Weak-end thread June 10-13th.

[mjkst27]

and another thing - why does a document like that hit the news on a Sunday? maybe to make sure it is as marginalized as could possibly be?

[thesun]

Good on you yobob.

 

Cash flow and financial statement to determine true wealth, including

the infaltion component.

 

Our FF rate needs to be at 4% NOW, not tomorrow.

They perhaps should be at 4%, but they can't be. 4% would blow the global system wide open.

 

The real error was made when the rates were slashed after and during the 2000 mini-crash. Had they held rates higher the economy would have crashed hard, but quickly. There was probably a small chance that they could have then rolled on to another couple of 4 year cycles. Instead they chose to delay the inevitable and in doing so they have likely consumed 2 or more cycles (norm. 4 year business) worth of recovery by pulling forward consumption with debt, while doing nothing to absorb the prevuiously created malinvestments. Now we have the debt, a stumbling economy, still excess capacity, no pent-up demand and little or no ability left to stimulate more debt creation. In essence they have created everything necessary for a depression much larger than the 1930s. Now it's just a matter of (not much) time.

The sad part of it all is that greensin knew what he was doing and he did it anyway.

 

you have hit the nail right on the head.

[thesun]

Another excellent overview, Yobob.

 

Of particular note is your mention of the issue of American Home Ownership as "Entitlement."

 

Never before did we here our government, its institutions and "clients" (GSEs) making such outlandish statements as can now be found in the national Fannie Mae advertising campaign (endorsed and encouraged by our government):

 

"We won't rest until Every American Family achieves the dream of home ownership."

 

This is, as you so aptly point out, a ridiculous premise on its face.

 

This is the equivalent of the New York Stock Exchange advertising in this way:

 

"We won't rest until every American acheives the American Dream of joining the investor class."

 

Ridiculous.

 

All of the mortgage related advertising coming out of the National Association of Realtors, Fannie Mae, Countrywide and others is solely focused on the lowest income (riskiest) potential first time home buyers. They are making a concerted effort to dupe those who are not either financially or intellectually qualified to own and maintain a home through advertising which is specifically designed to make them feel stupid for renting. This berating and demeaning of the lower income wage earners in the United States is being driven from the very top...from the administration and the Federal Reserve.

 

Imagine the pressures on low income parents, whose children sit before the television listening to the relentless barrage, which says in essence...

 

"Your parents are just plain stupid if they don't buy a home."

 

There is a strong case to be made for renting in this environment, particularly as compared to buying too much house at the top of a bubble.

 

You will not hear this message being conveyed to the people who most need to hear it.

The reason they are going after the lower income families is because the middle class is ALL tapped out.

 

The only piece a fesh meat left is the lower income. May not be the best cut of meat, but it is better than no meat.

 

Just more people to send into bankRAPEcy.

[brian4]

Link Tragic for them and for us!

[Guest]

Plunger - I've never heard of any of those 26 individuals. No pull = no impact. All this opposition huffing and puffing is only going to serve to strengthen Bush unless some real body blows get landed soon. In market terms, this document, the Moore movie, all of it is akin to "capitulation" before the market reverses course. All IMO, and I'm certainly no Bush voter.

It appears that many on this list have held Ambassador positions or in some way been associated with the State department/CIA. Many Ambassadors have connections to the CIA.

 

I note that retired CIA Director Stansfield Turner is on this list.

 

Given what has transpired between this administration and their blatant efforts to discredit and marginalize the CIA (including their own separate intelligence agency within Cheney's office), it would not surprise me if someone like Stansfield Turner became so incensed that he has taken it upon himself to work with those in the CIA to bring an end to this regime.

 

Make no mistake, the CIA is at war with the Bush Administration.

 

Would you want to pick a fight with the most powerful intelligence agency in the world?

 

My money's on the spooks.

[Guest]

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunne...ion/8905844.htm

 

Posted on Sat, Jun. 12, 2004

 

NATIONAL SECURITY

Intelligence czar not needed; spies are

 

JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY

 

A bad idea for fixing American intelligence failures is gaining traction in Washington.

 

The same folks who gave us Homeland Security - the idea that you can weld a clutch of competing, inefficient and largely dysfunctional government agencies into a Cabinet-level super-agency that adds up to more than the sum of its parts - now want to give us a czar of national intelligence.

