Off-the-cuff suggestion prompts discussion on what to do with abandoned neighborhoods in Flint

The Flint Journal, 3/17/09--Look in any direction from Bianca Bates' north Flint home, and you'll see graffiti-covered siding, boarded-up windows and overgrown lots.

About half of the homes on her block are burned out or vacant magnets for drug dealers and squatters. It isn't where she thought she'd end up, but it's all she can afford to rent.

"It's a dangerous place to live," said Bates, 21, who lives on East Russell Avenue. "Everywhere you look, these houses are empty around here."

Property abandonment is getting so bad in Flint that some in government are talking about an extreme measure that was once unthinkable -- shutting down portions of the city, officially abandoning them and cutting off police and fire service.

[...]




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I'm in excellent company

at The Other Voices International Project, a cyber-anthology that erases the boundaries of nations, ethnicities, religions, cultures, and age to bring you some of the world's best poetry. No poetry or art is used in this project unless permission has been granted by the artist or his/her estate.

Other Voices is listed in the journal section of the World Poetry Directory of UNESCO.




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Bullets from the Drug War

Classic Dmitry Orlov , 3/29/09:



* The US has lost the "War on Drugs"

* The losing side is usually not the one to decide when a fight is over or how it ends

* Unlike other recent defeats, this lost war is a defeat followed by an invasion

* Mexico is the natural staging area for the invasion (inconvenient though it is for the Mexicans)

* New franchises are being set up to service the North American drug market (which is the biggest in the world)

* The CIA has to eat, and all they know how to do competently is run guns and drugs and control thugs; they get a seat at the table

* The narcs have to eat too, and all they are trained to do is deal (with) drugs; they get a seat at the table too

* As the federales grow weak in the US and Mexico, the battle lines will advance north of the border, leaving Mexico a quiet and largely intact backwater

* This is an inter-US conflict, because Americans are the most avid consumers, sellers, and prosecutors of drugs

* Life in the USA gives everyone a pain that is for many people simply not survivable without drugs: either alcohol, pharmaceuticals or illegal drugs

* Illegal drugs are far more cost-effective than either pharma or alcohol — government-licensed industries which are either excessively lucrative or taxed heavily

* As Americans give up hope, they will need to self-medicate in ever-larger numbers

* They will be far more able financially to afford illegal drugs than either pharma or alcohol.

* Illegal drugs (and moonshine) are two very large post-collapse enrepreneurial opportunities within the fUSA/бСША [Orlov 2005]

* This is no longer a war against drugs; it is now a contest between alternative drug distribution systems

* One alternative is a centralized, paramilitary organization run by CIA remnants, former military, and former police

* Another alternative is ethnic mafias, which will diversify into many other kinds of trade.

* The third, nautrally most cost-effective alternative will be provided by informal, local distribution networks based on barter, which will be all that is left once the dust settles

* The downside of all this is that it will be hard to find anyone sober enough to operate a light switch

* The upside to that is that the national electrical grid will go away, so there will be little need of that




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Fishtown scatter art

Almost as good as Karen Kilimnik (who's a Philadelphian, by the way):

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Near Penn's Landing

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[On the left are the Society Hill Towers, designed by I.M. Pei.]

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Under a Flourescent Moon

James Howard Kunstler's latest, 3/30/09:


Mr. Obama heads to Europe now where official hostility is rising against the Anglo-American method of pounding monetary sand down the rat-holes of “non-performing” debt, bankrupt enterprise, and bubble-levitated bonds. Our poised and charming Prez may escape personal obloquy from the quaint old-world street folk, but most of the other G-20 policy playerz take a dim view of the shell-and-pea games being played by the custodians of the world’s reserve currency, including front-end-loader bank bail-outs, the shuffling of worthless securities under TARPS and TARFS, the desperate efforts to prevent the sane re-pricing of real estate, the cannibalizing of treasuries by the Federal Reserve, the now-notorious hijacking of public “liquidity” injections by third parties like Goldman Sachs, and most generally the perceived sacrifice of everybody else’s greater good for the sake of maintaining Lloyd Blankfein’s cappuccino machine.

What’s going on now is nature’s way of telling you that America’s standard of living has to be reduced by something between 20 and 50 percent. You can have it in the form of a compressive deflationary depression, including widespread bankruptcies… or you can have by way of inflation, in which money loses its value. But there’s one basic qualification to this: the way down is not symmetrical with the way up. That is, it’s really not just a matter of ratcheting down to a standard of living half of what it was, say, in 2006, because in the event all the various complex systems that support everyday life enter failure mode before our society re-sets at a theoretically lower level of equilibrium.

[...]

