "Discover" Vitamin B17 Laetrile

Australian newspapers reported this month that medical researchers in London have developed "a natural cyanide-producing system created by plants", to locate and kill cancerous tumors in humans. .Though researchers cite Cassava as the source plant for the active tumor-killing cyanide, the cyanide Cassava contains is exactly the same as that found in Apricot kernels, source of the vilified and outlawed Vitamin B17 Laetrile.

This is not new research at all, but a slightly distorted version of the work of famous biochemist Ernst Krebs, who thirty years ago identified and isolated B17. Krebs and his colleagues came under vicious attack from the AMA and pharmaceutical multinationals, presumably because as a vitamin derived from apricot kernels, B17 Laetrile could not be patented in order to yield huge profits for shareholders.



Genesis 1:29 “And God said, Behold I have
given you every herb bearing seed, which is
upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in
the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to
you it shall be for meat”

http://www.joevialls.co.uk/vialls/laetrile1.html

Employment Disaster
Kurt Richebächer
The Daily Reckoning
September 29, 2003

The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS:

The strong, compelling evidence of an economy that is as far away from a recovery as its disastrous job numbers.

There has been much talk to the effect that America has just had its slightest recession in the whole postwar period. That is measured in real GDP growth, being bolstered by many statistical tricks. Measured, however, by job losses, which certainly are the far more important gauge, it is already America's worst recession by far.

In June it was declared that the recession had ended in November 2001. Yet in the 20 months since, payroll employment has declined by a total of about 1 million jobs, or about 8%. In not one of the seven or eight postwar recoveries has there been any employment decline. Immediate strong job growth has been the regular characteristic of all business cycle recoveries. On average, payroll jobs increased 3.8% in the 20 months following the end of recession.

What's more, no letup in job losses is in sight. During the second quarter, widely hailed for its better-than-expected GDP growth, the household measure of employment slumped by 260,000. However, this figure concealed an even greater number of workers - 556,000 - who statistically quit the workforce because they have given up looking for nonexisting jobs.

This rapidly growing group of people no longer count as unemployed. What American job statistics really measure are not changes in unemployment, but changes in job seekers. Including the frustrated job seekers, the U.S. unemployment rate is hardly lower than in Europe. Certainly, it is rising much faster.

In addition, the Labor Department is employing month for month the same two practices that camouflage the horrible reality. In July, for example, it reported a decline in payrolls by 44,000, while job losses for June were revised upward from 30,000 to 72,000. For May, the retrospective upward revision was even from 17,000 to 70,000. As such upward revisions of job losses in the prior month have become a regular feature, this practice has the convenient effect of producing correspondingly lower new numbers every month. The same happens, at more moderate scale, with weekly reported claims.

There is still more spinning involved. The government adds every month some 30,000-50,000 imaginary workers to the job total. It is based on the assumption that in an economic recovery a lot of people start their own business. In normal recoveries, they have done so, indeed.

All it needs to activate this statistical job creation is a unilateral decision by the government that the economy is in recovery. Once a year, the statisticians reconcile their assumption with reality by a revision. When they did this in May of this year, 400,000 new jobs that had been reported earlier simply vanished. Such revisions, of course, take place outside the monthly reported job losses. Together, we presume, these statistical casuistries have reduced the reported job losses in the past two years by well over 100,000 per month.

It rather abruptly became the consensus view that in America the great recovery from protracted, sluggish growth is finally on its way. Record-low interest rates, runaway money and credit growth, new big tax cuts, record-high cash-outs by consumers through mortgage refinancing, increasing house and stock prices, and rising profits are cited as the compelling reasons for this optimism.

We are more than skeptical about the true impact of all these influences on the economy primarily for one reason: Most of them, if not all of them, have been at work for some time already, but with grossly disappointing overall effects on the whole economy, and now some of these influences are weakening or even reversing.

Think of the sharp rise in long-term interest rates that is most assuredly stopping the mortgage-refinancing bubble dead in its tracks. That, in our view, will not only abort any recovery but will also mean the economy's relapse into new recession.

As for fiscal policy, it clearly gave its biggest boost to the economy between the fourth quarter of 2000 and the second quarter of 2002. That is a period of six quarters during which the federal budget gyrated from a quarterly surplus of $306.1 billion to a deficit of $526 billion, both at annual rate. This year, the deficit is supposed to hit $455 billion. Most probably, it will come out much higher. But this follows a deficit in the last year of $257.5 billion. The fiscal stimulus is waning, not increasing.

In any case, actual, historical experience in the 1970-80s with large-scale government deficit spending has been anything but encouraging. It created more inflation than economic growth. Over time, rising deficits were rather recognized as impediments to economic growth. Japan's recent experience makes frightening reading. Since 1997, government debt has skyrocketed from 92% to 150% of GDP, rising every year by more than 10% of GDP. Yet nominal GDP keeps shrinking.

As to monetary policy, we have very much the same doubts about its efficacy in generating economic growth under current economic and financial conditions. It is the traditional American consensus view that monetary policy is omnipotent if properly handled. In this view, any recession, or worse, always has its decisive cause in the failure of the central bank to ease its reins fast enough. In this view whatever happened in the economy during the prior boom is irrelevant.

This time, both monetary and fiscal policies in America have acted with unprecedented speed and vigor. To people's general surprise, the economy's rate of growth abruptly slumped during 2000 from 3.7% in the first half to 0.8% in the second.

Starting on Jan. 3, 2001, the Fed slashed its short-term rate in unusually quick succession. Within just 12 months, its federal funds rate was down from 5.98 to 1.82.

Assessing the development, the first thing that struck us as most unusual was that this sudden, sharp economic downturn occurred against the backdrop of most rampant money and credit growth. Total nonfederal, nonfinancial credit grew by $1,144.3 billion in 2000, after $1,102.6 billion in the year before. This compared with nominal GDP growth during the year by $437.2 billion. The first important conclusion to draw therefore was that this sudden economic downturn had obviously nothing to do with money or credit tightness.

Ever since, nonfinancial credit growth has sharply accelerated. In the fourth quarter of 2002, it hit a record of $1,612.8 billion, at annual rate, followed in the first quarter of 2003 by $1,338.3 billion. This coincided with simultaneous nominal growth of $388.4 billion and real GDP growth of $224.4 billion, both also at annual rate. For each dollar added to real GDP, there were thus six dollars added to the indebtedness of the nonfinancial sector.

Regards,

Kurt Richebächer
Sep 26, 2003
for The Daily Reckoning

P.S. During the 1960-70s, by the way, there was on average about 1.5 dollars of debt added for each dollar of additional GDP. Just extrapolate this escalating relationship between the use of debt and economic activity. And think of it: the GDP growth of today is tomorrow a thing of the past, while the debts incurred remain. Plainly, Greenspan's policy has collapsed into uncontrolled money and debt creation that has rapidly diminishing returns on economic activity.

As we noted in these pages last week, the late economist Hyman P. Mynsky would call this a Ponzi economy where debt payments on outstanding and soaring indebtedness are no longer met out of current income but through new borrowing. Soaring unpaid interests become capitalized.

Editor's note: Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker once said: "Sometimes I think that the job of central bankers is to prove Kurt Richebächer wrong." A regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal, Strategic Investment and several other respected financial publications, Dr. Richebächer's insightful analysis stems from the Austrian School of economics. France's Le Figaro magazine has done a feature story on him as "the man who predicted the Asian crisis."

In the September issue of his newsletter, Dr. Richebächer aggressively dissected the data economists are interpreting as a miracle 'recovery' - including a critical look at defense spending and its aggregate effect on the revised GDP numbers for Q2. His conclusion: the recovery is hokum. If you are not already a subscriber, you can't afford to miss this special report: Greenspan Is Robbing You Blind!

A version of this essay was originally published in The Daily Reckoning, a free daily email service brought to you by the authors of "Financial Reckoning Day: Surviving The Soft Depression of The 21st

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/richebacher/richebacher092903.html

It's come to this: Drug Raid At S.C. High School

CBS) Gun-toting police burst into a South Carolina high school, ordering students to lie down in hall ways as they searched for drugs. The commando-style raid has parents questioning the wisdom of police tactics.

The raid occurred Wednesday at Stratford High School in Goose Creek, S.C. Surveillance video obtained by CBS Affiliate WCSC in Charleston shows the police waving their guns and searching lockers as students lie flat on their stomachs or sides.

The school's principal defends the dramatic sweep, caught on the school's surveillance tape. Police came into the school with guns at the ready, ordered all students to lie on the floor and then handcuffed anyone who apparently didn't comply quickly enough.

"We received reports from staff members and students that there was a lot of drug activity. Recently we busted a student for having over 300 plus prescription pills. The volume and the amount of marijuana coming into the school is unacceptable," said principal George McCrackin.

Police didn't find any criminals in the armed sweep, but they say K-9 dogs smelled drugs on a dozen backpacks. Goose Creek police and school administrators defend the draconian measures as necessary for crime prevention.

The parents of some students who were subjected to the sweep disagree.

"I was just upset knowing they had guns put to their head and a K9 was barking at them and about to bite somebody. It was awful," parent Latonia Simmons told WCSC.

The Post And Courier newspaper in Charleston reports the high school is one of the largest in the state with 2,760 students. It has an academic reputation as one of the Lowcountry's best.

The paper quoted Lt. Dave Aarons of the Goose Creek Police Department as saying that the suspected drug dealers appeared to be knowledgeable about where the school surveillance cameras were. He said he watched school surveillance tapes from four days that showed students congregating under cameras, periodically walking into a bathroom with different students and coming out moments later.

"They know where the cameras are. If they stand directly under them, the camera's don't look directly down,'' Aarons told the paper.


©MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/07/national/main582492.shtml

Mogambo sez: Ugh!
Richard Daughty
The Mogambo Guru
The Daily Reckoning
Nov 7, 2003

[Read it twice laffed out loud the first time just chuckled the second time. Get you some gold get you some silver I AM POUNDING THE TABLE ON THIS! AS MUCH AS YOU GUYS WERE POUNDING THE TABLE ON HLSH AM AM POUNDING THE TABLE 10X (THAT'S TEN TIMES MORE) MORE ON SILVER! -THG]

Last week the banks suddenly soaked up $30 billion in government debt. This is very fortunate, as the Treasury issued another $15 billion in new debt. However, overall bank credit and savings are both still heading lower and lower. And apparently the Treasury has announced that they are going to auction off another $61 billion within the month.

I can't let the 7% rise in GDP, annualized, pass without comment. To wit; how much is 7% of GDP in dollars and cents? Well, the usual figure for GDP is ten trillion dollars. So 7% growth in GDP is, by mathematical imperative, a $700 billion dollar growth in GDP. The economy, in other words, grew by $700 billion. Sounds kind of impressive.

But, and you knew there was going to be a "but," the federal government has borrowed and spent $600 billion in the last year, and doofus Americans increased personal debt, mostly mortgage refinancing, to borrow and spend at least another $800 billion in the year. And when you add in mortgage refinancing, then the amount borrowed and spent easily surpasses a trillion dollars.

And let's not forget all the corporate debt that has been floated, so that corporations could borrow and spend. And the states and municipalities also borrowed and spent a load of cash, too. And out of all this borrowing and spending, which totals, almost certainly near $3 trillion, the damn GDP only expanded by $700 billion? You spend four bucks to get one buck of growth? GDP grew at about a lousy fourth - a fourth! - of all the money that has been borrowed and spent? So why in hell am I supposed to get all worked up about a lousy 7%? Jeez!

What was missed by most people is, of course, the predicted inflation, as the price index for personal consumption rose at a 2.4% rate, which is up dramatically from 0.8% in the second quarter. As the WSJ put it, "In addition to the climb in... consumer prices, other familiar signposts, such as rising commodity prices and a depreciating dollar seem to indicate brewing inflation."

I cannot keep my eyeballs from rolling back in their sockets whenever I hear that inflation is low. But apparently I am the only guy in the whole freaking country that is watching the prices of insurances, cable TV bills, telephone bills, commodities, houses, taxes, fees, and damn near everything else I consume going up at double-digit rates. So for YOU maybe this is some wonderful world of low inflation, but for me it is a whole different ball game.

And I note with a certain shudder that I am reading more and more references to economics-forecasting people starting to predict HYPER inflation. Not ordinary inflation. But the real thing, the big thing, the old Reichmark thing, where it took a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread and caused the absolute collapse of the German currency. It is not inconceivable to me. Maybe not right now, but soon enough.

Martin Weiss, Safe Money Report, "For many months, the stock market and the economy have been driven by the most desperate, emergency government rescue of all time - 13 successive interest-rate cuts, two massive tax cuts, hundreds of billions in extra federal spending. But now, the long joy ride is coming to an abrupt end.

"The Fed demonstrated yesterday that it's impotent, unable to cut rates by one more iota. The government's tax-cutting power is exhausted, its last round of tax refund checks already mailed, received and spent. The best possible earnings week in years is now behind us, and there can be no encore."

