The banker who wouldn’t say sorry

The banker who wouldn’t say sorry

By Sean Farrell and Nick Clark

October 14 2008

He may have been forced to resign as chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland after going cap in hand to the Government for up to £20bn, but there was one thing Sir Fred Goodwin could not utter. Sorry is always the hardest word. Sir Fred, who earned £4.1m last year, said he would not have chosen to leave in the circumstances under which he is stepping down, but declined invitations to apologise for events that have seen RBS transformed from one of the top 10 banks in the world to a state-controlled lender.

RBS had already tapped shareholders for £12bn in June to shore up its threadbare safety buffer, but the record rights issue did nothing to maintain confidence. The bank was left exposed by its takeover of the Dutch bank ABN Amro last year and was hit by £5.9bn of losses this year after expansion into racy credit markets, including parcelling up sub-prime loans in the US.

Asked if he would like to apologise for the ABN deal, Sir Fred said: “The takeover of ABN Amro is not the cause of all this. We would be having a lot of these write-downs and difficulties and the world would still be in a financial crisis.” He will leave once he has handed over to Stephen Hester, the boss of British Land. Sir Fred said he would waive his right to a £1.2m payoff when he leaves, but he will be entitled to an annual pension £579,000.

Sir Tom McKillop, the chairman, who will stand down at next year’s annual meeting, said there was “some contrition” about the bank’s plight. Johnny Cameron, who runs the financial markets business that incurred the credit losses, left the board yesterday. His fate will be decided by Mr Hester.

Andy Hornby, the chief executive of HBOS, and his chairman, Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, will also lose their jobs when Britain’s biggest mortgage lender is swallowed by Lloyds TSB early next year. Mr Hornby is forfeiting his £940,000 payoff and Lord Stevenson will waive £710,000.

Sir Fred is just one of several victims of a crackdown on the City bonus culture championed yesterday by the Prime Minister. Senior executives at Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and Lloyds TSB are set to miss out on an almost £20m payday this year after Gordon Brown promised to wage war on bonuses for the bailed-out bankers.

Announcing the £37bn rescue package for banks, the Prime Minister attacked the culture of excessive bonuses, saying he wanted to “bring an end to rewards for failure”, adding: “The guiding idea is fair reward for hard work, effort and enterprise, not incentives for irresponsibility or excessive risk-taking for which the rest of us have paid.” He said the banks need to create “a system of remuneration founded on long-term success, not short-term irresponsibility”.

Mr Brown’s warning was backed by a notice from the Financial Services Authority, which wrote to all the chief executives of UK banks complaining that “inappropriate” bonus schemes were contributing to the crisis in the markets. The FSA’s chief executive, Hector Sants, wrote of the “widespread concern that inappropriate remuneration schemes may have contributed to the present market crisis”.

Three of the four other directors at RBS also received seven-figure performance fees in 2007. RBS said it would ban the bonuses this year, and look at an incentive scheme based on share awards from next year. At Lloyds, the chief executive, Eric Daniels, was awarded a bonus of £1.7m last year, part of an executive bonus pool worth £5.9m.

HBOS executives shared £3.9m. Peter Cummings, chief executive of corporate business, received a bonus of £1.6m, while chief executive, Andy Hornby, was awarded £449,000.

While the bonus crackdown will apply to board directors, RBS insisted yesterday that it would continue to offer “competitive” remuneration packages. City recruitment experts said bank staff below the top level were likely to continue to receive large payments, depending on performance.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research reported last week that bonuses in the City could plunge by more than half this year. in 2008, the bonus pool was £8.5bn. The research group has already slashed its predictions from £5bn, and predicted it could hit as low as £3.6bn as bonuses are restructured and headcount is cut.

The investment bankers tend to take the headlines when it comes to giant bonus payments. Among these were Bob Diamond, the president and head of investment banking at Barclays. His base salary was £250,000 last year, but with bonuses and options, his total remuneration was worth £18.5m.

Jon Moulton, the boss of the private equity group Alchemy Partners, told the Treasury Select Committee that linking bonuses to employee performance over just a year was “absolutely wrong”. “Salaries can be high but it’s the incentive payments that do the damage,” he said.

The FSA’s letter comes after the regulator held a series of “high level” discussions with London firms over their remuneration policies. it intends to visit the companies who have received the letter but would not become involved in setting remuneration levels.

The TUC criticised the regulator’s move as too soft yesterday. Brendan Barber, the general secretary, said: “Today’s FSA letter … simply sets out boxes to tick, and it has no teeth. We take the rather old-fashioned view that bankers, like the vast majority of people at work, should be paid a proper wage for doing a good job, and should not require bonuses to get up in the morning.”

The banking business: The bosses and their bonuses

HBOS: Andy Hornby, Chief executive
Salary: £940,000
Bonus: £450,000
Total: £1.39m

Lloyds TSB: Eric Daniels, Chief executive
Salary: £960,000
Bonus: £1.81m
Total: £2.77m

Barclays: John Varlet, Chief executive
Salary: £980,000
Bonus: £1.43m
Total: £2.41m

RBS: Fred Goodwin, Chief executive
Salary: £1.29m
Bonus: £2.86m
Total: £4.15m

Source

Stock Markets Recovering

Oct 13 2008

Japan’s stock market soared in early trading Tuesday, leading a second-day rally in Asian stocks after Wall Street staged a dramatic comeback from its worst week ever.

Sparked by global efforts to fix the world’s crippled financial system, Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index jumped 1,079 points, or 13 per cent, to 9,355. The Japanese financial markets were playing catch-up because they were closed Monday for a public holiday.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX200 index traded more than five per cent higher after the government announced plans to inject $10.4 billion Australian ($8.4 billion Cdn) to strengthen the country’s economy.

Markets in South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand and Taiwan also climbed five per cent or more.

The advance came after the Dow Jones industrial averages on Monday jumped more than 930 points, its biggest single-day point gain yet.

Traders reacted with relief to moves by the U.S. government to inject capital into major banks and get lending flowing again among companies. That followed signals that European governments were putting up nearly $2 trillion to safeguard their own banks.

“The governments are ensuring that no matter what happens, they’re not going to allow another major institution to fail,” said Nicole Sze, an investment analyst at asset manager Bank Julius Baer & Co. in Singapore. “…You’re seeing a reversal of the panic selling, and we think a temporary bottom has been found.”

Source

U.S. stock indexes closed up more than 11 per cent Monday as governments around the world committed trillions to easing the global credit freeze.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up more than 936.42 points, or 11.1 per cent, at 9,387.61

It was the Dow’s biggest single-day point gain yet, a stunning turnaround after its worst week on record. The blue-chip index recovered nearly half of the 1,874 points it lost last week.

The Nasdaq composite closed up 11.8 per cent and the S&P 500 advanced 11.6 per cent.

Canadian markets were closed Monday for Thanksgiving.

The U.S. markets were responding to injections of billions of taxpayer dollars, pounds and euros into the Western world’s leading banks.

European governments — Britain, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and Portugal — have committed up to $2.3 trillion to support banks.

The British government said Monday it will inject nearly $75 billion into three of the country’s largest banks to prevent the institutions from collapsing. The move means the government is effectively taking over the Royal Bank of Scotland and will also hold a large share of Lloyds/TSB and the Halifax Bank of Scotland, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.

A German government spokesman said Monday that Berlin had put together a package worth $780 billion to provide fresh capital for banks, guarantee loans between banks and cover potential losses.

In the U.S., the government is working on its $700-billion US financial rescue plan, consulting with six private law firms to determine the best way to buy stakes in a number of banks.

The plan to buy shares, announced by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson late Friday, is intended to get capital quickly into financial institutions. It’s seen as a faster way to do that than the original plan, which involved buying bad mortgage-related derivatives.

The European countries and the U.S. are trying to get capital into banks quickly so they will start lending again, providing credit to people and companies on which the economy depends. The freeze in lending, the result of banks’ fears that they won’t be repaid, could tip the Western economies — and the world — into a recession.

Stock prices also rebounded in Europe and Asia on Monday after a week that saw huge losses on markets all over the world.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index jumped 10.2 per cent Monday. Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 8.3 per cent, Germany’s DAX 11.4 per cent and France’s CAC-40 11.2 per cent.

Japanese markets were closed for a holiday.

Source

Markets fight back around the world

London’s leading share index jumped more than 4 per cent today as markets continued to rally in the wake of efforts to shore up the global financial system.

The FTSE 100 Index was up more than 190 point after an hour, with the banks taking part in the Government’s £37 billion rescue plan clawing back some hefty losses seen yesterday.

Royal Bank of Scotland, which is in line to receive £20 billion, was up 12 per cent, while merger partners HBOS and Lloyds TSB were up 11 per cent and 7 per cent respectively.

Trading was boosted by surging global markets overnight as investors cheered co-ordinated efforts to stabilise the financial sector.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 soared 14 per cent, its biggest one day rise, while New York’s Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 11 per cent, the index’s biggest daily jump since the Great Depression.

Australian shares finished up 3.7 per cent in the wake of a government package was announced to boost the economy via one-off cash hand-outs to families and pensioners.

In Hong Kong, shares rose 3.2 per cent. The benchmark Hang Seng Index closed 520 points higher at 16,832, after earlier soaring to 17,141.

In London, energy-facing stocks were making good progress as oil prices ticked up on commodity markets. BP was nearly 7 per cent up, with rival Royal Dutch Shell 6 per cent higher.

Retailers were also edging ahead despite data from the high street showing like-for-like sales fell 1.5 per cent in September.

Marks & Spencer was up more than 1 per cent, with Sainsbury’s enjoying a 3 per cent rise.

There were mixed fortunes for Barclays and HSBC, two banks not turning to the Government for extra funds. Barclays was 6 per cent higher while First Direct owner HSBC was steady.

ETX Capital broker Manoj Ladwa said: “Everyone is relieved that the market is up.

“We have probably seen the short-term lows in the market, with some of the volatility also calming down.

“After the recent falls, some of the stocks out there do look fairly interesting now.”

European indices were also firmly on the front foot, with Germany’s Dax up nearly 4 per cent, and France’s CAC 40 also up 4.6 per cent.

European governments have said they are allocating more than 1 trillion euro (£780bn) to protect the region’s banks through guarantees and other emergency measures.

So far Germany has approved a bank rescue plan worth up to 500 billion euro (£391bn), with France spending about 350 billion euros (£273bn).

The US is also expected to unveil details of a plan to take stakes in banks, following steps by the UK and European leaders.

Yesterday executives from leading US banks were summoned by the Bush administration to Washington to work out a plan to get loans moving again

London’s Footsie leapt more than 8 per cent yesterday, its second biggest one-day gain, as investors digested the banking rescue package.

Shares in RBS, HBOS and Lloyds TSB – in which the Government is set to be a major shareholder – fell heavily despite the surge as investors faced the prospect of seeing their stakes diluted. The banks will also not be paying any dividends until their taxpayer loans are repaid.

Source

U.S. bailout may include $250 billion for bank stock: official

Bush announcement said to be set for Tuesday morning
October 13, 2008
The U.S. government plans to provide new insurance for banks and spend as much as a quarter-trillion dollars to buy bank stock, an industry official said Monday night after banking executives and federal officials met to revamp the largest bailout in the country’s history.

President George W. Bush was to announce the expansion Tuesday morning.

The administration will use perhaps as much as $250 billion US of the $700 billion US bailout program recently passed by Congress to purchase stock in U.S. banks, providing the banks with desperately needed capital, the official said.

Reuters said the plan is expected to inject $125 billion of capital into the top nine U.S. banks as part of a $250 billion transfusion for the industry. It attributed that detail to a source briefed on the matter.

In addition, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will temporarily provide insurance for loans between banks, charging the banks a premium for doing so, the banking official told the Associated Press. That should unlock a vital credit flow that has come under severe stress, putting the health of the entire economy in peril.

The official, who spoke with knowledge of the Treasury Department meeting with the bankers Monday, commented only on condition of anonymity because the details of the plan had yet to be released.

This FDIC program would take the form of providing insurance for new senior preferred debt that one bank would sell to another bank. This debt would be insured by the FDIC for three years, helping to unlock bank-to-bank lending, which has fallen dramatically because of fears about repayment in the face of billions of dollars of bank losses because of bad loans, primarily in mortgages.

The official said the FDIC was also considering providing unlimited insurance on bank deposits for an unspecified period. In response to the crisis, Congress as part of the bailout bill temporarily boosted the deposit insurance cap from $100,000 to $250,000.

The administration’s proposals were explained during a meeting at the Treasury Department that had been called by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and included the top executives of the largest banks in the country. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke also participated.

Source

Jews protect Palestinians in harvest of hate

QUIQUE KIERSZENBAUM

Hellela Siew helps Jamal Otman Koarik pick olives near the intensely hostile Itamar Jewish settlement

In the shade of the trees where they have been picking olives all morning, in this wadi, south-east of Nablus, a Palestinian farmer, Jamal Otman Koarik, and two of his daughters share a lunch of home-baked bread, zatar, oil, courgettes and salad with three visitors. It’s a bucolic scene that could have happened any time in the past century. But what makes it notable in 2008 is that the guests who have been helping Mr Koarik pick the olives are Israeli Jews: a rabbi, an anthropologist and a youth worker, Hellela Siew.

Born in Tel Aviv, Ms Siew served in the army, took a university degree, then a teacher’s diploma. Thirty-six years ago, she took the tough decision to emigrate to London, telling her parents: “I won’t come back until there’s peace.” Ms Siew, who is now 64, remains an Israeli citizen but now lives with her British husband in Hebden Bridge. She has kept to her word, except that each autumn she comes back to stay in her hometown with her relatives and spends each day of the two-month harvest season picking olives on Palestinian farmland in the West Bank.

And Ms Siew does that for a purpose. Up on the ridge above us, you can see the red roofs of Itamar, a notably hard-line Jewish settlement, and she is here to help protect the Palestinian farmers from the threat of settler violence which has so often scarred the olive harvests.

Last year, she was in a group in the South Hebron Hills confronted by settlers who fired shots from a pistol and an M16 assault rifle, despite the presence of the army and police. “Then one of the soldiers said, ‘Look, one of them is coming down with a jug of water for you’. The settler emptied the jug over me. It was full of human shit.”

Mr Koarik, the olive farmer, says he has no difficulty distinguishing between the settlers who fired on and burnt out his tractor during the harvest six years ago and the Jews who come to help him. “I welcome them here like they are my family,” the 40-year-old says. Looking up at the settlement, Ms Siew tries to explain, as a lifelong opponent of the occupation, why she comes each year. “When there was the big demonstration against the Iraq war in England people carried banners saying ‘Not in my name’. I’m trying to do something against what is being done in my name.”

Ms Siew was brought here by the Israeli group Rabbis for Human Rights, led by Rabbi Arik Ascherman who has led a never-ending campaign to persuade the army and police to enforce the Palestinian olive growers’ right to farm their land despite the settlers’ attempts to stop them. RHR has made a special effort this year to maximise its volunteer numbers because of the growing incidence of settler violence against Palestinians in the past few months.

Rabbi Ascherman says that apart from one notably ugly and violent confrontation with aggressive settlers in Hebron last week, the harvest has been relatively quiet. But it has only just begun. And while the army insists that it will “strive” to ensure as normal a harvest as possible, Rabbi Ascherman is considering returning to the Supreme Court because of restrictions he says the military is still imposing on the farmers even in areas opened up under a 2006 order made by the Court.

Asked why he and his volunteers make this often risky mission each year, the US-born rabbi says “if we really believe” the Biblical text that all human beings are made in God’s image, “we have got to put our money where our mouth is and be here in an active way to defend human rights”. And he also cites the “dialogue of the olive groves” in which Israelis and Palestinians who “have to live and die here together” have “no choice but to communicate” if they also work together. “I think this is not only the just and right and Jewish thing to do, but it’s the self-interested thing to do. We are going to survive.”

Source

Well ther might be hope to stop the war yet. At least some are realizing the Palistinaians have rights.

MP3 Players Could Cause Future Hearing Loss

October 13 2008

A EU study found that one in 10 people with personal MP3 or CD players could suffer permanent hearing loss because their music is too loud.

Those who listen at high volume for more than one hour per day over five years risk permanent harm, researchers said.

The Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement: “There has been increasing concern about exposure from the new generation of personal music players which can reproduce sounds at very high volumes without loss of quality.”

The study said the risk for hearing damage depends on sound level and exposure time and more and more young people were exposed to the significant threat that leisure noise posed to hearing.

Between 50 and 100 million people are estimated to use personal music players on a daily basis.

The study was conducted because of concerns over widespread use of music players among young people.

EU safety standards restrict the noise level of personal music players to 100 decibels but there is increasing concern about excessive exposure to music at high volumes.

However, many listeners turn up the volume above harmful levels of over 89 decibels to block out noise from traffic or public transport. The scientists calculated the number of people in that risk category at between five and 10 percent of listeners.

The Commission experts estimate personal music player sales between 184 and 246 million just over the last four years, of which MP3 players range between 124 and 165 million.

“I am concerned that so many young people … who are frequent users of personal music players and mobile phones at high acoustic levels, may be unknowingly damaging their hearing irrevocably,” said Meglena Kuneva, the EU’s consumer affairs commissioner.

The Commission will consider changes to safety standards to protect youngsters and look into whether technical improvements could minimize hearing damage.

Source

Terror detention extention, in Britian Voted Down

Oct 14 2008

Ministers are surveying the wreckage of their plans to extend pre-charge terror detention to 42 days after dropping them in the face of a crushing House of Lords defeat.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced the climbdown in an emergency statement to MPs shortly after the proposal was thrown out by a massive majority of 191 in the upper chamber.

Her proposal that it would instead be the subject of a separate Bill to be put to Parliament if needed in an emergency was dismissed by opponents as a figleaf.

And Labour critics warned that any such attempt to revive it was doomed to failure.

Speculation had been rife that the measure, which previously scraped through the Commons by just nine votes thanks to backing by the Democratic Unionist MPs, would be dumped by the Government.

Ministers will hope the presentation of the new Bill will give them a degree of political cover as they walk away from what was a major plank of their counter-terror policy.