The lowering of living standards by 20 to 50 percent essentially eliminates all but the must critical commerce, meaning that most of the stores in the malls and strip malls lose their customers and shed employees, while the mall and strip mall owners lose their rents, and the bankers lose performing commercial real estate loans. As all this occurs, tax revenues go way down, schools can’t pay their employees or buy diesel fuel for their yellow bus fleets. More people lose the ability to carry health insurance. Hospital emergency rooms are overwhelmed. Health care descends to Third World levels. Meanwhile, pensions are destroyed, the elderly live on dog food and ketchup. . . .

[...]


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Penn's Landing

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Passyunk Square

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Frankford

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Riding the El

Preparing city for life after oil

Joshua Sabatini in the San Francisco Examiner, 3/15/09:


SAN FRANCISCO – To avoid “a much darker future” The City should pursue transforming a city golf course into farmland, offer free Muni to low-income residents and quickly turn garages of homes into livable spaces, according to a city task force whose mission is to prepare San Francisco for an oil shortage.

The so-called Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force was created in December 2007 and has spent the last 15 months hammering out a plan that would transform San Francisco into a city with more people riding Muni, chicken coops in backyards, widespread farming on public and private lands, and extensive use of wind, solar and tidal energy.

Headed toward a greener future: The City’s Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force has suggested disincentives for driving cars as one of 70 recommendations to wean San Francisco from oil dependency. Examiner File Photo

“A much darker future” could “unfold” if The City does not see through the more than 70 recommendations in the 97-page report, the task force says. The task force is expected to finalize the report Tuesday and later submit it to the Board of Supervisors.

The report touches on an array of topics, including public power, citywide high-speed Internet access for every resident, requiring energy audits of buildings at point of sale, raising the charges at city parking facilities and meters and other disincentives for driving cars. All recommendations are based on reducing The City’s dependence on oil.

[...]

Brazil’s leader blames white people for crisis

Not very P.C., Mr. da Silva, but he's right in pointing his finger at the Anglo-American banking cartel (now with a black face and front man!). He's also off in calling their scheming "irrational" "mistakes," since it was a deliberate swindle that backfired a little. From the Financial Times, 3/27/09:


Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Thursday blamed the global economic crisis on “white people with blue eyes” and said it was wrong that black and indigenous people should pay for white people’s mistakes.

Speaking in Brasília at a joint press conference with Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, Mr Lula da Silva told reporters: “This crisis was caused by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing.”

He added: “I do not know any black or indigenous bankers so I can only say [it is wrong] that this part of mankind which is victimised more than any other should pay for the crisis.”

[...]

Geithner update: Grab yer ankles and say ‘Uncle Sam’

More of the same old, same old criminality from the "change we can believe in" administration. Mike Whitney in Online Journal, 3/26/09:


Timothy Geithner refuses to take underwater banks into receivership and resolve them, but has no problem turning the FDIC into a hedge fund.

That’s right; under Geithner’s “Public Private Investment Partnership” (PPIP), FDIC chief Sheila Bair will assume the mantle of Bernie Madoff and oversee the establishment of Hedge Fund USA, a behemoth government-owned operation that will enlist the talents of five or six Wall Street managers to conduct auctions for toxic home loans and other repugnant securities.

The new program, which will provide lavish subsidies to investors, marks the first time that a standing government has transformed itself into a financial institution for the sake of its primary constituents, the banks. The PPIP creates a state-funded clearinghouse for overpriced junk derivatives and then passes the windfall on to over-leveraged Wall Street speculators. Go figure.

Here’s what everyone needs to know: The US government (you) will provide up to 94 percent of the financing (low interest, of course) for dodgy mortgage-backed assets that no one in their right mind would ever buy, so that wealthy and politically-connected banksters can scrub up to $1 trillion of red ink from their balance sheets. Ugh!

The so-called “private partners” in this confidence scam, will get non recourse loans, which means that if the plan backfires and they lose their skimpy 6 percent investment they can call it quits and leave the taxpayer holding the bag. ($1 trillion in potential losses!)

Here’s how Paul Krugman sums it up: “The Geithner scheme would offer a one-way bet: if asset values go up, the investors profit, but if they go down, the investors can walk away from their debt. This isn’t really about letting markets work. It’s just an indirect, disguised way to subsidize purchases of bad assets.”

“Markets”? Who said anything about markets? This is corporate welfare, pure and simple.

[...]



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Obama to add US troops in Afghanistan

AP, 3/27/09--Concerned about the faltering war in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama plans to dispatch thousands more military and civilian trainers on top of the 17,000 fresh combat troops he's already ordered, people familiar with the forthcoming plan said Thursday [...]



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And the reasons are oil and natural gas. Pepe Escobar explains in Asia Times, 3/26/09:

[...]

Last year, oil cost a king's ransom. This year, it's relatively cheap. But don't be fooled. Price isn't the point here. Like it or not, energy is still what everyone who's anyone wants to get their hands on. So consider this dispatch just the first installment in a long, long tale of some of the moves that have been, or will be, made in the maddeningly complex New Great Game, which goes on unceasingly, no matter what else muscles into the headlines this week.

