LexisNexis: Police departments have NSA like spying powers for social media monitoring

November 16, 2013

Source: Mass PrivateI

Local law enforcement is getting the kind of technological boost that used to be limited to three-letter agencies, thanks to Web-based software services that mine social media for intelligence.

 

At last month's International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conference in Philadelphia, LexisNexis showed off a new tool it will bundle with its research service for law enforcement agencies—one that will help them "stake out" social media as part of their criminal investigations. (making it easier for them to spy on activists or suspicious people)

 

Called Social Media Monitor, the cloud-based service will watch social networks for comments and activities that might offer clues to crimes in the physical world. With direct connections into a variety of social media services' feeds, it will help police plow through Twitter and Facebook in search of evidence that could lead to arrests.

 

LexisNexis Social Media Monitoring is so invasive it can look for keywords or 'buzz/issue monitoring,' content types, extent of sentiment detection, etc.!

 

Social media is already a major tool for police departments. Some city police departments, such as the Boston Police Department, have integrated monitoring of social media into their Real Time Crime Centers (RTCCs)—operations that have been aided by federal funding in a number of large cities. And because criminals often use social media themselves (to their own detriment), social media monitoring is paying off. For example, in 2011 analysts at Cincinnati's RTCC were searching the social network connections of suspects for one crime and found video of an armed robbery posted to a Facebook page by one of the perpetrators.

 

It’s not just a big city phenomenon. A poll of 1,200 law enforcement officers conducted by LexisNexis found that four out of five law enforcement officers use social media as part of their investigations. More than three-quarters of those who don't use social media now plan to start using it within the next 12 months.

 

LexisNexis' Accurint for Law Enforcement is already something of a social network of its own. That service is a sort of LinkedIn for law enforcement agents that provides a way to network and identify people with expertise at other levels of law enforcement. It also allows for access to public records about individuals and businesses that law enforcement can use to verify identities, locate suspects and their assets, and discover links between people that may not show up on their Facebook page. The addition of Social Media Monitor adds just another layer of "big data" for investigators to mine.

 

Social Media Monitor is provided by an Atlanta firm called Digital Stakeout. The software-as-a-service is actually an intelligence database platform built to comply with the Department of Justice's 28 CFR part 23, the federal government's regulations on criminal intelligence information systems.

And much like big data analysis systems employed by the NSA and other federal agencies, Digital Stakeout does a lot more than watch for someone to tweet "LOL just robbed a bank YOLO."

 

Digital Stakeout pulls data and metadata directly from Twitter's "firehose," as well historical data from Twitter. The system taps into Facebook posts and comments, Google+ and YouTube, Instagram, and other social media "big data" feeds. It performs a variety of rules-based processing on the data live from the source—including some proprietary natural language analytics that can look for thousands of combinations of words within feeds that would indicate an emergency, such as a shooting in progress. Digital Stakeout includes sentiment analysis features to monitor the general mood of postings and pick up potential threats of violence. The system can even leverage geographic metadata in posts to allow a variety of searches based on location.

 

Digital Stakeout isn't alone in its effort to bring social media analytics to law enforcement. The Boston Police Department uses Social Media Command Center, another Web-based application from Catonsville, Maryland-based Inttensity. And other "big data" companies that have specialized in intelligence products for defense and intelligence customers, such as Palantir and BrightPlanet, are now targeting local law enforcement agencies as a new potential pool of customers.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/staking-out-twitter-and-facebook-new-service-lets-police-poke-perps/

LexisNexis Social media monitoring 2013:
http://www.somemo.at/files/LexisNexis3.pdf

LexisNexis Social media monitoring 2012:
http://www.somemo.at/files/LexisNexis.pdf

Role of social media in law enforcement significant and growing:
http://www.lexisnexis.com/risk/newsevents/press-release.aspx?id=1342623085481181

MutualMind Partners with LexisNexis to offer social intelligence solutions to police:
http://www.mutualmind.com/blog/2012/08/mutualmind-signs-agreement-with-lexisnexis-to-offer-advanced-social-media-intelligence-solutions-to-small-law/

Scientists Discover Another Cause of Bee Deaths, and it’s Really Bad News‏

truther November 16, 2013

So what is with all the dying bees? Scientists have been trying to discover this for years. Meanwhile, bees keep dropping like… well, you know. Is it mites? Pesticides? Cell phone towers? What is really at the root? Turns out the real issue really scary, because it is more complex and pervasive than thought.

Quartz reports:

Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at once.

The researchers behind that study in PLOS ONE – Jeffery S. Pettis, Elinor M. Lichtenberg, Michael Andree, Jennie Stitzinger, Robyn Rose, Dennis vanEngelsdorp — collected pollen from hives on the east coast, including cranberry and watermelon crops, and fed it to healthy bees. Those bees had a serious decline in their ability to resist a parasite that causes Colony Collapse Disorder. The pollen they were fed had an average of nine different pesticides and fungicides, though one sample of pollen contained a deadly brew of 21 different chemicals. Further, the researchers discovered that bees that ate pollen with fungicides were three times more likely to be infected by the parasite.

The discovery means that fungicides, thought harmless to bees, is actually a significant part of Colony Collapse Disorder. And that likely means farmers need a whole new set of regulations about how to use fungicides. While neonicotinoids have been linked to mass bee deaths — the same type of chemical at the heart of the massive bumble bee die off in Oregon – this study opens up an entirely new finding that it is more than one group of pesticides, but a combination of many chemicals, which makes the problem far more complex.

And it is not just the types of chemicals used that need to be considered, but also spraying practices. The bees sampled by the authors foraged not from crops, but almost exclusively from weeds and wildflowers, which means bees are more widely exposed to pesticides than thought.

The authors write, “More attention must be paid to how honey bees are exposed to pesticides outside of the field in which they are placed. We detected 35 different pesticides in the sampled pollen, and found high fungicide loads. The insecticides esfenvalerate and phosmet were at a concentration higher than their median lethal dose in at least one pollen sample. While fungicides are typically seen as fairly safe for honey bees, we found an increased probability of Nosema infection in bees that consumed pollen with a higher fungicide load. Our results highlight a need for research on sub-lethal effects of fungicides and other chemicals that bees placed in an agricultural setting are exposed to.”

While the overarching issue is simple — chemicals used on crops kill bees — the details of the problem are increasingly more complex, including what can be sprayed, where, how, and when to minimize the negative effects on bees and other pollinators while still assisting in crop production. Right now, scientists are still working on discovering the degree to which bees are affected and by what. It will still likely be a long time before solutions are uncovered and put into place. When economics come into play, an outright halt in spraying anything at all anywhere is simply impossible.

Quartz notes, “Bee populations are so low in the US that it now takes 60% of the country’s surviving colonies just to pollinate one California crop, almonds. And that’s not just a west coast problem—California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds, a market worth $4 billion.”

Source:

www.treehugger.com

DHS Taking Control Of Local Police

truther November 16, 2013

(Joe Wolverton, II, J.D)  As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) doles out billions of dollars to convince local police departments to surrender control to the federal agency, a recent report indicates that intelligence gathered at precincts-cum-surveillance-centers will be shared among all levels of law enforcement.