They were left with little choice but to ditch the plans when faced with the prospect of a bruising return to the Commons.

Opposition in the Lords was spearheaded by senior figures including two former MI5 directors, two ex-Lord Chancellors, a former chief constable and former attorney general Lord Goldsmith.

Ms Smith, who claimed the support of leading anti-terror police officers, accused opponents of ignoring the threat of terrorism facing the country.

With Gordon Brown sitting beside her, Ms Smith said: “I do not believe, as some honourable members clearly do, that it is enough to simply cross our fingers and hope for the best.”

Source

Prime Minister Harper officially endorses North American Union!

YOU WANT HARPER IN A MAJORITY GOVERNMENT?? CANADA WILL BE LOST, PLEASE VOTE SMART.

Mr. Harper’s speech at the CFR on 25 September 2007 affirms Mr. Harper’s Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPPNA) commitment to hand over Canada to full control by no later than 2010, to a political fraternity which is associated with the current U.S. Bush administration. Mr. Harper’s government apparently reports to the CFR.

In effect, the Government of Canada appears to be governed not from a sovereign Parliament in Ottawa, but run through a New York City-based political fraternity, which seeks to replace a democratic form of government, with the rule of society by a “Council of Wise Men”.

The architects of such a fascistic government look upon their vision of society, to be much more “efficient” in dealing with the need to vanquish enemies, i.e. “terrorists”.

Be sure to check out the sight for the rest of the information.

Source information and Video Presenting Stphen Harper

He wants to sell out the country

The Three Amigos are still at it.

A Detailed Description of Management Strategy Fraud

A Detailed Description of Management Strategy Fraud

Prepared For The People by Professor Glen Chase

Glen Chase, a Professor of Systems Management, has released a third report detailing the methodical fraud that the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Management perpetrated to attempt to create a bogus emergency eradication program for the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). This third report demonstrates the fraud and deception within the program strategy that CDFA Management used and is continuing to use to qualify for $100’s of millions of dollars of emergency taxpayer funds, which were intended for real emergencies.

fraud-deception-cdfa-lbam-eradication-program.pdf
download PDF (809.0 KB)

October 7, 2008, Santa Cruz, California

CDFA MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FRAUD REVEALED BY PROFESSOR

PROFESSOR RELEASES THIRD REPORT DETAILING THE FRAUD AND DECEPTION OF THE CDFA LBAM ERADICATION PROGRAM.

Contact: Professor Glen Chase
glenchase [at] aol.com

FRAUD AND DECEPTION: THE CDFA LBAM ERADICATION PROGRAM
A Detailed Description of Management Strategy Fraud
Prepared For The People by Professor Glen Chase

Glen Chase, a Professor of Systems Management, has released a third report detailing the methodical fraud that the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Management perpetrated to attempt to create a bogus emergency eradication program for the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). This third report demonstrates the fraud and deception within the program strategy that CDFA Management used and is continuing to use to qualify for $100’s of millions of dollars of emergency taxpayer funds, which were intended for real emergencies.

CDFA’s main method of fraud is “Fear and Solution.” CDFA Management creates a false fear and then comes to the rescue with a solution. The false fear is the nearly harmless moth that CDFA characterizes as the moth of mass destruction. CDFA falsifies that eradication is necessary and possible, and extorts taxpayer emergency funds for the solution. It is very much like paying the CDFA to keep the sky from falling.

The second method of CDFA fraud finds the CDFA supplying other agencies with false information so that the work of other agencies results in conclusions that support the CDFA lies. Other agencies are generally innocent, but under pressure for immediate results with limited budgets and not suspecting CDFA deception, other agencies accept the information and data that CDFA supplies them.

The third method of CDFA fraud is to load the decision making processes with people who have something to gain by the fake eradication program going forward and exclude independent and honest analysis by scientists and others who are not dependent on or under the wing of CDFA.

The fourth method is repetition of message: “Safe,” “Safe,” “Safe,” “Safe,” “Safe,”
“Just a Pheromone,” “Just a Pheromone,” “Just a Pheromone,” “Just a Pheromone.”
It is interesting to learn that there is not a single drop of natural moth pheromone in the entire bogus eradication program, and not a single scientific document that concludes that any method used by CDFA in their program is safe.

The fifth method of fraud and deception is damage control. When the CDFA is caught lying, or the false information they deliver is found to be incorrect, A.G. Kawmanura, the secretary of the CDFA, makes the statement that they will need to communicate better, implying that the lies and deception were just a misunderstanding.

Currently, the theme of fraud that the CDFA is using is a classic example of the false fear that CDFA creates. After public hearings and courts convened and found that NO DAMAGE had occurred from this moth, CDFA has rebounded with the slogan: “Once the damage is seen, its too late.” CDFA uses this slogan to make us believe that LBAM is like a locust attack on our State or the wall of a dam breaking and that we should have fixed the crack ahead of the devastation. This is all scary stuff. But there is ZERO truth and ZERO relationship of LBAM to the fear scenario that the CDFA has created in their new slogan. It is without precedent in the known history of this earth that LBAM suddenly devastates crops, forests or backyard gardens, as the CDFA management would want us to believe.

Professor Chase is furthering the call for a truly independent State investigation of CDFA and the LBAM eradication program. An independent investigation into the CDFA LBAM eradication program will quickly demonstrate the erroneous messages delivered and the unnecessary LBAM eradication program perpetrated by CDFA. “An investigation will isolate the real scientists within the CDFA from the Management because the scientists at the CDFA will unlikely commit perjury to support the fraud and deception that has been delivered by CDFA Management to California’s agriculture community, elected officials, the press and the general population.”

Professor Chase’s first report (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/07/15/18516449.php) revealed the falsehoods CDFA delivered after June 19 when courts and public pressure stopped the CDFA from aerial spraying synthetic pheromone based pesticides directly on cities. Professor Chase’s second report (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/08/19/18527832.php) revealed the fraud and misinformation delivered by CDFA from fall 2007 until June 19, 2008.

Glen Chase is a Professor of Systems Management specializing in Environmental Economics and Statistics. Glen served as an Associate Professor teaching graduate level courses in Systems Management at USC for eight years. He has taught at multiple universities in the Central Coast area, including The Naval Post Graduate School, The Monterey Institute of International Studies and Cal State University, Monterey Bay. Glen is also a Management Consultant. Currently, Professor Chase develops management systems to assist organizations that cater to the improvement of life for children with disabilities.

Background Note: the area of Systems Management within Chase’s field involves management, communication and integration of complex and often highly specialized sciences. Systems Management was not generally recognized 100 years ago, when a single scientist could be a master of all areas related to his/her work. Today, it is essential.

Source

My, My this sounds almost like the

1. Bailout Strategy.
2. War in Iraq Strategy.

What a familiar ring it all has. Oh I must be hallucinating, couldn’t be could it?

Bush would never dream of LIEING would he?

McCain was not tortured, PoW guard claims

By John Hooper

October 14 2008

The Republican US presidential candidate John McCain was not tortured during his captivity in North Vietnam, the chief prison guard of the jail in which he was held has claimed.

In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Nguyen Tien Tran acknowledged that conditions in the prison were “tough, though not inhuman”. But, he added: “We never tortured McCain. On the contrary, we saved his life, curing him with extremely valuable medicines that at times were not available to our own wounded.”

McCain, who fell into enemy hands after his plane was shot down in 1967, has frequently referred to being tortured and has cited his experiences as a reason for vigorously opposing the endorsement by the Bush administration of the use of techniques such as “water-boarding” on terrorist suspects.

Shortly after his release in 1973 McCain told US News & World Report that his prison guards had beaten him “from pillar to post”. After being worked over at intervals for four days, he said, he had become suicidal and agreed to sign a “confession” admitting to war crimes.

In his 1999 autobiography, Faith of My Fathers, he described how after his capture he was subjected to inhuman treatment in an effort to force him to disclose his ship’s name, squadron number and the target of his final mission. He was threatened with the withdrawal of medical assistance and, while still suffering from his crash injuries, his guards “knocked me around a little”.

For his service in Vietnam and his actions as a POW, McCain was awarded the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, the Navy Commendation Medal and the Purple Heart.

Tran, now 75, said McCain reached Hanoi with the worst injuries he had seen in a downed pilot. But he denied torturing him, saying it was his mission to ensure that McCain survived. As the son of the US naval commander in Vietnam, he offered a potential valuable propaganda weapon.

However, recommending McCain for a medal after the war, his former cellmate, the much-decorated Colonel George Day, said the admiral’s son had forced his interrogators to “drug him and torture him to get any cooperation”, according to a letter in the US National Archives cited earlier this year by the Washington Post. Day said McCain suffered “torturous abuse”.

Tran told Corriere that McCain was sent to hospital the day after he was brought to Hanoi and stayed there for a month. “I never lost him from sight. I was frightened a doctor or nurse might do him harm.”

Tran dismissed as “absolutely impossible” perhaps the most famous story from McCain’s autobiography: that one Christmas, a guard traced a cross in the mud in front of him. “My men were all communists and atheists,” he said.

As to why McCain, then 36, left North Vietnam with prematurely grey hair, Tran denied it was because of mistreatment. “It’s that in prison you think too much.”

Source

How the banking bail-out works

Oct 13 2008

The government’s emergency £37bn recapitalisation of the UK banking sector will mean widespread, fundamental changes at Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and Lloyds TSB. Barclays, Santander and Nationwide are also acting now to increase their capital bases.
RBS
The sheer speed of RBS’s decline is as dramatic as the parlous state it now finds itself in. Just a year after leading the €71bn (£56bn) acquisition of ABN Amro, the bank will be majority-owned by the UK government in return for up to £20bn of fresh capital. Chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin is carrying the can, leaving shortly and being replaced by Stephen Hester. The chairman, Sir Tom McKillop, will retire next April.

RBS will raise £5bn from the government by issuing preference shares (which are higher priority than standard shares and provide a protected dividend). These will yield 12% a year. It is also issuing £15bn of new ordinary shares at 65.5p each, which will be underwritten by the government. If the government takes up the full allocation, as expected, it will own around 60% of RBS.

RBS also admitted that it expects to suffer impairment charges and further asset write-downs in the fourth quarter of this year. Shareholders will not receive a dividend until the government’s preference shares have been repaid.

It has also yielded to the government’s call for an end to excessive pay. The board will not receive a bonus this year, and any bonuses earned in 2009 will be paid in shares.

Board members who are dismissed will receive a severance package which is “reasonable and perceived as fair”, it added, suggesting that existing contractual obligations will no longer carry much weight.

Shares in RBS have slumped by 85% in the last year. Having changed hands for 450p a year ago, they fell to below 60p this morning.
Lloyds TSB
The £5.5bn capital injection into Lloyds TSB is tied into its takeover of HBOS. The government had agreed buy £1bn of preference shares, and Lloyds will also raise £4.5bn through a rights issue at 173.3p a share which is underwritten by the government.

Lloyds has also forced HBOS to accept a lower price. It will now pay 0.605 Lloyds shares for each HBOS share, down from 0.833 shares each. This values HBOS at around £6.9bn, although the value of the all-share offer will continue to change in the current volatile markets. Unless other investors step in, the goverment will be left owning 43.5% of the enlarged bank. Existing Lloyds shareholders will own 36.5%.

It pledged to continue using HBOS’s site on The Mound as its Scottish Headquarters, to keep holding its AGM in Scotland and to continue to print Bank of Scotland notes.

Directors have been asked to take this year’s bonus in shares rather than cash. Lloyds also warned that any board member that loses the confidence of the board will be dismissed “at a cost that is reasonable and perceived as fair”.

Shares in Lloyds TSB have fallen around 63% in the last 12 months, down from 550p a year ago to just over 200p today.
HBOS
HBOS had little choice but to accept a lower offer from Lloyds TSB, having seen its shares plunge as much as 40% on a single day last week.

It will receive £11.5bn from the government – £3bn in preference shares that will yield 12% a year, and £8.5bn through a rights issue at 113.6p a share. The government’s preference shares will be converted into Lloyds TSB shares once the merger goes through.

Britain’s biggest mortgage lender also admitted that market conditions have deteriorated significantly in recent weeks. It blamed falling house prices and the problems in the credit market, warning that underlying results for 2008 will be significantly lower than previously thought.

The chief executive, Andy Hornby, and chairman, Dennis Stevenson, will both quit when the Lloyds takeover goes through, ending speculation over their futures. Both had been blamed for HBOS’s demise.

Shares in HBOS have nosedived by 90% in the last year, from 880p each to just 85p today.
Barclays
The Treasury had been expected to take a stake in Barclays. However, the bank said today it hopes to raise £9.5bn in fresh capital from investors without government help.

Under a plan that has been approved by the FSA, Barclays wants to raise more than £6.5bn through a series of new share issues, underwritten by the government, and at least a further £3.5bn through scrapping its dividend and other measures.

The bank said that an “existing shareholder” had agreed in principle to take up £1bn of shares, but if the rest of the issue is not taken up then the burden is likely to fall on the taxpayer.

In a blow to shareholders, Barclays is axing its annual dividend for this year, which would have been payable in April 2009, saving £2bn. It intends to resume dividend payments in the second half of next year. The bank will save another £1.5bn through “balance sheet management” and “operational efficiencies”.

If Barclays fails to raise capital from investors, it can call on the government for funding. The terms would be negotiated at the time and could be “less favourable” than those made available to other banks today, Barclays said.

Barclays also reported that it had traded “satisfactorily” in July and August. In September, profit before tax “very significantly” exceeded the monthly run rate for the first half of the year, thanks to strong contributions from global retail, commercial banking and investment banking, and strong inflows of new customers and customer deposits.

Shares in Barclays, which peaked at 769.36p in February 2007, have dropped more than 60% over the past 12 months. At the start of the year, they were worth 490.83p; this morning, they traded at 232p.
Alliance & Leicester/Abbey
Although it is not part of the UK government’s rescue bid, Spanish bank Santander has agreed to invest £1bn in its UK operations. It owns Abbey and Alliance & Leicester, which were previously estimated to have a Tier 1 ratio – a measure of capital strength – of 8% at the end of the year. The injection will improve the ratios by 1.25 percentage points. Santander also recently agreed to buy Bradford & Bingley’s branches and deposits.
HSBC
HSBC said it would not be seeking government help as it had strengthened its capital base last week with an equity injection of £750m. The injection, funded through the group’s own resources, represented 1% of the total shareholder equity of the HSBC group.

“This fulfilled the bank’s agreed commitment under the UK government scheme,” said a spokesman. “We have no plans to utilise the capital being made available by the UK government.” However, HSBC welcomed the government’s efforts to “support the UK banking sector and restore confidence”. It added that it is doing its bit to stabilise the financial markets by providing “significant amounts of liquidity” to the London sterling interbank market ­— lending around £4bn of three-month and six-month money to other banks — and said it hoped others would follow suit.
Standard Chartered
Standard Chartered bank also announced that it had met the capital requirements set out in last week’s scheme and said it would continue to do so. Like HSBC, it welcomed today’s deal but declined to opt into the government’s recapitalisation scheme. “The group is well capitalised and highly liquid,” it said in a statement. “We will continue to manage our capital proactively, raising capital when and where necessary, consistent with regulatory requirements and the growth and needs of the business.
Nationwide
Nationwide is also not turning to the government for help. Britain’s biggest building society insisted today that is has no need for additional funds, but has agreed to support the government’s plan by raising £500m in fresh capital.

“This is a prudent step which reflects unprecedented market conditions,” said Nationwide, adding that it would raise this additional capital “through normal market channels between now and our financial year end.”

Source

Bookies taking bets on the reccession, Now there’s a thought worth pondering.

Bookies hoping ‘recession’ will be a winner

By Shane hickey

Ireland

Saturday October 11 2008

NEVER ones to pass up on an opportunity, the bookies are now taking bets on the recession.

Punters hoping to lay some money on Tuesday’s Budget can get odds of 2/1 that Finance Minister Brian Lenihan will mention the words “economic downturn” during his speech.

Boylesports is also offering evens that “credit crunch” will not feature in the speech and 6/4 on “recession” not being used .

Following on from Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny‘s commitment to cut 5pc from his salary next year, Paddy Power is now offering 2/1 that Taoiseach Brian Cowen will do the same.

Other candidates the bookie has put forward for a drop in pay are Labour leader Eamon Gilmore (3/1), Aer Lingus chief Dermot Mannion (4/1), Pat Kenny (25/1), FAI chief John Delaney (40/1) and RTE economics editor George Lee (66/1).

Source

I am amused. Beats gambling in the stock market, your more apt to win on this one.

Much better odds I must say. Who said there wasn’t an upside to the banks going bust.

The could also bet on how many times Bush will say the same phrase over and over again.  He surely does love to repeat himself.

Economist, deregulation and loose fiscal policies lead to Meltdown

Bush critic wins 2008 Nobel for economics

Oct 13, 2008

By Anna Ringstrom, Sven Nordenstam and Jon Hurdle

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – U.S. economist Paul Krugman, a fierce of the Bush administration for policies that he argues led to the current financial crisis, won the 2008 Nobel prize for economics on Monday.

The Nobel committee said the award was for Krugman’s work that helps explain why some countries dominate international trade, starting with research published nearly 30 years ago.

While the research for which he won the prize was not obviously partisan, Krugman is best known as the author of columns and a blog called “The Conscience of a Liberal” for the New York Times. He has long been tipped as a likely winner.

A professor at Princeton University, the 55-year-old Krugman argues that President George W. Bush’s zeal for deregulation and loose fiscal policies helped spark the current banking meltdown.

He said news of the prize took him by surprise. “I took the call stark naked as I was about to step into the shower,” he told a news conference at Princeton on Monday afternoon.

Speaking by telephone to a news conference earlier, Krugman offered a snap analysis on the turbulent times.

“We are now witnessing a crisis that is as severe as the crisis that hit Asia in the 90s. This crisis bears some resemblance to the Great Depression.”

Praising world leaders’ efforts to staunch the financial bleeding, particularly in Europe, he added: “I’m slightly less terrified today than I was on Friday.”