Well, there is where Mr. Weiss and I part company, where he goes off to make intelligent arguments with his high-toned friends and I take the lower road with my hoodlum friends down into the sewers of the government heart, and I can tell you that I am absolutely sure, which is a lot more that just your run-of-the-mill "sure," that the government will mail out more checks, or pass some more enabling legislation, or both, or something, to put more money into people's pockets so that they can continue to make fools of themselves, and then pay for the whole thing with printing more money. Much more money. Oodles of money. Or maybe even oodles AND oodles of money.

But Mr. Weiss, like most intelligent people, doesn't listen to me or even answer the phone when I call, and says, "It's over, and the forces we've been warning you about are about to hit hard: The worst dollar collapse in 16 years... the sharpest bond market decline since 1987... the worst job creation of any recovery in more than half a century... the biggest federal deficits in history!"

"Now, the fantasy is about to be replaced by reality; the stock market euphoria, by stock market panic." Ho-hum. Now, if he was talking about replacing these damn fat-free crackers with delicious fat-filled chocolate cookies, I would be more attentive. But my reverie about those luscious morsels is smashed when he follows all of that up with, "Late last week, critical chart support for the Dow was shattered, flashing red sell signals."

Bloomberg reports, in a article entitled "British Pound Gains to Five-Year High on Rate-Increase Optimism," that the British are raising their key interest rate by a quarter of a point, even though their "borrowing rate," which I assume means some inter-government rate, is at 3.5%, while ours, the Fed Funds rate, is stuck at 1%. The impetus for this was the latest read on mortgage lending and consumer credit statistics, which shows that the Brits are acting as foolishly as us Americans, by going farther and farther into crippling debt.

But there is an ocean between the Continent and the USA, in more ways than one. To illustrate what I mean by that enigmatic remark, I offer the following to show the depths of depravity into which American economic thought has sunk: "In contrast to expectations of higher U.K. rates, the U.S. Federal Reserve yesterday said a lack of inflation remains a concern, bolstering the view it won't soon raise its key rate. The U.S. central bank kept its benchmark rate at 1 percent, the lowest in 45 years." Didja get that? "Lack of inflation remains a concern." What a profoundly stupid thing to say, and if there is one thing that categorically brands American economists as dim-witted, low-IQ fools, it is their lack of criticism for something that is so obviously stupid beyond words.

So let me get this straight: The British have a Fed Funds rate that is already three times as high as ours, with the same inflation figures, with the same rate of citizens going into debt, and comparable debt loads. They, paragons of virtue and responsibility, are raising rates to prevent more of this insanity. But we, paragons of suicidal profligacy, have a Federal Reserve that figures Fed Funds at 1%, the lowest in forty-five freaking years, which is one-third of inflation of at least 3%, is not enough? And that we need MORE inflation?

Who the hell ARE these Federal Reserve jackasses? And why is the everybody going along with this madness?

A perfect example of why I stridently say that Democrats are stupid people, or probably more accurately that stupid people are Democrats, is found last Wednesday on the op-ed page of the St. Petersburg Times, which I call the "St. Pinko Times," where we find a little piece of classic Democrat stupidity they titled "Unfair tax treatment." It seems that some outfit named Nabor Industries corporation moved its headquarters from Houston to Bermuda. Nabor then was able to cut its taxes by 80%, and saved itself $10 million dollars in corporate taxes last year. According to the Leftist dim-bulbs who write editorials for that newspaper, this is unfair.

What these commie-pinko, big-government-loving, Leftist losers never stop to consider is: What happened to the ten million bucks? We all understand from the article is that they did not send it to the US Treasury as taxes. But, then what happened to it?

Well, in all likelihood, it went for capital investment and salaries. And with the standard multiplier of 4, that means that it is entirely possible, if not probable, that $40 million in economic activity was created with that ten million bucks! And with a hypothesized tax bite of 30% on that $40 million, then the damn government tax collectors saw an increase of $12 million dollars on that $40 million! So, net net, Nabor did NOT pay ten million in taxes, but other people had an upsurge in business, and they ended up paying, collectively, $12 million in taxes! By not taxing Nabors they increased tax collections! It's the Laffer curve all over again!

And yet as these shameless loudmouth Leftist Losers are predictably whining because Nabor did not pay ten million, but they do not care about making twelve million! They would rather that the government get less money because it is somehow "fair!"

I mean, jeez!

The Yahoo site had a little biography of Trichet, the guy who is taking over from Wim Duisenberg as head of the European Central Bank. "A graduate of the prestigious Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA), Trichet served as an advisor to former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing and was chief of staff of then finance minister Edouard Balladur in 1986-1987. He also held key posts under the Socialists and was treasury director from 1987 to 1993." Okay, so right off the bat we know he is an insider to the socialist conspiracy to rule the world. But perhaps there are worse things. There are, as we find when we read on, "In 1993, Trichet became the first governor to run the Bank of France after the central bank was made independent. It was during his term as treasury director that the then state-owned Credit Lyonnais was bailed out by the government at a cost of 100 billion francs (18 billion dollars) and Trichet allegedly falsified and published inaccurate information on the bank, though he insists he made no personal gain."

So he is a liar, and a socialist, and he bails out corrupt and bankrupt institutions. So, as we see, it DID get worse!

Getting out our crayons and connecting the dots, the three largest members of the EU, France, Germany and Italy, are all in budget deficit that surpasses the Maastrict maximum of 3% of GDP for the fourth year in a row. And now we suddenly see why this French socialist jackass Trichet was maneuvered into the position to destroy the EU central bank.

Hans Sennholz, the god-father of the Austrian school of economics here in the USA, writes, "In just five years, total financial as well as non-financial American debt has surged by 51 percent or $10.9 trillion to more than $32 trillion, three times the annual Gross National Product. During the last quarter alone American households added $397.6 billion in mortgage debt and another $40 billion in credit card debt."

And all this at the same time as Saturday morning as I drove to the store, and happened to hear two stock market jackasses talking about their theory of why the economy showed such growth in the last quarter. They were all a-tingle about the tax cuts and the rebates, and how things are just peachy. I didn't catch the names of those two doofuses, but that is not important, because they are all that way.

And in case you are wondering, the gigantic increase in GDP was the result of morons, like you and me, but not you and me, and not nearly as good looking as us, well, you anyway, borrowing money that they cannot pay back to buy things they cannot afford and should not be buying. It is just that simple.

And now that these ugly morons have spent the money, the other doofuses in charge of businesses all decided that the one-off increase in sales in some permanent thing, and so they borrowed to ramp up production to meet the anticipated demand! How in the hell we got to be the number one superpower in the world is beyond me, unless the rest of the world has more idiocy per capita, or IPC, than we do. Which is truly horrifying in itself.

John Mauldin, taking about P/E ratios, says, "I believe we are going to single-digit ratios. I also believe it will take a decade or more, just as it did in the 70's and in past secular bear markets."

He also shows that he reads history when he adds, "No bull market has ever started from such high valuation levels."

There is a treat on the Mises.com site, as H.A. Scott Trask wrote a really nice piece entitled "Reflation in American History." He writes, "Since the early seventeenth century, American governments (colonial, state, and federal) have tried and failed to restart business expansions by reflation. That is, they have tried to revive an inflation-driven economic boom that has stalled or collapsed by pumping new money into the system. In other words, they have tried reflating as the cure for the evils introduced by inflating. They have not yet succeeded in skipping over the inevitable contraction of the business cycle, but they have succeeded in worsening its severity and length and delaying sound recovery."

Not content with that, he goes on to show "Hoover was a corporatist, an inflationist, and a statist who tried every policy in the interventionist playbook. He denigrated economists who urged him to follow the examples of such laissez-faire presidents as Van Buren, Buchanan, and Cleveland as 'reactionaries' and 'bitter-end liquidationists' whose advice, if followed, would lead to 'utter ruin.' Such a passive policy was not for the 'great engineer.' Hoover did something. He declared 'war' on the depression. It led to utter ruin."

But history is re-written, as "Chicago school monetarists, however, contend that Hoover and the Federal Reserve passively allowed the money supply to shrink and so starved the economy of the funds and credit necessary to restart ailing businesses and financial institutions. The truth is that the Federal Reserve tried to inflate but was frustrated by the public's lack of confidence in the banking system and by the bankers' reluctance to extend credit to marginal enterprises. In the weeks and months after Black Monday, the Federal Reserve both cut interest rates and poured liquidity into the banking system." Didja get that part about how the Fed cut interest rates and poured liquidity into the system? Just like now! And since it worked so well then, guess it will work equally well now, eh?

Of course, there have been plenty of times when the business cycle had the inevitable downside of the cycle. "During those periods, there were sharp reductions in bank deposits, bank notes, wages, and prices. Bankrupt and marginal firms, farms, corporations, and banks failed in large numbers.

"This did not happen after the stock market crash of October 1929 because Hoover's proto-Keynesian fiscal policies and inflationary monetary policies drove down interest rates, kept up wage levels, prevented deflation, and delayed the liquidations and adjustments needed to lay the groundwork for a sound recovery." And, at the risk of repeating myself, it worked so well then, I guess it will work equally well again.

Bush is insisting that the taxpayer's money that he wants to give to Iraq be in the form of a grant, and not a loan. If it was a loan, then one day in the future, Iraqi dudes are going to be sitting around cleaning their Kalishnikov rifles and say, "Hey! Wait a minute! You say that we owe you American infidel oppressors a hundred billion dollars because you took out a loan in our name, forced us to buy American products, put money into the pockets of Halliburton and other friends of vice-president, and now we owe you more money than we can't possibly pay out of our GDP, since the per capita income of Iraq is a lousy $600 per year? Death to the infidel!"

But if the money is in the form of a grant, then Iraq wins, Halliburton wins, all the other friends of Dick Cheney win, and so, to paraphrase, "What is good for Halliburton is good for America!"

In the Funny Times, there was a cartoon by a guy named Ted Rall, entitled "Everything Explained." It is the re-telling of the way gullible, stupid people are ready to do stupid things, especially stupid economic things, and are willing to tell themselves lies, namely that the stupid idea is not, you know, stupid.

The center panel has Ms. Everywoman saying, "Check out the nut! Mr. Paranoid would rather to nothing than something stupid," and onlookers join in at the degradation of a guy who had the temerity to say, "Hey! This is stupid! And the reason is because it is suicidal!"

Sure enough, after a panel with the comment "Years pass," we next see our nay-sayer hero sitting in front of the TV, as the announcer is saying, "Everyone thought the stupid idea was a smart idea. Now it's obvious that it's a disaster." In the background of the newscast is the backdrop saying "U.S.A. IN RUINS."

China is still being set up as the scapegoat for our problems, and I am sure that my thinning hair is part of their nefarious plan. And in other countries, it is America that is the scapegoat, and I am personally working on plans to make their damn hair thin, too, as part of my childish tit-for-tat attitude. In the olden days, we were the scapegoat because others were envious of our success. Today, on the other hand, we are actually at fault for a lot of the misery, and so it is only natural that others point accusatory fingers at us, and cluck their tongues as they look in the mirror at their receding hairlines. Of course, it is also only natural that we would point accusatory fingers at them, and cluck our tongues in smug condescension at their weird customs, and how they always speak English with those funny accents. As the latest Economist magazine put it, "The heart of rich country's complaints is an unwillingness to accept responsibility for their own economic faults. It is easier to point the finger at China."

They go on to say, "But the real cause of America's trade deficit is its low saving rate, the result of surging household borrowing and a big budget deficit."

Also in this week's Economist magazine is a chart on page 66, which shows the nominal and the real inflation-adjusted price. It looks like oil at thirty dollars a barrel is at the low end of the range! So, the lesson is "Don't look for oil to drop much in price!"

To show you the effect of inflation, take a look at the chart on page 4 of the special report in the middle on the magazine. It shows "CEO compensation per $ of net profit," a graph that they entitle "Amply rewarded."

Anyway, in using 1960 as a base =100, then in 2003 CEO compensation is $500. "Wow!" you say to yourself. "A hundred in 1960, and five hundred in 2003!" And when you look at the graph, it looks dramatic, alright.

But, and get ready for a lesson in inflation, that whole thing is merely 4.1% inflation! We almost have that now, and everybody you listen to or read says "Inflation is low! So low as to be benign! The current 3% inflation is insignificant, and in fact the Fed is turning open the monetary spigot, trying to achieve MORE inflation!" So, the lesson is that the humongous compensation of CEO's is just "benign" inflation.

I have been busy coming up with more "unconventional methods" for Ben Bernanke of the Fed. He is the guy who is willing to make every economic mistake in the book if it makes the economy go. So, if you are willing to accept horrific results down the road, then I have a solution to the big debt problem today. All Congress has to do is do two ridiculous things. The first one is to order the Treasury to print up $10 trillion in cash and simply buy up all the Treasury debt. It's a simple as that. At the end of the day, we will have no sovereign debt. Zero! Zip! And we will have about $3 trillion left over after doing it! And we can use the money to fully fund Social Security! And Medicare! And Medicaid! And full prescription-drug benefits for everybody!

And for the private debt in this country, simply let everybody declare a special bankruptcy, which I suggest they call Jubilee Bankruptcy, and pass a new tax law that says you can claim a juicy Tax Credit for every dime that went bad because the guy you loaned it to went bankrupt in the big Jubilee! And then Congress can just print more money to send everybody their tax refund checks! Suddenly, no more consumer debt! We have wiped all of the slates clean, and are ready to start again!