An article published by Fierce Homeland Security on November 4 reports:
The phenomenon of fusion centers sharing intelligence and skills with each other — not just with the federal government — is a new and underappreciated aspect of the centers, panelists at a Homeland Security Policy Institute event said.
Fusion centers mainly apply national intelligence to local contexts and gather information locally that they can share with federal agencies. But in recent years, a great deal of “horizontal sharing” has occurred, where fusion centers work closely with each other, said Ross Ashley, the executive director of National Fusion Center Association.
“We’ll find an expert in Washington state on international human trafficking over international ferry systems. Well, I don’t need that expert everywhere. What I need is the ability to reach out to that expert if I’m in West Virginia,” he said at the event, held Oct. 23 in Washington, D.C.
That meeting, entitled “State and Local Fusion Centers: Key Challenges for the Next Decade,” featured three panelists: John Cohen, principal deputy under secretary for intelligence and analysis, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Thomas Kirk, director, West Virginia Intelligence Fusion Center; and Ross Ashley, executive director, National Fusion Center Association. The keynote address was delivered by Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security.
In July, McCaul co-authored with Representative Peter King (R-N.Y.) a report on the progress of the establishment of the nationwide spread of the fusion centers. The press release announcing the report reveals the pair’s support for a program that dismantles federalism and accelerates the militarization of local police and the consolidation of control of those departments to the federal government. The McCaul-King report states:
Fusion centers serve as hubs of strategic analysis and information sharing where Federal, State, and local agencies are all represented in one location. State and local crime data is coordinated, gathered and reviewed to determine if there is any potential connection to terrorist activity. In addition, Federal terrorism-related information is shared with State and local law enforcement.
Seems the congressmen should be reminded of the fact that there is not a single syllable of the Constitution authorizing any such federal participation in law enforcement. If the power isn’t granted to the federal government in the Constitution, then authority over that area remains with the states and the people as described in the Tenth Amendment.
Remarkably, McCaul and King lament the fact that the chain of fusion centers isn’t growing quickly enough and the DHS isn’t getting adequate access to all that information. The report adds:
The Committee’s review concludes that the Network is not functioning as cohesively as it should be and fusion centers are facing numerous challenges that prevent the Network from realizing its full potential to help secure the homeland.
Of course, there couldn’t be a piece of federal police and surveillance program propaganda without reminding citizens that all this deprivation of their rights is for their safety. As if to say, if the federal government doesn’t take control of your local police department and keep all citizens under surveillance, the terrorists will strike again.
The representatives’ zeal for constructing local outposts of the central surveillance headquarters is not surprising. Self-serving bureaucrats inside the U.S. government are tirelessly trying to obliterate local police forces answerable to local citizens and promote the consolidation movement as a step toward federalization of law enforcement. These proponents of regional and national police forces desire nothing less than the eradication of all local police departments and sheriffs’ offices, the surrender of state and municipal sovereignty, and the conversion of police into federal security agents sworn not to protect and to serve their neighbors, but to protect the prerogatives of politicians.
Take for example the information contained in a White Paper presented in 2012 to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In that report, the DHS is encouraged to embark on an “evolving mission” away from its ostensible purpose of fighting terrorism, toward becoming the administrator of an enormous domestic intelligence agency resulting from an integration of the country’s local and state law-enforcement agencies.
This report was written by the Aspen Institute Homeland Security Group, co-chaired by former DHS chief Michael Chertoff. The blueprint promoted in the White Paper pushes Congress toward green-lighting the growth of DHS and the dissolution of local police and sheriffs.
The organization described in the paper, entitled “Homeland Security and Intelligence: Next Steps in Evolving the Mission,” is reminiscent of more draconian governments. For example, one section of the report calls for a transition in the mission of DHS away from protecting the country from the “terrorism” of foreign militants and toward “more specific homeward focused areas.” Additional sections of the report lay out the plans for building a DHS/police hybrid agency that can monitor Americans in any town and prevent threats from fellow citizens.
In order to achieve their ultimate aim, the globalists demand that DHS or some other federal agency take control of the personnel decisions currently made by local police chiefs and county sheriffs. “As the threat grows more localized,” the report claims, “the federal government’s need to train, and even staff, local agencies, such as major city police departments, will grow.” Put another way: The federal government will run your local police department and sheriff’s office.
The establishment of fusion centers is a key component of this plan. The following information is taken from a fact sheet on fusion centers posted on the DHS website:
A fusion center is a collaborative effort of two or more agencies that provide resources, expertise and information to the center with the goal of maximizing their ability to detect, prevent, investigate, and respond to criminal and terrorist activity.
A description of the functioning of these incubators for the forthcoming federal police force is also provided on the DHS site:
State and major urban area fusion centers (fusion centers) serve as primary focal points within the state and local environment for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) partners…. Fusion centers conduct analysis and facilitate information sharing, assisting law enforcement and homeland security partners in preventing, protecting against, and responding to crime and terrorism.
The literature promoting the acceptance of fusion centers lists several ways the new federal agency will impose its will on the formerly autonomous and accountable police chief or county sheriff.
Last year, The New American described the likely procedure:
First, the feds will decide where and when to deploy local police department personnel. The chief, if he still exists, will be no more than a functionary required to make sure that the orders of the federal government are carried out. More likely than not, these new missions, in addition to preventing crime in the city or county, will engage in the collection of information about and apprehension of those local citizens identified by a committee in Washington as posing a threat to national security. Consider the revelation in 2009 that Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis released a document entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalism and Recruitment,” which listed war veterans, anti-abortion activists, small-government advocates, and those concerned about immigration as terrorist risks.
Second, DHS (or whichever one of the federal agencies eventually takes over law-enforcement duties) will train new recruits. Policies, procedures, and purposes will not reflect traditional (and constitutional) goals of law enforcement, but will be tailored to training officers to perform those duties associated with the new, national emphasis of the force, with a slant toward federalism.
Finally, funds for this conversion from local police department to outpost of the federal law-enforcement agency will be provided by the bureaucrats on Capitol Hill. This carrot will be tied to the stick of federal control.
The speed and success of the Department of Homeland Security’s plan to string together a powerful net of surveillance-focused fusion centers in all the country’s police departments is evident in the following statement at the Homeland Security Policy Institute’s meeting made by Thomas Kirk, director of the West Virginia Intelligence Fusion Center:
“In all law enforcement, I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said. “Most of the time when I call another fusion center director, they know my voice.”

Satellite imagery reveals mystery ‘supergun’ in Chinese desert

Source: Janes

Satellite imagery has revealed two unusually large artillery pieces, measuring about 80 ft and 110 ft respectively, at a test centre for armour and artillery northwest of Baotou in China.
The two pieces, which are horizontally mounted, are mounted on a concrete pad that appeared between September 2010 and December 2011, when the two pieces were first captured by satellite imagery. Images provided by Astrium confirmed that the objects were still in place in July 2013.
The 2011 imagery clearly depicts a series of what appear to be targets in front of the 110 ft piece, suggesting some kind of penetration testing for high-velocity projectiles.
China has historically shown interest in large calibre, long-range artillery. It experimented with the Xianfeng ‘supergun’ in the 1970s as part of Project 640 anti-ballistic missile programme. Approximately 85 ft long, Xianfeng may be the smaller of the two objects retained for experimental use after its cancellation in 1980.
In the 1990s it was revealed that China had built a long-range ‘supergun’ technology testbed similar to the Iraqi Project Babylon supergun designed by Gerald Bull. IHS Jane’s Land Warfare Platforms: Artillery & Air Defence notes that Bull was heavily involved in designing long-range Chinese artillery systems for Norinco in the 1980s.
The larger Baotou artillery piece outwardly resembles the Project Babylon ‘supergun’, which was theoretically capable of extreme-range artillery barrages or of targeting orbiting satellites. Bull’s ‘Baby Babylon’ testbed measured 150 ft in length, compared with the 105 ft-long larger piece at Baotou.

COMMENT

Although the Baotou pieces appear similar in design to the Bull ‘supergun’ concept, it seems unlikely that they are intended for long-range artillery barrages or anti-satellite operations given China’s extensive long-term development of ballistic missiles for both of these missions.
Alternatively, the devices could also be railgun prototypes, although this appears unlikely as there is no significant external power routed to the test pad and a lack of environmental protection. The other possibility is that China is simply reusing the legacy systems from its long-range artillery programmes from the 1970s and 1990s as part of a projectile test range – a view that is supported by the presence of what appears to be ‘used’ targets on the northwest side of the pad.

JFK, MJ-12 and Outer Space

© 2002 by Linda Moulton Howe

http://www.presidentialufo.com/old_site/kennedy&1.htm

February 12, 2002 New York City, New York - This past
week in Manhattan, I met with reporter and author Jim Marrs to
discuss U. S. government documents he was using for a
television interview about MJ-12, also known as Majestic 12 or
Majority 12. That Top Secret group of scientists, military
officers and businessmen was allegedly appointed by President
Harry S. Truman in 1947 to monitor and research the activity of
extraterrestrial biological entities on the earth while
simultaneously manipulating misinformation to keep all facts and
physical evidence from the media and public "in the interest of
national security." Jim's first book, Crossfire © 1989, was a
national bestseller and used as a basis for Oliver Stone's feature
film, JFK. Other books by Jim Marrs have included Alien
Agenda © 1997 and Rule By Secrecy © 2000, each advancing
insights about the interaction of one or more non-human
intelligences with this planet since at least the Sumerian
domination of Mesopotamia (modern day Iran and Iraq).