Forget the mainstream media's obsession with al-Qaeda, Osama "dead or alive" bin Laden, the Taliban - neo, light or classic - or that "war on terror", whatever name it goes by. These are diversions compared to the high-stakes, hardcore geopolitical game that follows what flows along the pipelines of the planet.

[...]

When a withdrawal is not a withdrawal

Hey, am I surprised? Gareth Porter in Asia Times, 3/27/09:


WASHINGTON - Despite United States President Barack Obama's statement at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, on February 27 that he had "chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months", a number of Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs), which have been the basic US Army combat unit in Iraq for six years, will remain in Iraq after that date under a new non-combat label.

A spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick S Ryder, told Inter Press Service on Tuesday that "several advisory and assistance brigades" would be part of a US command in Iraq that would be "re-designated" as a "transition force headquarters" after August 2010.

But the "advisory and assistance brigades" to remain in Iraq after that date will in fact be the same as BCTs, except for the addition of a few dozen officers who would carry out the advice and assistance missions, according to military officials involved in the planning process.

Gates has hinted that the withdrawal of combat brigades would be accomplished through an administrative sleight of hand rather than by actually withdrawing all the combat brigade teams. Appearing on Meet the Press on March 1, Gates said the "transition force" would have "a very different kind of mission", and that the units remaining in Iraq "will be characterized differently".

"They will be called advisory and assistance brigades," said Gates. "They won't be called combat brigades."

Obama's decision to go along with the military proposal for a "transition force" of 35,000 to 50,000 troops thus represents a complete abandonment of his own original policy of combat troop withdrawal and an acceptance of what the military wanted all along - the continued presence of several combat brigades in Iraq well beyond mid-2010.

[...]



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Federal Reserve for Dummies

I've posted this, but here it is again. From Money Masters:



Who owns the Federal Reserve Banks?

Answer: The Federal Reserve Banks of each region are owned by (issue their stock exclusively to) the member banks of that same region. The member banks are privately owned corporations. Thus the Federal Reserve Banks are privately owned. This is a matter of law and anyone may read the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 for themselves (see below).

Question: Why then do some people deny that the Federal Reserve Banks are owned by private corporations?

Answer: Three groups of people deny this fact, for differing reasons:

The first group consists of the private owners of the Federal Reserve Banks, and their shills. It is obviously not in their interest that the American people realize that private bankers own what most people regard as a part of the public treasury and government. The people would doubtless not like it if they knew that the stockholders of the Federal Reserve Banks receive 6% interest (raised higher in the past) per year on their stock ownership, risk free. The people would be legitimately concerned to know that the member bank stockholders elect six of the nine members (i.e., 2/3rds) of the Boards of the reserve banks of their regions. Rather than regulating or controlling the activities of private banks in their regions, the opposite is the case.

The second group consists of those persons who, in their ignorance, have believed the propaganda of the Federal Reserve Banks, which sometimes issue ambiguous, doublespeak statements attempting to obfuscate their private bank ownership. Here is a typical example from the NY Fed website, quite easily seen through: “Although they are set up like private corporations and member banks hold their stock, the Federal Reserve Banks owe their existence to an act of Congress and have a mandate to serve the public. Therefore, they are not really "private" companies, but rather are "owned" by the citizens of the United States…Member banks do, however, receive a fixed 6 percent dividend annually on their stock and elect six of the nine members of the Reserve Bank's of their region… the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to member banks.”

The third group consists of those people who consider that because the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors is appointed by the President and approved by the Senate that the Fed is firmly under government control and that this is sufficiently equivalent to ownership to put them at ease (never mind the outright private bank control of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks). Let’s hear how the Fed itself regards such indirect “government control” (again from the NY Fed website): The Federal Reserve System is not "owned" by anyone and is not a private, profit-making institution. Instead, it is an independent entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects.

If you are a little uncomfortable with “your” Fed having “private aspects,” you are not alone. Notice also the contradiction with the other NY Fed quote above, which claims the citizens of the US own the Fed – here it claims no one owns it (same website). The truth and the law is that the member banks own and control all 12 Federal Reserve Banks. Another interesting doublespeak quote from the NY Fed website: Therefore, the Federal Reserve can be more accurately described as "independent within the government.” A little independence is a good thing, unless that independence is in reality virtually total and the entity involved controls the nation’s money and economy. Think about it: if the Fed is independent from the government that created it, then who controls it – it has no brain of its own – it is not a person. If it is not controlled by our government, then by whom?

Question: Doesn’t the fact that the President appoints the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System make it a quasi-governmental sort of entity?