I mean, if you are going to have a fiat currency, then how come we aren't enjoying the fruits of it? If not, then what is the point of even HAVING a fiat currency if you are not busy having fun with it, by destroying it by printing up too much of it? As Richard Benson of Bensons's Economic Trends says, "A few month's growth can be purchased if the authorities are willing to pay any price."

He also writes "Our domestic policymakers had not counted on the 'dark side' of globalization in this economic cycle to send both new investment and job growth to Asia." Oops. The Congress, which the arch-jackass Robert Byrd of West Virginia once called "the greatest deliberative body in the world," and he was not trying to be funny, figured that everybody would always be willing to pay higher prices instead of lower prices, and to hire high-priced labor instead of low-priced labor.

Jeremy Grantham, one of the biggest of the big shots running money around the world, was interviewed for an article in this week's Barron's, and he says, "This is not just a bear market rally, but the greatest sucker rally in history."

And as far a debt is concerned, he is in my camp when he says "Debt has not declined. It has, in fact, risen dramatically at the government level, quite dramatically at the corporate level, dramatically at the foreign level and very substantially and steadily at the consumer level. This is not a good picture."

But to show you that even biggie dudes like Grantham can say stupid things, he also says, "It is really seriously hard to get too excited in a population of 250 million about the eventual loss of an incremental 6 million jobs." For one damn thing, more than half of that 250 million he is talking about are children and other who do not work. In fact, there are only 100 million people in the damn country who work and whose job is not directly with a government. So 6 million people losing their private-sector jobs is another 6% unemployment of that cohort of Americans. And if you add that 6 percent to the existing 6 percent, using a very optimistic assumption, then that is a total of 12% unemployment. And whereas I can see where Mr. Grantham and his $48-billion-under-management-company may not get too grumpy about 12% unemployment, I am not as sanguine, since I have only $26.72 under management, and will probably soon have less than that since my wife says she is getting hungry.

And of course there are those who are so tacky as to dissect the government's massaged unemployment figures to show that unemployment is really closer to 12% already. And then when you add another 6% on top of that...

Jim Puplava had some very trenchant things to say on the Mises.com website in a series of three essays, with the remark, "A major theme of these pieces is how government statistics present consumption funded by credit expansion as economic growth."

Well, what's new, huh? It's the old Say's Law saw about how increases in aggregate consumption will be matched by an increase in aggregate production. On the other hand, there is some nagging doubt in my little pea-brain mind that increases in domestic consumption and increases in foreign production will actually benefit anybody I know.

Following that line of thought, an un-attributed essay that accompanied a Contrary Investor.com graphic notes "The fact is that there has been and continues to be a very strong recovery in industrial production taking place as we speak, with current acceleration rivaling experience seen during the best of economic times. Unfortunately for the domestic US economy, the big recovery and acceleration in industrial production is occurring outside of G7 economies. Quite simplistically, there has been no production recovery in the G7 economies at all over the last few years. For the US specifically, the latest industrial production reading is where the index stood in 1998."

Mr. Puplava goes on to say, "What is different about this recovery is that it has taken thirteen rate cuts, three tax cuts, annual credit growth of over $2 trillion, $1 trillion in home owner equity extraction and annual government budget deficits of nearly $500 billion in order to bring about a turnaround and keep the U.S. economy out of recession. For the 'new era' and the 'this time it is different' crowd, things really are different this time."

And what is different is the crux of the whole matter.

James Dines has been publishing The Dines Letter since 1966, and is now solidly in the gold camp. He lays out the reasons as being "economic earthquakes," the first of which is "A massive currency crisis is sweeping across the globe," which will unleash Economic Earthquake Number Two, namely "A rash of bankruptcies" that will send the world into a tailspin. This leads directly to E.E. Number Three, "Nearly all stocks - except gold and silver stocks - will sink much lower."

And he thinks, as in "take it to the bank," that gold will surely go to $3,000-$5,000 per ounce, at least, as mass fear makes everyone plow everything into gold.

The real estate market is still generating inflation in houses, which is a terrible thing. In a healthy economy, houses should have zero inflation. If houses were appreciating in price, then that would spur construction of more houses, bringing the inflation back down. But thanks to the jackasses in Congress who have unleashed the unholy Fannie Mae monster, tsunamis of money are still being thrown at houses, which will, of course, eventually lead to grief. And much more grief than any doofus stock market crash, simply because of size.

The news out of North Korea is very, very bad, as their economy is more riddled with morons than anybody else's, and they prove it by having a gigantic defense industry, a bankrupting socialist/communist government, and starving people. Hey! Wait a minute! You mean the only big difference between North Korea and the USA is that we don't have starving people? Yet?

But just as this whole Iraq thing is probably just an excuse to deficit spend and get the economy cooking again, like FDR is rumored to have done in WWII, and Lyndon Johnson did in Viet Nam, perhaps this is just the beginning of hostilities.

Ugh.

---Mogambo Sez: The recent pullback in gold is another buying opportunity, as the government continues printing money and thus debasing it. This is one of the Iron Laws of Economics in action.

Richard Daughty
November 4, 2003

Copyright © 2000-2003 Agora Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Mogambo Guru Lives!

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/daughty/daughty110703.html

Go long silver, short Fed arrogance - Grant

By: Tim Wood


Posted: 2003/11/06 Thu 22:00 EST / © Mineweb 1997-2003



Nevertheless, he urges a longer-term perspective and returns to silver as a hedge against a monetary misfortune of epic proportion.

“Silver should be in a bull market. . . Why isn’t it? Perhaps it is lacking a monetary bid in the sense that currencies produced by central banks and governments are not the stores of value they are presented to be and the world has not yet begun to turn to an alternative. It has begun to turn in the gold market and silver can’t be all that far behind,” Grant suggested.

He says the “slow turn” is a consequence of the United States’ global role and the function of its dollar as numeraire. “The dollar is an even greater achievement [than Sterling]. Whereas Sterling was convertible or exchangeable [into gold], the dollar is purely faith based. . . Currencies are IOU nothings.”

Grant says the singular problem facing the world is the overextension of American finances. “If Britain was the world’s workshop, the US is the world’s mouth,” he quipped. “We consume more than we produce and the money winds up in the vaults of countries that consume less than they produce.”

As a result, dollars are piling up abroad with $1 trillion (a thousand billion dollars) recorded on foreign central bank balance sheets. China and other Asian countries have been accumulating dollars faster than anyone in an effort to prevent the dollar from depreciating to rapidly, so threatening their export led economies.

It is worth noting that Ms Hong Liang, a China economist at Goldman Sachs, says the People’s Bank has been forced to accumulate dollars to offset private sector speculation about revaluation of the yuan/renminbi. Indeed, she makes a persuasive case that there has been a swap trade: “Contrary to the common belief in China that hot money is mainly brought in by foreign-currency speculators, it is Chinese residents who are quietly shifting their assets out of dollars and into yuan. The growth in dollar deposits in onshore banks -- held by residents as well as enterprises -- has slowed notably since early 2001, initially in response to interest-rate differentials, but increasingly due to rising expectations that the yuan will appreciate.

“This has led to a steep decline in dollar deposits relative to yuan deposits. If one takes the difference between official reserve accumulation and the sum of the trade surplus and total foreign direct investment inflows in the first half of this year, the inflow of hot money roughly equals $25 billion. During the same period, the share of total bank deposits held in dollars declined by 0.01 percentage points, which is about $24 billion.”

Liang also notes that capital flight from China has also reversed for the first time in many years as hot dollars flood in to speculate on revaluation. This is also fuelling credit expansion, a fact Grant illustrates brilliantly.

“China, in order to absorb dollars, must create renminbi. So there is an immense expansion of worldwide credit. . . these dollars still flow west. These central banks turn around an invest these same dollars in US traded securities and the securities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It’s as if [the dollars] never left this country. The renminbi, the yen and the Singapore dollar stay and finance credit expansions in the global and Asian economies.

“The point is that the US current account deficit is a great driver of worldwide credit expansion, especially in Asia.”

Grant speculates that at some point the accumulation of dollars would end when one of the Asian banks decides that the whopping stockpile of American paper is sufficient. “Would you not consider an alternative to this monetary asset that comprises the bulk of global reserves?”

The obvious alternatives are gold and silver, especially because the Federal Reserve is wilfully depreciating the dollar according to Grant. “The latent power of a move away from the dollar is almost impossible to imagine. Some $6 trillion is held today at interest rates a little higher or lower than zero. . . Japan has several trillion more. So call it $8-10 trillion that is held in dollars earning no return. What might cause these dollar holders to seek a hedge? . . . Do we have a critical mass of dollar holders who have lost confidence in the currency and want to switch to an alternative?”

Grant self deprecates about the continued postponement of his forecast for the Fed to finally overplay its hand, but he has a point that we are currently witnessing one of the great monetary dramas of all time and he makes a very persuasive case for being long precious metals.

What’s more, he likens the present infrastructure for selling metal securities to the equity market in 1947. Few people owned stocks, now few don’t. Similarly, an elaborate infrastructure and complex instruments developed to sell gold rather than to buy it – he’s betting on a spectacular turnaround on that front.

Grant is especially bullish on silver because it has more favourable supply-demand characteristics.


http://www.mips1.net/MGGold.nsf/UNID/TWOD-5T35ZM

Yesterday’s pro-life “victory” was pyrrhic and will hurt, not help, the anti-abortion movement. Indeed, the president passed up an enormous opportunity to say something profound at the signing ceremony.


http://www.daveblackonline.com/bush_is_no_hero_of_the_pro.htm

Russian Oligarchs To Be Liquidated
11/06/2003 14:30
The process has been launched and it cannot be stopped

It has become clear against the background of recent events that the history of the Russian oil giant Yukos is coming to its end. Neither new American top managers, nor Western politicians can help to save the company. All these events are logical: liquidation is a natural process.

The newspaper of the Russian government, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta, has recently published an interview with Vitaly Artyukhov, Minister for Natural Resources. In the interview, the minister was talking about the authorities of his department. Probably, the details of the interview have turned out to be an unpleasant surprise for some people. According to the Russian law, the ministry has a right to withdraw natural wealth development licences from any company, if licensing terms are violated.


[Note how the Russians will jail the CEO and pull their license...meantime the Amerikans will neither jail the CEO or pull their cert of incorporation no matter how egregious the crime. ERON, MCI what have you but their gonna try and stick Martha in jail...]

The powerful American company ExxonMobil has recently had such an experience, when it failed to obtain the licence for the development of the Sakhalin-3 project. The British company Shell is also on the list. Furthermore, the ministry has started the large-scale investigation against Yukos and its branch companies. The investigation is still on, but Vitaly Artyukhov has already said that the issue of withdrawing all Yukos's licences has been settled. The question was touched upon about a year ago, when no one was thinking about Mikhail Khodorkovsky's arrest. The minister believes, a company with the arrested control shareholding is not a good partner for the licensing department.

It was rumored last summer that Vitaly Artyukhov would soon be dismissed from the position. It seemed that Mikhail Kasyanov's government disliked his ideas, because the government was presumably aimed at the needs of large business in the field of natural wealth extraction and sales. Artyukhov started the investigation with the Russian oil giant LUKoil and the state-owned company Gazprom. As a result, numerous violations of the environmental law have been revealed.

LUKoil has managed to avoid the trouble with the help of its links in the government. Gazprom did not notice any trouble at all, as it seemed. Yet, the Russian Audit Chamber published shocking results of the investigation: branch companies of the gas monopoly often work without any state licences.

Kremlin officials paid attention to Vitaly Artyukhov's policy - the minister has managed to gain the support in the Kremlin. The struggle for the Talakan crude and gas deposit in the republic of Yakutia is a bright example to prove it. Russia's largest private companies tried to win the deposit, but the ministry canceled the tender twice. Russian oil oligarchs complained to Energy Minister Igor Yusufov and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. However, the ministers could not do anything about it. As a result, the interim licence for the development of the Talakan deposit was withdrawn from the Yukos-controlled company Lenaneftegaz. It was handed over to the state-friendly company Surgutneftegaz.

At present, Minister Artyukhov says that his ministry is intended to conduct the process of preventive withdrawal of licences with other oil companies too. Indeed, Russian media have been paying a lot of attention to "barbaric extraction methods" that both domestic and foreign companies use chasing lower costs and higher profits.

Furthermore, it is not only the Ministry for Nature that deals with the oil companies working in Russia. The list of state agencies includes: the Office of the Prosecutor General, the Audit Chamber, the Revenue Ministry. It is clear that the state policy about the given economic branch has been changed fundamentally. To crown it all, Russian State Duma deputies help the above-mentioned structures too. Deputy Vladimir Yudin has recently told reporters at a press briefing that Yukos had the "control stock" in the parliament for all legal initiatives regarding the natural wealth. One may not doubt that Russian oligarchs will never be as powerful and influential as they were before.