Jim and I also talked about my experiences back in the early
1980s after I had produced the television documentary A
Strange Harvest for the CBS affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver,
Colorado about the worldwide animal mutilation mystery linked
to alien life forms. I had been told by two different government
intelligence agents in two different parts of the United States that
John F. Kennedy had been assassinated on November 22, 1963
on orders of the CIA because after a long and tense period of
grievances that included the controversial pull back of American
air cover at the Bay of Pigs, JFK - based on some firsthand
knowledge from his service as a U. S. Naval intelligence officer -
had demanded access to all files and images concerning an
extraterrestrial presence on earth.

Jim showed me the following documents which first emerged in
the MJ-12 research of Robert and Ryan Wood, father and son,
who have been studying more than 2,000 alleged U. S.
government documents from various sources since the early
1990s. See their website at bottom of this report.


June 28, 1961 National Security Memorandum
Referencing MJ-12,
Signed by President John F. Kennedy




On White House stationery dated June 28, 1961, this TOP SECRET
National Security Memorandum was addressed to the Director, Central Intelligence Agency   about the Subject: Review of MJ-12 Intelligence Operations as they relate to Cold War Psychological Warfare Plans.
"I would like a brief summary from you at your earliest convenience. TOP SECRET"
Signed John Kennedy, President of the United States.




November 12, 1963 Memorandum for the CIA Director
about UFO Intelligence Files



November 12, 1963 TOP SECRET Memorandum for CIA Director,
from President John F. Kennedy.

This November 12, 1963 TOP SECRET Memorandum was
written by President John F. Kennedy to the Director (blanked
out), Central Intelligence Agency, eleven days before JFK was
shot in his head and killed while riding in a motorcade in Dallas,
Texas on November 22, 1963.

The subject of the memorandum was: Classification review of all
UFO intelligence files affecting National Security.

The body of the memorandum reads:

"As I had discussed with you previously, I have
initiated (blacked out) and have instructed James
Webb to develop a program with the Soviet Union in
joint space and lunar exploration. It would be very
helpful if you would have the high threat cases
reviewed with the purpose of identification of bona
fide as opposed to classified CIA and USAF sources.
It is important that we make a clear distinction
between the knowns and unknowns in the event the
Soviets try to mistake our extended cooperation as a
cover for intelligence gathering of their defence and
space programs.

When this data has been sorted out, I would like you
to arrange a program of data sharing with NASA
where Unknowns are a factor. This will help NASA
mission directors in their defensive responsibilities.

I would like an interim report on the data review no
later than February 1, 1964.

/S/ John F. Kennedy"

(Handwritten note next to signature space: "Response from Colby, (sic) Angelton has MJ directive 11/20/63")

Editor's Note: James Jesus Angleton was put in charge of the
Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) Special Counterintelligence
Unit Z in 1944. Ten years later in 1954, Angleton was promoted
to Deputy Director and Chief of Counterintelligence for the
Central Intelligence Agency where he worked for twenty years.



Another November 12, 1963 CONFIDENTIAL
Memorandum from President John F. Kennedy
to the NASA Administrator about Cooperation with the
USSR on Outer Space Matters




November 12, 1963 CONFIDENTIAL National Security Action
Memorandum No. 271 for NASA Administrator (James Webb) from John F. Kennedy. Source:
National Archives.


Written on White House stationery and dated the same day as
the TOP SECRET Memorandum written by President John F.
Kennedy to the CIA Director about "Classification review of all
UFO intelligence files affecting National Security," this second
memo to NASA about "Cooperation with the USSR on Outer
Space Matters" reads as follows:

"I would like you to assume personally the initiative
and central responsibility within the Government for
the development of a program of substantive
cooperation with the Soviet Union in the field of
outer space, including the development of specific
technical proposals. I assume that you will work
closely with the Department of State and other
agencies as appropriate.

"These proposals should be developed with a view to
their possible discussion with the Soviet Union as a
direct outcome of my September 20 proposal for
broader cooperation between the United States and
the USSR in outer space, including cooperation in
lunar landing programs. All proposals or suggestions
originating within the Government relating to this
general subject will be referred to you for your
consideration and evaluation.

"In addition to developing substantive proposals, I
expect that you will assist the Secretary of State in
exploring problems of procedure and timing
connected with holding discussions with the Soviet
Union and in proposing for my consideration the
channels which would be most desirable from our
point of view. In this connection the channel of
contact developed by Dr. Dryden between NASA
and the Soviet Academy of Sciences has been quite
effective, and I believe that we should continue to
utilize it as appropriate as a means of continuing the
dialogue between the scientists of both countries.

I would like an interim report on the progress of our
planning by December 15."




President John F. Kennedy's signature on the November 12, 1963
memo to NASA and distribution list.



More Information
October 21, 1990

Nearly thirty years later after President Kennedy was
assassinated, many alleged government documents about MJ-12,
retrievals of crashed aerial vehicles, technology and
extraterrestrial biological entities have surfaced from a variety of
known and unknown sources. One unsigned document dated
October 21, 1990 and marked "CONFIDENTIAL, 0 copies, No
dissemination" emerged allegedly from a British and American
think tank in England about a program to acclimate the public to
"first-hand encounter" phenomenon and "crop circles." Jim
Marrs has had a copy for several years and agreed its contents
could be shared with the public, acknowledging that source
verification is lacking.

"October 1990

TO: Policy Committee

Subject: Observations on Public Acclimation Program

"The metered release of information to the public
through various unofficial channels continues to
generate much interest and an increasing level of
awareness, with little if any observable side-effects,
other than healthy skepticism on the part of some
people.

We would like to suggest continuing the present
approach, as it is making information available to
those who are psychologically ready for it, without
causing stress on those who are not ready.

The present approach is also proving helpful to those
who are having first-hand encounters. It is providing
them with a context in which to put experiences they
cannot otherwise explain or understand. Having some
conception of this phenomenon is an enormous
psychological relief to these people - and helps them
get on with their lives, as best as possible. Providing
information which helps people to cope will become
increasingly important as the percentage of the
population having these encounters continues to rise.
Some assistance in this area can be expected by
various civilian support groups, which have been
formed by interested parties.

Over time, it may be appropriate to increase the
accuracy and the consistency of information in
circulation. Possibly, as the public gets more
comfortable with IAC sightings (Identified Aerial
Craft and/or Identified Alien Craft) and 'crop circles,'
additional types of information can be released. It
appears most of the research community is running
one to two years or more ahead of the mainstream
media. this gives some timeframe for possible
disclosures to the general public - while providing
advance details to those who are ready for it now.
Having a certain number of informed citizens could
well prove to be an invaluable resource in the face of
unpredictable future events. Indeed, history may
record that it was these aware people who set aside
their differences and worked together most to help
humanity, their country and their government in the
changing times and challenges ahead."

NOW IT’S “OFFICIAL”: THEY WANT PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE MOON

November 16, 2013 By Joseph P. Farrell

As regular readers here know, we’ve been suggesting that a hidden system of finance was created shortly after World War Two, when President Harry S. Truman took the decision to use recovered Axis loot as the basis to create an entirely off-the-books, top secret system of finance, with the collusion of a few prime banks. I have suggested in two recently books, Covert Wars and Breakaway Civilizations, and Covert Wars and the Clash of Civilizations, that the creation of this system injected American intelligence into the world of international banking, international crime, and that the whole purpose of the creation of this system was to fund a long-term mega-Manhattan project to develop technologies of the emulation of the UFO, and eventually, to expand the human presence in space, by covert means and technology if possible, and by overt and publicly known means if necessary.
In return for using this vast haul to leverage a vast credit system, the long term objective, space, was collateralized to offset the enormous risks the bankers involved with it were taking. Recently I’ve been pointing out that the recent increase in the talk and media attention given to asteroid mining was, perhaps, a minor corroboration of this hypothetical scenario. Now, thanks to Mr. J.K., a regular reader here, there is more information, and more corroboration, that the scenario may no longer be in the realm of “high octane” speculation. It may, on the contrary, quite true:
Companies want a piece of the Moon
The first sentence says it all:

“Corporations are interested in partnering with NASA for lunar and other deep-space initiatives, but will want property rights in exchange, a NASA-commissioned report released on Tuesday shows.”