World policy makers met at the weekend, after a black week on financial markets, to agree on radical measures to rescue banks, revive liquidity and avert a global recession.

It was the second year in a row that a major Nobel prize was awarded to an American known for his strong criticism of Bush — last year’s peace prize went to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for his work on climate change.

Asked at the Princeton news conference if he saw a trend of Nobels going to people who were anti-Bush, Krugman said “A lot of intellectuals are anti-Bush.”

The prize committee dismissed any suggestion its choice was influenced by the current crisis or political considerations.

“I don’t think the committee has ever taken a political stance,” committee secretary Peter Englund told Reuters. “The real, dramatic crisis is an event of the last month or so, which is in practice after the committee took its decision.”

COMMON SENSE VOICE

Krugman’s latest column in the New York Times, published on Monday, praised Britain for thinking clearly and acting quickly to address the crisis, unlike the United States. He mused: Did British leader Gordon Brown just save world markets?

Britain unveiled a plan last week to bolster ailing banks, and on Monday it waded in with 37 billion pounds ($64 billion) of capital, a move that could make the state the banks’ main owner.

Readers of Krugman’s blog posted hundreds of comments congratulating him as an accessible voice of common sense.

“Sometimes it feels as though you are the only sane person in America,” said a writer who identified himself as Martin Gruner Larsen.

Krugman said he was encouraged by recent steps to address the crisis and said it was vital there should be a combination of capital injection and guarantees for banks.

Commenting on policy proposals from the two U.S. presidential candidates, he said: “It would be kind of nice if we did have a sophisticated government, but that may change.”

Asked about accountability for the crisis, Krugman said the financial system had outgrown the regulatory system.

“There is a lot of grotesque greed under this crisis but greed isn’t illegal,” he said.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the prestigious 10 million crown ($1.4 million) award recognized Krugman’s formulation of a new theory that addresses what drives worldwide urbanization.

“He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography,” the committee said. “Krugman’s approach is based on the premise that many goods and services can be produced more cheaply in a long series, a concept generally known as economies of scale.”

Krugman’s theory clarifies why trade is dominated by countries that not only have similar conditions but also trade in similar products.

Source

US Deliberately causing Hostility in Pakistan

Pakistan claims dozens of militants killed

Oct. 12 2008

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistani security forces clashed with militants in two tribal areas in northwest Pakistan, killing more than 50 alleged insurgents, a paramilitary statement and a government official said Sunday.

Meanwhile, intelligence officials said a suspected U.S. missile strike in another tribal area Saturday had killed five people, but none was believed to be a foreign al Qaeda fighters.

Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, in a vague, two-sentence news release, said its paramilitary troops killed 27 alleged insurgents, including two “important commanders,” in the Orakzai tribal region. The clashes followed Friday’s suicide bombing in Orakzai that killed dozens of anti-Taliban tribesmen.

The statement claimed a dozen suicide bombers were among those killed Sunday by the security forces. Frontier Corps officials could not immediately be reached for more details.

Also Sunday, security forces waging an offensive in the Bajur tribal region killed at least 25 more suspected militants, government official Jamil Khan said.

Khan told The Associated Press that helicopter gunships shelled militants’ bunkers overnight in the Charmang area of Bajur, killing at least 10 people. During the day Sunday, 15 more suspected militants were killed in the clashes, he said.

Insurgents in the area were fighting a local tribal militia formed to rid the area of militants. Two local tribesmen also were killed, Khan said.

Al Qaeda, a largely Arab network, and the Taliban, which has both Afghan and Pakistani components, have established bases in Pakistan’s northwest tribal regions, where they are said to plan attacks on U.S. and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan.

Under U.S. pressure, Pakistan has carried out military offensives against insurgents while also trying to woo various tribes to turn against the militants. The military has said its two-month-old offensive in Bajur has killed more than 1,000 insurgents.

But the U.S. has recently signaled its impatience with Pakistani efforts by apparently staging several cross-border assaults from Afghanistan.

On Saturday, two unmanned drones were seen above the town of Miran Shah in the North Waziristan tribal region minutes before missiles hit a house near a matchbox factory, two intelligence officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. They said reports from local informants indicated there were no foreigners among the dead.

The latest strike brings to at least 12 the number of cross-border missile attacks believed carried out by the U.S. since mid-August. More than 100 people, most of them alleged militants, have been killed, according to figures provided to The AP by Pakistani intelligence officials.

The United States rarely confirms or denies the attacks. Pakistani leaders routinely criticize the strikes as violations of their sovereignty, but those protests have had little tangible effect on the alliance between the two countries.

Source

The US is causing more problems then solving,  with their missile attacks. Of course this is also an act of war against Pakistan. They have absolutely no right to send missiles or to even cross their boarder in any act of aggression.

Well the result of this however very disturbing. Seems they want to cause more war instead of ending it. That is very obvious to me and should also be quit obvious to anyone else.

In case anyone missed this:

September 15 2008

A controversial new US tactic to mount counter-terrorist operations inside Pakistan has met with fresh hostility, it emerged yesterday, as Pakistani tribesmen representing half a million people vowed to switch sides and join the Taliban if Washington does not stop cross-border attacks by its forces from Afghanistan.

Reacting to American missile attacks in north Waziristan last week, which followed an unprecedented cross-border ground assault earlier this month, tribal chiefs from the area called an emergency meeting on Saturday.

Source

Well isn’t that just peachy? And the US attacks are helping HOW? Maybe if anything, the US should back off before they start,  yet another full scale war.  The more they irritate others the more problems They Cause.

Cause and affect. One doesn’t have to think to hard, to see where the US aggression is leading.

Seems to me it is a deliberate act of aggression just start another war. I guess those investors in war companies in the White House haven’t made enough money on the wars they have going already. How much profit do they want?

How many more people do they want to kill another million or two?

Seems the US just want to take over the entire planet.

They are stirring up a lot of anger around the world.

China is angry with them.  Russia is angry with them.

Well the world as a whole is not to impressed with the financial crisis they caused.

Do we want more war?

Enough is Enough.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am sick of their illegal actions, their wars, their mismanagment, their lies,  their propeganda and their killing.

Tactics versus strategy in Afghanistan

From September 15 2008

US Deliberately causing Hostility in Pakistan

From September 15 2008

A controversial new US “tactic” to mount counter-terrorist operations inside Pakistan has met with fresh hostility, it emerged yesterday, as Pakistani tribesmen representing half a million people vowed to switch sides and join the Taliban if Washington does not stop cross-border attacks by its forces from Afghanistan.

Reacting to American missile attacks in north Waziristan last week, which followed an unprecedented cross-border ground assault earlier this month, tribal chiefs from the area called an emergency meeting on Saturday.

“Seems their Tactics are causing more problems then solving.” Of course for many in the White House keeping the war going means more money in their pockets there are something like 151 congressmen who have invested heavily in companies that supply weapons for the US Government which is a total conflict of interest. The “Carlyle Group(George Bush SR)” makes a fortune from the weapons industry. Expanding their war is profitable. They make millions and millions of dollars from it. Why ever would they want to stop it?

Oct 11 2008

By Myra MacDonald

Reading the latest spate of news reports about U.S. policies in Afghanistan, one thing strikes me as troubling — the failure to distinguish between tactics and strategy. Military boffins argue about the exact meaning of those two words, but for the purposes of argument, let’s say that tactics are a means to an end, while strategy contains within it an understanding of the end to be attained.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave us an idea of the end earlier this week when he talked of reconciliation with the Taliban, while excluding anyone belonging to al Qaeda. ”There has to be ultimately, and I’ll underscore ultimately, reconciliation as part of a political outcome to this,” Gates said. ”That’s ultimately the exit strategy for all of us.”

Now let’s look at tactics.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the United States is considering training up Afghanistan’s tribal militias to fight the Taliban.  “The plan is controversial because it could extend the influence of warlords while undermining the government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul,” the newspaper says. It adds that, “by focusing on tribal militias and local security, the approach resembles the U.S. campaign in Iraq, where former Sunni insurgents are paid to guard their neighborhoods.”

The New York Times picks up the same theme in its own story about the forthcoming National Intelligence Estimate – a report by American intelligence agencies due to be finished after the November presidential election — which it says concludes that Afghanistan is in a “downward spiral” and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban.

“The administration is considering whether the United States should devote more effort to working directly with tribal leaders in far-flung provinces, and possibly arming tribal militias, to fight the Taliban in places where Afghanistan’s army and police forces have been ineffective,” the New York Times says.

“The Bush administration had long resisted making tribal elders a centerpiece of American strategy in Afghanistan. American officials had hoped instead that strong national institutions like the Afghan Army could protect the Afghan population, but the escalating violence this year has forced a reassessment of the value of the tribal system for counterinsurgency operations.”

As a tactic, training or arming tribal militias does not contradict an overall strategy of forcing the Taliban into peace talks, presumably after they have been suitably weakened by their fellow Afghans. Even the 19th century Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz argued that one of the objectives of war was to destroy the effective strength of the enemy.

But it does beg the question of the kind of Afghanistan the United States wants to leave behind. Does it want a strong central government, in which a tamed Taliban, minus al Qaeda, has a share of the power and a stake in the prosperity of a unified country? Or a decentralised Afghanistan in which tribal militias hold the power — potentially recreating the tensions that led to the outbreak of civil war after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989?

It’s a question that needs to be asked. What is the strategy for Afghanistan — not just for the United States getting out, but also for the fate of the country after western troops leave? Only when you know that, can you judge which tactics make sense.

And there is all the more reason to ask that question given that the jury is still out on the sustainability of U.S. gains in reducing violence in Iraq, which Washington attributes partly to its policy of arming Sunni insurgents there.  According to this McClatchy story, a nearly completed National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing security gains achieved over the last year.

Arming one group of people to fight against their countrymen may or may not be a useful tactic.  But it’s not nation-building. So how does it fit into the overall strategy for Afghanistan? Or is the main objective of this war, seven years after the U.S.-led invasion, now to find an “exit strategy”?

Source

Iraq says time for British troops to Go

Oct 12 2008

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was quoted on Monday as saying it was time for British combat forces to leave the south of the country because they were no longer needed to maintain security and control.

Maliki told The Times newspaper in an interview there might still be a need for their experience in training Iraqi forces and on some technological issues, but the emphasis was now on business links.

He thanked U.S.-led forces for their “important help” but said “the page has been turned.”

“The Iraqi arena is open for British companies and British friendship, for economic exchange and positive cooperation in science and education,” he said.

Britain was U.S. President George W. Bush’s main ally in the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein from power.

British troops have helped train the Iraqi army and navy, while a special forces unit based in Baghdad has been used to strike at militants from al Qaeda and other groups. Britain has 4,100 troops in Iraq at present.

Maliki referred to what was widely seen as low point in Britain’s presence in Iraq when its forces left their base in the southern city of Basra last year for a base at the airport on the outskirts.

“They stayed away from the confrontation, which gave the gangs and militias the chance to control the city,” said Maliki.

“The situation deteriorated so badly that corrupted youths were carrying swords and cutting the throats of women and children,” he said.

“The citizens of Basra called out for our help … and (Iraqi forces) moved to regain the city.”

By Avril Ormsby

Source

Calling and Eight Year Old Child a Terroist is just too much To Swallow

Oct 12 2008

SCRANTON, Pa. — Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden on Sunday accused the McCain campaign of trying to distract Americans from their economic woes by launching “unbecoming personal attacks” at Barack Obama.

Appearing at a boisterous rally near his childhood home, Biden said John McCain’s campaign is desperate to change the subject from the financial crisis that has wiped out many Americans’ college and retirement savings. He said McCain has resorted to making “ugly inferences” about Obama in the waning days of the campaign.

“Every single false charge, every single baseless accusation is a simple attempt to get you to focus on something other than what’s affecting your family and your country,” said Biden, who was cheered by some 6,000 people packed into a sports arena in the blue-collar city where he lived until he was 10.

“It’s good to be home!” said the Delaware senator, who was joined on stage by former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton — the former Democratic presidential candidate who has her own roots in Scranton, where her father grew up and is buried.

The battered economy may be helping Obama in Pennsylvania, where he has surged ahead in polls over the past few weeks. A daily tracking poll conducted by Muhlenberg College has shown Obama with a double-digit lead over McCain since Oct. 3.

If Obama and Biden win Pennsylvania, Sen. Clinton predicted Sunday, “there’s no way they can lose the White House.”

Clinton beat Obama in the Pennsylvania primary by 10 percentage points, in part by appealing to the socially conservative, blue-collar voters in Scranton and many other parts of the state. Biden’s counterpart, Republican Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is scheduled to campaign in the city on Tuesday.

Biden on Sunday cast McCain as out of touch with the concerns of everyday Americans who are worried about their jobs and the declining values of their homes. He said McCain doesn’t know how to get the nation’s economy back on track and would simply continue the policies of President Bush.

“Nothing less than our prosperity and our security is on the ballot,” he said.

At an Obama rally in Roanoke, Va., later Sunday, Bill Clinton said Bush’s response to the financial crisis is helping Obama’s campaign.

“The administration keeps plowing an Uzi’s worth of bullets into the McCain-Palin ticket every time they have something else go wrong,” Clinton told an evening rally of several hundred people gathered at Roanoke’s downtown Market Square. “It’s good politics for us.”

Clinton praised the Democratic candidate’s plan for financial recovery and his proposals for health care reform, an issue that he said nobody has taken on “since Hillary and I got our brains beat out trying to fix.”

Later, before a crowd of more than 4,000 at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Clinton said: “In six of the last eight years we have seen what happens if (Republicans) do everything they want to do. This is not about good people and bad people, this is about good ideas and bad ones.”

In Pennsylvania, Biden defended a comment he made in an ABC interview last month in which he said the wealthiest Americans should show their patriotism by paying more in taxes. The Obama campaign has said it plans to hike taxes on people earning more than $250,000, but would cut taxes for those making less. Republicans have criticized Biden over the remark.

Accusing businesses and wealthy individuals of using “offshore tax loopholes” to hide $100 billion a year in income, Biden told the crowd Sunday, “It is unpatriotic when you earn your money in the United States of America and you hide it offshore to avoid taxes, making sure YOU have to make up the difference.”

His voice rising, the Delaware senator shouted: “It is unpatriotic to take $100 billion offshore and not pay your taxes! That is unpatriotic! So I don’t need a lecture on patriotism! I’ve had it to here!”

The McCain campaign pointed out that Biden and both Clinton had raised questions about Obama during the Democratic primaries.

“As voters in northeast Pennsylvania continue to raise serious questions about Barack Obama’s judgment and character, it is befitting that they will now hear from the three leading voices who sounded the alarm on the risk of an Obama presidency,” said McCain spokesman Paul Lindsay.

Source

Is there a “Dirty Tricks” Campaign to Discourage Black Voting in November?

Has a nationwide campaign been launched to reduce minority, especially African American, voter turnout for the presidential election in November?

First there were the mysterious flyers circulated in predominantly Black neighborhoods in Philadelphia. They falsely warned potential African American voters that undercover agents would be stationed at polling stations on Election Day and they would arrest anyone with pending criminal charges or even unpaid parking tickets who tried to vote.

Then there was Thursday’s New York Times investigative report which found that “Tens of thousands of eligible voters had been removed from rolls or blocked from registering” in at least six states by an exclusion method which “appears to violate federal law.” The Times report found no evidence those election officials were intentionally trying to reduce minority voter turnout. The states involved were Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina.

However, officials were reportedly trying to enforce the so-called “Help America Vote Act of 2002.” This was a law pushed by Republicans which many Democrats charged was an attempt to allege voter fraud in a manner which would discourage minorities from voting.

Finally, there is the current legal campaign against ACORN. In the past few months, the activist group has registered a record 1.3 million people to vote – mostly in low income Black and Hispanic communities. But last week, 11 state investigations were announced against ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform) alleging that some of its activities amounted to voter fraud.

The White “Fear Factor” and Concern for Barack Obama’s Safety

By Robert N. Taylor

“The Black man has tears and the white man has fears” was once a widely accepted description of racial history in America. The adage was especially descriptive of a lot of white behavior because it appears that some group or class of white men was forever developing an irrational, unjustified fear of something and then attacking, invading, bombing or attempting to kill it.

There is no better example of this than the irrational, illegal and immoral U.S. invasion of Iraq which was driven by a self-generated fear of non-existent weapons of mass destruction by George Bush and the cabal of neo-conservatives which currently run this country.

How does all of this relate to Senator Barack Obama? It is the fear factor. Last week the campaign for president took an ugly new turn. The FOX Cable News Channel with its false claim of being a fair journalistic organization, white talk radio with its wild rantings and the John McCain campaign itself with Sarah Palin as the attack dog are trying to convince as many white Americans as possible to fear Barack Obama.

The Republican campaign has now gotten so desperate as to suggest that Obama is a terrorist sympathizer because he once sat on the board of a charity foundation with 1960s radical William Ayers. Its makes no difference that Ayers’ alleged “terrorist” activities took place when Obama was just eight years old and that the charity board on which the two sat was actually sponsored by a Republican.

This is all dangerous because attacking Obama, not on the issues, but as a person who needs to be feared feeds into an ugly and horrendous aspect of white American history – the irrational fear of the Black man leading to acts of violence against him. It began after the Civil War when Southern whites expected former slaves to launch a campaign of revenge and continues down to the present day.

The impact of these recent efforts was seen clearly during a rally McCain and Palin held in Lacrosse, Wisconsin last week. There you had whites expressing heartfelt fear that Obama might indeed be elected president. They were using words like “frustrated,” “outraged,” and “mad as hell” that Obama was not only leading McCain in the polls but appeared to be pulling away. Things got so ugly that by the end of the week McCain was forced to step forward and try to damper down the rhetoric. But Palin continued with her speeches and the Republican campaign committee continued with its ads.

To watch and listen to these people, you could feel their fear of and anger at Obama. There were other Republican rallies at which people were actually shouting “kill him” in reference to Obama. The shout may have actually been a call for McCain to defeat Obama but the choice of words was chilling. In another instance, a crowd took out its anger out on a Black cameraman for a major television network by hurling insults at him.