Answer: Yes, but how “quasi” is quasi-enough? The Board of Governors of the System consists of 7 members, one appointed every two years (one term begins every two years, on February 1 of even-numbered years, a full year after inauguration day) by the President and confirmed by the Senate for 14 year terms. Wow…those are really long terms. Why? Let’s see: if a new President comes into office pledged to reform the Fed, end its independence from effective government oversight, throw the rascals out and replace them with his own appointees, he had better be very patient, as he can only replace one member every two years. So in his four year term (10 years less than Fed Governors’ terms) he can replace only two of the 7 members. Of course, he had better be able to sustain the ire of the remaining Governors (almost all connected to financial institutions indirectly in various academic and think-tank institutions financed by banks and bank grants or loans, or which they hope to join in revolving door relationships after their single terms are up), who can run the economy up, down or sideways, in the interim.

But assuming the President can sustain the fight with the Fed, its bank-PAC financed cheerleaders in the Senate, voters upset over a suddenly sinking economy, the banks who control the Fed and the media giants they also own, then all this brave but foolhardy President has to do is get elected to a second term, and hang on long enough to appoint two more Board members. Thus, assuming all of this goes well, in the span of seven years (a glacial pace in American politics), near the end of his second term, he can finally begin some reform – if he manages to get his four appointees confirmed, is still in office and has any allies left – even in his own party. We think the prefixed word quasi-governmental is a good one, if you understand quasi- to mean pseudo.

Keep in mind also the distinction between the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, and the Federal Reserve System as a whole. The private ownership of the 12 Federal Reserve banks we addressed above. "Federal Reserve System" usually refers to the entire framework established by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, including those 12, privately owned Federal Reserve Banks, and the Board of Governors of the system, which meets in Washington D.C. The Fed Board of Governors was also established by the Act of 1913. These are the 7 members with 14-year terms, also mentioned above. Two of them are appointed by the President to 4-year terms as Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Board (largely nominal positions - no extra votes). They, of course, are not owned like corporation stock is owned. So when someone is trying to mislead folks by denying any private ownership of the Fed, they will inevitably refer to the Federal Reserve System (rather than to the Federal Reserve Banks) and declare it is not privately owned (which is partly true [the Fed Board of Governors is not "owned"], and partly false [the 12 Federal Reserve banks are]). We have addressed these two elements in detail, above.

Question: Have the Courts had to decide whether the Federal Reserve Banks are privately owned or not?

Answer: Yes, in several cases. Here is one of them on point which went up to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals: LEWIS v. UNITED STATES

John L. LEWIS, Plaintiff/Appellant v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant/Appellee. No. 80-5905. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Submitted March 2, 1982; Decided April 19, 1982; As Amended June 24, 1982

"Plaintiff, who was injured by vehicle owned and operated by a federal reserve bank, brought action alleging jurisdiction under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The United States District Court for the Central District of California, David W. Williams, Jr., dismissed holding that federal reserve bank was not a federal agency within meaning of Act and that the court therefore lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. Appeal was taken. The Court of Appeals, Poole, Circuit Judge, held that federal reserve banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of the Act, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations.
Affirmed.

. . .Examining the organization and function of the Federal Reserve Banks and applying the relevant factors, we conclude that the Reserve Banks . . . are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations.

Each Federal Reserve Bank is a separate corporation owned by commercial banks in its region. The stockholding commercial banks elect two-thirds of each Bank's nine member board of directors. The remaining three directors are appointed by the Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve Board regulates the Reserve Banks, but direct supervision and control of each Bank is exercised by its board of directors. 12 U.S.C. § 301. The directors enact by-laws regulating the manner of conducting general Bank business, 12 U.S.C. § 341, and appoint officers to implement and supervise daily Bank activities. These activities include collecting and clearing checks, making advances to private and commercial entities, holding reserves for members banks, discounting the notes of members banks, and buying and selling securities on the open market. See 12 U.S.C. §§ 341-361.

. . . The Banks are listed as neither "wholly owned" government corporations under 31 U.S.C. § 846 nor as "mixed ownership" corporations under 31 U.S.C. § 856, . . .

Additionally, Reserve Banks, as privately owned entities, receive no appropriated funds . . ."

Let’s sum up: The Federal Reserve consists of 12 regional banks, the stock of which is owned and the Boards controlled by the member banks, which are privately owned bank corporations. These institutions receive 6% profit on their funds paid into the Fed, rain or shine, peace or war (sometimes more).

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors is an independent (its own word) entity “within” the government (i.e., something much like an independent, internal parasite in a host organism), with 14 year, reform-proof terms (i.e., only one of 7 can be replaced every two years).

The Fed was deliberately designed to appear as a sort of government body to hide the fact that it is a private banking cartel whose member banks share in the vast profits of seigniorage (i.e., the difference between the cost of printing/minting or otherwise creating money [a few cents per $100], and its face value). Yes, the Department of the Treasury does still mint our coins (at the US mint) but that represents under 1% of the US money supply, the great bulk of which is simply bankbook entries - electronic keyboard impulses in computer memories - created by banks on-the-spot to fund loans they make in response to loans applications their "customers" submit (hence the competition by banks for your loan applications and credit card borrowing).