I’ve suggested this is fundamentally the “Venetian” model that was subsequently used so successfully by the Dutch East Indies Company, the British East Indies Company, and even the Russian-America company under Baranov.  For our purposes, it’s important to note that during the period of the existence of these companies, the fleets that they provided were not merely merchant fleets, but, in order to protect their investments from the competition, armed men-of-war, that would eventually become the ships-of-the-line of the Royal Dutch and British navies.
Now, we are being informed in no uncertain terms that the price of private corporate involvement in space is a stake in what’s found (collateralization), and this will inevitably imply the creation of corporate “space fleets,” inclusive of the creation of armed “space men-of-war” to protect the investments from competition and “whomever.” I suggest that we are looking at the “same old players” here: Lockheed-Martin, for example, long involved in U.S. black projects, and the home of skunk works chairman Ben Rich. Rich, it will be recalled, at the end of his life made statements to the effect that “we” had the technology “to take ET home.”  So if one can look to the Bransons and other private ventures to privatize and extend the idea of property to local celestial bodies, so too the secrets that have been kept about other technologies by private corporations will gradually come out.  Indeed, Mr. Richard Dolan, who formulated the idea of the breakaway civilization, and who also elaborated what I have called the “three corollaries” of the concept, has also pointed out that the perfect way to maintain UFO secrecy was precisely by corporatizing it: since those corporations involved in defense and armaments would be the same corporations used to analyze and, if possible, emulate UFO performance by technological means, secrets could be closely held and kept.
So what’s the bottom line? I suspect that we will see a very slow and very gradual leak of information concerning some of those technologies, as the discussion about “space property” proceeds.I suspect, too, that we will see the transformation of the space efforts of Europe, China, India, Russia, and Brazil, along the lines of the corporatization well under way in America. We will see the very slow but  inevitable rise of “the British Lunar Company” and the “Dutch West Mars company” and the “Russian-Saturn Corporation” and so on, and with them, a replay of the vast colonial-commercial enterprises of the 17th and 18th centuries, along with the privatized militaries they represented.
There is a caveat here, and the reader should bear it in mind. This news does indeed suggest space is being collateralized. And that is corroboration of a very loose sort of my high octance speculation that it was collateralized decades ago. But corroboration is not proof of my wider scenario. That remains high octane speculation, but perhaps the octane levels aren’t as high as they once were.

Read more: NOW IT'S "OFFICIAL": THEY WANT PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE MOON

Spaceflight

Companies Want a Piece of the Moon

Nov 13, 2013 03:34 AM ET // by Irene Klotz

Corporations are interested in partnering with NASA for lunar and other deep-space initiatives, but will want property rights in exchange, a NASA-commissioned report released on Tuesday shows.
The U.S. space agency already is relying on private industry to fly cargo to the International Space Station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles above Earth. NASA has station cargo delivery contracts worth a combined $3.5 billion with privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX, and with Orbital Sciences Corp.
PHOTOS: Lunar Phases: The Changing Face of the Moon
NASA has a similar program in place to spur development of privately owned space taxis to shuttle astronauts to and from the station as well. The agency currently is backing development of three competing designs, with the aim of selecting one or two for a test flight within about three years. The contenders are SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp.
NASA should forge similar commercial partnerships for transportation beyond the station, including travel to and around the moon, a NASA-commissioned report by startup Bigelow Aerospace shows.
“Corporations and investors will need what has motivated such players since the beginning of time, property rights,” the report said.
Company president and founder Robert Bigelow told reporters on Tuesday he intends to request the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial space flight in the United States, review the controversial issue of lunar property rights.
ANALYSIS: The Outer Space Treaty Promised Peace In Space
A 1967 United Nations treaty governing the exploration and use of outer space provides a framework for international space law, but does not specifically address private property rights.
“Companies and their financial backers must know that they will be able to (1) enjoy the fruits of their labor relative to activities conducted on the moon or other celestial bodies, and (2) own the property that they have surveyed, developed and are realistically able to utilize,” the Bigelow report states.
“Without property rights, any plan to engage the private sector (in lunar and deep space exploration) … will ultimately fail,” the report warns.
The 77-page report includes a rundown of launch vehicles, spacecraft and other systems that could support lunar initiatives, including NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System and Orion capsule, Bigelow’s expandable habitats and other manufacturers’ hardware.
PHOTOS: Moonwalkers: Stunning Photos from Apollo 11
NASA, which retired its fleet of space shuttles in 2011, is developing the new rocket and capsule for a variety of missions beyond the space station. An early test flight, for example, would send astronauts to a small asteroid that will have been robotically re-positioned into a high lunar orbit.
Ultimately, the long-term goal of the U.S. human space program is to send astronauts to Mars.
Bigelow wrote the report under an unpaid partnership agreement with NASA.
Image credit: NASA

Why we write: End Orwellian US economics to unleash trillions of our dollars

http://www.examiner.com/article/why-we-write-end-orwellian-us-economics-to-unleash-trillions-of-our-dollars

Carl HermanLA County Nonpartisan Examiner

• LA County Nonpartisan

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December 28, 2010

The central economic solution to unleash trillions of dollars for the US economy is simple:

1. Our Robber Baron-era monetary system must be recognized as a national “debt supply” that only profits the banks that create the debt.
2. This Orwellian opposite of a national money supply must be ended. In addition, shocking as it is for most Americans to discover, we’ve already overpaid in tax totals in the several trillions of dollars as revealed in collective governments’ published Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs). We need this ended and transformed to maximize the benefits of that money to the American people.
3. The US will unleash trillions of dollars worth of economic productivity with the end of government debts, creating money for the direct payment of public goods and services, and creating at-cost credit/lending as a public service that benefits the public rather than private banks.

Let’s look at each in detail. If you’d like me to explain the following, my podcast interview is here.

1. Our Robber Baron-era monetary system must be recognized as a national “debt supply” that only profits the banks that create the debt.