Mr. Yudin is not intended to stop, although his authorities of a deputy are running out in about a month. The deputy has already submitted an inquiry to the Russian Office of the Prosecutor General about the incorrect privatization of the oil company Sibneft. The deputy demands Sibneft's control shareholding should be arrested (Sibneft has recently merged with Yukos). The deputy has also submitted an inquiry regarding the gas-extracting company Rospan, which is owned by Yukos and TNK (TNK is now a part of BP). The deputy is certain that the unique enterprise has been cynically stolen from Gazprom during the pawn auctions time. "We suggested TNK should confess the amount of funds taken away from the state. The company did not respond to our offer," the deputy said. It goes without saying that the refusal can cost a lot to the Russian owners of TNK and their British partners.

Vladimir Yudin accused newly-appointed Yukos's head Semyon Kukes of concentrating Russia's entire oil industry in his hands. The deputy believes that it was Kukes's prime goal in Mikhail Khodorkovsky's company. "We must return to this issue," the deputy insists. One may not doubt that Russian law-enforcement and supervising agencies will treat Yudin's initiative with understanding. In addition, Vladimir Yudin is not alone at this point. Too many people have suffered from merciless methods of Boris Yeltsin's oligarchs.

The people of Roman Abramovich, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Vagit Alekperov's teams have moved to another team craving for revenge. Andrey Vavilov, former deputy finance minister, owner of the control stocks of the company Northern Oil (Severnaya Neft), currently a Federation Council senator, has recently called upon the Office of the Prosecutor General to institute criminal proceedings against all Russian oil tycoons. Vavilov believes, they deceive the state using one and the same schemes, they do it in agreement.

Apparently, Mr. Vavilov knows what he is talking about. Such large companies as LUKoil, Yukos and Sibneft have been pressing him for many years, trying to make him sell the company on their own conditions. Northern Oil and its owner were saved owing to Vavilov's agreement with the state company Rosneft. Now Andrey Vavilov is a proponent of the state's tough policy toward oligarchs.

Maybe, starting the fight with the Russian authorities, Khodorkovsky was hoping for the support of his friends in the US. However, the former CEO of Yukos has become a favorite in the West just recently. Someone has probably offered him help. About three or four years ago, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was their sworn enemy in Russia. Yukos did not let foreign companies access the Russian crude. Furthermore, Yukos forced them to get rid of small shareholdings that they had managed to obtain. Probably, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other Russian oil tycoons have managed to make friends with several influential Western businessmen during the recent years.

Oligarchs-owned Russian media outlets have been providing a lot of information about the delight of foreign investors regarding the business that they run with Russians. Yet, Western businessmen do not feel shy in front of their journalists. Bill Browder, CEO of Moscow-based Hermitage Capital said in an interview to the Financial Times that a well-governed authoritarian regime is better than the oligarchic mafia regime. Hermitage Capital has been working for more than ten years in Russia. The company prefers to cooperate with the state-owned Gazprom and Sberbank. One shall assume, Western businessmen are expecting the complete destruction of the class of Russian oligarchs.

The destruction will definitely take place - one may not have any doubts about it. First of all, the repressive mechanism to redistribute the national wealth has been launched and it is dangerous to stop it. Secondly, if the process is suspended, the present Russian government will be dramatically defeated, it will lose its followers too.

http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/89/355/11222_oligarchs.html

Cool, meet up:

http://www.meetup.com/

Go ye forth and meet up.

The Emperor has no clothes
Kurt Richebächer
The Daily Reckoning
November 8, 2003

"The deficit country is absorbing more, taking consumption and investment together, than its own production; in this sense, it is drawing upon savings made abroad. Whether this is a good bargain or not depends upon the nature of the use to which the funds are put. If they merely permit an excess of consumption over production, the economy is on the road to ruin. If they permit an excess of investment over home savings, the result depends on the nature of the investment." -Joan Robinson, "Reconsideration of the Theory of Free Trade," Collected Economic Papers, Volume IV, 1973

America's economic recovery and its likely strength have been and remain the central preoccupation in economics around the world.

In the consensus view, the U.S. economy will record in this year's second half its strongest pace of growth since the late 1990s. According to a monthly survey of 53 economic forecasters conducted by the Wall Street Journal Online, its seasonally adjusted annual growth rate during the current quarter will be 4.7% and 4% in the fourth quarter.

While a few economists have been warning that this recovery's actual pace may disappoint, our own view is that the U.S. economy's higher growth rate in the second quarter was totally deceptive. Focusing strictly on the hard economic data, like employment, personal income, production, business fixed investment and profits, we completely fail to see any recovery at all in the United States.

Ever since 2001, the United States has been running monetary and fiscal stimulus of unprecedented largess. In July, the government's tax cut and rebate checks turned an income gain of $19 billion into a $120 billion gain in disposable income.

In the bullish consensus view, the medicine is finally working. Above all the upward revision of the second-quarter real GDP growth rate from 2.4% to 3.1%, following 1.4% each in the two prior quarters, has caused virtual euphoria.

Knowing these are annualized growth rates is the first reason why we are still unable to see a sustained, let alone a self-sustaining, economic recovery in the United States. When American economists speak of 4% growth in the coming quarters, they really mean 1%, and that is a far cry from what used to rank as a cyclical recovery. Growth rates of postwar recoveries in the United States averaged 5.4% over the first two years after recession - and that needed very little monetary and fiscal stimulus, as against less than 3% growth currently.

The second reason for our disbelief is that U.S. GDP has been heavily bolstered by government spending. In the fourth quarter of 2002, it accounted for 24.5% of nominal GDP growth, in the first quarter of 2003 for 40.7% and in the second quarter for 38.2%.

A third reason is that the recovery completely fails to show in the current-dollar data. In these dollars in which all economic activity takes place, GDP grew 0.99%, after 0.94% in the first quarter, an acceleration hardly worth mentioning. But measured in chained dollars, it more than doubled from 0.35% to 0.775%. Taking the big boost from government spending into account, it was more slowdown than acceleration.

The fourth and most important negative point is that the trumpeted recovery in business fixed investment, in particular in high tech, is just another statistical mirage. In the second quarter of 2003, overall business fixed investment in structures, equipment and software, measured in current dollars, amounted to $1,119.9 billion, slightly down in comparison with $1,126.8 billion in the first quarter of 2002.

Measured in real terms, chained dollars, it was up $64 billion, or 0.5%.

I hardly need remind you that a true economic recovery essentially must come from a balanced rise in consumer spending and business investment spending. But what really happened to the two during the first half of 2003, being generally hailed as the start of the U.S. economy's final recovery?

Let us look at the changes in aggregate GDP. Measured in current dollars, it grew by $99.6 billion in the first quarter and by $105.5 billion in the second quarter, hardly an acceleration.

Looking at the demand components, growth of consumer spending, its biggest component, slowed between the two quarters from $87.1 billion to $83.1 billion. Nonresidential fixed investment dipped in the first quarter, but recovered in the second quarter to its earlier level. From first to second quarter, the growth of government spending slowed from $40.7 billion to $33.6 billion, and that of residential investment from $21 billion to $6 billion. Not one single GDP component rose. The sharply rising trade deficit subtracted $11.1 billion from GDP growth in the first quarter and $23.8 billion in the second.

But this dismal picture, measured in current dollars, radically changed for the better after the statisticians had treated the numbers with their price indexes. GDP growth, measured in chained dollars, surged from $33.8 billion to $73.5 billion. Growth in consumer spending, down in current dollars, went steeply up from $33 billion to $62.4 billion, and growth in government spending even shot up from $1.7 billion to $31.7 billion.

Yet by far the single biggest contributor to this sudden surge in real GDP growth from the first to second quarter came from the calculation of the price deflator for computers. Measured in current dollars, this investment inched up by $0.8 billion in the first quarter and by $6.3 billion in the second quarter, but the hedonic deflator boosted the two numbers in real terms to $15.3 billion and $38.4 billion. Hedonic pricing of computers in the first quarter accounted for 43% of real GDP growth and for 44% in the second.

The bullish consensus, flatly disregarding the overwhelming hedonic component, immediately hailed the sharp rise in computer investment as the rapid comeback of high-tech investment. Wall Street celebrated with the NASDAQ up 56% since March.

In its absence, nonresidential investment remained dead in the water across the board.

Warm Regards,

Kurt Richebächer
Nov 8, 2003
for The Daily Reckoning

Dr. Kurt Richebächer's articles appear regularly in The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, the U.S. edition of The Fleet Street Letter and other respected financial publications. France's Le Figaro magazine did a feature story on him as 'the man who predicted the Asian crisis.'

A version of this essay was originally published in The Daily Reckoning, a free daily email service brought to you by the authors of "Financial Reckoning Day: Surviving The Soft Depression of The 21st Century" (John Wiley & Sons).


http://www.321gold.com/editorials/richebacher/richebacher110803.html


Nobody wants to hear this stuff I know....




Astrogirl's Adventures
Among other things...

November 06, 2003
A Bull Goes Bear

MSN has caught me completely by surprise. Usually, while the WSJ and CNBC are blowing productivity and GDP sunshine up everyone's ass, CBS Marketwatch remains the model of pragmatism among major financial news outlets. Today, MoneyCentral at MSN has run an article about how an analyst, one Michael Belkin, who has been right about everything so far has now decided that the market will turn down...severely.

First, Mr. Belkin got the following right:



In mid-1999, he noted that the Federal Reserve had printed so many dollars in expectation of Y2K bank runs that the excess money would cause a stock market boom.

In March of 2000, he told clients to sell tech stocks and buy U.S. government bonds. He even recognized that the 1000 point drop from late March to late April was not the end of the NASDAQ bloodletting.

In November 2002, he advised clients to buy the most-volatile tech and gold stocks, sell low-volatility defensive stocks and sell bonds.


If his clients followed this advice, they'd have done very well indeed. He fully recognizes the liquidity bubble and says that it's now ending since the Fed has stopped pumping up the money supply. I do look at the weekly money supply numbers, and this is true. It's the quietest way for them to turn down the liquidity spigot. Surprisingly little of the media pay any attention at all to the weekly Mn numbers, but an interest rate change after an FOMC meeting is huge news.

What's he see coming for the future?

Belkin believes that the Bush administration essentially “rented the 2003 recovery from Wal-Mart (WMT, news, msgs)” by cutting taxes and mailing out rebate checks, and now faces an “involuntary deleveraging process” that will feed into weaker corporate results, softer economic statistics, worsening unemployment and, eventually, a sharp decline in real-estate values.

Only time will tell if Belkin or the rectal-sunshine-blowers are the ones who were right.

http://www.astrogirl.com/blog/

Yep for those in under 25 and still holding they just made another 100% on their money and much more if they were in at say .14 or .15...


That was a good call still looking for another one...think that CEO will actually serve time?

An elementary teacher starts a new job at a school in San Diego
and trying to make a good impression on her first day, explains to her
class that she's a San Diego Chargers fan.
She asks the class to raise their hands if they too are Charger
fans.

Everyone in the class raises their hand except one little girl.
The teacher looks at the girl with surprise and says: "Jessica, why
didn't you raise your hand?"

"Because I'm not a Chargers fan," she replied. The teacher,
still surprised, asked: "Well, if you're not a Chargers fan, then who
do you support?"

"I'm a 49ers fan, and proud of it," Jessica replied.
The teacher could not believe her ears. "Jessica, why are you a
49ers fan?"

"Because my Mom and Dad are from the Bay Area and my Mom is a
49ers fan and my dad is a 49ers fan, so I'm a 49ers fan too."

"Well, said the teacher, in an obviously annoyed tone, that's
no reason for you to be a 49ers fan. You don't have to be just like your
parents all of the time. What if your Mom was a tattooed prostitute and
your Dad was a drug addict and car thief, what would you be?"

Jessica replied, "Then I'd be a Raiders fan."

Scandal outrage keeps growing

By John Waggoner, Christine Dugas and Thomas A. Fogarty,

USA TODAY

Regulators are turning over every rock in the mutual fund industry, and they don't like what's seeping out. "It's a cesspool," says New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
In Boston, new charges surfaced against former Prudential Securities employees, the head of Putnam Investments was forced out, and a Securities and Exchange Commission official resigned. At Senate hearings Monday, regulators blasted the fund industry for the widening trading scandal, as well as shady sales practices.

Monday's hearings were no one-day ritual congressional flogging, after which it's all business as usual. Mutual fund trading abuses are more widespread than first suspected. Proposed new laws will be tough. And the crackdown on funds and fund executives is just starting. "I can safely predict that many more enforcement actions will follow," says Stephen Cutler, the SEC's chief enforcement officer.

For the mutual fund industry, the scandals mean lawsuits and possibly oblivion for some companies. For regulators, they mean new laws — and, perhaps, bigger enforcement staffs. For individuals, the effects are far-reaching and complex. Some investors may turn their backs on funds entirely. All will have to cope with new rules for buying and selling funds. And even with new laws and vigorous enforcement, investors may never entirely trust their funds again.

Bombshell after bombshell

Ever since Spitzer rocked the fund world in early September with allegations of trading abuses, new revelations just keep coming.

Most recent: Massachusetts securities regulators today filed civil securities fraud charges against five former Prudential Securities employees. The regulators accused three former Prudential brokers and two former branch managers of engaging in a fraudulent market-timing scheme to make money for themselves at the expense of mutual fund shareholders.