 

There is no question that our intelligence system, which costs us more than $40 billion a year, is broken. It has been broken for years, decades really. Broken at least since the 1970s, when then-director Stansfield Turner turned human intelligence capabilities in the CIA into a stepchild and lavished most of the attention and money on what are called "national technical means,"

 

The Department of Defense, which already has authority over nearly 80 percent of the intelligence money spent today, would like authority over the whole enchilada. That means the people in the Office of the Secretary of Defense who didn't trust the intelligence they were getting from the CIA and the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency on Iraq and created their own outfit to tell them what they wanted to hear.

[Guest]

Why are the navies of the world putting to sea? Don't know, but learned of it

last week on George Ure's link at http://urbansurvival.com/lastweek.htm

George and his readers do a good job of finding information/links.

 

The list of countries is near the bottom of his page.

"Nearly our Entire Naval Fleet, have unprecedented orders to leave for the Oceans? AND, they aren't alone. At least parts of Iran, Australia, China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam are going too."

 

 

(England) The British are also putting an unusual number of ships to sea during June. http://www.navynews.co.uk/articles/2004/0405/0004052601.asp Meantime, Channel 13 in Hampton Roads, VA reports in part that:

"Called "Exercise Blinding Storm" by the United States and "Exercise Rapid Alliance" by the U.K., the training will involve about 30,000 troops from seven nations in exercises off and on the coast of North Carolina.

 

Dutch marines and French soldiers will take part, as well as a Peruvian submarine and contingents from Germany and Canada. The flotilla is expected to set sail Tuesday, with the two-week amphibious exercise scheduled to begin June 10.

The British landing platform dock ship Albion has already arrived. It carried four Challenger II battle tanks ? the British equivalent of the U.S. M1-A1 Abrams tank. The tanks will be sent ashore aboard the ship's new landing craft during the exercise.

The biggest British ship ? the aircraft carrier Invincible ? also has docked with a crew of 1,050. "

http://www.wvec.com/sharedcontent/APStorie.../D82SAKN80.html

 

Russian and other Moves:

 

We note that while the West is putting to sea in large numbers, the Russians are holding huge exercises which could be a cover for who-knows-what: http://russiajournal.com/news/cnews-article.shtml?nd=43807 We have heard, but don't have links to share that India, China, and a host of Pacific Rim countries are also planning naval exercises.

 

More Naval Movements

China's military is preparing to hold large-scale war games intended as a "political message" to Taiwan, amid heightened tensions between the island and mainland, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

The military exercises are part of China's annual maneuvers involving large numbers of troops, ships, aircraft and missiles, and will take place on Dongshan Island. The island is located off the coast of Fujian province along the southern Chinese coast near Taiwan.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040602-010016-1638r.htm

 

 

FOX News just reported that a 3lb rock/meteorite has fallen thru the roof

of a house in New Zealand. Called a rare occurance.

[Guest]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/stor...4164373,00.html

 

Tenet's announcement came amid new storms over intelligence issues, including an alleged Pentagon leak of highly classified intelligence to Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi politician. At the same time, a federal grand jury is pressing its investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's name, and Bush acknowledged he might be questioned in the case.

 

House Speaker Dennis Hastert said: ``He served his country a long time. History will tell what the implications of his tenure were.''

 

``I think history will tell,'' the Illinois Republican said when asked how Tenet's performance would be judged. ``It's too early to make that snap judgment.''

 

``I think history will either vindicate him or say, 'Hey there was a problem there','' Hastert said.

 

Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner said he thought Tenet was pushed out.

 

``I think the president feels he's in enough trouble that he's got to begin to cast some of the blame for the morass that we are in in Iraq to somebody else, and this was one subtle way to do it,'' said Turner, himself a former CIA director.

[Guest]

Ok, which one of you Canucks have been eating beans & cabbage again?

 

http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/Z04_00asmell0611.lasso

 

Alberta Environment officials and residents are baffled by a mysterious smell that descended on part of Beaverlodge late Tuesday night and was so potent one family slept in their basement to avoid the stench.