Wouldn't you love to have that exclusive ability - simply to type numbers on your keyboard creating bank accounts, and then write checks or charge purchases to those accounts (actually, no - it is gravely unjust to everyone else and is impoverishing the world for that power to be in private hands).

The Federal Reserve Notes we all accept as currency (there are no U.S. Notes printed since passage of the ill-advised, 1994 Reigle Act abolished Lincoln's greenbacks) are actually sold to the Fed at the cost of printing - a few cents per sheet - by the Treasury Department Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Seigniorage is properly a benefit solely to government (and indirectly then to the people) - not to private bankers - that the Federal Reserve Act, passed by misrepresentation and deception, transferred to the bankers. Thus, rather than the government receiving the vast benefits of creating all of our money, private banks create over 98% of our money supply - literally billions of dollars annually - and pocket the interest charged on loaning that new money, as their private profit. Our government is left with only the insignificant seigniorage from minting coins.

Since the bankers actually wanted to control the new, national central bank (called the Federal Reserve Banks), to accomplish this they had to make it appear governmental, which accounts for the occasional use of the term quasi-govenmental, to describe this governmental facade. This also explains the construction of the Federal Reserve headquarters building on the Mall in Washington, DC, right in the midst of the authentically governmental buildings there.

The real problem is, thus, not the Fed itself (it only makes about 2% of the money supply – the base for the rest), it’s the private banks that, pursuant to the fractional reserve banking authorized by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, make/create-from-nothing-for-their-private-profit the other roughly 98% of the US money supply. The Fed is just a quasi-governmental smokescreen (and central organizing body) for the private banking cartel's money-creation operation.



From Frederick Mann's THE ECONOMIC RAPE OF AMERICA (Free America! Institute, 1992) chapter 3, on the Federal Reserve:


THEY PRINT IT - WE BORROW IT AND PAY THEM INTEREST

An example of the process of currency creation and its conversion into "people's debt" will aid our understanding. The Federal Government, having spent more than it has taken from its citizens in taxes, needs (for the sake of illustration) $1 billion. Since it does not have the currency, and Congress has given away its authority to create it, the government must go to the creators for the $1 billion. But the Federal Reserve, a private corporation, does not give its currency away for free! The bankers are willing to deliver $1 billion in currency or credit to the federal government in exchange for the government's agreement to pay it back with interest. So Congress authorizes the Treasury Department to print $1 billion in U.S. Bonds, which are then delivered to the Federal Reserve bankers. (The bonds are a kind of "IOU" that bears interest.)

The U.S. Treasury prints $1 billion in bank notes. The printing cost is about $20.62 per 1,000 bills - it costs the same irrespective of the denomination - the cost of printing a $1 note is about the same as for a $100 note: about .0206 cents. The Federal Reserve "buys" these bills from the U.S. Treasury, paying only for the printing costs. The bills are then exchanged at full face value for the bonds. The government uses the currency to pay its obligations. What are the results of this fantastic transaction? Well, the government's bills are paid all right, but the U.S. Government has now indebted the people to the Federal Reserve bankers for $1 billion plus interest!

Since this process has been going on since 1913, the people are now indebted to the bankers to the tune of trillions of dollars. The people are taxed billions of dollars each month just to pay the interest on this "national debt." With both the principal and the interest climbing every month, there is no hope of ever paying off this "debt." The working people of the United States now "owe" the approximately 300 banking families and their consorts more than the assessed value of all the assets in the United States. And realize, the bankers got all this for the cost of paper, ink, and bookkeeping!


THE MOUNTAIN OF DEBT

You say this is terrible! Yes it is, but this is only part of the sordid story. Under this "debt-currency" system, those U.S. Bonds referred to above have now become assets of the banks, called their "reserve." Regular commercial banks use these assets to issue loans to individual and commercial customers. Since the banking laws require only about a 12% reserve, this means the banking fraternity can lend up to eight times the amount of the bonds they have on hand. As a result of the $1 billion discussed here, they can lend $8 billion to private customers at interest. This means that together with the $1 billion lent to the government, the bankers can lend out $9 billion at interest for the original cost to them of about $400,000 for the printing! And because the Federal Reserve bankers have been granted a monopoly, the only way our people and businesses can get currency to carry on trade and expand industry and farming is to borrow it from the bankers!


USING DEBT TO EXPAND CONTROL

In addition to the vast wealth drawn to them through this almost unlimited usury, the bankers who control the currency are able to approve or disapprove large loans to big and successful corporations. Bankers can refuse a loan, thereby depressing the price of a corporation's shares on the stock exchange. This enables the bankers' agents to buy large blocks of the shares at depressed prices. Then they can approve a multi-million dollar loan to the corporation, resulting in its share price rising, allowing the bankers' agents to sell the shares, sometimes making huge profits. In this manner billions of dollars are made to buy even more shares.