Regulators say Prudential knew about the activity but failed to stop it. Prudential received an incredible influx of about 30,000 warnings and termination letters from fund companies during the past year but took no action, regulators allege.

The SEC has filed similar charges.

There could be even more market-timing allegations ahead. The SEC surveyed the 88 largest mutual fund firms for violations last month. Cutler says half the fund companies had market-timing agreements with favored clients. Market timing is rapid, in-and-out trading to take advantage of differences between the fund's share price, which is set once a day, and current market conditions. It's not illegal, but most fund companies have policies against it.

Spitzer ignited the scandal when he settled in September with Canary Capital, a hedge fund, for mutual fund trading abuses. Four fund companies — Janus Capital, Strong Financial, Bank of America and Bank One — were implicated.

They weren't doing it alone. Thirty percent of the brokerage firms the SEC surveyed helped clients mask market-timing trades, either by breaking up big orders or creating special accounts to hide identities. And 70% of brokerages knew that some clients were market-timing funds.

Even worse, 10% of the fund companies surveyed may have allowed late trading, according to preliminary results from the SEC's survey. Late trading is when customers put in a trade after the funds' 4 p.m. ET cutoff but get the pre-4 p.m. price. It's like betting after the race is over, and it's illegal. The SEC survey showed that 25% of brokerage companies allowed late trading. Three fund companies had late-trading arrangements with clients.

But Monday's revelations didn't stop there.

• The National Association of Securities Dealers and the SEC cracked down on widespread abuses in mutual fund sales practices, saying brokerage firms overcharged investors on sales charges, or loads. The NASD says the average overcharge was $243 and that some investors were gouged for as much as $10,000. NASD estimates that at least $86 million is owed to investors for 2001 and 2002.

• The SEC says 30% of fund companies disclosed details about their portfolio holdings to favored customers. Armed with the knowledge of what funds are doing, those customers could buy or sell along with the fund and make outsized profits. The industry has been fighting against increased portfolio disclosure to ordinary investors for years.

The NASD is also looking at payments from fund companies to be on brokerage firms' recommended lists. Investors who buy those funds usually aren't told about such payments.

Remedies: Off with their heads

The question now: How to fix the fund industry? Heads are already rolling.

Lawrence Lasser, CEO of Putnam Investments and one of the most lavishly paid executives in the industry, was fired Monday. Richard Strong, CEO of Strong Financial, stepped down as chairman of Strong Mutual Funds. He is still CEO of Strong Financial.

And Juan Marcelino, head of the SEC's Boston office, resigned Monday. Marcelino had been tipped about Putnam's market-timing activities but didn't act on it. Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin brought the charges against Putnam.

But the industry's problems won't be solved by personnel changes. Both the SEC and the Investment Company Institute have proposed tough rules to end late trading and market timing. (Related chart: The root of the problem, and possible ways to combat it)

Among the issues highlighted at the hearing for possible legislation or regulation:

•Board independence. Mutual funds are structured so that a board of directors oversees a series of contracts with service providers, including the company that manages the fund's assets. Commonly, those executives hold the chairmanship and seats on the board. Industry critic Mercer Bullard, a University of Mississippi law professor, urged the Senate panel to require that board chairmen be independent of the service providers.

•Regulatory structure. The scandal underscores the inability of an overworked and underfunded SEC to regulate funds. "Market timing has been an issue for at least a decade," says Richard Sauer, partner in the Washington law offices of Vinson & Elkins. "You couldn't swing a dead cat in the mutual fund industry without hitting a market timer." Bullard recommended creation of a separate federal oversight board financed by assessments on the industry.

•Competitive bidding. Mutual fund investors are nearly assured that high fees will reduce their long-term returns, said Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., who chaired Monday's hearings. He says he will push for a requirement that contracts for managing a fund's assets be occasionally put out for competitive bids.

No quick fix

Fixing the fund industry won't be easy, in part because there's no agreement on the best way to do it.

For example, retirement plan experts say the Investment Company Institute proposals to end late trading would hurt workers and put many retirement providers at a disadvantage. Currently, 401(k) plan participants must make trades by the 4 p.m. deadline, but the plan administrators can take extra time after the deadline to collect the trades and forward them to the fund companies.

The result of the new deadline for retirement plans: It could take three or more days to process a trade that now takes one day, says David Hand, president of Hand Benefits & Trust in Houston. "There will be more opportunity for abuse" by mutual fund managers and insiders who could make advance trades based on knowledge of upcoming retirement plan shifts, he says.

Figuring out how to compensate shareholders' losses in the trading scandal won't be easy, either. "It will be grist for 100 Ph.D. dissertations in economics the next few years," Sauer says.

Spitzer says he won't settle with funds unless they can ensure a compliance program that will catch abuses. They will also have to disgorge profits from illicit trading — and give up management fees from the funds for the period the abuses occurred. "The number will be big and will impose pain," he says.

He's also pushing hard for funds to lower fees. At the hearing Monday, he said funds overcharge customers by a quarter of a percent per year. He figures that's $10 billion out of investors' pockets each year. "We don't believe funds have negotiated aggressively to keep fees down," Spitzer says.

The House, which held hearings into the fund industry this summer, will hold more hearings this week. Any new SEC regulations will have to be put out for public comment before they're enacted. Fitzgerald said comprehensive mutual fund legislation is unlikely this year because Congress will adjourn soon. Investigations by state and federal authorities could drag on for months.

One thing regulators agree is clear: The industry must be fixed. "Individual investors have a right to expect fair treatment, and quite simply, they have not gotten it," says the SEC's Cutler.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/funds/2003-11-03-fund-cover_x.htm

For that certain generation...

http://www.yetanotherdot.com/asp/80s.html

For use when you are really, really, really bored



or at work....

Republic vs. Democracy

Bush Urges Spread of Democracy
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031106-2.html
PRESIDENT:The roots of our democracy can be traced to England, and to its Parliament -- and so can the roots of this organization. In June of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke at Westminster Palace and declared, the turning point had arrived in history. He argued that Soviet communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people -- their creativity, their genius and their rights. President Reagan said that the day of Soviet tyranny was passing, that freedom had a momentum which would not be halted. He gave this organization its mandate: to add to the momentum of freedom across the world. Your mandate was important 20 years ago; it is equally important today. (Applause.)

President Bush and most of our elected politicians keep referring to America as a 'Democracy.' and how we need to promote this philosphy worldwide. No doubt this is because they weren't taught the difference under government-funded, outcome-based public 'education.' And their parents and teachers probably weren't taught the difference either. The Founders knew the difference, however.

James Madison warned: 'Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.'

Alexander F. Tyler stated: 'A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the treasury with the result that democracies always collapse over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship.'

Fisher Ames stated: 'Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.'

Samuel Adams stated: 'Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes itself, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.'

As Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall in Philadelphia, he was asked by an onlooker what form of government he and his countrymen had created during the first and to date, only constitutional convention. His answer: 'A Republic, if you can keep it.'

Republic vs. Democracy
http://proliberty.com/observer/prt0297b.htm
by Marvin Gardner
All people who call our country a democracy are either uneducated as to the truth or are trying to convince you of something that is not true to achieve their own selfish ends. Not once is democracy mentioned in our Constitution and every time it is mentioned in the writings left behind by the Framers of our Constitutional Republic it is to warn us of the historically proven social, political and economic dangers of democracy. Read the following; educate yourself and realize that every time "our" president calls our country a "democracy" he is shouting unconscionable profanity to all of the American people who wish to have the freedom to live a decent life. -(DWH)

On Republic vs. Democracy
http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/baska01.htm
by Pat Baska
Many people are under the false impression our form of government is a democracy, or representative democracy. This is a complete falsehood. The Founders were extremely well educated in this area and feared democracy as much as monarchy. James Madison (the acknowledged Father of the Constitution) said in the Federalist #10: ... there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Republic vs. Democracy

Bush Urges Spread of Democracy
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031106-2.html
PRESIDENT:The roots of our democracy can be traced to England, and to its Parliament -- and so can the roots of this organization. In June of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke at Westminster Palace and declared, the turning point had arrived in history. He argued that Soviet communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people -- their creativity, their genius and their rights. President Reagan said that the day of Soviet tyranny was passing, that freedom had a momentum which would not be halted. He gave this organization its mandate: to add to the momentum of freedom across the world. Your mandate was important 20 years ago; it is equally important today. (Applause.)

President Bush and most of our elected politicians keep referring to America as a 'Democracy.' and how we need to promote this philosphy worldwide. No doubt this is because they weren't taught the difference under government-funded, outcome-based public 'education.' And their parents and teachers probably weren't taught the difference either. The Founders knew the difference, however.

James Madison warned: 'Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.'

Alexander F. Tyler stated: 'A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the treasury with the result that democracies always collapse over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship.'

Fisher Ames stated: 'Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.'

Samuel Adams stated: 'Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes itself, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.'

As Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall in Philadelphia, he was asked by an onlooker what form of government he and his countrymen had created during the first and to date, only constitutional convention. His answer: 'A Republic, if you can keep it.'

Republic vs. Democracy
http://proliberty.com/observer/prt0297b.htm
by Marvin Gardner
All people who call our country a democracy are either uneducated as to the truth or are trying to convince you of something that is not true to achieve their own selfish ends. Not once is democracy mentioned in our Constitution and every time it is mentioned in the writings left behind by the Framers of our Constitutional Republic it is to warn us of the historically proven social, political and economic dangers of democracy. Read the following; educate yourself and realize that every time "our" president calls our country a "democracy" he is shouting unconscionable profanity to all of the American people who wish to have the freedom to live a decent life. -(DWH)

On Republic vs. Democracy
http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/baska01.htm
by Pat Baska
Many people are under the false impression our form of government is a democracy, or representative democracy. This is a complete falsehood. The Founders were extremely well educated in this area and feared democracy as much as monarchy. James Madison (the acknowledged Father of the Constitution) said in the Federalist #10: ... there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Commerce Clause Abuse: How Congress Circumvents Both the Letter and Spirit of the Constitution
by Walter Williams (November 6, 2003)

Summary: The original purpose of the Commerce Clause was primarily a means to eliminate trade barriers among the states. They didn't intend for the Commerce Clause to govern so much of our lives.

Several weeks ago, under the title "Is It Permissible?" I discussed how Congress systematically abuses the Constitution's "welfare clause" to control our lives in ways that would have been an abomination to the Framers. Quite a few readers pointed to my omission of Congress' companion tool to circumvent both the letter and spirit of the Constitution, namely the "Commerce Clause."

The Constitution's Article I, Section 8, paragraph 3 gives Congress authority "To regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." During the war, the 13 colonies formed a union under the Articles of Confederation (1778) whereby "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled." The Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the war between the colonies and Great Britain recognized 13 sovereign nations.

A key failing of the Articles of Confederation was the propensity of states to erect protectionist trade barriers. When the Framers met in Philadelphia in 1787 and wrote the constitution that governs us today, they addressed that failure through the commerce and the privileges and immunities clauses that created a national free-trade zone.

Thus, the original purpose of the Commerce Clause was primarily a means to eliminate trade barriers among the states. They didn't intend for the Commerce Clause to govern so much of our lives.

Indeed, as James Madison, the father of our Constitution, explained, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite."

For most of our history, the Courts foiled congressional attempts to use the "Commerce Clause" to sabotage the clear meaning of the Constitution, particularly the Ninth and 10th Amendments. The courts began caving in to congressional tyranny during the 1930s. That tyranny was sealed in 1942, by a little known U.S. Supreme ruling in Wickard vs. Filburn.

Filburn was a small farmer in Ohio. The Department of Agriculture had set production quotas. Filburn harvested nearly 12 acres of wheat above his government allotment. He argued that the excess wheat was unrelated to commerce since he grew it for his own use. He was fined anyway. The court reasoned that had he not grown the extra wheat he would have had to purchase wheat -- therefore, he was indirectly affecting interstate commerce.

If there's any good news, it's the tiny step the U.S. Supreme Court took in its in U.S. Vs. Lopez (1995) ruling. In 1990, Congress passed the Gun-Free School Zones Act, citing its powers under the "Commerce Clause." Namely, the possession of a firearm in a local school zone substantially affected interstate commerce.

Why? Violent crime raises insurance costs, and those costs are spread throughout the population. Violent crime reduces the willingness of individuals to travel to high-crime areas within the country. Finally, crime threatens the learning environment, thereby reducing national productivity.

While all of this might be true, the relevant question is whether Congress had constitutional authority to pass the Gun-Free School Zones Act. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled it didn't, saying, "If we were to accept the government's arguments, we are hard pressed to posit any activity by an individual that Congress is without power to regulate."

In other words, the hours children spend studying, the amount of rest they get and what they eat have something to do with learning. Congress could easily manufacture a case for the regulation of these activities based on its perverted interpretation of the "Commerce Clause."

While the Lopez ruling is a tiny step in the right direction, there's much more to be done. Constitution-respecting Americans should demand the impeachment of congressmen and other elected officials who ignore their oaths of office to uphold and defend the Constitution.

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3295

Retooled credit act is near

[Should say: Yet more loss of privacy is near...]

Consumers would get free reports, but states would be prevented from setting privacy rules.
By Jesse J. Holland
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Americans could gain a right to free e-mailed credit reports under legislation moving through the Senate yesterday, but at the same time, the companies they do business with would become exempt from tough state consumer-privacy laws.

