carapace – Not your father's america

Congressman Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk

Monday, December 29, 2008

“As another year draws to a close, there are some important transitions ahead of us. Not just transitions to a new administration, but also economically, politically and culturally.

Many hoped that the changes would signify overwhelming positive steps for our country, and that we would enter a new era, as promised during the campaign. I would like for this to be true, but based on the continuity so far, I would not be surprised to see America stay on the same course of failed monetary and economic policies. The course has been set for several decades, and in reality there is little the new administration could do to fix things without actually making them worse. But I expect them to try. The only real solutions involve allowing the market to liquidate the debt and malinvestments. The political reality is that this is not going to happen.”

Click here to read the full article:

http://www.house.gov/paul/index.shtml

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OCC Reports Third Quarter Bank Trading Revenue of $6.0 Billion News release:

“Insured U.S. commercial banks reported $6.0 billion in revenues from trading cash and derivative instruments in the third quarter, compared to revenues of $1.6 billion in the second quarter of 2008, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reported today in the OCC’s Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities: Third Quarter 2008…The report shows that the notional amount of derivatives held by insured U.S. commercial banks decreased by $6.3 trillion in the third quarter, or 3 percent, to $176 trillion. Interest rate contracts decreased $7.7 trillion to $137 trillion due to acquisition-related elimination of contracts. Although market participants continue to use methods such as trade compression to reduce economically offsetting credit derivatives trades, credit derivative contracts increased 4 percent, to $16 trillion.”

http://www.occ.gov/ftp/release/2008-152.htm

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Mathematics underlying the 2008 financial crisis, and a possible remedy

Authors: V. P. Maslov (1 and 2), V. E. Nazaikinskii (2) ((1) Moscow State University, (2) Institute for Problems in Mechanics, RAS, Moscow)

Submitted on 28 Nov 2008)

Abstract: Among the diverse factors contributing to the current financial and economical crisis, there is a purely mathematical law not mentioned by economists. The indistinguishability of identical notes results in a condensation phenomenon (also known in a completely different situation in physics as Bose condensation): if the total amount of money in circulation exceeds a certain threshold (depending on various economic factors), then a collapse occurs. One possible remedy is to introduce several currencies to be used simultaneously; we show that this raises the threshold and thus might help at least to postpone the crisis. If each of the United States were to use its own unique currency along with the dollar, the threshold would be up to seven times higher, and the crisis may not have happened yet. The former abandonment of national currencies in euro countries in favor of one unique European money could also be viewed as an unfavorable factor in the development of the crisis.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0811.4678v1

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Unrest caused by bad economy may require military action, report says

By Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times
12/29/2008

EL PASO — A U.S. Army War College report warns an economic crisis in the United States could lead to massive civil unrest and the need to call on the military to restore order.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Nathan Freir wrote the report “Known Unknowns: Unconventional Strategic Shocks in Defense Strategy Development,” which the Army think tank in Carlisle, Pa., recently released.

“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities … to defend basic domestic order and human security,” the report said, in case of “unforeseen economic collapse,” “pervasive public health emergencies,” and “catastrophic natural and human disasters,” among other possible crises.

The report also suggests the new (Barack Obama) administration could face a “strategic shock” within the first eight months in office.

Fort Bliss spokeswoman Jean Offutt said the Army post is not involved in any recent talks about a potential military response to civil unrest.

The report become a hot Internet item after Phoenix police told the Phoenix Business Journal they’re prepared to deal with such an event, and the International Monetary Fund’s managing director, Dominique Strauss-Khan, said social unrest could spread to advanced countries if the global economic crisis worsens.

Javier Sambrano, spokesman for the El Paso Police Department, said city police have trained for years so they can address any contingency, but not with the military.

“The police (department) trains on an ongoing basis as part of its Mobile Field Force Training,” Sambrano said. “As a result, the police will be able to respond to emergency situations, such as looting or a big civil unrest. The police (department) does not train with soldiers.”

Earlier this year, Pentagon officials said as many as 20,000 soldiers under the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) will be trained within the next three years to work with civilian law enforcement in homeland security.

Joint Task Force-North, a joint command at Biggs Army Airfield, which conducts surveillance and intelligence along the border, comes under NORTHCOM. No one was available at JTF-North to comment on the Army War College’s report. NORTHCOM was created after the 9-11 attacks to coordinate homeland security efforts.

Soldiers under the former Joint Task Force-6 (now JTF-North) supported the Border Patrol in El Paso with its drug-interdiction operations.

In case civilian authorities request help or become overwhelmed, El Paso has several National Guard and military reserve units that can be called on. In 1992, National Guard and active Marine and Army units were deployed to help police control riots and looting in Los Angeles.

Charles Boehmer, political science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, was skeptical about the Army War College report.

“The military was not called out during the Great Depression, and I don’t think our economic problems are as bad as they were then,” he said. “The military always has contingency plans. It’s a think tank’s job to come up with scenarios, but that doesn’t mean it represents an active interest on the part of the (Pentagon).”

Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6140.

Abstract added -

Known Unknowns: Unconventional “Strategic Shocks” in Defense Strategy Development
Authored by Mr. Nathan P. Freier.

The author provides the defense policy team a clear warning against excessive adherence to past defense and national security convention. Including the insights of a number of noted scholars on the subjects of “wild cards” and “strategic surprise,” he argues that future disruptive, unconventional shocks are inevitable. Through strategic impact and potential for disruption and violence, such shocks, in spite of their nonmilitary character, will demand the focused attention of defense leadership, as well as the decisive employment of defense capabilities in response. As a consequence, the author makes a solid case for continued commitment by the Department of Defense to prudent strategic hedging against their potential occurrence.

http://tinyurl.com/4u3cmo (www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil)

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EIA, the Nation’s clearinghouse for energy statistics – Today’s Gasoline Prices

Monday, December 29, 2008

RETAIL GASOLINE: (Self Service Prices per Gallon, Including Taxes) This report contains price estimates for gasoline sold in ozone non-attainment areas which require the sale of reformulated gasoline (RFG) as designated by the Environmental Protection Agency, and Conventional areas which includes both attainment areas and carbon monoxide non-attainment areas.

Mogas web site url

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/fwd/wrgp.html

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As if Things Weren’t Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

DECEMBER 29, 2008

In Moscow, Igor Panarin’s Forecasts Are All the Rage; America ‘Disintegrates’ in 2010

MOSCOW — For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument — that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. — very seriously. Now he’s found an eager audience: Russian state media.

Igor Panarin

In recent weeks, he’s been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. “It’s a record,” says Prof. Panarin. “But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger.”

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it’s his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin’s views also fit neatly with the Kremlin’s narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

“There’s a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur,” he says. “One could rejoice in that process,” he adds, poker-faced. “But if we’re talking reasonably, it’s not the best scenario — for Russia.” Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces — with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

In addition to increasing coverage in state media, which are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Mr. Panarin’s ideas are now being widely discussed among local experts. He presented his theory at a recent roundtable discussion at the Foreign Ministry. The country’s top international relations school has hosted him as a keynote speaker. During an appearance on the state TV channel Rossiya, the station cut between his comments and TV footage of lines at soup kitchens and crowds of homeless people in the U.S. The professor has also been featured on the Kremlin’s English-language propaganda channel, Russia Today.

Mr. Panarin’s apocalyptic vision “reflects a very pronounced degree of anti-Americanism in Russia today,” says Vladimir Pozner, a prominent TV journalist in Russia. “It’s much stronger than it was in the Soviet Union.”

Mr. Pozner and other Russian commentators and experts on the U.S. dismiss Mr. Panarin’s predictions. “Crazy ideas are not usually discussed by serious people,” says Sergei Rogov, director of the government-run Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, who thinks Mr. Panarin’s theories don’t hold water.

…

Complete article at:

http://tinyurl.com/a4wkge (online.wsj.com)

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Borowitz Report – Republican Apology Shocker

December 29, 2008

RNC Issues Apology to Negroes
Calls Song Parody ‘Offensive to Every Negro’

Just days after the news broke that former Tennessee GOP leader Chip Saltsman had released a song parody entitled “Barack the Magic Negro,” the Republican National Committee issued what it called “an official apology to America’s negroes.”

In the statement, the RNC ripped Saltsman’s song, calling it “tone-deaf, unacceptable, and offensive to every negro in the country.”

“We do not want one ill-considered song parody to create the wrong impression,” the RNC statement read. “The Republican Party has always been, and will always be, the friend of the negro.”