McCain with his latest television ads and Palin with her shrill speeches are actually laying the verbal and hysterical foundation for physical attacks on Obama by any unstable right-wing nut who decides to attend an Obama campaign rally. Regardless of your political leanings McCain and Palin must be denounced for their latest tactics because I believe they know exactly what they are doing.

It a tactic known as “divert attention from the real issues by generating fear of the Black man.”

The tactic has deep and ugly historical roots but it is time that it is socially and politically banned because it places Barack Obama in physical danger.

Source

Are the American people foolish enough to swallow the eight year old terrorist accusation?

If they do,  they certainly have been brain washed for sure.

What absolute nonsense.

I use to think Palin  was a pain in the neck but my opinion of her has moved down.

Obama is a well spoken, well educated man and should be treated with the same respect, the  way anyone of us would expect to treated.

Promoting bigotry on any level, should be unacceptable to all Americans.

Stating an eight year old child is a terrorist however is just pathetic.

Rates right up there with Children being gassed because someone sent out DVDs in Newspapers.

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West — the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail — were distributed by mail in Ohio, a “chemical irritant” was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain’s supporters has led to — Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.

Source

Who are the real terrorists?  Certainly not children.

Economist explains how conservatives engineered financial free-fall

Meltdown

Economist James Galbraith shows how conservatives engineered financial free-fall

Reviewed by John Sakowicz

AS LIFE as we know it seemed to be ending—bailouts pushing $1 trillion on Wall Street, the stock market plunging, credit markets seized up around the world, with banks even refusing to lend to each other, never mind lending to their customers—James Galbraith and I talked. In his recent book, The Predator State, James Galbraith does what his famous father, John Kenneth Galbraith, never did: he makes a moral case. He argues that our country has been hijacked by the neoconservatives of the Bush administration. The “ideals” extolled by those neoconservatives—free trade, monetarism, balanced budgets, deregulation, privatization—are nothing more than a bunch of bull, says Galbraith. Moreover, he says, their true agenda was always greed. Taken together, these “ideals” came to represent a worldview whose basic principle was largely unchallenged by liberals. And what was that basic principle? Socialism—socialism for the rich.

During the last decade, the United States has become a nation of predators vs. the rest of us. As Galbraith explains it, neoconservatives in Washington and on Wall Street have conspired to steal elections and occupy the most powerful political and financial institutions in the land so that they might abuse that power. How does it work? When times are good, extol the virtues of privatization. Then reward politicians for betraying the public trust. Finally, let the robber barons rob the country blind. When times are bad, extol the virtues of socialism. Say you’re asking for bailouts not for yourself but for the greater good. Nationalize whole industries, like the financial sector, whatever the cost.

Here’s a quick economics lesson from Galbraith: Wall Street reinvented itself after the Glass-Steagall Act (which instituted banking controls in the Depression) was repealed in 1999. Then-Sen. Phil Gramm proceeded to deregulate every damn market you can think of: stocks, bonds, commodities, etc. Every form of debt was also “securitized” in exotic financial instruments like CMOs, CDOs and SIVs (like many military acronyms, these acronyms are innocent-sounding names for things that are harmful). Eventually, a newfangled market called swaps and derivatives was ushered in, a market that has a notional value in the hundreds of trillions of dollars—a market as esoteric as it is unregulated. Think of it as make-believe money that made very real people really, really rich. Printing this make-believe money on Wall Street was a new species of bankers called “prime brokers.”

Things were good until last summer, when Bear Stearns went bust. Then things turned bad because those really, really rich people went crazy speculating in make-believe money at the encouragement of prime brokers—and at the encouragement of the banks and broker dealers the prime brokers worked for. Words like “value” and “risk” became meaningless. Something had to give. Banks and broker dealers started going bust. First, one by one, then, in waves. But those really, really rich people were allowed to keep their money. A funny thing happened at the same time, too. Those very same ruthless capitalist archetypes became hypocrites. “We’re too big to fail,” they hollered. “You’ve got to save the rich to save the poor.”

Don’t call them neoconservatives or conservative anything, says Galbraith. Call them by their true name: predators. And Galbraith continues, predators are almost entirely responsible for the problems confronting us at this moment in history: the subprime crisis, our new national debt ceiling of 14 digits; the deepening divide between the rich and the poor; the still-persistent inequality across the spectrum of race, gender and immigration status; climate change; our collapsing bridges and other infrastructure deficit; and, last but not least, the falling dollar.

What can America do to save itself? Simple, says Galbraith. Bring back the real ideology of free markets. If Fannie or Freddie have to fail, let them fail. New mortgage guarantors will spring up. When you think about it, Fannie and Freddie were just in the insurance business, plain and simple. The market will recover. Have faith. Also, start repairing government. Publicly finance campaigns and elections. Send the lobbyists packing. Finally, start regulating again. Regulate the new Wall Street—its new products, i.e., swaps and derivatives, and its new services, i.e., prime brokerage. Robber barons cannot be expected to police themselves. And for God’s sake, stop labeling yourself and others as “liberals” or “conservatives.” Those labels are meaningless. There’s only the super-rich and the rest of us. There’s only predators and prey.

Source

Republicans will do anything to Influence Voters or Stop them from Voting

Here are a few things done to date.

Big ballot boo-boo: Osama for president?

By BOB GARDINIER

It could have been Ovama or Ofama. Or even Olama.

But with one “s” the Rensselaer County Board of Elections turned a single wrong letter into a national embarrassment Friday.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s last name is spelled “Osama” on some 300 absentee ballots mailed out this week to voters in Rensselaer County hilltowns.

Is it a Freudian slip, intentional gaffe or a mistake? Voters are sure to have opinions, and one politician pointed out that the letters “s” and “b” are not exactly keyboard neighbors.

“Of all the letters to hit by mistake,” County Democratic Chairman Tom Wade said. “Unfortunately it is a mistake which negatively impacts our Democratic candidate for president.”

The typo was first reported Friday on timesunion.com, and quickly grabbed national attention.

“It was crazy, everybody across the country called,” said Edward McDonough, the county’s Democratic elections commissioner. He said calls came in from The New York Times, the New York Post, Daily News, Wall Street Journal and Court TV.

McDonough said he was one of the people who received a misspelled absentee ballot at home, and he didn’t even notice it.

Elections officials on both sides of the aisle insist a simple typographical error caused the national embarrassment. “It was a mistake innocently done,” McDonough said. “We catch almost everything.”

Republican officials were apologetic. “We have three different staff members who proof these things and somehow the typo got by us,” said Republican Commissioner Larry Bugbee. “We really apologize.”

On Row 1A, Barack Obama’s name is spelled Barack Osama — a name bearing an unfortunate resemblance to terror mastermind Osama bin Laden – but further down on the Working Families line it is spelled correctly.

The Obama camp took the controversy in stride.

“We’re glad officials are working to correct this error and we assume it won’t happen again,” Obama spokesman Blake Zeff said.

McDonough said the absentee ballots with the error went out to voters in Brunswick, Nassau, Sand Lake, Schaghticoke and Schodack. Three voters called to report the error.

By day’s end, officials decided to issue new ballots to all 300 voters. They realized some people might cross out the misspelling and write in the correct spelling.

“Election law is quite clear that any corrections done on a ballot will nullify the vote, so to be safe, we re-issued them,” McDonough said.

One Sand Lake resident who caught the misspelling, and who asked to be anonymous, was skeptical. “It’s a little suspicious and at least grossly incompetent,” the voter said.

District Attorney Richard McNally said the incident is unlikely to produce a criminal investigation.

“Both sides are saying this is an honest mistake, so unless we find out otherwise, I don’t see it going that way,” McNally said.

Rensselaer County is the only county in the state that prints ballots in-house.

“It saves the taxpayers a lot of money,” McDonough said.

Wade said it might be time to rethink that practice.

Source

Barack Obama’s campaign for the White House is receiving increasing complaints about scam pollsters involved in dirty tricks operations to discredit the Democratic candidate.

Victims claim the fake pollsters work insinuations into their questions, designed to damage Obama. Those targeted in swing states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania include Jews, Christian evangelicals, Catholics and Latinos.

Source

This was also done as well.

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West — the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail — were distributed by mail in Ohio, a “chemical irritant” was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain’s supporters has led to — Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.

Source

The suit, filed in a Michigan court yesterday, is the latest sign of contention over voting procedures. Voting rights activists in several battleground states have reported an aggressive push by Republican elected officials and activists to make it harder to vote.

In Macomb county, Michigan, a swing constituency, Republican officials for the first time tried to use America’s housing crisis as a way of striking people off lists, the Obama camp told reporters yesterday. “There is no doubt that there is an immediate threat to the voting rights of citizens in Michigan whose names could appear on a foreclosure list…

Source

I wonder wht they will come up with next. Like fixing the Voting machines as done in the past wasn’t enough.

A little history lesson Lest anyone has forgotten.

Elections certainly can be bought as well as the Powers to be in the even they get elected.

Consumer guide and brand list for the top 25 Republican Party donors with consumer brands.

Boy they sure do give them a fortune.

Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked

by Thom Hartmann

When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida’s 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said, but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno, who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride, who Jeb beat.

“It was practice for a national effort,” Fisher told me.

And some believe evidence is accumulating that the national effort happened on November 2, 2004.

The State of Florida, for example, publishes a county-by-county record of votes cast and people registered to vote by party affiliation. Net denizen Kathy Dopp compiled the official state information into a table,  and noticed something startling.

A bit of other information about the 2004 Election

The however is Priceless

Republican senator loses to dead rival in Missouri

November 8, 2000

The late Gov. Mel Carnahan collected enough votes to beat out incumbent Republican Sen. John Ashcroft for the U.S. Senate seat from Missouri.

The incumbent Ashcroft was left running against a dead man after his opponent, the popular sitting governor, died in a plane crash on October 16. By that time, it was too late to remove Carnahan’s name from the ballot.

No one had ever posthumously won election to the Senate, though voters on at least three occasions chose deceased candidates for the House.

Lt. Gov. Roger Wilson moved up to succeed Carnahan. Wilson said he would appoint Carnahan’s widow, Jean, to the Senate seat should the deceased husband get more votes than Ashcroft. “On this night I pledge to you — rather let us pledge to each other — we will never let the flame go out,” she told supporters by speaker phone.

Ashcroft held the lead in polls until Carnahan’s death threw the race into turmoil.

On election day, no one could predict how the sympathy factor would play at the polls. Jean Carnahan used ads to make emotional appeals for “the values and beliefs that Mel Carnahan wanted to take to the United States Senate.”

Ashcroft was supported by two thirds of the voters who in exit polls said the federal budget surplus should be used to cut taxes. A majority of the voters who supported Carnahan said the surplus should go toward the national debt.

Republicans have vowed to fight Jean Carnahan’s appointment on the grounds that a candidate must be an “inhabitant” of the state, a requirement a dead person can’t fullfill. Her appointment must be approved by the Senate.

Both candidates were twice elected governor and had nine statewide victories among them.

The freshman Senator Ashcroft has a very conservative voting record. He favored term limits, was one of the first in the Senate to have his own web page, and was one of the first to say charges against Clinton might warrant impeachment.

Source

A £516 trillion derivatives ‘time-bomb’

Not for nothing did US billionaire Warren Buffett call them the real ‘weapons of mass destruction’

The market is worth more than $516 trillion, (£303 trillion), roughly 10 times the value of the entire world’s output: it’s been called the “ticking time-bomb”.

It’s a market in which the lead protagonists – typically aggressive, highly educated, and now wealthy young men – have flourished in the derivatives boom. But it’s a market that is set to come to a crashing halt – the Great Unwind has begun.

Last week the beginning of the end started for many hedge funds with the combination of diving market values and worried investors pulling out their cash for safer climes.

Some of the world’s biggest hedge funds – SAC Capital, Lone Pine and Tiger Global – all revealed they were sitting on double-digit losses this year. September’s falls wiped out any profits made in the rest of the year. Polygon, once a darling of the London hedge fund circuit, last week said it was capping the basic salaries of its managers to £100,000 each. Not bad for the average punter but some way off the tens of millions plundered by these hotshots during the good times. But few will be shedding any tears.

The complex and opaque derivatives markets in which these hedge funds played has been dubbed the world’s biggest black hole because they operate outside of the grasp of governments, tax inspectors and regulators. They operate in a parallel, shadow world to the rest of the banking system. They are private contracts between two companies or institutions which can’t be controlled or properly assessed. In themselves derivative contracts are not dangerous, but if one of them should go wrong – the bad 2 per cent as it’s been called – then it is the domino effect which could be so enormous and scary.

Most markets have something behind them. Central banks require reserves – something that backs up the transaction. But derivatives don’t have anything – because they are not real money, but paper money. It is also impossible to establish their worth – the $516 trillion number is actually only a notional one. In the mid-Nineties, Nick Leeson lost Barings £1.3bn trading in derivatives, and the bank went bust. In 1998 hedge fund LTCM’s $5bn loss nearly brought down the entire system. In fragile times like this, another LTCM could have catastrophic results.

That is why everyone is now so frightened, even the traders, who are desperately trying to unwind their positions but finding it impossible because trading is so volatile and it’s difficult to find counterparties. Nor have the hedge funds been in the slightest bit interested in succumbing to normal rules: of the world’s thousands of hedge funds only 24 have volunteered to sign up to a code of conduct.

Few understand how this world operates. The US Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, tapped up some of Wall Street’s best for a primer on their workings when he took the job a few years ago. Britain’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority, has long talked about the problems the markets could face on the back of derivative complexity. Unfortunately it did little to curb the products’ growth.

In America the naysayers have been rather more vocal for longer. Famously, Warren Buffett, the billionaire who made his money the old-fashioned way, called them “weapons of mass destruction”. In the late 1990s when confidence was roaring in the midst of the dotcom boom, a small band of politicians, uncomfortable with the ease with which banks would be allowed to play in these burgeoning markets, were painted as Luddites failing to move with the times.

Little-known Democratic senator Byron Dorgan from North Dakota was one of the most vociferous refuseniks, telling his supposedly more savvy New York peers of the dangers. “If you want to gamble, go to Las Vegas. If you want to trade in derivatives, God bless you,” he said. He was ignored.

What is a Derivative?

Warren Buffett, the American investment guru, dubbed them “financial weapons of mass destruction”, but for the once-great-and-good of Wall Street they were the currency that enabled banks, hedge funds and other speculators to make billions.

Anything that carries a price can spawn a derivatives market. They are financial contracts sold to pass on risk to others. The credit or bond derivatives market is one such example. It is thought that speculation in this area alone is worth more than $56 trillion (£33 trillion), although that probably underestimates the true figure since lax regulation has seen the market explode over the past two years.

At the core of this market is the credit derivative swap, effectively an insurance policy against the default in the interest payment on a corporate bond. One doesn’t even need to own the bond itself. It is like Joe Public buying an insurance policy on someone else’s house and pocketing the full value if it burns down.

As markets slid into crisis, and banks and corporations began to default on bond payments, many of these policies have proved worthless.

Emilio Botin, the chairman of Santander, the Spanish bank that has enjoyed phenomenal success during the credit crunch, once said: “I never invest in something I don’t understand.” A wise man, you may think.

Source

Carnage: Seven days that shook the world

Old certainties lie in pieces as markets hover on the brink of uncharted territory – and all trust has evaporated. Margareta Pagano and David Randall report

October 12 2008

It took centuries to build sophisticated free-market economies, but this weekend, it looks like it may have only taken one week for it all to unwind. Not only have stock markets fallen to their lowest levels for decades, but, more than that, the assumptions that have underpinned commercial life for years are now threatened, some possibly doomed. Banker is not trusting banker, savers can trust no one, share traders do not trust governments, leaders (including conservative ones) suddenly discovered the virtues of public ownership; and there is the very real prospect of a country in the developed world actually going bankrupt.

Today the world’s leading politicians and central bankers are working around the clock to flesh out a rescue package to prevent the crumbling financial system from cracking further. But they are now praying that the emergency package announced late on Friday night in Washington by the US Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, together with leaders from all the leading seven industrialised nations, will stabilise the world’s financial markets when they open again tomorrow. In an unprecedented move, the world’s heads of state have agreed to work together to buy shares in their banks and mortgages to prevent further systemic collapse.

Back in March, forecasters who said we were heading for the worst crash since the Wall Street crash of the 1930s were dismissed as doomsters. Today JK Galbraith’s book, The Great Crash 1929 is flying off the shelves, as everyone, from governments to financiers, seeks a template for the new commercial world, whatever that will be. But, for now, we can only try to understand what has been, not what is to come. This is how the week’s events unfolded:

Sunday

On a day that nearly everyone hoped would be confined to rest, recreation and a certain amount of sober reflection by traders around the world, German Chancellor Angela Merkel throws a pebble into hitherto calm Sabbath waters. Just 24 hours after a meeting between the four main EU economies in Paris concluded with President Nicolas Sarkozy declaring “European leaders acknowledge the need for close co-ordination and co-operation”, she follows Ireland’s example and guarantees all private deposits. It is a unilateral move that could see EU nations competing like fairground barkers to offer the best safety net for savers.

Words of a more elliptical nature come from the Chancellor Alistair Darling on The Andrew Marr Show. Asked if he was prepared to put public money into recapitalising banks, he says: “We are ready to do whatever it takes, and that is we’ve put money into the system to help banks generally. There are other measures that we will be taking too, and I’ll announce them when we’re ready to do that.” Mr Darling knows that his officials are preparing plans to recapitalise banks for some time, but couldn’t say so because the details are not yet ready, and the banks are not yet on board. But trading the next day will show that in the present febrile atmosphere, even cautious words can do damage.

And, in what was regarded by most media as a mere footnote, news comes from Iceland that the government and central bank are engaged in increasingly frantic efforts to prop up the country’s swooning banking system with an injection of £7.78bn. As the world goes to bed, the problems of a small northern island with a population about the size of Coventry’s seem the least of all our worries. Like so many of the experts’ assumptions, how wrong that would prove to be.