[What a great trade!!! Yippeeeee!!!]

Senators are expected this week to reauthorize and make permanent the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which created a national credit-reporting standard to make it easier for people to get credit cards, loans and mortgages.

The legislation also would prevent states from setting their own rules on how businesses use, share and report data on consumers.

Businesses say that keeps finance flowing by keeping them from having to deal with 50 different privacy laws. Opponents say states respond more quickly than the federal government to changing conditions, such as identity theft, and should be able to offer strong protections.

An amendment, led by Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, that would preserve one such law in California failed on a 70-24 vote.

Reauthorizing the law, which expires at year's end, is a congressional priority. Members of both parties agree that the current national credit-reporting system helps the economy by offering quick credit to consumers.

"This bill reflects a careful balance between ensuring the efficient operation of our markets and protecting the rights of consumers," said Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.), chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

The Bush administration announced its support for the legislation yesterday.

"The bill strengthens the national credit-reporting system that has proven critical to the resilience of consumer spending and the overall economy," the White House said in a statement. "In addition, the legislation incorporates many of the consumer protections proposed by the administration, including new tools to improve the accuracy of credit information and help fight identity theft."

House and Senate leaders still have to settle their differences before a final congressional vote.


http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/2003/11/05/business/7184082.htm

Jobless Claims Plunge, Productivity Soars
Thursday November 6, 3:23 pm ET
By Tim Ahmann


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits plunged last week to a level not seen since before the 2001 recession, the government said on Thursday, fueling hopes a long slide in employment had ended.

Coupled with other recent news indicating an improving labor market, the data suggested a quickening pace of recovery had finally taxed the ability of businesses to boost production without hiring workers, economists said.

"The odds ... do increasingly favor a revival in job creation," Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in cautiously upbeat remarks that nevertheless stopped short of declaring a sustained pickup in employment had arrived.

Greenspan told the Securities Industry Association (News - Websites) "a notable pickup in hiring" was possible if businesses found a need to rebuild depleted inventories and were unable to squeeze new efficiencies out of their operations.

[Buffet says the opposite....hmmm Wizard of Omaha or Wizzard of Wall St...]

The economy surged ahead at a 7.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter -- the fastest pace in nearly two decades -- but employment dropped by 41,000 as businesses met rising demand by boosting productivity, or worker output per hour.

The Labor Department's report on Thursday, though, said initial claims for state unemployment aid fell 43,000 to 348,000 in the week to Nov. 1 from a revised 391,000 the prior week. The unexpectedly steep tumble took claims to their lowest since late January 2001, two months before the recession.

On the productivity front, the department said in a separate report that non-farm business productivity climbed at an 8.1 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the biggest surge since the first quarter of 2002.

But economists said last quarter's productivity rise was unsustainably strong and the drop in jobless claims, and a report early last month that showed payrolls rose by 57,000 in September, signaled firms had already found a need to hire.

"The fact we're beginning to see increases in payrolls suggests that firms are in fact finding productivity gains harder to come by," said Jade Zelnik, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital Markets. "The large drop in claims ... confirms that firms have begun to hire and employment has turned up."

The upbeat data was little help to stock prices, which were up slightly in late afternoon, but the dollar rose.

At the same time, prices for U.S. Treasuries initially plunged as investors bet the data brought nearer an eventual interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve.

However, Treasury prices came back a bit after Greenspan delivered his remarks, in which he said the Fed could afford to be "more patient" because of low inflation.

ENCOURAGING NEWS

The magnitude of the drop in jobless claims surprised economists, who expected only a slight drop from a week-earlier level that had been boosted by a grocery store strike in California.

A department spokesman said problems with adjusting the data for seasonal fluctuations could have been a factor.

"Every week we encourage (looking at) the four-week average. This is certainly one of those weeks," he said.

The four-week average, which smoothes weekly volatility to present a clearer picture of labor-market trends, fell 10,000 to 380,000 last week, its lowest level since March 2001.

Some analysts said the latest data suggested a report on October employment the government is set to release on Friday may show even a larger gain in payrolls than the 58,000 that economists on Wall Street had been expecting.


http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/031106/economy_6.html



Okay so everything's fine. But then OOOPPS!


WORLD STOCK MARKETS ARE HEADING FOR CRASH-LIKE COLLAPSE

Posted By: Rosalinda
Date: Thursday, 6 November 2003, 1:05 a.m.

[Source: malik on management]

WORLD STOCK MARKETS ARE HEADING FOR A `CRASH-LIKE COLLAPSE,'
states Swiss economics professor Fredmund Malik of St. Gallen University.

In his latest monthly newsletter he warns his customers,
that in view of the developments on stock markets in
the recent months, he views "a crash-like collapse of stock
prices as very likely, actually within the next days or weeks."

All indicators are pointing in this direction, he says.

Among the investors and the financial media he recognizes
an "extreme bullishness", typical for the last days
before the bursting of a financial bubble.

"The mood is grotesque and in full contradiction to economic reality."

Investors and the media are revealing an incredible "blindness in respect to facts".

They are "covering up every single [bit of] information
that could disturb the good feelings."

In an interview with the German news weekly Spiegel in early
September, Malik stated that US government figures for GDP and
productivity growth were being "systematically massaged upwards".

Thereby the US government contributed to generating
the greatest hoax in economic history,
that is the speculative bubble around the "new economy".

[Say it ain't so!]

He then noted that the overwhelming majority of economists
were unable to reveal the hoax in time,
because they are notoriously uncritical of US economic affairs,
in particular as many of them even had been financed by the asset bubble.

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=39267


Then Opps again:


Job cuts at their highest in a year
October's surge in layoffs ended a five-month streak during which job reductions fell below 100,000 per month.
From Inquirer Wire Services

NEW YORK - The number of job cuts announced by U.S. employers more than doubled in October to the highest level in a year, a report said yesterday, raising worries that persistent layoffs would undercut the economy's robust recovery.

Planned layoffs at U.S. firms shot up to 171,874 jobs last month from 76,506 in September, job-placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in its report on the labor market. That was the highest amount since 176,010 job cuts were announced in October 2002.

Challenger also said a poll it conducted found that 78 percent of corporate human-resources executives did not expect any significant upturn in hiring until the spring.

"We're not out of the woods yet with regard to the labor market," said Lehman Bros. economist Drew Matus.

Last month's surge in job cuts ended a streak of five months when job reductions fell below 100,000 per month. The lowest figure during that time was in June, with 59,715 jobs cut.

Hardest-hit last month was the automotive industry, which announced plans to eliminate 28,363 jobs. That was followed by the retail sector, which planned to cut 21,169 positions, and the telecommunications industry, which said it would slash 21,030 jobs.

"While perhaps shocking to some, the October spike follows a trend of heavy year-end downsizing that has occurred since we began tracking job cuts in 1993," said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of the survey company. "In 2001 and 2002, October was the largest job-cut month in the fourth quarter."

He added that companies' increasing productivity had made it easier for them to further delay hiring plans. The migration of jobs offshore as well as increasing consolidation also have stunted job growth.

"I don't think that this [economic] expansion has the potential to create 150,000 jobs a month - a number to get unemployment to go down," he said. "I think that this will be a meager job expansion."

Even as the economy grew a huge 7.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the fastest pace in two decades, firms eliminated 41,000 positions - showing that even robust growth had not led to hiring.

The government will report the October unemployment rate Friday. It was 6.1 percent in August and September and has been above 6 percent since April.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/2003/11/05/business/7184082.htm


It's all very confusing and I am confuseth...so my conclusion is buy gold on dips accumulate silver.

Executive privilege seen as leak-case option
Shielding material is not ruled out; Democrats protest
By Wayne Washington, Globe Staff, 10/8/2003

WASHINGTON -- Despite President Bush's repeated pledges of full cooperation, administration officials yesterday refused to rule out invoking executive privilege to shield some documents from Justice Department investigators looking into whether someone in the White House illegally leaked the name of a CIA operative.


Democrats who have complained that the investigation should be handled by a special counsel instead of the Justice Department because of its connections to the White House said the prospect of executive privilege being used shows that more independence is needed.

"Asserting executive privilege would make a farce of the investigation," said US Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. "That's why we need a special prosecutor, so that we can challenge any coverup."

The very words "executive privilege" evoke memories of scandal-plagued presidents trying to use the power of their office to hide from public view politically damaging information, and White House press secretary Scott McClellan was careful not to use the term. Still, he would not rule out the use of executive privilege, saying: "I think it's premature to even speculate about such matters."

Presidents can invoke executive privilege to shield from public view some aspects of their internal decision-making process. "It's used to shroud advice that's sometimes inflammatory or has been rejected," said Thomas Sargentich, a law professor at American University in Washington, D.C. "Executive privilege is not supposed to be a shield in criminal investigations."

Yesterday, Bush pledged "full disclosure" in the leak investigation, adding that he wants "to know the truth."

But even as the approximately 2,000 people who work for him at the White House scoured their desks for notes and e-mail to meet a 5 p.m. deadline to deliver any documents related to the alleged disclosure, Bush said the identity of the leaker might never be known.

"This is a town full of people who like to leak information," Bush said to reporters after meeting with Cabinet members. "I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers."

As the 5 p.m. deadline passed, staff members scrambled to turn over relevant documents to White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, who is the White House's liaison to the Justice Department during the investigation. Justice Department officials have given the White House specific deadlines to produce documents related to the investigation, though they would not make the dates public. McClellan said the deadlines are in the next couple of weeks.

McClellan said Gonzales's office set its own deadline for 5 p.m. yesterday so that it could go through the piles of information to see what information is relevant and should be turned over.

Gonzales's office will also have the opportunity to examine what information, if any, should not be turned over because the administration believes it is protected by executive privilege. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal opinions on questions with constitutional dimensions, would review any White House claims.

Sargentich, who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel during the Carter and Reagan administrations, said lawyers in that office can make independent judgments, though the attorney general remains their boss and can overrule them.

If the White House asserts a claim of executive privilege, Sargentich said it would be a strong sign that the investigation is heading to the highest levels of the Bush administration, given that the claim can only be used to shield the president's decision-making process.

Former US ambassador Joseph Wilson has backed off his initial claim that Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, leaked the name of his CIA agent wife, Valerie Plame, as retribution for his work disputing some of the intelligence the administration used to bolster its case for war in Iraq. It is a federal crime to disclose the name of an undercover CIA agent.

Wilson now says that Rove did nothing to contain the leak.

McClellan said that neither Rove nor Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, nor Elliott Abrams, director of Mideast Affairs at the National Security Council, leaked Plame's name to the press or authorized the disclosure.

But McClellan refused to say if Rove pointed reporters to the disclosure. Yesterday, US Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called on Rove to resign.

"Since these initial allegations have arisen, neither the White House nor your office have denied your involvement in furthering the leak," Conyers wrote in a letter to Rove.

Administration officials have said Democrats are using the investigation to score political points and strongly back Rove. Still, the investigation has already meant some late nights for staff combing through their files to see if they have anything that should be given to investigators.

Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., told White House staff in a letter yesterday that the president expects full cooperation. "The sooner we complete the search and delivery of documents, the sooner the Justice Department can complete its inquiry and the sooner we can all return our full attention to doing the work of the people that the president has entrusted to us."

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.


http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/10/08/executive_privilege_seen_as_leak_case_option/

LUV IT!


http://www.sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/11/1657708.php

HOW THE IRS VIOLATES IT'S OWN CODE




By Devvy Kidd

November 6, 2003

NewsWithViews.com

"....We're confiscating property now....That's socialism. It's written into the Communist Manifesto. Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what's happening to him."

T. Coleman Andrews, May 25, 1956, U.S. News & World Report, Commissioner of the IRS for 33 months Under the Eisenhower Administration before he resigned.

The response to my recent article, IRS Makes Chilling Proclamation, was overwhelming and really got folks angry. Good. It's about time something nudged the people of this nation out of their self induced comas to face a harsh reality: Our servant government (both Republicans and Democrats) have lied to you for the past eight decades regarding the income tax. The IRS cannot handle the situation any longer, so they are resorting to unlawful enforcement actions and using the "mainstream media" to instill even greater fear in the American people.

The big lie

The big lie is that the income tax applies to domestic Americans, when it fact, it does not. The powers that be know the American people simply don't want to believe that their favorite politician, whether it be FDR, Joe Libermann, Dana Rohrabacher, Jimmy Carter, Jesse Helms, Diane Feinstein or George Bush, Jr., have been lying to them. People would rather willfully believe the big lie than face reality. The path of least resistance and that's how slaves are made.

However, the IRS knows that more and more Americans are finding out that the income tax does not apply to domestic Americans. This is a provable fact and it is the single and only reason the IRS and DOJ reneged on the Truth-in-Taxation Hearings that were scheduled for February 27 & 28, 2002. On those days, the people were to sit in the seats normally occupied by members of Congress in an official hearing room just like you see on C-SPAN, with the IRS and DOJ sitting at tables as witnesses.