Using this method since 1913, the bankers and their agents have purchased secret or open control of almost every large corporation in America. Using that control, they force the corporations to borrow huge sums from their banks so that corporate earnings are partially siphoned off in the form of interest paid to the banks. This leaves little "actual profit" to be paid out as dividends.

When bankers lend more, the currency supply expands. When they reign in the loans, the currency supply contracts. By expanding or contracting the currency supply, the bankers can make the stock market go up or down at their pockets' content! They can cause "busts and booms" almost as they wish.

That is why President James A. Garfield said, "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce."

At the time of writing (July, 1992), the New York stock market has been hovering around record highs for months, while the economy continues to suffer a protracted slump. The bankers no doubt want the stock market to be high and the economy to recover before the coming presidential election. Keep in mind that they endorse all three presidential candidates. Tweedledum and Tweedledee; or Louie, Huey, and Dewey; or Larry, Mo, and Curly - they are all in the hands of the bankers.


WHY LOANS EVENTUALLY SHRINK THE CURRENCY SUPPLY

The only way new currency goes into circulation in America under this wicked system is when someone borrows it from a banker. When people are confident of success, they borrow more currency, which increases the currency supply, and all seem to prosper for a while. Then, as they pay off their loans, the available currency supply shrinks and currency becomes "scarce." Borrowers must always take more currency out of circulation when they repay their loans, than they put in circulation when they receive their loans. Interest and charges make the repayment total larger than the loan. This means that only more people borrowing still more can keep the medium of exchange available to the nation.

This example may aid understanding. When a citizen goes to a banker to borrow $100,000 to purchase a home or a farm, and the loan is granted, the banker gives the borrower a check for $100,000 or credits the borrower's account with $100,000. The borrower, in turn, writes the necessary checks to the builder, seller, subcontractors, etc. (who, in turn, write more checks), thereby putting $100,000 of "checkbook currency" into circulation. However, on a 30-year mortgage with 10% interest, the banker wants $828 per month, or a total of $316,080. The buyer must take that $316,080 out of circulation, reducing the overall amount in circulation by $216,080.

The banker has not really produced anything of value, except the slip of paper called a check or deposit slip. Yet the banker ends up having $216,080 more than he had before, minus a few hundred dollars of clerical and office costs. But the people, as a whole, have $216,080 less.


WHY SMALL LOANS HAVE THE SAME EFFECT

For those who haven't quite grasped the impact, let us consider an auto loan for only three years. Step one: citizen borrows $6,000 and pays it into circulation (to the dealer, factory, etc.). Citizen agrees to repay the banker $7,200. Step two: Citizen pays $200 per month. In 36 months citizen has taken $7,200 out of circulation and paid it to the bank. Net result? $1,200 less currency in circulation.

Since currency requirements increase with expanding population, industry, and commerce, and paying off any loan decreases the available currency supply, it is clear that we would quickly run out of currency, unless more and more people borrow more and more currency to keep currency in circulation!

Multiply the above examples by hundreds of millions of times since 1913, and you can see why America has fallen from a prosperous debt-free nation to the most debt-ridden country in the world. Practically every home, farm, and business is heavily mortgaged to the bankers. Practically all our cars, furniture, and clothes are purchased with borrowed currency. The interest to the bankers on personal, state, and federal debt totals more than 25% of the combined earnings of the working population!


THE COST TO THE BANKERS? PRACTICALLY NOTHING

In the tens of millions of transactions made each year like those shown here, relatively few bank notes change hands, nor is it necessary that they do. 95% of all "cash" transactions in the U.S. are by check. Checks are thus effectively also currency. The banker creates the so-called "loan" by writing a check or deposit slip, not against actual money, but against your promise to pay back the loan. The only cost to the bank is the paper, ink, and a few dollars in salaries and office costs for each transaction. It is "check-kiting" on an enormous scale! The profits are enormous as shown below.


THE COST TO YOU? PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING

In 1910 the U.S. federal debt was $1,147,000,000 - $12 per citizen. State and local debts were practically non-existent, and government was small and not oppressive.

By 1920, after only six years of the Federal Reserve handling our currency, the federal debt had jumped to $24 billion - $228 per citizen. The Federal Government began to grow like an invisible cancer in its early stages.

By 1968 the federal debt had jumped to $347 billion - $1,717 per citizen. Ten years later, by 1978 it had doubled again to $763 billion - $3,500 per citizen. That is a debt of $17,500 for every family of five in America. Federal debt has been growing faster and faster since. And the Federal Government has become a debilitating cancer rapidly sapping and weakening its victim.