Monday

After Mr Darling’s comments the day before, the markets smell blood in the water. The FTSE opens at 4980.25 and within three hours it is down 300 points. Not a single firm in the FTSE 100 is rising, and, by 11am, there are only two stocks on the entire exchange that have gained. Mid-morning the price of oil falls to its lowest mark for eight months, the sort of tidings that, normally, would produce a bounce. Not today. Despite, or even because of, Mr Darling’s assurances that he is assembling a cavalry to ride to the rescue of the banks, the plunge continues. By the merciful close, the index is down 391 points, a fall of 7.8 per cent (its biggest one-day collapse), and the lowest total for four years: 4589.2.

The issues of yesterday – which, at the pace things are moving, instantly seems like yesteryear – are picked at by Mr Darling, who chips at Ms Merkel for her unilateral personal savings guarantee (by now mimicked by Sweden, Austria, Denmark and Portugal). And, as the FTSE continues its descent, the Dow takes up the theme. It ends the day 3.9 per cent down, all part of a global fall that sees $2.5 trillion wiped off world shares.

In Washington, Congress begins investigating the murky roots of the banking crisis. Before them is Richard S Fuld Jr, chief executive officer of Lehman Brothers, the largest bankruptcy in US history. Asked if it was true that he took home some £275m in compensation since 2000, Mr Fuld took off his glasses, held them, and looked uncomfortable. It’s not quite that much, he said. “We had a compensation committee that spent a tremendous amount of time making sure that the interests of the executives and the employees were aligned with shareholders,” he waffled, before admitting that he took home £172m in those years. Democrat Henry Waxman could not resist the obvious conclusion: “Even as Mr Fuld was pleading with Secretary Paulson for a federal rescue, Lehman continued to squander millions on executive compensation.” It is an issue that may yet keep American lawyers employed for years.

Tuesday

An upbeat start on the London markets, but, ultimately, a day of portents and rumours, and the growing tremors of a deeper, seismic events to come. The FTSE opens 2 per cent up, just about the time that Moscow is suspending trading on its market for an hour. By 9am the FTSE is already retreating from that early optimism.

Half an hour later comes the first of a series of shudders from Iceland. Icesave, the internet subsidiary of Landsbanki, is stopping customers – 300,000 in the UK – withdrawing their funds. And there’s soon more: Iceland, a country whose banks had swept across Europe over the past few years in a tide of acquisitions, is so short of funds that the government is having to borrow from Russia to help in the nationalisation of Landsbanki, its second-largest bank, and its currency, the krona, is being pegged. Then figures are released showing UK manufacturing output fell for the sixth month in a row, something that has not happened since Margaret Thatcher’s first year of office.

And the rumours fly. Royal Bank of Scotland has asked the Treasury for a capital injection (strenuously denied, but the firm’s shares still fall by a quarter), the Government is soon to unveil a rescue package for the banks, and, according to the BBC, they had done so in response to pressure from leading bankers. But some in Europe are not happy at the prospect of such state aid. At a meeting in Luxembourg, Czech finance minister Miroslav Kalousek says: “Politicians in Europe are going crazy. We didn’t live through 40 years of real socialism only to return to it.” He talks, but no one’s listening. The FTSE closes a hesitant 16.03 points up, and, in New York, the Dow takes a further dive by 508 points, not helped by the announcement from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that US bank losses could reach £1.4 trillion.

At 5pm, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling meet the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, and the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, Lord Turner. A No 10 spokesman denies it is an emergency meeting, but, in the present climate, what else could it be? At 7.30 comes the news from Mr Darling that he will announce a comprehensive rescue package for the banks before trading opens tomorrow. Treasury officials and bankers will spend much of the night in talks. At 8.30pm, they ring Gandhi’s, a fashionable eaterie, and order take-aways – £245 worth. It’s going to be a long night.

Wednesday

A day that could be scripted by Lewis Carroll. Before the day is even fully light, Alistair Darling announces his £500bn rescue plan: £50bn for recapitalisation of the eight participating banks, a guarantee of £250bn of new short and medium-term bank debt, and an extra £200bn to allow banks to swap mortgage-backed securities for cash. Preferential shares, probably, for the Government (ie taxpayers) in return, and, says Mr Brown, we might even make a profit. We’ve been working on this for weeks, says Mr Darling. The market’s response? Opening 2 per cent lower, it embarks on a bipolar course through the day that has moments of manic highs, but more lasting depressions. It ends more than 5 per cent down at 4367, concluding the worst three-day run in more than 20 years.

The half-point interest-rate cut (soon seen as part of a co-ordinated trim around the world) makes a difference for a while, but an afternoon IMF warning that Britain is on the brink of a recession pushes stocks towards a gloomy day’s end. Helping them on their way was the news from Iceland: more large sums heading the way of its banks (this time from Sweden), and emergency powers to take over companies, limit directors’ authority, and call shareholders meetings. The Icelandic boom, which saw the average family’s wealth rise 45 per cent in five years, is over. It, and especially the roaring expansion of its banks (which hold liabilities eight times the nation’s GDP), was all built on foreign debt. But why, apart from those adventurous private savers in Icesave, should we care?

That becomes obvious during the Chancellor’s statement to the Commons. In response to a question from George Osborne, Mr Darling confirms that British local authorities had large sums invested in what was now the world’s shakiest banking system. Within hours, the Local Government Association is calling for government help, and, in the course of an evening in which council after council coughed to savings in Icelandic banks, it seems as much as £1bn is at risk. And thus a day in which the rate cut is going to save a £150,000 mortgage payer £570 a year ends with many more people not knowing whether to call their bank manager or the Samaritans.

Thursday

Not every country is in turmoil. In China, the nation’s ruling Communists open a four-day conference relatively unscathed by the panics and financial implosions. Their economy will grow by 9 per cent this year.

Back in the parallel universe, the Dow Jones has its worst one-day fall since 1987, down 7.3 per cent to 8579, its lowest for five years. The FTSE perks up in the morning, and is still up in mid-afternoon, but it can’t resist the siren call from across the Atlantic and ends the day 52.9 down at 4313.8. Iceland takes control of another one of its banks, and closes its stock exchange. And, according to the Halifax, UK house prices are falling at a record rate, down by 13.2 per cent in the year to September. The record of the day, however, is set by Britain’s trade gap in goods – the largest deficit since 1697. Small wonder that the Church of England says that more than 8,000 have logged on to an online prayer asking for divine intervention.

And maybe they’re being answered. Not only is nationalisation (partial or otherwise) now acceptable on both sides of the Commons, there is a bidding war on which party could be most punitive on executive bonuses. The Tories, calling for a complete ban, won. Mr Brown’s strongest words were reserved for Iceland. As more councils and charities discover they could lose major funds, he fumes: “We are holding the Icelandic authorities responsible. We are demanding that the money be paid back to the local authorities. We are prepared to consider all forms of action, including to freeze assets.”

Friday

In Russia, the government offers its banks a £51bn bailout; in Japan, the sub-prime crisis claims the scalp of Yamato Life Insurance, which files for bankruptcy with $2.7bn liabilities; Germany is preparing a rescue scheme for banks; Iceland (the country) seems to be heading into liquidation; and in the US, the Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency says General Motors, Ford and Chrysler could all be forced into liquidation. The FTSE closes 8.85 per cent down on the day at 3932, ending the second-worst week in its history, having lost 21 per cent since Monday. The Dow finishes a further 1.49 per cent down. Henk Potts, director of investment strategy at Barclays Stockbrokers, said the markets were “very close to panic”.

And from Washington comes the spectacle of the most right-wing president in generations embracing the policy of near-nationalisation. His Treasury Secretary says that part of the already-announced $700bn bailout would be used to take stakes in wobbly banks. Mr Bush now finds himself in the role assumed 73 years ago, with rather more grace, by President Franklin D Roosevelt. Ahead of Saturday’s G7 meeting, Mr Bush says: “The world is sending an unmistakable signal: we’re in this together and we’ll come through this together.” Hardly poetry, but the right message to the flapping traders who continue to discount billions of government commitment.

Yesterday

London lawyers are on their way to Iceland to retrieve our money, traders are stuck to their screens adjusting their positions, bankers are huddled in their offices working out how the Government’s bailout will work, while our political leaders use up a year’s worth of carbon footprint as they criss-cross the globe flying between the emergency IMF-G7 rescue talks in Washington to those in Paris tomorrow.

The world financial system is “on the brink of systemic meltdown,” IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn warns, as G7 finance ministers meeting in Washington agree to follow the British lead in part-nationalising their banks. British treasury officials, meanwhile, pledge to take majority stakes in banks should this be necessary to prevent the system’s collapse.

But what everyone wants to know now is when will this crisis be over? What the world needs is some kind of sign; some indication that the fat lady is ready to get up and sing. But, this weekend, there’s no sign she’s even in the theatre, let alone in the wings.

Research by Jesse Loncraine

The digested analysis. Digested…

* Starting with New Century in April 2007, a series of US institutions filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, as risks of sub-prime lending finally emerged.

* Bear Stearns revealed in June that it was spending $3.2bn to bail out two of its funds that invested heavily in sub-prime loans. Nine months later, the Fed loaned JP Morgan $29bn to rescue Bear Stearns.

* Banks revealed as making “covenant-lite” loans with very relaxed borrowing terms. Private equity groups used this easy money until the loans disappeared in July.

* 9 August 2007: the official start of the credit crunch. BNP Paribas froze three funds that had difficulties with its sub-prime lending.

* Northern Rock involved in bank run in September 2007, the first in the UK since 19th century. Customers were frightened by the Rock’s need for emergency funding. Nationalised in February 2008.

* Banks turned to petro-dollar-fueled, government-backed sovereign wealth funds. In November 2007, Abu Dhabi gave Citigroup $7.5bn for a 4.9% stake; Kuwait took a $2bn stake in Merrill Lynch.

* Most major UK banks issued new shares or tapped investors for capital in March and April 2008. Shareholders’ stakes diluted as a result.

* Nationalisation of US mortgage backers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008. They had $5.4 trillion of mortgages guaranteed, but were worth $40bn combined.

* Attempts failed to sell US bank Lehman Brothers. It ended up in administration.

* The joke was that Iceland (pop: 320,000) was the world’s biggest hedge fund, with all its investments overseas. But the fund’s investment gambles didn’t come off.

The Crash by numbers

£250bn wiped off the FTSE last week

21% drop in value of Britain’s 100 top companies last week

111 profits warnings issued by British firms between July and September

8.9% fall in the FTSE on Friday, to end its worst week since Black Monday in 1987

£1bn losses by more than 100 local authorities with investments in Iceland banks

Source

Capitalism at it finest hour.

I might be going out on a limb here, but it seems, it doesn’t work all that well.

Seems the side affects of it are, just a major disaster to all involved.

Who will pay the price?

Well the tax payer.

The American way is, as we all may notice, the worst way.

Mark my words, there are those who are getting rich from this disaster.

Salaries hit by Icelandic bank Collapse

Council salaries hit by bank collapses

Treasury urged to defer £1bn business-tax demand as this month’s payroll for hundreds of thousands of workers is frozen in Icelandic accounts

Hundreds of thousands of council workers may not be paid this month because their earnings are frozen by the Icelandic bank collapse, it emerged last night.

The Local Government Association has just eight days to avert a catastrophe, senior sources warned. The LGA has urged the Treasury not to insist on prompt payment of nearly £1bn in business taxes owed by councils, and due on 20 October, to free up cash and allow staff to be paid.

It is understood that dozens of the 100-plus local councils that are victims of the Iceland banking crisis use their accounts for the payroll of everyone from the chief executive to front line staff. Until now it was thought only capital savings, worth £840m, were locked in the failed banks. But the accounts were also used as a quick way to earn interest to pay wages.

And in a fresh blow to the banking industry, The Independent on Sunday has learned that seven councils are to withdraw a total of £2bn from British and foreign banks because they fear the crisis could claim more victims. The money will be transferred to government bonds, leaving a gaping hole in UK banking assets at a time when the Treasury is struggling to prop them up with its £500bn bailout.

Treasury officials and the Icelandic authorities said last night that they had made “significant progress” in agreeing in principal a quick payout for British investors – including local councils – who had about £4bn in the Icelandic Landsbanki’s internet bank Icesave.

The News of the World also reported that the value of Icelandic-owned assets seized by the Britain under anti-terror laws was believed to be roughly equivalent to the amount invested in Icelandic banks by British individuals and organisations.

As the economic crisis deepens, Gordon Brown will today make an unprecedented appearance in Paris before an emergency summit of eurozone leaders held by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The Prime Minister will give a presentation on last week’s bailout, which gave the taxpayer a £50bn stake in British banks.

A No 10 spokesman said last night: “We don’t expect everyone to do exactly what we have done, but the approach we set out is probably the best kind of model.”

Following G7 finance meetings in Washington, President George Bush called for a “serious global response” to cope with the continuing plunge in markets, backing moves to buy stock in troubled financial institutions.

A local government source warned that most of the councils caught in the collapse had invested funds from revenue accounts, used to cover recurring costs such as wages and local services, in Icelandic banks – with terrifying implications for staff and clients. It is not known which councils are affected, but conservative estimates of 50 authorities would cover more than 150,000 staff.

Public-sector unions last night revealed they had written to employers laying out their “grave concerns” about the immediate impact on wages, jobs and front-line services. Unison spokeswoman Mary McGuire said: “We have asked the LGA … how much councils have deposited, and exactly what the impact is going to be in the short term.”

Haringey in north London is believed to be among those councils whose payroll is frozen, though the chief executive refused to confirm or deny this. Haringey made a £5m investment in Iceland just last week – after the nation’s first bank, Glitnir, went bankrupt. Braintree council, in Essex, has confirmed that the £230,000 annual interest from £5m of taxpayers’ money held in three failed Icelandic banks was to be spent on payroll and services.

Despite warnings as far back as July that investing in Icelandic banks was risky, Tory-controlled Winchester council deposited £1m in Heritable, a Landsbanki subsidiary, in September. Lord Oakeshott, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said: “Winchester council was grossly imprudent. I wouldn’t put them in charge of a child’s money box.”

Council leaders will meet local government minister John Healey and the economic secretary to the Treasury, Ian Pearson, later this week to appeal for more help, including a delay in the payment of business rates. More money is due to the Treasury on 6 November, the date of the Glenrothes by-election.

The shadow Local Government Secretary, Eric Pickles, said: “If the Government shows some flexibility, I am sure that most problems in regard to cash-flow will be taken care of.”

Local government difficulties

Interest rate swaps

In the 1980s, council officers, who were largely unskilled for the task, became involved in a sophisticated form of derivative known as an interest rate swap. Until 1988, when interest rates rose, councils made a tidy profit, but then huge losses were incurred. Hammersmith & Fulham council lost about £200m on investments worth £6bn, but eventually settled with many of its creditors.

Off balance sheet

Not yet a disaster, but there are plenty of critics of councils’ – and central government’s – habit of taking health care facilities and schools built through the private finance initiative off their balance sheets. The argument is that the risk of the project failing is borne by the private sector and so the project should go on its balance sheet. However, even some officials privately admit that it’s a smoke and mirrors exercise to ensure big investments do not come out of a local or central government budget.

BCCI

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International collapsed in 1991 owing more than $16bn (£9.4bn) and took the deposits of local councils down with it.

Source

Time Line To Date

7 September
US government seizes control of mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

14 September 2007
Bank of England steps in with emergency funding to support Northern Rock.

17 March 2008
Federal Reserve organises the rescue of Bear Stearns.

17 September
US rescues insurer AIG.

26 September
US government takes control of Washington Mutual in the largest-ever American bank failure.

29 September
UK government nationalises Bradford & Bingley’s loan book.

30 September
Ireland guarantees the deposits of all savers.

3 October
Biggest ever US government bail-out plan – worth $700bn – clears House of Representatives after being rejected a week earlier.

7 October
Iceland asks Russia for €4bn loan to avoid financial meltdown.

8 October
Chancellor Alistair Darling announces £450bn rescue plan for Britain’s ailing banks. Bank of England cuts interest rates by half a percentage point.

10 October
G7 meeting in Washington agrees global rescue plan.

Source

Who profits from WAR?

Who profited from the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Not only do Contractors profit of course but, someone else profits quit splendidly form their contracts.

A little History lesson just in case anyone has forgotten.

When you got to Vote make sure the one you are voting for isn’t like Dick Cheney.

Ask questions, Demand answers. There are already to many profiteers in the White House.

Halliburton Makes a Killing on Iraq War

Cheney’s Former Company Profits from Supporting Troops
by Pratap Chatterjee,
March 20th, 2003

As the first bombs rain down on Baghdad, CorpWatch has learned that thousands of employees of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former

company, are working alongside US troops in Kuwait and Turkey under a package deal worth close to a billion dollars. According to US Army sources, they are building tent cities and providing logistical support for the war in Iraq in addition to other hot spots in the “war on terrorism.”

While recent news coverage has speculated on the post-war reconstruction gravy train that corporations like Halliburton stand to gain from, this latest information indicates that Halliburton is already profiting from war time contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Cheney served as chief executive of Halliburton until he stepped down to become George W. Bush’s running mate in the 2000 presidential race. Today he still draws compensation of up to a million dollars a year from the company, although his spokesperson denies that the White House helped the company win the contract.

In December 2001, Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, secured a 10-year deal known as the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), from the Pentagon. The contract is a “cost-plus-award-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity service” which basically means that the federal government has an open-ended mandate and budget to send Brown and Root anywhere in the world to run military operations for a profit.

Linda Theis, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Field Support Command in Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, confirmed for Corpwatch that Brown and Root is also supporting operations in Afghanistan, Djibouti, Georgia, Jordan and Uzbekistan.

“Specific locations along with military units, number of personnel assigned, and dates of duration are considered classified,” she said. “The overall anticipated cost of task orders awarded since contract award in December 2001 is approximately $830 million.”

Kuwait

The current contract in Kuwait began in September 2002 when Joyce Taylor of the U.S. Army Materiel Command’s Program Management Office, arrived to supervise approximately 1,800 Brown and Root employees to set up tent cities that would provide accommodation for tens of thousands of soldiers and officials.