Those hearings were brokered by Congressman Roscoe Bartlett. In the end, IRS and DOJ thumbed their noses at We the People and refused to send their witnesses. You see, they couldn't. They could not take the chance that so many people would find out the truth about jurisdiction and who the income tax applies to under the law as written. This writer currently has three FOIA lawsuits in Federal District Court against Ashcroft, the IRS and Treasury in an attempt to obtain the documents revealing why DOJ and IRS reneged on the deal made for those hearings.

Because the truth has become self-evident regarding the fraudulent nature of the income tax, its deliberate misapplication against an unsuspecting, but dutiful people, the new Commissar of the IRS, Mark Everson, has begun issuing nothing less than Nazi styled proclamations that if anyone dares to expose this truth or not "pay their fair share," our servant government will step up its tyrannical attack on what used to be a free people.

If you don't own the fruits of your own labor, you are NOT free, you are a slave. Right now, petty despots in third world dumping grounds, the Pakistani government and the Russian Mafia own the fruits of your labor via your money paid to the IRS and funneled to the IMF (International Monetary Fund) via the central bank. That’s a fact.

It's the money, honey

The grind by millions of us who fully understand the monetary system in this country and its direct relationship to this insidious, progressive, direct taxation, know that none of it is necessary or essential to fund a limited form of Republican government. Neither is a flat tax, a "fair" tax or a consumption tax.

This culture of the IRS and taxation needs to be re-examined by those who don't know history and certainly don't understand the central bank and why it’s so dangerous to our liberties. Get the truth before you fall into the well designed trap of accepting these other phony fixes (flat tax, sales tax, VAT) that will only continue feeding the privately owned "Federal" Reserve. The irrefutable facts on this can be found at: http://www.devvy.com/notax.html

Common methods of stealing from the American People

Let me give you some facts that you may not be aware of, but should. The IRS gets away with their illegal activities against Americans for two reasons: (1) the big fear factor, and (2) because of the lack of facts by those being plundered by IRS employees and attorneys whose only concern is for their paycheck. They care nothing for the law and are little better than government sanctioned thieves. Do they know the truth? Of course they do, but when it comes to the law and paychecks, the law takes a back seat.

Revenue Officers send out an IRS form numbered 688-A, "Notice of Levy" to banks, brokers and employers. Problem here is, they always send out this form lacking something very important: an actual levy or court order.

On the back of this form you will find "excerpts" from Title 26, the IRC, code section 6331, the "Levy and Distraint" code section. But, a funny thing one sees is that this excerpt begins with paragraph b, with paragraph a omitted. Does that have any meaning? It certainly does if you look at the code:

The authority to levy is restricted to and contained within Section 6331(a) of the Internal Revenue Code. IRC 6331 - Levy and distraint.

(a) Authority of Secretary. If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay the same within 10 days after notice and demand, it shall be lawful for the Secretary to collect such tax (and such further sum as shall be sufficient to cover the expenses of the levy) by levy upon all property and rights to property (except such property as is exempt under section 6334) belonging to such person or on which there is a lien provided in this chapter for the payment of such tax.

Levy may be made upon the accrued salary or wages of any officer, employee, or elected official, of the United States, the District of Columbia, or any agency or instrumentality of the United States or the District of Columbia, by serving a notice of levy on the employer (as defined in section 3401(d)) of such officer, employee, or elected official). If the Secretary makes a finding that the collection of such tax is in jeopardy, notice and demand for immediate payment of such tax may be made by the Secretary and, upon failure or refusal to pay such tax, collection thereof by levy shall be lawful without regard to the 10-day period provided in this section.

Whoops! Do you see yourself, your brother-in-law or friend who isn't an officer, employee or elected official of the United States, District of Columbia, or any agency or instrumentality of the United States of the District of Columbia, fitting in this description of a "person liable" under this sction of the Internal Revenue Code?

Didn't think so, but this major legal fact is deliberately withheld from the terrified "taxpayer" who will get down on their knees in total fear of losing the roof over their heads and sign over their life in "scheduled payments" to these thieves. It is fear which has kept this fraudulent system alive for so long.

But, we're not done yet. Let's look at code section 6332(c) under "special rule for banks:"

Special rule for banks

Any bank (as defined in section 408(n)) shall surrender (subject to an attachment or execution under judicial process) any deposits (including interest thereon) in such bank only after 21 days after service of levy.

This section of Title 26 states that a notice of levy must be accompanied by an "attachment" of levy (court order). The IRS never includes the attachment of levy with the Notice of Levy. Why? According to John Turner, former Revenue Officer, Collection Division:

“Even though CID agents do have "Enforcement" Pocket Commissions they are not the ones that collect taxes. But even if they were in the business of collecting delinquent taxes, as are RO’s [revenue officers], an “enforcement” commission would still not authorize them to “levy”.

“What the nonenforcement pocket commission illustrates is that the Internal Revenue Code and the 16th Amendment (assuming for a moment that it had been properly ratified) are constitutional as written, which includes the idea that citizens cannot lose their property without constitutional due process (not the bastardized form of “due process” that the Courts have allowed with respect to collection of income tax).

“What do I mean by that? Well, it has to do with the notion that the needs of the State take precedence over the needs of your individual rights. They think that nothing, including your individual rights, should interrupt or delay the revenue to the government. So, they have specified that you may pay your taxes and sue the government, therefore, your due process is still intact.

“In other words, force cannot be used in the administrative collection (enforced collection actions) used by RO’s. They DON’T collect with court orders (due process) and the notices of levy are all made possible only by the assistance of third parties (banks, employers, ignorance of citizens, etc.)

“As an aside, that is why the law isn't written with specific enough language to demonstrate clearly that income tax is required. If the law actually applied to most Americans they would word it in such a way. It is NOT worded in such a way as to be clearly mandatory and that keeps it from crossing the line and becoming out of harmony with the Constitution.

“The nonenforcement pocket commission, which is issued to people who supposedly perform “enforcement” activities (levy etc), illustrates and confirms also that IRS agents don't have authority to use force to take people’s property – that would break the law.

”Revenue Officers have no bona fide legal or IRC authority to engage in enforcement activity; this common method of stealing by the IRS is a common as the sun rising. Further clarification of how this fraud is jammed down the throats of unsuspecting Americans is the fact that Revenue Officers only have statutory administrative authority and carry a " pocket commission" with ID numbers that begin with the letter "A" for administrative.”

Tip of the Iceberg

The deception laid out above is only the tip of the iceberg. At this time, this writer is looking into the "big kahoona" of fraud knowingly committed by the IRS: mail fraud.

It has been brought to my attention by a former FBI veteran who left that organization for a number of reasons, one being he couldn't stomach what was going on, is that the IRS is also engaging in mail fraud, see 18 U.S.C. Section 1341 - Fraud and Swindles.

This is directly tied to the code violations above and possibly represent RICO violations against IRS employees/officers and agents who participate in such fraud. If this proves to be the case, it's time to move forward legally against those IRS employees engaging in this illegal activity. No one is above the law.

Get off the plantation

It is honorable to want to "pay your fair share" to ensure there is adequate funds to fund our military and the other limited areas of expenditures authorized Congress under Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Paying a tax you lawfully owe is the right thing to do, the key word here being lawfully.

There are no other organizations in this country today that are lawfully and non-violently taking the strongest action to stop these criminal activities by the IRS, via stopping the withholding and exposing the nature of the voluntary income tax, than We the People Foundation and We the People Congress, Inc. These organizations are not "think tanks." They are education and action oriented.

Critical mass is needed and that means you getting involved.

Get off the plantation. Put your fear on the back burner and join us. An important lawsuit is about to be filed by We the People Foundation and you can read the details at: givemeliberty.org. Do it and do it today.

We cannot be the land of the free and the home of the brave if our citizenry will not stand up to tyranny.

Now, which is going to be? Will you live in fear or will you stand with us?

© 2003 Devvy Kidd - All Rights Reserved

http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd23.htm

"....We're confiscating property now....That's socialism. It's written into the Communist Manifesto. Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what's happening to him."

T. Coleman Andrews, May 25, 1956, U.S. News & World Report, Commissioner of the IRS for 33 months Under the Eisenhower Administration before he resigned.

Rage erupts over profiteering clause
Iraq supplemental justified, says GOP
By Klaus Marre

A decision by the House Republicans to strip the Iraq supplemental bill of an anti-profiteering provision has outraged the Democrats.

Some Democrats have accused the White House of pulling the strings on the effort to nix the language.

“The White House and House GOP leadership didn’t want [the provision] in there,” charged Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), an author of the language.

The provision — included during the Senate Appropriations Committee markup with unanimous support but removed in conference — would have subjected those who deliberately defrauded the United States or Iraq to jail terms of up to 20 years and costly fines.


patrick g. ryan
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) protested anti-profiteering decision.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Leahy said that, privately, some Republicans told him they though it was a good provision.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), another author of the profiteering provision, called it “shocking” that it was taken out. “Why?” Feinstein asked. “It was a good amendment.”

A Senate Democratic aide said, “Several House Republican conferees were clearly empathetic, but they had to look to a higher authority. That higher authority was the White House, which had sent the marching order to strip this from the bill.”

Another Democratic aide said that “the White House got to House Republicans.” The aide pointed to Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner’s (R-Wis.) support for the provision — the lawmaker chairs the authorizing committee but was not a member of the conference — and the unwillingness of House Republicans to compromise on the language as evidence that the top White House staff may have given the marching orders.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), at a Monday hearing of the Democratic Policy Committee, claimed that it does not look as if the White House wanted any oversight on reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

During an Oct. 29 meeting of the conference committee, Leahy advocated a “very, very high standard” for its use, saying it should be applied only in the most egregious cases.

He said the language sends the message not to “rip off Uncle Sam.” Leahy added that he believes with the amount of money flowing into Iraq, “there will be a lot of greedy fingers.”

Leahy indicated that he was willing to compromise on the provision. He agreed to include a firm sunset provision advocated by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

Stevens, Democratic aides said, was very supportive of the provision throughout the conference committee process.

However, in conference, House Republicans spurned any compromises. Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) said he was “uneasy” about adding this kind of criminal law without input from the White House and the Department of Justice.

House Appropriations Committee spokesman John Scofield said other reasons for rejecting the provision included that it would have also applied to international assistance and that it did not define what constitutes “excessive profiteering.”

Leahy this week introduced stand-alone legislation targeting war profiteering.
However, if it passed, it would go into effect later than the supplemental and would not cover the upcoming time period, thus lessening its effectiveness.

Leahy said yesterday it would be “a long road” before the stand-alone legislation is completed.

Leahy’s measure would slap penalties on those who “materially [overvalue] any good or service with the specific intent to excessively profit from the war, military action, or relief or reconstruction activities in Iraq.”

At a Democratic Policy Committee hearing, Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, testified that “Halliburton [formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney] has charged an average price of $2.65 a gallon of gasoline imported into Iraq from Kuwait, despite experts’ conclusions that the total price should be less than $1 a gallon.”

Sloan added that Iraq’s state oil company is importing “the exact same gas” for 97 cents. She concluded that between $286 million and $339 million of the $900 million the administration has requested for the importation of petroleum products could be wasted “if Halliburton’s pricing practices are not stopped.”

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who chaired the hearing, said, “Is there anything more ironic than getting ripped off on the price of oil imports in Iraq, of all places?”

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said at the hearing that following passage of the Iraq supplemental bill there would be a “festive atmosphere on K Street.”

Durbin said the Iraq spending bill opens the door for “fat and sloppy good-old-boy contracts.” The lawmaker said that those seeking greater transparency were unable to examine many contracts because they are classified. Asserting that this has nothing to do with security, Durbin added, “This administration classifies anything that might be embarrassing.”

While it was House Republicans who wanted the profiteering provision stripped out in conference, Durbin pointed out that Senate Republicans, who had supported the provision in committee and on the floor, “did not stand up and fight” for the language.

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), in an interview with The Hill, defended Senate conferees. “If the House says no, we can’t do anything about it. We can’t dump the whole bill just because [a provision on profiteering] isn’t included.” Domenici added that some thought the amendment was written in a “political way.”

Other attempts by Congress to require more accountability for spending the money, especially the reconstruction funds, were for the most part watered down or removed.

The White House staff did not respond to a request for comment.

http://www.thehill.com/news/110503/profiteering.aspx

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctor worry about them. That is why you pay him/her.

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, to the next county, to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

George Carlin

Results are in:

Cameltoe.org superior to Cameltoe.com...



Also there's this:


http://www.bobfromaccounting.com/

Cadre of E-Vote stuff:


E-voting hits speed bump in Alameda County

Computer software used

By Ian Hoffman

Thousands of Alameda County voters cast ballots Tuesday on computer software that state and county elections officials say was never certified for a California election. Same for last month's recall election.
State and county officials were dismayed last week to learn that Diebold Elections Systems Inc. altered the software running in Alameda County's touchscreen voting machines yet neither submitted it for state testing nor even notified state authorities of the change.

"We were upset to say the least," said Elaine Ginnold, the county's assistant elections registrar.


Full story:

http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10671~1745608,00.html


Civil rights groups sue electronic voting company over threats
RACHEL KONRAD
Associated Press

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Attorneys specializing in free speech on the Internet filed suit Tuesday against Diebold Inc., demanding the voting equipment company stop sending legal threats to organizations that publish its leaked documents.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Stanford University's Cyberlaw Clinic filed for a temporary restraining order in federal court. Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose is expected to issue a decision this week.