Today in 1992 the federal debt is over $4 trillion. (And they "cook the books" on the low side to come up with that figure - see Chapter Nine.) The $4 trillion national debt amounts to $16,000 per citizen, or $80,000 per family of five. And if that debt were calculated in terms of working or tax-paying families, it would be considerably higher. The Federal Government has become a bloated, out-of-control parasite, a terminal cancer. The economy seems so weak that even after many months of blowing up the currency supply, signs of recovery have to be searched for. The entire system may be on the brink of complete collapse.

[...]



CANTO XLV
Ezra Pound


With Usura


With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that design might cover their face,
with usura
hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luz
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,
with usura
seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly
with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour
with usura the line grows thick
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling
Stone-cutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom
WITH USURA
wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no grain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the the maid's hand
and stoppeth the spinner's cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin' not by usura
nor was "La Callunia" painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St. Trophime
Not by usura St. Hilaire,
Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling
Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man's courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom
               CONTRA NATURAM
They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet
at behest of usura.

Usury: A charge for the use of purchasing power, levied without regard to production; often without regard to the possibilities of production. (Hence the failure of the Medici bank.)

..............................................

British Transport Police

poster:




[When in the U.K., don't stare at those ubiquitous CCTV cameras.]

Welcome to Fuffland

Dmitry Orlov, 3/22/09:


In the unfolding global financial collapse, it is not just our accounts and balance sheets that come up short, but our language as well. What do you call a bunch of liar loans packaged into toxic assets and placed on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve as collateral for rescue loans? J. K. Galbraith has proposed the term “Bezzle,” taking it to mean the eternal ebb and flow of questionable transactions within an economic cycle. Rational actors cut corners during easy times when they know no-one is looking, and then play nice again when the times change and someone starts paying attention again.

But I believe that the phenomenon we are observing is something different: we need a word that describes the artifacts generated in response to irrational actors who demand to be fooled. As the old saying goes, “A fool and his money are soon parted” – at the fool's own insistence, no less! If the deer comes out of the forest and walks up to the hunter, it is not proper hunting, and this is not proper con artistry or grift or embezzlement or any other term we use to describe proper works of evil. If the victim, at the sight of the economic predator, goes into doggie submission, we must stop discussing the phenomenon in terms of conflict and consider whether what we are observing might be some strange instance of symbiosis.

[...]

Grays Ferry

.

In 1985-86, I lived here for almost a year, shared a house with a roommate. It was little more than a shell, for which we paid $50 a month. The strip mall wasn't here. To be fair, there are many decent, well-kept houses in the neighborhood. Still, it's depressing as shit. In 1992, Grays Ferry made the news as the source for Uncle Eddy's boys. They had brought him their soiled underwear, squatted over a glass table so he could watch their digestion from below.




.................................

Philadelphia Suspect: A Troubled Life

New York Times, 4/2/92--Next to his picture in a 1960 high school yearbook is the prediction that Edward I. Savitz, its editor, would someday be Chief Justice of the United States.

"The Flame staff believes that its editor in chief will make it," they wrote 32 years ago in the yearbook of West Philadelphia High School.

But the Flame staff was wrong. Instead of continuing on the upward climb expected of the class valedictorian, yearbook editor and one of the most popular students in school, Mr. Savitz faltered. Law school fizzled, his graduate studies ended inconclusively, his marriage ended in divorce and he wound up working in his older brother's insurance business as an actuary.

Today Mr. Savitz is charged in the statutory rapes of four minor boys. Last Friday the Philadelphia District Attorney and the city's Health Commissioner issued an extraordinary public health warning about Mr. Savitz, who had been in police custody for two days on charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual abuse of children, indecent assault and corrupting the morals of a minor in connection with complaints by two males. AIDS Test Urged

The officials said that he had AIDS and that he had been infected with the virus that causes it for two years before he developed AIDS. During this time, the officials said, he may have had sex with several hundred teen-age boys, and they advised anyone who had contact with Mr. Savitz to seek advice about having an AIDS test.

It was in the 1970's, when Mr. Savitz was in his 30's and starting in the insurance business, that high school students in South Philadelphia began passing the word about a man they knew as "Uncle Ed," "Uncle Eddie" or "Fast Eddie." He lived in a downtown row house at the time, and paid high prices for dirty underwear and feces.

The police say they have evidence that Mr. Savitz has had contact with high school students and teen-age street hustlers since 1979. The evidence includes 5,000 photographs of boys or young men, some of them nude, and 312 plastic trash bags filled with soiled socks and underwear.

[...]

West Philly,

mostly along Baltimore Avenue:

[Flattened traffic cone duct-taped to light pole]

.

The Obama Deception

Alex Jones dissects this Wall Street-run administration:



.

.

I Mug You Very Much

If every poem were as bad
As this one, I don't wanna
Be a moonshining wordsmith.