Army officials working with Brown and Root says the collaboration is helping cut costs by hiring local labor at a fraction of regular Army salaries. “We can quickly purchase building materials and hire third-country nationals to perform the work. This means a small number of combat-service-support soldiers are needed to support this logistic aspect of building up an area,” says Lt. Col. Rod Cutright, the senior LOGCAP planner for all of Southwest Asia.

During the past few weeks, these Brown and Root employees have helped transform Kuwait into an armed camp, to support some 80,000 foreign troops, roughly the equivalent of 10% of Kuwait’s native born population.

Most of these troops are now living in the tent cities in the rugged desert north of Kuwait City, poised to invade Iraq. Some of the encampments are named after the states associated with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — Camp New York, Camp Virginia and Camp Pennsylvania.

The headquarters for this effort is Camp Arifjan, where civilian and military employees have built a gravel terrace with plastic picnic tables and chairs, surrounded by a gymnasium in a tent, a PX and newly arrived fast food outlets such as Burger King, Subway and Baskin-Robbins, set up in trailers or shipping containers. Basketball hoops and volleyball nets are set up outside the mess hall.

Turkey

North of Iraq approximately 1,500 civilians are working for Brown and Root and the United States military near the city of Adana, about an hour’s drive inland from the Mediterranean coast of central Turkey, where they support approximately 1,400 US soldiers staffing Operation Northern Watch’s Air Force F-15 Strike Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons monitoring the no-fly zone above the 36th parallel in Iraq.

The jet pilots are catered and housed at the Incirlik military base seven miles outside the city by a company named Vinnell, Brown and Root (VBR), a joint venture between Brown and Root and Vinnell corporation of Fairfax, Virginia, under a contract that was signed on October 1, 1988, which also includes two more minor military sites in Turkey: Ankara and Izmir.

The joint venture’s latest contract, which started July 1, 1999 and will expire in September 2003, was initially valued at $118 million. US Army officials confirm that Brown and Root has been awarded new and additional contracts in Turkey in the last year to support the “war on terrorism” although they refused to give any details.

“We provide support services for the United States Air Force in areas of civil engineering, motor vehicles transportation, in the services arena here – that includes food service operations, lodging, and maintenance of a golf course. We also do US customs inspection,” explained VBR site manager Alex Daniels, who has worked at Incirlik for almost 15 years.

Cheap labor is also the primary reason for outsourcing services, says Major Toni Kemper, head of public affairs at the base. “The reason that the military goes to contracting is largely because it’s more cost effective in certain areas. I mean there was a lot of studies years ago as to what services can be provided via contractor versus military personnel. Because when we go contract, we don’t have to pay health care and all the another things for the employees, that’s up to the employer.”

Soon after the contract was signed Incirlik provided a major staging post for thousands of sorties flown against Iraq and occupied Kuwait during the Gulf war in January 1991 dropping over 3,000 tons of bombs on military and civilian targets.

Central Asian Contracts

Still ongoing is the first LOGCAP contract in the “war on terrorism” which began in June 2002, when Brown and Root was awarded a $22 million deal to run support services at Camp Stronghold Freedom, located at the Khanabad air base in central Uzbekistan. Khanabade is one of the main US bases in the Afghanistan war that houses some 1,000 US soldiers from the Green Berets and the 10th Mountain Division.

In November 2002 Brown and Root began a one-year contract, estimated at $42.5 million, to cover services for troops at bases in both Bagram and Khandahar. Brown and Root employees were first set to work running laundry services, showers, mess halls and installing heaters in soldiers’ tents.

Future Contracts in Iraq

Halliburton is also one of five large US corporations invited to bid for contracts in what may turn out to be the biggest reconstruction project since the Second World War. The others are the Bechtel Group, Fluor Corp, Parsons Corp, and the Louis Berger Group.

The Iraq reconstruction plan will require contractors to fulfill various tasks, including reopening at least half of the “economically important roads and bridges” — about 1,500 miles of roadway within 18 months, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The contractors will also be asked to repair 15% of high-voltage electricity grid, renovate several thousand schools and deliver 550 emergency generators within two months. The contract is estimated to be worth up to $900 million for the preliminary work alone.

The Pentagon has also awarded a contract to Brown and Root to control oil fires if Saddam Hussein sets the well heads ablaze. Iraq has oil reserves second only to those of Saudi Arabia. This makes Brown and Root a leading candidate to win the role of top contractor in any petroleum field rehabilitation effort in Iraq that industry analysts say could be as much as $1.5 billion in contracts to jump start Iraq’s petroleum sector following a war.

Wartime Profiteering

Meanwhile Dick Cheney’s 2001 financial disclosure statement, states that the Halliburton is paying him a “deferred compensation” of up to $1million a year following his resignation as chief executive in 2000. At the time Cheney opted not to receive his severance package in a lump sum, but instead to have it paid to him over five years, possibly for tax reasons.

The company would not say how much the payments are. The obligatory disclosure statement filled by all top government officials says only that they are in the range of $100,000 and $1million. Nor is it clear how they are calculated.

Critics say that the apparent conflict of interest is deplorable. “The Bush-Cheney team have turned the United States into a family business,” says Harvey Wasserman, author of The Last Energy War (Seven Stories Press, 2000). “That’s why we haven’t seen Cheney – he’s cutting deals with his old buddies who gave him a multimillion-dollar golden handshake. Have they no grace, no shame, no common sense? Why don’t they just have Enron run America? Or have Zapata Petroleum (George W. Bush’s failed oil-exploration venture) build a pipeline across Afghanistan?”

Army officials disagree. Major Bill Bigelow, public relations officer for the US Army in Western Europe, says: “If you’re going to ask a specific question – like, do you think it’s right that contractors profit in wartime – I would think that they might be better [asked] at a higher level, to people who set the policy. We don’t set the policy, we work within the framework that’s been established.”

“Those questions have been asked forever, because they go back to World War Two when Chrysler and Ford and Chevy stopped making cars and started making guns and tanks. Obviously it’s a question that’s been around for quite some time. But it’s true that nowadays there are very few defense contractors, but go back sixty years to the World War Two era almost everybody was manufacturing something that either directly or indirectly had something to do with defense,” he added.

Sasha Lilley and Aaron Glantz helped conduct interviews for this article.

For further reading on Brown and Root’s military contracts, see The War on Terrorism’s Gravy Train by Pratap Chatterjee.

Pratap Chatterjee is an investigative journalist based in Berkeley, California. He traveled to Afghanistan and Uzbekistan in January 2002 and to Incirlik, Turkey, in January 2003 to research this article.

Halliburton given $30m to expand Guantanamo Bay London Independent | June 18 2005 A subsidiary of Halliburton, the oil services group once led by the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has won a $30m (£16m) contract to help build a new permanent prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Dick Cheney of course makes money to this Day From Haliburton.

Talk about a conflict of interest

Cheney served as chief executive of Halliburton until he stepped down to become George W. Bush’s running mate in the 2000 presidential race. Today he still draws compensation of up to a million dollars or more a year from the company, although his spokesperson denies that the White House helped the company win the contracts .

He isn’t alone however

151 Congressmen Profit From War

More than a quarter of senators and congressmen have invested at least $196 million or more of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense (DOD) that profit from the death and destruction in Iraq.

Now maybe it’s just me but is that not a bit of conflict of interest?

Why would they ever vote to stop a war? No profit in that is there?

Even Bushes Father, apparently has invested a great deal in companies that work for the DOD.

The practice of investing in such things should be forbidden.

Let me tell you they didn’t get themselves elected to serve the people. They are self serving, money hungry, power seeking, well you get the idea.

Haliburton also wasted a lot of money. Your Tax dollars were hard at work.

Whistleblowers Describe Halliburton’s “Free Fraud Zone”

June 27, 2005

Halliburton Iraq

“I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.”

— Bunnatine Greenhouse, top Army Corps of Engineers contract oversight official, turned whistleblower

Today’s Democratic Policy Committee Hearing was another jawdropper.

The witnesses included:

1) Greenhouse — the highest ranking civilian at the Army Corps of Engineers whose job it is to ensure openness and honesty in contracting. Greenhouse said that “essentially every aspect of the RIO contract remained under the control of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.” In other words, Rumsfeld should be held responsible for giving his old pal Dick Cheney’s firm Halliburton the no-bid contract before the war, under its global logistics contract, a violation of competitive contracting requirements (as Greenhouse testified and 60 Minutes reported, other contractors were itching to bid on the work but were never given a chance).

2) Rory Mayberry, a former manager of Halliburton’s mess halls in Iraq, who testified that KBR fed U.S. troops expired food on a daily basis, and fed Turkish and Filipino workers “leftover food in boxes and garbage bags after the troops ate,” while using beef, chicken, salads and sodas intended for the troops to cater parties and barbeques for KBR management and employees. He also said he was informed that “if we talked, we would be rotated out to other camps that were under fire.”

3) Alan Waller and Gary Butters — two top executives from Lloyd-Owen International, a transportation contractor who testified that one of their convoys was ambushed 2 kilometers from a U.S. base while bringing materials under a Halliburton contract. Not only were they not told by KBR that other contractors had been hit recently in the same area (they lost 3 individuals in the ambush), but upon arriving at the base were denied help by KBR (later learning from emails they obtained that KBR management had instructed its on site staff to offer no assistance).

Could this have anything to do with the fact that the company has a fuel supply contract with the Iraqi government that KBR would have had, if it hadn’t been caught defrauding U.S. taxpayers for fuel shipments?

KBR still controls the military checkpoint along the Kuwait/Iraq border, where Lloyd-Owen has to bring over 100 fuel tankers across on a daily basis. They testified that KBR has hampered the company’s ability to cross the border, using the fact that Lloyd-Owen does not have a U.S. Military contract as a technicality.

Meanwhile, they testified that Halliburton’s incompetence in restoring fuel pumping and refinery equipment has also slowed fuel deliveries down, leading to the kind of festering resentments that are certain to fuel the resistance.

A joint report was also released at the hearing by Senator Dorgan and Rep. Henry Waxman, which estimates that Halliburton’s questioned and unsupported costs in Iraq now exceed $1.4 billion, more than three times the previous estimate.

The 10 Most Brazen War Profiteers 2006
Inside the world of war profiteers From prostitutes to Super bowl tickets, a federal probe reveals how contractors in Iraq cheated the U.S.

Banking on Bloodshed: UK high street banks’ complicity in the arms trade
This of course is a microscopic tid bit of what really happens.

World Bank director claims Federal Reserve is ‘part of government already’

By aaron

October 10th, 2008

You Tube | October 10, 2008

A caller on C-Span’s Washington Journal asserts that Congressman Ron Paul and Infowars.com are better sources to understand the current financial crisis than the dominant mainstream media and typical go-along political figures.

The caller also brings up the Federal Reserve as being the main issue that Washington needs to address.

Uri Dadush, Economic Department Director of the World Bank, seems stumped by the mention of the Federal Reserve, which he claims is ‘part of the system of U.S. government already’, before redirecting the conversation towards liquidity efforts in the private banking sector.

Dadush misses the point– perhaps out of confusion, and perhaps out of reluctance to discuss– that the Federal Reserve (which is private, but given power [unconstitutionally] by Congress) controls the money supply and can print at will.

Source

Seems he certainly was confused by the caller. If this is how well educated he is I would be skeptical of letting him anywhere near the World Bank, let alone be a Director of it. The Federal Reserve is privately owned and operated.

I guess the World Bank Director is OH misinformed. The Federal Reserve owns 54% of the Government one could say. Yes one could say that, as the Government owes them, that much money in comparison to what they owe the rest of the planet. Now lets see 54% of ten -elleven trillion = “yup they own the Government”. How comforting?

The caller is correct in a few of his comments.

The world Bank and IMF do put stipulations in when lending money to anyone.  They want countries to open their doors to Privatization and Capitalism.  Of course as we all now well know  Capitalism is a false foundation to stand upon. In view of the stock markets and bank failures of late.

They are rather forceful in wanting their natural resources to be used and abused.

Do they actually help or do they just help the corporations? Well seems they help the corporations exploit the countries. This of course leads to their natural resources being pillaged, plundered also polluting of the water and air.

From the original Canada-US free trade agreement and NAFTA to the WTO agreements and the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, these international treaties are about making it easier for the world’s largest corporations to lower their costs. It allows them to seek out the cheapest workers, the most lax environmental laws and to use the threat of relocation to get what they want. The notion that any country, its workers or consumers benefit from such agreements is a myth.

There are numerous organizations that could enlighten one on this issue. Of course it might take a bit of time to investigate.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund Encourage Free Trade agreements and opening up countries to Capitalism.  Neither is good for anyone in said countries however.

Seems they are not actually there to help ordinary people just the corporations, they just pretend to help the poor.

Headquarters

International Monetary Fund,

700 19th Street, N.W.,

Washington, D.C. 20431

Source

Headquarters

The World Bank

1818 H Street, NW

Washington, DC 20433 USA

Source

Should we all be a bit suspicious? Well yes.

When the rights of any group of people are removed, you too loose the very same rights.

Poverty is not decreasing as the World Bank claims

The Millennium Development Goals will not be achieved by 2015 at the present rate of progress

Progress in basic social indicators slowed down last year all over the world and at the present rate it does not allow for the internationally agreed poverty reduction goals to be met by 2015, unless substantial changes occur. This is the main conclusion that can be extracted from the 2008 figures of the Basic Capabilities Index (BCI), calculated by Social Watch.

Out of 176 countries for which a BCI figure can be computed, only 21 register noticeable progress in relation to how they were in 2000. Other 55 countries show some progress, but at a slow rate, while 77 countries are stagnated or worse. Information is insufficient to show trends for the remaining 23. As the impact of the food crisis that started in 2006 begins to be registered by the new statistics coming in, the situation is likely to get worse in the next months.

Contrary to frequent claims that poverty is diminishing fast in the world, the index computed by Social Watch shows that the deficient coverage of the basic needs required to escape poverty persists; even more, it is increasing, in spite of impressive economic growth in most developing countries.

LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN: Slight progress, with some countries regressing.
EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA: Acceptable BCI level reached before 2000.
SOUTH ASIA: Significant progress. India improving fast, pushes the region up.
CENTRAL ASIA: Slight progress, with some countries regressing.
MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA: Slight progress.
EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC: Slight progress. No recent evolution data for China.
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: Average progress is extremely slow, with some countries regressing even further from already low levels. At the current rate, the region would need more than a century to reach an acceptable BCI.

Source

IMF/World Bank Meeting

World Bank meeting dates and details

The 2008 Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be held over the weekend of October 11-13 at the World Bank and IMF Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

In recent years, the Annual Meetings have been preceded by meetings of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), the Development Committee (DC), the Group of Ten, the Group of Twenty-Four, and various other groups of members. At the conclusion of their meetings, the IMFC and the Development Committee, as well as several other groups, issue communiqués. These documents are public and posted on the World Bank and IMF’s websites.

As in previous years, the Civil Society Policy Forum, a program of policy dialogues for civil society organizations (CSOs) will be organized alongside the Annual Meetings. The Civil Society Policy Forum will be held from October 9 – 13, 2008. Information about discussions being planned for the Forum is available here and will be updated frequently as we near the date of the Meetings.

Source

The Weekend and Beyond

Here are some travel tips for this weekend and the rest of the month.

IMF/World Bank Meeting

The International Monetary Fund and World Bank will hold their annual meetings this weekend in the District. Beginning at 12:30 a.m. on Saturday through the completion of the meetings on Monday the following streets will be closed:

• 18th Street between G Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
• 19th Street between G Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
• 20th Street between G Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
• The south curb lane of Pennsylvania Avenue between 18th and 20th Streets, NW
• G Street between 17th and 20th Streets, NW
• H Street between 18th and 21st Streets, NW

Only pedestrians with business in the area and proper identification will be allowed access to the following locations:

• 600, 700 and 800 blocks of 18th, 19th and 20th Streets, NW
• 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2000 blocks of G Street, NW
• 1900 block of H Street, NW

Metro Track Work
Metro is working on the Red and Orange lines this weekend, which could add 20 to 25 minutes to travel times through the construction zones. On the Red Line, trains are sharing a track between Takoma and Silver Spring from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday while crews stabilize the other track and smooth out rail surfaces.

On the Orange Line, trains will share a track between Vienna and West Falls Church from Friday night until 10 a.m. Sunday Oct. 12 while crews replace crossties. Every other train in the direction of Vienna will end its run at the West Falls Church and head back toward New Carrollton, to enhance service along the most heavily used part of the line.

14th Street Signals
The District put two new traffic signals at the intersection of 14th and Shepherd streets and 14th and Taylor streets NW. Both are set to flash now, but they are scheduled to go into full operation on Tuesday. The District Department of Transportation said it installed the signals to address community concerns about safety at the intersections.

But the two signals will work a bit differently because of different conditions. The one at 14th and Taylor will automatically cycle between those two streets every 100 seconds. At 14th and Shepherd, the signal will remain green for 14th Street until a vehicle or pedestrian on Shepherd wants to cross. The intersection has vehicle sensors on Shepherd Street and pedestrian push buttons on all corners.

Rock Creek Park Closures
On Oct. 20, maintenance workers are scheduled to clean catch basins and remove trees on Beach Drive, which will be closed between Joyce Road and Broad Branch Road NW from 9:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.

On Oct. 21, similar work will be done on Bingham Drive, which will be closed between Oregon Avenue and Beach Drive NW from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Laytonsville Road Work
The Maryland State Highway Administration is starting a $490,000 safety improvement project along Olney-Laytonsville Road at Fieldcrest Road, which should be done in late November.

Workers will widen the westbound roadway to create a bypass lane, reducing congestion by allowing traffic to safely bypass turning vehicles. They also will restripe the westbound roadway at Stanbrook Lane to make a new left turn lane. But in the meantime, watch for single lane closures between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays.

Tysons Metrorail Project
Road work and utility line relocation is continuing along Route 7 between the Dulles Toll Road and Route 123, with increased activity near Westwood Center Drive and Tyco Road. The service road in front of the former Moore Cadillac dealership will be closed. Drivers trying to reach the nearby hotel and neighborhood should use Westwood Center Drive and then turn right onto Sheraton Tysons Drive.