I teach college-level economics. What I’m about to explain is in each and every economics textbook that explains US monetary policy. The more detailed explanation that I provide to my students is here. The US government does not create money, except the literal “change” of coins. When the federal government wants more money than available on deposit from tax revenue, it sells debt securities: bills, notes, and bonds (up to a year, 2-10 years, more than 10 years). The total federal debt is now ~$14 trillion with annual interest payment over $400 billion and at risk to hit $500 billion and more with rising interest rates.
The increase in our “money supply” is therefore not money, but debt. There is no plan to ever pay the debt; Congress just “rolls it over” by issuing new debt securities to pay-off those that mature. Congress cannot repay the debt because doing so would destroy what we use for money, and the total amount is ~$140,000 per average US household. Because the US only pays the interest on the debt, this is similar to a family being bankrupt and only and always paying just the interest on their debt.
Because Americans have a difficult time embracing numbers in the millions, billions, and trillions, let’s take two comparisons to understand how much the annual interest cost is for us. First, all 49 of the 50 states’ budgets’ deficits would all be covered if we didn’t have this cost (curious about the only state that is solvent? It’s North Dakota; we’ll discuss them shortly). Second, the total estimated cost to end poverty and save a million children’s lives every month (while reducing population growth rates) is ~$100 billion a year for ~10 years to reach self-sufficiency.
Let that last one penetrate your understanding. US taxpayers spend five times on federal debt interest than the investment to save 30,000 children's lives every day, a million children's lives every month, and over ten million children's lives every year. Please be clear: the monetary system the US uses in your world of the present is a Robber Baron-era creature that creates a national “debt supply” that can never be repaid, and has crushing annual debt costs.
Although what I’ve explained and documented in the previous four paragraphs is conservative economics curriculum, most Americans haven’t paused for a moment’s thought to recognize that early 21stCentury US economic management is a form of debt-slavery that becomes self-evident with those few moments of thought.
Banks have maintained their "Robber Baron-era" legal authority to create debt out of nothing and then “lend” it to the public and government, profiting from the interest they charge. This is in contrast to government creating money out of nothing to invest in public goods and services, profiting the public through full employment if the government becomes the employer of last resort, no debt or interest cost, state-of-the-art infrastructure, and when investments contribute more to GDP than cost of inputs we have the added benefit of decreasing prices. If investment costs are more than GDP improvement, then that cost acts as a tax through the resultant inflation. We retain the savings from full employment and ending the national debt.
That last paragraph is worth several trillions of dollars to you. You might want to read it again.
2. This Orwellian opposite of a national money supply must be ended. In addition, shocking as it is for most Americans to discover, we’ve already overpaid in tax totals in the several trillions of dollars as revealed in collective governments’ published Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs). We need this ended and transformed to maximize the benefits of that money to the American people.
Let’s consider if we should either keep or end our national “debt supply.” To depart from academic language for a moment:
“Duh.”
Having $14 trillion of unpayable debt and soon $500 billion annual cost for interest is freaking insane.
Yes, we should create money rather than debt. Please trust your ability to understand fraud and parasitic debt when you see it. And “parasitic” has academic agreement as an appropriate description of our national “debt supply.”
Fortunately, leading US economic voices are responding to the current economic crisis by speaking in unprecedented strong language to explain the criminal fraud. Their expert testimony is here. I also recommend “discussing” this issue of government creating either money or debt with leading historical American voices: including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, 86% of teaching economics professors when polled of whether the US government should create money or debt, and two past Chairs of the House Banking Committee.
But wait, there’s more: the essential fraud of creating debt also includes fraud of government agencies over-taxing the American public by the multiple trillions of dollars. A few paragraphs from my detailed explanation and documentation:

California has a budget deficit of ~$20 billion. The combined investments of CAFRs for the state of CA, Los Angeles County, and the City of Los Angeles is over $450 billion; over 22 times the amount of the budget shortfall (documentation page numbers below).
California claims they need this money mainly for public employee retirement benefits. Let’s check that story. The CAFR data shows current member contribution pays for all retiree benefits except for $1.8 billion (net cost). If just these three state agencies surrendered their withheld money back to the public instead of lording over it as communists, each Californian would receive ~$15,000. To pay for the shortfall in the retirement account, each individual could be taxed $50.
Why has political “leadership” and corporate media not informed American taxpayers of this option and publicly submitted this data for professional and independent economist cost-benefit analysis to provide other options?
The answer to that question is also the answer to the question of how political "leadership" gets away with Orwellian unlawful wars.
So far, we’re only considering three CAFRs in the state of California. The comprehensive reality is far more dramatic. If you combine all of California’s ~10,000 government agencies’ CAFRs, the combined total according to Walter Burien’s sampling analysis is $8 trillion. Let’s say Walter’s way-off. For argument’s sake, let’s say the total is less than half; only $3.5 trillion. If that was returned to the public, each Californian would receive $100,000.
What CAFRs reveal is a communist-style policy whereby the US taxpayers surrender enormous assets to the state, who then “invest” these collective trillions that swell in these accounts. Concurrently, taxpayers are informed of budget deficits to either squeeze more taxes from them and/or cut public services. To add insult to injury, the state lies in omission by never reminding Americans of their hard-earned and withheld trillions as they eliminate jobs, reduce education, and attack the quality of our lives.

An honest government would inform the public, submit to comprehensive audit to discover how many of our trillions of dollars are held in “investments,” and allow independent economists opportunity for cost-benefit analyses to consider our options for our re-discovered trillions.
The fact that this doesn’t happen is prima facie evidence of criminal fraud.
The American Constitution is a contract of limited government whereby the public informs and is informed by our representatives. CAFRs are damning public documents that expose “leadership” from Left and Right as exactly what leading economic voices have said: an absolutely corrupt and self-serving oligarchy.
3. The US will unleash trillions of dollars worth of economic productivity with the end of government debts, creating money for the direct payment of public goods and services, and creating at-cost credit/lending as a public service that benefits the public rather than private banks.
To end federal government debt, government simply creates money to pay the debt securities as they become due. For more explanation, read this.
Forgive me for sparking your citizenry as best I can imagine: “Duh. Why haven’t you thought about this before? Is $14 trillion of debt and $500 billion a year in interest cost enough for you to declare this economic emperor has no clothes? With one in three US families now according to Census data as officially ‘low-income,’ will you now withdraw your consent from US government "leaders" as we can imagine Gandhi and Dr. King would have done?”
The conservative benefits of government creating money rather than debt is over a trillion dollars every year. As I explain in detail here:

The governmental cost of this reform is negligible. The benefits are astounding: the American public would no longer pay $500 billion every year for national debt interest payments (because 40% of the debt is intra-governmental transfers, this is a savings of $300 billion/year). If lending is run at a non-profit rate or at nominal interest returned to the American public (for infrastructure, schools, fire and police protection, etc.) rather than profiting the banks, the savings to the US public is conservatively $500 billion.[13] If the US Federal government increased the money supply by 3% a year to keep up with population increase and economic growth, we could spend an additional $400 billion yearly into public programs or refund it as a public dividend.[14] This savings would allow us to simplify or eliminate the income tax.[15] The estimated savings of eliminating the income tax with all its complexity, loopholes, and evasion is $250 billion/year.[16] The total benefits for monetary reform are conservatively over a trillion dollars every year to the American public.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced legislation on Dec. 17, 2010 to begin creating US money rather than debt.
The only solvent state in the nation today is North Dakota. They are also the only state with a state-owned bank. This allows the state to create loans/credit at-cost and/or issue loans with profits that act as tax revenue. If we unleashed this power as a full public service, mortgages could be 2% interest with the result that state taxes would be close to fully-paid. More details are here.
In conclusion:
Independent writers are the only ones to explain, document, and prove these “emperor has no clothes” obvious observations because corporate media, obviously, do not report on these issues. More details are here, and consider these as evidence of corporate media complicity in policy areas of money and power:

The Church Senate Committee hearings had the cooperation of CIA Director William Colby’s testimony that over 400 CIA operatives were controlling US corporate media reporting on specific issues of national interest in what they called Operation Mockingbird. This stunning testimony was then confirmed by Pulitzer Prize reporter Carl Bernstein’s research and reporting. Of course, corporate media refused to publish Bernstein’s article and it became the cover-story for Rolling Stone.
Let’s consider the specific case of corporate media collusion with official government rhetoric to lie about Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s October 2005 speech and contrive a non-existent physical threat to Israel. First: for the US political leaders and corporate media to accuse the president of Iran with threatening to destroy Israel, that’s the most serious of accusations. A threat of national destruction is the most vicious statement a head of state can make. For corporate media to not be in collusion to “report” this proven lie would have to mean that everyone involved in the story never read the speech in question, never consulted with Persian experts, and disregarded all people like me who informed them of their egregious error. Again, here’s my link of corporate media’s “reporting” in print and television allowing US political leaders to lie and repeating the lie themselves.
Of course, you have to verify the speech in order to not interpret the facts as a mistranslation or possible translation. This is appropriately analogous to checking the instant replay of a pitch at the Red Sox game that sailed ten feet over everyone's head to make sure it really was so outrageously outside the strike-zone that an “official” call that the pitch was a strike is stating a known lie. If it was an immediate error, it could and should have been corrected. That five years has passed and corporate media doesn’t inform Americans of the actual content and context of the speech is absolute evidence of an official propaganda arm of the same oligarchy spinning for unlawful war against Iran.