As I flipped off the moon, her pitying,
Mocking face came to sanction me,

I wish. Death is
A dead electric
Blanket over
Your last boner.

Goddamn word means sassafras,
Eternal sunshine or lights out,
Fear or desire for cleansing pain.

Mama, can we switch to another poem?






.

Peter Schiff: Why the Meltdown Should Have Surprised No One

.

.

The Big Takeover

Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone, 3/19/09:


The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution


It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.

[...]

Revisiting Jerome

.

I walked on Market from 69th to 60th. At 62nd, the sidewalk was closed due to construction, so I had to move North for at least a block, which made me feel a little funny since there were too many abandoned houses. In a city like this, one block can change your life. This was also where my friend, Jerome Robinson, had been killed in 2003. On Arch, I saw a guy working on his van. When he said hello, we talked a bit, so I felt better. On Millick, I passed a house with a huge sign, "SAVE OUR CHILDREN FROM THE DRUGS AND VIOLENCE." Back on Market, I scoped out Jerome's old tattoo shop, took a few photos, then approached a morose looking guy, about 32, with bad teeth, sitting on a rocking chair. No, he didn't really know Jerome, he said, except that some people in the hood thought he had a big mouth. "But that's no reason to be shot," he admitted. Everybody has a gun these days, he went on, and it's getting worse. Even girls are getting more aggressive. It's all because these kids are having kids, without a man around. Across the street was the Wheels of Soul clubhouse, where I had been inside just once, 25 years ago, and where Jerry had been shot by an 18 year old. He left behind a wife and daughter. I'm not just saying this because Jerry's dead but he was as sweet a man as you could encounter. He had gone to art school and was a poet, that's how we met, and although he looked tough, he was always mellow. At the trial, a local columnist and our mutual drinking buddy, Clark DeLeon, addressed his murderer:

You, Jameel Simpson, have been convicted of murdering my brother, our brother, and I want to hate you for it. I wish I could hate you because it would be a much more satifying emotion than what I actually feel. I'm not angry. Just sad. Sad for you, sad for me, sad for Philadelphia, sad for the people in this courtroom. I'm not sorry that you will spend the rest of your life in prison, but I'm sad because you are a cliche. Another young black male who will grow old behind bars. And all because of what? What were you thinking when you pulled the trigger? Were you thinking at all? Was your life so hopeless? Did you actually think you'd get away with it? Did you care if you'd get caught? Did you think you'd be a celebrity in prison because you'd capped a Wheel?

As I was about to photograph the Wheel of Soul clubhouse, a teenager walked across the street and asked what I was doing. "You can't be going around, taking pictures, niggers will think you're a rub." He was unsmiling, his face a combination of incredulousness, pity and contempt for a man so stupid. A 40-ish dude nearby also mumbled, "You can't be taking pictures."

I'm stupid as shit. When I taught for a semester at U Penn in 2007, one of my assignments was to get off at an unfamiliar subway station, walk around, then write about it. I did tell my students not to go somewhere crazy and get killed, as if this meant anything to a group of affluent, white kids living in a major city for the first time. I'll never try that again.

Also in 2007, I found myself wandering through Juarez at seven in the morning, when it was still dark and tired prostitutes could be seen through dim doorways. I shouldn't be doing this, I thought, but kept walking. This was the most dangerous city in all of Mexico, where mutilated or decapitated corpses were often found in the desert, where cops were routinely shot by drug traffickers.

I've only been mugged once. Around 1990, my housepainting boss treated his crew to an evening of beaucoup beer and Jameson, on the occasion of his birthday. Walking home, I decided to slip behind a bush and sleep for a bit. When I woke up, it was three in the morning. At 11th and South, a guy with a hammer confronted me and asked for money. He didn't swing it, and we actually haggled for a minute, with me raising my voice so someone could be roused from sleep and call 911. It actually worked. At the trial, he showed the judge an old scar, which he attributed to me, a supposedly "Asian gang member."

"Are you an Asian gang member, Mr. Dinh?"

After he was nailed, the arresting cop shook my hand. "He's been in this court six times, but this is his first conviction. Thank you."

Jerome Robinson (1951-2003)

.

Through Talawas,

a superb Vietnamese language website, now in its seventh year, I'm giving Vietnamese worldwide a tour of Philadelphia, in these installments, 1, 2, 3, 4, so far.

Mike's initiative

.

I've always liked this house because of its improvised garden. Walking by yesterday, I noticed condoms on a table, so I talked to the house's owner, Mike, who was sitting on the stoop. He had placed them there so strangers could take them, he said. When I remarked that they seemed kind of old, he went inside to get a fresh batch, including strawberry flavored ones. "Has anyone taken them?" I asked. "Only two," he responded, "but I've only had them out a week." As a woman walked by, Mike yelled, "Do you want a condom?"



.

More Center City

.

.

Man, standing

on Chesnut Street:

.