New Paving in Prince William
Motorists in Prince William County might soon notice a quieter, drier stretch of road on the Route 234 bypass. The Virginia Department of Transportation is testing a new road material on the Route 234 bypass that absorbs road noise while increasing drainage capacities.

The new material, called Porous Friction Course, lets air and water seep down from the road surface away from the tires, which should reduce hydroplaning, tire pavement noise, and splashing.

In late August, a 1.7-mile stretch of the bypass between Balls Ford Road and Sudley Manor Drive was paved with the new stuff, and researchers will test the surface over the next few months. This section was picked because it had the right traffic volumes, travel speeds and existing pavement conditions. If the results look good, VDOT could use the material on other roadways, including Interstate 66 inside the Capital Beltway.

Source

Headquarters

International Monetary Fund,

700 19th Street, N.W.,

Washington, D.C. 20431

Source

Headquarters

The World Bank

1818 H Street, NW

Washington, DC 20433 USA

Source

Should we all be a bit suspicious well maybe.

Fear on streets of Reykjavik as country can only go to IMF for financial bailout

Iceland may be the target of British opprobrium right now, but on the streets of Reykjavik, citizens are more concerned about their own increasingly dire situation. The collapse of the country’s banking system and, along with it, the economy, is steadily affecting ever more of the 320,000 people who live on the North Atlantic island.

Yesterday, one of the country’s few daily national newspapers announced it was shutting its doors, while the country’s flag-carrying airline, Icelandair, said it had seen a dramatic slump in demand. No wonder the governor of the country’s central bank has been sent home to rest by his doctors.

Such is the parlous state of its finances, economists now believe Iceland will have no choice but to go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund and ask the world’s lender of last resort to bail it out.

Negotiations are due to begin with Russia on Monday over a possible loan of €4bn (£3.15bn) but this will not be enough to get the country through its banking crisis. While such a loan would be worth a quarter of the country’s annual GDP, the total liabilities of the Icelandic banks are more like nine times the size of Iceland’s economy.

“Iceland is bankrupt,” said Arsaell Valfells, a University of Iceland professor. “The Icelandic krona is history. The IMF has to rescue us.”

Without help from the IMF, Iceland is almost certain to find itself in the same position as some of its leading financial institutions – bankrupt. The country would simply be unable to service its liabilities and its economy would be plunged yet further into crisis.

The krona, Iceland’s currency, has already collapsed in recent months, but bankruptcy would make it worthless on world markets. And without a viable currency the banks can’t be rescued, there is no cash to pay for essential imports, and no way of controlling inflation. The result is one with which Zimbabwe is now becoming ever more familiar – soaring prices, a big increase in unemployment and terrible hardship for most of the population.

The IMF now represents Iceland’s best bet of getting through this crisis. Not that it is an easy option. The IMF will only intervene in countries on its own terms and Iceland would be expected to accept harsh strictures from the Washington-based organisation.

In the longer term, there will be political fallout from this collapse. Iceland has traditionally been sceptical about the appeal of the European Union, let alone membership of the bloc operating with the single currency. However, the idea of joining the EU – though it would mean putting up with foreign intervention in its fishing, Iceland’s one remaining industry of note now banking has failed – may now become more attractive.

Iceland’s bankruptcy will also shock the developed world. While other countries have quite recently trodden this path – most notably Thailand and several Latin American states – Iceland is considered a developed market by economists. Indeed, until the credit crisis began just over a year ago, the enterprising skills of the country’s bankers had produced one of the best performing economies in the West.

So far, however, Iceland seems to be escaping one other common feature of national bankruptcies – serious civil unrest. Indeed, for now at least, the country seems to be attempting to pull together, with rock stars organising gigs, for example, in an attempt to buoy fellow citizens’ spirits.

Nor has Geir Haarde, the country’s Prime Minister, yet come under pressure to step down – and in public he is attempting to remain calm. “We are gradually moving through this crisis,” he said on Thursday. “There are still a few issues to resolve but that is the nature of these kind of things.” A difficult man to ruffle, clearly.

Source

This all because the Americans couldn’t get their act together. Considering they were the cause of the whole mess. Why should Iceland or any other country for that matter have to suffer.

Britain is treating them like Terrorists imagine that, how sick is Brown anyway? I am beginning to wonder. Then again I wonder about a lot of things.  Brown should be given a good thrashing.

You know Iceland over the years, have pretty much minded their own business and really don’t spend much time bothering anyone.  It is one of the most peaceful places on the planet. What a shame, such a nice country is being destroyed by US stupidity. So what does the US and Britain want from Iceland I wonder?

Meanwhile the US has destroyed so many.  With war, bad politics, mismanagement, along with their high and mighty know it all attitude. It seems to me they know very little, except how to exploit others. Their advice is not to be trusted. Well take at look at what they have done. Self Explanatory. They aren’t the smartest crayons in the box.

Going to the IMF would be my worst nightmare.

So Bush and his croonies have the whole planet sucked into their nightmare. Why does the rest of the world have to put up with their predetory, imbacilic, stupidity anyway. I think is about time they were all told to shut the bloody hell up. They, obviously don’t know what they are doing. Because of their aragant, foolishness, the rest of the world, is as usual suffering, because of their mistakes.  Yes they are just so cleaver.

Traders’ worst fears realised at Lehmans auction

Hundreds of billions set to change hands as credit default swaps are reconciled

Derivatives traders were yesterday nervously picking their way through the wreckage of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in what was the biggest test to date of the unregulated $60 trillion (£35.4 trillion) credit default swaps market.

Investors who had placed bets on Lehman’s creditworthiness held an auction aimed at clarifying who owes what to whom after the investment bank went bust four weeks ago, and analysts believe that several hundreds of billions of dollars will change hands.

Credit default swaps are a kind of insurance, which investors used to protect themselves in the event that Lehman defaulted on its bonds. Unlike traditional insurance, however, any financial firm could write a credit default swap contract so banks, insurance companies, hedge funds and traditional fund managers are among those now being required to make investors whole.

The auction set a price for Lehman bonds of 8.625 cents on the dollar. Financial firms that sold credit default swaps, therefore, owe 91.375 cents on the dollar – more than Wall Street had been factoring in. That figure increased nerves about whether everyone in the chain will actually be able to pay the amount that they owe, something that will become clear over the coming days. Participants said the auction went smoothly and efficiently.

The insurance giant AIG was one of the biggest sellers of Lehman Brothers credit default swaps, and it faces big losses as a result. It had to be bailed out by the US government three days after the Lehman bankruptcy filing, and has so far been extended $123bn in loans from the US taxpayer. What investors and regulators fear most is a failure to pay by one link in the chain could cause a cascade of losses through the system.

Analysts say the amount of money that has to change hands could be more than $200bn. Some estimates put the value of outstanding credit default swaps on Lehman Brothers debt at $400bn, although some of these trades have already been netted out because some investors both sold and bought CDS contracts. Exact figures are not available because a CDS is a private contract and is not traded on an exchange, but the payout will certainly be the biggest in the 10-year history of the market.

CDS issuance has exploded in recent years as investors have used the instruments not just to insure bonds that they hold, but also to bet on the creditworthiness of companies. The growth of the market has been so fast that Wall Street has not had time to invent a central trading mechanism.

The New York branch of the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, summoned market participants to a meeting yesterday to discuss creating just such a mechanism. IntercontinentalExchange, the electronic trading platform that is now one of the most popular places to buy and sell oil, said yesterday it had set up a joint venture to create a CDS settlement system. Its announcement came three days after CME Group, which runs the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for derivatives trading, said it was joining forces with hedge fund Citadel to set up a similar system.

Deutsche Borse and NYSE Euronext have also expressed interest, suggesting there could be ferocious competition between exchanges if CDS trading is forced into the regulated arena.

Source

UK Government ‘ignored Iceland warning’/ Charities may lose

Charities’ fear over failed banks

UK charities say they fear they have lost up to £120 million of funds invested in collapsed Icelandic banks.

UK charities fear they may have lost up to £120m of funds invested in failed Icelandic banks.

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations says at least 60 members have reported funds may be at risk.

The NCVO has met ministers, who are promising to do all they can to protect an estimated £1bn held by charities, UK councils and other bodies in Iceland.

A Treasury delegation is in Reykjavik and the UK and Iceland say they will now work together for a solution.

The group includes officials from the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority.

‘Disconcerting remarks’

The crisis sparked a war of words between London and Reykjavik on Thursday, with Gordon Brown criticising the Icelandic authorities for failing to guarantee UK depositors would get their money back.

Under Iceland’s financial regulations, the government is supposed to pay up to £16,000 compensation per account at a total cost of £2.2bn.

A spokesman for Mr Brown said the UK now hoped to work “constructively and co-operatively” with the Icelandic authorities.

Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde had accused the UK of being responsible for the collapse of the country’s third largest bank, Kaupthing, after anti-terrorism laws were used to freeze assets in the UK.  (Like Iceland is a terrorist.)

Iceland’s Prime Minister Geir Haarde said he had received a letter from Gordon Brown

On Friday, Mr Haarde confirmed both countries were working together but said Mr Brown’s comments had been “disconcerting” and “not very helpful”.

Meanwhile, the UK government has denied claims of “complacency” after it apparently ignored warnings in July about Icelandic banks facing collapse.

Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott and Tory MP Michael Fallon both raised the issue with ministers on separate occasions.

They were reassured savers would be protected by law.

A Treasury spokesman said: “As the minister made clear at the time, the Icelandic authorities have a legal obligation to pay out depositors under their existing compensation scheme and we expect them to honour this commitment.”

He added it was not the role of the UK government to advise UK residents and citizens of financial institutions around the world, and few people had anticipated the current situation.

Chancellor Alistair Darling, who is in Washington for meetings with other G7 finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund, told the BBC that simply “talking” would not lead to a solution.

‘Uncertain position’

Meanwhile, as details of charity deposits emerged, a cancer hospital in Manchester has announced it was the latest victim of the Icelandic bank collapse.

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, based in Withington is facing losses of £7.5m after depositing the funds with Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander. Up to £6.5m was charity money.

The Cats Protection League said it also had £11.2m deposited in a UK bank owned by the collapsed Kaupthing.
NCVO said City Minister Paul Myners had given no guarantees during their meeting that such assets would be secure, although he was “reassuring”.

Chief executive Stuart Etherington said: “He was saying the government would do all it can to ensure the assets of these charities are reunited with them. He was very positive about that.

“What’s important is the charities which have been affected by this come forward. If we’re going to secure adequate compensation for them, with the strength of the UK government, it’s important they come forward.”

Some NCVO members which provide services for councils fear they will not be paid if town halls lose money in the crisis.

Most of the charities which have investments in troubled Icelandic banks have not yet been named, but they are thought to include major organisations.

Other charities known to be affected include Naomi House children’s hospice in Sutton Scotney, near Winchester, which has £5.7m of deposits invested with KSF

The Physiological Society in London has £523,000 invested with the same bank, and Samaritans has links to KSF because it is the parent company of Investment Managers, which looks after the charity’s investment portfolio.

Graham McGeown, of the Physiological Society, said: “This is a difficult time for our organisation. We have £523k tied up in KSF and are not entirely sure if we will get this money back.

“With NCVO we are calling on the government to help protect our money as well as other organisations who may also be involved in the banking crisis.” Under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, charities classified as small businesses are covered for the first £50,000 of any investments.

But it is not clear whether they would benefit from the wider guarantee given to individual savers by the chancellor that they would recover all of their money.

The NCVO’s head of campaigns and communications, Louis High, said many of its members were also concerned about local authorities’ ability to pay for services.

He said: “For many smaller organisations that rely on this money and have tight financial constraints, non-payment for their work could be disastrous or even spell their death knell.”

The organisation has called a sector-wide summit to examine the potential impact of a recession and what can be done to protect charities from financial disaster.

UK ‘ignored Iceland warning’

The government has been accused of “complacency” after it apparently ignored warnings in July about Icelandic banks facing collapse.

Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott and Tory MP Michael Fallon both raised the issue with ministers on separate occasions.

They were reassured savers would be protected by law.

The Treasury said it was not the government’s role to advise savers and ministers had stressed Iceland had a legal obligation to pay compensation.

Lord Oakeshott said: “Alarm bells were ringing all over about the Icelandic banks and the Treasury must have been blind and deaf not to hear them.”

But a Treasury spokesman said: “As the minister made clear at the time, the Icelandic authorities have a legal obligation to pay out depositors under their existing compensation scheme and we expect them to honour this commitment.”

He said a government delegation was now in Iceland to find a solution to the current situation.

“This is part of the action the Treasury is taking action to ensure the interests of all retail depositors are safeguarded and that legal obligations to UK creditors are honoured.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown reacted with anger on Thursday after the Icelandic government refused to guarantee the deposits of UK citizens with money in three of its biggest banks, following their collapse.

Crisis talks

Under Iceland’s financial regulations, the government is supposed to pay up to £16,000 compensation per account at a total cost of £2.2bn.

Mr Brown is angry as the UK has received no assurances from the Icelandic government that they will meet this commitment. Treasury officials have travelled to Iceland for crisis talks on repayment.

Lord Oakeshott, a pension fund manager and former director of Warburg Investment Management, raised the alarm about possible shortfalls in the compensation funds – and the danger of an Icelandic bank collapse – in written questions more than two months ago.

In the first question, he asked how much cash was in the Icelandic compensation fund and if Britain would be left to pick up the bill if there was a shortfall.

He was told by Treasury minister Lord Davies that the liabilities of the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme would be limited to “topping-up” funds provided by the country in which the bank is based.

In a second question, he asked: “What steps [have] the United Kingdom financial authorities taken to satisfy themselves, independently of the Icelandic financial authorities, of the solvency and stability of Icelandic banks taking deposits in the United Kingdom and of that of the Icelandic Deposit Guarantees and Investor-Compensation Scheme behind which the United Kingdom Financial Services Compensation Scheme stands as guarantor of last resort?”

Lord Davies, for the government, replied that there was no concern about the liquidity or capital base of Icelandic banks operating in the UK: “All UK-incorporated subsidiaries of Icelandic banks regulated by the Financial Services Authority continue to meet threshold conditions.”

Some banks had been allowed to open branches in the UK through a process known as “passporting,” which meant they were not regulated by the FSA, explained Lord Davies.

But he added: “The FSA has a regular dialogue with overseas regulators and firms where the firms passport into the UK, to share information about the firms and specifically their UK operations.”

‘Sky high rates’

He also assured UK citizens with money in Icelandic banks that they would be “protected against any losses in a similar way as if their savings were in a British bank”.

On Monday, Lord Oakeshott again quizzed Lord Davies about how much money was in the Icelandic compensation fund and what would happen if it “cannot or will not pay out”.

He told peers: “If my cash were in an Icelandic bank I would be very worried indeed: the currency has collapsed, interest rates are sky high and bank liabilities are hundreds of thousands of pounds for each Icelandic citizen. Would the minister be happy if his savings were in an Icelandic bank?”

In contrast to the lengthy and detailed reply he had given in July, Lord Davies said he had not been “fully briefed” on the situation in Iceland.

“It is not for me at the dispatch box to judge whether it is safe to invest in Icelandic banks,” he told peers.

“However, the safeguarding of their position will depend on co-ordinated action in which this country must play a leading role.”

Speaking earlier on Friday, Lord Oakeshott accused the government and the FSA of ignoring the growing warnings from the City about the position of Icelandic banks, one of which, Icesave, had deposits that were almost the equivalent of Iceland’s entire GDP.

“I asked these various, very hard questions and I got a very complacent answer back from the treasury minister, he told the BBC News Channel, adding he had been alerted to problems in Iceland by credit rating agencies, which had downgraded the country’s banks.

“The Financial Services Authority is responsible for the security of British savers’ money. They should not have trusted the Icelandic banks to look after £5bn of their money,” he added.

Minister grilled

The peer said that together with Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Vince Cable, he had put his concerns about the Icelandic banks to the new head of the FSA, Lord Turner, in an hour long meeting on Tuesday, adding Lord Turner had been “very receptive”.

Concerns were also raised in July by the Conservative deputy chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, Michael Fallon, who asked junior Treasury minister Kitty Ussher how much money was in the compensation fund, after press reports there was a shortfall.

Ms Ussher told him: “I do not have figures for the Icelandic compensation scheme.”

Mr Fallon then asked if she was satisfied that British investors in Icelandic banks are fully guaranteed in the event of a bank collapse.

Ms Ussher replied: “I am satisfied that the law exists to guarantee them, yes.”

Mr Fallon: “You are satisfied that the law exists to guarantee them?”

Ms Ussher: “Yes, under a combination of European and British law.”

Mr Fallon: “So they will get all their money back?”

Ms Ussher: “That is the legal situation.”

Darling calls for action from G7

Britain v Iceland

Iceland’s banks dominate papers

Stephen Harper lied about Cadman Tape

Cadman bribe tape wasn’t doctored: Expert

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s own audio expert says a tape providing key evidence about an alleged bribe was not doctored as Harper has claimed. Harper says alleged Cadman bribe ‘preposterous’ Audio: Listen to the Cadman Tape PM fights affidavit, history in Cadman affair

Ted Colley ,  Canwest News Service

October 10, 2008

SURREY, B.C. – Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s own audio expert says a tape providing key evidence about an alleged bribe was not doctored as Harper has claimed.

Author Tom Zytaruk asked the prime minister on tape about an alleged attempt by Conservative officials to bribe Independent MP Chuck Cadman.

In 2005, Cadman told his wife, Dona Cadman, that two Conservative representatives had offered him a $1-million life insurance policy in exchange for his vote in a confidence motion aimed at bringing down the Liberal government.

Cadman was terminally ill at the time and died just two months later.

The interview, in which Harper speaks of an offer to Cadman “to replace financial considerations he might lose during an election,” has been cited by Liberals in the House of Commons and on articles posted on the Liberal party website as evidence that Mr. Harper knew of an alleged attempt to bribe Cadman in May 2005, in exchange for his vote in the Commons to topple the Liberal government of the day. Harper, who denies knowing any such thing, is suing the Liberals for $3.5-million.