Two more economic resources: the PuppetGov 8-minute video, “America’s controlled economic implosion” at the top-left of this article, and my article, Solutions to US economic controlled demolition are obvious,but We the People must demand them.
Independent writers also have to explain, document, and declare the “emperor has no clothes” facts of unlawful US wars; with that article here, including:

Would you like the comfort of a heroic political example? Try Abraham Lincoln for speaking-up as a freshman member of Congress that the US lied to initiate war with Mexico to steal land and resources.
Are you Christian and would like comfort and reminder of Jesus’ One Commandment? As I wrote for Thanksgiving 2009 in detail, Jesus commanded (that term means that this is not something one can safely and/or ethically refuse) to love God with all one’s heart, all one’s soul, and all one’s mind; and to love each other as Jesus loves you. And talk about someone willing to confront an imperialistic and invading government! If the Romans had a critical mass demanding ethical public service under the law, as I am asking you to consider in our world of the present, perhaps they never would have destroyed themselves in their tragic-comic corruption.
Are you academic and would like a paper with expert testimony and full documentation? Read Open proposal to US higher education. And if you want more resources than you’ll ever need, read Government by dicts: my comprehensive resources to prove US fascism and rigged-casino economics.

Public Banking in Costa Rica: A Remarkable Little-known Model

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Ellen Brown

In Costa Rica, publicly-owned banks have been available for so long and work so well that people take for granted that any country that knows how to run an economy has a public banking option. Costa Ricans are amazed to hear there is only one public depository bank in the United States (the Bank of North Dakota), and few people have private access to it.

So says political activist Scott Bidstrup, who writes:

For the last decade, I have resided in Costa Rica, where we have had a “Public Option” for the last 64 years.
There are 29 licensed banks, mutual associations and credit unions in Costa Rica, of which four were established as national, publicly-owned banks in 1949. They have remained open and in public hands ever since—in spite of enormous pressure by the I.M.F. [International Monetary Fund] and the U.S. to privatize them along with other public assets. The Costa Ricans have resisted that pressure—because the value of a public banking option has become abundantly clear to everyone in this country.
During the last three decades, countless private banks, mutual associations (a kind of Savings and Loan) and credit unions have come and gone, and depositors in them have inevitably lost most of the value of their accounts.
But the four state banks, which compete fiercely with each other, just go on and on. Because they are stable and none have failed in 31 years, most Costa Ricans have moved the bulk of their money into them.  Those four banks now account for fully 80% of all retail deposits in Costa Rica, and the 25 private institutions share among themselves the rest.

According to a 2003 report by the World Bank, the public sector banks dominating Costa Rica’s onshore banking system include three state-owned commercial banks (Banco Nacional, Banco de Costa Rica, and Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago) and a special-charter bank called Banco Popular,  which in principle is owned by all Costa Rican workers. These banks accounted for 75 percent of total banking deposits in 2003.
In Competition Policies in Emerging Economies: Lessons and Challenges from Central America and Mexico (2008), Claudia Schatan writes that Costa Rica nationalized all of its banks and imposed a monopoly on deposits in 1949. Effectively, only state-owned banks existed in the country after that.  The monopoly was loosened in the 1980s and was eliminated in 1995. But the extensive network of branches developed by the public banks and the existence of an unlimited state guarantee on their deposits has made Costa Rica the only country in the region in which public banking clearly predominates.
Scott Bidstrup comments:

By 1980, the Costa Rican economy had grown to the point where it was by far the richest nation in Latin America in per-capita terms. It was so much richer than its neighbors that Latin American economic statistics were routinely quoted with and without Costa Rica included. Growth rates were in the double digits for a generation and a half.  And the prosperity was broadly shared. Costa Rica’s middle class – nonexistent before 1949 – became the dominant part of the economy during this period.  Poverty was all but abolished, favelas [shanty towns] disappeared, and the economy was booming.

This was not because Costa Rica had natural resources or other natural advantages over its neighbors. To the contrary, says Bidstrup:

At the conclusion of the civil war of 1948 (which was brought on by the desperate social conditions of the masses), Costa Rica was desperately poor, the poorest nation in the hemisphere, as it had been since the Spanish Conquest.
The winner of the 1948 civil war, José “Pepe” Figueres, now a national hero, realized that it would happen again if nothing was done to relieve the crushing poverty and deprivation of the rural population.  He formulated a plan in which the public sector would be financed by profits from state-owned enterprises, and the private sector would be financed by state banking.
A large number of state-owned capitalist enterprises were founded. Their profits were returned to the national treasury, and they financed dozens of major infrastructure projects.  At one point, more than 240 state-owned corporations were providing so much money that Costa Rica was building infrastructure like mad and financing it largely with cash. Yet it still had the lowest taxes in the region, and it could still afford to spend 30% of its national income on health and education.
A provision of the Figueres constitution guaranteed a job to anyone who wanted one. At one point, 42% of the working population of Costa Rica was working for the government directly or in one of the state-owned corporations.  Most of the rest of the economy not involved in the coffee trade was working for small mom-and-pop companies that were suppliers to the larger state-owned firms—and it was state banking, offering credit on favorable terms, that made the founding and growth of those small firms possible.  Had they been forced to rely on private-sector banking, few of them would have been able to obtain the financing needed to become established and prosperous.  State banking was key to the private sector growth. Lending policy was government policy and was designed to facilitate national development, not bankers’ wallets.  Virtually everything the country needed was locally produced.  Toilets, window glass, cement, rebar, roofing materials, window and door joinery, wire and cable, all were made by state-owned capitalist enterprises, most of them quite profitable. Costa Rica was the dominant player regionally in most consumer products and was on the move internationally.

Needless to say, this good example did not sit well with foreign business interests. It earned Figueres two coup attempts and one attempted assassination.  He responded by abolishing the military (except for the Coast Guard), leaving even more revenues for social services and infrastructure.
When attempted coups and assassination failed, says Bidstrup, Costa Rica was brought down with a form of economic warfare called the “currency crisis” of 1982. Over just a few months, the cost of financing its external debt went from 3% to extremely high variable rates (27% at one point).  As a result, along with every other Latin American country, Costa Rica was facing default. Bidstrup writes:

That’s when the IMF and World Bank came to town.
Privatize everything in sight, we were told.  We had little choice, so we did.  End your employment guarantee, we were told.  So we did.  Open your markets to foreign competition, we were told.  So we did.  Most of the former state-owned firms were sold off, mostly to foreign corporations.  Many ended up shut down in a short time by foreigners who didn’t know how to run them, and unemployment appeared (and with it, poverty and crime) for the first time in a decade.  Many of the local firms went broke or sold out quickly in the face of ruinous foreign competition.  Very little of Costa Rica’s manufacturing economy is still locally owned. And so now, instead of earning forex [foreign exchange] through exporting locally produced goods and retaining profits locally, these firms are now forex liabilities, expatriating their profits and earning relatively little through exports.  Costa Ricans now darkly joke that their economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the United States.

The dire effects of the IMF’s austerity measures were confirmed in a 1993 book excerpt by Karen Hansen-Kuhn  titled “Structural Adjustment in Costa Rica: Sapping the Economy.” She noted that Costa Rica stood out in Central America because of its near half-century history of stable democracy and well-functioning government, featuring the region’s largest middle class and the absence of both an army and a guerrilla movement. Eliminating the military allowed the government to support a Scandinavian-type social-welfare system that still provides free health care and education, and has helped produce the lowest infant mortality rate and highest average life expectancy in all of Central America.