[mjkst27]

"Ministry of Finance of Japan has manipulated the currency market after Japanese Yen has hit a temporary peak at the beginning of 2000 in order to destroy the value of Yen ( equivalent to boost the value of US Dollar) and to increase merchandise trade surplus of Japan. With two years of delay US merchandise trade deficit has started to increase anew from the middle of 2002. However, the talk and the occurence of Iraq war, and then the SARS epidemic have delayed the translation of this renewed surge of US merchandise trade deficit into stronger US consumer spending. In the summer of 2003, this pent-up consumer spending comes in at once as the first phase of Iraq war is over and SARS has retreated into the background. That is why in the 3rd quarter of 2003, US GDP has had a phenomenal growth. Though will not repeat such super hot performance, the growth rate of US GDP in the 4th quarter of 2003 and the 1st quarter of 2004 will still be substantial thanks to the expanding merchandise trade deficit. However, the strong Dollar as manipulated by Japan from 2000 has suffered a reversal in the spring of 2002, and US trade deficit with Japan and other smaller Asian countries is going to be curbed starting from the spring or the summer of 2004. Furthermore, strong Euro is going to suppress imports of luxuary goods from Europe starting from the spring or summer of 2004. Unless imports from China can replace high qulity Japanese imports and luxuary goods from Europe (very unlikely), US merchandise trade deficit is going to decrease starting from the summer of 2004. With that turn arround of US merchandise trade deficit, US economic growth also will become slower. This slowdown of economic growth will intensify in the fall of 2005 and will continue, at least until the end of 2005. "

 

Some interesting economic perspective from an independent Japanese economist

[mjkst27]

If Plunger and Michael Ruppert are correct, Tenet quit simply to put pressure on Bush and Cheney, who now have to wonder "will Tenet talk, or won't he?". If the Plame issue et al are the real deal, i.e. serious enough to take down a sitting prez, then for Tenet the trade (his career for justice) will have been worth it.

[Guest]

Department of defense Vs CIA...continued:

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5197014/site/newsweek/

 

Mission creep? A new bill could expand the Pentagon's ability to gather intelligence inside the United States

 

By Michael Isikoff

Investigative Correspondent

Newsweek

 

 

The CIA always has been exempt?although by law it isn't supposed to operate inside the United States. The new provision would now extend the same exemption to Pentagon agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency?so they can help track terrorists. A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee says the provision would allow military intel agents to "approach potential sources and collect personal information from them" without disclosing they work for the government.

 

Senate Intelligence Committee says the provision would allow military intel agents to "approach potential sources and collect personal information from them" without disclosing they work for the government. Among those pushing for the provision, sources say, were officials at northcom, the new Colorado-based command set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to oversee "homeland defense." Pentagon lawyers insist agents will still be legally barred from domestic "law enforcement." But watchdog groups see a potentially alarming "mission creep." "This... is giving them the authority to spy on Americans," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a group frequently critical of the war on terror. "And it's all been done with no public discussion, in the dark of night."

[DrStool]

Make no mistake, the CIA is at war with the Bush Administration.

 

Would you want to pick a fight with the most powerful intelligence agency in the world?

 

My money's on the spooks.

That was my feeling when Tenet resigned right after the news about Bush hiring a lawyer.

 

It's a cumulative thing. Enough voters may have Bush fatigue that he could be finished regardless of what happens between now and November.

[DrStool]

Tenet will talk, but he will do so without attribution. The reporters will be given what they need. He most definitely will not speak for the record.

[Guest]

If Plunger and Michael Ruppert are correct, Tenet quit simply to put pressure on Bush and Cheney, who now have to wonder "will Tenet talk, or won't he?". If the Plame issue et al are the real dealm then for Tenet the trade (his career for justice) will have been worth it.

From my understanding, only now is Tenent free to testify against the administration in the Plame case. His resignation was essential to enable this.

 

Note that Rumsfeld controls 80% of all intelligence related monies...and look at what has resulted. If I was Tenet, and Rumsfeld was withholding monies I needed to fix my organization...while simultaneously blaming me for my agency's shortcomings (and conspiring with his buddies to out one of my most key agents) I'd be looking to settle the score and set the record straight.

 

Nothing in this administration was left to happenstance. Everybody at the top knew everything.

 

Soon, the body count will begin to rise at home. This is Spy Vs. Spy and the battle is for control of the nation.

 

Go Spooks!