Computer programmers, Internet service providers and students from at least 20 universities, including the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have received the cease-and-desist orders from Diebold.

Many groups are refusing to remove from their Web sites internal Diebold documents that they claim raise serious security questions and threaten the U.S. elections process.

Diebold executives could not be reached Tuesday, but spokesman Mike Jacobsen said in late October that the cease-and-desist orders do not mean the documents are authentic - nor do they give credence to advocates who claim lax Diebold security could allow hackers to rig machines. Jacobsen warned that some of the 13,000 pages of stolen documents may have been altered after they were stolen from the company's central server.

In March, a hacker broke into Diebold's servers using an employee's ID number, and copied company announcements, software bulletins and internal e-mails dating back to January 1999, Jacobsen said.

The vast majority of the 1.8 gigabits of data contain little more than banal employee e-mails, routine software manuals and old voter record files. But several items seem to raise security concerns.

In one series of e-mails, a senior engineer dismisses concern from a lower-level programmer who questions why the company lacked certification for a customized operating system used in touch-screen voting machines. The Federal Election Commission requires voting software to be certified by an independent research lab.

In another e-mail, a Diebold executive scolded programmers for leaving software files on an Internet site without password protection.

"This potentially gives the software away to whomever wants it," the manager wrote in the e-mail.

In August, the hacker e-mailed the data to voting activists, some of whom published stories on their Web logs. A freelance journalist at Wired News also received data and wrote about it in an online story.

The data was further distributed in digital form online, and it can still be found at dozens of sites - including some in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Italy. It's unclear how many sites link to the data.

EFF staff attorney Wendy Seltzer said activists are trying to publicize alleged security breaches at Diebold, which has more than 50,000 touch-screen voting terminals nationwide. Publishing stolen documents from one of the nation's largest election equipment vendors, she says, is more important than honoring copyrights.

"People are using these documents to talk about how the votes are counted," Seltzer said. "The First Amendment protects them."

San Francisco-based EFF represents Online Policy Group, a nonprofit ISP that hosts the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/7182111.htm


EFF Stanford Law Clinic Sue E-Voting Company
Tuesday, 4 November 2003, 10:44 am
Press Release: Electronic Frontier Foundation

Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release
For Immediate Release: Monday, November 3, 2003

Electronic Frontier Foundation and Stanford Law Clinic Sue Electronic Voting Company

Student Publishers and ISP Aim to Stop Diebold's Abusive Copyright Claims

San Francisco - A nonprofit Internet Service Provider (ISP) and two Swarthmore College students are seeking a court order on Election Day tomorrow to stop electronic voting machine manufacturer Diebold Systems, Inc., from issuing specious legal threats. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford Law School are providing legal representation in this important case to prevent abusive copyright claims from silencing public debate about voting, the very foundation of our democratic process.

Diebold has delivered dozens of cease-and-desist notices to website publishers and ISPs demanding that they take down corporate documents revealing flaws in the company's electronic voting systems as well as difficulties with certifying the systems for actual elections.

Swarthmore students Nelson Pavlosky and Luke Smith have published an email archive of the Diebold documents, which contain descriptions of these flaws written by the company's own employees.

"Diebold's blanket cease-and-desist notices are a blatant abuse of copyright law," said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer. "Publication of the Diebold documents is clear fair use because of their importance to the public debate over the accuracy of electronic voting machines."

Diebold threatened not only the ISPs of direct publishers of the corporate documents, but also the ISPs of those who merely publish links to the documents. In one such instance, the ISP Online Policy Group (OPG) refused to comply with Diebold's demand that it prohibit Independent Media Network (IndyMedia) from linking to Diebold documents. Neither IndyMedia nor any other publisher hosted by OPG has yet published the Diebold documents directly.

"As an ISP committed to free speech, we are defending our users' right to link to information that's critical to the debate on the reliability of electronic voting machines," said OPG's Colocation Director David Weekly. "This case is an important step in defending free speech by helping protect small publishers and ISPs from frivolous legal threats by large corporations."

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by Congress in 1998, provides a "safe harbor" provision as an incentive for ISPs to take down user-posted content when they receive cease-and-desist letters such as the ones sent by Diebold. By removing the content, or forcing the user to do so, for a minimum of 10 days, an ISP can take itself out of the middle of any copyright claim. As a result, few ISPs have tested whether they would face liability for such user activity in a court of law. EFF has been exposing some of the ways that the safe harbor provision can be used to silence legitimate online speech through the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse.

"Instead of paying lawyers to threaten its critics, Diebold should invest in creating electronic voting machines that include voter-verified paper ballots and other security protections," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn.

For this release: http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/OPG_v_Diebold/20031103_eff_pr.php

Online Policy Group v. Diebold case archive: http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/OPG_v_Diebold/

Cease-and-desist letter Diebold sent to OPG: http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/cease_desist_letter.php

IndyMedia Web page subject to Diebold cease-and-desist letter: http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/09/1649419_comment.php

Security researchers discover huge flaws in e-voting system: http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php

Link to Chilling Effects on DMCA safe harbor provisions: http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/

Media coverage of Diebold threats: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60927,00.html

About EFF:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/

About Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford Law School:

The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) is a public interest technology law and policy program at Stanford Law School and a part of Law, Science and Technology Program at Stanford Law School. The CIS brings together scholars, academics, legislators, students, programmers, security researchers, and scientists to study the interaction of new technologies and the law and to examine how the synergy between the two can either promote or harm public goods like free speech, privacy, public commons, diversity, and scientific inquiry. The CIS Cyberlaw Clinic gives Stanford Law School students an opportunity to work with clients on cases and legal projects that involve questions of technology, law and the public interest.

About OPG:

The Online Policy Group (OPG) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to online policy research, outreach, and action on issues such as access, privacy, the digital divide, and digital defamation. The organization fulfills its motto of "One Internet With Equal Access for All" through programs such as donation-based email, email list hosting, website hosting, domain registrations, colocation services, technical consulting, educational training, and refurbished computer donations. The California Community Colocation Project (CCCP) and QueerNet are OPG projects. OPG focuses on Internet participants' civil liberties and human rights, like access, privacy, safety, and serving schools, libraries, disabled, elderly, youth, women, and sexual, gender, and ethnic minorities. Find out more at http://www.onlinepolicy.org/

About IndyMedia:

IndyMedia is an international network working to build a decentralized, non-commercial media infrastructure to counter an increasingly consolidated corporate media. IndyMedia collectives have spread rapidly since the WTO protests in Seattle 1999, with IMC groups now working throughout North & South America, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania, accessible through http://www.indymedia.org/

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0311/S00025.htm



Diebold Voting Case Tests DMCA

Company invokes copyright law to quash discussion fueled by stolen documents.

Paul Roberts, IDG News Service
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Can Diebold Systems use copyright law to pressure Netizens into removing links to online discussion archives stolen from the company in March? That question is before a federal judge.


The stolen archives contain conversations from online bulletin boards in which Diebold employees discuss problems with the company's electronic voting systems.

The ruling will test the limits of the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), says one legal expert. Diebold is invoking the copyright law in the cease and desist letters it has sent to universities and ISPs that linked to copies of the internal documents.


Colleges Discuss
At the center of the case are the Online Policy Group (OPG), a nonprofit ISP, and two students from Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. They argue that Diebold is abusing copyright law in an attempt to silence public debate about flaws in the voting systems. Their defense is being presented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), representing both parties along with the Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford Law School.

The EFF and the Cyberlaw Clinic are requesting a court order to stop Diebold from issuing what they call "specious legal threats" against the ISPs of individuals who are linking to or publishing copies of the Diebold documents, says Will Doherty, EFF spokesperson.

Diebold did not respond to requests for comment.

The dispute between Diebold and various electronic-voting activists arose in March after a computer hacker compromised a Web server operated by Diebold. The intruder apparently made off with thousands of internal messages posted to Diebold online discussion boards concerning issues with the company's election equipment. The documents were leaked to the press in August.

A Swarthmore College group named Why War? began hosting copies of the documents on its Web site in September and convinced students at 50 other colleges and universities to do the same.


Diebold Objects
That prompted Diebold last week to try to stamp out online copies of the internal documents. The company sent cease and desist letters to a handful of U.S. colleges and universities, including Swarthmore, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University, warning them they were hosting material that infringes on Diebold's copyrights.

The case has important implications for the future of the DMCA, and for its opponents' use of so-called fair use claims to publish copyrighted material, according to John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.

While Diebold can clearly claim that the stolen material is its copyrighted property, fair use laws give individuals the right to infringe on those rights under certain circumstances, Palfrey says.

Typically, judges impose a four-part test for fair use claims, Palfrey says. They weigh such issues as the nature of the copyrighted work, the purpose and character of the fair use, the quantity of copyrighted material being infringed on, and its potential market value, he says.

On at least two of the four issues, the electronic-voting activists have a strong case, Palfrey suggests. Unlike digitally copied songs, a frequent subject of DMCA claims, the Diebold documents are not a form of creative expression, but a subject of intense political debate. Also, Diebold could not reasonably be expected to sell and make a profit off the documents and newsgroup posts, Palfrey says.


DMCA's Role Questioned
The DMCA has been invoked to stop illegal file swapping on the Internet, but in this case, Diebold is trying to use the law to quash public discussion, Palfrey says. The documents themselves bolster the discussion of problems with Diebold's products and the effect those might have on elections, Palfrey adds.

"You've got a political speech in an academic setting--nobody is trying to make any money off this. If fair use isn't upheld here, I'm not sure if the doctrine exists anymore," he says.

Nevertheless, the electronic-voting activists are not guaranteed a win, he adds. "The DMCA issues do muddy the water," Palfrey says. "I don't think this is a slam dunk on either side."

A loss could signal a continued expansion of copyright claims to cover a wide range of actions not directly related to copyright disputes, according to Palfrey.

"This is a very interesting litmus case on whether the DMCA will expand its reach forever or whether the judge will put his foot down and say there is fair use here and the DMCA is for other purposes," Palfrey says.

Regardless of the outcome in court, the EFF and others intend to pursue injunctions against Diebold to stop the cease and desist letters, the EFF's Doherty says.

"We want to make sure that OPG clients and students have the ability to post Diebold documents without fear of copyright infringement charges being brought against them," he says.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113273,00.asp

TIME AIRBRUSHES ROTHSCHILD OUT OF SHWARZENEGGER PHOTO

[Would have been much more effective with actual pictures:]

Posted By: Rosalinda
Date: Tuesday, 23 September 2003, 2:23 p.m.

[Source: HST; Marsha Bowen; TIME magazine, 41, August 25, 2003]

"INVISIBLE HANDS": TIME MAGAZINE
RUNS AN AIR-BRUSHED VERSION OF `THREE STOOGES' PHOTO
-- OF WARREN, ARNIE AND LORD JACOB ROTHSCHILD
-- in its Aug. 25, 2003 issue.

The complete, unedited photo has appeared
on the Sept. 5, 2003 edition of EIR,

Those interested in a good, street-smart pedagogical
on how the oligarchy likes to obliterate their spoor
-- Soviet-style --
may want to locate the Aug. 25 Time article,
showing that same, retouched photo
-- with Lord Jacob Rothschild airbrushed out of the picture!

Talk about "invisible hands" in the marketplace!

Ironically, the article is titled,
"Now He Must Prove He Has Ideas."


http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=37116

Sun go boom; here's 3 pictures:

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2003_11_04/

Marijuana 'Canada's most valuable agricultural product'

Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Tuesday November 4, 2003
The Guardian

Investors who rely for advice on Forbes, the highly regarded American business magazine, will be tipped off this month about the industry that is now outpacing many others in North America: marijuana growing.
The magazine's cover story focuses on "the unstoppable economics of a booming business" and claims marijuana is now Canada's most valuable agricultural product, ahead of wheat, cattle and timber.

In the Canadian province of British Columbia, Forbes suggests, the industry is generating US$7bn (£4bn) annually, with signs of growing because of the changing legal climate. "Canadian dope, boosted by custom nutrients, high-intensity metal halide lights and 20 years of breeding, is five times as potent as what Americans smoked in the 1970s," it reports.

As a result, Canadian-grown marijuana is selling for as much as $2,700 a pound wholesale. By the time that pound has come down to Los Angeles, it is sold at around $6,000, says Forbes.

What makes the industry so powerful, suggests Forbes, is that the growers are "not a small coterie of drug lords who could be decimated with a few well-targeted prosecutions, but an army of ordinary folks".

Small growers look to bring in $900 a pound, with net profit margins ranging from 55% to 90%, reports the magazine, something that places marijuana alongside some of the dotcom enterprises in terms of return on investment percentages.

Marijuana is also a growth industry in terms of jobs, with people earning $15 an hour for trimming the dried flowers and consultants earning $40 an hour to help inexperienced growers get started.

The relaxation of the laws surrounding marijuana in Canada has led to increased confidence in the industry.

Canada, which has legalised cannabis for medical use, has authorised a company to grow marijuana for this purpose.

In the US, law enforcement against marijuana growers remains much stricter.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1077190,00.html