In the 1970s, however, the country fell into debt when coffee and other commodity prices suddenly fell, and oil prices shot up. To get the dollars to buy oil, Costa Rica had to resort to foreign borrowing; and in 1980, the U.S. Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker raised interest rates to unprecedented levels.
In The Gods of Money (2009), William Engdahl fills in the back story. In 1971, Richard Nixon took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard, causing it to drop precipitously in international markets. In 1972, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Nixon had a clandestine meeting with the Shah of Iran. In 1973, a group of powerful financiers and politicians met secretly in Sweden and discussed effectively “backing” the dollar with oil. An arrangement was then finalized in which the oil-producing countries of OPEC would sell their oil only in U.S. dollars.  The quid pro quo was military protection and a strategic boost in oil prices.  The dollars would wind up in Wall Street and London banks, where they would fund the burgeoning U.S. debt. In 1974, an oil embargo conveniently caused the price of oil to quadruple.  Countries without sufficient dollar reserves had to borrow from Wall Street and London banks to buy the oil they needed.  Increased costs then drove up prices worldwide.
By late 1981, says Hansen-Kuhn, Costa Rica had one of the world’s highest levels of debt per capita, with debt-service payments amounting to 60 percent of export earnings. When the government had to choose between defending its stellar social-service system or bowing to its creditors, it chose the social services. It suspended debt payments to nearly all its creditors, predominately commercial banks. But that left it without foreign exchange. That was when it resorted to borrowing from the World Bank and IMF, which imposed “austerity measures” as a required condition. The result was to increase poverty levels dramatically.
Bidstrup writes of subsequent developments:

Indebted to the IMF, the Costa Rican government had to sell off its state-owned enterprises, depriving it of most of its revenue, and the country has since been forced to eat its seed corn. No major infrastructure projects have been conceived and built to completion out of tax revenues, and maintenance of existing infrastructure built during that era must wait in line for funding, with predictable results.
About every year, there has been a closure of one of the private banks or major savings coöps.  In every case, there has been a corruption or embezzlement scandal, proving the old saying that the best way to rob a bank is to own one.  This is why about 80% of retail deposits in Costa Rica are now held by the four state banks.  They’re trusted.
Costa Rica still has a robust economy, and is much less affected by the vicissitudes of rising and falling international economic tides than enterprises in neighboring countries, because local businesses can get money when they need it.  During the credit freezeup of 2009, things went on in Costa Rica pretty much as normal. Yes, there was a contraction in the economy, mostly as a result of a huge drop in foreign tourism, but it would have been far worse if local business had not been able to obtain financing when it was needed.  It was available because most lending activity is set by government policy, not by a local banker’s fear index.
Stability of the local economy is one of the reasons that Costa Rica has never had much difficulty in attracting direct foreign investment, and is still the leader in the region in that regard.  And it is clear to me that state banking is one of the principal reasons why.
The value and importance of a public banking sector to the overall stability and health of an economy has been well proven by the Costa Rican experience.  Meanwhile, our neighbors, with their fully privatized banking systems have, de facto, encouraged people to keep their money in Mattress First National, and as a result, the financial sectors in neighboring countries have not prospered.  Here, they have—because most money is kept in banks that carry the full faith and credit of the Republic of Costa Rica, so the money is in the banks and available for lending.  While our neighbors’ financial systems lurch from crisis to crisis, and suffer frequent resulting bank failures, the Costa Rican public system just keeps chugging along.  And so does the Costa Rican economy.

He concludes:

My dream scenario for any third world country wishing to develop, is to do exactly what Costa Rica did so successfully for so many years. Invest in the Holy Trinity of national development—health, education and infrastructure.  Pay for it with the earnings of state capitalist enterprises that are profitable because they are protected from ruinous foreign competition; and help out local private enterprise get started and grow, and become major exporters, with stable state-owned banks that prioritize national development over making bankers rich.  It worked well for Costa Rica for a generation and a half.  It can work for any other country as well.  Including the United States.

The new Happy Planet Index, which rates countries based on how many long and happy lives they produce per unit of environmental output, has ranked Costa Rica #1 globally.  The Costa Rican model is particularly instructive at a time when US citizens are groaning under the twin burdens of taxes and increased health insurance costs. Like the Costa Ricans, we could reduce taxes while increasing social services and rebuilding infrastructure, if we were to allow the government to make some money itself; and a giant first step would be for it to establish some publicly-owned banks.
_______________________________
Ellen Brown is an attorney, president of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books, including the best-selling Web of Debt. In The Public Bank Solution, her latest book, she explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her blog articles are at EllenBrown.com.

Government by dicts: my comprehensive resources to prove US fascism and rigged-casino economics

Carl HermanLA County Nonpartisan Examiner

• LA County Nonpartisan

http://www.examiner.com/article/government-by-dicts-my-comprehensive-resources-to-prove-us-fascism-and-rigged-casino-economics

May 26, 2010

   We hold these Truths to be self-evident...

If you'd like the facts of American war and economics policies explained, documented, and proven beyond doubt, I offer two options. My article, "Open proposal to US higher education," is my professional and academic voice.  Here is my passionate citizen advocacy voice:
Fellow Americans: literally for the love of God, it’s time.

It’s time to recognize the overwhelming evidence of unlawful and lie-based US Wars of Aggression, rigged-casino economics, and a complicit corporate media that echoes propaganda for our lying sacks of spin “leaders” who operate above and in contempt of US law.

 

It’s time to recognize “leadership” of both parties are the Left and Right arms of one oligarchic political body. The proper academic label for this government, not even close to a constitutional repubulic, is fascism.

 

The US government is run by dicts, as in dictatorship; doing whatever they dictate and unlimited by rule of law.

 

It’s time to see what’s right in front of us: documentation from government itself brazenly admitting they lord over TRILLIONS of our dollars in investments while cutting essential services and refusing to enact obvious economic solutions. Just a fraction of one percent of these investments restore public services; but our “leaders” hope we’re too stupid to notice and too weak to demand policy that benefits the public rather than the oligarchy. The largest transfer of wealth in human history is happening before us: taxpaying masses being parasitized by banksters.

 

These monsters blood-lust in public and through propagandizing media for more unlawful war in Iran. Behind closed doors, these monsters do what they please.

 

It’s time for our men and women in government and military to choose: either stand with the US Constitution you’ve sworn to support and defend against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC, or remain complicit in ongoing Wars of Aggression, mass murder of our soldiers and our fellow humans in other lands and throwing trillions of our tax dollars to do so, pushing the world ever-closer to an apparently planned and desired nuclear Third World War (and here), and guilty of what Dr. Martin Luther King called “Silence is Betrayal” (before the US government assassinated him according to the only trial conducted for his murder).

 

Over 5,000 US soldiers have been killed so far as pawns of the civilian and military brass tyrants. Multiples more have been crippled physically and emotionally. There is no end in sight to current wars; indeed, the US is expanding them into Pakistan and Yemen and threatening more war with Iran. The dead are comforted by God; their families are devastated by the loss of their loved-ones. The crippled and their families face a range of challenges; many so severe that a total of 6,000 US veterans commit suicide every year. One-third of all US homeless men are veterans.

 

It’s time for our men and women in the military and government to refuse all orders associated with our unlawful wars and preparation for unlawful war with Iran over one gram of medical isotope worth $75,000 in 20% enriched nuclear fuel. It is hard to imagine a more ridiculous case for war.

 

It’s time for our men and women in the military and government to stand with the American public who declare in a ratio of 9 to 1 that our government no longer represents them under the US Constitution.

 

It’s time: exercise your 1^st Amendment right to freedom of speech and press, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Please provide this article to all Americans if you find it helpful to stop current and future unlawful wars.

 

Our military was duped into these wars with calculated "Big Lies;" our trusting young men and women took an Oath to support and defend the US Constitution that supersedes the Nazi insert of “placing the mission first.” The Claus von Stauffenberg faction of US military and government must act to end this soulless mass-murdering; this loveless series of unlawful wars and unlawful orders, if we want a future we’re proud to build.