But while the RNC’s official statement was designed to quell the outrage surrounding Mr. Saltsman’s song, it may have created a controversy of its own.

Just hours after releasing the official apology, the RNC issued a second apology apologizing for the first apology.

“It has come to our attention that we misused a word in our first apology,” the RNC statement read. “We should have capitalized ‘Negro.’”

Upcoming Events

January 1, 2009 at 12:01AM

Andy’s 2009 Shows

Watch this space for Andy’s performances in 2009.

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

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three thousand words

Tom Tomorrow: Thanks for the material, George W. Now get lost!

http://tinyurl.com/89lhbu (www.salon.com)

Cartoon du Jour – By Khalil: the golden calf

http://tinyurl.com/8l562m (www.bendib.com)

Jack Ohman: I know the feeling

http://tinyurl.com/7jthg8 (ucomics.com)

WAS THE ‘CREDIT CRUNCH’ A MYTH USED TO SELL A TRILLION-DOLLAR SCAM?

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet

Even as the media continue to repeat the claim that credit has frozen up, evidence has emerged suggesting the entire story is wrong.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/115768/

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Growing Income Gap among U.S. Families Suggests Increasing Economic Insecurity, Threat to Middle Class 

News release: “The incomes of American families with children have become increasingly stratified since 1975, with income inequality increasing two-thirds during a 30-year period, according to findings published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed science journal American Sociological Review.

“The gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ is widening for families with children in the United States,” said Bruce Western, the study’s lead author and professor of sociology and director of the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard University. “Inequality for these families has grown faster than the combined rates of inequality for all families and for men’s hourly wages.”

Unlike previous narrower research focusing on the effect of education, single parenthood or a mother’s employment on family income inequality, this study combined labor market and demographic analyses to identify inequalities. It used data from the March supplements of the Current Population Survey from 1976 to 2006, yielding annual income data from 1975 to 2005.

http://tinyurl.com/3pqqno (www.asanet.org)

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BERNARD MADOFF BENEFITED FROM THAT TIMELESS CLASSIC: THE OLD BOYS CLUB

By  Digby, Hullabaloo

The only two regulators over the past decade who actually did their jobs were women.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/115636/

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The latest economic updates from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas…

International Economic Update
December 23, 2008
Globalization and Monetary Policy Institute

The financial crisis that began in the North Atlantic region has morphed into a global slowdown. Financial markets remain tense despite efforts to increase liquidity.

Read more:

http://dallasfed.org/institute/update/2008/int0808.cfm

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BOB CORKER’S ‘SCREW THE SENIORS’ PLAN

By  Emptywheel, Firedoglake

Bob Corker’s “plan” to “fix” the auto industry is not so much a plan to fix anything, but a plan to screw retirees.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/workplace/115686/

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World faces “total” financial meltdown: Bank of Spain chief

Global Research, December 23, 2008
AFP

The governor of the Bank of Spain on Sunday issued a bleak assessment of the economic crisis, warning that the world faced a “total” financial meltdown unseen since the Great Depression. “The lack of confidence is total,” Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said in an interview with Spain’s El Pais daily.

“The inter-bank (lending) market is not functioning and this is generating vicious cycles: consumers are not consuming, businessmen are not taking on workers, investors are not investing and the banks are not lending.

“There is an almost total paralysis from which no-one is escaping,” he said, adding that any recovery — pencilled in by optimists for the end of 2009 and the start of 2010 — could be delayed if confidence is not restored.

Ordonez recognised that falling oil prices and lower taxes could kick-start a faster-than-anticipated recovery, but warned that a deepening cycle of falling consumer demand, rising unemployment and an ongoing lending squeeze could not be ruled out.

“This is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression” of 1929, he added.

Ordonez said the European Central Bank, of which he is a governing council member, would cut interest rates in January if inflation expectations went much below two percent.

“If, among other variables, we observe that inflation expectations go much below two percent, it’s logical that we will lower rates.”

Regarding the dire situation in the United States, Ordonez said he backed the decision by the US Federal Reserve to cut interest rates almost to zero in the face of profound deflation fears.

Central banks are seeking to jumpstart movements on crucial interbank money markets that froze after the US market for high-risk, or subprime mortgages collapsed in mid 2007, and locked tighter after the US investment bank Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy in mid September.

Interbank markets are a key link in the chain which provides credit to businesses and households.

Source: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11482

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The Death of Deep Throat and the Crisis of Journalism

December 22, 2008
By George Friedman

Mark Felt died last week at the age of 95. For those who don’t recognize that name, Felt was the “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame. It was Felt who provided Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post with a flow of leaks about what had happened, how it happened and where to look for further corroboration on the break-in, the cover-up, and the financing of wrongdoing in the Nixon administration. Woodward and Bernstein’s exposé of Watergate has been seen as a high point of journalism, and their unwillingness to reveal Felt’s identity until he revealed it himself three years ago has been seen as symbolic of the moral rectitude demanded of journalists.

In reality, the revelation of who Felt was raised serious questions about the accomplishments of Woodward and Bernstein, the actual price we all pay for journalistic ethics, and how for many years we did not know a critical dimension of the Watergate crisis. At a time when newspapers are in financial crisis and journalism is facing serious existential issues, Watergate always has been held up as a symbol of what journalism means for a democracy, revealing truths that others were unwilling to uncover and grapple with. There is truth to this vision of journalism, but there is also a deep ambiguity, all built around Felt’s role. This is therefore not an excursion into ancient history, but a consideration of two things. The first is how journalists become tools of various factions in political disputes. The second is the relationship between security and intelligence organizations and governments in a Democratic society.

Watergate was about the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington. The break-in was carried out by a group of former CIA operatives controlled by individuals leading back to the White House. It was never proven that then-U.S. President Richard Nixon knew of the break-in, but we find it difficult to imagine that he didn’t. In any case, the issue went beyond the break-in. It went to the cover-up of the break-in and, more importantly, to the uses of money that financed the break-in and other activities. Numerous aides, including the attorney general of the United States, went to prison. Woodward and Bernstein, and their newspaper, The Washington Post, aggressively pursued the story from the summer of 1972 until Nixon’s resignation. The episode has been seen as one of journalism’s finest moments. It may have been, but that cannot be concluded until we consider Deep Throat more carefully.

Deep Throat Reconsidered

Mark Felt was deputy associate director of the FBI (No. 3 in bureau hierarchy) in May 1972, when longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover died. Upon Hoover’s death, Felt was second to Clyde Tolson, the longtime deputy and close friend to Hoover who by then was in failing health himself. Days after Hoover’s death, Tolson left the bureau.

Felt expected to be named Hoover’s successor, but Nixon passed him over, appointing L. Patrick Gray instead. In selecting Gray, Nixon was reaching outside the FBI for the first time in the 48 years since Hoover had taken over. But while Gray was formally acting director, the Senate never confirmed him, and as an outsider, he never really took effective control of the FBI. In a practical sense, Felt was in operational control of the FBI from the break-in at the Watergate in August 1972 until June 1973.

Nixon’s motives in appointing Gray certainly involved increasing his control of the FBI, but several presidents before him had wanted this, too, including John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Both of these presidents wanted Hoover gone for the same reason they were afraid to remove him: He knew too much. In Washington, as in every capital, knowing the weaknesses of powerful people is itself power — and Hoover made it a point to know the weaknesses of everyone. He also made it a point to be useful to the powerful, increasing his overall value and his knowledge of the vulnerabilities of the powerful.

Hoover’s death achieved what Kennedy and Johnson couldn’t do. Nixon had no intention of allowing the FBI to continue as a self-enclosed organization outside the control of the presidency and everyone else. Thus, the idea that Mark Felt, a man completely loyal to Hoover and his legacy, would be selected to succeed Hoover is in retrospect the most unlikely outcome imaginable.

Felt saw Gray’s selection as an unwelcome politicization of the FBI (by placing it under direct presidential control), an assault on the traditions created by Hoover and an insult to his memory, and a massive personal disappointment. Felt was thus a disgruntled employee at the highest level. He was also a senior official in an organization that traditionally had protected its interests in predictable ways. (By then formally the No. 2 figure in FBI, Felt effectively controlled the agency given Gray’s inexperience and outsider status.) The FBI identified its enemies, then used its vast knowledge of its enemies’ wrongdoings in press leaks designed to be as devastating as possible. While carefully hiding the source of the information, it then watched the victim — who was usually guilty as sin — crumble. Felt, who himself was later convicted and pardoned for illegal wiretaps and break-ins, was not nearly as appalled by Nixon’s crimes as by Ni xon’s decision to pass him over as head of the FBI. He merely set Hoover’s playbook in motion.

Woodward and Bernstein were on the city desk of The Washington Post at the time. They were young (29 and 28), inexperienced and hungry. We do not know why Felt decided to use them as his conduit for leaks, but we would guess he sought these three characteristics — as well as a newspaper with sufficient gravitas to gain notice. Felt obviously knew the two had been assigned to a local burglary, and he decided to leak what he knew to lead them where he wanted them to go. He used his knowledge to guide, and therefore control, their investigation.

Systematic Spying on the President

And now we come to the major point. For Felt to have been able to guide and control the young reporters’ investigation, he needed to know a great deal of what the White House had done, going back quite far. He could not possibly have known all this simply through his personal investigations. His knowledge covered too many people, too many operations, and too much money in too many places simply to have been the product of one of his side hobbies. The only way Felt could have the knowledge he did was if the FBI had been systematically spying on the White House, on the Committee to Re-elect the President and on all of the other elements involved in Watergate. Felt was not simply feeding information to Woodward and Bernstein; he was using the intelligence product emanating from a section of the FBI to shape The Washington Post’s coverage.

Instead of passing what he knew to professional prosecutors at the Justice Department — or if he did not trust them, to the House Judiciary Committee charged with investigating presidential wrongdoing — Felt chose to leak the information to The Washington Post. He bet, or knew, that Post editor Ben Bradlee would allow Woodward and Bernstein to play the role Felt had selected for them. Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee all knew who Deep Throat was. They worked with the operational head of the FBI to destroy Nixon, and then protected Felt and the FBI until Felt came forward.

In our view, Nixon was as guilty as sin of more things than were ever proven. Nevertheless, there is another side to this story. The FBI was carrying out espionage against the president of the United States, not for any later prosecution of Nixon for a specific crime (the spying had to have been going on well before the break-in), but to increase the FBI’s control over Nixon. Woodward, Bernstein and above all, Bradlee, knew what was going on. Woodward and Bernstein might have been young and naive, but Bradlee was an old Washington hand who knew exactly who Felt was, knew the FBI playbook and understood that Felt could not have played the role he did without a focused FBI operation against the president. Bradlee knew perfectly well that Woodward and Bernstein were not breaking the story, but were having it spoon-fed to them by a master. He knew that the president of the United States, guilty or not, was being destroyed by Hoover’s jilted heir.

This was enormously important news. The Washington Post decided not to report it. The story of Deep Throat was well-known, but what lurked behind the identity of Deep Throat was not. This was not a lone whistle-blower being protected by a courageous news organization; rather, it was a news organization being used by the FBI against the president, and a news organization that knew perfectly well that it was being used against the president. Protecting Deep Throat concealed not only an individual, but also the story of the FBI’s role in destroying Nixon.

Again, Nixon’s guilt is not in question. And the argument can be made that given John Mitchell’s control of the Justice Department, Felt thought that going through channels was impossible (although the FBI was more intimidating to Mitchell than the other way around). But the fact remains that Deep Throat was the heir apparent to Hoover — a man not averse to breaking the law in covert operations — and Deep Throat clearly was drawing on broader resources in the FBI, resources that had to have been in place before Hoover’s death and continued operating afterward.

Burying a Story to Get a Story

Until Felt came forward in 2005, not only were these things unknown, but The Washington Post was protecting them. Admittedly, the Post was in a difficult position. Without Felt’s help, it would not have gotten the story. But the terms Felt set required that a huge piece of the story not be told. The Washington Post created a morality play about an out-of-control government brought to heel by two young, enterprising journalists and a courageous newspaper. That simply wasn’t what happened. Instead, it was about the FBI using The Washington Post to leak information to destroy the president, and The Washington Post willingly serving as the conduit for that information while withholding an essential dimension of the story by concealing Deep Throat’s identity.

Journalists have celebrated the Post’s role in bringing down the president for a generation. Even after the revelation of Deep Throat’s identity in 2005, there was no serious soul-searching on the omission from the historical record. Without understanding the role played by Felt and the FBI in bringing Nixon down, Watergate cannot be understood completely. Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee were willingly used by Felt to destroy Nixon. The three acknowledged a secret source, but they did not reveal that the secret source was in operational control of the FBI. They did not reveal that the FBI was passing on the fruits of surveillance of the White House. They did not reveal the genesis of the fall of Nixon. They accepted the accolades while withholding an extraordinarily important fact, elevating their own role in the episode while distorting the actual dynamic of Nixon’s fall.

Absent any widespread reconsideration of the Post’s actions during Watergate in the three years since Felt’s identity became known, the press in Washington continues to serve as a conduit for leaks of secret information. They publish this information while protecting the leakers, and therefore the leakers’ motives. Rather than being a venue for the neutral reporting of events, journalism thus becomes the arena in which political power plays are executed. What appears to be enterprising journalism is in fact a symbiotic relationship between journalists and government factions. It may be the best path journalists have for acquiring secrets, but it creates a very partial record of events — especially since the origin of a leak frequently is much more important to the public than the leak itself.

The Felt experience is part of an ongoing story in which journalists’ guarantees of anonymity to sources allow leakers to control the news process. Protecting Deep Throat’s identity kept us from understanding the full dynamic of Watergate. We did not know that Deep Throat was running the FBI, we did not know the FBI was conducting surveillance on the White House, and we did not know that the Watergate scandal emerged not by dint of enterprising journalism, but because Felt had selected Woodward and Bernstein as his vehicle to bring Nixon down. And we did not know that the editor of The Washington Post allowed this to happen. We had a profoundly defective picture of the situation, as defective as the idea that Bob Woodward looks like Robert Redford.

Finding the truth of events containing secrets is always difficult, as we know all too well. There is no simple solution to this quandary. In intelligence, we dream of the well-placed source who will reveal important things to us. But we also are aware that the information provided is only the beginning of the story. The rest of the story involves the source’s motivation, and frequently that motivation is more important than the information provided. Understanding a source’s motivation is essential both to good intelligence and to journalism. In this case, keeping secret the source kept an entire — and critical — dimension of Watergate hidden for a generation. Whatever crimes Nixon committed, the FBI had spied on the president and leaked what it knew to The Washington Post in order to destroy him. The editor of The Washington Post knew that, as did Woodward and Bernstein. We do not begrudge them their prizes and accolades, but it would have been useful to know who handed them the story. In many ways, that story is as interesting as the one about all the president’s men.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com

Please feel free to distribute this Intelligence Report to friends or repost to your Web site linking to www.stratfor.com .

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Deep Web Research 2009:

Marcus P. Zillman’s guide includes links to: articles, papers, forums, audios and videos, cross database articles, search services and search tools, peer to peer, file sharing, grid/matrix search engines, presentations, resources on deep web research, semantic web research, and bot research resources and sites.

http://www.llrx.com/features/deepweb2009.htm

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And now for the important news ….

By Argus Hamilton

Barack Obama arranged Monday to be sworn into office at the Inaugural with Abe Lincoln’s Bible. It has parables of Jesus urging slaves to be productive. Barack Obama promised he’ll put Americans back to work but he didn’t say we’d get paid for it.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

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three thousand words

Ted Rall: the united states last day in business

http://tinyurl.com/8nfzr5 (editorialcartoonists.com)

Matt Bors: conspiracy theory …

http://www.mattbors.com/strips/477.gif

Jerry Holbert: Financial Mess Vacuum

http://tinyurl.com/7m6u7o (politicalirony.com)

THE NEW GULF WAR SYNDROME

By Nora Eisenberg, The Guardian

Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are in danger from toxic chemicals, yet most don’t know what they’ve been exposed to or where to get help.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/106497/

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Costs of war: Silent suffering

Gulf War Syndrome sufferers still face an obstructive and obfuscating bureaucracy, and now a new generation of soldiers may face the same treatment, Shaun Waterman writes for ISN Security Watch.

9 Dec 2008

Gulf War Syndrome sufferers still face an obstructive and obfuscating bureaucracy, and now a new generation of soldiers may face the same treatment, Shaun Waterman writes for ISN Security Watch.

By Shaun Waterman in Washington, DC for ISN Security Watch

The last time the US embarked on a major war in the Middle East, in 1990, the legacy included a generation of veterans who were victims of Gulf War Syndrome, and who had to wage a long fight against bureaucracy to get their disease officially acknowledged.

Now some fear the latest US war there is also leaving a generation of veterans sick in ways they will have to fight to get recognized and treated for.

Gulf War Syndrome – a complex collection of symptoms typically including some combination of chronic headaches, difficulties understanding and communicating, widespread pain, unexplained fatigue, chronic diarrhea, skin rashes and respiratory problems – began to strike US servicemen and women before Gulf War One was even over.

And yet it took years before the US government would even acknowledge the existence of the disease – and it still is not doing enough to study the condition, according to a recent report by the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, a congressionally mandated blue-ribbon panel appointed by the Bush administration in 2002.

The committee concluded that between one-quarter and one-third of the 700,000 US troops deployed – as many as 210,000 veterans – are affected by the disease to some extent.

“No effective treatments have been identified for Gulf War illness and studies indicate that few veterans have recovered over time,” adds the report.

The scientific experts on the advisory committee surveyed the research literature, about 1,800 studies, and concluded “evidence strongly and consistently indicates” Gulf war Syndrome was caused by exposure to neurotoxins – poisons that attack the brain and nervous system – in pesticides troops used and special experimental pills they were made to take, designed to protect against the effects of nerve gas.

Anthony Hardie, a Gulf War veteran and advocate and a lay member of the advisory committee, told the left-wing radio news program Democracy Now! that troops had to be ordered to take the pills, because the side-effects were well known.

“We were mandated to take the pills,” he said, adding, “I was required to physically watch my soldiers put the pill into their mouth, swallow it and make sure that they had taken it … these measures were taken because there were significant side effects for so many of us.”

“About two-thirds of the group that I was with began to be ill from the pyridostigmine bromide, or the nerve agent protective pills that we took, and then, once in Kuwait, began having severe respiratory and sinus issues,” Hardie said.

The advisory committee noted “the consistent association of Gulf War (Syndrome) with PB and pesticides across studies of Gulf War veterans, identified dose-response effects, and research findings in other populations and in animal models” as the basis for their conclusion.

The report also said there were several other possible causes – including low-level exposure to nerve agents, close proximity to oil well fires, and receipt of multiple vaccines – where “evidence (of causal association) is inconsistent or limited in important ways.”

Sick veterans faced years of official denials, said Hardie, and the report suggests that they are still battling an indifferent administration, noting that the Pentagon cut funding for research into Gulf War Syndrome from US$30 million in 2001 to less than US$5 million in 2006.

The committee called for research funding to be boosted to at least US$60 million a year.

“This is a national obligation, made especially urgent by the many years that Gulf War veterans have waited for answers and assistance,” the committee said.

But now, there are fears that a new generation of veterans will face similar official indifference to a new generation of disabling conditions resulting from the unique conditions of their own conflict.

In the case of these veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the “invisible wounds” are Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other stress-related conditions.

TBI – which varies from severe “open head” wounds to the mild blast effects described by experts as a kind of “whiplash of the brain” – is especially prevalent in Iraq and Afghanistan because of the types of blast injuries troops get inside armored vehicles attacked by roadside bombs or other explosives.

These injuries are often the result of blasts that do not strike the head directly, and leave no visible signs in the case of “closed head” wounds. Some TBI symptoms are easily confused with stress disorders or with other common syndromes experienced by troops, like sleep deprivation.

As a result, they may be under-diagnosed and too little is known about them, says a new report from the US Institute of Medicine.

The long-term effects even of moderate TBI can include Alzheimer’s-like dementia, aggression, memory loss, depression and symptoms similar to those of Parkinson’s disease, the report found.

“We are seeing much higher rates of non-penetrating traumatic brain injury and blast-induced injury among military personnel who have served in these countries than in earlier wars,” said the chair of the Institute of Medicine committee that wrote the report, George Rutherford, professor of epidemiology and preventive medicine at the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco.

As of January, more than 5,500 military personnel have been diagnosed with TBI during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon figures cited by the institute, and some studies indicate that as many as one-in-five of all combat casualties in the two theaters suffer TBI.

The institute called for long-term research including large-scale cognitive testing of troops pre- and post-deployment to better evaluate and respond to TBI.

As to stress-related illnesses, a study earlier this year by the RAND Corporation, a think tank with historic ties to the US military, revealed a mental health epidemic among service-members and veterans. It estimated one-in-five US personnel currently or previously in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from mental health problems, including PTSD, the study found – a total of 300,000.

The relentless pace of deployments in both theaters has added to stress on the troops, acknowledged Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, in an interview last week with the Associated Press.

“We see extraordinary stress and pressure there,” he said, referring to the many US troops who have now done multiple year-long deployments.

The advocacy group Veterans for America says that Department of Defense studies show troops are 60 percent more likely to develop post-combat mental health problems with each deployment.

The result is a huge challenge for President-elect Barack Obama’s new pick to run the huge Department of Veterans Affairs, General Eric Shinseki.

“The system of care designed to treat post-combat mental health injuries, the most common wounds of our current wars, is inadequate to the task and will be for the foreseeable future,” Veterans for America said in a recent report.

Shinseki briefly acknowledged the plight of TBI and PTSD sufferers when Obama officially named him Sunday. “Veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan in particular are confronting serious severe wounds – some seen, some unseen – making it difficult for them to get on with their lives in this struggling economy,” he said.

Seventeen years after coming home, Gulf War veterans sickened because they followed orders still face an obstructive and obfuscating bureaucracy. Current Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake has referred the Gulf War Syndrome report to the Institute of Medicine for further study.

If Shinseki really wants to repay the “national obligation” the US owes these men and women, he could make a start by ensuring that their struggle does not have to repeated by a new generation of sick veterans.

Shaun Waterman is a senior writer and analyst for ISN Security Watch. He is a UK journalist based in Washington, DC, covering homeland and national security for United Press International.

http://tinyurl.com/5fqszj (www.isn.ethz.ch)

                          ==========

Stock futures pointing to sharp losses when U.S. reopens Tuesday.

Weekly Roundup – DECEMBER 26, 2008

http://tinyurl.com/9s6ndh (www.marketwatch.com)

                          ==========

Wall Street sets the Stage for the Next Big Heist

by Andrew Hughes
Global Research, December 20, 2008

One could not help but notice the constant emphasis, during and since the Obama campaign, on Climate Change and Green energy programs. The world has a real need to develop more oil independent energy sources and halt the wholesale rape of Mother Earth. However, hearing these pleas from Washington to London from the highest offices in the land only demand more thorough investigation. When one remembers that these same high offices have been responsible for the Iraq War, The Afghanistan War and the destruction of the economy, taking anything at face value is a precarious enterprise.

As in all schemes brought to life by Government office, the first question that begs to be asked is Qui Bono? When a Carbon Tax or a Carbon Cap and Share program is announced the one thing that can be assumed is that it will be designed to make money for those who usually make the money all along. To believe that Washington or London have developed a more altruistic nature and suddenly want to save the world, is to deny decades of Political and economic history. The road to discovering the real truth behind the plan is to follow the money, the players and the science.

On the Change.gov website there was a news release about the Bi-partisan Governors Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles, California. Among the attendees were Governors Rod Blagojevich (IL) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA). (The Terminator and The Auctioneer were playing their part in the birthing of the new “impending disaster” just as much as Condi Rice, Bush and Rumsfeld played their part in creating the “Mushroom Cloud” scenario with Iraq).  Mr. Obama had prepared a speech to address the conference via video. From the speech:

“Few challenges facing America – and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.”

We are presented with a doomsday scenario that seems to pale in to insignificance compared to the current Financial Armageddon which is approaching with ever greater speed. Action must be taken or otherwise we will be paddling canoes to the food shelter next year. The statement is meant to scare the population in to accepting more control over their lives by presenting themselves as the Saviors.  The statement is actually a motley collection of disproved assumptions. The consensus on Global Warming is seriously fragmented and former IPCC scientists are coming out of the organization in droves. They attest to political manipulation, gross misrepresentation of scientific studies to comply with the official line and a Heretic hunt for the unbelievers reminiscent of the Dark Ages. Climate skeptics have been likened to “Flat Earthers”. The irony in this is that the Earth was found to be round by using scientific deduction whereas Global Warming has been concocted through the selective manipulation and outright falsification of scientific data.

The recent Global Warming conference in Poznan in Poland was visited by 650 eminent scientific minds to refute the very basis of the Global Warming debate. Though Al Gore had said previously that the facts are in and the debate is over, it would seem he has a long way to go before he convinces everybody. The statements of these scientists have been compiled in to a minority report on the U.S. Senate committee on Environment and Public Works. Here are some of quotes..

“Anyone who claims that the debate is over and the conclusions are firm has a fundamentally unscientific approach to one of the most momentous issues of our time.”  – Solar physicist Dr. Pal Brekke, senior advisor to the Norwegian Space Centre in Oslo. Brekke has published more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the sun and solar interaction with the Earth.

“The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC “are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity.” – Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico 

“The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse. It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round…A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid vanished without a trace. As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact,” Andrei Kapitsa, a Russian geographer and Antarctic ice core researcher

“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?” – Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

 

“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.” – Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

“The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds.” – Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.

Look at the report linked above to see all the observations made on the current debate which Al seems to think has been settled. A group of these scientists also sent a letter dated 14 July this year to the U.N. Secretary General to “ask you to redress the lack of scientific integrity of the UN’s Climate Change Panel (IPCC) and to stop making reactionary and futile ‘Climate Change’ recommendations that hold back the developing world.” As an addendum to the latter data is included that disproves the assertions of the IPCC and exposes grave manipulation and outright fraud. Yes Al, the facts are in and the debate is far from over.

If we assume that Global Warming is indeed a political potpourri of half truths and lies, then we have to see why so much trouble has gone in to its creation. One simple answer?  Money. When we look at the campaign donors to Obama’s campaign, you could be forgiven your inevitable cynicism when we see the list contains the biggest players on Wall St.

JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have already benefitted enormously from the T.A.R.P… JP Morgan Chase used some of it to buy Washington Mutual for $1.9 Billion and Bear Sterns $1.1 billion. JPMorgan along with Goldman Sachs control the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation which is responsible for reporting on the derivatives market. Citigroup after receiving Billions in taxpayer money to try and get them out of a hole, have been using the money to create new derivatives that will be overseen by the DTCC. The interdependence between these Wall St. giants and their revolving door with Government power has been amply demonstrated by the policies of Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson. While there was unlimited money for the banking giants, the taxpayer was ignored and robbed. These are the same players who financed the new administration and packed the ranks of Obama’s transition team with its acolytes.  Remember Obama voted without hesitation for the Bailout Bill and encouraged his fellow democrats to do likewise. So what does Obama owe his benefactors?

By ignoring the real science and perpetuating Al Gore’s fraudulent disaster scenario, Obama has taken up the torch and will carry it high for the profit of those who bankrolled him in to office. It will come as no surprise that Goldman Sachs has bought in to the Carbon offsets business. That is exactly what it has become; a huge business opportunity that will bring enormous potential for profit. The article sums it up quite succinctly “that banks buying into the offsets business could benefit if a federal carbon-trading system took hold in the United States. President-elect Barack Obama favors such a system, but some experts think that the financial crisis will cause Congress to delay passing a cap-and-trade bill.” So now we can see the dots connecting between a project which started as a “Save the Planet campaign” to a lucrative business venture. Obama’s insistence that Global Warming is top priority only goes to show just how quickly he intends to make good on his deal with Wall St.. Even Al Gore himself has his own investment in the Carbon Trading scam through his firm Generation Investment Management. Everybody except the general public, whose welfare, we are told, is such a top priority, is getting on the latest Investment gravy train. They tapped out the taxpayers by bleeding them until they were dry so now it’s time for a new investment opportunity that will cause untold hardship for the poor, impose a tax burden on industries trying to get to their feet after being knocked flat and inject another poison arrow in to the real economy.
 

Andrew Hughes is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Source: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11455

                          ==========

BEA: Gross Domestic Product and Corporate Profits – Third Quarter 2008 News release:

“Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — decreased at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the third quarter of 2008, (that is, from the second quarter to the third quarter), according to final estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 2.8 percent…Most of the major components contributed to the downturn in real GDP growth in the third quarter. The largest contributors were a sharp downturn in PCE, a deceleration in exports, a smaller decrease in imports, a deceleration in nonresidential structures, a larger decrease in equipment and software, and a deceleration in state and local government spending. Notable offsets were an upturn in inventory investment and an acceleration in federal government spending.”

http://tinyurl.com/2d5zdv (www.bea.gov)

                          ==========

Retailers Want In on Stimulus Plan

24 Dec 2008

The country’s largest retail trade association asked President-elect Barack Obama Tuesday to add a series of sales tax-exempt shopping days to a coming economic stimulus package in an effort to revive consumer confidence and spur spending. The National Retail Federation called for three periods of sales tax-free shopping that would last 10 days each in March, July and October 2009.

At:

http://tinyurl.com/85utea (online.wsj.com)

From: CLG News

                          ==========

CBO: Historical Effective Tax Rates, 1979 to 2005

Historical Effective Tax Rates, 1979 to 2005: Supplement with Additional Data on Sources of Income and High-Income Households, December 23, 2008, Letter to the Honorable Max Baucus, Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance.

http://tinyurl.com/8emluy (www.cbo.gov)

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Agencies Release Joint Mortgage Metrics Report For the Third Quarter of 2008 News release:

“The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision issued their second report on mortgage performance today showing continued increases in delinquencies and foreclosures in process. While delinquencies, foreclosures in process, and other actions leading to home forfeiture continued to rise, newly initiated foreclosures dropped by 2.6 percent from the second to the third quarter of 2008. Loan modifications continued to grow more quickly than other loss mitigation strategies, as banks and thrifts worked with borrowers to keep them in their homes while minimizing losses. The number of new loan modifications increased 16 percent in the third quarter to more than 133,000.”

http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/release/2008-150.htm

                          ==========

The latest economic updates from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas…

National Economic Update
December 22, 2008

Data released in recent weeks reflect an economy in a deepening recession.

Read more:

http://dallasfed.org/research/update-us/2008/0808.cfm

                          ==========

HAMAS and Israel: Conflicting Strategies of Group-Based Politics

The changing fortunes of the Palestinian movement, HAMAS, and the recent outcomes of Israeli strategies aimed against this group and Palestinian nationalism external to the Fatah faction of the Palestinian Authority are discussed. The example of HAMAS challenges much of the current wisdom on “insurgencies” and their containment. Efforts have been made to separate HAMAS from its popular support and network of social and charitable organizations.

Published December 2008, Authored by Dr. Sherifa D. Zuhur

http://tinyurl.com/9j7r6s

                          ==========

And now for the important news …. 

By Argus Hamilton

President Bush issued nineteen pardons Tuesday, forgiving drug dealers and embezzlers and counterfeiters and people who lied to the Department of Housing. That wasn’t the worst of it. He also gave them a seven hundred billion dollar bailout.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

                          ==========

three thousand words

Tom Toles: I just noticed something.

http://tinyurl.com/8edujc (d.yimg.com)

Elena Steier: mass destruction without bombs?

http://tinyurl.com/9n6yeb (editorialcartoonists.com)

Cartoon du Jour – By Khalil: etymology 101 – socrates vs cheney

http://tinyurl.com/8d9tpc (www.bendib.com)

HOW TO GET ON AN ATHEIST’S GOOD SIDE

By Greta Christina, Greta Christina’s Blog

Here’s nine tips for believers who want to reach out. After all, atheists are a growing movement and may soon be a force to be reckoned with.

http://www.alternet.org/story/114009/

                          ==========

RICK WARREN’S CHURCH REMOVES ANTI-GAY STATEMENTS FROM WEB SITE

By Matt Corley, Think Progress

Warren’s Saddleback Church has taken down statements that said “someone unwilling to repent for their homosexual lifestyle” would not be accepted.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/rights/114756/

                          ==========

RICK WARREN IS AN UNAPOLOGETIC CHRISTIAN RADICAL — AND THERE’S NO NEED TO APOLOGIZE FOR OPPOSING HIM

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!

Progressives are right to hold the line against Warren’s bigoted positions on abortion and homosexuality.

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/115088/

                          ==========

RICK WARREN DOUBLES DOWN, ACCUSES CRITICS OF ‘CHRISTOPHOBIA’

By Jed Lewison, Daily Kos

Rachel Maddow has the video, and takes Warren to task for his hypocrisy.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/mediaculture/115556/

                          ==========

RICK WARREN: THE SERPENT WHO HATES SCIENCE

By Lisa Derrick, Firedoglake

“From the very beginning of creation, God gave man dominion over all that was made, even over the dinosaurs.”

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/115325/

                          ==========

MERRY WAR ON CHRISTMAS — THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE

By Frederick Clarkson, The Public Eye

The Christian right has launched a permanent religious war to thwart, and even to roll back, advances in civil rights.

http://www.alternet.org/story/114798/

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Diocese Settles 1 Sex Abuse Suit … and more

Hartford Courant – United States

Paul Hebert when he attended St. Michael’s School. The diocese settled another lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by Hebert for $170000 last year.
—AP.

http://tinyurl.com/9lhkl8 (www.courant.com)

Man awarded $3.6 million in priest sex abuse case

SouthCoastToday.com – New Bedford,MA,USA

Rather, Navari charged the diocese failed to protect him from Paquette even though church officials knew of sexual abuse allegations against the priest. …

http://tinyurl.com/85f7r2 (www.southcoasttoday.com)

Priest blasts church settlement of sex abuse claim

WAND – Decatur,IL,USA

He has filed a slander suit against his accuser, the accuser’s attorneys and two organizations involved in priest abuse cases. Attorney Jeff Anderson says …

http://tinyurl.com/74a7jh (www.wandtv.com)

Brothers allege sex abuse by ex-priest

WDEL 1150AM – Wilmington,DE,USA

Two brothers are suing, saying they were abused by former diocesan priest Father Eugene Clarahan when they were altar boys in 1980. …

http://www.wdel.com/story.php?id=398758675962

                          ==========

three thousand words

Monte Wolverton: pastor rick

http://tinyurl.com/8eh3tp (editorialcartoonists.com)

Matt Davies: Um. Tolerance.

http://tinyurl.com/a7p26e (davies.lohudblogs.com)

Steve Benson: he sure knows how to pick his pastors

http://tinyurl.com/8go2ew (www.azcentral.com)

FOX NEWS SPINS HISTORY (AGAIN)

By David Sirota, Daily Kos

The New Deal was responsible for extending the Great depression, according to the “fair and balanced” propaganda channel.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/115374/

                          ==========

From Global Crisis to “Global Government” – US Intelligence: A Review of Global Trends 2025

by Andrew G. Marshall
Global Research, December 19, 2008

Introduction

The United States’ National Intelligence Council has released a report, entitled “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World”. This declassified document is the fourth report of  the Global Trends 2025: The National Intelligence Council’s 2025 Project, The report outlines the paths that current geopolitical and economic trends may reach by the year 2025, in order to guide strategic thinking over the next few decades. The National Intelligence Council describes itself as the US Intelligence Community’s “center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking,” with the tasks of supporting the Director of National Intelligence, reaching out to non-governmental experts in academia and the private sector and it leads in the effort of providing National Intelligence Estimates.

http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html
 

The report was written with the active participation of not only the US intelligence community, but also numerous think tanks, consulting firms, academic institutions and hundreds of other experts. Among the participating organizations were the Atlantic Council of the United States, the Wilson Center, RAND Corporation, the Brookings Institution, American Enterprise Institute, Texas A&M University, the Council on Foreign Relations and Chatham House in London, which is the British equivalent of the CFR.[1]
 

Among the many things envisioned in this report to either be completed or under way by 2025 are the formation of a global multipolar international system, the possibility of a return of mercantilism by great powers in which they go to war over dwindling resources, the growth of China as a great world power, the position of India as a strong pole in the new multipolar system, a decline of capitalism in the form of more state-capitalism, exponential population growth in the developing world, continuing instability in Africa, a decline in food availability, partly due to climate change, continued terrorism, the possibility of nuclear war, the emergence of regionalism in the form of strong regional blocks in North America, Europe, and Asia, and the decline of US power and with that, the superiority of the dollar.
 

The Economics of Change

The discussion of global economics begins with analyzing the potential repercussions of the current global financial crisis. It states that the crisis “is accelerating the global economic rebalancing.  Developing countries have been hurt; several, such as Pakistan with its large current account deficit, are at considerable risk.  Even those with cash reserves—such as South Korea and Russia—have been severely buffeted; steep rises in unemployment and inflation could trigger widespread political instability and throw emerging powers off course.” However, it states, “if China, Russia, and Mideast oil exporters can avoid internal crises,” they may be able to buy foreign assets, provide financial assistance to struggling countries and “seed new regional initiatives.” It says that the biggest change for the West will be “the increase in state power.  Western governments now own large swaths of their financial sectors and must manage them, potentially politicizing markets.” It continues in saying that there is a prospect for a new “Bretton Woods,” to “regulate the global economy,” however, “Failure to construct a new all-embracing architecture could lead countries to seek security through competitive monetary policies and new investment barriers, increasing the potential for market segmentation.”[2]
 

The report states that as a result of the major financial disruptions under-way and those still to come, there is a need to rebalance the global economy. However, “this rebalancing will require long-term efforts to establish a new international system.”[3] It states that major problem to overcome will be a possible backlash against foreign trade and investment by corporations, particularly in “emerging economies,” with the potential of fueling “protectionist forces” in the US; an increasing competition for resources between emerging economies such as Russia, China, India and even Gulf states; a decline in democratization, as the China-model for development becomes attractive to other emerging economies, authoritarian regimes and even “weak democracies frustrated by years of economic underperformance”; the role of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) in providing more financial assistance to developing countries than the World Bank and IMF, which could lead to “diplomatic realignments and new relationships” between China, Russia, India and Gulf states with the developing world; the loss of the dollar as the “global reserve currency,” as “foreign policy actions might bring exposure to currency shock and higher interest rates for Americans,” and a “move away from the dollar” which would be precipitated by “uncertainties and instabilities in the international financial system.”[4]
 

The dollar’s decline as a “global reserve currency” will be relegated to “something of a first among equals in a basket of currencies by 2025. This could occur suddenly in the wake of a crisis, or gradually with global rebalancing.”[5]
 

It states that for the first time in history, the financial landscape will be “genuinely global and multipolar,” and that, “redirection toward regional financial centers could soon spill over into other areas of power.”[6] It states that there is potential for a divide within the West between the US and EU, so long as they continue divergent economic policies, where Europe is more state-centric and with the US as more market-based. However, “the enhanced role of the state in Western economies may also lessen the contrast between the two models.”[7] This enhanced role of the state in economic matters is largely due to the current financial crisis.
 

Latin America
 

In outlining Latin America’s path for the next two decades, the report states that many countries will have become middle income powers, however, “those that have embraced populist policies, will lag behind—and some, such as Haiti, will have become even poorer and still less governable.” It says Brazil will become the major power of the region, but that, “efforts to promote South American integration will be realized only in part.  Venezuela and Cuba will have some form of vestigial influence in the region in 2025, but their economic problems will limit their appeal.” However, it said that many parts of Latin America will remain among “the world’s most violent areas,” and that, “US influence in the region will diminish somewhat, in part because of Latin America’s broadening economic and commercial relations with Asia, Europe, and other blocs.”[8]
 

Europe

In discussing the issue of Muslim immigration into the European Union, the report states that, “Countries with growing numbers of Muslims will experience a rapid shift in ethnic composition, particularly around urban areas, potentially complicating efforts to facilitate assimilation and integration.” Further, “the increasing concentration could lead to more tense and unstable situations, such as occurred with the 2005 Paris suburban riots.” This mass immigration and reactions of Europeans, among other factors, “are likely to confine many Muslims to low-status, low-wage jobs, deepening ethnic cleavages.  Despite a sizeable stratum of integrated Muslims, a growing number—driven by a sense of alienation, grievance, and injustice—are increasingly likely to value separation in areas with Muslim-specific cultural and religious practices.”[9]
 

The report also states that by 2025, Europe “will have made slow progress toward achieving the vision of current leaders and elites: a cohesive, integrated, and influential global actor able to employ independently a full spectrum of political, economic, and military tools in support of European and Western interests and universal ideals. The European Union would need to resolve a perceived democracy gap dividing Brussels from European voters and move past protracted debate about its institutional structures.” In other words, the move toward a European superstate will revolve around convincing the public that it is not a threat to democracy or sovereignty.
 

It further states that Europe should and likely will take in “new members in the Balkans, and perhaps Ukraine and Turkey. However, continued failure to convince skeptical publics of the benefits of deeper economic, political, and social integration and to grasp the nettle of a shrinking and aging population by enacting painful reforms could leave the EU a hobbled giant.”[10]
 

Russia: Boom or Bust?
 

The report’s focus on Russia stresses two possible scenarios. One in which Russia triumphs as an international player in the new international system, with the “potential to be richer, more powerful, and more self-assured in 2025 if it invests in human capital, expands and diversifies its economy, and integrates with global markets. [Emphasis added]” However, Russia could also take another path, where “multiple constraints could limit Russia’s ability to achieve its full economic potential,” such as a shortfall in energy investment, an underdeveloped banking sector, and crime and corruption. It also points out that a “sustained plunge in global energy prices before Russia has the chance to develop a more diversified economy probably would constrain economic growth.”[11] Could this be a veiled threat to Russia to either join into and merge with the international system, which is directed by Western elites, or face a possible economic backlash, perhaps in the form of manipulating oil prices? This strategy has not by any means been unheard of, as a look at the 1973 oil crisis and the lead up to the first Gulf War in 1991 have proven.
 

In contemplating Russia’s likely future, the report states that with a more “proactive and influential foreign policy” Russia could become an “important partner for Western, Asian, and Middle East capitals; and a leading force in opposition to US global dominance.” However, it states that, “shared perceptions regarding threats from terrorism and Islamic radicalism could align Russian and Western security policies more tightly.” In other words, perhaps increased incidents of terrorist activity in or near Russian territory can force it to align more closely with the West, if only at first in security integration. It also elaborates on the other potentiality for Russia, saying that it is “impossible to exclude alternative futures such as a nationalistic, authoritarian petro-state or even a full dictatorship.”[12]
 

Iran

The report states that there are alternatives with Iran. In one instance, “political and economic reform in addition to a stable investment climate could fundamentally redraw both the way the world perceives the country and also the way in which Iranians view themselves.” This could move Iran away from “decades of being mired in the Arab conflicts of the Middle East.”[13] Or the other option is Iran starts a nuclear arms race, continues to become the object of Western alienation, and may even become unstable and mired in conflict.

…

Complete article at:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11426

Andrew Marshall is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization

                          ==========

The latest economic updates from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas…

Regional Economic Update
December 2008

As we end 2008, mounting economic evidence suggests that the Texas economy has begun to falter.

Read more

http://dallasfed.org/research/update-reg/2008/0807.cfm

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New Chicago Fed Letter Posted – December 2009 (Number 258a)

Thursday, December 18, 2008

January 2009 Chicago Fed Letter (Number 258a) “Agricultural Markets and Food Price Inflation – A conference summary” by David B. Oppedahl

On October 2, 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago held a conference that focused on the economic impacts of volatile agricultural prices and food policy, especially their intersection with the macroeconomy through food price inflation.

Simply click on the following link to review the Fed Letter:

http://tinyurl.com/485zl7 (tracker.ease.lsoft.com)

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CBO: Factors Underlying the Decline in Manufacturing Employment Since 2000

Factors Underlying the Decline in Manufacturing Employment Since 2000 – December 23, 2008, Economic and Budget Issue Brief

“The manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy has experienced substantial job losses since 2000. During the recession of 2001 and its immediate aftermath, employment in the manufacturing sector fell by about 2.9 million jobs, or 17 percent. Even after overall employment began to improve in 2004, the decline in manufacturing employment persisted. By the end of 2007, with the slowing of economic growth, employment in the sector had edged down further, by half a million jobs. And, as of November 2008, employment in manufacturing had fallen yet again, by slightly more than 600,000 jobs. A significant number of additional losses is likely given the current weakness in the economy.”

http://tinyurl.com/7xwthb (www.cbo.gov)

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Third Quarter GDP

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Our chart comparing official and SGS Alternate U.S. GDP growth rates has been updated to reflect the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s (BEA) “final” estimate revision (it gets revised again in July 2009).

The chart can be viewed here: 

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data
(fourth chart from the top).

The data behind the chart can also be viewed and downloaded by SGS Subscribers.

John Williams also discussed the details of today’s GDP report and the implications for 4th quarter GDP in a Flash Update today (available only to SGS Subscribers.)

Best regards
The ShadowStats Team

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Fortune’s Easton misrepresented debate over Employee Free Choice Act

Fortune magazine Washington editor Nina Easton asserted: “The union-backed Employee Free Choice Act eliminates secret ballots, and declares the union the winner if a majority of employees openly sign a petition.” In fact, the EFCA does not eliminate employees’ rights to a secret ballot; as The New York Times reported, “Business groups have attacked the legislation because it would take away employers’ right to insist on holding a secret-ballot election to determine whether workers favored unionization” [emphasis added].

Read More

http://mediamatters.org/items/200812230011?lid=821856&rid=19498397

REPUBLICANS ON WHY THEY HATE UNIONS

By  Emptywheel, Firedoglake

As if you needed any more proof that the Republican attempt to break the UAW a week ago Thursday was really just a political stunt.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/workplace/114394/

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December 2008 Southwest Climate Outlook

Monday, December 22, 2008

Due to The University of Arizona holiday closure, the full version of the Southwest Climate Outlook will not be produced this month. Please select the PDF file on the SWCO webpage (link below) for updated reservoir information and maps and a December 2008 climate summary. The November 2008 information is available, and we will be back with a complete version of the SWCO in January 2009.

To access the December climate summary and reservoir maps in html format or the printer-friendly PDF file visit:

http://tinyurl.com/7l9ubz (www.climas.arizona.edu)

To access the full November SWCO visit:

http://tinyurl.com/79mvz9

Happy Holidays from the Southwest Climate Outlook staff!

Kristen E. Nelson
Associate EditorInstitute of Environment and Society
715 N. Park Ave., 2nd Floor
Tucson, AZ 85721

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And now for the important news …. 

By Argus Hamilton

President Ronald Reagan’s favorite White House egg nog recipe turned up on the Internet this week. It’s one part egg nog and three parts bourbon. The Gipper always believed in peace through strength.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

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three thousand words

Tom Tomorrow: 2008 year in review: Part 2, The end of an error.

http://tinyurl.com/7zwoc3 (www.salon.com)

Bruce Plante: … priceless!!

http://tinyurl.com/7mczbq (editorialcartoonists.com)

Tony Auth: how the grinch stole the constitution

http://tinyurl.com/8469jz (wpcomics.washingtonpost.com)

Not Your Grandfather’s Depression 

Howe Street

http://tinyurl.com/8reqc9 (www.howestreet.com)

December 23, 2008

It will be much worse, in many respects….

It is virtually impossible to overstate the dire consequences resulting from the severity of the declines recently experienced in almost all asset classes—from both a technical and fundamental viewpoint. From a fundamental perspective US consumers had come to rely on borrowing against growing asset prices to sustain their lifestyles. Most of today’s globally-interconnected economy was based upon growth in the US consumption. This game has ended badly. Asset dependency will eventually be replaced by living off of income and savings, but not after we escape from this disastrous period. As unemployment rises income generation will become increasingly difficult, and we cannot begin to save until our mountainous debt is paid off. For most of us, this is the equivalent of the world being turned upside down on our heads….

Collapses of this magnitude do not recover until after elongated periods of basing and repair – eye-catching, sharp, short-term bounces, yes; runs back to new highs, no. This is true for most all commodities with the exception of precious metals. It now appears that the end of decade “flameout rally” I had been predicting in previous commentary here and here is now in the rear view mirror. The rally did not extend as the equity rally had the end of last decade because the gains contributed to a crashing economy and the deleveraging process disproportionately punished them. Unlike gains in equity prices which tend to extend economic gains due to the wealth effect, gains in commodities prices tend to harm economic growth in a stock-market-dependent economy.

Retracement levels (corrections within the bull runs) are common – typically 38%, 50% and sometimes 62%. Drops exceeding 50% draw a major red flag and those greater than 62% are “uninvestable” in my playbook. Having said that, they are not untradeable. In fact, you can register spectacular gains if you are nimble enough to take advantage of oversold rallies before the next downtrend….

…’For many investors, this has been a glimpse into the abyss,’ says TERRANCE ODEAN, A FINANCE PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, who has studied the behavior of individual investors. ‘They have been told that if you save regularly for retirement and buy and hold, you will be fine. Now, people see a possibility that this will not be the case.’” The hopeless optimists will once again wrongly argue that the negative sentiment is a bullish contrarian indicator and that now is time to buy…it’s always time to buy for them.

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EIA, the Nation’s clearinghouse for energy statistics – This Week in Petroleum (TWIP)

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

This Week in Petroleum (TWIP) has been updated to the EIA website:

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp

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[Dallas Fed] Texas Subprime Mortgages, Mexican Economy, Financial Crisis

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Southwest Economy
Issue 6, November/December 2008
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

In this issue…

Why Texas Feels Less Subprime Stress than U.S.

http://dallasfed.org/research/swe/2008/swe0806b.cfm

Except for a brief period, Texas homebuyers relied more eavily than borrowers nationwide on subprime mortgages. Yet, troubles with these loans aren’t as severe in Texas.

How Much Will the Global Financial Storm Hurt Mexico?

http://dallasfed.org/research/swe/2008/swe0806c.cfm

Two decades ago, the global financial shocks seen today almost surely would have pushed Mexico into financial chaos. Fortunately, the country’s recent transformation makes such a collapse a remote possibility.

Richard W. Fisher On the Record:

Working Our Way Through the Financial Crisis

http://dallasfed.org/research/swe/2008/swe0806e.cfm

The most striking and truly new part of the recent financial cycle was the mistake of replacing sound judgment with the mathematization of risk.

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SEC Approves Interactive Data for Financial Reporting by Public Companies, Mutual Funds News release:

“The Securities and Exchange Commission has voted to require public companies and mutual funds to use interactive data for financial information, which has the potential to increase the speed, accuracy and usability of financial disclosure and eventually reduce costs for investors. With interactive data, all of the facts in a financial statement are labeled with unique computer-readable “tags,” which function like bar codes to make financial information more searchable on the Internet and more readable by spreadsheets and other software. Investors will be able to instantly find specific facts disclosed by companies and mutual funds, and compare that information with details about other companies and mutual funds to help them make investment decisions…Investors can begin seeing this new information at http://idea.sec.gov.”

http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-300.htm

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“Small” Change in Bailout Language Preserves Executive Pay

Source: Washington Post, December 15, 2008

When Congress drafted the $700 billion financial bailout bill, they intended to limit Wall Street executives’ sky-high pay. To do this, they included a process for reviewing executive pay, recovering bonuses based on unrealized earnings, prohibiting “golden parachutes” and punishing firms that break the rules. But just before the bill passed, the Bush administration insisted Congress make one little change in the bill’s wording that pertained to that provision. The change said that penalties would only apply to firms that sold their troubled assets at an auction, since that was how the Treasury Department originally said it planned to use the money. But auctions have not been used to dispose of bad assets after all, and Bush’s change effectively created a loophole allowing companies that take bailout money to circumvent restrictions on top executives’ lavish pay. Senators on the Finance Committee are considering whether they should amend the law to assure the enforcement mechanism applies to firms that participate in the bailout.

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On Fox, Barnes, Krauthammer echoed conservative claim that CRA played key role in subprime crisis

On Special Report, Fred Barnes and Charles Krauthammer echoed other conservatives in claiming that the Community Reinvestment Act and efforts to expand affordable housing are at least in part to blame for the home foreclosure crisis. But as experts have noted, the CRA does not govern the vast majority of subprime lenders.

Read More

http://mediamatters.org/items/200812230007?lid=821852&rid=19498397

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Pardons and Accountability

Monday, December 22, 2008

BRUCE FEIN, bruce@thelichfieldgroup.com

Author of the book “Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy,” Fein recently wrote the piece “Bush the Pardoner’s Tale” published in the Washington Times. He wrote: “The Founding Fathers expected that pardon abuses would be deterred by presidential impeachments. During the Constitutional Convention, George Mason worried that a president might use the pardon power to evade rather than achieve justice by ‘pardon[ing] crimes which were advised by himself,’ or before formal accusation ‘to stop inquiry and prevent detection.’ But James Madison, father of the Constitution, answered that the constitutional deterrent or remedy would be impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate: ‘If the president be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds [to] believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty.’”

http://tinyurl.com/9ernpu (washingtontimes.com)

From: Institute for Public Accuracy

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Former British Foreign Secretary: Al Qaeda is Not a Real Group, Just a U.S. Propaganda Campaign

Global Research, December 24, 2008

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com

Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook says:

The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US. Cook has previously written:

Al-Qaida, literally “the database”, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Cook is merely confirming what others have said. Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told the Senate that the war on terror is “a mythical historical narrative”.

And see this Los Angeles Times Article, reviewing a BBC documentary entitled “The Power of Nightmares”, which shows that the threat from Al Qaeda has been vastly overblown (and see this article on the people within the U.S. who are behind the hype).

Not only has the U.S. government hyped Al Qaeda, but it has issued numerous fake terror alerts to scare people.

There is a word for intentionally creating fear in order to manipulate opinion for political ends: terrorism.

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National Security Archive Update, December 23, 2008 – “We can bomb the bejesus out of them all over North Vietnam.”

Archive Publishes Treasure Trove of Kissinger Telephone Conversations

Comprehensive Collection of Kissinger “Telcons” Provides Inside View of Government Decision-Making;

Reveals Candid talks with Presidents, Foreign Leaders, Journalists, and Power-brokers during Nixon-Ford Years

For more information contact:
William Burr/Thomas Blanton – 202/994-7000

http://www.nsarchive.org

Washington, DC, December 23, 2008 – Amidst a massive bombing campaign over North Vietnam, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon candidly shared their evident satisfaction at the “shock treatment” of American B-52s, according to a declassified transcript of their telephone conversation published for the first time today by the National Security Archive. “They dropped a million pounds of bombs,” Kissinger briefed Nixon. “A million pounds of bombs,” Nixon exclaimed. “Goddamn, that must have been a good strike.” The conversation, secretly recorded by both Kissinger and Nixon without the other’s knowledge, reveals that the President and his national security advisor shared a belief in 1972 that the war could still be won. “That shock treatment [is] cracking them,” Nixon declared. “I tell you the thing to do is pour it in there every place we can… just bomb the hell out of them.” Kissinger optimistically predicted that, if the South Vietnamese government didn’t collapse, the U.S. would eventually prevail: “I mean if as a country we keep our nerves, we are going to make it.”

The transcript of the April 15, 1972, phone conversation is one of over 15,500 documents in a unique, comprehensively-indexed set of the telephone conversations (telcons) of Henry A. Kissinger–perhaps the most famous and controversial U.S. official of the second half of the 20th century. Unbeknownst to the rest of the U.S. government, Kissinger secretly taped his incoming and outgoing phone conversations and had his secretary transcribe them. After destroying the tapes, Kissinger took the transcripts with him when he left office in January 1977, claiming they were “private papers.” In 2001, the National Security Archive initiated legal proceedings to force the government to recover the telcons, and used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the declassification of most of them. After a three-year project to catalogue and index the transcripts, which total over 30,000 pages, this on-line collection was published by the Digital National Security Archive (ProQuest) this week.

Kissinger never intended these papers to be made public, according to William Burr, senior analyst at the National Security Archive, who edited the collection, Kissinger Telephone Conversations: A Verbatim Record of U.S. Diplomacy, 1969-1977. “Kissinger’s conversations with the most influential personalities of the world rank right up there with the Nixon tapes as the most candid, revealing and valuable trove of records on the exercise of executive power in Washington,” Burr stated. For reporters, scholars, and students, Burr noted, “Kissinger created a gift to history that will be a tremendous primary source for generations to come.” He called on the State Department to declassify over 800 additional telcons that it continues to withhold on the grounds of executive privilege.

The documents shed light on every aspect of Nixon-Ford diplomacy, including U.S.-Soviet détente, the wars in Southeast Asia, the 1969 Biafra crisis, the 1971 South Asian crisis, the October 1973 Middle East War, and the 1974 Cyprus Crisis, among many other developments. Kissinger’s dozens of interlocutors include political and policy figures, such as Presidents Nixon and Ford, Secretary of State William Rogers, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Robert S. McNamara, and Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin; journalists and publishers, such as Ted Koppel, James Reston, and Katherine Graham; and such show business friends as Frank Sinatra. Besides the telcons, the Kissinger Telephone Conversations: A Verbatim Record of U.S. Diplomacy, 1969-1977 includes audio tape of Kissinger’s telephone conversations with Richard Nixon that were recorded automatically by the secret White House taping system, some of which Kissinger’s aides were unable to transcribe.

Visit the Web site of the National Security Archive for more information.

http://www.nsarchive.org

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And now for the important news …. 

By Argus Hamilton

Valkyrie opens Thursday starring Tom Cruise about the German war hero who tried to kill Hitler with a bomb. He won the role after another actor bowed out. Part of Mel Gibson’s plea agreement with the Malibu judge is that he never plays a Nazi again.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

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three thousand words

David Horsey: bailout by the numbers

http://tinyurl.com/ax4e5v (seattlepi.nwsource.com)

Walt Handelsman: The Updated List

http://tinyurl.com/78gmxb (politicalirony.com)

Tim Eagan: … that’s the glory of the unfettered market …

http://tinyurl.com/8yaa2y (editorialcartoonists.com)