Two audio experts hired earlier by Harper said the tape appeared to have been doctored.

An Ontario judge ordered another analysis and Harper tapped former FBI agent Bruce Koenig for the job.

Koenig said the portion of the tape dealing with the insurance policy “contains neither physical nor electronic splices, edits or alterations,” according to a report entered in court on Friday.

Last month, Harper was able to persuade the court to put the lawsuit on hold until after the Oct. 14 federal election. Harper also tried to keep Koenig’s report out of the court record until the vote had passed, but the Liberals were able to get it on the record Friday.

Zytaruk, who has steadfastly maintained the tape was never altered, said he’s happy about the timing.

“I’m glad this came out before the election. I was really looking forward to testifying because it’s not pleasant to be accused on a national scale of doing something dishonest, such as doctoring a tape.”

Dona Cadman, the Conservative candidate in Surrey North, could not be reached for comment before press time.

Source

Harper, Bush Share Roots in Controversial Philosophy

Close advisers schooled in ‘the noble lie’ and ‘regime change.’

What do close advisors to Stephen Harper and George W. Bush have in common? They reflect the disturbing teachings of Leo Strauss, the German-Jewish émigré who spawned the neoconservative movement.

Strauss, who died in 1973, believed in the inherent inequality of humanity. Most people, he famously taught, are too stupid to make informed decisions about their political affairs. Elite philosophers must decide on affairs of state for us.

In Washington, Straussians exert powerful influence from within the inner circle of the White House. In Canada, they roost, for now, in the so-called Calgary School, guiding Harper in framing his election strategies. What preoccupies Straussians in both places is the question of “regime change.”

Strauss defined a regime as a set of governing ideas, institutions and traditions. The neoconservatives in the Bush administration, who secretly conspired to make the invasion of Iraq a certainty, had a precise plan for regime change. They weren’t out to merely replace Saddam with an American puppet. They planned to make the system more like the U.S., with an electoral process that can be manipulated by the elites, corporate control over the levers of power and socially conservative values.

Usually regime change is imposed on a country from outside through violent means, such as invasion. On occasion, it occurs within a country through civil war. After the American Civil War, a new regime was imposed on the Deep South by the North, although the old regime was never entirely replaced.

Is regime change possible through the electoral process? It’s happening in the U.S., where the neocons are succeeding in transforming the American state from a liberal democracy into a corporatist, theocratic regime. As Canada readies for a federal election, the question must be asked: Are we next?

The ‘noble lie’

Strauss believed that allowing citizens to govern themselves will lead, inevitably, to terror and tyranny, as the Weimar Republic succumbed to the Nazis in the 1930s. A ruling elite of political philosophers must make those decisions because it is the only group smart enough. It must resort to deception — Strauss’s “noble lie” — to protect citizens from themselves. The elite must hide the truth from the public by writing in code. “Using metaphors and cryptic language,” philosophers communicated one message for the elite, and another message for “the unsophisticated general population,” philosopher Jeet Heer recently wrote in the Globe and Mail. “For Strauss, the art of concealment and secrecy was among the greatest legacies of antiquity.”

The recent outing of star New York Times reporter Judith Miller reveals how today’s neocons use the media to conceal the truth from the public. For Straussians, telling Americans that Saddam didn’t have WMD’s and had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda, but that we needed to take him out for geopolitical and ideological reasons you can’t comprehend, was a non-starter. The people wouldn’t get it. Time for a whopper.

Miller was responsible for pushing into the Times the key neocon lie that Saddam was busy stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. This deception helped build support among Americans for the invasion of Iraq. Miller was no independent journalist seeking the truth nor a victim of neocon duplicity, as she claimed. She worked closely with Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff and responsible for coordinating Iraq intelligence and communication strategy. Libby is a Straussian who studied under Paul Wolfowitz, now head of the World Bank, and before that, deputy secretary of defense, where he led the ‘Invade Iraq” lobby. Wolfowitz studied under Strauss and Allan Bloom, Strauss’s most famous student.

Miller cultivated close links to the neocons in the administration and at the American Enterprise Institute, the leading Washington-based neocon think tank. AEI played the key role outside government in fabricating intelligence to make the case for invading Iraq. Straussian Richard Perle, who chaired the Defence Policy Board Advisory Committee until he was kicked off because of a conflict of interest, is a senior fellow at AEI and coordinated its efforts. Miller co-wrote a book on the Middle East with an AEI scholar. Rather than being a victim of government manipulation, Miller was a conduit between the neocons and the American public. As a result of her reporting, many Americans came to believe that Saddam had the weapons. War and regime change followed.

‘Regime change’ in Canada

As in the U.S., regime change became a Canadian media darling. Before 9-11, the phrase appeared in Canadian newspapers less than ten times a year. It usually referred to changes in leadership of a political party or as part of the phrase “regulatory regime change.” Less than a week after 9-11, the phrase began to be used in its Straussian sense, as if a scenario was being choreographed.

From 19 mentions in Canadian newspapers in 2001, regime change soared to 790 mentions in 2002 and 1334 mentions in 2003. With the Iraq invasion accomplished that year, usage tailed off in 2004 (291 mentions) and in 2005 (208 mentions to November 10).

There’s one big difference between American and Canadian Straussians. The Americans assumed positions of power and influence in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The Canadians have not had much opportunity to show (or is that hide?) their stuff. That may change with a Harper victory.

Paul Wolfowitz’s teacher, Allan Bloom, and another Straussian, Walter Berns, taught at the University of Toronto during the 1970s. They left their teaching posts at Cornell University because they couldn’t stomach the student radicalism of the ’60s. At Toronto, they influenced an entire generation of political scientists, who fanned out to universities across the country.

Two of their students, Ted Morton and Rainer Knopff, went to the University of Calgary where they specialize in attacking the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They claim the charter is the result of a conspiracy foisted on the Canadian people by “special interests.” These nasty people are feminists, gays and lesbians, the poor, prisoners and refugee-rights groups who are advancing their own interests through the courts at the expense of the general public, these Straussians allege.

The problem with their analysis is that the special interest which makes more use of the courts to advance its interests than all these other groups combined — business — receives not a mention. Deception by omission is a common Straussian technique. The weak are targeted while the real culprits disappear.

Harper’s mentors

Harper studied under the neocons at the University of Calgary and worked with them to craft policies for the fledgling Reform Party in the late 1980s. Together with Preston Manning, they created an oxymoron, a populist party backed by business.

Ted Morton has turned his attention to provincial politics. He’s an elected MLA and a candidate to succeed Premier Ralph Klein. But he did influence the direction of right-wing politics at the federal level as the Canadian Alliance director of research under Stockwell Day.

When Harper threw his hat in the ring for the leadership of the Alliance, Tom Flanagan, the Calgary School’s informal leader, became his closest adviser. Harper and Flanagan, whose scholarship focuses on attacking aboriginal rights, entered a four-year writing partnership and together studied the works of government-hater Friedrich Hayek. Flanagan ran the 2004 Conservative election campaign and is pulling the strings as the country readies for the election.

Political philosopher Shadia Drury is an expert on Strauss, though not a follower. She was a member of Calgary’s political science department for more than two decades, frequently locking horns with her conservative colleagues before leaving in 2003 for the University of Regina.

Strauss recommended harnessing the simplistic platitudes of populism to galvanize mass support for measures that would, in fact, restrict rights. Does the Calgary School resort to such deceitful tactics? Drury believes so. Such thinking represents “a huge contempt for democracy,” she told the Globe and Mail‘s John Ibbotson. The 2004 federal election campaign run by Flanagan was “the greatest stealth campaign we have ever seen,” she said, “run by radical populists hiding behind the cloak of rhetorical moderation.”

Straus and ‘Western alienation’

The Calgary School has successfully hidden its program beneath the complaint of western alienation. “If we’ve done anything, we’ve provided legitimacy for what was the Western view of the country,” Calgary Schooler Barry Cooper told journalist Marci McDonald in her important Walrus article. “We’ve given intelligibility and coherence to a way of looking at it that’s outside the St. Lawrence Valley mentality.” This is sheer Straussian deception. On the surface, it’s easy to understand Cooper’s complaint and the Calgary School’s mission. But the message says something very different to those in the know. For ‘St. Lawrence Valley mentality,’ they read ‘the Ottawa-based modern liberal state,’ with all the negative baggage it carries for Straussians. And for ‘Western view,’ they read ‘the right-wing attack on democracy.’ We’ve provided legitimacy for the radical-right attack on the Canadian democratic state, Cooper is really saying.

A network is already in place to assist Harper in foisting his radical agenda on the Canadian people.

In 2003, he delivered an important address to a group called Civitas. This secretive organization, which has no web site and leaves little paper or electronic trail, is a network of Canadian neoconservative and libertarian academics, politicians, journalists and think tank propagandists.

Harper’s adviser Tom Flanagan is an active member. Conservative MP Jason Kenney is a member, as are Brian Lee Crowley, head of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and Michel Kelly-Gagnon of the Montreal Economic Institute, the second and third most important right-wing think tanks after the Fraser Institute.

Civitas is top-heavy with journalists to promote the cause. Lorne Gunter of the National Post is president. Members include Janet Jackson (Calgary Sun) and Danielle Smith (Calgary Herald). Journalists Colby Cosh, William Watson and Andrew Coyne (all National Post) have made presentations to Civitas.

The Globe and Mail‘s Marcus Gee is not mentioned in relation to Civitas but might as well be a member, if his recent column titled “George Bush is not a liar,” is any evidence. In it, Gee repeats the lies the Bush neocons are furiously disseminating to persuade the people that Bush is not a liar.

Neo-con to Theo-con

The speech Harper gave to Civitas was the source of the charge made by the Liberals during the 2004 election — sure to be revived in the next election — that Harper has a scary, secret agenda. Harper urged a return to social conservatism and social values, to change gears from neocon to theocon, in The Report‘s Ted Byfield’s apt but worrisome phrase, echoing visions of a future not unlike that painted in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian work, A Handmaid’s Tale.

The state should take a more activist role in policing social norms and values, Harper told the assembled conservatives. To achieve this goal, social and economic conservatives must reunite as they have in the U.S., where evangelical Christians and business rule in an unholy alliance. Red Tories must be jettisoned from the party, he said, and alliances forged with ethnic and immigrant communities who currently vote Liberal but espouse traditional family values. This was the successful strategy counselled by the neocons under Ronald Reagan to pull conservative Democrats into the Republican tent.

Movement towards the goal must be “incremental,” he said, so the public won’t be spooked.

Regime change, one step at a time.

Donald Gutstein, a senior lecturer in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University,

Source

The we have this:

US War Resister faces deportation from Canada

Canada hit hard by war on Taleban

We won’t win Afghan war, admits UK commander

And This

Omar Khadr:

He was 15 years old at the time and has now spent more than a quarter of his life in prison. Khadr has been in U.S. custody since 2002, when he was captured in Afghanistan and charged with murdering an American soldier during a firefight.

Stephen Harper, George Bush’s Fart Catcher

Well put I must say.

Stephen Harper hid the actual cost of the War

Stephen Harper hid the cost of the war

As you may have seen from reports in yesterday and today’s morning newspapers, the cost of the war in Afghanistan will reach $18 billion by the end of 2011, according to a new report released by the Parliamentary Budget Office.

The report, by Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, does not even include the salaries of the 2500 soldiers in Afghanistan, and is still much higher than the $8 billion estimated cost provided by the Conservative government, which included salaries.

I attended the press conference yesterday in Ottawa, and during the announcement of the investigation, Page noted that this study is incomplete because he did not receive full co-operation from government departments, including the military. Even worse, those departments may not realize how much they are spending on the war because of sloppy accounting.

This the first public costing of the war completed by a government office or department. The study was produced at the request of NDP MP for Ottawa Centre Paul Dewar.

Earlier this week, David Macdonald and I released our own costing of the war in Afghanistan called The Cost of the War and the End of Peacekeeping: The Impact of Extending the Afghanistan Mission.

Based on our calculations, the cost of the war to the government coffers, including the salaries of the troops, will be $21 billion. Add to that the financial loss felt by families and communities from so many young men and women injured or killed, and the impact reaches $28 billion.

I was astounded to see that the Parliamentary Budget Office’s findings, when adjusted to use comparable methodologies, are actually much higher than our own results. Therefore the real cost is higher than anyone imagines.

Our report went a step further to look at our military’s contribution to peacekeeping, and we learned that it has dropped by more than 80 per cent since the beginning of the Afghanistan war. This year the military will spend a paltry $15 million for the entire year on UN peacekeeping, the equivalent of what we spend on the war in just two or three days. We contribute only 63 soldiers for UN peacekeeping operations – they could all fit into a school bus!

Yesterday we were busy discussing the cost of the war to Canadians through the national news media, in both Quebec and the rest of Canada. Here you can watch interviews on CTV Newsnet, CBC Radio, CBC TV, GlobalTV, and Business News Network. We also received coverage in The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and elsewhere.

Our message was this:

• The $18 billion estimate for the cost of the Afghanistan war provided by the Parliamentary Budget Office is very large – the largest anyone has seen. It is welcome information and should serve as a basis for further reporting.

• The number is likely too low, because the office did not receive full co-operation from the departments involved, including the military. The Prime Minister should have instructed departments to co-operate fully.

• It is appalling that Conservative and Liberal MPs voted to extend the war by three years, to December 2011, without even knowing that they were approving the expenditure of an additional $7 billion over the $11 billion already spent.

• With financial storm clouds gathering on the horizon and no large budget surpluses to rely upon, will the government cut social programs to fund the war and avoid tax increases or a deficit?

I would like to hear from you. Do you think the Afghanistan war has been worth the cost?

Source

Stephen Harper hid the cost of the war

Sparks fly over Afghan mission cost

Budget officer admits $18.1B estimate likely low

Mike Blanchfield , Canwest News Service

Published: Thursday, October 09, 2008

OTTAWA – Opposition leaders attacked Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Thursday for hiding the full cost of the Afghanistan mission after the Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page said a lack of “transparency” meant his projection of up to $18.1 billion was on the low side.

The eagerly awaited report of the cost of Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan catapulted the mission back to the centre of the federal election with five days left in the campaign.

Page took pains to present his office’s analysis – sparked by a request from a frustrated NDP MP – as apolitical.

The cost of the war in Afghanistan, from the time it began until it is scheduled to end in 2011, will cost each and every Canadian household $1,500.

But Page’s criticism of a confused bureaucracy that didn’t have its numbers straight placed Harper on the defensive when the Liberals, NDP and the Bloc Quebecois piled on criticism.

Page’s report cites a cost in the range of $13.9 billion to $18.1 billion to 2011. But several relevant departments – including Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Agency, the military’s two main partners in Afghanistan – refused to give his office additional figures beyond what they had already posted on their websites.

Page’s estimate means each household is contributing $1,500 to support the deployment. But because of inconsistent government bookkeeping, that figure would be significantly higher because departments “have not met any appropriate standard or best practice,” said Page, who called on Treasury Board to implement a streamlined practice.

“Budget transparency for parliamentarians and Canadians needs to be improved,” Page said. “When compared with international experience, Canada appears to lag behind the best practices of other jurisdictions.”

Page did not spare the previous Liberal government, which first sent Canadian troops to Afghanistan, when he said: “Although Canada is in the seventh year of the mission, Parliament has not been provided with estimates by successive governments on the fiscal costs incurred by all relevant departments.”

Paul Dewar, the NDP MP for Ottawa Centre who requested Page’s investigation, said knowing the true cost of the mission would have radically changed the House of Commons debate earlier this year that extended the Afghanistan mission by two years to 2011.

“The reason I asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer for this study is because the government would not answer my questions in the House nor at committee nor through order paper question. So Canadians were never given the facts,” Dewar said. “This is the tip of the iceberg as you’ve heard today.”

Dewar argued Page’s finding showed Harper could not be trusted and he reiterated his party’s stand that Canada’s 2,500 troops should be withdrawn within months.

Page’s estimate is still significantly higher than the original $8 billion that has been publicly cited, said Dewar.

The Canwest News Service first reported that figure in April based on an Access to Information request made by the NDP.

“The debate is not that the numbers are wrong. It’s a debate about what to include and what not to include. This is something that governments of both stripes have been supporting for a decade,” the prime minister said.

“One can go back and debate, ‘Should we have made this commitment in 2002, should we have gone into Kandahar in 2005?’ These are interesting questions. But the fact is the commitment was made, and this government has no option but to respect its obligations.”

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion accused Harper failing to provide Canadians with an accurate year-to-year account of spending.

“It is the false transparency that is the problem,” said Dion.

Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe said the Conservatives were not being “transparent and honest” with Canadians.

“In presenting numbers that were grossly erroneous on the cost of the mission in Afghanistan, Harper wanted to mislead the population,” Duceppe said.

Page was supposed to report to Parliament last month, but it was dissolved when Harper called an election.

Page then said he would be willing to release his figures before Canadians went to the polls on Oct. 14 if all major party leaders agreed. They did.

The report said that CIDA’s departmental performance reports “do not provide annual spending in Afghanistan for individual projects.”

The Canadian government has earmarked $1.9 billion between 2001-2011 for development spending in Afghanistan.

“VAC (Veterans Affairs Canada) does not report basic financial data specific to the Afghanistan mission, although Canada’s involvement in the Afghanistan mission is a major project and the death, disability, medical and stress related payments are fiscally material,” the report said.

So far, 97 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have been killed in Afghanistan, while hundreds more have been injured.

The military also does not provide “mission specific details” to parliament, the report found.

“For example, it is impossible to determine how many reservists were deployed for each year of the mission; how much fuel was consumed; or the level of expenditure on equipment reset and betterment, for all Afghanistan related operations.”

Page backed away from publicly criticizing the various government departments after the report’s release, saying he wanted to build bridges with the bureaucracy.

His new oversight office was created this past spring, and is a largely unknown entity in Ottawa, he said, but is determined to bring better “fiscal transparency” to the federal government.

“It’s important for me to be diplomatic,” Page said, while also making clear he’s not worried about being kicked out of a job if he ruffles a few feathers.

“Do I look afraid? I promise you I’m not afraid.”

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