  

This choice is up to our men and women in uniform and government for leadership. I provide:

  

• Explanation of the rules of lawful war omitted from their military training that proves beyond any doubt that current US wars are unlawful.
• Analogies that the rules of war are almost exactly like those for an individual’s use of force on the street.
• Documentation of lies that were known to be lies as our political “leaders” told them and our war-whore corporate media mimicked to propagandize for war in Iraq.
• Proof beyond doubt that the speech of Iranian President Ahmadinejad never threatened Israel.
• Documentation that IAEA verifies all of Iran’s nuclear material and has only and always been used for legal and peaceful purposes.
• Documentation that US-Iran relations should be viewed from the history that the US unlawfully overthrew Iran's democracy from 1953 to 1979, and then supported an unlawful War of Aggression against them from 1980 to 1988 when they rejected further rule by vicious US-friendly dictatorship. Those two US-caused acts killed up to a million Iranians
• As a teacher of government and law, I created an analogy to recognize the lies by imposing the names of “China” for the US, and “US” for Iran to see what it looks like as the target of war lies. I also provide a glimpse into Persian culture to humanize Iran rather than demonize the targets of provable and criminal US war lies. I also remind you of the history lesson that the US fought WW2 against aggressors who masked their invasions as “liberations” for their own peace and freedom.
• Explanation of the law of treason: the liars who duped US soldiers to unlawfully invade other countries are the ones who levied war against US soldiers.
• Documentation and explanation of official US policy to use nuclear weapons if our “leaders” say (dictate) a nation might someday in the future harm the US or an ally. This policy is obviously Orwellian unlawful.
• Documentation of past use of US false flag attacks to kill Americans and blame an “enemy” in order to initiate an offensive war masked as a defensive one.
• Proof that corporate media is complicit in lies of commission and omission to propagandize for unlawful US wars (and here).
• Explanation of strategy to end the massive criminal acts of US “leaders” for obvious violation of the letter and spirit of US war laws: because these crimes are so broad and so deep, I recommend Truth and Reconciliation (T&R) to exchange full truth and return of stolen US assets for non-prosecution. This is the most expeditious way to understand and end all unlawful and harmful acts. Those who reject T&R are subject to prosecution.
• A reminder that you love virtue, American values, and love of your fellow human beings. These war liars “leading” our government who say they want peace while engaging in endless wars won’t create a Department of Peace for professional analysis of peace. These psychopaths (look that word up) spend trillions in long-term costs to lie and kill while reneging on their promise to spend just 0.7% of GNI to end poverty, save a million children's lives every month, and do so while reducing population growth rates.
• Documentation with many of the US most prominent economists and experts that these same war liars are transferring trillions of our taxpaying dollars to an oligarchic elite, ignoring the obvious solution of full employment to invest in US infrastructure, keeping a “debt supply” rather than a “money supply” to end the national debt, and keeping a parasitic banking system rather than a non-profit system (think 1-2% mortgages). I also provide documentation that these obvious economic solutions have been advocated by our brightest historical minds for centuries.

 

Choose well; our collective future, and your future, depend upon it. I appreciate your attention to these facts and encourage your further study and action consistent with your own self-expression.

  

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Policy response: Gandhi and Martin Luther King advocated public understanding of the facts and non-cooperation with evil:  

 

"One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year, we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances... We have an abiding faith in the mercy of the Almighty God, and we have firm faith in the British Constitution. That being so, we should fail in our duty if we wrote anything with a view to hurt. Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed."    

- Mohandas K. Gandhi, Indian Opinion (1 October 1903)

 

For Gandhi’s evolved view of British evil in 1922, read this passage from Freedom’s Battle.

 

Gandhi concluded the effective response from the public was non-violent, non-cooperation with unjust British rule until the British themselves realized their engagement in immoral acts with an educated and non-cooperative public was inconsistent with their own values.

  

To consider:

 

"If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in the world. Now the judgment of God is upon us and we must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools."

 --Inscription on Dr. Martin Luther King’s statue, Moorehouse College, Atlanta

 

"The day that hunger is eradicated from the earth, there will be the greatest spiritual explosion the world has ever known. Humanity cannot imagine the joy that will burst into the world on the day of that great revolution." -- poet Federico García Lorca

 

Comments policy: I present a professional level of discourse based on facts. I welcome questions and comments that are civil and pertain to the article topic. Here, readers are welcome to argue for any inaccuracy of factual claim and/or need for inclusion of other facts. Readers are welcome to interpret facts however they wish and welcome to any policy position. They are not welcome to misrepresent facts. Facts are objective, measurable, and independently verifiable.

 

That is how freedom looks. Freedom is not an allowance of whatever, whenever, however. We censor behavior of drivers beyond strict limits, censor many behaviors as fouls and out-of-bounds in sports. We censor people in relationships and business from certain acts, and can fire them upon violation. You censor in your place of business those who distract and/or damage your work. You fire destructive people from relationships, and would never invest your time or money for a sport that did not strictly censor behavior.

 

Our government is paradoxically based on censorship: “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” means any behavior outside constitutional limits is forbidden. This is the paradox of freedom: freedom is only realized within limits.

 

In these articles, I write for the highest level of factual accuracy and will manage comments with that commitment. Comments and questions are welcome ONLY from those who chose factual integrity.

 

Please consider that I’m among hundreds of writers who have documented our own government’s disclosure of propaganda programs to support their wars. My articles are subject to such propagandistic attack from comments that use typical rhetorical fallacies to distract readers from the facts. I invite readers to sharpen their ability to discern such propaganda. They are characterized by a combination of: denying facts without evidence, ignoring key facts in lies of omission, lying about verifiable facts as lies of commission, diverting attention through unsubstantiated belief in an alleged expert, irrelevant data, straw-man attack that distorts the facts, ad hominem attack of insults to the messenger, vile comments to repulse readers, and focus on minutia.

 

I will use such comments to point-out the propaganda or delete them at my discretion. Again, all relevant and polite questions, and factually accurate comments are welcome. As a professional educator I’m in agreement with my experience and research: we learn best from multiple perspectives in mutual commitment to understand the facts, see those facts from diverse points-of-view, and consider various policy proposals of what we should do.

 

"But now, after having once and for all put to the test the judgments of men, I here again approach these same questions regarding God and the human mind, and at the same time treat the beginnings of the whole of first philosophy, but in such a way that I have no expectation of approval from the vulgar and no wide audience of readers. Rather, I am an author to none who read these things but those who seriously meditate with me, who have the ability and the desire to withdraw their mind from the senses and at the same time from all prejudices. Such people I know all too well to be few and far between. As to those who do not take care to comprehend the order and series of my reasons but eagerly dispute over single conclusions by themselves, as is the custom for many-those, I say, will derive little benefit from a reading of this treatise; and although perhaps they might find an occasion for quibbling in many spots, still it is not an easy matter for them to raise an objection that is either compelling or worthy of response." 

 

- Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 1641, "Preface to the Reader." This book is usual reading in college philosophy courses today. Descartes is considered the founder of modern philosophy, the founder of analytical geometry (which led to calculus), and a founder of the Scientific Revolution. Descartes was well-known in his age, but highly controversial. His work was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church in 1633, and his books put on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1663. The University of Utrecht condemned his work in 1643, where he had previously taught.

 

For those involved in support of US government-sponsored disinformation in whatever versions of Operation Mockingbird that are active, I invite you to consider the quality of human relationships you wish to create. National security and a brighter future is not a function of fear, manipulation, and control. Our best security follows cooperation, justice under the law, dignity, and freedom. Working for your best imagined self-expression of virtue may include a unique contribution from the inside of your agency. Public attraction to the stories of Star Wars and the Harry Potter books/movies recognize that our society’s jump to civilized relations for all of us might require support from people within the “dark side” acting as covert agents for building a brighter future. Another option is becoming a whistle-blower; Project Camelot is a popular venue for people in sensitive positions. Ultimately, I recommend a Truth and Reconciliation process to exchange full truth for no prosecution, explained in detail at the link. Please consider the wisdom of your own “Scrooge conversion” to act for the benefit of building a brighter future for all humanity rather than propagandizing for your controlling, manipulating, and loveless “masters’” psychopathic policies of violence and suffering.

 

“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.”

 

Los Angeles County: We’re home to 10 million people and are the media capital of the world. If we are to build a brighter future, the broadest picture must be communicated. Los Angelinos will play leading roles in communicating these issues’ importance to all humanity and in context to the economic and security concerns of local communities and families, as I explain above. These issues are ongoing “current events” of literally trillions of our collective dollars that directly effect billions of human beings, around the world who we touch in L.A.’s media market and where so many of us have family and friends, and locally with the per household tax burden for trillions of our collective dollars. Current US wars cost every L.A. County household ~$30,000 to $50,000 in long-term costs; over $100 billion total. To put this in perspective, California’s state budget deficit is $20 billion; the source of unemployment cutbacks and shortages of services. The most important impact on our local communities are often the broadest topics.

 

 President Kennedy was assassinated with complicit members of our own government (here, here, here); as was his brother, Robert, as was Dr. Martin Luther King. Here is President Kennedy on "secrecy" or "national security" for hidden government agendas; equally applicable to Republican and Democratic policies: